An Arsenal Reminisce: Page 54 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

An Arsenal Reminisce

Sicario2

Big Willie I don’t think this is true. UEFA cup in my eyes was always the second European trophy. That’s why the European Super cup always used to be between the winners of the CL and winners of UEFA cup…

RocktheCasbah

Absolutely. This is because the European Cup was just the champions of a domestic league and the UEFA Cup the teams that finished 2-5 or whatever, so it was a quality competition, as opposed to something that now features - I was gonna say Spurs but they did finish 5th last year - Manchester United.

It just happens that our 2 years of entry into the competition in the mid 90s & the first year especially, featured some very good sides.

RocktheCasbah

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert European competition for the winners of each European country's association cup (in our case the FA Cup). The year we won it, we beat teams like Torino, PSG (you'll have heard about that) and then Parma in the final.

Claudius

Those cups typically featured the top sides in the country. Certainly European cup and years cup, while CWC would’ve typically had a relatively strong team. The league and FA cup meant something in each country.

Now 16th and 17th place Spurs and United are in it due to a combination of English financial supremacy and bloat in the teams that qualify? With countries going from 3-4 total contestants to as many as 8.

The only positive is more fans get to partake in European competition, but the prestige of a lot of it is diminished

Klaus

15 minutes of people explaining why Thierry was the best player ever in English football:

Mirth

Klaus beautiful.

The new generation of fans who didn’t see Henry play purely go by his career based on the stats, particularly now that Salah has comparable numbers, but they don’t get how dominant Henry was. Every time he got the ball it felt like he would do something you’d never seen before and it was electric. The Michael Jordan comparisons are spot on.

daredevil

Klaus

I subscribed to this channel some time back. I still think Wenger made a pact with the devil so that we could see the best player in PL history to perform for us for 7 seasons, but then we'd be consigned to the trash cans of the footballing world (concerning CF's) for the rest of eternity.

I still pinch myself to this day at just how incredible he was as a player.

JazzG

Rohit I think the lack of CL at Arsenal is the only blot on his record but I think most fans and players around the world in the 00s knew him. Even now the players who grew up watching him idolise him.

daredevil I think it is the unbeaten season, that is the deal Wenger did with the devil!

Mirth Yeah defo, Salah is a really functional player but Henry was just magic. I think people would pay to watch him, that is the biggest compliment I could give him.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert That Barca final man, that should have been it. For Wenger and Henry that was the missing piece. 03/04 was another missed opportunity, more depth in that squad and we win the treble imo.

Rohit

If Henry played for Real or Barca during the first half of the noughties, history would remember him very differently.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

I can't get over the fact we couldn't get a CL win with him.

My heart is incomplete guys.

Klaus

Henry on his worst day was still better than Salah on his best, and Salah is easily one of the top 5-10 players of the Premier League era.

USArsenal

Henry in his prime, was absolutely unplayable. Carra, Terry, Rio, they all easily named Henry as the one player that they had nightmares about because he had everything and could do everything. He was a rare and unique player that had size, speed, power, skill, finishing, desire and drive. AND he could set others up as well. How he didn't win the BOD is freakin beyond me.

Klaus

USArsenal Unfortunately he came through in an era that was less obsessed about stats and individualism than modern football is, and it probably hurt his legacy a bit. Today there would have been huge PR machines doing the lobbying and he'd have retired with a bunch of these golden balls.

I got stuck watching some compilations yesterday evening, and you still have to pinch yourself in the arm to remind yourself how outrageously gifted he was. Normal world class players have one or two attributes where they are undisputed among the top 2-3 in the world. Henry had four or five attributes where he was the best player in the world bar none: technique, pace, athleticism, goalscoring, fitness... I doubt anyone between 2002-2008 seriously competed with him in any of those categories bar maybe Ronaldinho for a few years.

Sicario2

Klaus Samuel etto in the same era was unreal too. Maybe Rooney too. And of course the rise of CR7.

daredevil

Klaus

Henry had the club career that people think Ronaldo did. Ronaldo had the big WC moment that Henry missed and probably hurt his career.

