TheDrowningMan

Or lose once.

Read my first paragraph again. Or the other posts where I’ve pointed out that Arsenal’s sudden success can be attributed in no small part to the shitloads of money they’ve spent.

If Arsenal fail to win the league this season, it would have to be said that Arteta has done a pretty poor job given the amount he has spent. Still, Arsenal have a healthy GD advantage at this point - a City draw in the last six, and they may well still win it unless they fall apart completely, which can’t be ruled out after last season’s collapse. I think we’re done since our pissing away of the GD advantage means we’d need both a City loss and a miraculous turnaround in form.

Have to agree. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we are stuffed in the longer term if FSG don’t start spending like a top four club should.

I think squad player is about right, but that’s his limit. He should be someone we call on 2 or 3 times per season in the league, and is clearly not the calibre of player we need as a regular starter in that position.

Yep. People think we should be challenging for the biggest trophies on name alone. Fact is, our net spend is not that of a club that should be in the mix for league titles and qualifying for the CL year in, year out. If on-field investment continues at its current rate when the new manager comes in, consistent Europa League / Conference qualification will be a very, very good achievement for a club that behaves like ours does. If we perform at that level that level, a failure to go higher will be on the owners rather than the coaching staff.

We’re not going to get anywhere near this close with the current level of investment from the owners.

Nunez is a player you throw on in the last 10-15 minutes of the game, not a pivotal part of your frontline. He wouldn’t be a starter at any other top six club, and shouldn’t be for us.

I think it’s a bit harsh to blame his captaincy. We’re seeing a flawed team that played above itself for 2/3 of a season, which is an improvement on last year. Fact is, we need to spend like a top four club if we want to be one post-Klopp. There’s no excuse for Arsenal to be spending hundreds of millions more than us, unless our commercial department is the worst in world football.

It’s good that third place is essentially guaranteed, because the next three league fixtures are utterly terrifying for a team in our form.

Disappointing as it is, I think we’ve over-performed for much of the season thanks to the efforts of a brilliant manager. A squad with such glaring weaknesses can only go so far. The next manager is going to have a torrid time if FSG aren’t willing to spend properly - top four isn’t going to be a regular occurrence if we spend like we have. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be outspending Arsenal.

Why not? They spend fuckloads - only Chelsea and Man Utd have thrown more at transfers in recent years.

I did, yes. Which, admittedly, is a bit of a spanner in the works unless we find a way to have 75 shots per game.

If FSG are willing to invest properly in the summer then I’d keep him as an impact sub, but if it’s the usual situation, he has to go, unfortunately.

We need to be going all out to win by 5 or 6 in every game now. Arsenal won’t drop any more points, so we need to do something sensational on goal difference.