From Haroon Rauf : talking points
Hi Myles,
I think people are getting carried away by a few results, notably the CL and Utd results. A few small points:
1. Ospina has never been good enough
Monaco at home, he should have done better in 2 of the 3 goals we “let in.” A better keeper would have bailed us out (like cCch did with Martial one-on-one late in the first half) and kept us in the CL. Wenger uses his stats to justify not spending the money in the bank. The decision to play him may cost us a CL place, again. We learned nothing from last year.
2. Wenger wants to be remembered
He has 2 ways of doing this. Either he wins the CL and does what no manager has ever done with a “small club” or he stays and leaves after matching or beating Fergie’s reign. Arsenal fans will always remember the good times, but football fans will say he won nothing major since the Invincibles and lost both European finals he got to.
3. Souness says we’re a sleeping giant
Of course we are. We are either the biggest small club in Europe or the smallest big club in Europe.
Our CL record isn’t the best as Wenger says, its the worst.
How many teams in the past 20 years have done better in terms of progression in the CL? We are consistently crap.
4. The Arsenal job is a dream job for any big time manager
Great facilities, great city. Loads of money. and more importantly, no significant success. They can make history buy making a good team that wins big trophies.
Ancelotti and Pep would take the job in a heartbeat, I’m sure of it. the board should know this too. They shouldn’t be afraid of what happens when Wenger goes. They should be excited. We’re not Utd.
Wenger isn’t Fergie. Fergie didn’t go 2 years without a trophy for yonks and won 2 CL getting to 4 finals in roughly 12 years. You cant compare Wenger to Fergie.
Myles says:
The Arsenal job is not a dream job for an ambitious manager because it’s an Amerikan corporation that has been controlled by a telegenic and always plausible sporting politician.
He’s fooled most of the people most of the time for the last 10 years. But his team can’t beat Chelsea and recently they can’t even beat Dinamo Zagreb or Olympiakos.
The AGM is today. But who cares?
Most of the AGMs I attended were a sham.
A few years ago Stan Kroenke wanted to put ticket prices up by 8%, I heard from a super-reliable source. Today Kroenke will be on stage with the employee who talked him down to 3%, Ivan Gazidis.
When I saw what Kroenke was like at an AGM, I stopped going.
Very easy to stop. It was : been there, done that. Next!