Arsenal

[whitesocks]

When I was growing up there was a big team with a proud history team who weren’t great in the league but they were known as a cup team who relied on good football to keep the fans happy. But as the cups dried up and the football deteriorated they fell by the wayside and their neighbours went through one of the most successful periods of their history, playing powerful, exciting pleasing football.

It’s happening again. Only the roles have reversed for the two teams. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet, but she’s warming up her vocals.

There are similarities in that both Sugar and Kroenke were/are there to safely collect the income from their investment. Neither had/has a longer term ambition other than that.
A big difference is that previously we nearly went bust due to the west stand - arsenal have pretty much paid off their death star.

So enjoy the moment, but arsenal are unlikely to go through what we had to.

 

[WiganSpur]

When I was growing up there was a big team with a proud history team who weren’t great in the league but they were known as a cup team who relied on good football to keep the fans happy. But as the cups dried up and the football deteriorated they fell by the wayside and their neighbours went through one of the most successful periods of their history, playing powerful, exciting pleasing football.

It’s happening again. Only the roles have reversed for the two teams. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet, but she’s warming up her vocals.

We lacked resources during the recent bleak period for us. Arsenal don't.

With a new manager and a squad rebuild we will be neck and neck for years to come, especially if Pochettino leaves us.

Their problem is so obviously Wenger and the signings he's making. We've just got to hope that it takes them a few appointments to get the right man. Hopefully it's a similar situation to when Fergie left United.

 

[Shadydan]

We lacked resources during the recent bleak period for us. Arsenal don't.

With a new manager and a squad rebuild we will be neck and neck for years to come, especially if Pochettino leaves us.

Their problem is so obviously Wenger and the signings he's making. We've just got to hope that it takes them a few appointments to get the right man. Hopefully it's a similar situation to when Fergie left United.

IMO their biggest problem is the board not Wenger.

 

[jurgen]

Think they’d chew up and spit out someone like Tuchel for instance..

 

[WiganSpur]

IMO their biggest problem is the board not Wenger.

Apart from the retention of Wenger I don't see what the board has done wrong? Even so it's not easy to sack someone who's been at the club for 20 years and achieved what he has in his first 10. Yeah they should have done it ages ago but once he's gone I can't see the board being a problem. At the end of the day they aren't the ones who can't perform away from home or in big matches.

They've backed him with big money signings and Wenger still hasn't delivered.

We have to hope that firstly Wenger stays another year. Great in the short term plus ingrains that culture of failure into the club.

Secondly we've got to hope that it takes them a few appointments before they find their Poch who transforms them. All they are lacking is the right manager. If they have the right manager, with the resources Arsenal have they will always be challenging at the top of English football. And they will get that manager eventually.

Whether we like it or not they are and will always be a big club.

 

[Marty]

"Everyone" expects them to beat Brighton on Sunday. One small problem, though..

Brighton have 21 points from 14 home games.
Arsenal have 13 points from 14 away games.

Why on earth should we expect an away win from those numbers, apart from saying "they're Arsenal, so they should"?

 

[tototoner]

IMO their biggest problem is the board not Wenger.

indeed and it will be lovely to witness all the Arsenal fans realise this when Wenger has gone and Kroenke still in charge

 

[hellava_tough]

Apart from the retention of Wenger I don't see what the board has done wrong? Even so it's not easy to sack someone who's been at the club for 20 years and achieved what he has in his first 10. Yeah they should have done it ages ago but once he's gone I can't see the board being a problem. At the end of the day they aren't the ones who can't perform away from home or in big matches.

They've backed him with big money signings and Wenger still hasn't delivered.

We have to hope that firstly Wenger stays another year. Great in the short term plus ingrains that culture of failure into the club.

Secondly we've got to hope that it takes them a few appointments before they find their Poch who transforms them. All they are lacking is the right manager. If they have the right manager, with the resources Arsenal have they will always be challenging at the top of English football. And they will get that manager eventually.

Whether we like it or not they are and will always be a big club.

I think this hits the nail on the head really

They've got the cash to change things eventually and added to that, teams such as Everton, Newcastle, Southampton, Watford, etc, just haven't stepped up a level to put Arsenal under even more pressure.

The only two things that might effect them in the short to medium term are fans' expectations and ownership mis-management.

With regards to the former, I think Arsenal fans are deluding themselves if they think they're going to become title-challengers in 2 or 3 seasons. This is a new era in the PL, where there are already 5 very good clubs established at the top of the league. A team could play out of their skin all season and still end up 4th or 5th, with no shame. If their fans don't modify their expectations, that extra pressure could be unfairly passed onto a new manager who will need time to change things.

So essentially their fans have to be patient. Our rebuilding process was much easier in some respects, because our expectations were lower; we were willing to give Poch time. I just wonder whether they'll give their new manager (whenever that will be) the 3 or 4 seasons he'll need to sort things out?

