Ben Peters :this sums it all up..
I know you just printed one of my articles, but here is another from a mate of mine..can’t really argue with any of this…
Who is to blame for the following:
1. Arsenal have not been able to defend for the past 5-6 years. The defending in general during this period has been shambolic and has not improved at all.
2. Arsenal have had a goalkeeper crisis for 5 years now, consistently losing points because of goalkeeping errors and for having second-rate goalkeeper in goal.
3. Manuel Almunia was Arsenal\’s number 1 for some 4 years.
4. Arsenal teams very often look unmotivated and under-prepared.
5. Arsenal\’s players, especially the young ones, do not improve, they get worse. Our good players also get worse (Vermaelln a case in point)
6. Players who everyone can see are not good enough are kept on at the club for years and years when they should be gotten rid of far earlier.
7. Arsenal very rarely change a game following substitutions
8. Arsenal\’s best players cannot be convinced to stay at the club and are always allowed to run their contracts down, putting the club in an impossible situation.
We can all get lost in the arguments re the club\’s finances – but there are fundamental footballing questions that are unanswered at Wenger\’s doors.
Quite simply, the guy is no longer a good football manager. The game has passed him by. He still operates like its 1998.
Today, Arsenal FC are a crap football side, filled with over-paid mediocre players who have zero hope of winning anything.
The club hasn\’t won a trophy for 8 years.
The club has the highest ticket prices in the world.
The club\’s manager is the highest paid manager in the country, one of the highest in the world.
The club has one of the highest wage bills in the country, if not the world.
The club has a long list of highly paid dead wood it cannot shift, because no other club in their right mind would match the wages they are on The team is consistently embarrassed by it\’s supposed rivals.
The club is owned by a Billionaire.
The club\’s CEO is the highest paid in the Country.
The club, London\’s biggest, would be failing as business if it wasn\’t for consistent player sales (not a good model for a football team, the entire point of which is to try and be successful on the pitch) – it is a very poorly run, unambitious business.
The club and the manager have quite simply been lying to the fans over the last 5 years. Lying about players staying, players arriving, and what the club can and will achieve.
The club\’s supporters were told that building the new stadium would enable the club to have a fantastic team on the pitch.
There is zero chance of FFP having the desired impact any time soon. And everyone with their eyes open knows that. This isn\’t about winning everything all the time. This isn\’t even about winning something at any time.
This is about ambition. Of which Arsenal FC have zero.
Except for making club employee\’s considerably, and sustainably wealthy.
These are depressing facts, proven over and over again by events over the past 5-7 years.
When is enough enough?
When will it be accepted that while Change cannot come with a guarantee for success, not changing guarantees a continuation of the abject failure that we\’ve seen on the pitch in recent years?
All the guff about finances is just spin.
The Board love Wenger because he makes them lots of money and Wenger loves the Board because they keep paying him lots of money and there\’s no pressure to win anything.
No one has anything to gain from any kind of speculation.
The speculation required to give the fans what they want: A fighting chance (not a guarantee) of having a successful football team.