(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 2)

I would try and give ramsey a breather tbh, i'd play sanchez so he can find some form. Regardless of whoever we put on we need 3points. Any word on when Santi and Jack will be back?

NLD live on tv1 this weekend boys

Would not be resting Ozil. We need to win and we are really struggling for goal threat as it is anyway. Not a big fan of resting key players in league games and we can't afford to not win this one. My feeling is more that if you don't win your games now then you don't have any games in the future worth resting anyone for.

Sanchez and Ozil are always out there for me. 

I'd be re-instating Giroud, and giving Welbeck another crack. Drop Walcott. Harsh on Campbell but he stays benched.

I'd put Ramsey on the pine, he's not been as influential as he should be and his goals have dried up. Give Elneny the roaming role to get his energy in the game, with Coquelin behind him.

Perhaps:

                        Cech

Bellerin-Mertesacker-Koscielny-Monreal

               Coquelin-Elneny

            Welbeck-Ozil-Sanchez

                        Giroud

Ah interesting thoughts gents. I guess I'm playing too much FIFA!

As much as the subs are about energy levels, I think they also need to be about mentality. Some times benching a fully fit player who isn't up to their personal level is needed to help them get their head out of their butt. 

I'd be suprised if Campbell doesn't start - should be fresh.

Elneny too. I liked the look of him when he came on - he kept presenting himself for the pass but no one ever passed to him.

Discuss.

I think he'll keep it for as long as he wants it.

It may be that he decides the time is right at the end of the season to retire, though I feel like he really does want to go out on top.

If he delivers another trophy & ECL qualification this season the board would struggle to look at that and see grounds for sacking.

I agree he'll want to go out on top - I wouldn't be surprised if he hung around for a few more seasons to try get his hands on the champions league trophy.

When you look at how changes in management have impacted United, the demise of Liverpool, Chelsea's bizarre rise & fall under Mourinho, and City's desire to get Pep in even though Pellegrini has been doing OK I'm not certain I want to see Wenger go without a solid succession plan in place.

If Steve Bould isn't the man (I don't think he is) it would be great to see his successor come in as his assistant for the season, and then have him take over after he is familiar with the set up.

Spurs winning the league would hurt more than Leicester winning it, especially to the fans.

There are already fans divided over Wenger as is. Spurs winning the league would push a lot more in to the "against" camp.

The board will never sack him though.

His excuse has always been financially we can't compete despite many other flaws. If clubs with less money than us and managers who's reputations are not world-class win it then how can he possibly be the right man for the job.

If we don't win it, I'm not sure how far up Arsene you would have to be to want him to remain. Either that or you like having the p*ss taken out of you year after year. The idea that someone can hold their job for as long as they want it is embarrassing.

I'd love him to replicate his early success right now and will be the first one jumping up and down if we do, yet to be this close and not win it would be disastrous. Especially to those up Seven Sisters. On a separate point, I wouldn't want a coach coming in as an assistant to then be in charge. Should we be looking at getting Kevin Muscat in? 

Play our best team tomorrow, we need to win at all costs.

speaking of campbell i have no idea why he hasnt been getting more gametime, he's streets ahead of walcott and Ox in my opinion. Walcott starting usually makes hector less ineffective

Welbeck 2 games 2 goals

Walcott  21 games 2 goals (City and Leicester)

God i thought i was the only one getting annoyed by him not getting the passes

He will honour his contract and finish May 2017

Every fan should be grateful we had him in charge. 

Resting Ozil is madness IMO

Created more goal scoring chances at OT than the combined total of every other player on the field. If people think he looks low key I suggest they look at his stats

As for Alexis well he's been average all season. His output is way under what he should be contributing. Hopefully he fixes that twice this week.

Pulis' mob grabs a point at Leicester, you beaut. 

Nobody wants this title. 

I don't think the calibre of manager we would want would come in as an assistant for a year..

Something like that would be a very ambitious long-term project. Not sure if the way the football world works now, that it would really possible.

To be honest, the problem these days is us fans. When things are down, we demand change, and a club just has to make that change or risk absolute vitriol in the footballing media, fan protesting, etc etc. That's just how it is now. 

The minute Wenger is gone we'll be on the managerial merry-go-round like everyone else, and it will be pure luck that we get the right combination of players and manager that delivers a trophy or two before they're moved on again at the first hint of failure. Mourinho at Chelsea is a great representation of how it works now. Get someone in, spend a dime, win a title, then sack him the next year when he can't repeat it. Leicester are an anomaly this year, but if they do win, they won't win it again next year. There will be no dynasty or sustained success.  

