Will Arsenal ever be great again?

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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby Angelito » Thu Apr 01, 2021 4:32 pm

Fair enough, PG.

I do think it's unrealistic that we get a top class CM and CAM in the summer. Ødegaard looks like a no-brainer at this point. Yet, there aren't many available CMs unless we break the bank.

Getting an upgrade over Bellerin would also prove to be challenging. There simply aren't many great RBs in the game today.

Selling Bellerin and Laca would probably generate around £40-45m but a significant chunk of that will go in replacing Bella. That's why I think it's pointless to sell him this summer. We're not going to sign any world beating RB.

If we sell Laca, we will have to replace him unless Martinelli becomes a viable option for Arteta. Our focus should be in acquiring top qualities CMs and CAMs.

I am not as optimistic as you are. Additionally, I think—even if we're mid-table by November—Arteta would still be around unless we're 15th or something come January next year.

At this stage, I wouldn't want to touch our defense. We've signed more than our share of defenders since Emery took over. Get a CM and a CAM. That's the priority.

I think we should go for Dybala. He's struggled at Juve this season with fitness and form. He's still an elite talent. The only drawback is that he can only play as a CAM, a second striker, or a false #9.

Martinelli -------------- Saka
------------------ Dybala ------------------
Smith Rowe - Ødegaard
Thomas


Alternatively,

Lacazette
Martinelli - Dybala - Saka
Thomas - CM


Acquiring Dybala would of course mean that Ødegaard might not be the right choice unless we opt for a 4-3-3 over a 4-2-3-1.
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby swipe right » Tue Apr 06, 2021 2:37 am

Why aren’t we in for Halaand? Why can’t we ever get nice things? :crybaby:
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby PairyGrows » Wed Sep 01, 2021 5:00 pm

I've never felt more down as a fan of Arsenal than I do now. We're in steep decline, and there's little hope the trajectory will turn because, fundamentally, nothing ever changes at Arsenal.

The root cause of our decline is the club culture which has remained unchanged for over 15 years. Personnel have come and gone, but the results remain the same. We're a club that not only tolerate and excuse mediocrity, but we celebrate and reward it. This has applied and continues to apply to players, managers and executives alike. We don't demand the very best; we settle for adequate.

Even more bizarre is the way in which we rationalise this to ourselves. We tell ourselves to "trust the process" and to "go through the pain" to get to better days, as if we're engaging in an odd self-flagellation ritual. Suffering itself doesn't bring about progress, however. We must ask ourselves if the direction we're headed is the right one, not suffer because of the magical properties of suffering.

Besides, isn't this the exact same mindset we've adopted for who knows how long? We blindly believe in projects here and make excuses there, but where has that gotten us? If a strategy fails repeatedly, doesn't that mean we should reassess it? When will we start demanding greatness instead of settling for mediocrity?

Arsenal will never be great again because Arsenal don't think great. Until that changes, we'll be stuck in this endless merry-go-round of disappointment.
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby Highbury Hillbilly » Wed Sep 01, 2021 5:15 pm

We haven't brought in a proper big name player since Aubameyang. Somebody that immediately took us up a level and helped us win tricky games.

We cannot get Top 6 with this squad, not with the way we are currently playing. £150m spent and I don't see a single player besides Xhaka that the manager trusts to play his style.
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby Ach » Wed Sep 01, 2021 5:27 pm

PairyGrows wrote:I've never felt more down as a fan of Arsenal than I do now. We're in steep decline, and there's little hope the trajectory will turn because, fundamentally, nothing ever changes at Arsenal.

The root cause of our decline is the club culture which has remained unchanged for over 15 years. Personnel have come and gone, but the results remain the same. We're a club that not only tolerate and excuse mediocrity, but we celebrate and reward it. This has applied and continues to apply to players, managers and executives alike. We don't demand the very best; we settle for adequate.

