HOUSEBOAT - Warning: tenuous links ahead!: Page 457 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

HOUSEBOAT - Warning: tenuous links ahead!

Sicario

Klaus wrote:
How on earth was Pochettino a better manager than Wenger? He's just Wenger without any kind of success, historical or present. He got hyped to the heavens for having peaks that barely matched Wenger's weakest latter-day seasons. That says more about how unique Wenger was than how good Pochettino is I reckon, but still. Not even in the same stratosphere as managers. Wenger is going to go down as one of the most legendary managers in the game. No one will remember Pochettino any more than they remember Villas-Boas.

This is the first time we ever agree on something.

Rohit

I guess he meant Wenger after he was past it because Wenger until his final 3 or 4 years was better than not only Pochetino but the rest of the names there too.

Klaus

Wenger during his last 3-4 years was still much better than Pochettino though, although he got none of the credit. Winning just one of the FA Cups he raked home would have been the high point in both Pochettino's career and Spurs's modern history.

speedy

Ray wrote:
speedy wrote:
I'm saying teams have dips we had dips and other teams went past us. I'm suggesting that's standard.

If the managers the biggest factor then the wage bill wouldn't have a strong correlation to league position. How would you explain that? Money is the biggest factor psg city and Chelsea etc ahve all shown that. All those teams have dips. We have 4 richer clubs than us above us. They'll have dips and we can get into the top 4 again. IT's just not super easy to wint he league form our position. How often does the 5th richest team in any league win the title? I haven't checked the stats but I'd imagine its not too often. No matter what manager is in charge. If its easy for the 5th richest team to win the league then go bet on them in each division you'll get fantastic odds for a very good reason. And theirs a differnt amanger in charge fo each of them so it's not because of who is in charge.

You said wage bill = league position. Which is far too simplistic, otherwise Utd would have multiple titles in the past few years, how do you explain them not winning a title for a decade and even finishing below us despite spending the most in the league? Possibly to do with the fact they've had rubbish managers and DoF for the past few years.

And no one is expecting Arteta to win the league, the target is top 4 for him, and even that isn't realistic for him and I don't see him finishing above the likes of Leicester who have spent much less than us.

What I'm saying is there is a combination of reasons for why a club finishes where they do, the manager in charge, identifying players, transfers, wage bill etc. To just say wage bill = league position and absolve the manager of any responsibility is ridiculous.

Just read all of what i wrote again.

Rohit

Klaus wrote:
Wenger during his last 3-4 years was still much better than Pochettino though, although he got none of the credit. Winning just one of the FA Cups he raked home would have been the high point in both Pochettino's career and Spurs's modern history.

Yeah, I don't disagree, just wondering if that was Ray's point.

I also don't believe that Wenger missed out on top 4 for the first time in 20 seasons because there was suddenly an influx of quality coaches at the same time. The first time he missed on CL was a 75 point season which would have been enough in any season of the Premier League this century thus far, before or after him and I am sure even in the last century (Klopp's famed Liverpool managed 69 last season). His last season was incredible, his worst as an Arsenal manager through wide spread fan protests and unrest and yet we got 47 of 57 points at home, scoring 54 goals in 19 matches (both 2nd only behind City) and 16 points from a possible 57 away, scoring only 20, a ridiculous disparity.

Pochettino being better than him is laughable.

lorddulaarsenal

https://www.footballfancast.com/arsenal-transfer-rumours/arsenal-aston-villa-alexis-sanchez-jack-grealish-edu-mikel-arteta-ben-white-james-maddison-premier-league-transfer-gossip-rumours-news

Anzac

speedy wrote:
Clrnc wrote:
The manager is still the biggest denominator. He must know what he is doing. If you put a rebuild to a wrong guy you can waste half a decade trying to undo his errors.

Even in peak Wenger times, we won the league when ManU had dips. We never won back to back titles. Dortmund win the league when Bayern dip. And athletico win the league when both real and Barca dip. We need 4 teams to dip at once. Or an absolute wonder manager and a shit ton of luck.

Shades of LCFC & a 'perfect storm' scenario (not that I think BR is any sort of wonder manager, but does have more managerial creds than Arteta).

Coombs

What does Brenton have to do with Leicester's title win?

Anzac

Klaus wrote:
How on earth was Pochettino a better manager than Wenger? He's just Wenger without any kind of success, historical or present. He got hyped to the heavens for having peaks that barely matched Wenger's weakest latter-day seasons. That says more about how unique Wenger was than how good Pochettino is I reckon, but still. Not even in the same stratosphere as managers. Wenger is going to go down as one of the most legendary managers in the game. No one will remember Pochettino any more than they remember Villas-Boas.

Off topic, but what do you think he will be remembered for?

My picks are (in general terms):
The Invincibles season;
the impact he had on diet & training to the EPL;
his FA Cup record;
2 Domestic Doubles when being 2nd best to SAF/MU in a 2 horse race from '96-'04;
'Wengerball' as played during those Highbury years, and
his involvement with the stadium project.