We're never going to get Barca or ManU style dynasties in the EPL anymore with the difference in the distribution of the tv money. Barca and Real have miles more money than everyone else over there, so basically Barca just have to be better than Real Madrid (and sometimes Atletico of late), and they can win year after year. Someone as amazing as Messi means they have enough to deliver that. The EPL aint like that, it's a lot more competitive with the lower clubs now getting big chunks of cash to spend in the transfer market. Winning a title is tough business, and very hard to back up. No one's won it consecutively since Fergie 6-7 years ago, and I can't see that happening again for some time. 

The Arsenal board need to decide if we're going to lump in with everyone else in the rat race now, or if we want to try something more long-term and ambitious, that would require patience (gulp). 

If I'm brutally honest, I reckon that a great long term decision would've been Klopp, and we've missed that boat. 

Wenger has built a great culture for us, we have an identity and a philosophy, unlike ManC and Chelsea etc. Would be a shame to toss that away and just throw the bucks at people like Van Gaal, Mourinho and the likes. 

De Boer? He would bring that ideal of following a philosophy from Ajax (which is where Barca got it from), he'd bring Bergkamp as well... not the worst idea to try perhaps. 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsena...

Fark.

I think you're missing the point paul. I'm not wanting change because we don't win, I can accept that.

What I get over is the same old mistakes, happening every season, nothing different happening and the culture of a club/team having been taken off us with players of no heart getting rewarded and celebrating mediocrity.

The fans point you bring is an interesting part. I think most Arsenal fans are a lot nicer than most others and give the current regime more patience than they deserve.

Would I take a step back to get out of this in the short-term and hold a bit of patience as you say, absolutely.

De Boer yes and I do agree that a short-term like Mourinho may not be best, Simeone would be top for me however.

The derby really is stacking up to be the biggest in years presuming we get the right result tomorrow.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sorry I wasn't responding to you at all POL... just to Valeo's comment about the assistant manager idea, and then a bit of a ramble of my own thoughts.

Definitely agree with all this though.

This is pretty devastating. 

Top post POL. It's not about the not winning, it's about the same old mistakes season after season and the refusal to change. With someone new coming in, I'd expect and be quite happy to accept a transitional season, maybe 2, where the new man is given the time to bring in the players he wants, change the setup etc and not expected to win everything in his first season. It's not "bring in Mourinho/whoever and win the league straight away." I just want to make different mistakes at this point.

The injury that's cost us the most. Midfield has been a dire mess since he went down.

My mistake paul - I do give you plaudits for the rational nature of your posts too.

Just had a look at our schedule for March and it's a tall order. I would love to say let's go for it all but I really think we rotate a little and put everything towards the league push.

Swansea (h) midweek

NLD (a) weekend

Hull Cup replay (a) midweek

West Brom (h) weekend

Barca (a) midweek

Everton (a) weekend

Honestly, if we brought in Mourinho and won I wouldn't feel the same as if Wenger wins it this year. It would feel empty.

I know this seems to be the common argument but I don't see it. You guys will probably jump all over me for this post but hey, do your worst ;)

"We can't win the big games" is not the issue at all for me, it's just not correct. Two seasons ago we had a terrible run in the big games, with big losses to Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City. Wenger publicly identified it as an issue and said they were putting a lot of work into it. We've improved remarkably since then in the big games. It's been frequently noted after big victories that our style for the big games had altered to a more pragmatic approach, and it's working. So far this season, against the other members of the top 4, we've taken 10 points from a possible 12. We also beat ManU already, and won backs-to-the-wall games in Europe when we needed wins to get to the next round, including beating Bayern Munich. 

We lost to Chelsea twice, but they aren't a big game this season, and both times we were down to 10 men. Those things can and do happen, and the first game was a travesty as shown by the rescinding of Gabriel's red, and the post-match ban for Costa. They shoulda had 10 men, not us, and the game would've been a lot different. 

The performance against ManU was absolutely dire, and I am so p*ssed off at how bad that was, but just a week earlier we played in a much bigger game, against the league leaders, and won! Then we got run around by the best team in the world, and travelled to OT 3 days later. Still a really poor performance, but lets take some perspective! Not forgetting we absolutely bashed a much better ManU team a few months earlier, and we knocked them out of the FA Cup at OT last season.

The loss to ManU was not a repeat of anything in my opinion. It was a sh*t performance, and yet we still probably should've got a result with the possession and chances we had.

The other argument seems to be that we fall away every year, again not true. We have done that a couple of times since 2004, notably 2008, 2011 and 2013 (from memory), but the funny thing is that we've more often started poorly, and then come on really strong in the second half. 

