Arsenal 2013-2014: Insufferable & Unsuccessful -- And Worse than Chelsea
- Thread starter sachmoney
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In all seriousness, I'm questioning why I should keep supporting Arsenal. I've been a fan since the Bruce Rioch era, have seen maybe 30-40 matches at Highbury (not counting the match I played there myself or the Champions League group game I saw at the old Wembley), know the history of the club back to Herbert Chapman and Bertie Mee, can recite whole passages of Fever Pitch, etc. etc. - my support for Arsenal is as deep as my support for any team in any other sport. But the fact is, I have other American sports teams I care about just as much as Arsenal, and none of those teams or the leagues they play in are anything like as dysfunctional as Arsenal and the Premier League are (unless you count the NCAA, but that's another story). I mean, if an NFL or MLB team went an entire offseason without making a trade or signing more than one minimum-salaried free agent, it would become a candidate for contraction or relocation. Meanwhile, I've heard several pundits describe the 2013-14 Premier League season as "the most wide open in years", which I guess means that as many as three teams can realistically win the title instead of only one or two. Even if Arsenal had bought normally over the last two months, their range of likely outcomes for the season - 3rd-6th in the league, maybe a domestic cup final or semifinal, Champions League mediocrity - is so narrow as to be almost suspense-less except on a week-to-week basis. The on-field product of the Premier League remains gripping, but it increasingly lacks any kind of meaningful context over the course of a full season; meanwhile, financial inequality means the haves and have-nots will likely remain unchanged for the forseeable future, while financial immorality amongst agents looking for higher fees, players looking to change clubs and clubs looking to destabilize players makes every transfer window seem increasingly tawdry.
Arsenal remains a well-off club, and it can still (for now, at least) pretend to dream of Premiership and European success - which I know is much more than most clubs can dream of. But in every other professional sport I follow, I believe that if my team is well run and the breaks fall its way, it will have a chance to compete for a championship. In theory, no NFL or MLB team is more than 2-3 years away from playoff contention at any given point. Can that be said of Arsenal? Even if Arsenal were well run, which it transparently isn't, I'm not sure I believe that any more...and given that Arsenal has finished in the top four every year for several decades, how damning an indictment is that of the Premier League itself? At least in Ligue 1 or the Bundesliga you get the occasional Montpellier or Wolfsburg sneak through to win the title. (And in baseball, the Giants can win the World Series one year and be relegation candidates the next year...but I digress.)
I don't mind supporting bad teams - I grew up in Atlanta in the 1980s - but this summer I've gone from being stupefied at Arsenal's stupidity to wondering why it even matters. That's much worse than the initial stupefaction...maybe Silent Stan knew something we didn't all along?
Arsenal remains a well-off club, and it can still (for now, at least) pretend to dream of Premiership and European success - which I know is much more than most clubs can dream of. But in every other professional sport I follow, I believe that if my team is well run and the breaks fall its way, it will have a chance to compete for a championship. In theory, no NFL or MLB team is more than 2-3 years away from playoff contention at any given point. Can that be said of Arsenal? Even if Arsenal were well run, which it transparently isn't, I'm not sure I believe that any more...and given that Arsenal has finished in the top four every year for several decades, how damning an indictment is that of the Premier League itself? At least in Ligue 1 or the Bundesliga you get the occasional Montpellier or Wolfsburg sneak through to win the title. (And in baseball, the Giants can win the World Series one year and be relegation candidates the next year...but I digress.)
I don't mind supporting bad teams - I grew up in Atlanta in the 1980s - but this summer I've gone from being stupefied at Arsenal's stupidity to wondering why it even matters. That's much worse than the initial stupefaction...maybe Silent Stan knew something we didn't all along?
ConigliarosPotential said:
This is a rather funny bout of self pitying and excuse making.
I mean, holy fucking fuck, Arsenal fans are complaining about financial inequality and the hopelessness of competition in the league? Basically only four teams have won the Premier League since its inception and Arsenal is one of those teams. Do you think fans of other teams enjoyed watching "the Invincibles" run riot through the league? (some did, of course, but you know what I mean). From 97 to 04, Arsenal were a fucking freight train. When Wenger showed up at Arsenal, he spent immediately to bring in a few players, among them Viera and Overmars. It was a significant sum at the time. They've spent a fair amount of money since, and have only been overrun in recent years, but it's not because of the competitive climate and agents fees, but because they've chosen to pocket a fantastic amount of money:
30m for Fabregas
25m for Adebayor
23m for Anelka
25m for Overmars! 20m profit!
