Mourinho’s latest swipe at Arsenal…. by KM
We all know Jose Mourinho is a drama queen, a media feeder. He creates stories for the press and never fails to create a spark, or take a swipe at Arsenal. He was asked about his relationship with Arsene Wenger and what he thinks of Arsenal and what the Chelsea boss said again had a background dig at Wenger.
He said Wenger has “a dream job” because of the stability he gets. He also said that we have a fantastic squad full of attacking quality and in good numbers. Asked as to why we don’t win enough he said “I don’t know”. He said we should be up there with City and Chelsea.
Now I know a lot of people don’t like Mourinho for his mind games, but can you really disagree with his statement. We have fantastic forward options. We have a squad better than the one Liverpool and United do. Our squad is not much worse than the City or Chelsea have, but we truly don’t do enough with it.
When Mourinho was asked who’s to blame for this he said “I don’t know”, but the truth is we all got the message that Wenger was to blame. If you ignore the fact Mourinho is saying it, where would you put the blame for the fact that Arsenal is missing the chance to be that european powerhouse?
We have one of the biggest and finest stadiums in this land. Our fans pay the highest ticket prices, which generates huge amount of money. We have one of the highest wage bills in this land. Every way you look at it, we should be up there.
Just look at the other teams – United are an expensive shadow of themselves with a manager that has transformed them into a team playing long balls. Van Gaal is clueless as to what is his best formation and squad, which is really costing them, yet since that defeat at the Emirates this is the first time we surpass them in the league.
Liverpool were Suarez. Or at least 70% of them was him. He left, they spent a huge amount of money again and it took them the whole first part of the season to get running. Their squad is not nearly as good as ours, yet we are only 3 points in front of them.
I just don’t want to comment on the fact how much better our squad is than the one Spuds have, yet we manage not to beat them in 2 games. Overall we should have standards. Ours is the top 4. Anything more is a bonus, but this lack of ambition is like a disease. The manager doesn’t pressure the board to give him what he needs for a title challenge ( honestly what more does Wenger need ? ).
On the other hand the board doesn’t care too much and doesn’t want to put any sort of pressure on the boss regardless if he has a plan or not. I guess the truth is always somewhere in the middle but this time ! must agree with the Chelsea manager. We should’ve been up there with them, not scrapping a top 4 battle.
Easy to say when you manage a club that has spent 1 billion in the last 10 years.
I really HATE to say this: Wenger is beginning to regain his good managerial form.
My problem is not premised on the fact that we lose games or go “trophyless”, but that recently WE MADE NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER.
People made all sorts of excuses for Arsene, particularly that sufficient money was not made available to him to purchase the right kind of players. I would not like to talk about that, but DOES A MANAGER NEED MONEY IN ORDER TO BUY THE RIGHT TACTICS? Wenger had a way of overly favouring certain underperforming players while sacrificing possibly better ones on the bench. He hardly made substitutions, and when he did, it was a radically wrong and terribly late one.
Well, after the game against Manchester City, things have really been looking colourful. We may not be playing sexy football as often, but we grind out wins. Team selection and formation has been quite interesting, particularly against Boro. I love what he’s doing with Cazorla and Ozil, together with our own Cock. While the trio of Sanchez, Welbeck and Giroud is a hard working combination and quite very effective and efficient.
Let’s continue in this spirit. Maureen may have a point, but I’m sure if things continue this way at the club, we will be drinking wine with the EPL, UCL cups soon.
