Emiliano Martinez Is Better Than Wojciech Szczesny

Arsenal have played two tough games in the space of four days and we’ve managed to keep two clean sheets.

We played Borussia Dortmund at home in the Champions League, and West Brom away.

When Arsene were 1-0 up midweek, Martinez made an excellent save to deny Dortmund an equaliser. And today, he was excellent today.

Confident and assured, the young goalkeeper started in the Champions League on Wednesday and made his Premier League debut today and kept two clean sheets.

In comparison, Szczesny has played 15 games in the league this season and only kept 3 clean sheets.

With Szczesny in goal there’s always a feeling that we can concede a facial goal and the same thing happened again when we played Manchester United. For their first goal, the whole situation was “typical Arsenal” as Gibbs collided into Szczesny. Szczesny has improved over the last few years and that is not in any doubt, but for some reason we seem shaky at the back – is it because the defence don’t have confidence in him?

In contrast, we defended really well as a unit on Wednesday and today and it is no coincidence that Martinez is on the pitch. The 22 year old Argentinian is a confident goalkeeper who is decisive and makes the right decisions. Szczesny on the other hand is capable of making stupid mistakes and losing his head.

Szczesny is going to be out for at least a couple of weeks and Arsene Wenger should really consider keeping Emiliano Martinez as first choice for now, and giving him a proper run in the team.

10 Reasons Why Arsene Wenger Should Leave Arsenal

1. He’s Stubborn

It’s his way or the highway. He doesn’t listen to anyone else and makes the same mistakes over and over again. You have Steve Bould who was a graduate of the George Graham school of defending yet he can’t put his ideas across. Like Pat Rice, all Bouldy does it put the cones out for training and sit silently next to Arsene Wenger on match days.

2. The State Of The Defence Is His Fault

Every man and his dog was calling for defensive reinforcements but what happened? We’re in a ridiculous position where Nacho Monreal is playing in central defence. We sold Thomas Vermaelen and released Bacary Sagna, and brought in Calum Chambers and Mathieu Debuchy. We were threadbare at the back anyway so at least two more defensive players should have come in.

But if that wasn’t bad enough, he still could solve our problems by playing Chambers in his natural position (in the middle) and Hector Bellerin on the right.

And even worse still, we put Carl Jenkinson, who is a top player and been waiting patiently for his change, on loan! Are you insane? When Bacary Sagna was out at the start of the 2012/2013 season, he was excellent in those 10 or so games. He has proved he is a capable player and to loan him out is highly negligent.

So even without the new defensive recruits he still could have a half decent alternative but he’s so blind to other ways to solve the defensive problem.

3. He Cannot Influence Games From The Bench

One of the most important things a manager has in his locker is the ability to change games from the bench, and Arsene Wenger is extremely poor at this. In fact, he is incompetent.

Managers like Jose Mourinho are experts at reading a game, predicting how the match is going to pan out and then make the required changes accordingly. But Arsene is blind to any of this.

The only “move” Arsene Wenger has in his locker is when we’re losing and he decides to throw on about three more attackers. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But what kind of top flight manager gets beaten 6-0 at Chelsea, 6-1 at Liverpool, and 6-3 at Manchester City? Surely once you realise that the game is going away from you and you’re getting completely dominated you try and keep the score to a respectable level? Arsene Wenger is clueless from the bench and you never feel confident that he could change a game with a tactical tweak or a clever substitution. We lead 1-0 at Swansea and 3-0 at home to Anderlecht for Christ’s sake and still didn’t win either game.

4. He Never Considers The Opposition

He has always said that he always concentrates on how his team plays but he never even considers the opposition. Against the big teams we simply go all out attack and get caught on the break over and over again. How do you explain the embarrassing score lines at Stamford Bridge, Anfield and The Etihad Stadium? Teams lower down the league always setup their sides to contain the opponents biggest threats yet we seem completely ignorant to any of this. Is it laziness? Or sheer arrogance?

Whatever it is, unless this is rectified then we will continue to get embarrassed against the top sides on a consistent basis. I’m sure you’ve seen the awful record Arsenal have against Manchester United, and it’s even more damning when you consider in the last two seasons we have faced the worst Manchester United teams in the last 20 years, and that is no exaggeration.

5. He Never Criticises The Players

This was a trait which I used to admire but for the last couple of seasons he’s spouting the same old shite over and over again. We were unlucky, the referee was poor, blah, blah blah. There is no culpability at the club and players are left to do what they want – and make the same stupid mistakes repeatedly. At other clubs if a player made a mistake then they would get a blocking in the dressing room but at Arsenal it’s swept under the carpet.

The players will never learn if that are consistently allowed to make the same schoolboy errors all the time. The players at Arsenal are pampered and wrapped up in cotton wool and that is the managers fault.

6. He Never Listens To Anyone Else, Especially The Fans

Every press conference I watch these days is awkward to watch. This season in particular, there are perfectly legitimate questions which Arsenal supporters should be asking yet when these questions are posed to him he always dismisses them as idiotic statements and gets all defensive. It shows that he thinks he’s always right and is never wrong.

