ponsaelius

They bought him to offer that kind of option though.

Apart from the odd brainfart he's ace.

FFS wish that had gone in.

Not sure I can get my head around Taylor being best buds with Kevin Großkreutz

Love watching Ozil play.

I refuse to believe that's not Xisco

Roeder when he was just caretaker

Hughton

Clive

Be a shame.

Wenger, being the very successful manager is right. He has always said you have to have players from the academy, or at least players that have been at the club a long time. That is a totally different thing to attributing attributes to a nationality and thinking buying that nationality is a solution. Organically building a team slowly with an engrained style of play, is certainly something that is beneficial. That is the reason he is turning to British players now as he said recently he thinks he has a better chance of holding onto them long-term instead of losing key players every season in their current run on the ladder. Pires the flair player who has yet to coach or manage has less of a clue. To say they should just buy some English players and expect it to fix all their problems is moronic. He has more of a clue than you or I, since he's played football at the highest level and was involved in said successful Arsenal team. Or do you think that much of your own opinion you put it above his on this subject? Don't be daft. You know as well as anybody that there are plenty of ex-pros who talk rubbish as much as there are that talk sense. I'm sure there are plenty of occasions where somebody in the game has said something you vehemently disagree with but you don't disregard your own opinion and fall in line with theirs just because they played the game. If you're going to go down the route of your last post then that's what you're saying you will always do from now on. He's (Pires) talking drivvle, you can't just plug some English players into the Arsenal team and expect to turn into title challengers. They lack top quality players all over the park and they lack top level personalities too. If they shoved Gareth Barry, Gary Cahill and Ashley Young into the team it's more likely to drag them further towards the Europa League spots. There is merit for having a bunch of local players who have grown up together, know each other and have been imbedded into a club's philosphy over a number of years. That goes without saying regardless of their nationality and that's the benefits the great clubs have because they have the set-up, financial power and the engrained philosophy (Ajax, Barcelona, Bayern etc) to do so. That's closer to what Wenger has referred to in the past and what he tried to do as soon as he went to Arsenal, unfortunately they haven't seen much of a return on the investment until Wilshere came along.

Wenger, being the very successful manager is right. He has always said you have to have players from the academy (hence why he spent the Anelka money on it), or at least players that have been at the club a long time. That is a totally different thing to attributing attributes to a nationality and thinking buying that nationality is a solution. Organically building a team slowly with an engrained style of play, is certainly something that is beneficial. That is the reason he is turning to British players now as he said recently he thinks he has a better chance of holding onto them long-term instead of losing key players every season in their current run on the ladder. Pires the flair player who has yet to coach or manage has less of a clue. To say they should just buy some English players and expect it to fix all their problems is moronic.

It's nowt to do with the fact that the entirety of Barca's team are at worst full internationals and at best the greatest players of their generation or anything.

We don't need an English spine to the team at all, we need a manager who can get the best out of the players we have, that's all we're missing. It's not coincidence that nearly every successful club has that national spine to them, in fact they're nearly always local too. This is particularly obvious in those clubs that sustain such success. Arsenal? never been outside the top 4 during Wenger's time and they have hardly had a english spine the majority of the time. Has f*ck all to do with it. Last time they had the title was with Cole, Keown, Campbell, Parlour with Seaman leaving at the start of that season. The likes of Vieria, Bergkamp & Henry were instrumental but they'd all been their a minimum of 5 years, understood the league, settled and spoke very good english. Called having a mix and balance, something we lack. In the unbeaten season only Cole and Campbell were regulars. They have never replaced the charisma, leadership and genuine top quality of Vieira, Campbell, Henry, Bergkamp, Pires etc as those players declined and/or left. Whether they'd replaced them with English blokes or foreign blokes it wouldn't matter, but they never have done for varying reasons.

We need a good coach who can implement a forward thinking ideology that suits his players and we need players with the required ability level, attitude, mental and physical aptitude etc. The nationality is a complete irrelevance. Players and coaches' adequacies in all these areas aren't dictated by their passport (or race), to even suggest such is sheer idiocy. We have a number of players in the squad, both English and foreign who aren't good enough. We also have a manager who is simply not good enough. Replace both with people of the required standard and things will improve. The manager is the crucial one though, because without a good manager you'll never be able to properly utilise, organise and motivate the decent players you do have.

You make a good point about what the players were sold when they joined. Can imagine that is a huge factor in all of this.

I'm definitely at the point where I think the team would be immeasurably improved by simply having no manager at all.

How many of these ex-Man United players that get the big build up actually turn out to be good managers?

He has and i don't like to praise him even if you wanted to go like for like as in position wise..... Cazorla, Michu and Fellaini have all been comfortably better than Hazard Trust me when I tell you Fellaini has not been comfortably better than Hazard. The bloke sometimes struggles to control a ball and pass it 10 yards. His passing always looks like a weakness for somebody who has stylised himself as a central midfielder or attacking midfielder.

Team would look more balanced with a deeper midfielder in for Hazard. Always annoys me these mental teams that have no consideration for balance and realism. Mind, I struggle to think of somebody as a reasonable candidate.

I'm of the opinion you shouldn't be allowed to win both. Can't grumble too much at him winning the main one though, crapshoot between 4 players for me.

What a division.

As if we can implode any worse than we are right now FFS

English subs there if you put captions on.

Really don't know how anybody can defend him. It's driving me crazy, nearly as much as Pardew himself is. People on here mock and bash Pardew for his godawful excuse making and constant attempts to pour cold water on expectations with depressing negativity - but the fact is for the majority it seems to be working. People have lapped up the Europe, injuries etc excuses. A successful brainwashing campaign has given a shite manager untouchable status amongst a large section of the fanbase. Fucking unreal. If blindly backing the manager as he guides us towards relegation is the virtues of the level-headed matchgoing fan then I think I'd rather be with the social media mentalists who want the cunt gone.