In Arsène We Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Crescit

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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Est83 » Tue Sep 21, 2021 6:21 pm

Not regularly posting these days, so haven't seen this thread. But all this Wenger hate is crazy. He's still our most successful manager, he still had the vision to transform our club. He still revolutionised the Premiership.

Let the bitterness go. You're all coming across like some wife beating firm members. It's tedious.

Lots went wrong in his final years, partly his fault, partly the clubs unwillingness to spend whilst those around us (including newly rich teams) spent like crazy. There are many components to it, to shoulder it all on him is ignorant, childish and quite frankly, dumb!

On the whole, he still deserves to be remembered as a great. Just because of a bunch of you can't control your emotions and get caught up in the AFTV frenzies, doesn't mean he was suddenly a disaster. You should look back with fondness and respect. It's embarrassing.
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby VCC » Tue Sep 21, 2021 6:36 pm

Good to see you posting Est
For me still our most successful manager that not in question, but also our biggest underachiever. If none of what went on after the Emerites move was his doing his keeping quite and protecting those decisions made himself just as guilty.
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby swipe right » Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:20 am

Est83 wrote:Not regularly posting these days, so haven't seen this thread. But all this Wenger hate is crazy. He's still our most successful manager, he still had the vision to transform our club. He still revolutionised the Premiership.

Let the bitterness go. You're all coming across like some wife beating firm members. It's tedious.

Lots went wrong in his final years, partly his fault, partly the clubs unwillingness to spend whilst those around us (including newly rich teams) spent like crazy. There are many components to it, to shoulder it all on him is ignorant, childish and quite frankly, dumb!

On the whole, he still deserves to be remembered as a great. Just because of a bunch of you can't control your emotions and get caught up in the AFTV frenzies, doesn't mean he was suddenly a disaster. You should look back with fondness and respect. It's embarrassing.

Well said :clap:
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Ach » Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:11 pm

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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Zenith » Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:20 pm

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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Ach » Thu Oct 14, 2021 8:54 am

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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Power n Glory » Thu Oct 14, 2021 10:55 am

Ach wrote:


:arsenal3: The good times. A special moment in football history.

Looking forwards to that.
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Angelito » Thu Oct 14, 2021 3:04 pm

Ach wrote:


Brilliant. Can't wait. :arse flag.gif:
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby jayramfootball » Sat Oct 16, 2021 11:36 am

Angelito wrote:
Ach wrote:


Brilliant. Can't wait. :arse flag.gif:


Great to see SAF agreeing to be part of it directly.
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Angelito » Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:31 pm


Arsene Wenger: I should have left Arsenal and taken another job

Arsène Wenger has revealed for the first time his regret at not leaving Arsenal earlier than 2018.

In a new documentary 'Arsène Wenger: Invincible', which was written by the filmmaker and journalist Gabriel Clarke, Wenger described the years at the Emirates Stadium after 2006 as “my suffering” but argued that his achievement of keeping the club in the Champions League until 2017 was perhaps the best of his career.

Sir Alex Ferguson, the former Manchester United manager, suggested that sections of the fanbase should be “ashamed” at his treatment during a period when Arsenal were “bare” in the transfer market as they paid off their stadium debt.

Wenger, who has been working for Fifa since leaving Arsenal three-and-a-half years ago, described the 2007 departure of vice-chairman David Dein as a “decisive” moment when he himself almost left.

“I identified myself completely with the club - that was the mistake I made,” said Wenger. “My fatal flaw is I love too much where I am ... where I was. I regret it. I should have gone somewhere else.”

The film charts Wenger’s life, from his childhood in Alsace to his remarkable 22-year tenure at Arsenal, culminating with the 2003-4 Invincible season and then also the Emirates years which became so defined by fan division over his position as manager. Arsenal did not win the league again after 2004 but did add three more FA Cups and numerous further appearances in the knock-out phase of the Champions League.

“Sometimes I wonder - was something broken after that Invincible season?” said Wenger. “2007 was a decisive point. It was the first time I could feel there were tensions inside the board. I was torn between being loyal to the club and being loyal to David [Dein]. I still today wonder if I did the right thing because life was never exactly the same after. I thought, ‘I have now to go to the end of this project’.

“I could have gone to the French national team. The English national team twice or three times even. I could have gone twice to Real Madrid. I could have gone to Juventus, Paris St Germain, even Man United.”

Of the Emirates years, Wenger said: “We started with a project at £200m, which we could basically afford, then we finished at £428m. Before, we lost them [the best players] at [age] 30 plus. After we lost them at 25 plus.”

Of his departure and the fact that he has not since been back, Wenger said: “Now there is no special reason for me to go there. All the rest is purely emotion, and that is less important. It is the end of your life - at least of one life - like a funeral. The end of a love story is always sad.”

Of Wenger’s achievements, Ferguson said: “I think Arsene and myself are dinosaurs but we didn’t do so badly. I won 13 leagues, but never near going through a season undefeated. The achievement stands aside - it stands above everything else.”

Wenger's ability to see things others couldn't propelled him to the top - but invincibility might have been his fatal weakness

by Alan Tyers

As with many visionary people, there was also a blindness in Arsene Wenger, an obtuseness countervailed against his clarity of thought and imagination. Arsene Wenger: Invincible, is a contemplative portrait from Gabriel Clarke that captures Arsene the wise man, but also Arsene the fool. It raises a broader question about success and failure: was his long and agonising decline already baked into his moment of greatest triumph. Was it, indeed, inevitable?

