Re: Official WOB thread.

[Jay29]

There's no accountability at the club at any level. Wenger doesn't get put under pressure from within the club, so can make mistakes and get away with it. Likewise, the players know they can play poorly for several games yet still get picked because the manager trusts them implicitly.

Normally, if a manager of a big club only gets 17 points from 12 games (that's 17 points from a possible 36 - less than 50% of available points so far) he'd be on the verge of getting sacked. If a manager of a top club loses 5-1, 6-3 and 6-0 to rival teams in a season, he'd probably get sacked unless he somehow wins a trophy that season. If you know you can go on and not face any sort of repercussions then you'll never change.

Look at how the likes of Ramsey and Cazorla are playing right now. In most other sides, they'd be benched, but at Arsenal they get played every week. A player like Flamini gets sold or replaced at most other clubs, but at Arsenal he retains a first team role. How many years did we wait for the likes of Denilson and Bendtner to come good? How many changes to the backroom staff has Wenger made in the last decade? When's the last time our academy produced a player of genuine quality?

At least they've taken steps to shake the academy up with a new director, new scouts, new coaches and new players. If only we could take the same attitude with the first team because boy does it need it.

[Twoism]

The best course of action for Wenger, trying his best to walk out with his head held high by the end of the season, start negotiating with De Boer & Bergkamp combo. After Klopp, those are the only names I want, Pep is dreamland.

Hoping for change from Wenger at this stage is foolish, the way he answered those post match interview, you would think he freaking trolling big time.

[Raptorgunner]

There's no accountability at the club at any level. Wenger doesn't get put under pressure from within the club, so can make mistakes and get away with it. Likewise, the players know they can play poorly for several games yet still get picked because the manager trusts them implicitly.

Normally, if a manager of a big club only gets 17 points from 12 games (that's 17 points from a possible 36 - less than 50% of available points so far) he'd be on the verge of getting sacked. If a manager of a top club loses 5-1, 6-3 and 6-0 to rival teams in a season, he'd probably get sacked unless he somehow wins a trophy that season. If you know you can go on and not face any sort of repercussions then you'll never change.

Look at how the likes of Ramsey and Cazorla are playing right now. In most other sides, they'd be benched, but at Arsenal they get played every week. A player like Flamini gets sold or replaced at most other clubs, but at Arsenal he retains a first team role. How many years did we wait for the likes of Denilson and Bendtner to come good? How many changes to the backroom staff has Wenger made in the last decade? When's the last time our academy produced a player of genuine quality?

At least they've taken steps to shake the academy up with a new director, new scouts, new coaches and new players. If only we could take the same attitude with the first team because boy does it need it.

well said Jay.

[RealGunner]

There's no accountability at the club at any level. Wenger doesn't get put under pressure from within the club, so can make mistakes and get away with it. Likewise, the players know they can play poorly for several games yet still get picked because the manager trusts them implicitly.

Normally, if a manager of a big club only gets 17 points from 12 games (that's 17 points from a possible 36 - less than 50% of available points so far) he'd be on the verge of getting sacked. If a manager of a top club loses 5-1, 6-3 and 6-0 to rival teams in a season, he'd probably get sacked unless he somehow wins a trophy that season. If you know you can go on and not face any sort of repercussions then you'll never change.

Look at how the likes of Ramsey and Cazorla are playing right now. In most other sides, they'd be benched, but at Arsenal they get played every week. A player like Flamini gets sold or replaced at most other clubs, but at Arsenal he retains a first team role. How many years did we wait for the likes of Denilson and Bendtner to come good? How many changes to the backroom staff has Wenger made in the last decade? When's the last time our academy produced a player of genuine quality?

At least they've taken steps to shake the academy up with a new director, new scouts, new coaches and new players. If only we could take the same attitude with the first team because boy does it need it.

The best course of action for Wenger, trying his best to walk out with his head held high by the end of the season, start negotiating with De Boer & Bergkamp combo. After Klopp, those are the only names I want, Pep is dreamland.

Hoping for change from Wenger at this stage is foolish, the way he answered those post match interview, you would think he freaking trolling big time.

Agreed with both.

[djoe26]

Alot of things has changed in football with time but Wenger hasnt. He is too stubborn to adress faults in this current Arsenal team and thats why we are losing.

[Art Morte]

Time for Wenger to go was after the FA Cup unfortunately, it was a great way to go with a FA Cup trophy, leaving a good young squad behind and £100m to spend for the new manager - that moment is gone now. I said as much when Wenger signed a new contract.

the only thing that always bothered me about wenger in last couple of seasons, is his lack to change things up and make the proper signings, just spend and be like everybody else

well...  Ozil, Cazorla, Sanchez, Chambers, Giroud, Debuchy and Welbeck have all been good signings.  I think Wenger has done fine there.

