Fresh Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 ... I know I said the same thing last year. I've admitted that. I just thing that Spurs may beat you. As I have said Spurs have imporved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazzybee Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 Spurs won their first trophy today too, the Jubilee Cup - get in Still good though, beat Celtic 2-0 and Dortmund 3-0. 2 clean sheets Also in the list of quality signings, you forgot Gomes, our new keeper who had a 60% cleansheet ratio for PSV in 4 years - not bad. If Woodgate, King and Bale stay fit for the season too, thats an upgrade from last season! Trust me, Spurs will surprise a LOT of people this year, especially Arsenall fans Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khilafah Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 I am baffled when I hear people talk about arsenal being replaced by tottenham. Arsenal's best 11 is still very good and like last season they will be in the title race no doubt. They play the best football and create the most chances. I can see them finishing in the top 3 while Liverpool will finish 4th. Ramar, Nasri will be great.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noodleman Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 Spurs won their first trophy today too, the Jubilee Cup - get in Still good though, beat Celtic 2-0 and Dortmund 3-0. 2 clean sheets Also in the list of quality signings, you forgot Gomes, our new keeper who had a 60% cleansheet ratio for PSV in 4 years - not bad. If Woodgate, King and Bale stay fit for the season too, thats an upgrade from last season! Trust me, Spurs will surprise a LOT of people this year, especially Arsenall fans That's where your argument falls apart though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tapedeck Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 Spurs are decent, and Ramos is definately doing his "thang"...But I worry about the depth of their squad. I'm glad we (Sun'land) bought solid proven players from Spurs (Tainio,Malbranque,Chimbonda) but I can't help but think these are the types of players you should have in your squad if you are going for a good season. Proven players with experience who can come on and do a job for you if you need it. I'm not saying we took that away but I think Spurs need more depth. The top, top teams can fill every position with quality. Spurs are, atm, a world away from that. Even Liverpool/Arsenal struggle for cover at times. Good team though. Certainly wish them all the best. I'm sure that the top 4 in the EPL needs a bit of a shake up. I'd hate to see it repeat every season at the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fresh Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 I think it might just be me hoping for once we break this top 4 situation, and I don't want Everton to be the team to do it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tapedeck Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 I think it might just be me hoping for once we break this top 4 situation, and I don't want Everton to be the team to do it again. Everton...with no Johnson. I again feel a lack of depth will rear its ugly head. Time will tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwarf Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 So people, I think I may earn the easiest fiver of my life by the end of this season (or before). I bet £5 with a friend that Tottenham wouldn't finish in the top 4 at the end of the season. Anyone else think that's a good bet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draz Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 Lets not forget that a couple of seasons ago we only signed Carrick and he was a late buy but we still went on to win the league. Plus we have a very young team (Nani and Anderson still to full adapt), I think this season may be better than the last. Also we have all of Aug left to buy someone. Yeah, true! I still think Queiroz will be a big loss to the club. I personally see Nani as having a bigger impact than Anderson this season, but when Scholes enters his final season, I really do believe Anderson will proove himself as a world quality player (anyone who has seen him has got to admit he has a LOT of potential). As for Spurs, I think Arshavin could be a risky buy. Fair enough, he had a great tournament in Euro2008 and seems to be a great player but players DO sometimes flop in the Premiership and I believe he could be one of them. Then again a risk is always needed to bring in a player who could effectively bring a different dimension to the team and add so much (just take Torres as liverpool last season - he dramatically changed their side). I can honestly say as a true United fan, when we were playing Liverpool last season I feared the worse when Torres was on the ball. Even though he had little impact in the games against United, he proved that in the big games theres few people (if anyone) upfront who is better - with goals against Chelsea and Arsenal being prime examples. Therefore, at the moment I currently see Arshavin as a gamble, which might or might not pay off. Personally, I want to see a reinforcement for defence brought in at United...along with a well established striker. Berbatov/Sergio Ramos,Eto'o (could be quite a good buy as he was unsettled at Barcelona last season) etc. I realise that money is a factor, and don't want to see like the kind of fan who says "oh yeah, get messi, get kaka as well" or whatever, so improvisation could be the key (a bid for Santa Cruz would be welcomed for example). That's just