Would we have dropped off so much with Wenger?

[SA Gunner]

Looking back at that 2018 match against Atletico though...

Ospina
Bellerin-Koscielny-Mustafi-Monreal
Xhaka
Ramsey-Wilshere
Özil-Lacazette-Welbeck
​

...some of these players were on their last legs, but they always gave it their all under Arsène, shame they couldn't win it for him and send him out on a high...good group, bar a few.

We were close in that game, a late counter attack finished us off, fine margins.

Wenger was trying to send us off with CL qualification, that could have changed a lot of our fortunes, at least financially speaking.

As for the thread question, I think so yes. We would have probably been somewhere between 4-8 but steadily improving if there was investment.

 

[squallman]

Wenger and Sven working together was the dream.I know Wenger could have fixed this broken club if given the tools to do it, but unfortunately he was a victim of his own success. Fans jeered him for failing to live up to the standards that he himself set.

I know for a fact that all of our youngsters would be further along than they are right now and that's the sad part. No one else in football brings up young players the right way like Wenger.

 

[GoonerJeeves]

It is obviously a hypothetical question, we will never know. However, Arsène has a long track record. There is nothing to suggest in his track record that we would be languishing at 15th.

After such a long managerial reign, the transition was always going to be difficult. There is little doubt that many mistakes have been made since Arsène was sacked.

As for the way he was treated in his last season here, I will say only this, I hope those who paid for that plane over the stadium will be subjected to a vasectomy with a blunt instrument.

It was shameful.

 

[celestis]

Probably not, as the only way Arsène would have stayed on is if he was still given final say on transfers...so we almost certainly would have signed much more technical players than we have now, we would have been much closer to getting back in the Champions League under Big Wengz I am sure.

This is pretty much spot on. Most of the time you would know the Wenger template for attacking third players.

 

[gunner4lyfe]

Wenger and Sven working together was the dream.I know Wenger could have fixed this broken club if given the tools to do it, but unfortunately he was a victim of his own success. Fans jeered him for failing to live up to the standards that he himself set.

I know for a fact that all of our youngsters would be further along than they are right now and that's the sad part. No one else in football brings up young players the right way like Wenger.

He did have the tools though. His last couple of signings were poor, bar Auba. We wouldn't be in 15th though.......maybe.

 

[Harz]

We'd be battling for 6th.

Saka would be a world-beater.

 

[Polar Bear]

Well Wenger won the Premiership many times between 1996-2005... after 2005 we dropped off a lot but we were still in the top 4, finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th during 2005-2015... the last few seasons we dropped out of top 4, and we were on the decline for sure, but never ever relegation fodder, we were still hovering around 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th positions all season.

Emery, Ljungerg and Arteta have been nowhere near as good

 

[Keplaz]

Arsène would have done much better than Arteta is currently. This team is a top four team. And we have more than enough quality youngsters for the positions we're struggling in.

I know Freddy wasn't turning things around quickly enough, but he trusted the kids. He would have blooded and developed more of them.

Arteta is a disciple of Guardiola in some ways. He doesn't use the youngsters in the league. And I think this is a mistake considering the kids we have at Hale End right now.

 

[BigPoppaPump]

Jesy Nelson ffs

Thought Laca played very well that night, only 1 bad miss that I remember, but he scored after that anyway...that defeat was on Kos (as much as I love him) if anyone, for his mistake in the first leg.

Anytime you play Koscielny you have to assume he's gonna f up at least once in the game, it was tough to be consistent with that guy as your CB.

 

[Gooner416]

We as fans fell for the propaganda at the time that led us to believe he was a villain.

It’s no coincidence we see the same lot like AFTV and Athletic writers scrambling to defend Arteta now.

He would have never have been allowed to stay on cause every loss in the league, every cup exit, every transfer we got wrong just grated on the fans more and more.

The same fans that are fine with losing 5 in a row and the likes of Cedric and Willian showing up ironically.

Even when he got stuff right it was met with vitriol. We got tired of him and he wasn’t free to work in peace. It’s a hard question to answer but the fall off was unavoidable essentially.

Absolutely agree. Like everything in life, Wenger had a beginning and an end. Transitioning from a legendary manager as such would've never been an easy feat and we saw the similar outcome with Utd and Sir Alex 5 years earlier. Would we be faring better now with Wenger? Yes. Would we have won the league or met ambitions we had and scrutinized Wenger constantly for? No.

We were always going to move on and we were always going to sustain a drop losing that level of leadership. When you change over that amount of personnel at an executive level, never mind at the manager's seat, now you deserve a drastic result and that's what we've gotten.

Wenger papered over poor execution and vision from board/ownership level for far too long and there's not many in the world who can come in and supplement our disfunction which has seeped into our playing staff now.

 

[Gooner416]

Looking back at that 2018 match against Atletico though...

Ospina
Bellerin-Koscielny-Mustafi-Monreal
Xhaka
Ramsey-Wilshere
Özil-Lacazette-Welbeck
​

...some of these players were on their last legs, but they always gave it their all under Arsène, shame they couldn't win it for him and send him out on a high...good group, bar a few.

Why'd you have to remind of that **** Griezmann celebrating like a **** after scoring that jammy goal.

 

[Riou]

Why'd you have to remind of that **** Griezmann celebrating like a **** after scoring that jammy goal.

Riou in the mud again

 

[Gooner416]

Riou in the mud again

Nah mate, not your fault. I'd like to personally apologize for the behaviour of my passion.

 

[14Henry]

With Wenger we would’ve got top 3 and Europa league in 18/19, even with the toxic fanbase.

Why when he couldnt get top 4 the year before nor beat 10 man Atletico in the EL?

