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

Don't think Henry has a chance of being a top manager straight away; everything has been a little bit too easy for him getting his license etc. We'll see I guess, but I think he need to go to the lower leagues and earn his way like everyone else.

I agree

Board will probably wait 

;)

In all seriousness though he doesn't necessarily need to go elsewhere first

De boer and Guardiola are two current managers who have done very well coming through at big clubs

Real are trying to do it with Zidane

https://arseblog.com/2016/04/bring-head-diego-simeone-rest-please/

Klinsmann is another who went straight into management with success, though weirdly at international level but didn't do so well at club level.

Beats 0-0 to Sunderland

I've been convinced for a while that Vieira and Adams were effectively the managers back in those days and Wenger merely picked the team, so this statement doesn't really surprise me.

erm... what? 

Sorry lost all respect for you there ajc. 

There's a lot of venom towards wenger for the more recent seasons, which is understandable, but then there's straight up deluded crap like that which is on another level entirely. 

No need to make it personal because our opinion differs. That was a quote from someone who was actually in the team which basically said as much. "Vieira told us not to listen to the manager but to do this instead."

Edit: Forget it, not worth going into detail really, I just disagree 100%.

Yeah I haven't got the energy for that argument either, it was just a comment based on a comment from someone who was in the team. 

English Premier League giants Arsenal have locked in the dates for their highly-anticipated 2017 Sydney tour.

The Gunners have promised to bring their big names Down Under for the ANZ Stadium clashes against Sydney FC on Thursday July 13 2017 and then against Western Sydney Wanderers two days later.

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/au/news/arsenal-lock-sydney-dates

[Sorry if the confirmed dates have already been posted]

Thanks, hadn't seen the confirmed dates yet.

79 days till tickets go on sale for Arsenal games in Sydney; https://t.co/eGkQbD1iBI

— Lou Sticca (@Lou_Sticca) April 29, 2016

That's good the tickets go on sale so far in advance. Can make sure of getting tickets before booking the trip.

Sounds a bit Any Given Sunday to me.

Welbeck has to start against City. That was awful to watch but happy with the 3 points. Nice to see Cazorla on the bench

And we simply MUST bring in a quality striker.

lol @ the 'protest', cringey af.

I was there. The fans are so divided on this. Leads to such a toxic atmosphere. Fwiw the Norwich fans were superb.

The fan with that banner is the most cringeworthy thing I've seen. Proud of winning the 4th place trophy

I think you're misinterpreting this a bit, being proud of your manager and being disappointed by the way fans treat him and being proud of finishing 4th are two different things.

"The demo duly came on 12 minutes, marking one for every year Arsenal have been deprived of the Premier League title. There were around 300 banners held, accompanied by a mix of booing, jeering and applause as Wenger stood in his rectangle pretending to watch the football, but looking a little sad and thin and brave. There were chants of “We love you Arsenal”, followed by “One Arsène Wenger”. It was a slightly meandering, slightly inconclusive Arsenal demonstration. Or in other words, an Arsenal demonstration."

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/apr/30/ar...

"Around 300 banners held". Out of 60k. 

With all due respect brumbys I know what he is meaning. The amount of rubbish he has given us of late I don't understand how anyone can say he is exempt from hostility.

An arsenal demonstration as described above simply reflecting that alot of supporters that go to home games nowadays (because the way the club is run) are people who wouldn't complain if Wenger was pissing on them. Other clubs home supporters have a lot more backbone when organising these things.

It seemed like a lot more than 300 tbh. Not that i'm agreeing with it at all, seemed like a bizarre way to protest, but definitely seemed like more than 300.

Fair play. Must admit, I wasn't actually there as I had another engagement. 

As opposed to people that just moan about the club online? lol.

Arseblog did a pretty good write-up the game and protest.

https://arseblog.com/2016/05/arsenal-1-0-norwich-wi...

Personally I was annoyed at the distraction when we were trying to win an important game of football, particularly in the 78th minute when it was the last thing the players needed to have in their face while they were going very close to getting the game-sealing second goal. As it turns out this was a huge win with the teams around us all dropping points. Just because we're not going to win the title doesn't mean there isn't a huge amount of pressure on the team every game right now. We're one win away from the top 4, but more importantly we have a massive game against City next, to try and be top 3 and avoid the qualification round. We are away which I think is a good thing since the team seems to play better away from our own fans. 

Arseblog's piece in his blog on the protest was pretty well-balanced in my opinion;

On 12 minutes some people held up their signs. Some other people remonstrated with them. Then the crowd sang ‘We love you Arsenal we do’, followed by a chorus of ‘One Arsene Wenger’. To say the whole thing felt flat is an understatement.

All the same, I don’t think it’s healthy or constructive to dismiss the overriding sentiment behind the protest. 

If you spend a lot of time online you can end up thinking that Twitter conversations are a mirror of real life. What we saw yesterday was that there’s a great big world outside the 140 character bubble who pay little or no heed to what happens inside it.

However, I have no doubt that there were many people inside the stadium who would like a new manager but who simply wanted no part of the protest. Only they can tell you why that is. Perhaps it’s because they view the 90 minutes as sacrosanct, perhaps it’s respect for Arsene Wenger, perhaps it’s not wanting to associated with some of the murkier elements of this protest movement, and their point of view ought to be respected.

Those who protest have insisted they have a right for their voices to be heard, and they were afforded that yesterday. The same should apply to those who choose not to protest or those who don’t agree with it for whatever reasons they may have. They don’t not love the club because they don’t protest. They don’t simply accept ‘mediocrity’ because they refuse to wave an A4 piece of paper.

I do wonder where it goes from here though. Is this going to be a thing at every game, home and away now? Or has the point been made? Some people want change, some people still support the manager. Do we accept that and live with it, or does there have to be some kind of Arsenal civil war? My fear is that it will develop into the latter, but with just two games left this season, and hopefully a summer that renews hope and optimism via the transfer market, we can have something akin to a fresh start next season.

If this happens I'd like to see Henry vs Walcott.

Aotearoa fans on Arsenal TV now.

What we've got here is a failure to communicate

So with a fully fit squad (first time since when???), the following players couldn't even get onto our bench at the weekend;

Gibbs

Chambers

Campbell

Flamini

Rosicky

Arteta

Oxlade-Chamberlain

Shows that we have plenty of depth, so we just need to replace a couple of these guys with top quality now... that's the challenge for next season.

Some rumours we're after Lewandoski for 50mil. That would be a bargain quite frankly. 

Did Campbell do something to Wenger personally? How he isn't on the bench ahead of Theo is crazy.

Hesitate to call it a "protest" when in reality it was a few A4 signs some guy had printed off his home PC and handed out. While I agreed with the messages it all seemed a bit lame and pointless and all it does is make us a bit more of a laughing stock to opposition fans. As long as the fans have bought their tickets and turned up that's all that matters to the board, no amount of booing or banners or abuse make any difference other than maybe negatively distracting the players. 17,000 people or whatever it was not turning up to the last game would have been much more noticeable.

+1

Interesting article that reflects what a lot of us have been saying about Campbell and Walcott

https://www.espnfc.com.au/club/arsenal/359/blog/post/2863423/joel-campbell-seemingly-surplus-at-arsenal

Not gonna lie, I screamed when Hazard scored the equaliser. If it wasn't going to be us, damned if it was going to be them...