my two cents though, I saw Arsenal today...was very impressed with Walcott and Adebayor. Real Madrid looked very ordinary no? Nistelrooy and Roben looked like the only threats to me. So people, I think I may earn the easiest fiver of my life by the end of this season (or before).I bet £5 with a friend that Tottenham wouldn't finish in the top 4 at the end of the season. Anyone else think that's a good bet? I personally see the current 'big four' taking the top four places. I'd say a fiver for a bet that a team that finished way outside the top 5 last season would not enter the top four would be a great bet. I'm not disrespecting Spurs what so ever, they are a good team, but I personally just don't see it happening this season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fierce_LiNk Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 Yes, you said this time last year that you were breaking into the top 4, but also remember that we were meant to finish in 5th cos we lost Thierry Henry. Now HE was a fucking KEY player wasn't he? And look how much better our team did than everyone else thought? So shove that in your pipe and smoke it! : peace: Excuse me, you did better than you everyone else thought? You finished third. It gets worse, because Arsenal were leading the league for quite some time, and then you folded. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but is that acceptable for a prestigious team such as Arsenal to be in that position? Lets face it, the club is in a state at the moment. The only reason a lot of people/critics thought the team would collapse without Henry is purely because the team allowed themselves to be in a position where Henry was the main driving force of the club. It could be a case of the player getting bigger than the club. He left. You can cheer all you want about achieving third place, but if that was Manchester United, I'd be fucking furious. Not only that, but you drew too many games which you should have put to bed. United lost two more games that season than Arsenal and Chelsea, and one more than Liverpool, but we finished top because we still could finish teams off. Most scored and least conceded speaks for itself. When Ruud Van Nistelrooy left Manchester United, we went on to win the League, finish semi-finalists in the Champions League, and get to the Final of the FA Cup. When Michael Owen left Liverpool, they went on to win the Champions League, and later the FA Cup. Arsenal, after the departure of Henry, achieved third place. Well done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramar Posted August 3, 2008 Author Share Posted August 3, 2008 Excuse me, you did better than you everyone else thought? You finished third. It gets worse, because Arsenal were leading the league for quite some time, and then you folded. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but is that acceptable for a prestigious team such as Arsenal to be in that position? Lets face it, the club is in a state at the moment. The only reason a lot of people/critics thought the team would collapse without Henry is purely because the team allowed themselves to be in a position where Henry was the main driving force of the club. It could be a case of the player getting bigger than the club. He left. You can cheer all you want about achieving third place, but if that was Manchester United, I'd be fucking furious. Not only that, but you drew too many games which you should have put to bed. United lost two more games that season than Arsenal and Chelsea, and one more than Liverpool, but we finished top because we still could finish teams off. Most scored and least conceded speaks for itself. When Ruud Van Nistelrooy left Manchester United, we went on to win the League, finish semi-finalists in the Champions League, and get to the Final of the FA Cup. When Michael Owen left Liverpool, they went on to win the Champions League, and later the FA Cup. Arsenal, after the departure of Henry, achieved third place. Well done. Tell me Flink since when have Arsenal been a consistant title winner? Have we ever won two titles in a row under Wenger? No. The last time we were consistant league winners was back in the 30s, and lets be fair your boys weren't until the premier league swung about. And thanks to the early fortunes gained you were able to pull away as a dominant force. Don't pretend Man Utd have always been the cream of the crop, you forgetting '74? When our best ever striker leaves, and every one says we won't even make top four, being in the title race until the last two games of the season is some what of an achievement. No one is heralding it as milestone season, but everyone can see the team progressed and proved critics wrong. We were in the challenge, and we fell short. Arsenal fans are proud of the team where ever they finish, we aren't fickle fair weather fans. Victoria Concordia Crescit. Ramar, Nasri will be great.. I've already seen him shoot from outside the box so he's already 50 times better than Hleb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fresh Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 Excuse me, you did better than you everyone else thought? You finished third. It gets worse, because Arsenal were leading the league for quite some time, and then you folded. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but is that acceptable for a prestigious team such as Arsenal to be in that position? Lets face it, the club is in a state at the moment. The only reason a lot of people/critics thought the team would collapse without Henry is purely because the team allowed themselves to be in a position where Henry was the main driving force of the club. It could be a case of the player getting bigger than the club. He left. You can cheer all you want about achieving third place, but if that was Manchester United, I'd be fucking furious. Not only that, but you drew too many games which you should have put to bed. United lost two more games that season than Arsenal and Chelsea, and one more than Liverpool, but we finished top because we still could finish teams off. Most scored and least conceded speaks for itself. When Ruud Van Nistelrooy left Manchester United, we went on to win the League, finish semi-finalists in the Champions League, and get to the Final of the FA Cup. When Michael Owen left Liverpool, they went on to win the Champions League, and later the FA Cup. Arsenal, after the departure of Henry, achieved third place. Well done. Lets not also forget they lost in the quarter-finals of the champions league, got beat by us 4-0 in the FA cup and got to the semi-final of the Carling cup in which they got beat 6-2 on aggregate by Spurs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fierce_LiNk Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 Tell me Flink since when have Arsenal been a consistant title winner? Have we ever won two titles in a row under Wenger? No. The last time we were consistant league winners was back in the 30s, and lets be fair your boys weren't until the premier league swung about. And thanks to the early fortunes gained you were able to pull away as a dominant force. Don't pretend Man Utd have always been the cream of the crop, you forgetting '74? When our best ever striker leaves, and every one says we won't even make top four, being in the title race until the last two games of the season is some what of an achievement. No one is heralding it as milestone season, but everyone can see the team progressed and proved critics wrong. We were in the challenge, and we fell short. Arsenal fans are proud of the team where ever they finish, we aren't fickle fair weather fans. Victoria Concordia Crescit. So, what are you trying to say in that first paragraph of yours? That Arsenal are not expected to be title contenders/title winners or something? The past is the past, you can't change that. 1974 or the 30s doesn't mean all that much nowadays, because times have changed. It's like a band saying they were rocking thirty years ago...thirty years ago is thirty years ago, it doesn't have much bearing on the present. Ok, you were in the title race for a long while, but it would have only been by mathematical heaven or divine intervention that you could have won the league within the last two games. It was possible, but realistically it was narrowed down to United and Chelsea for quite some time. Fair enough, you should always have pride in your team. But, you should also have standards. If United suddenly dropped off and started hitting fourth and fifth places, I would be looking at what went wrong, and how things could change. Honest question: Were you truely happy finishing third place? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramar Posted August 4, 2008 Author Share Posted August 4, 2008 Honest question: Were you truely happy finishing third place? I saw nothing wrong with it, I was proud the team tried. Especially considering every other bastard thought we'd end up fifth. Yes its good to be challenging for trophies, and I could understand criticism had we finished points away, but we were close its not like we were out of the running at christmas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fierce_LiNk Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 I saw nothing wrong with it, I was proud the team tried. Especially considering every other bastard thought we'd end up fifth. Yes its good to be challenging for trophies, and I could understand criticism had we finished points away, but we were close its not like we were out of the running at christmas. Fair play, there were some stellar performances in the squad. I just don't see third place as the spot Arsenal should be content with. Arsenal, over recent years, have been the team I looked forward to playing all season. There's a certain spirit that they have that makes the matches that little bit special. Well, you were in first place, and you dropped off to third. Now, one player can't be blamed for that, because the strikers have to take responsibility for not tucking away chances, and the defence have to take responsibility for not carrying out their full duties. Thats more than just to do with losing Henry, thats a whole-team issue, there. Now, like I said earlier, there were some good performances last season. But, when certain players were out injured or for whatever reason, the depth of your squad counts for so much more there. This really helped United, and it helped Chelsea push it right to the wire. Can Arsenal really afford to be offloading the likes of Flamini and Hleb? In my mind, no. Had Arsenal had that depth in squad, you would probably have finished the league on top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draz Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 A turning point in the season was the game against Birmingham (think it was Birgmingham) when Eduardo suffered the worst injury in the premiership of the season. Especially since (if my memory serves me correctly) the same game saw Arsenal draw 2-2? where William Gallas was a complete shambles of a capitain. In my opinion that MUST have had an impact on the players, and some of Gallas' team talks after that looked completely ridiculous. Personally I think he's to blame for part of the failure