Eddie Nket14h: Answering The 📞 From England

[Dokaka]

Go compare Arsenal's squad in 2007/08 to Man Utd and Chelsea, it's actually ridiculous we only finished 4 and 2 points behind them respectively. That's with refs basically allowing our players to get fouled with no reprecussions while you couldn't touch a Man United player without getting a yellow.

Overall squad I'd agree, but the spine of that 07/08 squad was class. Fabregas, Gallas, Toure, Adebayor, RVP, Eduardo, Rosicky, Sagna and Diaby would all walk into the current Arsenal starting XI imo. It was a very good team, with a good mix of young talent and veterans backing them up. Had some big flaws obviously.

It was around that time I grew an interest in Arsenal as the team was genuinely amazing to watch, full of really exciting talent.

 

[Macho]

Overall squad I'd agree, but the spine of that 07/08 squad was class. Fabregas, Gallas, Toure, Adebayor, RVP, Eduardo, Rosicky, Sagna and Diaby would all walk into the current Arsenal starting XI imo. It was a very good team, with a good mix of young talent and veterans backing them up. Had some big flaws obviously.

It was around that time I grew an interest in Arsenal as the team was genuinely amazing to watch, full of really exciting talent.

The discussion is if a lot of them were coming through now under this current narrative that Arteta needs the best players possible in every position, a lot of those names wouldn't have made it here.

They were all flawed and required development and coaching which isn't afforded today unless you're moving like Saka.

Half of the names discussed only became acknowledged as top quality after the fact, not at the time.

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

Walcott scored against big teams, that’s was one of his things, especially against Chelsea.

Saka is a better footballer, Walcott was limited, but I’m not sure Saka will ever match the output of Walcott.

Saka has already beaten Walcott’s second best league goal return. Other than 12/13 where he scored 14, his highest tally was 10. Saka got 11 last year whilst playing in an inferior team.

I was surprised to see these stats tbh but I did feel like a bit of revisionism was taking place. It seemed as though Walcott scored every other week at one point.

 

[Makingtrax]

Thank you! I don't get all this revisionism going on here like people didn't use to moan about these players all the time back then. Not to mention they were always called weak & soft. But no these guys should've been winning the league over those insane Man Utd and Chelsea squads.

Go compare Arsenal's squad in 2007/08 to Man Utd and Chelsea, it's actually ridiculous we only finished 4 and 2 points behind them respectively. That's with refs basically allowing our players to get fouled with no reprecussions while you couldn't touch a Man United player without getting a yellow.

Didn’t you know all those Transfermarkt figures are wrong. We could easily have matched the oil clubs for spending on players. This forum still have people still stuck in the fake narrative that saw him abused and brought down just so they can justify us being a top 8 club instead of a top 4 club.

Btw, Wenger had money available majority of the time. He just arrogantly thought he didn’t need it and chose not to spend it.

 

[Makingtrax]

Overall squad I'd agree, but the spine of that 07/08 squad was class. Fabregas, Gallas, Toure, Adebayor, RVP, Eduardo, Rosicky, Sagna and Diaby would all walk into the current Arsenal starting XI imo. It was a very good team, with a good mix of young talent and veterans backing them up. Had some big flaws obviously.

It was around that time I grew an interest in Arsenal as the team was genuinely amazing to watch, full of really exciting talent.

Those players were bought on a shoe string and developed by a superb manager. Even established players under Arteta have gone backwards. We’re out investing City for a reason, this manager isn’t cable of that level of stewardship. So no they wouldn’t walk into the current team.

 

[Dokaka]

The discussion is if a lot of them were coming through now under this current narrative that Arteta needs the best players possible in every position, a lot of those names wouldn't have made it here.

They were all flawed and required development and coaching which isn't afforded today unless you're moving like Saka.

Half of the names discussed only became acknowledged as top quality after the fact, not at the time.

Isn't that fairly obvious though as they were young and brought in on the idea that they could become quality players? You can fairly easily draw a parallel between Sagna, Eduardo, Denilson, Rosicky, Walcott etc. and Tomiyasu, Martinelli, Sambi, Ødegaard and Gabriel in terms of fees, status in the game and so on.

I'm not quite sure I see the differences. A lot of the players in that 07 team and onward were brought in for £8m or more, which is around £25m in today's market. The blockbuster deal in the 2008 window as an example was Robinho to City for £32.5m, which was quoted as an insane amount of money at the time, yet today it's borderline squad player money for top clubs or fairly big outlays for the clubs below, like us. Hell, you evens old Henry for just £17m IIRC.