IMO the only thing that involves his time after The Invincibles season being those last 3 FA Cup wins to give him the records for both club and manager.

Anzac

Coombs wrote:
What does Brenton have to do with Leicester's title win?

Nothing for their win but more so with their recent performances as 'best of the rest'.
That said I realise I didn't indicate that line of thinking in my original comment, when I thought I had before I had been distracted/interrupted when making that post.

Gazza M

always seemed a longshot. the remaining names we've been linked to aren't great

Coombs

Hope they've got something surprising lined up. Neves wouldn't be the end of the world, though.

Gazza M

Clrnc

Yeah it's already hard to convince Italians to leave their country, not to mention join a club in mid table without European football. Might as well stay put at current club

Qwiss

Coombs wrote:
Hope they've got something surprising lined up. Neves wouldn't be the end of the world, though.

Think Neves would mean threading water. Obviously with Xhaka gone we need someone and he'd fill that hole but we need something big for this squad. Nevez, White, Lokonga, Tavarez, etc isn't enough to change our fortunes. Maybe Pepe and ESR could move to another level.

Klaus

Clrnc wrote:
Yeah it's already hard to convince Italians to leave their country, not to mention join a club in mid table without European football. Might as well stay put at current club

The midtable part is what makes it so difficult I think. Locatelli doesn't strike me as someone who needs to play in Italy for the rest of his life and as far as I know he can speak a bit of English, just like Chiesa. This is a new generation of Italians for whom second languages have started to become more common.

If we had at least qualified for Europa again we might have been seen as being on an upward trajectory and building something, but we don't even have that. For the last four years our results have just become increasingly worse. Talk about appointing the wrong manager at a crucial stage. This is why we have to pay such exorbitant sums, why we seemingly can't get anything done this summer.

goon

Qwiss! wrote:
Coombs wrote:
Hope they've got something surprising lined up. Neves wouldn't be the end of the world, though.

Think Neves would mean threading water. Obviously with Xhaka gone we need someone and he'd fill that hole but we need something big for this squad. Nevez, White, Lokonga, Tavarez, etc isn't enough to change our fortunes. Maybe Pepe and ESR could move to another level.

Yup. We need someone in midfield who can do what ESR did for our game further forward. Speed it up, make it more dynamic, play on the turn etc. and I can't see Neves doing that.

I think if we wanted Neves it would have been done by now or close to being done, much in the same vein as White etc. I'm not convinced we were ever seriously after Locatelli either, we'd have known from the start whether or not he was interested.

Makes me wonder who our first choice actually is though.

speedy

goon wrote:
Qwiss! wrote:
Think Neves would mean threading water. Obviously with Xhaka gone we need someone and he'd fill that hole but we need something big for this squad. Nevez, White, Lokonga, Tavarez, etc isn't enough to change our fortunes. Maybe Pepe and ESR could move to another level.

Yup. We need someone in midfield who can do what ESR did for our game further forward. Speed it up, make it more dynamic, play on the turn etc. and I can't see Neves doing that.

I think if we wanted Neves it would have been done by now or close to being done, much in the same vein as White etc. I'm not convinced we were ever seriously after Locatelli either, we'd have known from the start whether or not he was interested.

Makes me wonder who our first choice actually is though.

I think neves is an option. He's not ideal or first choice but if he's the best we can get then that's the situation were in. If arteta can improve him as much as he did with xhaka then he should be fine. The stumbling block is probably that xhaka suits Italy and they're all broke and wolves want top dollar for this kid and theirs probably not streets of distance between xhakas ability and neves currently. We'd be paying 30-40 million just to get a younger version.

Qwiss

goon wrote:
Qwiss! wrote:
Think Neves would mean threading water. Obviously with Xhaka gone we need someone and he'd fill that hole but we need something big for this squad. Nevez, White, Lokonga, Tavarez, etc isn't enough to change our fortunes. Maybe Pepe and ESR could move to another level.

Yup. We need someone in midfield who can do what ESR did for our game further forward. Speed it up, make it more dynamic, play on the turn etc. and I can't see Neves doing that.

I think if we wanted Neves it would have been done by now or close to being done, much in the same vein as White etc. I'm not convinced we were ever seriously after Locatelli either, we'd have known from the start whether or not he was interested.

Makes me wonder who our first choice actually is though.

I think we were serious about Locatelli but he wasn't interested and we moved on. Papers are stuck for things to write about so keep on at it. Think you are right about Neves too, we'd have heard more progress if we were still in for him. Interestingly we haven't heard many strong rumours in the last week or two but it seems like White and Lokonga were being finished up so we'll probably get some new CM names this week.

We all know CM is the key position, its all well and good getting White but playing better from the back wont matter if half the season is spent with Elneny in midfield.

Gazza M

the guendo deal seemed to trigger us finalising lokonga, so I'd expect we're waiting on further movement on xhaka and torreira before we get fresh rumours on the midfield positions. neves and bissouma are the only names that semi reputable journos have linked us with

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