Think a lot of people actually take for granted Emery and disrespect him a lot. He took over from an institutional manager in Wenger. Everywhere he would have turned would have been Arsène memories. Constantly being compared to him.

He just missed out on top 4. Should he have got it over the line? Yes. But most fans would have taken 5th the season after Wenger. Only for the good work he done in the previous 30+ games we would never have been in with a shout which in turn lead to disappointment.

He got to the final of the EL beating a good Napoli side and a decent Valencia side comfortably.. He got beat on the night by a Chelsea side that had nothing to lose (already qualified for CL) and with a Hazard who was excellent and saying goodbye to his Chelsea career.

Wenger wouldnt be doing any better than what Emery did in his first full season before the players hung him out to dry.

That said he would never be 15th in the league.

If Wenger was here now I would predict hed be around 6th/7th. But still making the same mistakes. Which we were sick off.

 

[Bloodbather]

Probably not. He would've done better simply because he was more adept at geting more out of his players. He wouldn't have the communication problems Emery did, or the tactical misjudgments Arteta has had.

That doesn't mean, however, that I am in the "never should've let Wenger go" camp. I disagree with the late Wenger era apologetics that have started to circulate in response to the shambolic state we are in. The team was clearly stuck and failing to generate momentum in the late Wenger era, with Wenger not being above the blame in that regard. Our recruitment continually neglected athleticism and power, and we ended up with a team that would move the ball around with no penetrative threat. Eventually our technical prowess was also reduced due to recruitment errors and Wenger clearly deserved blame for it.

Early-to-mid 2000s Wengerball is the reason I fell in love with the game of football. Being an admirer of the man, not simply because of his prowess as a football man but his virtues as a man in general, I'd love to delude myself that he would've catapulted us to a higher level again, but the decision to move on was the right one, in fact it came a little bit too late. The club failed to prepare for a post-Wenger future and couldn't react in timely fashion. We followed up what was the correct decision with colossal errors in personnel recruitment on the managerial level and the higher up decision-making level.

All in all, my thinking is that just because a series of grave mistakes were made, doesn't necessitate that the decision that initiated that series of mistakes was also a mistake in its own right. I don't think it was in this case. Had we hired the right personnel, we wouldn't falter to romanticized historical revisionist accounts of the late Wenger era.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

We would be bouncing between the 65-75 point range and still going nowhere fast. Yes thats better than what we have right now but I wouldnt swap it back.

At least now we can rebuild to challenge for the title at some point.

 

[Blaziken]

Why when he couldnt get top 4 the year before nor beat 10 man Atletico in the EL?

Think a lot of people actually take for granted Emery and disrespect him a lot. He took over from an institutional manager in Wenger. Everywhere he would have turned would have been Arsène memories. Constantly being compared to him.

He just missed out on top 4. Should he have got it over the line? Yes. But most fans would have taken 5th the season after Wenger. Only for the good work he done in the previous 30+ games we would never have been in with a shout which in turn lead to disappointment.

He got to the final of the EL beating a good Napoli side and a decent Valencia side comfortably.. He got beat on the night by a Chelsea side that had nothing to lose (already qualified for CL) and with a Hazard who was excellent and saying goodbye to his Chelsea career.

Wenger wouldnt be doing any better than what Emery did in his first full season before the players hung him out to dry.

That said he would never be 15th in the league.

If Wenger was here now I would predict hed be around 6th/7th. But still making the same mistakes. Which we were sick off.

He would get top 4 due to United, Sp**s and chelsea dropping off and kept Cazorla, it doesn't really matter anyway. Emery did as good as he could in 18-19, unlucky with injuries etc. but the last 5 games speaks for itself.

 

[Heskey]

Anytime you play Koscielny you have to assume he's gonna f up at least once in the game, it was tough to be consistent with that guy as your CB.

Kosc was a super aggressive centre back, so of course there was always the risk of some blunders here and there, but if you have the right partnership in place like with Mertesacker you can have (close to) the best of both worlds - which we saw how effective could be during some of their really impressive streaks. And certainly you could have consistency.

Mertesacker reading the game covering cracks and having decent vision forward as well and using his height, while Koscielny would sweep the area around whether catching runners behind Big Per or breaking forward and trying to incite a counter if possible.

Considering how lonely our defenders were in some of our hyper-aggressive years where our midfield was built of the likes of Song, Wilshere, Ramsey, Cazorla, Ox, Arteta, Coquelin, there was so much pressure on Mertesacker and Koscielny that I think we should more be impressed with how they played rather than saying Koscielny made a lot of f**k-ups.

 

[GDeep™]

Of course not. Simply because the 300M or so we’ve been spent since he left, he would’ve done better with. At minimum, battling for 4th or 5th.

 

[BigPoppaPump]

Kosc was a super aggressive centre back, so of course there was always the risk of some blunders here and there, but if you have the right partnership in place like with Mertesacker you can have (close to) the best of both worlds - which we saw how effective could be during some of their really impressive streaks. And certainly you could have consistency.

Mertesacker reading the game covering cracks and having decent vision forward as well and using his height, while Koscielny would sweep the area around whether catching runners behind Big Per or breaking forward and trying to incite a counter if possible.

Considering how lonely our defenders were in some of our hyper-aggressive years where our midfield was built of the likes of Song, Wilshere, Ramsey, Cazorla, Ox, Arteta, Coquelin, there was so much pressure on Mertesacker and Koscielny that I think we should more be impressed with how they played rather than saying Koscielny made a lot of f**k-ups.

I will say he was good with Mertesacker babysitting him but in any other CB pairing he was pants.