The debate rages on. Seven games into the league season, having suffered one defeat away to the title favorites. Is it time for Arsene to go?
It’s a fair question, asked by people who love the club and just want what is best for them. Sorry, I meant “best for the club”.
The usual suspects, AKB’s like me, on one side, and the WOB’s on the other. Nothing new, same old entrenched arguments from both sides, just as you would expect.
Then there is the vast majority who are somewhere in the middle. These are the ones who slide up and down the spectrum between the two polar opposites. Some moving slightly and others flip-flopping from one end to the other.
The worst of the lot are those who say something like:
I’m not a WOB, I’m happy for him to stay if he addresses the deficiencies in the squad and changes his management and tactics.” Big of them that, but let me say what I think these people are actually saying.
First let’s look at “I’m not a WOB”.
What they are really saying is “I am a WOB, I don’t want this Arsene I want a different one. One that does things the way I want and manages the way I would.”
When pushed as to what they perceive are Arsene’s failings they will list the very same arguments that a bona fide full blown WOB would give you.
Tactics.
That’s always a favorite. They want him to change his tactics. Happy to ignore that he has changed the set up of the team several times this season already. What they actually mean is they want him to set the team up in a way that they would. Do what they would do. See the game as they do. Why oh why can’t he see what they do?
Team Selection.
He should pick the players they want picked and play them where they want them played.
Prioritise games.
This one is easy, he should play his best team for every game. Whilst rotating, of course. Quite how he does that is beyond me. Of course they will rubbish this until we don’t get the result they think we should have, then they will insist that rotation was wrong and the wrong players were picked.
Signings
This is my personal favorite. He should sign the players they have scouted, for the positions they have deemed to be key.
A DM was the priority, it’s negligence that we didn’t sign one – they squeal.
Now, looking at the team, it could be reasonable to say that DM is the weakest link. Well it might be now, but let’s look at what went before.
The moment Bacary Sagna decided to leave that was the priority. It was essential that we cover what in the modern game is a vital position. He bought Debuchy, and most think that was about as good as he could have gotten.
When Thomas Vermaelen was sold, CB became the biggest priority. Well he bought Calum for that gap. Now whether he was bought as cover for RB alone we will never know, but it quickly became obvious that he was more than good enough to be 3rd choice CB as well. Covering both will likely see him get more game time and develop quicker. Job done.
Last year the priority position was a striker and cover for Theo. Two priorities he covered with the signing of Alexis.
Next on the list of priorities was a Goalkeeper. Fabianski left and we could not go into a season with just one senior goalkeeper. So he signed David Ospina – sorted.
Then Giroud broke his leg. That quickly became the biggest priority position. Out he goes and signs Danny Welbeck. Not too many complaints about that one.
So although some people see the DM position as the priority now, there were actually five bigger priorities than that. All more than adequately solved. We know (or think we know) that we were interested in Carvalho and Schneiderlin, neither of which happened. It looks like Arsene was unable to get the standard of player he wanted and made a judgement call and passed on this 6th priority position.
We have no 4th choice CB! Well we don’t if you ignore Hayden and Monreal, which everyone seems happy too, but can it really be listed above a seventh priority ?
Funds not spent.
They say all available fund should have been used to fill the gaps they see in the team. Happy to ignore that those funds might be needed to buy the right player in January or next summer, when they might actually be available.
These people will insist that they’re not claiming to know better than our manager, whilst continuing to insist he has made mistakes by not doing what they would have done. Well you tell me, what is that if not thinking they know better?
Finally, I have to concede that these people might actually be right. They really could be better managers than Arsene. But really, what are the chances?
Thanks for reading.
pedantic george @Blackburngeorge.
Positively Arsenal 
Leave Wenger alone he has been a fantastic manager with very little funds, judge him after he has put a team together with the new funding available to him.
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Ah Georgey Old boi!!
you absolutely nailed this one!
Don’t have much to add. Funny how I was thinking this morning of all the various wenger replacements touted by those who wanted his head to roll. From Moyes to klopp to Martinez. Few seasons down & things ain’t looking so good for the chosen ones er?