Even more bizarre is the way in which we rationalise this to ourselves. We tell ourselves to "trust the process" and to "go through the pain" to get to better days, as if we're engaging in an odd self-flagellation ritual. Suffering itself doesn't bring about progress, however. We must ask ourselves if the direction we're headed is the right one, not suffer because of the magical properties of suffering.

Besides, isn't this the exact same mindset we've adopted for who knows how long? We blindly believe in projects here and make excuses there, but where has that gotten us? If a strategy fails repeatedly, doesn't that mean we should reassess it? When will we start demanding greatness instead of settling for mediocrity?

Arsenal will never be great again because Arsenal don't think great. Until that changes, we'll be stuck in this endless merry-go-round of disappointment.

Never has a truer word been said

Last few years with Wenger were bad. Watching us became a chore. No one likes chores. Had a minor miracle with emery but even that got swallowed up by the rotten culture of this club

And then came Arteta. 20 months of the worst football this club has seen in 30 years, no hope, shit results and a transfer window which impressed no arsenal fan.

Beats the last few years of Wenger.

We pray and hope for better things but it's a long way off
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby Angelito » Wed Sep 01, 2021 6:35 pm

I can understand the sentiment but stretching as far back to 2006 is false dichotomy. We were in the UCL final in 2006. We challenged for the league in 07/08. We made it to the UCL SFs in 2009. For better or worse, we finished 2nd in 15/16. We just couldn't build on those "successes," in comparison, for various reasons.

Older fans here could vouch for this, Arsenal have always been a conservative club. We were run like a bureaucracy even before the Premier League started.

Back then, the playing ground was even for most clubs. With the stadium move coinciding with Abramovich's arrival, shortly followed by UAE acquiring City, the Kroenkes staking a claim, and the subsequent explosion of television revenue, we basically found ourselves arriving at the party during the hour of the wolf.

People in charge of Arsenal failed to foresee the drastic change in the dynamics of football ownership.

Football, as a business, is rarely about business and profits alone. It's such an irony. That's why you won't see many owners become elite billionaires by just owning a football club.

Have a glance at all giants of the game today: for Abramovich, Chelsea is his pet project. For UAE and Qatar, their clubs are soft-powers. They don't care about money. Real and Barca are cultural institutions. The entire BuLi favors Bayern to maintain it's hegemony. Juve is Italy's symbol in the global market today. Man United is a financial juggernaut.

The only club that's solely interested in finances there is ManU, and they haven't been the same since Sir Alex retired. Even then, their revenue drowns most clubs.

The reason Real, Barca, and Juve are pushing for the super league isn't financial self-sustainability. They want the leverage to spend astronomical money on players again. They are trying to augment their grip on European football for the foreseeable future.

Take the example of Real. They bid €220m for Mbappe on deadline day when they've been moaning about lack of money for months now. Of course they knew what they were doing. Plating such a bid, hours before the deadline. PSG didn't even bother responding because they don't care about money. It's about the UCL for them now.

On a different note, I personally feel they'd be better off without Mbappe now that Messi is there, but I can understand why they turned it down.

Nonetheless, Arsenal's owners really seem to lack forethought. The super league is inevitable. I feel. It will happen in some way or the other.

Besides that, we have an open passage to the UCL again starting from 2024. UEFA, deliberately and consciously, staged such rules to allow fallen giants like Arsenal back into the Champions League. We're at risk of losing that pathway too. Because the owners seem to love doing the wrong thing at the most opportune time.

As PairyGrows stated, this clubs, weirdly, seems to love spin-doctor antics, with the fans lapping it up. Whether it was Gazidis and his, "Catalyst of Change," Raul/Emery's, "Project," or Arteta's, "Process" now; this club is focused on throwing buzzwords around than doing what's best for football.

Drive, desire, ambition, etc. come from the upper hierarchy these days. We don't have that. There are few exceptions like Klopp, Simeone, Conte, et al., but football today has become more about the vision of the directors over the manager.

