Up the Arse! Goons Thread

[windyhill]

He was pretty bloody impressive against Man City.

All season G67, all season.

 

[Genesis67]

For someone who comes across as very anti-Giroud, you're full of praise here.

What changed?

You need to read more Cruyffy. Aside from Kieran-'You've got two legs, bloody use them'-Gibbs (and this is for illogical personal reasons), I'm not really anti-anyone in our squad. I'm by nature an optimistic person, and inherently try to see the best in people. But I am not so optimistically blind as to not be able to recognise what a player's weaknesses and strengths are.

Giroud is a quality striker, but there is a difference between World Class and quality. If you look at Edinson Cavani by himself, you'd probably see something you think is WC, but when you put him next to Zlatan, it's fairly easy to recognise the difference. And Cavani is closer to WC than Ollie is.

Giroud would make a great CF to rotate around, were we playing 4-4-2, and I would be really interested in seeing that. But until our Manager changes, we aren't going to play a 4-4-2, nullifying Giroud's strongest point. At this point, the club needs to accept that if we're going to continue playing with a lone striker, we're going to have to cough up for an Aguero. And there just aren't that many Aguero types around. That doesn't mean to say I consider Giroud poor (although there is no denying he's had a poor year); he'd make an excellent #2. And I delight in the fact that Ollie seems to bleed Arsenal.

But everyone here knows what our weaknesses are. ST/CF is one of them. This SHOULD have been our year. Instead, our two primary strikers score...what....a dozen goals between them? 20? (I don't have the # handy). Is it not fair to say we need to be a little ruthless there?

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Not really, our players would struggle to play under his system. Would have nowhere near the level of success he is having at Atletico unless he decided to bring half that team with him.

Half our squad needs to be moved on as they are not good enough to compete for the PL and CL. And yes I know no chance we could get Simeone which is a real shame.

 

[windyhill]

Kompany out is handy, just behind Kun in importance.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Kompany out is handy, just behind Kun in importance.

Hopefully we start Welbz up front.

 

[AG]

Interesting read

http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/gooners-out-tourists-in/

 

[glenferry23]

Interesting read

http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/gooners-out-tourists-in/

Very interesting. On another note, not sure if it was mentioned here but the tour dates for Arsenal's visit to Sydney was announced last week.

13 July and 15 July are the matches. Anyone here going to go? I actually forgot it was happening to be honest, the announcement came and went pretty quietly last week.

 

[glenferry23]

Website is here.

http://www.arsenalinsydney.com.au

 

[Cruyff14]

Very interesting. On another note, not sure if it was mentioned here but the tour dates for Arsenal's visit to Sydney was announced last week.

13 July and 15 July are the matches. Anyone here going to go? I actually forgot it was happening to be honest, the announcement came and went pretty quietly last week.

Yeah I will.

Missus suggested and she wants to as well.

 

[The Filth Wizard]

I'll be camping on the couches of family for that week, certainly. I actually advised the missus to schedule our wedding in the first school holidays as I knew this would correspond with the second and I'm honestly not missing the chance to see Arsenal live.

 

[Shoei]

Interesting read

http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/gooners-out-tourists-in/

"There are people who have been going down there for 30, 40 years," he says, "but now that the club has all this Premier League money, they don't care about what we have to say, because there's always someone who'll want your seat."

"It used to be that I could just call up David Dein, who owned 30 per cent of the club," Payton says of the AST's new relationship with the hierarchy. "It's a very different relationship now to, say, call up someone who might be called the communications director who just reports in to someone else. The relationship now is much more like a consumer forum, discussing with executives at the club about fairly low-level decisions, rather than having discussions with owner-directors who are also supporters. It's much more of a 'them and us' relationship, much more consumer-based."

"From 1998 onwards, Arsenal became very fashionable," Bazell says. "Before that, it was very much a working-class club. This was a club built by the working class, by workers in the old Woolwich gun factory, and it's been stolen by the rich. But football changes the way life changes".

At the back of it all, it's important to remember that Arsenal is a business with a mandate to maximise its profitability, not to make concessions to a community with which its relationship has become little more than an inconvenience for both parties. But perhaps this shows us more than anything how far the club has drifted from the ethic upon which it was built

Eh, Football club stops being a club and becomes a business.

40+ years fans can't accept that it is now a global business not "their" club anymore. It sad but that's just the way the world is.

Ticket prices do need to be looked at across the league though.

 

[elhadjihenry]

Very interesting. On another note, not sure if it was mentioned here but the tour dates for Arsenal's visit to Sydney was announced last week.