Spot on supertuur. “Every way you look at it, we should be up there”. Every way but without mentioning the most important factor, the factor that has a statistical correlation of close to 90% with success – money spent. If Wenger had spent half of what Chelsea have in the last 10 years and had still not won anything I would be a rabid, mad-dog AOB. No two ways about it. JM’s ego does not permit him to take on difficult options/challenges where failure is a possibility or where the cheque-book remains closed. When JM keeps Chelski in the UCL for 10 years with a close to zero net spend, or when he takes a job at a Aston Villa or Newcastle or Everton and gets them competing for the PL I will be happy to kneel at the altar of Jose and praise his God-like management qualities. He is in a group of modern managers who we will probably never know just how much of their team’s success was purely down to their management skills because they were never really tested with a project or a long-term plan. You just have a merry go round with Mourinho, Guardiola, Ancelotti, Van Gaal et al hopping from one dominant rich club to the next. The jobs they take are heavily skewed in their favour in terms of likely success, never worse than a 50/50 chance of winning the league they are in, when they do it we all bow and scrape, when they don’t they just move on to the next “challenge”. For me at least, the real legends are those that create dynasties or have long periods of domination and remain loyal or leave real legacies or convert unlikely teams in to winners.
You love this simplistic argument. Yes money does correlate with success. However savvy management and smart tactics can make decent teams into great ones (Dortmund, Liverpool?). People love the “we had no money” argument for the last decade, but you forget the calibre of player we had at the club (RVP, Ade, Eduardo, Fab, Nasri, Song etc). AND the calibre of player we rejected for pittance from Ligue 1 (Wengers apparent ace up the sleeve) such as cabaye(5m), sissoko(2.5m), Lloris(10m).
Yes we were given quite a task to usurp United, Chelsea, and an emerging City. But don’t dare tell me no trophy in almost a decade is justified by having less cash. In Wengers first 8 trophy winning years we never spent more than 13mil on a player, so to suggest we’ve needed vast sums of money to compete is just ignoring everything we are as a football club. We have been the pioneers of finding young talent and nurturing it, finding lesser knowns and watching them thrive in our team.
Fact is we haven’t developed our tactics until this year, haven’t addressed the fitness model of the club which is negligent, haven’t scouted/negotiated at all well, and in that time ‘the rest’ have taken our pioneering model and ran with it to close the gap on us while the top 3 added ready made stars. We should have been far more competitive than we were the last 10 years, it’s that simple.
Sorry, while I appreciate our consistency, the argument for the last 10 years being an amazing achievement is just total nonsense. It has been slightly above average, which is not the standard expected from a club with Arsenals history. Instead Wenger has failed to adapt tactics until a decade later, our medical approach is the joke of the league, and our recruitment is still questionable despite the recent turn to bona fide stars.
Keep drinking that champagne, Charlie. At least that will help make you feel like a winner.
While I appreciate your sentiment for high expectations, I think we CAN take solace in the consistency the club has managed. That doesn’t meet the fans’ expectations, by any means. But I think you’re unfairly harsh in criticizing our recruiting efforts, as they’ve been quite good over the years, and certainly, as you point out, as of late. And I think you misunderstand the application of the tactics that have not resulted in winning trophies by overlooking that they were used to develop the talent we have now. And boy we’re starting to show how those tactics and that development has indeed been, at least in part, a success.
It’s been rough and painful. I won’t say that it couldn’t have been better handled. Because, although I’m no Wenger (sub in any great manager), I do know that as humans in a job, we can always do better. COYG!!!
So we can take solace in achieving something that doesn’t meet the fans expectations for an entire decade? Strange.
And i don’t think it’s unfair at all to question our recruitment, it’s been extremely poor. Even the last couple of years. Ozil is one of my favourite players in world football, but the summer we got him we had no good DM, CB, or ST. And had Cazorla/Rosicky/Jack at CAM. So how was 43mil on another CAM the right way to go?
Plenty of underachievement the last decade. Still going on in truth, as we added Alexis and Welbz yet are still in a dogfight for 4th and got extremely lucky in our CL draw after botching our group. Nice that you can keep the blinkers on, but some of us can be objective when it comes to Arsenal.
I think you meant blinders and not blinkers. But, no, you are keeping the blinders on by expecting that we are going to be able to find a suitable DM, CB, and ST all in one window. The Ozil trade doesn’t just happen by luck, either, and so it was likely one that the manager targeted all along. Funny thing that happened after that, Arsenal had its strongest title challenge in 10 years. Coincidence, maybe.