23m for RvP
20m for Nasri
Arsenal chose to try to diversify and sign bunches of mid premium players as opposed to massive stars, but they've clearly had enough money to buy the massive stars. This is a tactical choice by your manager and board, not a symptom of a league that Arsenal can't compete in. Had Arsenal just reinvested the RvP and Nasri money at any point, the 40m could have bought them several players who have transferred over the past 3/4 windows and absolutely could have had Arsenal in the pre season conversation for who will win the league. Arsenal also choice to vote FOR the Financial Fair Play rules that are going to hamstring them and everyone else in terms of spending more money to succeed. When Arsenal finally does get a new ownership, maybe one that is willing to spend to get Arsenal back into the top tier, they're not going to be able to, because FFP supposedly will prevent them (as soon as Platini gets over the inconvenient fact that his family members are employed by PSG, the team that seems to find FFPR irrelevant).
The league has always been haves versus have nots, at least in its modern incarnation. I recognize that it sucks to be in the "have nots" category, but this is entirely of their own doing and honestly the squad is not far enough away from competing for the league for your lament to even seem reasonable. Simply having been able to retain RvP and brought in another player or two would have Arsenal challenging for the title. Finding a striker in that stratosphere has certainly gotten expensive, but it isn't impossible (and Giroud looks worlds better this season from what I've seen in pre season and the first match). Nonetheless, this IS likely to be one of the most wide open league campaigns in recent memory, because a bunch of teams, including Arsenal, are completely viable for both the top 4 and even the first spot. I can't believe I'm giving a "stop being a nancy" pep talk to a fucking Gooner, but one bad result at the weekend and the continued toxic environment doesn't relegate Arsenal to 2nd or 3rd tier status. And, honestly, it's not like it's only about money. Laudrup is making that Swansea side into a Europa contender. Given the disparity between Arsenal and Swansea's payroll, is it too much to ask Wenger to coach the team up a little above its level? There are PL teams doing this year in and year out. Hell, even MUFC have been at a relative talent disparity (imo) at times during Whiskeynose's recent reign (shoot me now), but he's had that team at the top of the table year in and year out, spending big when necessary and working to identify talent (BEBE!) on the cheap as well. It's not that it isn't doable--it's that Arsenal hasn't done it.
From a bigger picture (and uninformed outsider's) perspective, I think Arsenal really went off the rails years ago, when they failed to turn their wave of success into a sustainable product. When you see what Barcelona was able to setup with La Masia and their general complex around the stadium, and what City is trying to setup with the massive youth complex and tons of commercial investments, I can't help but feel like Arsenal didn't maximize their opportunity when they were at the very pinnacle. I think there was a time there where Arsenal could have become THE alternative to MUFC, had players wanting to play for them because of simply who they are, and driven tons of revenue with partnerships and serious investment in the youth system. I'm sure much, if not all of this, was done to some extent, but somehow it didn't bear enough fruit to keep the Arsenal engine firing on all cylinders as inevitably change occurred and a few mistakes were made. That Arsenal somehow ended up too poor to buy to strengthen as RvP finally turned into a peach is the real turning point for this club. They arrived with a few youth products and enough juice to have been a destination for some really good players. There's an alternate world Arsenal where they're probably last season's champions and they're challenging for the CL, they probably just needed to have 50-60m to invest 2 seasons ago. It's sort of amazing that that money wasn't there.
To come back to your original post, though, I think you're just being way way way overdramatic. Imagine reading your post as a fan of Villa, Norwich, Hull, etc. These teams actually can't compete because FFPR basically won't ever let them spend the sums necessary to do so. Arsenal still has this capability, they just need to find a way to exercise it. I still think Wenger is a good manager, and they've made some fantastic buys in recent times that would be league changers if they were able to supplement with a few of the expensive ones as well. It's hard to say what is really driving their transfer policy, and if it is Wenger then he's cutting off his nose to spite his face, and he should be forced out. If he really desperately wants to spend, then the ownership is the problem and there's no manager that can do much more. In either case, Arsenal is hardly the only club, current or past, who has been unable to compete due to poor leadership. That's pretty much par for the course for any club these days.
ConigliarosPotential said:
Sounds like you answered your own question.
The amount of clubs in a worse situation than arsenal is substantial, I find it hard to understand any reason why a person would stop supporting their club, but especially Arsenal
sachmoney said:
First of all: yes, I think things are that bad. Unless Wenger somehow manages to sign a player on the level of Suarez or Rooney, any purchase he somehow manages to finagle at this point will be labeled - probably correctly - a panic buy. And unless two or three of those panic buys somehow come good, and/or results pick up very sharply (almost impossible to imagine with half the first-team squad out injured and no second-team squad as such to back them up), the atmosphere at the Emirates is going to remain toxic for quite a while.
But really, I'm not sure how much of my post was really about Arsenal. To address this summation:
teddykgb said:
But this is precisely my point. If I were a fan of Villa, Norwich or Hull - or pretty much anyone in the Premier League bar Man Utd, Man City or Chelsea - what exactly would I have to look forward to this season?