The current transfer policy of investing heavily in youth has been in place for what, 1½ windows? Last summer and January. We're kind of comparing the remnants of the invincibles + the first crop of young talents from the policy back then to barely 18 months of the same policy being in place now, built on the back of a much worse foundation.

It's worth remembering players like Rosicky and Hleb weren't brought in as complete unknowns. Their fees today would likely be in the £35m+ range easily, given what you spent back then, so it's more fair to compare those guys to Ødegaard and White as an example, and not the players that were brought in for peanuts.

 

[DUFFMAN]

Gabriel not happy with arsenal fans reaction to Eddie staying.

 

[Dokaka]

Saka has already beaten Walcott’s second best league goal return. Other than 12/13 where he scored 14, his highest tally was 10. Saka got 11 last year whilst playing in an inferior team.

I was surprised to see these stats tbh but I did feel like a bit of revisionism was taking place. It seemed as though Walcott scored every other week at one point.

Just for the sake of being fair, Walcott scored 14 goals in 2286 minutes of football. Saka scored 11 in 2996. He also got 10 assists vs. Saka's 7.

Walcott in 12/13 was genuinely great. Never got near that peak again, but I think that was the season where you saw what could have been if he'd managed to avoid so many injuries in his career. Flawed player for sure but his strengths were so extreme that he made it work, until his body took those strengths away.

 

[Vanpayslip]

Watching people praise Guardiola really made me wake up. Imagine Arsène with a midfield of Rodri/KDB/B Silva with Gundogan and Fernandinho as back ups? He'd be doing the same 100+ point season with more entertaining football can't lie.

Couldn’t agree more. It’s a shame how it ended for Wenger but there is no doubt that he was ahead of his time in England. While British dinosaur pundits were calling Walcott a brainless footballer, Wenger had already seen that football was shifting and pure wingers would be obsolete soon. People didn’t even know what they were looking at with Walcott yet Wenger from the 1st minute played Walcott exactly the same throughout his time at Arsenal and created a 100+ goal player that barely played in the middle.

While the majority of the league saw defence as 4 defenders, Wenger was looking at fullbacks as dynamic players.

He changed the way midfielders were made up at Arsenal before other teams began.

Sure his execution didn’t always work and it was unfortunate that he ended up where he did but no doubt he was a professor.

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

Just for the sake of being fair, Walcott scored 14 goals in 2286 minutes of football. Saka scored 11 in 2996. He also got 10 assists vs. Saka's 7.

Walcott in 12/13 was genuinely great. Never got near that peak again, but I think that was the season where you saw what could have been if he'd managed to avoid so many injuries in his career. Flawed player for sure but his strengths were so extreme that he made it work, until his body took those strengths away.

For me personally he’s the fastest player I’ve seen play football. Obafemi Martins, Kylian Mbappe Hector Bellerin (pre injury) and Alphonso Davies are all rapid but Walcott for me was Olympic sprinter level quick. Was such a weapon.

Problem is his dribbling was substandard. Couldn't use his pace efficiently with the ball, his movement off the ball was fantastic though. He always posted decent numbers, I’m just surprised he only hit double figures twice in the league for us.

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

Watching people praise Guardiola really made me wake up. Imagine Arsène with a midfield of Rodri/KDB/B Silva with Gundogan and Fernandinho as back ups? He'd be doing the same 100+ point season with more entertaining football can't lie.

Big facts.

 

[Dokaka]

For me personally he’s the fastest player I’ve seen play football. Obafemi Martins, Kylian Mbappe Hector Bellerin (pre injury) and Alphonso Davies are all rapid but Walcott for me was Olympic sprinter level quick. Was such a weapon.

Problem is his dribbling was substandard. Couldn't use his pace efficiently with the ball, his movement off the ball was fantastic though. He always posted decent numbers, I’m just surprised he only hit double figures twice in the league for us.

Agree, although I wonder how much of that was him being that type of athlete at that point in football history. Plop Mbappe against your typical 2008 defenders and it'd probably look quite different than it does now.

Walcott for me was a very underrated finisher. Not flawless, but his ability to place the ball with decent power while running at the speed he was takes a lot of skill. His dribbling wasn't great for sure but then again, had he been a good dribbler and kept the rest of his game intact, he'd probably have been considered borderline world class.

 

[AberGooner]

Agree, although I wonder how much of that was him being that type of athlete at that point in football history. Plop Mbappe against your typical 2008 defenders and it'd probably look quite different than it does now.

