(Whilst Stan and Wenger remain…) by AOT
This Tuesday we face Barcelona FC in the Champions League and anyone but the most blind faithed wouldn’t give us much hope of getting past them (especially based on our past performances in the UCL, bar one instance against them).
Yes, it’s only a team and yes they are beatable but why are the odds stacked against us and why is there such a gulf between our two clubs? After all, we have been around for much longer, most specifically in top flight football.
Perhaps it’s their youth system La Masia that has cultivated numerous exceptionally talented footballers?, Or the fact they are one of the few clubs that are ‘not’ a limited entity but a club where it’s the members who own the club and have the power to vote in and out the manager? Here success is rewarded and failure is not, thus baron years without top success are not entertained. Motivation enough to be the best!
Or perhaps it is because they are not solely money motivated?; shown by the fact that they refuse corporate sponsorship on their shirts to instead promote and benefit UNICEF and their many great causes. What’s more they donate yearly to the charity.
Maybe it is because their motto is ‘more than a club’ or that over the years they have steadily invested in the best players to make themselves the best ‘on’ the football field and as a consequence have reaped financial rewards from this strategy. They have ‘footballing’ ambition as their driver and not ‘financial’ security and growth as their strategy as they know one results in the other (and yes, they have built stadiums too; a 90,000 one).
Perhaps this is why Messi will never leave Barcelona (unless it’s for Argentina) as it is spiritual home? He is not motivated by money alone but success on the field and in many ways reflects the spirit of the club.
I for one wish AFC were more like them. With Stan Kroenke seeing our club as no more than one of several sound business investments amongst his portfolio, this mediocrity and ‘plan’ has filtered down the ranks through to management and players (both playing and in terms of what is acquired or not acquired) and in what is expected in terms of success ‘on’ the football field.
Don’t get me wrong, I want AFC to spank BFC as I love the club (and support Real Madrid as a second team : as does my Spanish wife and all her family) but I just cannot see it happening. There is too bigger gulf in class on the field and beside it and this is due to the ambition or lack of it, off it.
While this stays true, AFC will never wake from being the sleeping giant I believe them to be.
COYG!
ArseOverTit
mmmm…where has our strikers shooting boots gone to?
The positive I can take from the hull game is that elneny looked the part and welbeck was our most dangerous player….
Ima go out on a limb and suggest that wenger starts with the following team….cech,bell,mert,kos,monreal……coq,elneny,ozil,…..ramsey,sanchez,welbeck…
that team is filled with energy,desire,agression to an extent and pace….lets face it barca will have about 70-80% possession…so we going to have to play on the counter.
I am tempted to start walcot, but he looks like he is lacking in confidence. Ramsey is a goal threat, welbeck will run all day, has pace, strength, sanchez? well I pray he discovers that devasting form.
Having giroud,walcott, chambo/joel, to come of the bench to hassle a tired barca defense will just play into our hands……Ozil,Coq,Kos,Cech is absolutely key….
mmmm…where has our strikers shooting boots gone to?
The positive I can take from the hull game is that elneny looked the part and welbeck was our most dangerous player….
Ima go out on a limb and suggest that wenger starts with the following team….cech,bell,mert,kos,monreal……coq,elneny,ozil,…..ramsey,sanchez,welbeck…
that team is filled with energy,desire,agression to an extent and pace….lets face it barca will have about 70-80% possession…so we going to have to play on the counter.
I am tempted to start walcot, but he looks like he is lacking in confidence. Ramsey is a goal threat, welbeck will run all day, has pace, strength, sanchez? well I pray he discovers that devasting form.
Having giroud,walcott, chambo/joel, to come of the bench to hassle a tired barca defense will just play into our hands……Ozil,Coq,Kos,Cech is absolutely key….
I can see us winning this, with concentration and absolute inciveness…
We can do it
YA #GUNNERS#YA
That unicef logo was a very shrewd move from Barca, how many favors could it buy, and immediately it pitted them as the good guys Madrid of course the bad guys. How many referees would admire them for it whilst every other club seemingly thirsting for greed. Shrewd indeed.
The reason Barca can get all the best players is because Madrid and themselves have built a monopoly on the Spanish league, they have stomped on all the little guys so they can be the most powerful teams in Europe and for the most part the whole of Spain are glad of this. Even their bankers want this for the Spanish league.
So before you go proclaiming them holier than thou realise that Barca are a very tactically clever and greedy club. All that sparkles is not gold.
Didn’t say they were holy, just that success on the field is paramount to the club and is why the invest in it.
Think more clubs should forgo corporate sponsors on their shirts and actually promote charity as well as giving donation to the charity as do BFC.
But where there is a buck eh?
The Qatar Foundation (yes associated with sheik Al-Qaradawi which praises suicide bombers) on the shirt is worth 170 million which then was taken by Qatar Airways. Unicef was relegated to a smaller patch on the back. Barcelona is Messi. In 3-4 years they better find someone similar otherwise they will be in problems.
No, I don’t believe we can qualify against them, especially due to our form but they are no saints either.
Again, they are not saints nor holy.
But how can giving money to charity in yearly donations as well as refusing paid sponsors to support a charity be a bad thing?
so Barca support suicide bombers eh. What a claim.
I guess as our sponsors are the Emirates we some how also support Some fanatical middle eastern groups?
i don,t know about about you but knowing us i,d rather play barca on the back of a bad run than a good one!!!
The press: what’s the Latest update on wilshere and gabrieL?
Wenger: THEY ARE RUNNING OUTSIDE….. They are few weeks away
Hahahahaha……clueless Wenger!…..hahaha
They are always running…
How is that clueless? It means they’re not running on treadmills now and are running outside. The reason that is avoided is because there’s more chance of slipping or tripping on uneven ground, which could cause another injury if their muscles are not in proper shape. They are also not always running, most notably when they’re injured and it would be damaging to do so.
