Unbelievable

Unlucky for me..

Sigh..

Butt..

Why? For example, a team like fulham who have a bit of cash, but not that much, would be better under wengers guidance than Fergies, who i believe heavily relies on money! Whereas i think Wenger could build up a quality team with little money, look at Kolo Clichy and Eboue less than 1.5 million for the 3! And i reckon them players would all have been willing to join a steady premier league side when they were at their other clubs! Would be different with Arsenal and Fulham. The £1.5m spent on the three you name is a bit of a red herring, as plenty of money is spent on other players at Arsenal so that those three made it. It's not really a red hering if they're in the black below the line isn't it? Of course they spend more money on players than just a handful of millions, but they recoup it by selling at a profit when the player is just past their prime and they have a ready made, perfectly groomed replacement lined up. Wenger edges it. It's hard to imagine where we would have been with a manager like him and the money we have spent over the last five or so seasons.. Ash said that Wenger could have developed those three players at a small club with small finances, whereas I'm saying he wouldn't because he needed to purchase more than those three individuals such that the environment was there for them to develop. Arsenal's finances are irrelevant in this case. If you look at Fulham's spending this season you'll realise it's well more than 1,5M, so I think it's fair to say Arsene Wenger would have been able to make Fulham (and Newcastle) better, just like he did Arsenal. Both managers would to be fair, but I don't think you can argue with Wenger's wheeling and dealing.. Arsenal's finance are relevant insofar that they prove that Wenger can make a profit whilst making the team better..

Why? For example, a team like fulham who have a bit of cash, but not that much, would be better under wengers guidance than Fergies, who i believe heavily relies on money! Whereas i think Wenger could build up a quality team with little money, look at Kolo Clichy and Eboue less than 1.5 million for the 3! And i reckon them players would all have been willing to join a steady premier league side when they were at their other clubs! Would be different with Arsenal and Fulham. The £1.5m spent on the three you name is a bit of a red herring, as plenty of money is spent on other players at Arsenal so that those three made it. It's not really a red hering if they're in the black below the line isn't it? Of course they spend more money on players than just a handful of millions, but they recoup it by selling at a profit when the player is just past their prime and they have a ready made, perfectly groomed replacement lined up. Wenger edges it. It's hard to imagine where we would have been with a manager like him and the money we have spent over the last five or so seasons..

Affelay is turning into a quality midfielder as well..

PSV are killing Spurs. Should be up by more than one goal easily based on the second half performance..

Sounds like we might lose Owen in the summer through that construction as well then? Strange that nobody from the press has been putting stories into the world about Owen wanting to be desperate to leave and willing to buy out his contract to leave for another, bigger club..

Are they!? Maybe that's what's wrong: Keegan has forgotten all about Martins..?

From what Keegan has been saying we are in an advanced stage of the Alan Smith cloning process, so it may be Smith up top AND in midfield, possibly right wing as well..

Seem to have gone a bit quiet mate, still waiting for one of them to pop up with the old "not all forwards are there to score goals you know, so clueless etc etc....". Don't hold your breath.. They're avoiding this thread like the plague until (some time next year or the year after) he will score a goal for us which will prompt them to come out to say I told you so..

Oh well, maybe he'll be more productive in the Championship..

Oh FFS. By that standard Mother Terese would have been the best striker in the world. Even if he scores a goal or two, which seems very unlikely, people will still realise it isn't anywhere near enough for a striker of a club who should be fighting for European football..

Rightio..

It´s a sad indicament of the way this season has gone that we are only looking over our shoulder and are dependent on other teams being more shit than us to avoid the drop... Makes you wonder if 150 million would be enough..

I had obviously smoked some crack when posting this. We might as well declare the winner now. Who predicted the grand total of 0 correctly..

I agree. Sam should never have been sacked! This Yep, way too early.

He does... but a bad game doesn't make him "s***" and to be replaced by Carroll, Viduka, or Shola... Martins should be playing, not going to argue with that... and when he's fit he probably will be. You see "one bad game", I see over two and a half season of dissapointment.. I think given what we paid for him and his wages labelling the return of investment we got as s*** is an understatement if anything.. Without a doubt. However I'm not going to hold injuries against him as there's not much he could have done about it. Now he's proving his fitness and propping up with the odd goal. We just have to see what we get between now and the end of the season. Safe to say so far (since he's been fit) we've had a mixed bag. In my view he's not a total write-off just yet. Fair enough.. As I said, for our sakes I hope you are right and I am wrong..

He does... but a bad game doesn't make him "s***" and to be replaced by Carroll, Viduka, or Shola... Martins should be playing, not going to argue with that... and when he's fit he probably will be. You see "one bad game", I see over two and a half season of dissapointment.. I think given what we paid for him and his wages labelling the return of investment we got as shit is an understatement if anything..

Well, I've maintained both Smith and Owen are not good enough for us (anymore) for a good while now.. With Owen my main criticism has been the fact that he creates nothing himself and needs chances put on a plate. If he stops putting such chances away effectively costing us the match he deserves some stick don't you think?

You don't like Owen, we get it. And you do, we get it.. I noticed how you said "Owen is not scoring, but at least we're creating chances for him" today, which is a change from "Owen will score, we're just not setting up chances for him to do anything with" many have been trotting around these past couple of months.. A change for the worse if you asked me. Fact is Martins gets stick for his unmissable misses, so should Owen.. That's not what I said... I said he's getting himself into positions where he's got chances... he's finding chances and getting the shots in. Blackburn's keeper kept them in the game. There's no doubt there's a couple of other opportunities Owen should have scored and will have to take the blame for the misses. That's a confidence issue. He'll start banging them in again soon enough. I hope you're right.. Can't say I'm as confident you. When was the last time he was banging them in for us btw (referring to your use of "again" in the last sentence)? You might have missed it, but he's been injured a bit The arguments against Owen recently has been "he's got no legs, he can't play to his old strengths." Today he proved that that doesn't matter. There's more to his game than speed, he's got the shots in, and with any luck he'll get the break he needs. All set up for him to go to Anfield and knock in a hattrick. If we give him a new contract and he breaks down again, will you defend him (and the decision to renew his contract) saying he's (and we are) unlucky? Can you not see he's no longer the player he once was? He's supposedly fit, gets into goalscoring positions created by his teammates, yet doesn't deliver. It's apparently a confidence issue this time around. Wonder what the next excuse will be..

You don't like Owen, we get it. And you do, we get it.. I noticed how you said "Owen is not scoring, but at least we're creating chances for him" today, which is a change from "Owen will score, we're just not setting up chances for him to do anything with" many have been trotting around these past couple of months.. A change for the worse if you asked me. Fact is Martins gets stick for his unmissable misses, so should Owen.. That's not what I said... I said he's getting himself into positions where he's got chances... he's finding chances and getting the shots in. Blackburn's keeper kept them in the game. There's no doubt there's a couple of other opportunities Owen should have scored and will have to take the blame for the misses. That's a confidence issue. He'll start banging them in again soon enough. I hope you're right.. Can't say I'm as confident you. When was the last time he was banging them in for us btw (referring to your use of "again" in the last sentence)?

You don't like Owen, we get it. And you do, we get it.. I noticed how you said "Owen is not scoring, but at least we're creating chances for him" today, which is a change from "Owen will score, we're just not setting up chances for him to do anything with" many have been trotting around these past couple of months.. A change for the worse if you asked me. Fact is Martins gets stick for his unmissable misses, so should Owen..

Oh shit..

there will be some criticism for not playing Zog and Martins from the start, even though we played well apparently..