And this season, yes, we got stronger after last summer’s window. But, sadly, we were not able to overcome the fatigue of a world cup that also brought injuries to some of our developing players. So underachieved, maybe. And that is what should motivate the club to push forward for greater success. Time will tell whether we see that motivation rewarded this season or not.
Aside from this season, we have recruited some talented young men from Southampton and Costa Rica. That’s not by luck. Even if Campbell hasn’t been able to show what he’s worth in the EPL, yet, we all saw what he could become at the WC. Chambers, Theo, Ox, Giroud, Arteta, Per. All solid recruits and have done admirably to represent the club. Not the sexiest of names. And we have only won the FA cup with most of them. But think bigger picture and then reevaluate the achievement based on that.
I call it solace because we would all obviously want to win and to win every.single.season. But complaining that because we didn’t do anything for 10 years when there’s clearly been a game plan all along and having a side created that will be strong for the next 5-7 years, is a relatively objective stance after seeing what other teams have done for themselves (i.e., Manure).
Claiming that we have underachieved, that is subjective, and your opinion. It happens to be that as fans of a team, we want to see trophies. But what we don’t see is what it takes to construct a model of financial success that will allow us to house the best players in the world, in one of the most modern stadiums in the world, in one of the biggest football city’s in the world. And to buy players without massive loans or write-offs (which is what Abramovich and the Sheikh do) is a testament to how to run a successful football club. 10 years of relevance with a strong forward looking model, even without winning, followed up by 10+ years of real competition, I’m a patient man, and if I’m the owner of the Arsenal, I’ll take that any day of the week. COYG!!!
No I definitely mean blinkers, it’s a widely accepted term….blinders is less so. But thanks.
Not a very attentive fan are you? Our best attempt at a title run was 07/08 when Eduardo’s leg was destroyed along with our title ambitions. To say we had a strong title challenge last year is hilarious, we set the pace until xmas and were pathetic when the pressure was on, only to galvanize as we looked to finish 4th. “Strongest title challenge in 10 years”?? give me a break.
And again you’re so wide of the mark with your transfer analysis it’s scary. Ozil was planned? Only you believe that, Bale was being bought and RM were booting out 1 of 3 players (Benzema, Di Maria, Ozil), we got Ozil. Also, expecting a CB, DM, and ST in one window is not too much….but even then I’m not pointing fingers at one window, we have been several years without a DM and top ST. Just brilliant you quote me Joel Campbell as an example of our scouting prowess, 22 turning 23 year old who isn’t good enough for the first team where Chambo (21), Sanogo (21), Gnabry (19) and Chuba (19) can get games.
Care to assess how Cabaye/Sissoko/Lloris/Capoue/Toulalan/Kongdogbia and plenty others were never signed given our supposed cornering of the French market? Instead we had Almunia/Denilson/Santos/Bendtner and countless others.
Fact is you, and plenty others, have your Arsenal BLINKERS on and cannot see average even if you watch it for a decade straight. Instead you come out with lines like “had no money” or “world cup fatigue” as some piss poor justification (cos we were the only ones with players at the WC….). I am one of Wengers biggest fans, but he is culpable for poor tactics, injury mismanagement, and poor recruitment. Those things combined meant the talented, admittedly thin, squad we had the last 6/7 years achieved nought. While the now brilliant, deep squad is performing little better.
So your argument is essentially that if we had say Mourinho for the last 10 years we would have consistently won the PL and UCL with a close to zero spend. That would be a good discussion. I am not in love with this “simplistic” argument – it just happens to be true. And don’t put words in my mouth re “amazing achievement” – never said that. Net spend 2004-2013 MC £556M, CFC £582M, MU £315M Arsenal £69M. All ten PL winners in this period MC, CFC, MU. You will probably tell me it was predominantly down to superior tactics and medical support and the money was an incidental factor. If you don’t see it then I’m not going to lay it out for you. The correlation is not perfect or 100% so there will be exceptions to the rules. Liverpool “great” – glad you used a question mark there, and ignoring the fact that their net spend was nearly four times ours. You think Barca’s and Real’s dominance is down to tactics and management and the TV rights deals they are feed off of are incidental. You can hang your hat on Atletico as to what can be achieved but not sure why you think one of the most talked about achievement in modern European football is a realistic blueprint for everyone else. And I do not forget the quality of the players we have had – I am assuming you are giving credit to Wenger on that one by managing to produce such quality on a budget. Our spend 3004-13 was comparable to N’castle and Everton and half of Villas – it could be fairly said we have done slightly better than them.
