Mikel Arteta: Aston La Vista To The Title?

[samspade]

Not everyone can be as lovely as Mick, giving 4 year deals to 30 year old bumms like Cedric.

Glad you agree

 

[GDeep™]

Glad you agree

Who did we let go that was proven wrong? I know Vieira and Gilberto Silva were on their last legs for sure.

 

[grange]

Must win game for Mick, can’t keep coming short against top teams. A draw here would’ve been ok had we beaten Utd.

Read any good books while you were in prison?

 

[Blankety Blank]

I think generally players can go on performing into their early to maybe mid 30's without falling off too much these days with a lot of the medical, training, nutrition advances etc.

It did seem to feel like for the most part a player hitting 30 was a bit like a ticking clock on their careers back in Wengers glory days so I can't really blame him for the 1 year extensions. Seemed like a reasonable thing to do really.

Auba I think would struggle to fit in tactically rather than ability wise.
Özil is done. Couldn't even see peak Wenger getting anything out of him now tbh.

I think it depends on the player. Don't forget how demanding the prem can be physically especially at the top half of the pitch.
Laca did his best but didn't look up to it physically even though he was yet to hit 30.
Seems ok in France though.

Not sure about Auba he obviously suffered badly with the malaria & lost his edge. When not at 100% its understandable he didn't produce. He did ok in Spain but not sure he can ever get back near his pre contract level.

You then get players like Partey around 30 who had very few injuries in Spain but continually struggling with injuries here likely due to a combination of advancing years & the extra demands of the prem?

 

[samspade]

Who did we let go that was proven wrong?

You could say that about the vast majority of sales Wenger made, not sure it means you wouldn’t have wanted them to continue at the club.

I agree with Wenger on older players, cash in, rejuvenate. The young team that came after could have done with one or two more older heads tho. Couldn’t pires have carried on a little longer?

 

[GDeep™]

You could say that about the vast majority of sales Wenger made, not sure it means you wouldn’t have wanted them to continue at the club.

I agree with Wenger on older players, cash in, rejuvenate. The young team that came after could have done with one or two more older heads tho. Couldn’t pires have carried on a little longer?

Different scenario, Wenger didn’t move him on. Pires said he demanded to leave Arsenal after the CL final where he was taken off. Said the following week was horrible and he surprised Wenger by asking to leave.

 

[samspade]

Different scenario, Wenger didn’t move him on. Pires said he demanded to leave Arsenal after the CL final where he was taken off. Said the following week was horrible and he surprised Wenger by asking to leave.

Are you sure? I always thought he wanted 2 years and wenger would only give him one

 

[GDeep™]

Are you sure? I always thought he wanted 2 years and wenger would only give him one

Pires opens up on Arsenal exit as legend demanded transfer after Wenger sub

ROBERT PIRES has revealed how he demanded to leave Arsenal after Arsène Wenger sacrificed him in the 2006 Champions League final. Pires, 47, was substituted after just 18 minutes to make way for Ma…

www.thesun.co.uk

Two days later I told him I was leaving… basically, it triggered my exit.

"[Wenger] wasn't expecting it. I also needed to move on to something else.

 

[samspade]

Pires opens up on Arsenal exit as legend demanded transfer after Wenger sub

ROBERT PIRES has revealed how he demanded to leave Arsenal after Arsène Wenger sacrificed him in the 2006 Champions League final. Pires, 47, was substituted after just 18 minutes to make way for Ma…

www.thesun.co.uk

Fair, doesn’t preclude negotiations prior to cl final tho

 

[samspade]

I hate it when people interrupt my WUMing with calm, serious questions

 

[TheGreatWright8]

Pires opens up on Arsenal exit as legend demanded transfer after Wenger sub

ROBERT PIRES has revealed how he demanded to leave Arsenal after Arsène Wenger sacrificed him in the 2006 Champions League final. Pires, 47, was substituted after just 18 minutes to make way for Ma…

www.thesun.co.uk

The entitlement of some players, i mean Bergkamp didn't play in the Cl final and you can argue he deserved it alot more then Pires since he had far more impact on the club then Pires did. Never heard Iceman ***** and complain about that.

 

[Blankety Blank]

On the subject of Arsène only offering 12 month deals & 'casting away older players' i think in the main it worked well & even in later years he never got many wrong.
Özil possibly but there was status involved.
Theo never got his final big contract here, brought in a decent fee didn't do much after leaving so that looked a really good decision.

 

[Entropics]

Özil was a desperate move, but the correct one. Wenger knew the kind of inspid football we would end up playing if we lost a player like him

He got proven right, years later Ozilball is still magnitudes better than anything we can muster.

 

[DJ_Markstar]

I think I must be an outlier on the Adebayor stuff then. I just never really saw it with him, though he did score a decent amount of goals admittedly. Rated RVP and Eduardo over him, though both had significant injury issues around that time.

I think for me it was because I never viewed him as clinical, even when he was scoring a lot he'd miss quite a lot of really good chances. I found him quite a scruffy player too.

Lacked the grace of a Henry too, but I guess anyone was going to look like a downgrade after Thierry.

Adebayor was a perfect no. 9 for that time period on paper, tall, quick, strong, powerful but didn't have the sheer technical quality of an RvP (let's face it, who did?) or the reliable finishing of Eduardo, but for sure he was potentially elite. Imo it was his mentality that was lacking, not his skill, talent or athleticism.

 

[CaseUteinberger]

The 07/08 team was performing at a ridiculously high level. Hleb was being compared to Ronaldo ffs.

When sometimes I looked back at match highlights of that team we dominated some legendary teams that season on pure performance. It was incredible.

Hleb on his day was a fantastic player!

 

[samspade]

Adebayor was a perfect no. 9 for that time period on paper, tall, quick, strong, powerful but didn't have the sheer technical quality of an RvP (let's face it, who did?) or the reliable finishing of Eduardo, but for sure he was potentially elite. Imo it was his mentality that was lacking, not his skill, talent or athleticism.

Ade was very technical though.

As you say RVP is one of the most technical strikers we’ve ever seen. Technical in the sense of his touch, dribbling skills, range and subtlety of passing, and tempo control most of all. Strikers almost never have any sense for that. Bloke could have played as a CM easy.

 

[db10_therza]

People are definitely romanticising about adebayor here. Yeah he had his moments and he definitely had qualities. He also used to be offside about 90 times a game. Used to annoy the hell out of me…

 

[SA Gunner]

You've mentioned this a bunch of times but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How are you excited about Arteta and this team then?

That 07/08 was way better than anything else we've seen Arsenal put up in the Emirates era and played some exciting and successful football. We lost three league games all season, we reached that landmark literally three games in last season.

Yet achieved absolutely zero tangible outcomes that season. I suppose you could make the argument that they achieved top four, which in today’s terms represent measurable achievement. But back then, top four was seen as next to nothing and as a result some opinion call that team a failure.

But fundamentally, and the key reason I’m quoting you is picking up on your comment that 07/08 was better than anything else the Emirates has produced for you. Your comment made despite the fact that three other Arsenal teams have delivered 3 trophies afterwards, tangible outcomes.

I think what you say here is important to note, because it suggests we don’t need to always have hard outcomes to mark success or progression. I’ll pick this point up with you again, if we are in an unfortunate position of not reaching our targets… but the quality of our team displays have remarkably improved.

 

[GDeep™]

Would still say this side gets out played and beaten by probably any side Wenger had, even at the end.

 

[GDeep™]

Anyway, CL looks a certainty to me now, and I wouldn’t even rule out a possible title push, so massive credit to Arteta.