13 July and 15 July are the matches. Anyone here going to go? I actually forgot it was happening to be honest, the announcement came and went pretty quietly last week.

Definitely, will take work off if I have to so I can go to both games.

 

[PendlePie]

IMO beating City would raise our season grade from an F to an E-

 

[Shoei]

Meh as long as we finish 3rd-4th i don't really see how our season is any worse from the last 12.

Let's face it at the beginning of the season if you were told "Arsenal will finish 3rd-4th" again, would you really be surprised? The only reason people are getting bent out of shape is that the two teams we are behind are Leicester and Spurs, which NOBODY saw happening.

Our season will be a C - passed but underachieving as always

 

[PendlePie]

Yeah, based on results we're at a C-.

But factor in that this is the poorest performing Arsenal side we've seen in several years - we struggle to score, shitty GD, don't actually play well that often anymore, many players have regressed - and it's probably lower than that.

Off the top of my head - United (h), Swansea (a), City (h), Leicester (a), Bournemouth (h), Everton (a), Watford (h) are the only games we've played at a great level.

 

[Cruyff14]

IMO beating City would raise our season grade from an F to an E-

Don't be ridiculous, our season has not been that bad. Far too dramatic.

 

[PendlePie]

Don't be ridiculous, our season has not been that bad. Far too dramatic.

Haha relax - was a bit of a tongue in cheek comment.

Reasonably speaking, I give us a pass on our finishing position and a fail on the brand of football we've displayed - so what's that, a D?

 

[Cruyff14]

Well finishing third isn't exactly poor in the grand scheme of things. Decent prize money + CL.

Overall perspective on how the season has unfolded it isn't great. But it has not been a complete failure.

Yeah the highest I would go is maybe a C+

 

[Shoei]

D or C would be fair assessments.

 

[PendlePie]

It's a funny one - had we been told before the season that we'd finish above Chelsea, United, Liverpool and (maybe) City, I doubt many of us would've seen that as a C or D mark!

 

[Shoei]

It's a funny one - had we been told before the season that we'd finish above Chelsea, United, Liverpool and (maybe) City, I doubt many of us would've seen that as a C or D mark!

Its bizarre isn't it, if you told someone that at the beginning of the season you'd say it was a dead set certainty that Arsenal would have then won the league.

That's what makes the giggling at Tottenham a little more enjoyable - finishing above Arsenal, Liverpool, Man United, Chelsea and City.....yet still not good enough to win the league! I honestly do feel a little sorry for them (just a little)

 

[glenferry23]

I think a C+ is about a fair assessment, particularly if we seal 3rd spot and avoid the 4th placed playoffs.

Lack of silverware prevents a higher grading. No one really could have predicted the season would pan out the way it did.

Chelsea's rapid decline and Mourinho's sacking would've been the story of the season in any other year really. Leicester's unbelievable victory has relegated the Chelsea story a distant memory almost.

 

[Latro]

The season is an F.

 

[Genesis67]

Statistically, I'd give this year a B-. In a year when a large # of the big clubs struggled, we held our own, and look to be finishing 3rd, with automatic entrance into the CL. Grading goes against a set of threshold rankings, and we look like we'll finish above 16 or 17 teams. Maybe even a B.

But on a subjective level, I struggle to give this year anything above a D. I feel like giving it worse. We score more points against ManU, Man City, Chelsea, Tottenham and 'Pool than we have done in a long time, and we're arguing about third, and finishing well off first? We beat the eventual champions home AND away FFS!

We had a year with an abominable number of shithouse results against shithouse opposition. Were it not for Ozil, Iwobi and in patches Sanchez & Campbell, we'd not be arguing about 3rd either. We'd be arguing about Europa League. 6 weeks in, and everyone in here, myself included, were finally thinking "this is our year" in a realistic and genuine manner. Nope.

Too many passengers this year. We have a good squad, we really do. Sure, we have some dead wood, but every squad does, and it looks like we'll lose some of that dead wood over summer. But too many of our players were passengers too often this season.

 

[glenferry23]

Player ratings would be interesting too. Ozil, Cech, Bellerin and Monreal would be the standouts. All deserve As.

Bellerin dipped a bit in form after his injury but can't really ask for much more from him, he's still a teenager. Koscielny has been pretty consistent and would be around a B+. Sanchez has had patches where he's shown his best but overall hasn't been as good as last year.

Ramsey, Walcott, Ox would struggle to get more than a C. Or a D if being harsh.