Tir Na Nog
Changes Opinion Every 5 Minutes
Country: Ireland
Just looking at the scenes yesterday. United and Chelsea both celebrating top 4 like it's a trophy, this is after United spent nearly £150 million then brought in Bruno on top of that btw. Then looking at Sp**s celebrating 6th place.
Wenger was derided by the English media and in turn some of the fans for suggesting that finishing in the top 4 was an achievement, and this was with selling our best players. Lampard getting MOTY shouts for finishing 3rd on 66 points, Wenger finished on 75 points in his penultimate and there was planes being flown calling for his sacking. I don't remember the media ever once giving Wenger any credit whatsoever for finishing in the top 4, even the season after we sold Nasri, Fabregas and we had a terrible start to the season and ended up in 3rd, we were laughed at for acting like it was an achievement. Now you have Gary Neville, the say guy criticising Wenger back in 2012, calling him arrogant is now full of praise for Solskjaer for spending 200 million to get them 3rd. It's absolutely incredible. It just sums up how hated Wenger was by large sections of the media. Then people talk about Lampard losing Hazard. Try losing Henry, Hleb, Flamini, Adebayor, Toure, Fabregas, Nasri, Van Persie all in the space of 5 seasons while STILL getting top 4, still putting in the odd title challenging, still getting to CL and FA Cup semi-finals, still finishing ahead of sides spending more money. And he got absolutely zero credit for it for the most part.
But now all of a sudden the media realise the difficulties of finishing top 4, in a season where in my opinion the quality outwith Liverpool and City is as low as I can remember, all of a sudden top 4 is a remarkable achievement.
It's genuinely disgraceful the double standards. But as Wenger said, history will show what was most difficult to achieve. Maybe people will realise that at least between 2006 and 2014/15 what Wenger did on a consistent basis was quite remarkable. Yes, perhaps we can maybe put some of the blame on Wenger for us not kicking on afterward and not taking advantage of circumstances like in 2016 but the period before that deserves far more credit than it's getting. I don't think many of the journalists or pundits who used to bash him have the humility to admit they were wrong tho so we'll be waiting a while.
Wenger was derided by the English media and in turn some of the fans for suggesting that finishing in the top 4 was an achievement, and this was with selling our best players. Lampard getting MOTY shouts for finishing 3rd on 66 points, Wenger finished on 75 points in his penultimate and there was planes being flown calling for his sacking. I don't remember the media ever once giving Wenger any credit whatsoever for finishing in the top 4, even the season after we sold Nasri, Fabregas and we had a terrible start to the season and ended up in 3rd, we were laughed at for acting like it was an achievement. Now you have Gary Neville, the say guy criticising Wenger back in 2012, calling him arrogant is now full of praise for Solskjaer for spending 200 million to get them 3rd. It's absolutely incredible. It just sums up how hated Wenger was by large sections of the media. Then people talk about Lampard losing Hazard. Try losing Henry, Hleb, Flamini, Adebayor, Toure, Fabregas, Nasri, Van Persie all in the space of 5 seasons while STILL getting top 4, still putting in the odd title challenging, still getting to CL and FA Cup semi-finals, still finishing ahead of sides spending more money. And he got absolutely zero credit for it for the most part.
But now all of a sudden the media realise the difficulties of finishing top 4, in a season where in my opinion the quality outwith Liverpool and City is as low as I can remember, all of a sudden top 4 is a remarkable achievement.
It's genuinely disgraceful the double standards. But as Wenger said, history will show what was most difficult to achieve. Maybe people will realise that at least between 2006 and 2014/15 what Wenger did on a consistent basis was quite remarkable. Yes, perhaps we can maybe put some of the blame on Wenger for us not kicking on afterward and not taking advantage of circumstances like in 2016 but the period before that deserves far more credit than it's getting. I don't think many of the journalists or pundits who used to bash him have the humility to admit they were wrong tho so we'll be waiting a while.