Eze: Page 22 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Eze

RowJimmy

TambourineMan if we keep finishing 2nd, our best players will leave for teams that can get over the line.

In which case we will be bitterly disappointed not to have won a title, and need to rebuild, replacing those players with younger ones. But that won't mean that we were mediocre, and it won't mean that the solution would have been to fire the manager.

TambourineMan

RowJimmy

This idea of just “rebuilding with younger players” if we fall short is fantasy. Every time you lose a top player, the level drops and the clock resets - you don’t just plug in a replacement and carry on contending. That’s exactly how clubs like Dortmund get stuck in a loop of selling, rebuilding, nearly competing, and never actually winning. So do you want us to be like Dortmund or City/Liverpool/Bayern/Barca/Real?

For Arsenal, finishing 2nd again and again without a title is our version of mediocre - because it’s defined relative to expectations and resources. Pretending we’re immune from that just because there are worse-run clubs below us is folly. If you consistently fall short of your potential, you’re not elite - you're underachieving.

RowJimmy

Mediocre = Bournemouth, Brentford, Everton, Fulham, Man Utd, Tottenham. Teams for whom finishing 8th would be a significant accomplishment.

Sicario2

RowJimmy immaterial. Everything is relative. Do these clubs have the same budget and exceptions as us?

TambourineMan

On top of that, you don’t just finish 2nd into perpetuity. The very quality of player that gets you there doesn’t hang around forever if they never win. If they leave, you can’t bridge the gap to 1st - you drop back down the ladder, spend years rebuilding in a hyper-competitive Premier League, and maybe claw your way back to contention. If you still can’t get over the line, the cycle repeats. And this has been us for 20 years and you want this to continue? Make it make sense please.

Winning is critical because it doesn’t just give you a medal - it locks in your best players, attracts more elite players, and keeps you at the top.

Qwiss

TambourineMan Every time you lose a top player, the level drops and the clock resets - you don’t just plug in a replacement and carry on contending.

So Liverpool losing Trent and Diaz, City losing KDB means they're not going to contend?

awooga83

Different teams have different baselines, getting a team within touching distance of honours but not winning any would be a failure for a team like arsenal. We are historically underachievers of the bigger teams in the modern era but when your time comes around you've got to bank some trophies.

RowJimmy

TambourineMan
We had dropped considerably below this level for much if not most of those 20 years.

Klaus

Our issue right now is available squad places to register players I reckon. I think we're saving up for one more late window madness, whether it's Eze or Rodrygo or even someone like Yildiz.

Qwiss

Klaus it's all down to Trossard I reckon. If he goes we'll sign someone. If he stays we won't.

RowJimmy

I think there's always a difference between the expectation and the goal. The expectation is to compete for the title, the goal is to win it - I'm not saying it's something else. But in a league with 20 teams and one champion, the title is always a reach goal, and you have to evaluate your people based on the expectation, not the goal.

TambourineMan

RowJimmy and if we don't start winning soon we'll descend back to that in a few years. Our best players aren't going to hang around if we continually fail to deliver.

lorddulaarsenal

Difference now is that KSE are taking investment in the club seriously as their ownership isn’t as diluted.

Doc

If he goes to spurs and we don't get him or someone of similar profile/better... It's another major fuck up in transfers/squad building.

Sicario2

Doc This and means the summer window has been a sham

samthegooner

I regret engaging on the Arteta topic. If you think that what we’ve seen over the last three years is mediocrity, I don’t know what to tell you. I believe our manager is a top 3 manager in the world and there are a lot of neutral football observers who agree. If you don’t, fair but the negativity this summer is baffling to me and frankly it’s pushed me away from this forum a few times in the last month and continues to do so. I’m going to enjoy watching my favorite team play the sport I love. Sports are an escape for me and I refuse to get caught up in the “trophy or it’s a disaster of a season” narrative that surrounds this fan base. I want us to win a title more than anything but watching Arsenal week in and week out gives me more joy than any title ever will. Call me naive/deluded/etc but that’s where I stand and on that note, I’ll just be weighing in on threads where there’s optimism about the team moving forward.

Sicario2

samthegooner top 3 manager in the world but no final in 5 years. Who is your 2nd? Poch?

samthegooner

Sicario2 is it fun to just be miserable all the time? I made the mistake of engaging initially but I’m done now. The negativity is just exhausting.

Sicario2

samthegooner rather be a realist than live in cuckoo land

lorddulaarsenal

Arsenal are currently performing at a level we haven’t performed at since the Invincibles. We are on an upward trajectory and have improved the squad to such an extent that future summers will call for only one or two signings of the highest calibre.

We play in the best league in the world and have only recently started to play Champions League football again, and yet we give a bloody account of ourselves.

Players see us as a big draw and the place to be.

But sod all that. Let’s risk returning to the Emery era where arguably we were punching at our weight…

awooga83

lorddulaarsenal they won't see us as the image to be is we win nothing. If we don't win a league or champions league in the next 2-3 seasons anybody decent will have moved. You only get small opportunities at the top to deliver.

The Arteta era has put us in the mix but he hasn't shown he has what it takes to take us to the win. If you are genuinely ambitious you do not let someone have time forever. The emery era may have been bad, it's Arteta wins nothing this era will not be particularly remembered either but least because the football is so uninspiring and boring. When you play that way the have to win stuff or it'll be forgotten.

lorddulaarsenal

awooga83 if I was a player with an opportunity to join Arsenal I’d back myself to be the difference maker.

Our potential to win things is as good as pretty much any club in the world

awooga83

lorddulaarsenal maybe but we have potential the rival clubs we are up against pretty much all have delivered those trophies. The potential case only lasts so long.

lorddulaarsenal

awooga83 does it? We haven’t won anything of real note for a while yet here we are having put together an excellent squad and established a top tier youth pipeline

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