I never realised everyone was playing walking football back then.

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

Agree, although I wonder how much of that was him being that type of athlete at that point in football history. Plop Mbappe against your typical 2008 defenders and it'd probably look quite different than it does now.

There were fast defenders back then too . Walcott was just unbelievably quick. Didn’t need time to get into his stride either, was absolutely gone from the off.

 

[Riou]

At the end of the day... Wenger's work and the players themselves, from 2006-2015...is just an underrated period.

We weren't quite good enough for the major honours anymore, but still played ridiculous football and had some brilliant players.

It's mad how much criticism the press gave Arsenal, during that period, considering our financial limitations.

 

[Rex Stone]

Agree, although I wonder how much of that was him being that type of athlete at that point in football history. Plop Mbappe against your typical 2008 defenders and it'd probably look quite different than it does now.

Walcott for me was a very underrated finisher. Not flawless, but his ability to place the ball with decent power while running at the speed he was takes a lot of skill. His dribbling wasn't great for sure but then again, had he been a good dribbler and kept the rest of his game intact, he'd probably have been considered borderline world class.

I don’t know if I buy into all this “players are faster” now because there are athletic records like Bob Beamon’s long jump world record which was done in the late 60s when he was thrown out of college for protesting and had to train by himself.

It was so far and away the best that in the 50 plus years that followed only one has just beaten it. Some people are going to be athletic gods in any era.

 

[Dokaka]

There were fast defenders back then too . Walcott was just unbelievably quick. Didn’t need time to get into his stride either, was absolutely gone from the off.

Obviously, but the norm of what a CB looks like has changed. So many teams back the just played big strong lads who could head the ball well, especially in the Prem. The physical profile of your typical CB has changed a lot over the last 15 years or so, side by side with the players in general getting in better and better shape. It is an outlier today if a CB isn't fairly quick and agile, whereas back then it was seen as more of a bonus.

You could also argue Walcott would thrive more in today's game of course, given the emergence of the high press being utilized by a lot more clubs and not just the very top.

I never realised everyone was playing walking football back then.

The physical profile of your typical 2008 footballer is much different than they are today. Countless articles describing how much more serious the game has gotten with fitness and stamping out bad habits outside of training etc.

 

[AberGooner]

The physical profile of your typical 2008 footballer is much different than they are today. Countless articles describing how much more serious the game has gotten with fitness and stamping out bad habits outside of training etc.

I think it's nonsense to be honest, no disrespect. Without debating their abilities as defenders in comparison with today's players guys like Campbell, Toure or Gallas would all be as rapid now as they where back then if they where playing today. Walcott for example was going up against guys like Ashley Cole and Patrice Evra. You can't tell me those guys would be slouches in today's game.

I mean at this rate we're close to calling Lewandowski quicker than Henry simply because he plays football in the year 2022.

 

[Dokaka]

I don’t know if I buy into all this “players are faster” now because there are athletic records like Bob Beamon’s long jump world record which was done in the late 60s when he was thrown out of college for protesting and had to train by himself.

It was so far and away the best that in the 50 plus years that followed only one has just beaten it. Some people are going to be athletic gods in any era.

You don't judge the general level by the extremes on either end; there'll always be outliers. Since you follow NBA stuff, I'll take an example from that: Wilt Chamberlain was an insanely athletic big man, would still be considered extremely gifted physically in today's game, but surely you agree that the average physical level of the players he went up against were miles behind the current NBA.

You'll always have elite players doing elite things, but that's not really an indication of the average. The amount of Premier League CBs right now that are able to move quickly, play the ball out from the back and also be decent in the air is staggering compared to the late 2000s.

Keep in mind I was just wondering how much of a difference it made as Walcott truly was elite in terms of pace. Walcott would be rapid in any era of any sport, he wasn't just elite at full sprint but has insane acceleration as well.

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

At the end of the day... Wenger's work and the players themselves, from 2006-2015...is just an underrated period.

We weren't quite good enough for the major honours anymore, but still played ridiculous football and had some brilliant players.

It's mad how much criticism the press gave Arsenal, during that period, considering our financial limitations.

It’s clear the media had a huge problem with Wenger- for obvious reasons. We were under extreme financial constraints back then but still made top 4 every year, instead of being lauded for that we were criticised vehemently.

Uncle Mikel is getting a much easier time by comparison. The athletic columnists, Neville and Carragher, Keown, Merson.. they’ve all been super kind to him.