Put it this way: there are 30 teams in Major League Baseball. Right now, with less than one-quarter of the season remaining, 15 of those teams are either in a playoff position or within six games of a Wild Card spot and therefore have a non-zero chance of winning the World Series. And the other 15 includes the Nats, Giants, Blue Jays, Angels and several other teams who began the season with real reasons to be excited about the possibility of reaching the playoffs and having a shot at the World Series. So that's two-thirds of the league, right there, who this season have had at least a modicum of faith and hope that they could win the ultimate prize. And heck, with the NFL season about to start and some of the crazy surges we've seen in recent years by teams that had no preseason expectations, almost every fan can probably concoct a non-delusional scenario whereby his team can make it deep into the playoffs.
Step back to the Premier League. I know Arsenal is in a much stronger position than 70-80% of the league...and yet, at the start of the season Arsenal's chances of winning the Premiership (or the Champions League) are roughly the same as the Jets' chances of winning the Super Bowl. At the start of the season! If I were a Villa fan, I'd be dreaming of a top-six finish and expecting mid-table consolidation; a Norwich fan, and I'd be hoping for mid-table consolidation and expecting to steer clear of the relegation dogfight; a Hull fan, and I'd be dreaming of winning a relegation dogfight but probably expecting the worst. And as an Arsenal fan, in the past few years I was dreaming at the start of the season of unexpectedly challenging for the title (but knowing that a top-3 finish would be excellent), hoping that we'd finish in the top 4 and maybe win a cup or advance a round or two in the Champions League knockout stage. The baseline for these dreams and expectations is higher than they are for most other clubs...but really, as long as Man Utd retains the massive financial advantage Sir Alex built for them, and as long as Man City/Chelsea keep benefitting from their benefactors, does that ultimately matter? The only way to enjoy supporting most Premier League clubs these days (and to be fair, La Liga may well be even worse at present) is in relative terms, not absolute terms: you have to be satisfied with winning games more than you expected to at the start of the season, maybe the odd cup run, and hopefully beating your local rivals more than they beat you. Is that enough to keep you happy, even if the dream of an open-topped bus parade remains vanishingly distant? If so, I'm happy for you - really, I am. But compared with life as an NFL or MLB fan, where most fans can dare to dream not just of "progress" but of fairytale endings, I'm increasingly failing to see the point of it all.
Would my views be different if Arsenal had managed to secure a seat at the top table of the world soccer caste system several years ago and was now fighting for 1st or 2nd instead of always for 4th? Yeah, I suppose they might be. But that still wouldn't change the fundamental and increasing financial inequality of the system. Thirty years ago, three of the top five places in the old First Division were filled by Southampton, Nottingham Forest and QPR; in the previous season, Watford finished second. In other words, what is now the English Premier League used to be rather like what the English Championship is now. I lament the permanent demise of that level playing field far more than I lament the current turmoil at Arsenal.
I love how on this board the concept that you are not allowed to be pissed off and aggravated with your club and their follies because that is BEING ENTITLED is like the end all be all argument.
You root for one of the 10 biggest SPORTS FRANCHISES IN THE WORLD but you're an entitled dick if you think that means you should, I dunno, spend some fucking money and win something!
Hey guys, if you think Arsenal fans are whiny and entitled: don't read the thread full of their supporters.
You root for one of the 10 biggest SPORTS FRANCHISES IN THE WORLD but you're an entitled dick if you think that means you should, I dunno, spend some fucking money and win something!
Hey guys, if you think Arsenal fans are whiny and entitled: don't read the thread full of their supporters.
It's easy to dismiss ConigliarosPotential's posts as entitlement, but leaving Arsenal aside, he's raising a point that is worth thinking about. I'm relatively new to soccer fandom (though it's been close to five years since I started paying attention and learning), and this is the thing I have the most difficulty adjusting to. Not the things that usually pop up ("ties and no playoffs...why do you even do this?"), but having to adjust to such a constrained form of rooting. i went through the familiar "how do I pick a favorite team" thing, and tried a couple on before settling for Liverpool (with a lot of affection for Fulham). It's just strange to go into a season knowing that you are rooting for a 3 place improvement in the standings as the top limit of your expectations. From 7th to 4th. (Or, with Fulham, rooting to hit the top half of the table as the upper end of expectations).
Now, this isn't some sort of existential rooting crisis for me, like it seems to be (maybe just after a bad result) for CP. But it does make me realize I love the games, and the competition on the field, more than I like the experience of rooting for my team. And that's very different from other sports, MLB especially, where almost my entire enjoyment comes from rooting for my team.
Now, this isn't some sort of existential rooting crisis for me, like it seems to be (maybe just after a bad result) for CP. But it does make me realize I love the games, and the competition on the field, more than I like the experience of rooting for my team. And that's very different from other sports, MLB especially, where almost my entire enjoyment comes from rooting for my team.
The point about competitive imbalance is fair and I do think it makes the Premier league less fun to watch. In all honesty I say that if I were a Man U fan, I would be bored and satiated with all these wins after a point.
