Arsenal under pressure or free from expectations?

With Arsene Wenger once again driving the average Arsenal fan up the wall, going against conventional wisdom and baffling football pundits everywhere by sticking to his guns and refusing to get drawn into the ever increasing spending frenzy that is the summer transfer window, the odds against the Gunners ending the 12 year wait for a title get smaller by the day.

Add to this the fact that Arsenal have been handed a bit of a nightmare start to the season with matches against Liverpool and Leicester up first and lots of first team players not available and it is not hard to agree with the Frenchman’s low key approach to his talk of winning the title.

At the same time, Wenger and Arsenal stars like Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey have admitted that winning the title is the big objective and nothing less will do to satisfy the long suffering fan base. With this in mind, do you see Arsenal and our manager as being under even more pressure to succeed and prove his approach to be right?

Or is the fact that not many people give the Gunners much of a chance actually a help in that it takes the pressure off? Just last season we saw Leicester prove people wrong and for most of the campaign they were helped by the lack of expectations, but can it work for Arsenal as well?

Bob.

Tags Wenger

10 Comments

  1. To heck with conventional ‘wisdom’

    Wenger is genius and knows exactly what he’s doing… the squad is gorgeous…the only thing missing is for the fans to get behind the team… not just when we’re up but ALL THE TIME.

  2. Wenger has no idea how to win the PL
    I think Leicester winning actually made Wenger feel his strategy is the right one

    What makes it even more frustrating is that Kroenke is not as big of a problem as I thought
    Wenger spent £35 million on a good player (Xhaka) but a player that wasn’t a priority
    We had Cazorla, Ramsey, Wilshere, Coquelin, Eleney to play in CM (also Bielik, Ox and Chambers can play back there).

    Janssen, Mkitharyan were purchased for less than £35 million (Janssen cost half that)
    Maybe Mahrez could cost between £35-40 million which would be worth the money

    By selling Walcott we could have afforded even better forwards like Draxler, Aubemeyang, Lewandowski, Greizmann (I am not saying they would be easy to get but we could have at least tried). Problem is that Wenger has too much loyalty to Theo

    Another thing is that Wenger doesn’t try hard enough. Vardy said Wenger didn’t even contact him. Last summer Ibrahimovich said Wenger or Arsenal didn’t contact him. Wenger expects players to knock on his door

    The only thing that can save our season is to get Mustafi, a top striker like Lacazette or Top winger like Mahrez or Draxler

    1. Even though Janssen played only 20+ mins but he made difference. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be another Kane for Spurs but he looks promising.

      1. The Spuds are not spending a lot of money, whilst the money they do spend, they are filling the positions they need. It is worrying that the only money we have spent was on a position we are already overloaded in, while from the beginning of the transfer window we needed a striker and a centre back which has recently become even more pressing. Ozil will certainly leave if Wenger doesn’t get someone to convert his assists, so not only will we not be getting needed players, but we’ll also be losing our best players. It is difficult to figure the mentality when we pay the highest ticket prices in the EPL.

    2. This is highly misleading. Mkitharyan was 30 mils + 5 mil agent fees. Simply put, Wenger does not do business with Raiola or Mendes. And I highly doubt that he does not have the backing of the board for this policy. For anyone thinking that we will ever sign (with or without Wenger in charge) players managed by Mendes or Raiola I have some news: forget it. It will take a total shift in club’s policy to do this.
      As for Vardy I have to remind you again that Vardy and Hodgson refused any contact during the Euros which Arsenal dully respected. By the time England was about to flop Vardy announced he will stay. Is pretty hard to contact someone not picking up the phone. Vardy is just shifting attention somewhere else, told you about that earlier.
      Personally, I am happy Ibrahimovic wasn’t contacted. No room for egomaniacs here.
      And finally, yes, Wenger is guilty of being faithful to all the players he brought. Otherwise we wouldn’t see long spells for people like Gervinho, Almunia, Santos, Bendtner, Chamakh. But for each one of these there are some Eduardo, Gilberto, Bellerin, Coquelin or Henry. It would be nice if every player would reward the trust gaffer put into them. But then again, we are talking about British players, kids knowing that they will be signed and make their first million when they are 17. Why would the bite and put their bones to work like Sanchez or Ozil when they never had it hard in their entire life? That’s one of the reasons England will never win again a tournament, mark my words. When Iwobi refuses to play for England it says absolutely everything. I am not saying we will have a stellar season, Wenger is past due his expiration date. He’s an analog man in a digital world. But sometimes, sometimes given all planets are aligned it is possible to beat the odds. You need A LOT of luck to win this EPL. Example? Look yesterday, Leicester got a penalty for a soft touch outside the box. City played like $hit and got lucky while the Scums ride their luck for most of the game. Underestimating the luck factor is what makes teams like Leicester champions. You have to be prepared to take advantage of such lucky circumstances.

    3. I may disagree with you about Xhaka is not the priority. We did very well in the beginning of last season with our Coquelin + Cazorla at the base of our midfield. We were not scoring lots of goals but we managed to control and won game. After these two got injured the result immediately went downhill, don’t think it’s a coincidence here. Another factor is that Coquelin and Cazorla game is either too defensive or too offensive so they are great together but very hard to mix and match with our other central midfielders.
      Lastly when you are 100% that a player will improve the quality of your first 11 – we cannot afford to miss the chance. In recent years, the only thing Wenger did right in the transfer market is to bring in players he is sure that will improve the team (Ozil, Sanchez, Cech, Xhaka). What he did badly is his failure to take the risk to improve the position we are lacking with players who only have 80% of improving the team

  3. We don’t have pressure as we don’t have expectation. I really want Arsene to end on a high note by winning PL. Even though I am not AKB but I always wanted him to win CL as that is the only trophy he has not won.

    Unfortunately I don’t see us winning anything. According to Wenger, Arsenal has enough ammunition to score more goals and win PL with likes of Giroud, Sanchez and Walcott.
    Last season Arsenal scored least goals in top four and I don’t see how we can score more unless someone scores 25+ alone in PL. Giroud is good striker but he should be our #2 and not main. I don’t have much faith in Walcott as well.

    Arsene would have done better in transfer market in his last season (may be) by getting CB early and not waiting for last minute injury to buy new CB.
    Anyways All the best to our team for first match. Hope we will against Liverpool.

  4. Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssss, we’ve done it again!!!!!!!!
    Announcing the new sprinting queen elaine Thompson to the flippin world!!!!!!!
    Up next tomorrow is the king himself boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolt!!!!

  5. No, the fans don’t verbally support the team loud enough or often enough to encourage the team to do better thus encouraging the opposition and putting pressure on our players. This has been going on for a few years now because todays plastic fans are more interested in taking selfies unlike the working class fans of yester-year who rarely kept quiet.

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