2014/15 Association Football (Soccer) thread

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how does wenger retain his job season after season, dissapointing result after dissapointing result? idk whats crazier, the fact that this man has not been fired yet although arsenal has been incompetent for almost a decade, or the fact that arsenal fans actually want him back! its crazy. if another big european club such as barcelona, bayern, or chelsea were to endure such embarassing losses season after season the manager would be GONE. but wenger stays. can an arsenal fan explain this to me?
I might as well start from the beginning for the benefit of some people who might be too young to remember some of this... Arsenal were a boring, traditional, long ball English team which had some moderate domestic success. We finished 5th the season before Wenger arrived and 12th the season before that. Newcastle were a much bigger club, so were Leeds, Blackburn, Nottingham Forest among others. Wenger himself was a complete unknown with many papers skeptical or even making fun of the appointment. In the season he arrived, we finished in 3rd with only goal difference separating us from the Champions League. In his first full season we won the league and FA Cup double. He brought in some young players: for example Anelka, Henry, Vieira, Petit, Ljungberg, Pires, Overmars, Wiltord while competing with Man Utd who were able to spend £10, £20 up to £30m on players because they were the biggest and most dominant English club financially.

He changed the way our players train, eat, and play and was one of the first managers in England to do so. Now it's normal and it might not seem like a big deal but most players back then saw nothing wrong with having a Mars bar before the game, a smoke at half time and a beer after the match. English teams did not do well in Europe at the time (hence 2 CL spots, only 1 the previous season) and it would be lazy to say Wenger modernized English football because the English game was heading that way anyway, but it is fair to say the arrival of Wenger gave the whole football profession a big kick up the backside and helped it on its way to becoming relevant again in Europe.

Another double and a few FA Cups followed while Utd won many titles including the Treble before Wenger decided in 2002 that the only way to compete with Man Utd and become a top club in Europe was to build a bigger stadium and modern training facility. And he convinced the board to do it with only the money Arsenal could generate from football in order to not rack up debt and risk financial trouble. And he committed himself to leading Arsenal despite knowing better than anyone that it would mean trying to compete while having to sell your best players every year for the next 10 years. A simple way to look at it is that the stadium cost £500m and that's how much had to be taken out of the first team to pay for it. Arsenal won another league title, the "invincible" season, and another FA Cup.

And so it began; Wenger couldn't spend and started buying teenagers like Van Persie, Fabregas and Kolo Toure and promoted academy players like Ashley Cole. Pires, Vieira, Cole, Henry (who was very loyal to Wenger), Adebayor, Hleb, Flamini, Toure, Van Persie, Fabregas, Nasri, Clichy, Song, these are just off the top of my head: players bought for nothing and sold at the peak of their careers. The reason for Wenger's "disappointing result after disappointing result" is because the last 10 years or so he has had to replace top quality with young players and still try to compete. Which other manager can sell their best player every single summer and still set records like the first team to reach 60pts in February, reaching the CL final, reach the CL knockout stages 15 seasons in a row? He has done an unbelievable job. When he finally retires and leaves English football, history will remember him as one of the greatest to ever come to these shores. His legacy will be transforming a traditional English club with a small local fanbase into one of the best in the world. I'm just amazed he stayed at Arsenal. He could have went to Real Madrid. Or PSG. Or any of the Italian clubs when they were still top of Europe. He had so many offers down the years but he stayed with Arsenal and put the club on a totally new course.

All the critics who say he is not delivering enough titles to a world class club like Arsenal is probably the best compliment he could get.
 
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No Luck Involved that was a very informative post, thank you for that. i actually did not know this about arsenal, and it puts things into perspective for me. basically without wenger arsenal would not be a top tier english club, much less competing for european honors. i only watch the EPL when i can, so i was not aware of arsenal's situation.

so next year when arsenal reach the KO stages of the CL and don't progress past that, i will promise to not bash wenger. i will just look at it as something that was bound to happen... i mean, consistency is key right?
 
The players put on the pitch are good enough to get jobs done.. they just decide to show up whenever they want, and rarely ever when pressured.. which is why i was surprised as hell we won at Palace.

Giroud and Mertesacker will forever be eyesores.


And really.. blame the player's mentality, heart, and grit. Not much else. Soft and undisciplined team for the most part.
 

