in 2013-14, we finished 4th, with a 7 point gap to 5th. that squad was filled with guys who were inconsistent, past their prime, or really raw. we relied on giroud/ramsey to score most of our goals. arteta played 43 games for us that season.
in 7 years, we've fallen off drastically, but if you line up player for player, its not like our starting XI is way worse now.
auba is better than giroud by some distance
saka is miles better than podolski
you cant really draw a parallel to ozil because we didnt play with a 10 for most of this season
sagna was losing a step at that time, hes an upgrade over bellerin defensively, but offered nothing going forward
tierney is much better all around that gibbs
leno has been more consistent and less error prone (imo) than szczesny
cazorla was unique, and he was better than any of our mids this season, but that is mostly because partey has been constantly injured
arteta was a bit better than xhaka
the trio of rosicky, flamini, and wilshere had their highs and lows, and that trio is probably better than elneny and ceballos
ESR has shown more than ox, imo.
per was pretty solid, more solid than david luiz, but gabriel has been better than vermaelen. kos was good, but he was error prone too.
point being, our current squad is probably more talented than that squad that finished 4th with room to spare. yes, teams like everton have started to spend more money. but so have we. we've spent a shitload of money in the last few seasons, just not always wisely.
the standards at this club have drastically slipped, especially among the fans. we moaned and bitched when 4th place is a trophy. now we are saying its okay to finish 9th because the squad is a work in progress. we taunted and mocked man united when fungus left and they went through a valley. our descent has been even more steep, and people seem to have their head in the sand.
if you are okay with us finishing 8th because its a project, then you need to reckon with the question of whether we are a big club or not.