However, while financial disparities is one big cause of competitive imbalance, there's another simpler one. League rules. If MLB, NFL and NBA were run with the same point system as the premier league, then they would have also have been far less interesting for far less people. However, they would be less fair in a sense. These leagues introduce excitement and interest by enlarging the role luck plays and making the outcome of the struggle less fair. Teams that win soccer leagues across the world are usually the best teams. This is less the case with the NFL, MLB and the NBA.
Anywho, I came to post these:
However, while financial disparities is one big cause of competitive imbalance, there's another simpler one. League rules. If MLB, NFL and NBA were run with the same point system as the premier league, then they would have also have been far less interesting for far less people. However, they would be less fair in a sense. These leagues introduce excitement and interest by enlarging the role luck plays and making the outcome of the struggle less fair. Teams that win soccer leagues across the world are usually the best teams. This is less the case with the NFL, MLB and the NBA.
Anywho, I came to post these:
ConigliarosPotential said:
Hmmm...pop in the Tottenham thread. It's pretty active for guys that apparently have nothing to look forward to.
Come on...he said in his follow-up post that he wasn't really talking about Arsenal, but how the fans of all these other teams really have nothing to look forward too. That's not typical Arsenal whining, that's above and beyond.
CP, do you feel like all the time you've spent supporting the club hasn't been worth it or is it more that you don't feel like further energy should be spent on a club that is run the way it has been the last few years? It sounds like you've spent a lot of time and energy on Arsenal. For me, it would be hard to undo whatever affection I may have for the club. That's why I'm curious.
I agree with all that you've said about the transfer strategy and the increasingly toxic environment. I don't think there is a Gooner who isn't frustrated.
I agree with all that you've said about the transfer strategy and the increasingly toxic environment. I don't think there is a Gooner who isn't frustrated.
Can I start a thread where we discuss Arsenal with no whiny-ass titty babies allowed?mikeford said:
Some of us like soccer and find Arsenal interesting. This is the thread to discuss the club, not the thread for Arsenal supporters.
The increased revenues from the new shirt/sponsorship deals along with the increase revenue from the stadium SHOULD mean that Arsenal can compete on a "self made" basis with the likes of Bayern Munich. The club is approaching that level revenue wise. The past few years Arsenal simply didn't have the money to compete on the same level because:
a. Their shirt/sponsorship deals were very poor as a lot of money was loaded up front at the expense of the longer contract in order to help fund the stadium.
b. Debt service on the stadium sucked up a lot of funds.
c. The sudden explosion of blood money teams like Chelsea and Man City alongside, which is often overlooked, Barca and Real Madrid decimating their league so they could raid the TV profits all for themselves. This drove transfers and wages to a level Arsenal couldn't really afford.
But this summer has been an abomination with money sitting in the bank as such and absolutely no plan in the transfer market. It is bizarre and frightening. Looking at the way Tottenham have improved, you'd have to think they are favorites for 4th right now. If that happens Arsenal take maybe a four-five year step backwards? No Champions League means less revenue and a less attractive destination for players. That is why this summer has been so negligent. If nothing happens while they obviously have the resources to preserve that Champions League spot, Arsenal could be outside the top 4 come May and for the foreseeable next few years.
a. Their shirt/sponsorship deals were very poor as a lot of money was loaded up front at the expense of the longer contract in order to help fund the stadium.
b. Debt service on the stadium sucked up a lot of funds.
c. The sudden explosion of blood money teams like Chelsea and Man City alongside, which is often overlooked, Barca and Real Madrid decimating their league so they could raid the TV profits all for themselves. This drove transfers and wages to a level Arsenal couldn't really afford.
But this summer has been an abomination with money sitting in the bank as such and absolutely no plan in the transfer market. It is bizarre and frightening. Looking at the way Tottenham have improved, you'd have to think they are favorites for 4th right now. If that happens Arsenal take maybe a four-five year step backwards? No Champions League means less revenue and a less attractive destination for players. That is why this summer has been so negligent. If nothing happens while they obviously have the resources to preserve that Champions League spot, Arsenal could be outside the top 4 come May and for the foreseeable next few years.
I don't think anyone has any problem being pissed off or complaining about the clubs or teams they support, but justifying giving up on them, just for me, is pretty bad. It's not how, when, or why you started supporting the club, but that you continue to do so through the good and bad.
Snakebauer007 said:
FWIW, I've supported many teams through the bad as well as the good, but I've usually done so with the expectation that the bad could conceivably change to the good at some point in the future. Cases of bad ownership aside, there is literally no bad American sports franchise that is incapable of redemption: just look at the Pirates this season. In contrast, supporters of Aston Villa - basically the English Premiership equivalent of the Pirates, a grand club which won the European Cup 31 years ago but hasn't had much to celebrate since - are now reduced to taking pleasure from the occasional away win at the likes of Arsenal. It's great to enjoy the few days or weeks in the aftermath of a big win...but if that's all there is to savor, over time that begins to feel increasingly shallow. Re: DrewDawg's post, if I were a Tottenham fan willing to set my sights no higher than a) finishing higher that Arsenal in the league table and b) qualifying for next year's Champions League, then sure, I would feel excited about my team's chances this season. But I'd still be setting my sights far lower than Pirates fans are at this point in the baseball season.