 

[spursfan77]

They have a massive rebuilding job to do that is going to cost them a lot of money and they have a lot of players out of contract over the next couple of seasons. Ive listed them below, They aren’t going to make much money from sales of those players.

2018 - wilshere, cazorla

2019 - Ramsey, welbeck, Monreal, Cech, ospina

2020 - koscelny, elneny, holding, iwobi

Thats before even replacing the under performing players that they currently have in their late 20s and early 30s.

Add to that the introduction of a new manager and its a massive rebuilding job. Much bigger than us when Poch came.

You could say they need a similar impact to that of which Arnesen did when he joined us (and Pleat started the window before) and we just went out and bought a mix of young and old players to add to the few good ones we already had. Some came off and some didn't. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/tot...48/plus/0?saison_id=2004&pos=&detailpos=&w_s= But now its so much more expensive to do that.

Do the board have the appetite for that? Their fans definitely wont have the patience.

 

[danielneeds]

Think they’d chew up and spit out someone like Tuchel for instance..

Tuchel had a big falling out with Sven Mislintat at Dortmund, so there's zero chance he goes to Arsenal.

 

[EJWTartanSpur]

They haven’t challenged for the league or the CL in approximately a decade. This is completely unacceptable for a club with their resources and the players they had over that time. No amount of domestic cups won will change that. Every other club in the top six has put up a better title challenge and/or won it at some point.

The club has slowly rotted from within due to Wenger having too much control over all aspects of it, complacency/staleness and his coaching methods becoming outdated.

For the price Arsenal fans pay, and for the strong position the club is in in every other respect, I’ve understood why fans have wanted him gone for in excess of five plus years.

You have to break eggs to make an omelette. Wenger should have been gone five years ago if the club hierarchy were truly ambitious. Yes it might have resulted in some down years but you have to speculate to find the new manager that will lift you above the plateau that they have become stuck in with him.

 

[hellava_tough]

I've wondered what Kroenke's plan is; what he wants out of Arsenal.

If it's success on the football pitch then Wenger would be gone long ago. Even if he didn't want to sack him, he definitely wouldn't have given him another contract.

If it's only money he's interested in, then Wenger could also have been sacked; failing to reach the Champions League, losing £50m-£100m on Sanchez, etc. If it's not an all-out insatiable appetite for filthy lucre, it could be that Kroenke has set a fairly modest financial profit that he expects every year, and Champions League football isn't needed to hit this target. In that scenario Wenger would still be seen as a safe pair of hands at the club, who is achieving his set goals every season.

And lastly, and possibly naively, there's plain old-fashioned loyalty; perhaps Kroenke just values this and sees the sacking of a club legend as poor-form. Perhaps he's said to Wenger "Buddy, it's up to you when you want to leave, because you've been a great servant of the club".

I don't know; the whole situation seems a bit strange really. Wenger's been pretty crap on all fronts in the last few seasons and in the cut-throat world of football and finance, I'm very surprised he's still in a job.

 

[nailsy]

I've wondered what Kroenke's plan is; what he wants out of Arsenal.

If it's success on the football pitch then Wenger would be gone long ago. Even if he didn't want to sack him, he definitely wouldn't have given him another contract.

If it's only money he's interested in, then Wenger could also have been sacked; failing to reach the Champions League, losing £50m-£100m on Sanchez, etc. If it's not an all-out insatiable appetite for filthy lucre, it could be that Kroenke has set a fairly modest financial profit that he expects every year, and Champions League football isn't needed to hit this target. In that scenario Wenger would still be seen as a safe pair of hands at the club, who is achieving his set goals every season.

And lastly, and possibly naively, there's plain old-fashioned loyalty; perhaps Kroenke just values this and sees the sacking of a club legend as poor-form. Perhaps he's said to Wenger "Buddy, it's up to you when you want to leave, because you've been a great servant of the club".

I don't know; the whole situation seems a bit strange really. Wenger's been pretty crap on all fronts in the last few seasons and in the cut-throat world of football and finance, I'm very surprised he's still in a job.

One of the guys on The Totally Football podcast was saying the owner just wants to use the club as collateral for his other projects. He doesn't care about the football at all. And even without champions league football they've still increased their revenues this season. With the increased TV money CL qualification isn't that important any more.

 

[Phantom]

I've wondered what Kroenke's plan is; what he wants out of Arsenal.

If it's success on the football pitch then Wenger would be gone long ago. Even if he didn't want to sack him, he definitely wouldn't have given him another contract.

If it's only money he's interested in, then Wenger could also have been sacked; failing to reach the Champions League, losing £50m-£100m on Sanchez, etc. If it's not an all-out insatiable appetite for filthy lucre, it could be that Kroenke has set a fairly modest financial profit that he expects every year, and Champions League football isn't needed to hit this target. In that scenario Wenger would still be seen as a safe pair of hands at the club, who is achieving his set goals every season.