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you are a genius.. You speak for all us the silent majority of arsenal fans
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Do we really have too few defenders?
If we had bought a 4th choice CB, he’d still be sitting on the bench.
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Very good George – your analysis of the success of the club’s efforts in dealing with all bar one of the so-called player ‘priorities’ is especially well delivered; one suspects that even the final remaining slot you refer to may be filled in January.
Five months too late? Well, in one sense, possibly yes, as in an ideal world we’d pick up all our purchases punctually and in the time-frame dictated to us by those who define such things as Transfer Window periods.
But in another real sense no – the last thing we should be pressurising the club with is risking doing a Spurs or a Liverpool with eye-catching summer profligacy paid for with the tears of disappointment come the autumn. The fact is, last summer’s player acquisition haul was one of the best I can recall of any club, not just Arsenal’s.
One of my pet hates are those who, as George points out, say they are not WOB but who then proceed to regurgitate the current WOB thinking. I say ‘thinking’ – possibly that is over-stating the cognitive process employed. Certainly, based on the now fabled Podcast (which I’m currently on Day Three of ploughing through), there is precious little proof that any actual ‘thinking’ has taken place and even less evidence provided to back up anything that is presented as such. The fundamental problem the WOB ‘movement’ has is that, as George highlights above, precious little of what they argue is in anyway ‘evidence-based’. The foundations of their ideas are based on supposition, assumption, guess-work and speculation and it is this that prevent their arguments, such as they are, them from stacking up in any shape or form.
Fundamentally though, as the podcast also shows, the WOBs are fatally undermined by their insistence that pretty much anything that could be labelled wrong with the club and/or the manager IS wrong. If their attacks were even slightly better focused they would surely carry so much more weight. It’s the indiscriminate clutching of the straws that is their undoing – those same straws that inconveniently turn to dust as one after another of their complaints are proved baseless and irrelevant with all the predictability of night following day.
And it’s this, which, despite George and Geoff’s best efforts, make the referenced podcast such heavy going.
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Nice one George.
Arsenal have played 7 tough games, plus CL qualification and tough group games.
4 away prem games. 2 back to back games with Anderlecht should get us close to r16 qualification. BvB are still suffering in their domestic league from throwing everything they had left in the locker at us.
It would be nice to have a couple more points in the league, but after the International break and god willing no worse additions to the injury list (which is nowhere near as bad as is made out to be, by the way) there is the opportunity to start garnering in some points in this league.
Everyone, bar Gazprom (so far) looks vulnerable this season, I’d say Arsenal could reach 40 points by mid point, and let’s see what happens then. There is absolutely no reason to bitch or moan right now. The chavs have a small handful of players, 2 or 3? Who are currently making the difference for them, their individual form and reliability has proven to be erratic over the last few seasons.
Early days to be handing out all the trophy to them, just yet.
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Arsenal could have a super fresh and hungry bunch of players coming back in January, it’s all part of Arsene Wenger’s cunning plan.
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PG
Thanks George. Check you email I sent you something.
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What’s with all the “Wenger out” bs?
Since the night before Wembley vs Hull,
I thought Bouldie was managing the team?
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I love how the goalposts get moved by the WOB, for a few years now all I seen from them was – “All I want is Arsenal to spend some money, win a cup now and then and spend some money”, we buy Ozil, win the FA Cup, buy Sanchez, and these same people say this is not good enough, we should be winning the league or CL, we should be signing £50M players not £40M or £30M players. These same people say Wenger needs to change tactics for different games, but the moment he changes tactics as he has this season, the same people say he should not have changed from last seasons tactics as there was nothing wrong with it.
My real favorite is those saying we should replace Wenger, even if it means dropping out of CL, cos its boring being in top 4 and not winning the league. And it would be good to have a change even if it was for the worst. These sort really wants us to become Tottnum.
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That Gav idiot loved George Graham and is a big admirer of Mourinho’s cautious (re: cowardly) tactics. Which tells me he doesn’t care care about the football, all he cares about is his mates making fun of him.