If some people want to willfully interpret my last two posts as SPOILED ARSENAL FAN IN WHINY-ASS RANT BOO-HOO BOO-HOO, I guess I can't help that. (Maybe I should have started a new thread, rather than bringing my philosophizing to the Arsenal forum, although I guess it's fair to say that Arsenal's current regression is why I'm now thinking so much about these things.) But I don't think fans of any team are immune to my current thinking. Why do you think the green-and-yellow scarf brigade has been out in such force at Man Utd over the past few seasons? They're deathly afraid that the Glazer reign might cause their team to fall irreparably behind the even bigger spenders and become, basically, Arsenal. What if Abramovich or Mansour were to turn off the taps at Chelsea or Man City? Or for that matter, what if Usmanov were to take control of Arsenal, become the Abramovich of North London and hire a manager willing to start spending his money? Arsenal might then become Man City...but really, what would that say about my club? How would I as a fan deserve that kind of largesse? The inequality and the rotten structure would still exist; should I just forget about all of that and be happy, like some city banker with no conscience?
Frankly, at this point I'm rather rooting for the formation of a European super league which would create level playing fields at two levels: the best clubs would be relatively evenly matched at the top level, and then what's left of the Premiership (and its equivalents) might turn into something rather more like the Championship. You would then have something which looks like the structure of world basketball, with all of the best players flocking to the NBA but other leagues in Europe and elsewhere still thriving at their own natural levels. Plus, the super-teams would still play in their domestic cup competitions, which would become more prestigious because of that. But this is a vision for the distant future...for now, I'm left wondering how much mental energy to invest in a club which was trending downward well before the Villa loss and the current injury crisis, and for which fourth place and maybe a domestic cup run is the height of realistic ambition. I'll still be watching the Fenerbahce match tomorrow night, but insofar as I no longer believe Arsenal is capable of winning the Champions League, and Arsenal is proving singularly incapable of using its status as a Champions League club to attract talented players to join it (which is really the only point of finishing fourth in the league these days anyway) and thereby perhaps breaking through the glass ceiling in the Premiership, I'm not sure why I should actually care.
You know, I'm mad and stuff but I just protested by not renewing my membership. Which I will probably do at some point anyway, since I work in Islington.
Now sucks, but things will get better. For one thing, I don't buy for a second that Kroenke is so disinterested that he'll let the club rot. Missing the Champions League would seriously devalue his investment. If he seriously doesn't care, he could just sell the club to Usmanov at a profit and walk away.
Now sucks, but things will get better. For one thing, I don't buy for a second that Kroenke is so disinterested that he'll let the club rot. Missing the Champions League would seriously devalue his investment. If he seriously doesn't care, he could just sell the club to Usmanov at a profit and walk away.
sachmoney said:
To answer this question, it's really the residual affection I have for Arsenal which keeps me attached to the club (and the Premiership) at all. When I started supporting Arsenal - which was during the 1995-96 season, when I spent a year of my university education in Britain - they were little more than a mid-table club in desperate need of a makeover. I didn't consciously choose to support Arsenal; it just sort of happened. I remember being so excited on the final day of the season when they scored two late goals against Bolton to pinch the final UEFA Cup spot from Spurs and Everton. Then of course, Wenger joined the club, brought Vieira and Petit with him, etc. etc. - it was all quite incredible. If Arsenal had chosen a different manager after Bruce Rioch, Arsenal easily could have become Everton; I'm hugely thankful for how things turned out.
But here's the thing: look at the final league table from 1995-96:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995%E2%80%9396_FA_Premier_League#Final_league_table
I believe that eight or ten different clubs shown in this table could have become what Arsenal became. Leeds more or less did, at least for a while. Newcastle could have kept things going. Jack Walker could have stayed rich and alive at Blackburn. Spurs, Everton or Villa could have hired Wenger. It wasn't a closed shop: you could really believe at this point in the Premier League's existence that your club didn't need a foreign sugar-daddy to succeed. If you hired the right manager, and he bought and sold the right players, anything was possible.