I wonder why are you writing on an Arsenal site when it is obvious to anyone that you have nothing to say even when we win. I don’t care too much but you are increasingly boring.
Have a look back Budd. I have posted many a time after wins.
And I am awfully sorry I don’t amuse you. Made my day!
You keep yourself in high regard if you believe I am talking at you in my every post.
soopa has a point there, Wenger always say so and so are running outside, as if he’s watching them from his office window when talking to the press
Am i the only one who thinks we lack foresight and really need to do something bout our LB??
God heLp us if anything(age, injury or form) ever happens to monreal
Barca
23 La Liga’s
27 FA Cups (Spanish)
5 Champions Leagues.
Man U
20 League 11 FA cups 3 Champions
Liverpool
18 League 7 FA cups 5 Champions
Arsenal
13 League 12 FA cups 0 Champions
Chelsea
5 League 7 FA cups 1 Champions
Man City
4 League 5 FA cups 0 Champions
Incredible to think Barca/Liverpool both have 5 UCL/old European cups a piece and we still have zilch!
Broke my heart the day chelski won the UCL as first London club to do so.
#sleepingGiantAFC
What does this prove?
Unless you are Barca
or Bayern Munich
it is bla#rdy near impossible
to win the ECL even for the other super teams.
Arsenal like the other 99% teams in Europe is simply
not set up to challenge seriously for the ECL
and Arsenal is a rich team.
I want us to win the EPL first then maybe
we can plan for our ECL triumphs …maybe 🙂
If we had the best coach and players our money could buy and a board who wanted success on the field above everything else then we would have won the Champions League.
Remember we came pretty close once and other teams such as Juventus, Chelsea, Liverpool etc have won it while we haven’t. Why did they win and not us then if we are sufficiently rich?
@aot
If that were true, then City or Chelsea should be winning it every season…
Not every season, but just one is better than we have managed.
Not talking about how much money a club has, but rather how they choose to invest it to improve the club ‘ON’ the football field and therefore improve their chances of winning. It’s the strategy for success on the field and not in merchandise and sales I’m talking about.
The most supportive boards, best managers and players at clubs with the best set ups tend to do well. Even if that’s a Champions league every blue moon.
Football doesn’t work that way, as your examples highlight.
Liverpool certainly didn’t have the best coach and players that money could buy. That was a shock upset and had absolutely nothing to do with investment. Their team had very few world class players and it was mainly bringing on Hamann (not world class) that changed their formation and tipped the game in their favour. They would have lost had it not been for some extraordinary goalkeeping by Dudek (also not world class).
Juventus haven’t won the Champions League for twenty years, so I’ve no idea why you’d mention them. That was at the time the Italian league was the strongest in Europe and they had a fantastic team.
Chelsea have spent an utterly ridiculous amount of money and still have only won once. They only succeeded in getting past Barcelona in the semi by playing a 10-0-0 formation and kicking lumps out of them. They then beat Bayern in the final by being completely dominated all game, scoring an equaliser in the dying minutes and then eventually winning on penalties. Abramovich has been pouring billions and billions into Chelsea for thirteen years and they’ve scraped a win once. It’s not all about money.
I mentioned Juventus because someone suggested only Barca and Bayern were capable of winning the UCL.
Chelsea, spent a lot of money and assembled the best they players they could by investing in the team to be successful on the field. As have Barca and others who have won it.
Liverpool, had in my option a top class manager in Benitez (check his record). They got to the final and won because they deserved to well class or not because they had some top players and a strong unit with a definite game plan.
You and others seem to take umbridge in the fact that I suggest we could have more success if only the board were more focused on success on the field and not in the cash register. By investing what you can to improve your team on the field could never be a bad thing in my book. We are hardly skint ourselves after all.
“You and others seem to take umbridge in the fact that I suggest we could have more success if only the board were more focused on success on the field and not in the cash register.”
It’s because I don’t think it’s true. Sanchez, Ozil and Cech weren’t brought in to sort out the balance sheets, whether Cech was (relatively) cheap or not. It takes time to build and develop and our last three seasons since we’ve had money to spend have shown we’re on the right path. You can’t just go out and buy a whole new team of world class players in one season.
Mum it’s strange you remember chelsea beating Bayern but have no memory of just a couple of months ago!
I’m someone who watches Arsenal every game but somehow I have no interest in Barca, Real, Bayern in the least. I wonder why that is.
Sorry but I’m really not interested in other teams. I sometimes go to my local pub but only to watch our team. My life is much too busy to care about other leagues.
I know I’m in the minority but this league is all I watch or care to watch.
the problem with us is we are trying to be the english version of barca, really with the mixture of world class talent and young talent mixed together to build a super team, but unfortunately that takes time and massive resources to do, resources we now have, time is what we cant afford to do this project with atm. titles won in style is the end goal for wenger. but this English league where money is king doesn’t really afford you much room to build a club in the image of a mans philosophy, like cruyff with barca, and wenger is doing with us. he has laid the cornerstone for future success under the next manager though, building a club from bottom to top with the same philosophy isn,t easy to do to get everyone on the same page with the playing style and formations, and to make it dogma is very hard indeed. but kudos to wenger for at least aligning the club in one direction, and hopefully we will see the fruits of his labor in years to come. the future success of arsenal after he has gone will determine, whether wenger was a true visionary of his time .and a shout out to the arsenal board for sticking by him and letting him build the club, and taking it forward from what is was that takes a lot of patience and understanding from there side too, as they will be under massive scrutiny, from the fans so they have weathered the storm well. onward and upwards for us.