We fucking win the Prize™ 2013-14: Page 144 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

We fucking win the Prize™ 2013-14

Biggus

innervisionscm wrote:
Even if Chelsea had a marginally better strike force, they were obviously a striker away from the title in January. Instead of panic buying some nobody who wasn't better than what he had, Mourinho will be buying Diego Costa in the summer. That's the correct way to address the problem.

Glad that Alfonso and I aren't the only ones here who appreciate the work of the special one. :glee:

goon

Burnwinter™ wrote:
Do people believe that if we'd been three points off fourth spot on January 15th Wenger wouldn't have made a few moves?

What's needed for 4th and 1st is very different. One requires players that are largely unavailable, the other doesn't.

goon

Find it quite laughable that people are defending Chelsea with the 'it's not the same' line. It's almost exactly the same. They needed a striker, they didn't get one. Simple.

The fact that Ba, Torres and Eto'o are not good enough should tell you all you need to know about what the likes of Berbatov would have brought to us. Not much.

Claudius

Otfgoon, Demba was never given a chance, Eto'o is an old man coming off a Russian vacation and Torres has been in a 5 year slump. Again, of these guys, maybe only Demba is even as good as 2014 Giroud.

What we lacked in the last 3 months was an alternative to Giroud for goals and an alternative to the injured Theo for someone who could create goals for themselves. A lot of names have been mentioned. All would have been sufficient from January onwards. We were top of the league. We just needed to maintain the ability to score goals (and not concede in half dozens)

y va marquer

otfgoon wrote:
Find it quite laughable that people are defending Chelsea with the 'it's not the same' line. It's almost exactly the same. They needed a striker, they didn't get one. Simple.

The fact that Ba, Torres and Eto'o are not good enough should tell you all you need to know about what the likes of Berbatov would have brought to us. Not much.

Oui. Exactly.
Honestly, and I'll probably get slated for saying it, only someone like Bale who could singlehandedly ressurect games would have turned us into Champions in the situations we found ourselves in after Christmas.

Burnwinter

Come on Otf. After Giroud and Podolski, our options forward of Art and Flamini etc during this period were, more or less, Bendtner, Sanogo, Ox, Cazorla and Rosicky.

Ok Bendtner and Sanogo barely featured - because neither is good enough - but the latter three all played either in the front three or drifting around centrally repeatedly during this period.

Those five players have 10 league goals altogether at 475 minutes per goal. On average each of Ox, Caz and Rozza has played nearly 10 hours on the pitch each time he's produced a goal.

Now, there's nothing wrong with these guys being in the side at all, so long as we have a complement of actual scorers to put in front of them. Is it really reasonable to state flatly there isn't a striker with a medium sort of productivity we could've picked up to turn a couple of draws into wins?

As for Chelsea, Hazard by himself who we've not factored into our discussion of Chelsea's strikers, has 14 goals in 29 apps. When Chelsea beat us 6-0 the scorers were Eto'o, Schurrle, Hazard, Oscar and Salah.

Claudius

y va marquer wrote:
Oui. Exactly.
Honestly, and I'll probably get slated for saying it, only someone like Bale who could singlehandedly ressurect games would have turned us into Champions in the situations we found ourselves in after Christmas.

we were top of the table for 60% of the season! we threw it away. we didn't need a Bale. we needed players as good as what we already had to allow more rotation

y va marquer

A couple of draws into wins would have gained us four points - we needed considerable more than that, and we needed players who would have made it unthinkable that Liverpool and Chelsea would have battered us like they did.

Burnwinter

Small margins are what it's about. We're only seven points off top even now.

Yes, we would've needed to take a scalp from one of the top three as well, most prob. Or Everton. But we didn't even put ourselves within striking distance.

JazzG

Dillinger wrote:
OMG he would have tried to sign Costa if he thought that was going to happen.

He would have moved heaven and earth to seal that deal.

He did try to sign Costa, he didn't want to leave. Also tried to sign Draxler and Klose.

We fucked up in the summer not getting a striker in. January before a World Cup in particular is a hard month to do business in, unless the club is in financial difficulties or the player is desperate to move not many signings happen. Players worried about losing their place and clubs find it hard to replace players.

Claudius

y va marquer wrote:
A couple of draws into wins would have gained us four points - we needed considerable more than that, and we needed players who would have made it unthinkable that Liverpool and Chelsea would have battered us like they did.

we don't need players to make it unthinkable that we could get battered. THAT was a coaching issue. you don't see Everton, Stoek, etc getting pummeled like that.

Burnwinter

Just more excuses Jazz.

Anyway, I think I've vented my spleen on this one quite enough with fairly speculative comments about minutes per goal and so forth. We could've done more, here's hoping we put together another good challenge next season so this will sting a bit less in hindsight.

Biggus

Burnwinter™ wrote:
Small margins are what it's about. We're only seven points off top even now.

Yep, if only we weren't beaten 6-3 5-1 6-0 & 3-0 we'd be right up there.

goon

Hazard or no Hazard, Chelsea have only scored 4 goals more than us, a slightly less pathetic defending peformance from us and it'd be about even. They've also struggled for goals to a greater degree than us since Jan. We've not been great either, but it's mainly our pathetic attamps at defending (as a team) that have let us down.

Ozil was still fit at the time and so was Jack. Not goalscorers per se but enough quality to get us goals. They're the sort of quality we needed, not Berbatov and the like. I'm not saying they wouldn't have improved our points tally, might have an extra few points and potentially a shot at 3rd, but they'd have done very little to effect the title race.

I'd be willing to be a fairly large sum that if we already have someone like Berbatov or Vucinic or even Ba in reserve, come Jan the same people would have still been saying we need something extra.

y va marquer

Claudius wrote:
y va marquer wrote:
A couple of draws into wins would have gained us four points - we needed considerable more than that, and we needed players who would have made it unthinkable that Liverpool and Chelsea would have battered us like they did.

we don't need players to make it unthinkable that we could get battered. THAT was a coaching issue. you don't see Everton, Stoek, etc getting pummeled like that.

Hmmm. So players signed in January would have nullified the coaching issue even though integrating new players would have required coaching?
Doesn't make sense to me.
Nope I'm sticking to my view that individual brilliance and talent was what we needed to set us apart 🙂

Ray

Wenger wasn't motivated enough to spend in January, he like the team, got into a comfort zone of 4th secured and anything above that is an unnecessary bonus. Might be different next season after winning the FA cup though.

Claudius

I think people need to focus less on Giroud and more on the back. We have 4 good defenders and a serviceable goalkeeper in the back. Yet we suffer these deluges. That's all on the homie Wenger

Biggus

y va marquer wrote:
Nope I'm sticking to my view that individual brilliance and talent was what we needed to set us apart 🙂

So I guess your last refuge will be the recent fashionable view- Ah sure managers and tactics are overrated anyway and don't matter very much.

Burnwinter

You guys all view a seven point gap as unbridgeable.

Habituated to defeat while a two bob outfit like Liverpool that can barely defend just about snatches the title.

y va marquer

Biggus wrote:
y va marquer wrote:
Nope I'm sticking to my view that individual brilliance and talent was what we needed to set us apart 🙂

So I guess your last refuge will be the recent fashionable view- Ah sure managers and tactics are overrated anyway and don't matter very much.

Not at all.
You always go on the attack and try assign philosophies to people don't you Biggus?
I never said managers or tactics were not important.
My point was that only an exceptional player would have made a difference to our campaign post Christmas given the combination of managerial, tactical, mental and injury issues.

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