I for one am a big proponent of assessing the season at the end of it. If we pull out of this and win the title, then what a waste of breath and angst this stuff is. If we don't, then keen to look back at individual performances like the ManU game, the Soton game, and a couple of other bad ones, and use those as reasoning to get rid of the manager. If that's the way the board goes I can understand that. Sad for Wenger, but entirely possible, and understandable, should we fail to win a trophy at all. I think I'm more on the fence were he to win a third consecutive FA Cup but no title, not really sure how I would feel in that situation.

I just think that the culture of us fans now is to dredge up old issues and blame those for every loss, when we're just over-analysing really. The common thing with past problems and current problems is Wenger, so I guess it is only natural to look at him, and if he doesn't win the league this year and is sacked, I wouldn't be too surprised, that is the way of the world now. 

But I'm more interested in just getting ready for the next game, supporting the team, and judging the whole thing at season's end. 

I will never forget the opening day loss to Villa a cupla years back, and the crazed way we all reacted to that, everyone wanted wenger sacked - I think that's the closest I came to saying it, only for the team to put in a decent title challenge against the odds, we signed ozil, and won our first trophy in ages, including the amazing comeback in the final after we'd gone 2 behind. Those three things were so unexpected after that start to the season, and the history of us not having the cash to sign guys like Ozil. Amazingly we didn't repeat the same mistakes the next season... we signed Sanchez who carried us through our team's post-world cup daze, and then won the FA Cup in a canter, putting the terrible Hull final behind us. 

Now here we are, expecting a title win, and justifiably so. It's the logical next step to what Wenger has been building since the infamous squad revolution of 2011. 

Cmon Wenger. This is it pal, pick these lads up and get it done. Games don't get bigger than tomorrow and Sunday. 

I'd like Jorge Sampaoli come in with his 3-3-1-3 especially if Ozil is the 1

man this is so tough

No it has not been anyone's argument that we fall away every year. The point has been that when we have been in with a chance of winning the league - notably 07/08 and 13/14 - he has not made the required signings and done that little bit extra to drag us to the title. In 2008 we were 5 points clear then imploded after Birmingham. In 13/14 we led for most of the season, things were looking so good the board even took the opportunity to announce a ticket price increase for the next season in November or something ridiculous. But it was clear we needed something a bit extra in January to help a stretched squad. He didn't do it and again we imploded quite spectacularly to the point where it looked like we might even miss out on 4th. We didn't just lose a tight race in the last couple of weeks, each time we capitulated from a position where we were running away with it.

However, when we have got to the halfway point and 4th has been in doubt, he has been able to drive the squad onto a strong second half of the season and achieve what looked unlikely. Sometimes it's been helped by January signings (Adebayor and Diaby in 05/06, Arshavin in 08/09), sometimes by a bit of luck with fitness (Van Persie managing to stay fit for one full season and going on an unreal run of form). Why he hasn't been able to find the same drive when the title has been in sight I don't know.

“Santi is not doing too well. He has some Achilles problems that hold him (back). His knee is doing well but his Achilles has inflamed a little bit and we have to put him off impact.

“It is a reaction to him coming back. We have to see now how he responds. He had always a little tendonitis on his Achilles and we have to see how he responds to that.”

That doesn't sound too horrendous. If he's been training & inflamed it surely some rest/physio will calm it down. If he's done a complete pull or new injury we're fudgeed, but I think we might be pleasantly suprised by this.

I think Spurs are the team to beat, after watching Leicester this morning. 

Leicester are tiring, I feel 10 more games is a stretch too far for them, particularly considering their final 3 games, I don't think they'll be able to do it. 

Spurs are absolutely frightening right now, they are winning without Kane etc when they need to, and I feel they are much more dangerous with sustained possession than Leicester and their counter attacks, which usually rely so heavily on 2 individuals. 

These two games are so massive to be able to keep us in it. Swansea scare the bejesus out of me anyway - we don't seem to do well against them in the midweek games in particular. Then spurs this weekend.

Fark, it doesn't bear thinking about, not sure if I can handle this. 

Spurs winning the league is an unthinkable horror but they do look the best team at the moment. Surely they are going to Spurs it up aren't they? Can't believe we're saying things like "Spurs winning the league" at this stage of the season.

Like in 2011/2012 when they qualified for Europe by coming 4th only for Chelsea to win the ECL and take their spot.

Or that 2012/2013 when they were beat us in the NLD in round 28 leaving us 7 points behind, confident of claiming 4th and finishing above us only for us to pick up 26/30 points for the final stretch to finish 1 point above them.

Or in 2003/2004 when we won the league at sharke fart lane.

Lasagne 2006 too.

Though, it would be entertaining seeing the meltdowns in here if Spurs were to win.

I'm more concerned with us Arsenalling it up than anything the other lot does.

I'm probably the most negative fan here and truly don't believe we'll win the league now. I just don't want Spurs to win it. I'd honestly be happy with winning the FA Cup again and holding onto 4th.