And lastly, and possibly naively, there's plain old-fashioned loyalty; perhaps Kroenke just values this and sees the sacking of a club legend as poor-form. Perhaps he's said to Wenger "Buddy, it's up to you when you want to leave, because you've been a great servant of the club".

I don't know; the whole situation seems a bit strange really. Wenger's been pretty crap on all fronts in the last few seasons and in the cut-throat world of football and finance, I'm very surprised he's still in a job.

Not sure if posted before but a little insight perhaps... https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-stan-kroenke-premier-league-los-angeles-rams

 

[spursfan77]

Bellerin looking to jump ship. Probably their most sellable asset

https://amp.theguardian.com/footbal...ge?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true

 

[LexingtonSpurs]

With the increased TV money CL qualification isn't that important any more.

I would not go that far.

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/969496641366609920

This shows that we have added €62M this season - and that does not include any indirect merchandising revenue from increased exposure in CL. That is a big chunk of revenue for almost every team.

 

[Phantom]

Also this one is quite interesting as well:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...pporters-fans-arsene-wenger-out-a8020866.html

 

[Shadydan]

Apart from the retention of Wenger I don't see what the board has done wrong? Even so it's not easy to sack someone who's been at the club for 20 years and achieved what he has in his first 10. Yeah they should have done it ages ago but once he's gone I can't see the board being a problem. At the end of the day they aren't the ones who can't perform away from home or in big matches.

They've backed him with big money signings and Wenger still hasn't delivered.

We have to hope that firstly Wenger stays another year. Great in the short term plus ingrains that culture of failure into the club.

Secondly we've got to hope that it takes them a few appointments before they find their Poch who transforms them. All they are lacking is the right manager. If they have the right manager, with the resources Arsenal have they will always be challenging at the top of English football. And they will get that manager eventually.

Whether we like it or not they are and will always be a big club.

That's exactly what the board have done wrong, they've kept Wenger in charge when they should have got rid of him a few years ago.

In every successful business there's absolutely no room for sentiment and if it means you need make a harsh decision on someone who has had heavily assisted in building the infrastructure of the company who now is bringing the same company to it's knees then that person would be given a severance package and told that his job is no longer his. When other clubs apart from ours go through turmoil with their management I always liken it to our situation and often ask myself what would Levy do in this position? Here you have a manager who clearly had pushed the team as far as they can go and is clearly not getting the best out of the players. Levy would have either sacked him or told him without any hesitation.

I see no difference here, people always pointed the finger at Levy and saying he sacks managers too early but apart from the way he handled Jol's sacking IMO he's done everything pretty well in terms of hiring and firing managers and the timing of them, bottom line is that generally he's had the club's best interests at heart and if Arsenal's board or more Stan Kroenke was more ruthless then they wouldn't be in this situation now.

The problem is now the rot has set in, the complacency has come from the board because they're allowing Wenger to carry on making mistakes and this has transcended onto the players who subsequently aren't playing for him, there is no accountability at that club because there is no authority which needs to come from the high ups and work it's way down so IMO the board are fully to blame for their plight not Wenger because he's been allowed to get away with his shit time and time again without any sort of retribution.

This is why I simply don't subscribe to the theory of them getting a new manger will suddenly fix all their problems, they need a complete mentality change at their club and completely transform it because they are currently sleepwalking. They need something that we went through when Poch arrived however with the current board in place who seem happy to rest on their laurels of just being a Bridesmaid club I think it's going to be very difficult to get back to where they were before.

I just thank God we have our infrastructure in place, we have a club finally pulling in the same direction and management and staff all singing from the same hymn sheet, we always had the chairman who was prepared to push the club in the right direction we didn't have the manager until Poch arrived and the result of that is starting to bear fruit, for us the only way is up providing we keep the infrastructure in place, for them the outcome is uncertainty.

 

[nailsy]

I would not go that far.

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/969496641366609920

This shows that we have added €62M this season - and that does not include any indirect merchandising revenue from increased exposure in CL. That is a big chunk of revenue for almost every team.

Yes, but he would need to invest a lot of money to put Arsenal back into the top four and he isn't prepared to outspend United, City and Liverpool to do that.. As it is they've fallen out of the top four and seen profits go up.

 

[Phantom]

I would not go that far.

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/969496641366609920

This shows that we have added €62M this season - and that does not include any indirect merchandising revenue from increased exposure in CL. That is a big chunk of revenue for almost every team.

But to attain that he may have to take a risk, potentially spend more money. As it is he appears to be comfortable running a profitable and reasonably competitive club (winning the FA cup and being there or thereabouts in CL qualification).

The guy is worth billions, he is probably quite content with the steady stream of income and perhaps he is just stubborn.

Perhaps running 4 major sports teams is fool hardy?!