Zidane and Ronaldo had big moments in finals. Henry and Ronaldinho didn't, and aren't revered to the same degree.

JazzG

It is like life isn't it, sometimes you don't realise at the time how good you have it until its gone.

I witnessed Ian Wright, Dennis Bergkamp, Anelka, RvP and Henry, as a club we were so blessed man. The footballing gods decided that it was enough and sent us Giroud and Lacazette, we were punished for not showing appreciation 😆

Don Pacifico

JazzG It is like life isn't it, sometimes you don't realise at the time how good you have it until its gone.

My one big regret as a fan is that I was old enough to remember the start of the Wenger era but too young to really appreciate how rare the collection of talents we had was - Henry and Bergkamp in particular are ones I appreciate so much more with hindsight.

Gazza M

JazzG it's weird because watching arsenal in the early 2000s, I remember palpably feeling how lucky we were. I knew enough about arsenals history, and watching the other major European teams to provide enough context about how singularly special Henry and that team was. the way carragher describes it is exactly how I felt every game - we're bigger and better than these, and there's nothing they can do to stop us. anyone who plays on the left flank is the post-henry epl era is doing some version of an impression of him.

Big Willie

Can't compare Eto'o and Rooney to Thierry. Yeah they were great players but Thierry was at least a level or two above them.

In that late 90s until mid 2000s era you had tier 1 players like R9, Thierry, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, and Zidane. These guys were a cut above everyone else (at least for attacking players).

Then you had those who were great players but a tier or 2 below like Bergkamp, Seedorf, Figo, Pires, Kaka, Shevchenko, Kluivert, Pirlo, Batistuta, Raul, Del Piero, Haji etc.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Big Willie and any one of those names could be the best player in the world these days!

Side note, I watched one of our CL games against Kiev from way back in 1998 recently, and Shevchenko was fucking unbelievable. (You can watch it in one of those YT channels I linked recently.)

Sicario2

Big Willie bergkamp is as good as Rivaldo for me and should be in tier 1. He’s had a better career overall than Rivaldo and arguably Ronaldinho for me.

Don Pacifico

Big Willie you've committed a horrible crime by (a) putting Bergkamp in the tier below where he should be and then (b) putting him in the same tier as Kluivert and Raul!?

Edit: assume you mean Hagi and not Hadji? Because if it's the latter, I don't know what I'll do!

Sicario2

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert Sheva was unreal in those days, even at Milan - was unplayable at times.

Big Willie

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert and any one of those names could be the best player in the world these days!

Exactly. Football talent was so much more spread out those days. Aside from that Galactico experiment, you never really had a concentration of all the best players in such a small number of teams. Nowadays you have all the best players in the world playing for maybe Barca/Real/PSG/City/Liverpool/Bayern and us. Those days (even if you ignored the previous teams as well as the traditional 3 in Italy like Inter, AC and Juve) you still had the likes of Leeds, Chelsea, Newcastle, Deportivo, Valencia, Lazio, Fiorentina, Roma, Parma, Galatasaray, Leverkusen, Ajax and PSV who all had at least one or 2 great players. Thats why you'd see a the top 3 change each year those days.

Before I get jumped on and accused of being nostalgic, I will admit, a lot of it does come from nostalgia. Yes, the game has improved loads technically and tactically since then and the demands are much greater. But, nostalgia or not, there was a romance to football back then. A love for the game and to entertain and put on a show that went beyond just winning.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert Side note, I watched one of our CL games against Kiev from way back in 1998 recently, and Shevchenko was fucking unbelievable. (You can watch it in one of those YT channels I linked recently.)

Shevchenko was unbelievable back then. Didn't see him against us for Kiev, but he was destroying Serie A for Milan. That Milan team with him/Rui Costa/Seedorf/Rivaldo was amazing and their defence wasn't too bad either.

RowJimmy

Big Willie I think the main thing that has happened is that the average player is much much better now, so that the great players are not so far above the average. (I think this is true in almost every sport.)

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