Arena "The Beautiful Game" - The Official JCC Football (Soccer) Thread.

I know Wenger brings it on himself- talking up the team's CL chances, wearing that coat, signing Gervinho- but it's really unpleasant watching a great manager's reputation being slowly drawn and quartered.

 

Someone want to page halibut?

 

Indeed. He's hanging, drawing and quartering it himself.

Wenger is like 'The Simpsons'. People lazily say it's a truly great show, when in reality it was only truly great for a few years, and now has more rubbish under its belt than anything else. Wenger is 'The Simpsons'.

 

Wenger.

"used to be great... Isn't anymore"
Needs to move on at the end if the season.

 

*I should point out that Mikel Arteta is to be excluded from any Arsenal-related definition of the word 'rubbish'.

 

5-8 years ago I think he was a step ahead of any other manage rin England. The problem is that he's never really adapted and moved forward, allowing any number of managers to move past him.

 

I agree. He'll go down in history as 'very good', rather than great. His flaws simply weren't apparent until later in his tenure.

 

It's also kinda baffling, the team is much better than their performances and Wenger is a good manager. So why do they continuously suck?

 

an analysis on some of the financial issues Arsenal have been facing, fueling their inability to keep and add quality players.

taken from the always excellent swiss ramble

that Emirates deal seems miniscule in light of other sponsorships. £90m for 15 years of stadium sponsorship AND 8 years of shirt sponsorship? Bargain of the century for Emirates. Arsenal messed that one up, obviously because of the financing for the stadium, but they're paying for it now.

 

So basically they are poor, but given the team they have that is hardly an excuse for constant failure.

The team Arsenal have now is easily good enough to win the League and/or FA Cup which would add money, not to mention the fact they now have the second largest club stadium in the country which should give them decent matchday revenues.

Having money does not mean success, Wenger has been good in the past at getting good players cheaply. Even if Arsenal could afford Messi & Ronaldo they wouldn't automatically start winning stuff. The problem now is the teams he puts out seem to lack belief and play poorly a lot of the time.
Is this because of Wenger? He is responsible for tactics and training after all & must inspire the players to do well. Maybe he doesn't care anymore, but that seems unlikely given his character. Like Ferguson he is driven to succeed and has a shrewd football mind, but Ferguson continues to win while Wenger just fades away.

 

Arsenal's squad isn't good enough to win the league.

 

I agree. They didn't have a good enough team to win the league with RVP and Fabregas, let alone now.

Their commercial revenue issues mean in order to balance the all important books, they've had to rely on player sales. In comparison with the Big 3, they've never spent even £20m on a player. Part of that is Wenger, and his stubbornness, but some of it is the Board.

Given their net expenditure they've done very well to be competitive. But they're now some way off competing for the league.

 

I just had lunch with a friend who's a Bayern fan. The thing that struck both of us the most is that Bayern didn't even play very well and still won comfortably.

 

Stupid freakin crap board software.

 

Took ya long enough.

 

I was too busy lolling

 

Perhaps the only acceptable excuse.

 

i never quite realised how pathetic Arsenal's Emirates deal was.

to further the comparison: United's, albeit staggering, recent 7 year shirt deal with Chevrolet is worth £357m.

Arsenal's 8 year shirt deal with Emirates is worth £48m.

That's £45m per season difference alone, let alone all the other commerical revenues. That's one hell of a great player every year, and the type of player/ambition that would have kept the likes of RVP and Fabregas at the club.

lol @ Arsenal indeed.

 

Obviously Arsenal couldn't attain that kind of deal from Chevrolet, but at the same time they're not 7 1/2 times as small a club as United, either.

 

David Beckham is 7 1/2 times prettier than anyone who has played for Arsenal in the past decade.

Very entertaining match between Galatasaray and Schalke, the hosts up 1-0 with plenty of chances at both ends.

 

Can you do a tad more photoshopping to make it lol@Barca?

 

lol indeed, as it stands now there won't be any Spanish team in the quarter-final.

 

halibut You are my (photoshop) god.