Agree, Burns. I think that’s why I was relatively patient with Emery. This is a hard job. It’s not the msonlshd where you have 1 or 2 contenders. You have an army of challengers, and then you have to contend with Arsenal’s own unique circumstances of a misshapen squad, executive turnover, and, limited funds.

It’s worth remembering that it is unlikely that he wanted to play 343. He likely didn’t have 3 midfielders that made sense, nor did he have 2 defenders who also made sense in both directions. Next season, hopefully Luiz-Saliba addresses one concern and he gets his 3rd mid. Then he can express himself more fully. But I think he performed adequately with the squad he inherited.

goon wrote:

Clrnc wrote:

That year was the worst. Depended on half a season of super human Ramsey form and then once that's gone we got thrashed upside down in every single big game we played. Became a thorough laughing joke

Still got 79 points and won an FA Cup though. Who knows what might have happened if Ozil and Ramsey didn't pick up injuries.

But that's been the issue re our transfer activity = an inability to sustain performance levels beyond 1-2 key players.

Burnwinter wrote:

How good is Arteta? In truth, I think managers are defined by the history that happens around them. This was certainly true for Wenger in his early days, who inherited half of a top squad that had just had Dennis Bergkamp added to it through David Dein's efforts. Where is Arteta's David Dein?

If we win the FA Cup under Arteta, people will start to talk about him as building something. If we don't his position will be tenuous. So there's a lot on him at this moment.

To me he seems to be the right type of manager for where we are at the moment. Tactically he may be weak, but it's hard to draw the line between a manager's tactical nous and the material he has to work with. I appreciate Arteta's steadiness, charisma and humility. He's capable of projecting the image of a club in a slow process of reconstruction to the outside world, and that's something we definitely need.

I think he's given some indication of his tactical ability with the results v LFC and MC.  Granted they were from the set up as underdog and taking a battering in the 2nd halves of both but it showed an awareness and ability to adapt, as has the change to the 343.

Thus far he's far more pragmatic than AW and more consistent/aware of his resources and their actual capabilities than Emery (I think Emery over estimated the squad he inherited in terms of their ability to adapt to new tactics and formations).

I also think he's done a helluva job to turn things around on and off the pitch thus far, to the point IMO he deserves to be backed to build the team he wants to be able to execute his shape and style.  

Burnwinter wrote:

How good is Arteta? In truth, I think managers are defined by the history that happens around them. This was certainly true for Wenger in his early days, who inherited half of a top squad that had just had Dennis Bergkamp added to it through David Dein's efforts. Where is Arteta's David Dein?

Slightly harsh on wenger, he inherited an aging alcoholic back line(who were brilliant
but that's a bit of a ticking time bomb) and Bergkamp had flopped badly at inter. And Dean admitted at one point(although I cant recall where I read this) that wenger had instructed that purchase. So the credit of us buying DB10 goes to wenger.

Bergkamp joined under Bruce Rioch in June 1995 and Wenger didn't join us until after following season had already started in 1996. No way was Bergkamp a Wenger instruction.

I think hes the right man for the job. Hes a born manager. The odds are heavily against him. Top four is super set now, he needs a wonder season and an implosion at another club to succeed.

Things that concern me-

Raul is inexperienced he had one previous director of football job and he completely fooked up barca. And he has surrounded himself with inexperience (arteta, mert, freddie, edu). To have that kind of inexperience at board room, management while developing an inexperienced team is a house of cards. I can't comprehend why someone would deliberately build that if they were confident in there own ability at the top.

Junker an experienced coach came into the youth set up and its looked miles better since even though he left. Sven came in and we dicked about getting suarez on loan rather than pepe for 15m and he left. I don't think signing a midfielder will fix all our problems.

DK Gooner wrote:

Bergkamp joined under Bruce Rioch in June 1995 and Wenger didn't join us until after following season had already started in 1996. No way was Bergkamp a Wenger instruction.

Dein and Wenger were in constant talks as friends long before wenger arrived here. And its not like DB10 was going to go to Japan. Its completely plausible he was the one who recommended that signing. 

Similarly Bobby Robson rang fergusan and told him to sign RVN. Fergusan had no idea about him but just went for it. 

speedy wrote:

DK Gooner wrote:

Bergkamp joined under Bruce Rioch in June 1995 and Wenger didn't join us until after following season had already started in 1996. No way was Bergkamp a Wenger instruction.

Dein and Wenger were in constant talks as friends long before wenger arrived here. And its not like DB10 was going to go to Japan. Its completely plausible he was the one who recommended that signing. 