So, yes, we're rotting. Putting complete trust on a novice isn't awe-inspiring either. Such has been the story. However, this administration has only made matters worse, especially in the last 5 years.


aniym wrote:We haven't brought in a proper big name player since Aubameyang. Somebody that immediately took us up a level and helped us win tricky games.


Why would anyone who's Auba-tier want to join Arsenal? Auba stated explicitly that he joined Arsenal to play for Wenger.

Even during Wenger's reign, the legit superstars we signed were few: Overmars, Ozil, Alexis, and Auba. Ozil was at a different level when we signed him. He's the biggest signing since Bergkamp.

The difference is players performed to the best of their abilities under Wenger. Adebayor, Hleb, Ramsey, Walcott, Giroud, Ospina... These players aren't world beaters. But they experienced their best individual spells under Wenger. Cazorla, Monreal, Koscielny, Sagna, Mertesacker, etc., became stars here. Alexis had his best ever campaign for Arsenal. Ozil had his best goal-scoring and assist-making season under Wenger.

A manager's influence cannot be understated. However, as I mentioned earlier, ambition comes from the board. It's up to the board—who we hire, who we sack; what team leads the club, who directs football activities within the club.

Arsenal, the emblem, is still a huge draw. But I can't imagine many players wanting to join to play out of their sheer admiration for Mikel Arteta or Stanley Kroenke.
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby theHotHead » Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:41 pm

I have been saying this for a while, the power of a good manager is far far greater than having decent players, a good manager is what gets cohesion and makes the sum of the parts greater than the parts themselves.

Everyone that had a clue knew what was coming, it wasn't like the ownership model snuck up on people and pulled the rug from under their feet. We first saw it with Jack Walker at Blackburn, then we saw it with Matthew Harding at Chelsea to a small degree then we really saw it with Abramovich. Wenger convinced the board and Arsenal fans that FFP would level the playing field, I knew he was wrong, I knew FFP would do nothing and would be ineffective against the money men who had more clout than UEFA themselves. So we put our money on the wrong horse and lost, now we are trying to play catch up.

But, against the backdrop of doom and gloom the reality was, Wenger didn't leave us in that bad a shape, the new manager only needed to address the defensive frailties ..... and he did nothing of the sort !!! Arteta has come in and is doing more foolishness to compound Emery's foolishness. Thats the real reason why we are so far off, 2 dumbasses incapable of doing a simple basic thing, shore up the defence a bit.
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby Hypergooner » Wed Sep 01, 2021 9:17 pm

Fortunately Arsenal managed to make a global name for themselves in football under Wenger, just as the billionaire lifestyle became a thing. It put us in a strong position as a brand where by we are probably pretty safe from huge collapse. If we started becoming a bottom half club for a year or two, fans would force out the current owners and some overly wealthy Arab would be ready to take us on, as long at the Premier League is the best League in world football. I can't see a Forrestesqu disappearance happening to Arsenal.

Think about it, PSG, famous city, crap League, high tax, nobody cares!

Real and Barca, big clubs average league, country with no economy!

Juv, history, no economy, no fans, average league!

Arseanl, history, huge economy, famous city, sell out crowds, best league in the world, low tax, under performing giant!

I know where my oil money would be going!
Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the attack.

Sun Tzu


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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby Clarkey T » Wed Sep 01, 2021 11:34 pm

I feel to vent.

I know that we have gone from consistent top 4 to, well erm average.

But I see Brighton fans saying they are a bigger club than Arsenal and it annoys me.

They haven't won the things we gave won, they haven't broke records, they haven't had famous champions league nights, they don't have the global fan base we have.

They don't have a board with millions to spend every year which is why they are not going to be bigger than Arsenal and never going to build a history like ours.

They claim that our fans are arrogant to demand top 6 - well if Brighton spent as much money as we spend you would hope their fans demand a top 6 finish.


Yes they may be better than Arsenal at playing football and I respect any club that are willing to develop young players and live within their means financially while doing community work but their fans should be celebrating that rather than claiming to be bigger than clubs who have bags of history and spend big money on transfers and wages.