I’ve acknowledged the link money has to success. But you have failed to accept that tactics, management, player recruitment are all superior factors in what makes a team great. Sure, having piles of cash helps a great deal but when you can buy David Luiz for 50mil of Koscielny for 10mil it just isn’t a black and white argument.
Yes, I have said the competition was slanted, and to a degree unfair. but that doesn’t factor when I look at what Arsenal could have done to achieve the very best WE were capable of in that time period. I have no doubt that a more tactically astute manager who addressed the recruitment needs of the squad would have achieved greater success in the same period.
I’ve touched on it before, and will again, that Arsenal the past decade had resources (players, training facilities) that could rival any team in England. We weren’t perhaps equipped to challenge on multiple fronts, but then that lends itself to poor management once again that we didn’t prioritize one competition over another.
Your view is too simplified. Money is a contributory factor, but not the deciding one. Dortmund and Atletico have shown in recent years how proper cutting edge management and recruitment usurps spending power. Liverpool are another example from a tactical perspective, however they lack the quality recruitment to go with the coaches methods. Money is easy to hide behind but Wenger, with more nous, could have built a more balanced and competitive side had he picked the right areas to strengthen and had flexible tactics. No amount of “money means success” will persuade me otherwise – even Wenger himself notes the quality of a player is not linked to his price tag.
Hey mate, respect your opinion but suggest the money issue is proven as a very significant factor. Can’t really see how you can think otherwise when you look around all the European Leagues. Your view is also too simplified imo and furthermore, pure hypotheses. I think your argument is, to distill it down to basics, “look at Dortmund and Atletico, they have been successful without mega-spending and Arsenal should of been able to achieve the same”. Always a bit dodgy to build an argument off the exceptional rather than norm. They are the 2nd and 3rd richest clubs in their respective leagues, arguably both leagues are less competitive than the PL, both in worlds Top 20 rich list and both have spent more than AFC. You talk in reverential tones as if they are minnows on a shoe-string performing miracles through coaching alone. They have 4 league titles between them in the past 30 years so can’t imagine you’d be any happier supporting either of these two teams if Arsenal’s recent record doesn’t float your boat. Anyway, in terms of winning leagues, hasn’t Wenger been there and done that already? I whilst I can probably anticipate your answer – are you genuinely convinced we would have won PL or UCL 2005-2013 with zero spend but with a Mourinho at the helm?
We all know wenger is to blame don’t we???????
Wenger will win PL and CL before he retires
We have had an amazing amount of injuries…last year was particularly bad….Chelsea on the other hand have had few injury problems. If we had had our full team for the past couple of years I believe we would have done better. Especially last year when we were top at Christmas .
I REALLY hope that we do beat Chelsea when we play them at our place….I felt REALLY sorry for Arsene last time they came to The Emirates…..Jose had given his ‘specialist in failure’ speech and he has always won over Arsene ….I know I hate Jose this time he is back in the PL ( he was OK ish first time round) but I can’t imagine how Asene must feel towards him.
He is forever having hurtful ‘digs’ at Arsene and us as a team….I hope before he retires that Arsene can beat him at least once.
I know your article was about how Jose has a point…….perhaps that’s why his constant ‘digs’ hurt so much.