His issue is that he trusts the Arsenal developed players too much.  He's also far too loyal to his longstanding players, Arsenal developed or not.  If these guys were spread around the pitch, it wouldn't be such a big deal...  but they're ALL midfielders pretty much so the ENTIRE Arsenal midfield is average.  Ramsey's surge helped mask the issues there for a while.  But since he's dropped form/struggled with injury, it's really flagrant.

What Sportsczy said. Transfers have actually been Wenger's forte. In the last two summers' you've signed Özil from Madrid and Sanchez from Barcelona. Usually players of this calibre, world-class-or-nearly-there, from the biggest clubs in the world, would only move to another with massive resources, like Chelsea, Man City, Bayern or Man United.

Secondly, Wenger rarely buys total flops. Cazorla, Podolski, Monreal, Giroud etc., sure, not world-class but not flops, either. Oxlade, Chambers, Walcott, Ramsey... Wenger is also very good at spotting potential in young players. Just look at our transfer activity under Rodgers - or how Tottenham wasted most of their Bale money - and you should easily realize how well you've done with your transfers.

Wenger's problems are about tactics, team-selection and winning mentality. He's an idealist, stubborn, doesn't want to change. I think I remember him saying it himself that he believes a good team shouldn't adjust to their opponents, ever, but force their style of football on the game and force their opponents adjust. And he's very good at it, too, but sometimes you need that bit of flexibility to actually win things. Mourinho isn't universally liked but he has a very good idea of how to win games in all circumstances. Wenger has a very good idea of how to play nice. And somehow Wenger being Mr Nice Guy reflects on his team. Arsenal lack the killer instinct that you can see in Mourinho's teams or that you could see in Ferguson's United teams.

I can well imagine Ferguson shouting at his players at half-time with his face red and nose purple that "you will f***ing go out there and win this damn game or you'll walk home!!" What I can imagine Wenger saying is "come on, lads, we can do this, play for each other and pass and move and we'll turn this around".


However, this Arsenal team has got quality and strength in depth and it wouldn't surprise me at all if Wenger turned it around and Arsenal finished comfortably in the top-4, maybe won a cup, too. The title is obviously gone already, but that's more to do with Chelsea being head and shoulders above anyone else. Wenger is a good manager, no doubt about it, and it would be a big risk for Arsenal to sack him, yet he has his limitations, too.

[urbaNRoots]

I don't know why you quoted me Art but I agree.

What irks me most is that we don't even play entertaining football anymore, a couple of years ago we wouldn't win trophies like now but we would be losing from a silly penalty, a ridiculous unstoppable goal, we would win big games - not all of them but we would win so we as fans would have some joy against our bitter rivals. Nowadays it's humiliation after humiliation. It's the predictability that takes the joy out of fans, we all know we will have the ball a lot, we all know we will be counter attacked at some point in the game, we all know someone will get injured during the game, we all know Wenger will wait until the 70-75th minute to make a sub, we all know we'll push ALL our players in attack and create 0 chances despite that and concede one more again.

Does anyone genuinely think we play sexy football? We are known to be a "passing team" but we are the shittiest "passing team" I know. Even the likes of Southampton, Everton and Swansea play smoother football than we do and I will not even mention Chelsea, City, Bayern, Real and Barcelona - it looks really easy the way they play when I watch, they don't crowd the midfield with 6 players with no movement, they actually try to score goals instead of passing around the box, they don't switch off when they lose the ball.

So even that is gone from Wenger, the sexy football - all is left is his respect from players across the world, you have to give him that... he knows how to sign big players if he has the money.

I think for our best it would be if we had an assistant manager who would do everything in tactics, game preparation, training sessions and Wenger would select the team and sign players OR far more simply - get a new manager who can sign big players aswell as be a good manager.

[sportsczy]

You can't play the style Wenger is known for if your midfield is mediocre... that's why i'm surprised that he hasn't focused there.

[Great Leader Sprucenuce]

The signings have been fine, at least this summer they were.

Problem is the manager isn't getting the best from those players and even some of the ones who were there before. That never happened before, for all the problems Wenger always got the best from what he had.

He isn't now so it's time to part ways imo.

[Jay29]

The only signing we missed this summer was a centre back. We needed a holding midfielder, too, but at least we had the numbers there. Signing Chambers, Debuchy, Alexis and Ospina was very good business and I think we all agreed as such before the season started.

There's been a lot of players not performing this season and that's the most damning thing against Wenger right now. Mertesacker hasn't been the same since the World Cup, Ramsey has been terrible, Cazorla has been poor, Ozil has been shunted out to the wing, Wilshere doesn't have a set role in the team and now even Welbeck is going to be shoved out on the wing to accommodate Giroud.

