Football 16-17

[TheGayTent]

1 minute ago, mjsell said:

Oh really, thats interesting. What route did you take? Eurostar to Belgium? then ICE to Cologne? or did you go a slower way?

I think I would prefer that as well.

I really do want to go out there soon. Would a trip before the end of this season be out of the question now?

Yes, Eurostar to Brussels, ICE to Frankfurt (we were going to see Mainz)

Next day we got an ICE to Munich. Day after ICE to Stuttgart. 

Last day, ICE to Frankfurt, ICE to Brussels, Eurostar home. 

Spent £200 each in total on trains for the weekend and that included paying extra for reserved seats on all the ICE trains. 

I've done the ICE route to Cologne from Brussels and that was fine too. 

Definitely still time to organise a trip before the end of the season. 

[mjsell]

19 minutes ago, TheGayTent said:

Yes, Eurostar to Brussels, ICE to Frankfurt (we were going to see Mainz)

Next day we got an ICE to Munich. Day after ICE to Stuttgart. 

Last day, ICE to Frankfurt, ICE to Brussels, Eurostar home. 

Spent £200 each in total on trains for the weekend and that included paying extra for reserved seats on all the ICE trains. 

I've done the ICE route to Cologne from Brussels and that was fine too. 

Definitely still time to organise a trip before the end of the season. 

This is great info TGT. Cheers. I'm guessing if we were to stay in the Northwest area where theres a fair few teams that £200 would come down a bit - you got some miles in on that trip. 

A quick glance and the 22nd April weekend of fixtures has Koln, M'gladbach & Schalke all at home, so that might be a goer. When do the day and time splits get released? are they done in batches?

Edited February 15, 2017 by mjsell

[TheGayTent]

The TV schedule is already announced for all bundesliga games up to match week 28. The weekend you're looking at is week 30 so can't be too far away from being announced. 

The Eurostar is the expensive bit. Even booking in advance the return ticket was £110. So was only £90 for all the ICE trains including as I said, the extra we paid for seat reservations - some 800 miles of train travel in Germany for £90...

Edited February 15, 2017 by TheGayTent

[kaosmark2]

That collapse after Koscielny got injured was insane.

[The Nal]

11 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

That collapse after Koscielny got injured was insane.

Weak Arsenal, nothing to see here. Been the same for 10 years.

[eFestivals]

4 minutes ago, The Nal said:

Weak Arsenal, nothing to see here. Been the same for 10 years.

not as weak as Barca were this week, tho. 

 

[The Nal]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

not as weak as Barca were this week, tho. 

Yep true. Which is amazing given the players they have. Everyone was shit. 

[pink_triangle]

Knowing Arsenal they will probably win 3-0 at home! Arsenal generally lose as soon as they beat a decent side in Europe . I think it's a bit sad Wenger will never win the champions league, I think the year they lost in the final was the best performance by an English team at that stage.

[The Nal]

5 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

Knowing Arsenal they will probably win 3-0 at home! Arsenal generally lose as soon as they beat a decent side in Europe . I think it's a bit sad Wenger will never win the champions league, I think the year they lost in the final was the best performance by an English team at that stage.

They beat Madrid and Juve en route too.

Rio was saying last night that it would be a shame if his legacy is remembered for the last decade. Seems a lot within the game attribute a lot of changes around training, conditioning, sport science and psychology etc in the Premier League to him. 

He did great to keep them top 4 when he had crazy negative spend for the new stadium but net spend in the last 4 seasons is £200m and he won 2 FA Cups in that time after a decade of nothing and finished 2nd last year. Will they give him another year? 

[mjsell]

5 minutes ago, The Nal said:

He did great to keep them top 4 when he had crazy negative spend for the new stadium but net spend in the last 4 seasons is £200m and he won 2 FA Cups in that time after a decade of nothing and finished 2nd last year. Will they give him another year? 

If by they, you mean the board, then yes, yes they will. Offer is still on the table.

if however you mean the fans, then no. Even the most ardent Wenger supporting fan can see that this is the right time now. 

[eFestivals]

22 minutes ago, The Nal said:

They beat Madrid and Juve en route too.

Rio was saying last night that it would be a shame if his legacy is remembered for the last decade. Seems a lot within the game attribute a lot of changes around training, conditioning, sport science and psychology etc in the Premier League to him. 

Yep, and what I think has cost him in recent years is that the other teams are now doing the same.

 

22 minutes ago, The Nal said:

He did great to keep them top 4 when he had crazy negative spend for the new stadium but net spend in the last 4 seasons is £200m and he won 2 FA Cups in that time after a decade of nothing and finished 2nd last year. Will they give him another year? 

and Utd spent even more, and won fuck all.

Wenger isn't all bad.

[lost]

2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Utd spent even more, and won fuck all.

Wenger isn't all bad.

Yep lots of clubs did and didn't get champions league football. I'm undecided if he's been keeping them down or propping them up recently but I guess we will see if he goes.

[big__phil]

To be fair, they scored some lovely goals. We just don't have the level of players, throughout our team, to compete at the top top level. Almost every one of those Bayern players would get in our team. You could probably say the same about the Chelsea team that smashed us up the other week as well. Is that Wenger's fault? I don't know - but he's ultimately responsible for building the squad - he hasn't inherited any of the players in the team.

I don't really like to talk about things like 'fight' and 'pashuun' in football, but there is something lacking in this team at the moment. Some have it, others don't seem to. Is that the kind of thing you can develop in players? I genuinely don't know.

Still, after a few years you get used to it. Ironically if we'd come second in the group this year we'd have drawn Barca. For once that seems the better option!