He should just focus his mind on HIS team….they are not problem free at the moment…and leave us to focus on Arsenal, who are doing OK right now
I blame those stupid hacks. They sit there, ask Morinho stupid questions to get a reaction.He comes back with a stupid broken English reply. They then all giggle like soppy schoolgirls. He thinks he’s clever and sits back and smiles.The hacks then have the drivel printed waisting everybody who reads the shite.
Thank you.Over and out.
Injury contribute only 50% of our failure if you ask me, incomplete business DM and CB contributed 25%, managers decisions in picking up the squad, substitution, keeping under performers I.e Szczesny, per at the beginning of the season, and other decisions. Make up the remaining 25% of our failure. That’s how I see it anyway!
It really pains me that my beloved club is yet to win the UCL.
It hurts more-so for Wenger who has done so much for the club and the game as a whole. Yes he has his faults and I take a jab or two at him aswell when I see something, but I kinda feel for his because whether we like it or not he is apart of us.
Please Wenger do all you can to win the UCL for the club and for yourself and shut everyone up. Disgusting article circulating on goal.com on how we cant win the UCL, I find it stup!d because in cup competitions nothing is impossible, even Monaco or Porto could go on to win it
why don’t we win more?
injuries [parlour said our training techniques were the same as from 2004]
not having a world-class CF (cavani,suarez,rvp,…),
very thin defence & some teenagers in it,
no CDM until recently,
i want to like wenger, but i think what he does is always a bit short, why not spend a bit more to buy defenders (i don’t buy his argument that they are hard to get; the solution is almost always money),
favoritism to some players (wilshere..),
too many players of the same type,
not paying enough attention to set pieces…
but to be fair, AW has fixed a number of these in the last few months and we’ve climbed. IMO if we get a WC CF and a WC CDM we’ll be competitive next season w chelsea/manc.
I don’t believe RVP is world-class anymore. I never thought I would say this but on current form I’ll take Giroud over RVP, Falcao or Cavani in the starting 11.
The thing I don’t want to see this summer is Arsenal selling key players. I’ll go mad if we sell Cazorla. For the past many years we have been short of 2-3 players winning the league. I hope this time we can finally have a complete squad. When I see our bench, I know we are not far from being a serious contender.
Guarantee you will not see us selling our key players. Guaran-feckin-teed. That is precisely why we are finally starting to see the light at the end of what has been a long tunnel. And, no, this is not what it was in years past when we were a couple of players short. Then we were still in financial hot water. Now, we clearly have much greater financial freedom to finish creating the depth in the squad that is needed to compete with the deepest and most successful of teams.
OT: Inter fans growing frustrated at Poldi’s performances!!!
Was Wenger right after all? If he cant make it in Serie A am sorry but he should not be allowed to come back. Ship in out in the summer and bring in a replacement. Will miss the educated left foot and the selfies though.
prince poldi is our best finisher he shld be playing for us….
Mancini doesnt like him…and the Inter fans doesnt appreciate him….
lets bring him back
Has Poldi played in that league before? Is that how he performs in England? Isn’t he a new face in the team? The language? Culture? …..????
AW should change his training method, parlour ssays we still use d. Same method since 2004, all d injuries are not coincedence and I. Had we are looking 4 a soft tissue therapist datz what we should have done 4yrs ago. Even with a complete suad arsenal fans will not be convinced we can get rusults from d top teams cuz of AW is tactically inept, and not alwayz will 2 solve obvious problems in Squad by signing what we need. We shoul be doing better mourinho is ryt . What d point of all these yrs of suffering cuz of new stadiumif we still can’t compete? What gud d new deals have done to us if we are still fighting 4 top 4 place.
Mourinho is a queef (look it up if you don’t know the meaning). I mean he is rude and a jerk. The opposite personality of Wenger
He is a good manager in the sense that he knows exactly who to get to win a title (ie Costa and Fabregas plus Remy and Cuadrado)
That said, He Has gone from top team to top team. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be under financial restraints during and after building of a stadium. Wenger did an amazing job keeping us in the top 4 consecutively for almost a decade with minimal spending.