Possibly the only two players playing well are Chamberlain and Alexis, where the former's getting an extended run in the team that's obviously doing him a lot of good and the latter is playing in his best position.

Then you've got the likes of Rosicky and Podolski, who can contribute a lot to the first team yet aren't given any sort of real chance to show that. And poor old Joel Campbell, deserving of a chance to show what he can do but being replaced by Yaya Sanogo on the bench. He's not giving Hector Bellerin chances, either, and is forcing a fullback to play centre back and a centre back to play fullback instead.

It's almost like Wenger hasn't got a clue how to manage a big squad.

[Chumlum]

Related to multiple players underperforming & the usual disappearance of sexy passing football ... it is strange, isn't it, how poor the players (and whole team) seem to be when crossing, taking corners, and taking set pieces? Not to mention defending these things, although there was some improvement on that recently ... but we're on shaky ground again now.

Even a lot of players who excel in these areas seem to experience a dip in performance after coming to Arsenal. I fear for Alexis' future!

In terms of Wenger's responsibilities, I agree his acquisition of Alexis, Debuchy, Chambers, Ospina--all good-to-great signings. Getting homegrown Welbeck for such a relatively low fee was also excellent. But that strong performance in the transfer market is tarnished by the failure to get those 1-2 defensive signings.

Had Wenger signed, say, Manolas and Schneiderlin, to pick just two linked names, might Arsenal still be having a difficult, injury-ridden season? Sure. Very possible. But there'd at least have been a stronger platform to mount a turnaround in form and not field such a ramshackle back four week in, week out.

[sportsczy]

Oh i don't know about that. The squad may be big, but it's imbalanced. There's no depth at CB, CM or CF. You have a bunch of AMs and wingers... completely overloaded there.

[Jay29]

I don't think we practice set-piece as much as other teams do because just about every aspect of attacking and defending set-pieces we fail to do to a good standard.

Offensively, the delivery is consistently poor. We've favoured the outswinging corner this season which usually requires a flick-on in the box, but more often than not the delivery doesn't even beat the first man. We're insistent on this too, because I've seen Cazorla go over to the left hand side to take a corner with his left foot just for an outswinger.

We show a lack of imagination when it comes to set-pieces, too. We rarely take a short corner, or try to play the ball to somebody on the edge of the box or anything that's a little different.

We don't mark properly when defending set-pieces despite having everybody come back to defend them, and we lack height in the team.

Just another thing that's been rubbish for a long time and remains to be rubbish today.

[Hapless_Hans]

Then again Arsenal apparently never win against Utd. Case in point, one shot on target, two goals.
So if you take that as a given, no need to get riled up

Inb4 you go on a run in the league now.

[Chumlum]

Arse

Inb4 you go on a run in the league now.

Arsenal will be Invincible from December through May. We will sign Eder Balanta and Lars Bender in the January window. Alexis Sanchez to score a hat trick in the Gunners' thrilling 3-2 defeat of Real Madrid in the CL final. Wenger can retire on a high and then we'll get Klopp.

[6unner]

well...  Ozil, Cazorla, Sanchez, Chambers, Giroud, Debuchy and Welbeck have all been good signings.  I think Wenger has done fine there.

Well I do classify Ozil and Sanchez as class players and players that actually know what it takes to win. Chambers I see potential in him that still needs a lot of work. The rest, Yes I thought that Welbeck would be better than Giroud. Are they really any better than mid-table average players though? Sagnas's defensive stability alone makes him heads and tales better than Debuchy. If anyone still wants to defend Giroud as a top class striker I will just give up there. A top class striker needs some speed and vision with movement and not just once every few matches. Welbeck was 4th choice at manu and about to be replaced by a reserve (deserving or not). Kind of the same thing with our Entire English core. Either Wengers extreme inability in regards to team management and tactics has made them into painfully average players or they were just not as good as we thought.
It is to the point now where I believe that big changes are needed with the manager and players. Unfortunately, Kronke is not the man for the job! Average is what his other professional teams do well.

[MJ]

Wenger's reputation in the transfer market is probably one of the biggest things we'd miss if he walked out.

Alexis and Özil definitely had opportunities to go elsewhere, our two biggest signings ever, and they specifically cited Arsene Wenger as the deciding factor.

But what's the use of drawing in big names if you don't manage them, or the team they play in, well? Kind of defeats the purpose tbh.

The FA Cup win was the best opportunity in years to leave on a high and looking back, (hindsight is 20/20) maybe he should have.

What bothers me most isn't that we're hoping for a top 4 finish and luck in the two cups we're still in, it's that there doesn't appear to be a case for hope that we could salvage something from this season.