Similarly Bobby Robson rang fergusan and told him to sign RVN. Fergusan had no idea about him but just went for it. 

Happened for Vieira but have never come across any commentary where Bergkamp was referred to as a Wenger recommendation or instruction. Seems unlikely as Wenger was never associated with Ajax or Inter and certainly never managed in those leagues. Would more likely to have gone with George Weah.

Isn't Milan a 4 hour drive from Monaco. In those days players like Jean-Pierre Papin were moving across from France to Italy to play for Milan. So it's not impossible to imagine that Wenger and his cohorts would've scouted Bergkamp

I could be totally wrong, and mixing up the vieira story. Hopefully we'll know more after wengers book release. Their probably reinforcing the shelves in waterstones as we speak to support the 4,000 pages on missed signings.

That deserves a volume of its own. Wenger could've fielded his own Arsenal A of missed signings throughout his Emirates career

I hope it reads in cronological order like a diary

Janurary 3rd Failed to sign Kalou . . .again.
Janurary 4th Enquired about Kolou he is still eager to join, launched bid and failed.
Janurary 5th Rang Chelsea, ended up discussing Kalou, they asked for 12M so I sent and offer of 2M. No response, yet
Janurary 6th Called the handy man to fix the fax manchine, as I havent herd chelseas response to my recent kalou bid
Jan 7th bought a second had french fax manchine to replace the english one. It had poor reviews on amazon but with the right support i feel it can succeed here.
Jan 8th Rang chelsea to assess progress on my Kalou bid as he's eager to join, The phone line cut off. Not to worry I'll call back tomorrow.
Note to self: office equipment is severly hampering my transfer plans. It may be worth skipping the rest of the wondow and just getting this equipment sorted.

Claudius wrote:

Isn't Milan a 4 hour drive from Monaco. In those days players like Jean-Pierre Papin were moving across from France to Italy to play for Milan. So it's not impossible to imagine that Wenger and his cohorts would've scouted Bergkamp

He would definitely have known about him, but Bergkamp was hardly an unknown entity after Euro 92 and WC 94. Just seems improbable for Arsenal to commit to their highest ever transfer fee by a long way on the basis of someone who could be a future manager of the club and had never worked with that player before in a period where foreign signings were still rare in the fledgling Premier League.

DK Gooner wrote:

Claudius wrote:

Isn't Milan a 4 hour drive from Monaco. In those days players like Jean-Pierre Papin were moving across from France to Italy to play for Milan. So it's not impossible to imagine that Wenger and his cohorts would've scouted Bergkamp

He would definitely have known about him, but Bergkamp was hardly an unknown entity after Euro 92 and WC 94. Just seems improbable for Arsenal to commit to their highest ever transfer fee by a long way on the basis of someone who could be a future manager of the club and had never worked with that player before in a period where foreign signings were still rare in the fledgling Premier League.

If they were friends which they were, and in regular contact which they were. Its not unthinkable that hed ask wenger what he though of DB10 before commiting to a transfer record. How much of an influence tmwenger had is unknown.

It was definitely Vieira who Wenger requested the signing of.

speedy wrote:

DK Gooner wrote:

He would definitely have known about him, but Bergkamp was hardly an unknown entity after Euro 92 and WC 94. Just seems improbable for Arsenal to commit to their highest ever transfer fee by a long way on the basis of someone who could be a future manager of the club and had never worked with that player before in a period where foreign signings were still rare in the fledgling Premier League.

If they were friends which they were, and in regular contact which they were. Its not unthinkable that hed ask wenger what he though of DB10 before commiting to a transfer record. How much of an influence tmwenger had is unknown.

Garnering an opinion from him sounds more reasonable, though from memory, we were already being linked with a host of big name strikers the previous years including Roberto Baggio as our exploits in the Cup Winners Cup gave us a decent European profile. Also Spurs had signed Klinsmann the year before. 

DK Gooner wrote:

Bergkamp joined under Bruce Rioch in June 1995 and Wenger didn't join us until after following season had already started in 1996. No way was Bergkamp a Wenger instruction.

That was my recollection. Either way Wenger may well have recommended the signing, but since he wasn't officially involved at the time I doubt he was intimately involved in getting it done. My point is that Arteta can probably identify players he wants, but who is going to land them?

Anzac wrote:

I think he's given some indication of his tactical ability with the results v LFC and MC.  Granted they were from the set up as underdog and taking a battering in the 2nd halves of both but it showed an awareness and ability to adapt, as has the change to the 343.

Basically we got the tactics fairly right and had good luck and good resolve in both matches. We'll need the same against Chelsea in the cup final.

Let’s park the bus and get lucky