Nowadays, you can hire the right manager and he can buy and sell the right players, and you might jump a couple of places in the table - or slightly more than that, if you're starting from a lower baseline. Lots and lots of money, not Moneyball-style management techniques, is the only way for a club to get better these days. And if I've become disillusioned with Arsenal specifically (rather than the league as a whole, which is also the case), it's because Arsenal rose to prominence fairly and squarely but then - given the money and the chance to stay at the top table - slowly but inexorably pissed that all away. Arsenal should now be in a position I don't think it will ever get back to, at least not without the help of a sugar-daddy. In absolute terms, Arsenal is still one of the richest clubs in the world; in relative terms, it is hugely dysfunctional and so much worse off than it should be. And because the Premier League is now a place where most fans can only derive pleasure in relative terms, and Arsenal has slipped to the level where it judges success in relative rather than absolute terms, the future seems awfully bleak. (I'm a golfer, and it strikes me that Arsenal is the equivalent of a two-handicapper who used to be on the PGA Tour: most golfers in the world would kill to have a two handicap, but when you've played in the Masters and the US Open, it gets pretty depressing to have to struggle even to break par in a single round.) I don't think all of the time I've spent supporting Arsenal feels worthless in retrospect, but I do know that if I were 20 years younger and asked to choose a Premier League team to support, I'm not sure I could actually make a choice...I'm not a bandwagon-jumper and would never pick Man Utd, Chelsea or Man City, but if I wanted to pick a team that I thought might win something in the foreseeable future, who else could I choose?
And that 1995-1996 Arsenal roster had three, yes three, players not from the UK or Ireland. The game's growth and internationalization and the EPL's position as, many argue, the most competitive in the world, has benefited us as fans with better, more diverse and exciting football. Perhaps there may be a preference for parity, for upward (and downward) mobility for all, but the money has offered the fans something, and that is quality and visibility.
There's inequity, of course. That's not really worth trying to deny, and CP makes some interesting points that apply to professional sports in general - forget the allegiances at the moment.
As for Arsenal, as a longtime fan and someone who has appreciation for what Wenger has done over the years, and also as someone who is pretty sure that we don't have any clue at all what happens behind closed doors, the evidence is mounting (even crappy hearsay evidence through a tabloid press) that this offseason has been treated with nothing short of negligence. To let the squad become emaciated, to fail to spend any money despite boasts that the resources offer opportunity, while competitors around you procure services of players who are useful, talented, and available, is inexplicable. Perhaps teams are playing hardball with Arsenal, but what team would now give them any leeway? Why would a team in negotiation with AFC would back off on a single pound of value for any of their players? This can't end well, what with the improvements of those around them.
There's inequity, of course. That's not really worth trying to deny, and CP makes some interesting points that apply to professional sports in general - forget the allegiances at the moment.
As for Arsenal, as a longtime fan and someone who has appreciation for what Wenger has done over the years, and also as someone who is pretty sure that we don't have any clue at all what happens behind closed doors, the evidence is mounting (even crappy hearsay evidence through a tabloid press) that this offseason has been treated with nothing short of negligence. To let the squad become emaciated, to fail to spend any money despite boasts that the resources offer opportunity, while competitors around you procure services of players who are useful, talented, and available, is inexplicable. Perhaps teams are playing hardball with Arsenal, but what team would now give them any leeway? Why would a team in negotiation with AFC would back off on a single pound of value for any of their players? This can't end well, what with the improvements of those around them.
I don't know. I think it's a process. This year the goal is Top 4 and Champions League. Next year, well, we'll see, but the first step is consistent Top 4.
And yeah, the Pirates are a cool story, but there fans had no hope for 20+ years, and I'm not sure this makes up for that.
That was the summer we (LFC) paid a record £8.4m for Stan Collymore and you paid a club record £7.5 for a certain Dennis Bergkamp and you don't need to be a football genius to work out who got the best deal there.
See...it can be done.
See...it can be done.
ConigliarosPotential said:
I've been crazy busy at work, but I really have to come back to this. You didn't address the crux of my original post, which is basically that if Arsenal isn't competitive, it isn't because of the financial imbalance of the league, rather Arsenal's own decisions and how it has chosen to invest (or not). Crying about financial inequality from Arsenal's perspective is complete nonsense, they've had and received plenty of money.
But it really runs deeper than that. You're complaining about a system Arsenal helped to create. The BPL was established basically to protect the interests of Arsenal, United, Liverpool, etc. The entire break from the old First division was about getting more money, getting a bigger TV deal, and competing with other clubs in Europe. Now that's all played out and it hasn't gone entirely swimmingly for Arsenal and it's a problem? It doesn't invalidate your point that there's an issue for fans of Norwich, Oldham, or whatever other tiny club you wish to choose in terms of competition, but I'm not sure that it's all that different today than it was when Arsenal was in its heyday. The only thing that's new is that Arsenal has had its superiority upset by Chelsea and Manchester City having a serious cash infusion. Which was the only way any team was ever going to penetrate the holy troika of United, Liverpool, and Arsenal, because they set the system up that way.
