Pretty rubbish performance. I'm not sure this 4-3-2-1 formation is suited to the players we've got, certainly not in the attacking areas. Coutinho and Lallana lack the pace to play in wider roles and you could see both were struggling to get into the game - it was only when we brought Benteke on and Lallana played off the front that he started to cause them problems. Hopefully with some of attacking players coming back things will change.
I thought we agreed at the time Arsenal weren't elite but were in the top 10. You then asked about where they stand below those 3.
And you can hang on to your mythical top 10 place. I've seen my team win the CL, no Arsenal fan in the world ever has
If we list the players in a CL final since Arsenal we get a list of
Milan(2), Liverpool, Utd(3), Chelsea(2), Barcelona(3), Inter(1), Bayern(3), Dortmund, Atletico, Real, Juventus.
So that is 11 other teams just in the final since we actually had a realistic shot at winning it. Should we go for Europa league, including 05/06 Sevilla have been in the europa league final and won it 4 freaking times. Chelsea 1 win, Atletico won it twice, Porto, Zenit, Shakhtar. Rangers, Fulham, Bilbao, Benfica, Dnipro, Espanyol, Boro and Fulham(yup saying that one again) have got to the final though lost.
Now I'm not saying they are all euro elites, but Sevilla won A european league 4 times in the past decade... I'd say that puts them above Arsenal, Atletico and Chelsea just adding to their credentials.
Then Arsenal's history, since being runners up(the last time we played truly good football), we've gone out in the round of 16 in six out of 9 attempts, two quarter finals, one semi final, it's be 5 years on the trot we've gone out at the round of 16 though. So should we list the rest of the teams that got to any stage beyond the round of 16 in the past 5 years, sure, why not.
Spurs, Shakhtar, Schalke, Inter(a different year), Apoel, Marseille, Milan, Benfica, Malaga, Galatasaray, Juve, PSG, Monaco, Porto.
When you look at all the teams that have won european titles, all the teams that have gotten to finals since 05/06, all the teams that have gotten to a latter stage than Arsenal in the past 5 years I find it laughable to suggest we're in the top 10.
Look at that last list, teams who are getting to later stages than us, those getting to finals, many of them(most of that last list) spend 100+ mil a year less on wages than us... but we're the elite? 5 teams in the first list spend less than Arsenal, again several of them 100mil or more less yet have gotten to finals and how many of these teams also won league titles as well?
The only team doing worse than Arsenal are frankly City... who are by no means a european elite. PSG maybe spend more, but they spent a decade out of the champs league, the money is relatively new and since they got back to qualifying for the CL they have not achieved quarter finals every year, 3 years in a row, still better than us.
Only City haven't done better than Arsenal, another team that has fired managers for not achieving good enough results in Europe. City are a disaster in europe for what they spend, we are a joke in europe when taking into account what we spend. Lots of teams have significantly outperformed us in europe on half the budget or less.
