are arsenal really "that" good?

sunama

sunama

sunama

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reading these forums, anyone could be led to believe that arsenal are head and shoulders above the rest of the teams in this country.

this begs following questions:

why are they only 2 pts ahead of 2nd place chelsea?
why have they lost 4 games this season (man utd lost 3)?
why did they start losing games, in the last stage of the champ league?
why did they lose 5 games in a row?

does this sound like the best team? if it does, i would hate to see what the worst team would be.

some predictions:
personally, i think man utd will win the league by at least 5pts:

arsenal have peaked already, just like i said 2 months ago and wont get any better.

chelsea will fade as the season wears on (just like everton)

liverpool....lol.

lets wait and see what happens.
 
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other guys on this forum claim that arenal are the total package and if henry doenst play, they can still score a hatful of goals. do they no longer believe this?
 
i also feel that people in here get hung up on "names".

let me tell u this much, the best teams work great as a team, regardless of how many or how little big name players there are.

example. Spain, the best league in the world. the no.1 team right now have 0 big name players in them. in fact man utd are playing better now than they have in the last 2 yrs, and this is without some of the "big names".

arsenal have the best 11 in the country - debatable, cuz i feel man utd have the best 11 (when all are fit, ie. with the inclusion of keane, beckham etc). however, what i would say is that arsenal have the best 15. man utd have a great 11, but after that, they have no "big names".
 
Originally posted by Dtab
The games they've lost before,i think they could easily have won on another day (these things happen,it's football) .
Click to expand...

and that is what separates a championship winning team from the also rans - a champ winning team will play badly, but will somehow scrape a win. the also rans will play great, but will end up losing games that they really could easily have won.

this is why im thinking arsenal really dont have any realistic chance of winning the title this year. but hey, thats just me...

most of the good work/point/goal scoring was done in the first 2 months of the season. and it is on this that they are still leading the league. i cant see them leading the league past january - man utd shouldve passed them by then.

in the last 2 months, i would love to see how many points/goals arsenal have actually scored in the premiership. i doubt they are in the top 3. man utd or everton are probably top. can someone dig up these stats?
 
we are predicting who will win the league cuz thats the nature of this sport and thats what makes it fun. isnt that the sort of banter we all have with our mates (my teams better than yours, my teams gonna win the title, your team sucks, hahaha, etc)?

some people are in this belief that arsenal are the best team in europe or something. does the best team really lose 5 games in a row? does the best team lose 4 games before christmas, in their own league?

as far as saying real madrid being the best in europe: in EU cup, they probably are the best, cuz they up their level for these games. but in their own league they dont seem to be very good (over the last 1.5 seasons).

on judging if they are the best team in EU, it depends on what the weighting is on the EU Champ league performance and what weighting performing well in your league is given. personally, i would give equal weighting to both the champ league and domestic league, as well as the country your league is in (spain getting the heaviest bias, switzerland and the like getting the lowest bias and every other league falling somewhere in between). on this basis, i would pick a team that is riding high in their domestic league (preferably lying top of their league) and has scored the most points in their games in the champ league, to date.

from the above and based on this years competitions so far, i would have to say Valencia are currently the best team in europe, this season. they have scored 17 pts from their 7 games so far this season (scoring 16 pts in stage 1) and are currently lying in 2nd place in the best league in europe.

comparing that with arsenal, they've scored 13 pts in champ league to date, and lay in 1st position in the league (our league imo, being the 2nd best).

and like i said, the best team in europe doesnt lose 5 games in a row, in all competitions. you cannot leave out this fact.

also u guys seem to think that had bergkamp played against man utd, that arsenal wouldve won? well, arsene wenger who i believe to be among the best 2 managers (currently rated as best manager in the country) in the country, decided that bergkamp shouldnt start and i dont think any of us here are in a position to question his decision. remember wenger probably has a better footballing/tactical mind than every member on this forum and im pretty sure he strongly believed that the team he put out against man utd was the best team he could field on the day, barring inuries.