In a lot of ways, I'm taking out a more general frustration that I get all the time as a City fan, since the money thing is just constantly brought up. Money has always been the way to the top of the table, but some teams started with the money and pressed that advantage, others needed an infusion to get there. Other teams have spent in the PL era and failed, it still takes capable management and proper player selection to compete. As to why fans of other teams should continue to care, aside from their love of their team, I'd point out that things change. Money in football is a European problem, not an England specific problem, and anything done just in England would only serve to make the English clubs non-competitive. Which is why we are where we are in the first place. UEFA tried with FFPR to maybe rein some of this in, but this is a very tough nut to crack with each league having its finances handled in different ways. Chances are all of this stuff will be modified over the next years, and football will continue to be like it always has been, with a few mainstays at the top and other teams gaining the ability to compete with them. The dream of any football fan is to support that team, but the beauty of football is that there are always other cups and competitions to have a chance in along the way. I'm sure fans of Wigan enjoyed the hell out of their FA Cup last season, because they won it against all odds. Unlike in our sports, where a good run by the Pirates will earn them the right to play in the championship tournament, the teams in the FA simply have to grind out results. You play everyone home and away, and the table tells the truth. Honestly, as a fan of football and American sports, I find our playoffs hopelessly gimmicky and it cheapens the idea of being a "champion" when you can achieve it by simply playing well for a few weeks. Winning any of the BPL silverware, as an example, is a far more worthwhile task given that it requires a team to play well for a long stretch of time.
teddykgb said:
I think I addressed this point in my most recent post. Arsenal should be a financial powerhouse but has pissed the advantages it built up between 1998-2006 away - that's entirely Arsenal's fault, and that is immensely frustrating to me as a supporter of the club. But the existence of an unequal financial system is the collective "fault" (or "sound business strategy" to spin it more positively) of every rich team that has tried to make an increasingly disproportionate share of the profits that European soccer has generated over the past decade or so, along with every new billionaire owner who jumped into the fray to make money and/or buy trophies. Just because Arsenal did/didn't or does/doesn't benefit from that system doesn't change how I feel about the system itself. And I was always cynical about the system, even when Arsenal were winning things; it's easier to suppress that cynicism when you're winning things, but even then, I think any Man City or Chelsea fan in particular who is able to enjoy their recent successes without feeling any pangs of guilt about how they were financed either must be ignorant or have no conscience.
teddykgb said:
I think you've got your timeframes slightly mixed up here. The Premier League (which by the way should be abbreviated "EPL" and not "BPL" if you want to go down that route, insofar as there's no such thing as a "British Premier League" even if Swansea and Cardiff are somehow part of England just now)
was launched in 1992-93 - when, by the way, one of Man Utd's closest title challengers was Norwich City. Whether or not Arsenal may have helped set up the system, by the time George Graham and Bruce Rioch both botched their respective managerial tenures in completely different ways, Arsenal was lucky not to become a victim of the system like Everton, Spurs and Villa were and are to varying degrees. And when Wenger came along, his management style was a breath of fresh air to many neutrals precisely because he managed to build his successful teams in such a cost-efficient manner: even as the club became richer, Wenger bought cheap relative to his peers, usually bought well, and almost always sold well. Nothing Wenger did to build Arsenal up was beyond the means of at least half-a-dozen other clubs in the Premiership. Alas, if a new Wenger were to come onto the scene today - someone with the same relative skills and contacts and scouting eye that Wenger brought to the league in 1996-97 - I don't think he would be able to succeed without spending massive amounts of money as well. I think he's not succeeding at this very moment in large part because he doesn't want to spend massive amounts of money on principle, even if the Arsenal board is willing to spend it.(By the by, does anyone know how Spurs is funding its current transfer outlay? If things go pear-shaped and they fail to get silly money for Bale and also fail for whatever reason to make the Champions League next year, there's no chance that Spurs may become the new Leeds or even the new Portsmouth, is there? I'm asking because I don't know, but that would certainly lurk at the back of my mind if I were a Spurs fan.)
Anyway, you seem intent upon labeling me as someone who is only unhappy with the system now that Arsenal no longer benefits from it. I don't think that viewpoint is justified by the balance of the case I've tried to lay out...
teddykgb said:
...and to be honest, I rather feel as though you're whining about me in large part because you're actually quite uncomfortable about how Man City rose to its current position. I disagree with your above sentence about money: money has always been a helpful starting point to getting to the top of the table, but it has never been *the way* to get there until recently. I agree that money is a Europe-wide problem, but only to the extent that the rich clubs are disproportionately dominant in different leagues; the Bundesliga remains far more open than the Premier League insofar as many other clubs seem capable of winning things whenever failures in Bayern's historically convoluted management structure counterbalance its inherent financial advantages, while Ligue 1 was also much more evenly balanced (see: Montpellier) at least until PSG and now Monaco have gone down the sugar-daddy route. There is now so much money at the top in England that the likes of a Chelsea can easily afford £30m+ flops like Shevchenko and Torres and still be ready to challenge for the title next year even if they fail to win something this year - any half-competent manager (see: Mancini, Roberto) almost can't help but win something if you're able to throw enough darts during the summer transfer window that missing with two or three of them doesn't really matter. (FWIW, Madrid and Barca make Spain even worse than England in this regard, but that is truly damning England with faint praise.)
