Three questions arise from today’s Champions League match:
1) Do Arsenal wish they were in the Europa League instead of the Champions League?
It’s looking like another year without a trophy for a struggling Arsenal. As if things couldn’t get worse after losing to Championship side Blackburn on Saturday, Arsenal were severely beaten by a superior Bayern Munich. Arsenal’s only luck came when they received an undeserved corner and Neuer came half-heartedly for the resulting set piece. Arsenal looked out of it by the 30th minute but after scoring in the second half they managed to look threatening for about 10 minutes until Bayern dealt a final blow. It’s now been 7 years, 8 months, and 29 days since Arsenal have won a trophy (http://www.sincearsenallastwonatrophy.co.uk/) and Arsene Wenger is looking like the scapegoat these days. At this point they may be wishing they were in a lesser competition with the hope of winning a trophy.
2) Is the Bundesliga the world’s premier soccer league?
Bayern Munich have run away with their domestic league with Borussia Dortmund a mere 15 POINTS behind in 2nd place. If your memory is temporary failing you, Dortmund is the team that went undefeated in the group stage of the Champions League which included Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, and Ajax. Bayern Munich outclassed Arsenal, were deadly when their opportunities arose, and were a rock at the back. It’s no wonder they are one of the favorites in this year’s tournament. With their performance today, I’ll have to turn on some more ESPN3 on Saturday mornings instead of Fox Soccer.
3) Are Chelsea pleased they’re in the Europa League instead of the Champions League?
Wenger hay be looking upon Reina with a bit of jealousy tonight. Reina still has two cups in his sights despite falling off the pace in the premier league. Although its tough for Reina to imagine anyone envying his position at the moment, Wenger is feeling the same way. It’s reported Pep Guardiola turned down a lucrative Chelsea offer and turned to the Bundesliga. Is this even more evidence the Bundesliga is the premier division in the world and premier league side Chelsea is an undesirable spot? Success in this year’s Champions League will tell a lot about the strength of Europe’s domestic leagues.
Yep, “Future Invincibles” this squad is indeed… to whoever wrote that article on this site, take off your rose-tinted glasses. This squad is not good enough. We are gratefully what Wenger has done to the club, but time for him to go.
HOW CAN YOU BLAME WENGER FOR A LACK OF AMBITION IN THE OWNERS AND LACK OF CONSISTENCY IN THE PLAYERS…. with exception of Walcott and Wilshere, there has been no and I repeat NO consistency in play. Without those two saving the day, the season could be worse. I don’t understand how so many “arsenal fans” find it easy to blame Wenger. Football is a business. Arsenal have been one of the best businesses in town all while being relatively competitive with clubs that excessively spend. OPEN YOUR EYES, there is more to it then the manager.
Future usually implies down the road.
15 straight seasons of CL football usually leads to a firing, that seems logical.
To me, I think it seems like the last few seasons Arsenal have been 2, maybe 3 quality signings away from contending for titles and it seems like every transfer window, fans are seeing Arsenal linked to numerous players and then we watch as Man U/Chelsea/City all buy our linked players (most notably Mata and Hazard) Just think if Arsenal would’ve signed Mata and/or Hazard, how much better of a squad they would be. Or better yet, just think if RVP was still here. That’s the frustrating part for me. I don’t think that is Wenger’s fault…he knows they are all top quality players, he just doesn’t have the funds to compete with the big 3. Basically, it’s like Arsenal are operating under a ‘salary cap’ while other teams have unlimited funds and it’s hard to compete for trophies when that’s the case…no matter who the manager is.
Another thing, Ramsey is not a Champions League caliber starting player, at least not at this point in his career. Verm was starting out of position at LB because our only other eligible LB was injured. Arsenal’s one and only true striker was on the bench for 3/4 of the match. How can anyone possibly expect Arsenal to win under those circumstances against one of the top teams in the world? That’s not Arsene’s fault either…he simply had no other (or very minimal other) options. Arsenal’s board needs to sack up and buy a couple top quality players and everyone would be happy.
@Leftymagic: I’m an Arsenal Fan where my support is Arsenal FC, not Arsene FC.
@Gooner: yes, because you can polish a turd and it will turn into gold.
LOL. Yes, typical Wenger apologists wanting to absolve Wenger of any of the responsibility. The fact that Wenger is the one that sets out the tactics, motivates the team and picks the players to start, not the board. Who’s idea was it to start Ramsey? The boogey man? You people seem to forget the likes of the Blackburn and Bradford matches, wonder what’s your excuses there when they are up against teams that has a much lower wage bill than ours, hell Bayern Munich’s wage bill is lower than ours as well, look it up. You people like to shout out that Wenger has no money spend, yet look at the amount of money he has spent on defenders in the past few years and the defending is still atrocious. If you actually read the reports, Wenger has repeatedly been provided with money to spend during summer and on January. But you hear it time and time again, Wenger uses excuses like he’s only looking for “quality players”, mind you this includes players like Gervinho, Santos, Chamakh and Squillaci that he has bought in the past few years. Wenger saying things likes January isn’t a good time to buy, but tell that to the likes of QPR, Newcastle and Liverpool. It’s been known, he didn’t buy Xabi Alonso because he said was worried that it would hamper the development of Denilson and Diaby. Wenger stubbornly keep sticking with poor and mediocre players, how long did he stick with Alumina before he threw his ass out? Hell, with this “socialist wage structure” that he set out along with the board, he’s finding it hard to offload a lot of deadwood due to their high wages, I mean 60K a week for Djourou? What a joke. It’s Wenger that wanted to implement his youth project at Arsenal, because his first time failed when he was managing as Monaco. As for Mata, if you read the report, Wenger could have bought Mata due to his less expensive release clause, but he stalled, it expired and Mata was not too expensive to buy now, because he was hoping to keep Nasri and Fabregas, which also didn’t turn out so well. But it’s no use talking to you people, it’s obvious this site is a Wenger love fest site and will continue to not put any responsibility on Wenger. If anyone care, look at onlinegooner for a more balance website.