Marvellous Mesut Signs New Contract: Page 10 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Marvellous Mesut Signs New Contract

Big Willie

Could possibly be Klaus, it does seem since Henry joined Bergkamp's numbers went down quite a bit but it's possibly age catching up with him at that point. Could also be because we had so many goalscorers in the team that he was probably not needed as much in the box rather than feeding our other attacking players. Bergkamp was a genious and a master at adapting to suit the team's needs so he probably adjusted.

Needless to say, as you mentioned, he was an unbelievable finisher given half a chance and transformed from a great goalscorer at Ajax to a scorer of great goals in his later time with us (not taking away from the great goals he scored as a great goalscorer that is).

Shit, remembering him honestly makes me a bit sad.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Twice the player Mesut is, our Dennis.

Jed

To think we had Bergkamp, Vieira, Henry, Campbell, Adams, Cole, Pires etc all at once. All once in a generation type players. Bloody hell.

Little wonder Wenger was so successful.

mdgoonah41

Jed wrote:
To think we had Bergkamp, Vieira, Henry, Campbell, Adams, Cole, Pires etc all at once. All once in a generation type players. Bloody hell.

Little wonder Wenger was so successful.

when you look at the talent we had, you can even craft an argument that wenger underachieved with that squad.

TambourineMan

Was just gonna say that. We had some absolutely amazing players back then. Lehmann, Cole, Campbell, Vieira, Pires, Bergkamp and Henry would all start for EVERY Prem team today whilst guys like Lauren, Toure, Gilberto and Ljungberg would be mighty close. To have not won a CL with that team was a failure, no doubt.

Klaus

He didn't underachieve. We had that team for a few short peak years, and during that time he put together a league run that might not be broken in your lifetimes despite having a paper thin squad. We were not the only ones in Europe who had good players.

Gazza M

paper thin squad on a paper thin budget. plus the champions league was dominated by slower paced, defensive teams back then. the current CL is more offensive minded, and i think our 02-04 would thrive in today's tournament

Gurgen

Should have won the CL. It was a travesty we lost to that shitty Chelsea side.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

That smirk on Bridge's face after he knocked us out still gets me raging.

Claudius

That was a QF loss to a team that did not eventually win the competition if I remember correctly. Nothing is guaranteed

Gazza M

I think jose's porto would've done a number on wenger that year anyway

awooga83

We should have certainly retained the title and one another league with that team and champions league so I think there was underachievement with that team

Jed

Of course we underachieved. That was the best team in club history and we were the best in the world at the time. We were repeatedly getting knocked out by the likes of Deportivo and Valencia in the CL ffs. We should've definitely won at least 1 CL.

Mirth

You need a deeper squad to win the CL. Our first 11 were as good as any team in Europe but the squad depth was pretty poor.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

I remember we just couldn't match up to teams like Depor and Valencia tactically at that time. Continental teams were way ahead of English teams in that regard around then.

goon

Yeah I think so too. English football was still in the stone age back then, I don't think it's any coincidence we actually did better in the post invinicbles era when we started to wise up a little.

Clrnc

Mirth wrote:
You need a deeper squad to win the CL. Our first 11 were as good as any team in Europe but the squad depth was pretty poor.

Yep. Once someone is injured we struggle to be of the same quality and suffered really badly.

But then again Wenger's management of teams often meant we get exposed to drop in qualities more often than not.

Tony Montana

goon wrote:
Yeah I think so too. English football was still in the stone age back then, I don't think it's any coincidence we actually did better in the post invinicbles era when we started to wise up a little.

Then a year later Liverpool win it.

Between 2005 - 2012 the competitiveness of English teams went up a notch.

Then we came crashing down but this year might change?

Captain

mdgoonah41 wrote:
Jed wrote:
To think we had Bergkamp, Vieira, Henry, Campbell, Adams, Cole, Pires etc all at once. All once in a generation type players. Bloody hell.

Little wonder Wenger was so successful.

when you look at the talent we had, you can even craft an argument that wenger underachieved with that squad.

They were once in a generation players at Arsenal under Wenger. Campbell was a finished article, the rest not so much including Adams.

Mirth

Tony Montana wrote:
goon wrote:
Yeah I think so too. English football was still in the stone age back then, I don't think it's any coincidence we actually did better in the post invinicbles era when we started to wise up a little.

Then a year later Liverpool win it.

Between 2005 - 2012 the competitiveness of English teams went up a notch.

Then we came crashing down but this year might change?

Yeah, Rafa joined in 2004 and along with Mourinho brought in an extremely tactical (and frankly overly rigid at times) approach which was great for the CL. Ferguson soon followed and even Wenger changed his tactics significantly by his standards.

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