Expectations - 2023/2024 Season: Page 3 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Expectations - 2023/2024 Season

Don Pacifico

flobaba After being garbage for close to a decade. If you recall even when we were steadily qualifying for champions league- when Wenger made top 4 like a trophy, there were grumblings and rumblings of dissatisfaction all about the place (it wasn’t enough for me).

So I think that was a reflection of the fact there were no outwards signs of progress (more signs that we were in stasis or in reality, a very slow decline). And that's the point for me, taking joy in the progress. Winning a domestic cup wouldn't necessarily represent progress (as much as I would enjoy the win).

Also, when we won multiple FA cups towards the end of Wenger's reign, Sanchez still wanted to leave...because we showed no signs of progressing in the league or in Europe.

Clrnc

Don Pacifico I agree but I think it's also the feeling of recency vs the club history. It feels good to be progressing by finishing 2nd, but it needs to be followed up by trophies. Otherwise it's not a real progress. It will count for nothing if you keep finishing close to 1st but don't win anything at all and then have to build for the next cycle of players in a few years time to restart this feeling all over again.

Trophies is delivering. When you look back at the past decade, the most fond memories are our trophies and you look back at our cup runs and smile even though those years our league form is crap. You won't be looking back at the years we finished 2nd and trophyless and get the happy feeling.

Coombs

Trophies are vastly overrated in the grand scheme.

invisibleman18

Coombs if trophies are overrated then what do you see as the point of it all? Appreciate you can't win then all immediately or every season and it takes time to progress to eventually getting there but ultimately the end game from here has to be to win the PL and/or CL. Else what's the point? I bet Harry Kane would trade all of his goalscoring records for a couple of cups in an instant.
As Clrnc says, my fondest memory of the last 5 years is certainly winning the FA Cup. Maybe I'm the exception rather than the rule but personally outside of the most recent season I barely remember much that happened in other non trophy winning seasons. Nothing particularly fondly anyway.

Burnwinter

Coombs I hear and I think I agree. I've just had one season where I've been glued to our progress and we've shut Gary Neville up and scared the bejesus out of a few pundits and managers, and I think it's felt better than winning the 2014 FA Cup Final.

flobaba

You are the most galaxy brain.

Burnwinter

lorddulaarsenal Do the double over them I reckon we win the league.

Claudius

Burnwinter which would have been the case this season. We just needed to win the two games against them. Overall we still need to build resilience against big teams, particularly northern ones. Go and beat them in their own shit holes. That’s the next step.

lorddulaarsenal

Being able to stop the trophy banter should be enough motivation for Kane to want to win a cup

Don Pacifico

Burnwinter surely not 2014? The first trophy after so long in such dramatic fashion? I know I was championing progress over trophies but at the time, that felt like progress in light of the context of where we'd been (ie. not winning any trophies!).

2015 felt less of an achievement though because Villa were terrible (and we'd ended the drought already). I think I probably got more from this season.

Qwiss

Burnwinter and we've shut Gary Neville up

except we didn't and despite his prediction (United and City would be ahead of us) being wrong he's still giving it the "told you so" because we fell short. Even though thats what basically everyone, including the bookies, expected.

flobaba

My Lawd. More galaxy brains.

Coombs

flobaba it's pretty simple. Good process for a club of our size and stature will result in trophies anyway, so I'm not too worried about chasing tin pots at all costs. I watch to watch, not to win.

flobaba

"I watch to watch, not to win."

If you were a player, you would play to play, not to win.

Serious clubs want to win trophies. Serious players want to win trophies. Serious fans should want to watch their players and their clubs win trophies.

flobaba

Imagine if we had gone Invincible - 0wins, 0 losses, 38Draws.

Coombs

@flobaba be like

awooga83

Qwiss yep I had the same view. Lots of our critics at the crux of it say Arsenal can look good but they can't get the business done they will always fall short. That's why, to me at least, trophies matter. You can do these academic who looks better etc but win trophies and whatever a critic may think it doesn't matter it's irrelevant.

Don Pacifico

awooga83 no one is going to be impressed if win the FA cup though.

And that's not me hating on the FA cup as I love it but that's why I think it's a bit of a blunt metric of success.

awooga83

Don Pacifico on this point I was more responding to the idea we'd silenced Neville and other critics this season. That if we don't deliver one of those types of trophies you haven't really.

For the fa cup and league cup is more about us becoming a winning side so short term I think we need to win stuff to begin to build that culture. Great if it's the league and champions League otherwise take what we can short term. But over 3-4 years we do need to add a league or CL.

flobaba

That's not true -The premiership is not the only prestigious local competition. The FA Cup is still a hugely significant trophy in England. It's not the Carabao Cup* (*while second rate, the CC is getting an increasingly raised profile as more "big clubs" win it, all it needs is a bit more remodeling and repackaging).

Don Pacifico

I don't see how Gary Neville and co are going to think we're no longer bottlers (in reference to the discourse above) if we win the FA cup.

Again, this isn't meant to be a devaluing of the cup but plenty of ordinary teams have won it over the last couple of decades, who are no longer even in the premier league. Therefore for me, in our current status, it doesn't represent progress.

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