As far as the direction of the club, look at how those spoiled bastards snicker when someone mentions the stadium being a trophy. Fuck being a big club, we want our trophies now, waaaaaah!
George, next time you have a debate with a WOB please remind him or her about the oilers warehousing talent. Explain to them how warehousing young, up and coming players not only ruins their careers (Joe Cole), but it denies opposing teams the opportunity to sign players at competitive rates.
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I’ve had Gooners in their mid 30’s and 40’s spout out the line about not having bragging rights over work mates who support other clubs, to me a clear sign they have never grown up, if a 15 year old was at that nonsense I’d be thinking them immature, but for middle aged men to be coming out with it is laughable. You’ll hear these sort say they are ashamed of the club, or the manager or the players. There really is something amiss with them.
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take a look at this load of whinging and bitching about Wenger.
http://www.thefootballnetwork.net/boards/read/s378.htm?721,14939687
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The games are coming thick and fast for Gazprom. I’m confident they’ll have dropped at least four points in the league by the end of October.
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That’s their primary motivation. Mean old Wenger is allowing them to be bullied by their work mates and they hate him. They love the thought of Graham and Mourinho being the daddy who swoops in and saves them from all those mean bullies.
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Great stuff PG. Also some great stuff from fins the last few days.
As for the bourinho lovers, what they fail to recognize is what bourinho achieved at chelski doesnt stand out really from what ancelotti, benitez or di matteo achieved at same club or what mancini and pellegrini achieved/is achieving at oil city. They simply had/have very expensive good teams. In fact you could say the other managers achieved more because they won their trophies by trying to play attractive football. Except for di matteo who actually out mastered bourinho in playing pulis football on the way to the cl trophy.
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Also on rotation, isnt it obvious the manager is trying to gel a ‘first eleven’ before slowly rotate in the others players. Which is paying off as we have seen better and better team play game by game. And by December we could have a well integrated squad when the heat really starts to kick in. Imagine the results if the manager had made changes and chops in the first few games while the team is still trying to gel, while also making changes due to injuries. Lunacy.
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Roy Keane- “To be honest I never cared much for Manchester United fans. For the most part they’re clueless glory hunters, trying to add a sense of accomplishment to their own pointless lives by jumping on the bandwagon of a successful sporting club, in many cases on the other side of the world”
Are WOB any different? All good when we are winning and when we lose deriding accomplishments of a man they will never be able to achieve in 10 lifetimes. Glory nonetheless..
Internet makes it easy to feel good about yourself. Abuse someone famous, find few idiots who re-tweet it, life is good!
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George
It sounds as if you have a hangover from your recent podcast experience. Why give the moaners something to latch onto? Some moaners talk about groundhog day with Arsene but by bitching about the moaners all the time surely you are experiencing a groundhog day as well. Get over it, move on and post something more original. Fuck the moaners, don’t give them the time of day, they don’t deserve it. ) ) ) smiley
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Estonia can’t get out of their half, so why the fuck is Hodgson playing Chambers instead of Clyne?
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NB, I do it to irk them, not inform us.We all know.
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I saw the Ox limping when the game was over.
Chambers and Jackie did very well. Them, Delph and Welbeck, were the best players on the pitch.
Ozil apparently wants to leave us, according to the Daily Heil. Many Arsenal “supporters” wouldn’t mind him taking off.
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Jack was tremendous for England this evening though his best efforts were largely squandered by others.
And by others I mean specifically Wayne Rooney.
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It is just possible that Jack Wilshere may prove to be the most talented footballer to have ever played for England.
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Shades of Paul Gascoigne.
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Relentless you are George
Scourge of the Groaners
Hammer of the Feeble Spirited
Sword of the Righteous
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I am , I am, and humble too
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PG, more power to your elbow?
As for twitter, not for me. The Joseph Barton v Dietmar Hamann, was a complete waste of time!
Bolton Wanders FC, is a very good example of what can happen to an ambitious club. Garside, did get about £400,000 for Hamann, doing a switcheroo to Man City.