If Mourinho had been here, he would have run away with a leaving bonus. He only likes clubs who can spend big.
Sorry but like it or not the reality is Maureen has delivered big prizes at Top clubs where there is great expectation.
In 3 years in Real Madrid he won the copa del rey (FA cup), la liga (the league) and the Super Cup..not bad eh? Same with Chelski.
Now some will say it was and is because RM and CFCS have loads of money. Partly but Surely that’s not the complete picture is it?..
What about handling the big players and occasions, managing, tactics and strategy..
AFC have had a good run and I hope this continues but as Ive said before IMO I truly believe our current coach cannot take us any further than we currently are and have been for too many seasons.
Obviously the board are happy not coming out on top as long as the financial growth is there and that’s why we are and have been for in this situation for some considerable time.
Now let’s roll over Monagoing out.
You have to ask why Moaninho says these things. It’s all about him. He is the Paranoid One, The Childish One. For all his undoubted success he feels we do not rate him highly enough, and he has to belittle his competitors, to make himself feel good.
It’s not just AW, it’s also the Man City boss – who he calls Pellegrino (he did this in Spain too).
He is a niggly, sly little git, which is reflected in the was his team plays – lots of sly kicks, blocks and nudges.
Remember, with the exception of Porto, his success has been based on having shed loads of money to spend – and at Real Madrid his success was poor (for them).
Was the decision to fund the Emirates out of income a strategic mistake, as we couldn’t compete with petro-millions? Who knows? It’s done now and we need to move on.
We should be happy he’s having a pop at AW and Pellegrini – it means he’s worried by both City and Arsenal.
COYG
Another point about Jose is that he is ONLY interested in winning NOW ..he cares not about the players , the future of the club, other peoples feelings…he is an out and out winner..whatever it takes….now some may like that attitude in a manager…I think you do need a bit of that to be a good manager…but I like it that our club looks to continuing growth and is a club that has ethics that we can be proud of …
And you know he doesn’t care about his players, how?
Winning NOW is all that counts in football. It’s not the victory yesterday or the dream of it tomorrow.
It’s NOW! Like you said in a roundabout way; that is the winning mentality.
Wish we had more wins, less ‘ethics’ whatever that is supposed to mean in a football context…
Yeah, sod the past, b**%$ks to the future and to hell with this pussy “ethics” thing. This is football to be delivered on our own personal terms – not some sort of poncey, complex, global sport’s business. True supporters don’t care one iota about past achievements nor the future of their clubs.
good point haha
Does the writer of this article live here or on Mars? If he lives here like I imagine then he should be aware of the following facts: Mourinho has been in charge of clubs with unlimited resources since leaving Porto which most of his apologists like quoting. Let us suppose, for hypothetical reasons, Mourinho was still at Porto who would know or even care if he exists still! Let us not forget that in 2003-04 Mourinho was at Porto and Wenger was at Arsenal. Since then Mourinho has moved to Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Chelsea again. In the meantime, Wenger was busy with the construction of E had limited funds
My last message got interrupted and was left halfway. In the meantime Wenger was busy with the construction of Emirates stadium and had little money to spend. However he kept Arsenal in EPL all that period inspite of the meagre resources. Now that Arsenal has finished paying the stadium debt it has some money to spend albeit not at the same level as Chelsea and Man city which are owned by billionaire godfathers.
If I may ask the writer which is that big point Mourinho has? Is it a question like why didn’t Arsenal also get a god father? I believe the writer is just a Mourinho apologist who is highly impressionable and gullible! If Arsenal has a good squad it is due to Wenger’s focus and foresight that we have such players at less than half what Chelsea paid for their squad. Does Mourinho think this squad fell from heaven? Furthermore Arsenal’s failure to compete this season was mainl;y due to more than expected injuries. otherwise if Arsenal had not had injuries maybe it would have been where Chelsea is currently. Let Mourinho not brag he is there by default and I can see Man city displacing him from there.
Using a DM against chelsea and in d next game, 2DM against sunderland. WRONG TACTICS