also i feel that arsenal only won the league last year cuz of the terrible start man utd had last year. they lost something like 6 games in 7. had they lost only say 3 (which is what has happened this year), i think they wouldve won the title. this strongly leads me to believe that arsenal have very little chance of winning the title. that and the fact that in january, man utd get back about £100m worth of players (becks, keane, ferdy, butt, plus the extra players we buy when the transfer window opens).

an interesting statistic is that when arsenal won their 2 titles. both years, they won the old trafford fixture. when they dont win that fixture, they dont win the title. this indeed is why everyone is getting excited that arsenal are no longer title favourites this year.

also on another note, how many arsenal supporters think they are gonna get any points from their next game against valencia. i for one think they will lose that game, because i dont rate this year's arsenal very highly. although i would like to see any english side beat a spannish side, cuz thats the only way our league status is gonna increase.

off topic:
did u read about rivaldo and his opinions on the best english player. i couldnt stop laughing when i heard who he thought is the most dangerous english player...his first name begins and ends with 'E'.:D
 
Originally posted by NitrogenY3K

And i think keane is more like £30 millions worth, with beckham at about the same and rio £25mil wilth but at £20mil
Click to expand...

yep, add an extra £10m or so which will probably spent in jan, and i make it £100m +.

me thinks arsenal supporters are a tad bit jealous that they cant afford to shell out this sort of money.
 
i think in a fully fit man utd squad, the following players would get into the utd side:

vierra (maybe replace scholes, scholes coming on as a sub)
henry (as RvN's strike partner)
campbell (he will replace any of the center backs that man u have)
pirez (in premiership games he would play, in EU, giggs = irreplaceable)

this is from a man utd supporter's perspective, without any bias against arsenal (if this is possible).

as far as beckham is concerned im now wondering maybe it wouldnt be a good idea if he got sold. cuz he no longer supplies the crosses as he did in the treble winning season; he wonders to the middle too much. in the treble winning season, once he got the ball (on the right), he would run forward, as fast as he could and without looking up, would whip the ball right in front of the goal mouth. yorke scored many many goals that year using this method. i cant remember the last time he did this (i think it was 2 yrs ago).

for this and next year i would rather man utd not buy any player costing more than £8m, as the so called star players are not really performing as advertised (with the exception of RvN, who i believe is the best finisher ive ever seen, ever....).

if u look at the results of man utd against liverpool, newcastle, arsenal. i believe that the squad that beat these teams was probably the cheapest that man utd have put out in the last 2 yrs.
 
i think the problem that man utd find themseleves in right now is that they find themselves having to buy players who have already "made it", so that the player can immediately be good enough to get into the first team. now if u buy someone "for the future" this means that they are not of the standard reqd to make the first team. now, how will they improve if they dont get first team football? they can only improve by training and playing well in the reserves. however, to make bigger strides, u simply have to play against the top players in the league and unfortunately the way AF does things now, he wont give these youngsters a chance. knowing this, if u were 21 yrs old, would u sign for man utd, on the off chance that u might get 1 game for man utd, and IF u impress in that 1 game, u might get another and another. most 20 year olds would be put off and would probably rather play in a lesser team, for their own personal development, and perhaps make a move to a larger club (perhaps even man utd) once they are good enough to go straight into the first team.

and this leads man utd back to the same problem that they simply have to buy players whose cost will break the british transfer record.

a way around this would be to get some really good scouts and they will find players who are comparitiviely unknown/cheap but are good enough to get into the first team.
 
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the problem i have with AF is that he has a lot more money to spend than Wenger. he can afford to break the british transfer record 2 years in a row, during which time he baught the 3 most expensive players in the premiership. he also baught the most expensive goal keeper in the world (at the time - barthez). he also baught the most expensive defender in the world (at the time - stam). in fact i think the only time at which man utd didnt hold the british transfer record was when newcastle paid £15m for shearer.

arsenal cannot even hope to compete against this financial muscle.

the argument should be that if wenger had these funds available to him, would he do better?

personally i beleive that if AF wants to compete against R.madrid and break transfer records, then buy one player every 2 seasons that will allow man utd to hold the current transfer record, and buy 2 or 3 other players who cost less than £5 each, per year. for this though we need better scouts to find the bargain players...scouts that man utd dont have.

this would allow us to afford players such as Zidane and should allow us to be competitive in the premiership and CL.
 
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