Allardyce, was supposed to be at Bolton for 10 years, and took 12 Bolton staff members with him.
Players have contracts for 3 – 4 years, with a guaranteed basic wage. Deadwood?
Is Eduardo, from the Boris Mellor’s site, Arsenal Insider? Mellor, paid a certain Neil Fry to do one or two audits on “Monsieur Wenger”. Needless to say, Fry is a dipstick!
NB, still doing “studies in the hairy nether parts of ladies”???
Now, this a switcheroo post. Multi-tasking, it is a gift!
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Well, Notoverthehill, I have been a regular on Boris Mellor’s site – Arsenal Times – but have of late posted very little, as it has become an out and out negative site, I posted a link above showing the sort of threads the place is full of now, all negative, anti arsenal, anti wenger, anti ozil, anti what you got.
anyone with anything positive to say is not wanted. Something as simple as explaining, when many were having a go at Wenger over his comments about the length of grass,(yes on Arsenal Times that is all it takes to have a go at Wenger) that Big Fat Sam was the one who raised the issue in the media, after the West Ham v Hull game, and that AW was merely answering a journos question about the rule, is enough to get branded an AKB, and to have half a dozen posters have a go,
So at the moment I can’t be arsed to post much on Arsenal Times, life is too short to put up with all their negative shite. It has become clear to me that Arsenal Times has seen how the likes of Le Grove, Arsenal Action and ANR have grown massively by going all out negative on all things Arsenal, and is promoting this negative stance to get more hits.
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Eduardo, thay are all charlatan scoundrels
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Good points apropos @ 5:08 pm. Maybe when the WOB’s say they ‘want their Arsenal back’ what they want is the old ‘boring, boring Arsenal’ of the latter Graham years. Score one goal and then shut up shop – and we certainly had the defence to do that. This is probably why they love ‘bourinho’ (perfect name for him!) so much. They are actuallty cowards, because it takes a brave man like Arsene to try to win by playing football. The trouble with trying to play football is that it is a high risk strategy and whilst you can win in style, you can also lose quite badly if things don’t click. This is what their fragile egos cannot handle. They prefer the low risk strategy of the weak one.
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Is NOTH sending secret messages to the french resistance?
Coz I’m buggered if I can decipher it.
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Morning everybody: brief respite before it all kicks off for another week. Well done George: top work as ever. Quick question: if I tried hard to get a ticket for the Burnley game might anyone else be going? Would love to meet some fellow positivas.
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Great stuff George and excellent comments from the posters.Where the stench of soot and sulfur is to be found thou shalt also find the WOB and Le Groaniads.Begone foul devils!
Thanks!
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Getting to the post late but nail on the head again George!
Personally, I think the groaners have lost (or never got in the first place) the essence of supporting Arsenal! Kinda like falling for a person because of their looks………or money……..or any other superficial aspects of them really! If/when these things are no longer there, the lover invariably tends to fall out of love and affection. (George has written a blog about this I’m sure). Anyway, if you’re going to love someone not for who they are, then groaning and moaning (or divorce/separation) is the end product of such a relationship because money, goods and glamour will pass. Same principle applies to Arsenal. Some of the reasons I support the club are its business model, transfer policy and the general class and above board methods with which the club does everything. When we won the FA Cup last summer, that was my first trophy experience, but my, it tasted sweeter because we won it running the club the right way and playing football the beautiful way! A wise man once said, “You don’t love a woman because she’s beautiful. She’s beautiful because you love her”! A word, they say, is enough……….!
