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

Opening myself up here to be torn apart and ridiculed by Gooners (which doesn't bother me too much as they are just Gooners) but do any of you, who know your team well see a similarity between what LFC are doing now and what AFC started 10 or so years ago?

• Inability to hold onto top players as refuse to pay top scale wages
• Making team/club/stadium financially secure and viable valued over buying marquee players en masse to 'buy' titles
• Development & purchase of young players
• Sticking with a long term plan rather than knee jerk change of managers/back office staff

It feels like Arsenal right now are close to embarking on a significant period of being a Top 2 team for the coming future and is the long term pain worth the even longer term gain that may come from it?

EDIT: ...or is it wishful thinking from a long suffering Liverpool fan.

Interesting thoughts.

Bar Suarez who have you lost? Alonso back in 2009?

You guys have spent a lot on players over the last few years...

Money spent on players since June 2013 -
Man Utd - £238m
Chelsea - £222m
Liverpool - £167m
Man City - £166m
Arsenal - £135m

You haven't upgraded your stadium.

I think it's just struggle street for Liverpool after a string of bad acquisitions on both a managerial & player level.

• I'm saying that is a point we are arriving at now so only looking at things since FSG took over. Lose Suarez, possibly lose Sterling and struggle to attract top players in the last 3 - 4 years
• We are currently upgrading our stadium taking it from 45,000 to 59,000 and this work is underway.

You're struggling to attract top talent because you're not in the Champions League. We struggled to attract top talent because we had no money. 

given this mornings result no Champion League again. 

Arsenal never had no money, just chose to spend it in a certain way. 

Well we had debt and we could have increased it, yeah.

Edit: report on our finances from September. The most relevant quote being: 

"So why not spend the cash reserves of $208M reported and shown in the chart above?

Jumping to the conclusion that Arsenal has $208M available to spend on new players is like looking at your bank balance after pay day and deciding that you can spend the lot. What you have in the bank is only relevant once you have accounted for all the payments that have yet to clear and the liabilities you need to settle before pay day comes around again."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2014/09/20/latest-accounts-show-financial-times-have-changed-for-arsenal/

Anyone else getting concerned over Villa's form?

We're not playing too badly either...

No. If we play properly we win. 

Still need 10 points to get second as well. Plenty to do.

At home to Swansea, I'm hoping we do a little bit of rotation. Possibly give Walcott, Welbeck, Jack, Paulista a hit out?

Or with 5 games left do you stick with the same 11 that's been working?

Probably stick with the same 11 for now, unless Ramsey isn't quite 100% there's no point risking him.

Err...Do you think its fair to have more games than everyone else ?

FA Cup Final makes 5.

So yes, it is fair.

Oh yep sorry - my mistake... I erased all thoughts of the FA Cup after about March 9th :-)

bring in Gibbs, Paulista and Rosicky

Rest Nacho, Meat and Ramsey.

We've had a week since our last game and there's six days until our next game, so we should be playing our best XI. If there is to be any rotation I guess it will be against Sunderland next Wednesday in our catch up game.

rambo with a slight niggle

walcott's chance? 

or maybe he'll go with wilshere to retain the balance?

Lol this is absolute robbery.

There goes second place, realistically. 

well that was a blow

this weekend's game just got massive

Would imagine 3rd too given we're away at United next. If there's one thing Wenger knows it's how to get 4th.

Still in our hands even if we lose at ManU. 

We best not f*ck this up now.

Why bother with 2nd/3rd when there's that 4th place trophy up for grabs!

If we were to win the FA Cup and get 4th then that's the Double again (the New Double that is...).

And them CL qualifiers next season - they're to get a lot tougher now for BPL teams? 

Only The Arsenal could fall into a bucket of tits and come up sucking his thumb...

Even if we lose there we still get third by winning the following two games. Cheer up. 

I see there's a couple of posters who have been waiting for a few months for a loss so they could start moaning again...

It really was just one of those games. They happen. 

Yep.

Take a look at the shots in the second half, pretty funny really.

None of those shots really threatened to go in unfortunately. Fabianski was solid and his positioning was perfect but everything was straight at him really and don't think he had to make a save I wouldn't expect to make as a Cap 8 keeper. Alas goals win matches not possession.

Don't worry I'm plenty cheerful with a Cup Final to look forward to. Don't really care about league position now top 4 is safe though it would be nice to avoid the playoff. Had forgotten we have a game in hand compared to United.

Here's hoping we go into the FA Cup Final with the form we have shown lately and without anymore injuries. If we finish 2nd or 4th it doesn't matter much to me, it's all about winning trophies and reminding everyone we are the Arsenal. While I know there's a difference of a playoff game, we always do the job there.

We do always do a job there but I hate that kind of pressure so early in the season. I would much prefer 3rd for my heart's sake!

Ajc, none of those shots threatened to go in, but they should've! Sanchez and then Walcott with the follow up were the two that stuck out for me, that should've been 1-0, done and dusted.

Yep there were more than enough chances to win that game but the finishing was unusually poor for our recent form.

There is a big difference, it's two games we could do without. 

This biggest difference is whether you can negotiate offseason with Yes Champions League or actually maybe play-offs.