Will we be great again... yes but not under the current ownership, there doesn't seem to be a clear view of where they want this football club to go,

Our transfers are not exactly statements of intent, more like replace average with expensive average.
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby Goonerred » Thu Sep 02, 2021 7:57 am

It will take a while. I agree with Clarkey above, not under the current regime either.
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby EliteKiller » Thu Sep 02, 2021 10:08 am

The issue is as much about history as it is about the blame game ....

From the late 70's to the mid 00's with the exception of a random club having a good couple of years, it was Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal, we were the dominant London club with wealthy shareholders and even wealthier fans .... then football started to change

Along came Chelsea backed by dirty money, luckily (or in hindsight unluckily) at the same time Chelsea rose up Liverpool dropped the ball, this allowed us to continue with outdated thinking and still stay in the top four, but you can't stop change and soon Man City, backed by an entire country, appeared on the scene, Liverpool regained their senses and even our insignificant neighbours starting making regular top four appearances ...

How did we respond? We really didn't, we just kept doing the same things that had worked in the last century, believing that one or two star players could carry nine or ten journeyman, that changing managers without changing policy would make a difference .... that thinking was and is 100% guaranteed to fail ... look at us today compared with any of our major rivals (all figures from transfermarkt) ... as you can see you need not only star names, but you also now need a whole team of high value players ...

City - 1 player over 100m - 10 players over 50m - another 5 over 30m
Liverpool - 1 player over 100m - 7 players over 50m - another 6 over 30m
Chelsea - 1 player over 100m - 5 players over 50m - another 8 over 30m
Spurs - 1 player over 100m - 2 players over 50m - another 3 over 30m

Arsenal - None over 100m - 1 player over 50m (Saka) - another 4 over 30m

That lack of truly top class players is scary - and you can't say we haven't spent the money - 410m on new players in the last three years.

It does at last look like we have decided to forget about signing OAP's (Xhaka excluded) and instead buy young players with future potential, but even then we seem to be paying top prices for players that nobody else seems to want .... look at this summer window

In - White (23) Odegaard (22) Ramsdale (23) Tomiyasu (22) Lokonga (21) Tavares (21) they cost us 165.5m - their current market value is 119m

Deadwood Out - Willian (33) Luiz (34) ... with zero income

Look at the noisy neighbours

In - Gil (20) Emerson (22) Sarr (18) Gollini (26) Romero (23) that cost them 66.5m (loan to buy will cost them another 62m next summer) so 128.5m - their current market value is 125m

Deadwood Out - Alderweireld (32) Sissoko (32) Hart (34) Rose (30) Lamela (29) Gazzaniga (29) Aurier (28) .... 32.7m income

Nobody yet knows who will have got the better young players but why have we spent 50m more than the value of the players we signed? when Spurs paid just 3.5m over the value of the players they signed?

and how have they shifted almost every player over 29 getting in 32.7m, when we've still got Auba, Laca, Soares, Leno, Elneny who will probably end up in their early thirties running down contracts and leaving for free.

When you ask 'Will Arsenal ever be great again?' Whilst we keep managing the contracts and the transfer business as badly as this then the answer is - not a cat in hells chance. We need better people running the club we're still living with twenty year out of date thinking ... that has to change or 8th will become a good season.
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby RowdyRoddyPoppins » Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:41 pm

NO!!!!!!!
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby PairyGrows » Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:24 pm

RowdyRoddyPoppins wrote:NO!!!!!!!


Sure doesn't look like it.
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby BexleyGooner » Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:41 pm

The good news is yes, we will be great again

Bad news is most of us won’t be alive to see it
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Re: Will Arsenal ever be great again?

Postby Royal Gooner » Wed Jan 26, 2022 9:06 pm

When we get an owner who will spend.

That will Make Arsenal Great Again (we really should have Trump-style hats with that on)
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