Now concerning Arsene, I have come to the conclusion that anyone who doesn’t like him now never will and probably never did! He will not be appreciated until he’s left us and it’s a shame because part of the reason he’s struggled with the monumental task of ‘taking us to the promised land’ is the constant murmuring and criticism from ‘his own people’……….kinda like a certain Hebrew prophet! We’re very lucky to have a manager who knows not only the game but also the market and was/is willing to put personal glory aside and toil to make AFC a much better club than when he took charge. The WOBs say he’s got no ambition……I had to laugh at that because Peter Hill-Wood said in an interview that when Arsene was appointed, he took him round Europe and showed him top class facilities and demanded that Arsenal should get/aspire to! Few years later, plans for a brand new stadium was underway and in under 20years, we’ve brought the mortgage payment to a manageable level. Now we’re a ‘bigger’ club than we were! If that isn’t ambition, then nothing is! The air of knowledgable authority with which these guys talk about transfers (transfer targets, fees and player wages), tactics and training methods is simply baffling!………things they have absolutely no clue about whatsoever!
Right!……..rant over! *exhales deeply!
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“anyone with anything positive to say is not wanted”
Or they will attempt and fail to twist words. We have seen this. One example: the part near the end of the pod where they tell George that most of their fan group come from London and therefore they are better supporters: wtf? Did these people realise how this blunted and rebounding “attack” made them appear to the neutral public? If they weren’t so bitter and stupid it would be a sad story.
The full blown WOBs live within their own artificial debate – which is why they describe an 18 year working relationship between an employee and their employer as “insidious” – most sane people upon this earth would describe that as a healthy relationship, warts and all, but no not these S&M merchants.
They’ve reached the low now, after their failed campaign to get rid of the manager at his weakest*, where they can be observed to celebrate a draw like it is a defeat. That is where they have arrived.
*Following on from the billboard taken out opposite the ground when the team were doing well in 2011 before the two big players left and the squad was rebuilt so well (something they completely deny in the podcast) compared to Liverpool or Tottenham who both only suffered half the loss, it’s fair to conclude with these observations that they are not supporting Arsenal Football Club, or even interested in the Football. Why or how else could they ignore the above comparison in recent seasons with the two clubs mentioned above? Who have both been outspending the Arsenal…?
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Sorry FH, no idea if I can make it or not to that game atm, good luck with the ticket.
I’d say make sure you sit downstairs so you can see Özil do his thing but *sniffs*, it doesn’t matter now! *sobs and blubbers into hanky*
Ah well. There are others I suppose. We’ll just have to make do with the likes of Cazorla an Wilshere and probably Rozza rotating the AM/Tennish role.
Wilshere? Cazorla? Captain of the Czech team as maybe the third choice?
Where’s the ambition?
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Any middle of the roaders out there, uber bloggers included, who do not belive that our extreme right wing media’s trolling of Arsenal fans and the un-indebted un-leveraged model that the club follows has a negative impact upon the club: please refer to how gullible and stupid or bitter Arsenal fans have been trolled by the likes of Ashton over Özil – propaganda we know as a tool it simply works through the mechanism of repetition, a glance at the history books can be a useful reference – and that’s what has happened in this instance, where a player who has been a key player winning a World Cup and a club trophy in his first season at AFC and still be subject to such bollocks that it is frankly surreal. Do I need to mention the contrast with Soldado etc.in the media? I should hope not, becasue the contrast is there for all to see.
Evidence of there result of all this is there for all to see in all those podcasts broadcast on monday with all these football fans slagging the player off,when it was clear for any to see who were actually watching the game that the player who had a very good first half had picked up some kind of knock and wasn’t a hundred per cent thereafter. It happens! As I described earlier in the week with reference to The the F Word narrative after this game what we have here is a clear and undeniable example of confirmation bias. Quite simply this can be best described as: crazy shit!
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Wow George. Was that Delany hacky twat seriously trying to pretend that the piece of research commissioned by the AST was only your “opinion”, and that’s how he tried to disingeniously dismiss the work and defend own piss poor efforts at scribbling a livin’. Did he realise that sane people who may have once or twice kicked a football can also read the thread?
What a plonker.
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PG
Thanks for standing your corner and putting up with all the crap.
I’m too quick to jest about you being a lazy git, when actually, given your twatterings, and this fab blog, nowt (to use a norvern phrase) could be further from the truth.
As for me, I can’t bear to hear that prick’s utterances, so haven’t been able to get thru even a fraction of the BW podcast.