[pink_triangle]

 

41 minutes ago, The Nal said:

He did great to keep them top 4 when he had crazy negative spend for the new stadium but net spend in the last 4 seasons is £200m and he won 2 FA Cups in that time after a decade of nothing and finished 2nd last year. Will they give him another year? 

Surely net spend is only relevant when compared to what others are doing. Man Utd have spent more in the last few years and achieved less. Is finishing top 4 every season not an achievement for a team with the 4th biggest budget? 

I would probably expect a team with the 4th biggest budget in the league to average around 4 th place but sometimes finish higher and (more importantly) sometimes finish lower. Wenger in recent years is doing better than that average. Also how many teams who are not in the top 3 spenders in their league are being any more successful throughout Europe?

[eFestivals]

46 minutes ago, lost said:

Yep lots of clubs did and didn't get champions league football. I'm undecided if he's been keeping them down or propping them up recently but I guess we will see if he goes.

Maybe his skill isn't being a 'top top' manager, but at being fantastically consistent?

Whatever it is, his 21 years in English footie is a fantastic achievement all in all, when the full context of everything he's had to cope with (the skint years) is put against it.

 

Edited February 16, 2017 by eFestivals

[pink_triangle]

5 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Maybe his skill isn't being a 'top top' manager, but at being fantastically consistent?

Whatever it is, his 21 years in English footie is a fantastic achievement all in all, when the full context of everything he's had to cope with (the skint years) is put against it.

 

Agreed for all the talk of them not doing better, you would also expect them to do worse some season. In terms of his replacement I would only replace a manager getting par results if there was an obvious replacement. I can't think of many at present.

[mjsell]

31 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Maybe his skill isn't being a 'top top' manager, but at being fantastically consistent?

Whatever it is, his 21 years in English footie is a fantastic achievement all in all, when the full context of everything he's had to cope with (the skint years) is put against it.

 

I think one of the things that is perpetuating the feelings towards Wenger from Arsenal fans is the success of Spurs. They have spent less and are looking to be establishing a very solid base to look at achieving things for years to come.  

Their is a perceived stagnation of results at Arsenal (top 4, first knockout round of CL - but not much more), with not many fans believing this will change much under Wenger anymore. Like you are all saying, Wenger achieves exactly what he should be achieving with the resources he uses (which may or may not be the resources actually available), but in comparison to Spurs, there is definitely not that feeling of optimism surrounding the club. Maybe if it was any other team than Spurs it wouldn't be as much of an issue. 

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, mjsell said:

but in comparison to Spurs, there is definitely not that feeling of optimism surrounding the club.

that partly driven, tho, by the knowledge that wenger's time is coming to an end soon-ish.

People are already looking ahead, and they're seeing a 'better' that's not necessarily ther - but they're convinced that it is.

[zahidf]

Not saying Wenger's been around a long time but out of the 52 foreign managers in PL history, he was the 3rd to be appointed.

[Hugh Jass]

Arsenal's season follows the exact same pattern every year:

Aug - Nov: Start well, play well. Talk of a title challenge.
Nov - Jan: Collapse, out of the title race by February.
Feb: Trounced in the Champions League by one of the really big teams.
Mar - May: Win 9 out of last 10 matches (or similar) to ensure top four finish.

It has been the same cycle for years now. The club doesn't seem to have ambition to actually try and win anything, as long as they keep finishing top four and trousering the CL money then the board are happy.

[big__phil]

1 hour ago, mjsell said:

I think one of the things that is perpetuating the feelings towards Wenger from Arsenal fans is the success of Spurs. They have spent less and are looking to be establishing a very solid base to look at achieving things for years to come. 

Behave. That lot haven't finished above us for 22 years.

Although the league/Champs league are the top priorities, two FA Cups in the last few years is nothing to be sniffed at. That makes 6 FA Cups for Wenger, one more than Fergie.

I'm not saying that's enough for us, as it clearly isn't, but it's also an achievement that shouldn't be ignored. Good days those.

[pink_triangle]

1 hour ago, Hugh Jass said:

. The club doesn't seem to have ambition to actually try and win anything, as long as they keep finishing top four and trousering the CL money then the board are happy.

I would argue that arsenal results in recent years are not out of line with the other clubs run as businesses.

[big__phil]

18 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

I would argue that arsenal results in recent years are not out of line with the other clubs run as businesses.

Totally right. Finishing in the top 4 every year might not be exciting for the fans, but it's damn good business.

[Gucci Piggy]

9 hours ago, big__phil said:

Ironically if we'd come second in the group this year we'd have drawn Barca. For once that seems the better option!

You wouldn't (well, there'd have been a chance). The entire draw would have changed as opposed to Arsenal and PSG simply switching places, because of teams not being able to draw teams from their own country, meaning all the available selections of opponents for each team would have changed.

And you'd have been smashed by Barca, too; let's be real.

I think most Arsenal fans are aware that if Wenger leaves there's a good chance that they'll finish outside of the top four, but I think most would take that chance now, as it's becoming so dull and predictable, with no realistic hope of them challenging. If Wenger leaves and someone like Allegri comes in, there's a chance he could shake things up and achieve something, similar to how Conte and Ranieri have these past two seasons. Yeah, there's a chance he could lead them to a sixth place finish, but at least there'd finally be hope for something more than a top 4 finish with no serious title challenge and crashing out of the CL in the round of 16.

[mjsell]

On 16/02/2017 at 1:55 PM, big__phil said:

Behave. That lot haven't finished above us for 22 years.

It's getting decidedly more likely every year currently though. I wouldn't want to put a bet on us this season. 

Plus Harry says they will win the league in the next 4 years so I don't know what to believe.