Lee

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The players put on the pitch are good enough to get jobs done.. they just decide to show up whenever they want, and rarely ever when pressured.. which is why i was surprised as hell we won at Palace.

Giroud and Mertesacker will forever be eyesores.


And really.. blame the player's mentality, heart, and grit. Not much else. Soft and undisciplined team for the most part.

I think, in that regard, Arsenal's best players under Wenger were Adams and Viera. They gave them that toughness and infectious will-to-win and they left a hole that has never been filled. I had hoped Wilshere might grow into a suitable replacement but that seems to have gone pete tong. I think it's partially why Wenger went in for Suarez...not just for his goals but for his competitive spirit. It's the main flaw with poaching young, technically gifted players from other leagues...you've no way of knowing if they're gonna have that fire in their belly.
 
Puncheon in my fantasy team, in a gameweek where a pointless cup final takes away most peoples players.
and Hearts won 10-0
 

HBK

Subtlety is my middle name
2-1, Henderson and Coutinho with two cracking goals. Sit tight Liverpool, 10 mins more and it's all over. For City.
 

HBK

Subtlety is my middle name
Coutinho is clearly better than Oscar. He needs to be more consistent but it's not like Oscar's consistent. He offers more going forward and is a better dribbler and finisher. Oscar's got the talent but he tends to fade off in games. That's the first thing I noticed about him when I saw him play his first game for us. He's not as blunt as Willian but he still needs to be more adventurous, take more risks (although that can be said for the team as a whole). If Coutinho's more consistent, Liverpool just might creep into fourth place.
 
Great Win for Norwich in the Old Farm Derby today. We move up to third 3 points behind 1st, with 6 wins a row I'm feeling confident we'll be in the EPL next season.
 
Coutinho is clearly better than Oscar. He needs to be more consistent but it's not like Oscar's consistent. He offers more going forward and is a better dribbler and finisher. Oscar's got the talent but he tends to fade off in games. That's the first thing I noticed about him when I saw him play his first game for us. He's not as blunt as Willian but he still needs to be more adventurous, take more risks (although that can be said for the team as a whole). If Coutinho's more consistent, Liverpool just might creep into fourth place.
Idk about fourth, I'm not getting my hopes up bc liverpools specialty is breaking my heart, but it's definitely possible. Rodgers loves post-christmas fixtures my dude. And yeah Coutinho is great, he'll get there you gotta remember he's like 22 he's still learning, the only thing about his game I dont like is the ludicrous attempts he takes sometimes but hell they work out every now and then

This team is still young as hell, it's great, we have so many more years out of Sterling, Coutinho, Ibe, Henderson, Allen, Markovic, etc. provided none of them leave (i think Sterling probably will which is a shame) but frankly I'm shocked the team is doing as well as they are without Suarez
 

HBK

Subtlety is my middle name
Revenge is a dish best served wet. First trophy of the season, feels fucking awesome! City lose and we end the night as champions! #BestDayEver
 

Imanalt

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fuck everything, looking forward to a barely deserved 8th place with not much positive to show for the season other than from 3 or 4 players
 
Also starting to look like I was correct in my predictions that Southampton will not finish top 4 this year, or frankly any year, because it's lunacy and won't happen
 

shade

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Great Win for Norwich in the Old Farm Derby today. We move up to third 3 points behind 1st, with 6 wins a row I'm feeling confident we'll be in the EPL next season.
i think i've probably told you this on irc, but im of the opinion that you have the best squad in the champo - deffo promotion material
 
Yeah, I agree I was surprised how badly we were doing. BJ has been amazing of late 10 goals this year mostly from long range. Favourite for pots at this stage.
 

HBK

Subtlety is my middle name
Phew, that was close. Never expected this game to be easy, but we really should've scored more. I'd have been so fucking mad at Willian had West Ham somehow snatched a late equaliser; Hazard did everything and unselfishly laid it off for him to screw it up. Zouma was surprisingly composed and effective in midfield yet again, following that great league cup final performance and Courtois was a beast, spending some time on the bench seems to have galvanised the fuck out of him. Terry's been the best centre back in the league and showed it yet again. And Ramires was on steroids tonight. We just need to score more goals, the only thing that City can hope to do is outscore us and take advantage of any 0-0s or 1-1s.
 
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