The feature-length documentary takes as its structure the obvious three acts of Wenger’s Arsenal career. There must be remote uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, perhaps aliens millions of lightyears away, who already know the first bit: 'Arsene Who?', he came from Japan, he invented pasta you know, anchoring Cool Britannia-era shot of Oasis, boxy suit, professorial, two Doubles, a new lease of life for Donkey Adams bah blah blah. This is, correctly, rattled through by your Wrightys and your Lee Dixons, the latter sporting here a most ill-advised newsboy hat, perhaps purloined from the former. The eye-catching quote comes from Martin Keown: “We didn't know if it was the stretching, the vitamins we were taking, the new diet, but we felt like supermen.”

So that section is over in a jiffy, and the meat of the film is the story of the 2003-2004 unbeaten season, with contributions from all the key figures up to and including Thierry Henry and Sir Alex Ferguson. Wenger says that invincibility “fulfilled the dream of my life. The fact that I could convince this group to achieve something they would not think could be possible. I had done my job in a perfect way for one year.” It was, of course, a great achievement. And yet, as he also notes: “Sometimes I wonder, was something broken after that.”

For then begins the third act, and we absolutely definitely will not see the like: from 15 May 2004 when they beat Leicester 2-1 to complete the season unbeaten, to Wenger’s last home game as manager on 6 May 2018, 14 whole years of decline, of frustration, of, ultimately, failure. 14 years! Nuno didn’t get 14 league matches. It is inconceivable that any big-club manager will get it so wrong, for so long, ever again.

His reactions to this are fascinating. Obviously there is the partly justified self-justification: the new stadium restricted the operating budget, the disrupted ecosystem brought about by Roman Abramovich, boardroom shenanigans, and something harder to quantify about the move away from Highbury, a loss of something grounding and inspiring to Wenger and the players and the club as a whole.

All fair points. But the game moved on tactically and financially, and Wenger and Arsenal did not. He says: “I am a romantic. A pragmatic romantic. We are in entertainment: the groundwork is to win but that is not enough. The collective expression of a team, to transform it into art.” And later: “Stubbornness can be a strength and a weakness. Had I lost the quality of my judgement? I don’t know. But the dedication, my desire to do well was exactly the same.”

Was invincibility, in fact, the fatal weakness? It certainly contributed to making Wenger eight-figures-a-year untouchable, and that was not good for either Arsenal or, perhaps, Arsene. This film, for me, illuminates one of the contradictions about Wenger: because he was ascetic and foreign and polyglot, it was assumed that he was a well-rounded person but, as he himself explains, there was also something deeply lacking in him. “I have the addiction gene,” he says. “You don't develop certain aspects of your personality you could have done in your life.” He also observes: “competition at all costs destroys a part of your personality" and notes that his father never told him "well done". His ability to see things others couldn't propelled him to the top, and his tunnel vision did, too. But once his invincibility was punctured, as it would always have to be, the blind spots clouded the entire field of perception. He now works for Fifa and Saudi Arabia.

Arsene Wenger: Invincible is in cinemas on Thursday; and on DVD/digital download 22nd November.


Headline is simply sensationalist. Give it a read. It's good.
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Ach » Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:39 pm

Just realised this documentary is about Wenger and not the invincibles ffs.

As for the article, read up to the bolded bit then got bored but I agree. He should've left. The day he stopped being a winner and concentrated on money is the day he should've walked
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby jayramfootball » Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:53 pm

It's interesting that Wenger pointed to 2007 as a turning point - that is what I could see on the pitch too.. getting to a point where it was very obvious by 2010.
He really should have left around 2010 - because ultimately he let the turmoil in the club damage his legacy forever.
Ferguson is right, though. That Invincible season stands a the top of any achievement in the history of English football.
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Angelito » Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:06 am



:crybaby:
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Phil71 » Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:14 am

Angelito wrote:

:crybaby:


He did as well.

It used to really f**k me off when some of our fans griped about him taking his salary. I think that period made me have a general dislike for moaners.
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Re: In Arsène We Shall Always Trust ~ Victoria Concordia Cre

Postby Phil71 » Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:23 am

Reiss wrote:If Wenger wasn't so stubborn and blind to reality he would have known that his time was up at Arsenal well before he got the boot.

I'd argue he should have gone after the Birmingham 2011 defeat but I can see the rationale for keeping him a bit longer. But he deffo should have gone after ending the trophy drought and winning the first FA cup. He would have left on a high then.

It's funny that he now admits he made a mistake by staying. His stubbornness was his downfall in the end.


Not sure where stubbornness comes into it. He genuinely believed that he was the best man for the job and wanted to succeed. That's not being stubborn. It's having faith in your own a ability and a desire to improve the club's position.

He was convinced he could improve the club's position and had that strong desire to do so, and the board wanted him to stay. It's difficult to make a decision to leave in those circumstances.

The biggest mistake made during the Wenger era was having him involved in the club's finances. He should have been kept completely away from that and given the sole remit of focussing on football. That hybrid role was a conflict of interest. It suited the board and the owners. They didn't have anyone knocking on their door for more money. Wenger was knocking on his own door and telling himself he didn't have it - and all the while finishing in that golden top four every year without fail. It's telling that he wasn't given long after finishing outside of it. As soon as the goose stopped laying those golden eggs they knocked him over the head and stuffed him in the oven.
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