(A true southern weakling here, and yes, Lazy too).
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Jack v Estonia
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kx8J9cLosdc
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Headline on Claret and Blue website:
“Was Jenkinson rushed back too soon?”
Players and or coaches ignoring physios? Yet again! Who could have imagined such a scenario occurring in professional sport? As a self-declared Redzone expert it’s clear to me that VENGAAAAAAAAARGH is to blame for this calamity. I also blame him for the price of eggs thesedays. It’s all gone Pete Tong. Bring back George Graham, the Queen Mum, leather footballs for real men (& tight shorts & mullets too) and all will be well again.
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..how ironic that the Daily Mail runs the story re Özil “wanting” to leave( a story that they nabbed from over the sea btw), their partners at Le Groan must be very happy, if you can call their state of mind happy.I don’t, I call it something else.
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These stories are the obvious follow up to the “steal on’ a livin'” trolling. The old one-two eh? Never saw that one coming. Nope. Not predictable, not to to me.
It’s about as clear and obvious a media led attack on the player and hence the club as can be. I’d really appreciate it of those uber-bloggers acknowledged this when trying to plug their articles in the wider media (heh!)
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Fins @ 12:39 pm: So Ozil is nicking a living has morphed into Ozil wants to leave? What say the the good people of Britain? The same Daily Mail and fellow travellers that promote the sell off of the NHS and, before that, the Royal Mail to a privileged few now trying to undermine a propertly run English football club which refuses to pimp itself to oilers and oligarchs or to the new found human-traffickers who call themselves 3ed-party owners.
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
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It would of course be entirely coincidental that the Mail campaign just happens to be against a devout Muslim who plays for perhaps the most inclusive and diverse club in the whole of world sport.
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The question is:
When will the middle of the road fence sitting Uber-bloggers that George refers to above muster up the footballs required in order to admit to themselves that there is a extreme right wing campaign being conducted against the foundations of this football club? The same club that John Gregory describes as “representing the best in English Football” (at the Top of the game obviously), a quote which George’s WOB hosts could not bring themselves to comment on, even though it was made by their own guest (I wish I was making this bit up).
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Good post and good comments.
It strikes me that Arsenal are, in a strange way, victims of their popularity. Because Arsenal’s fan-base is larger than most other clubs (consider match attendance, club membership, Twitter followers, parade attendance, etc), it is unsurprising that the various media outlets target this group. Unfortunately, the rise of social media largely coincided with ‘the stadium years’. Instead of the new social media being filled with amicable discussions about Arsenal’s blossoming success, admirable business model, and far-sighted ambition, the weed that took root was a powerful narrative about Arsenal’s lengthening trophy-drought. I imagine the media couldn’t believe their luck, latching onto a story that would run and run, fed by the insecurities of a large group of fans who feel they have been denied the success they deserve. Such is the power of the story that not even a trophy or two big-money purchases can slow its momentum. What can stop it? If anything, it will only be sustained success that will do the job, and even then, it may only be keeping it at bay. The narrative is just too easy for the media to maintain and too successful to be discarded.
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I have been ploughing through the podcast too. Mainly because I think it is a good learning exercise in debating with morons. Geoff and PG handled this Gavs fellow quite well by countering with reasoned arguments. However, everytime this guy says “Do ya know what i mean?” as though he has proved something when he has merely vomitted some daily mail line, it is doing my head in. How many times does a man say, “Do you know what i mean?”?? I cant take it anymore!
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Santi Claws: “The air of knowledgeable authority with which these guys talk about transfers (transfer targets, fees and player wages), tactics and training methods is simply baffling!………things they have absolutely no clue about whatsoever!”
When that Gavin idiot was forced to admit that everything he says about Arsene is nothing more than speculation, he spit his dummy and remained a right prat for the remainder of the debate.
And how about that Moe clown talking about tactics? A guy that sounds like he never kicked a ball in his life telling one of the best coaches in Europe what he should or should not be doing in order to get the best out of his players. Baffling doesn’t even begin to describe it.
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