Maybe I don't have my expectations set high enough but my hopes at the beginning of the season were a title challenge and serious runs in the cups. Now I'd take a top 4 finish and a very serious run at the FA Cup.

Even if we achieved that, it wouldn't change Wenger. He needed that DM and CB more than he anticipated. As Sport pointed out, Wenger's style is all about having the right personnel and I'm stunned he took us into the season with such an imbalanced squad.

[Hapless_Hans]

I don't get why you'd want Wenger out so much more forcefully after the Utd match compared to before.
Sorry, doesn't make sense at all, Arsenal were set up just fine in the match, had something like 70% possession, truckloads of chances and probably 10+:1 shots on target.
Own goal was a freak bad luck thing with a foul by Fellaini involved.
Second goal a counter when all your teams fighting for an equalizer.

Fail to see what Wenger has done wrong in this game that make you jump on him now.
I can only understand it as an expression of a long term frustration which is vented after such a game, when a win against Utd seemed to close and doable.
This is however the definition of 'kneejerk'.

[Raptorgunner]

[MJ]

This has been building up since deadline day passed without a DM/CB.

I always said give him a few transfer windows with the funds he's built up and then judge and he didn't get it done if we're being frank.

Any reaction after the Man United game was bound to be emotional and therefore closer to a kneejerk than anything but I don't think opinions changed sharply after the game.

We're aware that he set the team up well and it was down to chances not being taken, something beyond his control. But the position we're in is entirely on him, motivating the players is still on him.

I find these 'brigades' silly. There's nothing I want more than for Arsene to turn it around and be at the helm of it all for more success but it's looking less and less likely that that'll happen without serious change. Change that I don't know he's capable of.

[Hapless_Hans]

yes of course I understand that built up steam is blown off after the game, however you know as well as I do that failing to get a DM/CB was not a problem at all yesterday. In fact, Arteta was pretty good.

The players were motivated too, even overmotivated if you look at Wilshere, or the situation before the 0:2.
You completely dominated Utd all game.
Your problem is you lack quality in precision at the end, in front of goal.
You're missing Özil, Welbeck isn't top class, and the Ox's and Wilshere's end product isn't top class. That's about it, why this game wasn't won. That and a lot of bad luck. Cazorla and Alexis had good chances too.

I know the general complaints you have and I understand, but contrary to other games this season yesterday you actually played very well.

[izzy]

All this talk about signing a strong CM/DM..........

Yet you guys fail to realize that Wenger believes you already have one......................

[urbaNRoots]

I don't get why you'd want Wenger out so much more forcefully after the Utd match compared to before.
Sorry, doesn't make sense at all, Arsenal were set up just fine in the match, had something like 70% possession, truckloads of chances and probably 10+:1 shots on target.
Own goal was a freak bad luck thing with a foul by Fellaini involved.
Second goal a counter when all your teams fighting for an equalizer.

Fail to see what Wenger has done wrong in this game that make you jump on him now.
I can only understand it as an expression of a long term frustration which is vented after such a game, when a win against Utd seemed to close and doable.
This is however the definition of 'kneejerk'.

If you still don't understand our frustrations then you haven't paid attention, or you haven't read any of the posts here. If you cared to read the posts in this thread you would've noticed that barely anyone is talking about Man Utd, that game is just another failure in a big match, in the same manner as usual.

Arsenal fans have grown tired of getting humiliated by every semi-big team, failing to make up for it against weaker teams while playing embarrassing one dimensional football, so we're allowed to rant about the shit that has been happening for YEARS without having people patronize us with words like "kneejerk".

[Hapless_Hans]

I just said that I understand the general frustrations.

Still I'd say that it is interesting you'd classify that game as 'humiliating'.
It's only humiliating because Utd were there for the taking and clearly inferior.

It's not a failure to win 'big games', that wasn't a top game lol, it's also not a problem of 'heart', or 'grit' or 'motivation' as commentators harp about.

I think your player are rather overmotivated and have to big a heart, thats why they start hoofing the ball forward brainlessly when they've still got 4 minutes.
I think they don't lack motivation, but a bit of brain (footballwise) and quality.

Anyway that was probably the best game you've played all season, yet that's the game which spawns the WOB thread, that's what I find curious.
You should have understood by now that Utd games are apparently jinxed, no matter how well you do lol.
Unless you're mad Wenger didn't go see a gypsy woman in preparation, to do something about the jinx, I'm not sure what he did wrong in this game.

[urbaNRoots]

Best performance of the season a 1-2 loss at home but we shouldn't complain because we had the possessio and empty shots

Stop trolling, if you don't have anything negative to say about Wenger then get out of this thread.

[Raptorgunner]

I guess losing 2-1 at home to worst United team is a great result for Wenger.

Mourinho is right when he says it is easy when you have no pressure
to win the title.

[Sponsored content]