As to your point about the playoff structures of American sports, I agree that in theory, playoffs are gimmicky and can artificially create drama and competitiveness where none should exist. But then, take a look at the current league-wide MLB standings: 10 teams are within six games of the best record in baseball, or within three-and-a-half games of the second-best record. (Or if this were pre-1969 baseball, with no divisions and only two teams making the World Series, four teams would be within half a game of the lead in the American League.) And even discounting schedule imbalances, how many teams in the NFL do you think have a realistic shot of finishing with the best regular season record in the league this year, or in any given year? I don't think it's the playoff system which gives more American teams shots at a title so much as it is the enforced financial equality and the drafting systems which funnel the best young talent to the worst teams from the previous season.
ConigliarosPotential said:
The Premier League (which by the way should be abbreviated "EPL" and not "BPL" if you want to go down that route, insofar as there's no such thing as a "British Premier League" even if Swansea and Cardiff are somehow part of England just now)
BPL = Barclays Premier League.
SoxFanInCali said:
Fair enough - my mistake. (EPL seems to be the abbreviation I've seen more commonly in America, but whatever...)
Anyway, I did watch the Fenerbahce match tonight, and (believe it or not) I was pleased to see Arsenal win so comfortably, Koscielny's foot-in-face injury notwithstanding. (It helped that Fenerbahce were so rubblish, of course.) It's nice to think that Arsenal are more or less into the Champions League group stage now; that might ease the toxic atmosphere slightly, and also make Arsenal a more attractive destination for any would-be transfer targets. But is that enough to put a proper smile on my face for the next few days?
Let me ask the other Arsenal supporters here: how do you place individual results like this in the context of your wider appreciation for (and fears for) where the club is at the moment? If Arsenal finish fourth again this season and again squeeze Spurs into fifth, is that enough to keep you happy? What do you want from 2013-14? Or do you really not think at this sort of meta-level and simply take each result as it comes?
I definitely feel all kinds of guilt with Chelsea under Roman's control.....wait no. The idea of fans feeling guilty because of who bought their team/club, or because "they didn't deserve this kind of success." Is really just silly
This wasn't a red card...
Love this dude
Fulham will be tough on Saturday. No Koscielny. It could be rough. Gotta handle Berba.
Love this dude
Fulham will be tough on Saturday. No Koscielny. It could be rough. Gotta handle Berba.
This is fascinating, taken at face value. Not sure how to verify the data, but it certainly reads as thorough.
http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/arsenal-money-dont-matter-2-night.html
http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/arsenal-money-dont-matter-2-night.html
Snakebauer007 said:
You don't flinch at all when people refer to "Chel$ki"? Would you not rather have seen Chelsea rise up through prudent management (like early-Wenger Arsenal) rather than through sugar-daddy expenditure? If not, are you not at least a tiny bit worried about what would happen if Abramovich keeled over and died tomorrow, or if he got bored of being a football owner and sold the club to owners with shaky financial backing, or if he suddenly lost most of his money and yet still tried to see things through at Chelsea even as bankruptcy loomed? What if I offered you a choice between a) one major trophy roughly every 10 years and rock-solid financial security in perpetuity, or b) one major trophy every 2-3 years for now, but with no firm guarantee that your club will still exist in its current form in 10 years? Which path would you choose?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23790314
I don't know the in's and out's of European soccer, What are your thoughts?
I don't know the in's and out's of European soccer, What are your thoughts?
Great game, watching this team is incredibly frustrating at times. I hope recent success doesn't make Wenger feel to comfortable.
I do think Bale is holding up a lot of things (not just at Madrid). Plus, while it's extremely likely we'll have Champions League football at the Emirates this year, it's not official yet.
BostonJack42 said:
As is Giroud. He's been active and opportunistic.
edit: I meant on the season, think you meant in the match they're playing right now.
Hamstring.mikeford said:
Wenger: "Podolski is definitely out for 21 days [with a hamstring injury]"
No word yet on Ramsey and Jack.
Luis Taint said:
Sorry - where in that article does it say that a bid has been accepted by Real Madrid? Does it even confirm that a bid has been made (not that I'd believe such a confirmation anyway)? The transfer window is silly enough without turning it into a game of telephone.
Nice win tonight, of course...and the real silver lining is that Podolski's injury may force Wenger into one or more extra panic buys. Which may or may not come good, but really, at this point anyone with at least one international cap and a pulse is better than nothing.
I'm concerned by the fact that the potential transfers still seem to be dependent on other moves going through. The clock is ticking...
sachmoney said:
If it makes you feel better, it seems like almost every move is being held up by Bale. The monkey faced cunt.
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