towards the end of the season, however much he helped you at the start. Apart form that theres not enough backup in the squad, and Arsenal needs to hang on to key players...my prediction is that Walcott will be an awesome player for you, but Wenger moans about players being too greedy (with which I couldn't agree more) but unless there is something drastic done about it, caving in to players demands is what some clubs MUST do to keep their key players. Sad but true. Personally, I never thought Arsenal would finish 5th. That was almost laughable for me, I really believed they would make 3rd or 4th, but not higher, and let's face it...they nearly proved us all wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazzybee Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 That's where your argument falls apart though. Why? I hope its because you're saying they WON'T be fit because they're injury prone and NOT because you don't think they're absolute class. Trust me, a back 5 of Gomes, Hutton, King, Woodgate and Bale is EASILY top 4 material. My worry is that Ramos is moving Bale to left mid.... We'll see. And tapedeck, trust me, we don't need Tainio or Malbranque (wouldn't have minded keeping Malbranque though), we have way too many midfielders as it is. IF we don't get any more defensive players then I would say we could have done with Chimbonda, but I think we will get one in so we'll be fine. We have enough strength in depth GK: Gomes Alnwick RB: Hutton, Gunter LB: Bale, Ekotto, Gilberto CB: King, Woodgate, Dawson (Zokora and Huddlestone both play there too) RW: Bentley, Lennon LW: Dos Santos, Taraabt (Lennon, OHara, Bale, Gilberto, Bentley, Modric can all play there) CM: Jenas, Modric, Huddlestone, Zokora, OHara, Bostock ST: Bent, Berbatov, Arshavin (Dos Santos) I actually think we'll play with one main striker and another playing off them - probably Dos Santos or Arshavin Personally I would like us to get an experienced CB in and a defensive midfider, but I still think that is good enough to get top 4. Time will tell my friends Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Gomes actually has a rep for being a bit of a dodgy keeper, always prone to the David James style calamity. Shouldn't you be waiting until you sign Arshavin before including in your team? This wouldn't be the first time Tottenham have spent a lot of money and still failed to deliver, Rebrov? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramar Posted August 4, 2008 Author Share Posted August 4, 2008 Gomes actually has a rep for being a bit of a dodgy keeper, always prone to the David James style calamity. Shouldn't you be waiting until you sign Arshavin before including in your team? This wouldn't be the first time Tottenham have spent a lot of money and still failed to deliver, Rebrov? Let him include him, then when the transfer window closes we can all rip the shit out of him for being deluded. Anyway, just got through the dire Arsenal online box office and got my seat for the first game of the season against West Brom. Would have raged if I didn't get a ticket because I booked the friday night off work because its a midday kick off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noodleman Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Why? I hope its because you're saying they WON'T be fit because they're injury prone and NOT because you don't think they're absolute class. Trust me, a back 5 of Gomes, Hutton, King, Woodgate and Bale is EASILY top 4 material. Thats exactly what I was saying when was the last Ledders played for half a season let alone a full season. Must be about 5 years ago now. and whilst Woodgate has been relatively injury free since hes been at Spurs I doubt he'll get through a whole season without a couple of niggling injurys. Edit: Also spurs have literally no Defensive midfielders, well Huddleston I suppose. If you go away to any of the big 4 with a midfield of Bentley Jenas Modric Dos Santos which appears to be your first choice going by pre season it will get ripped to shreds its all well and good sticking 5 past Norwich but any of the big 4 have midfields that will easily bully that midfield off the ball. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmac Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 not if they can keep the ball and keep it moving, then size doesn't come into it that's how Barcelona have been doing it the last 5 years and it hasn't worked out too badly for them (apart from the last 2 years ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramar Posted August 4, 2008 Author Share Posted August 4, 2008 not if they can keep the ball and keep it moving, then size doesn't come into it that's how Barcelona have been doing it the last 5 years and it hasn't worked out too badly for them (apart from the last 2 years ) Seriosuly not comparing Barcelona's exceptional midfield to Tottenham's mediocrity are you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canand Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Is Manchester United on Sky this Sunday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramar Posted August 4, 2008 Author Share Posted August 4, 2008 Is Manchester United on Sky this Sunday. Community Shield is on Sentanta 1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Babooo Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Trying to decide who to get on my Arsenal shirt..its between Fabregas, Toure, Van Persie, Theo or Ramsay. I think I might go for Theo. Reckon he's gonna have a good season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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