Of course, he does have a wealth of knowledge and knows more about the game than you or I will ever know, but to dismiss any criticism as stupid is very counter-productive. No-one is perfect but he seems to think he is.

And this reaction to these reasonable questions is disrespectful to the fans. The very fans which pay the highest ticket prices in the country and yet have no trophies to show for it. The fans who turn up week in, week out and buy all the merchandise, football shirts, etc. yet get no answers. If anyone has a slight criticism of Arsenal, they are sent to the guillotine.  Remember the ridiculously unnecessary outburst against Paul Merson?

7. He Has Too Much Power

The bottom line is he can do what he wants. He makes vast sums of money for the shareholders and that’s what makes them happy. No-one at the club can even question his ideas and methods and he is untouchable.

That’s why even though a lot of fans have had enough and want him out, he will never get sacked. Ever. Even if Arsenal got relegated, he would spin it in such a way that he wouldn’t get the boot. Arsene Wenger literally has a job for life.

8. His Football Ideologies Are Old And Dated

He is stuck in the past. I don’t think many news outlets picked up on the comment he made a couple of weeks ago, but he basically said that in the last 10 years the game hasn’t changed.

What?!

Are you serious?

On the other side of the coin when Jose Mourinho was asked if Chelsea could emulate Arsenal’s Invincible’s seasons he said no, because football was a different game 10 years ago.

It goes to show how far from reality Arsene Wenger actually is.

Jose Mourinho is a massive bell end, but he is one hell of a manager. The amount of success he’s had in the last decade is quite frankly astonishing – at FC Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid he has won absolutely everything – several times. He knows the game, how to win and carefully prepares for every game with a fine tooth comb. In terms of the big bucks, Jose Mourinho is a manager who earns his massive salary. Say what you want about him, the fact is he is one of the best managers the game has ever seen.

In contrast, Arsene Wenger uses the same old methods he used 17 years ago. And how has that worked out for him?

In the last 9 seasons we’ve got an FA Cup triumph to show for it. In that time, Jose Mourinho… actually, I’m not going to count up the number of trophies he’s won because it would make for depressing reading. But you get the point.

Arsene Wenger is one of the best paid managers in world football yet struggles to bring any success to the club.

9. The Arsenal Board Are Spineless

We have a situation where Arsene Wenger is the king who has ultimate power at the club. He is not accountable for anything and while Arsene has engineered this situation for himself, some of the blame for this happening has to go to the board.

They don’t care about the fans or winning trophies, and only about the amount of money they are making from the club. We have farcical situation where we have the majority shareholder never speaks – and despite being the main shareholder for a few years not one fan has any idea what the hell is going on. Does he have a plan for the club? What’s his vision for the future? Does anyone know?

The board doesn’t have anyone who wants to drive the club forward, anyone with any ambition. They are more than happy to stay in this state of purgatory and have no intention of driving the club to any real success. As long as the fans are forking out the ridiculous amount of money they are to fill the pockets of the shareholders, that’s all that matters.

10. The Fans Have Just Had Enough

I’ve been an Arsenal fan for the best part of 25 years and I’ve never seen Arsenal fans so disillusioned. Some fans knew what was going to happen way back in 2005, saying that Arsene Wenger had no idea and we’d be stuck fighting for 4th place for the next 10 years. Well that is what has happened and even those firm Arsene supporters are now losing faith.

The problem is it’s the same old story year after year. You can laugh at Liverpool and Manchester United but you know deep down they’ll win something eventually. Even in the 2000’s Liverpool win things like the Champions League. And even though Manchester United were a shambles last season, you know that within 2/3 years they’ll be fighting for the biggest titles.

But we know for a fact that will never happen at Arsenal. We are rewarded for mediocrity and it’s been so long now since Arsene won the Premier League that I don’t honestly believe he has what it takes to lead a team to the title. He literally doesn’t know how to do it.

Jose Mourinho is a born winner and the players believe in him. When Mourinho joins a football club, the players and fans all know they will fight at the very top. With Arsene, you know that we’ll be fighting for 4th place and nothing more.

He’s not the man to take us to the next level, and the fans know it. His ideas are stale, he makes the same mistakes and is too stubborn to take any advice. Players like Samir Nasri, Robin van Persie, Gael Clichy, Cesc Fabregas, Kolo Toure, Thierry Henry and even Jose Antonio Reyes and Alexander Song have left Arsenal and won major honours.

The fans don’t believe anymore and neither do the players. Once a proper team come along that compete for titles come sniffing around, they’re gone.

A Massive 87% Of Arsenal Fans Want Arsene Wenger To Leave

Yesterday I posted an online poll asking a simple question – do you want Arsene Wenger to leave Arsenal? The response, in the wake of the shambolic display against Manchester United, was unsurprising.

87% of Arsenal fans wanted him to leave the club. The comments section wasn’t much better, with the vast majority of Arsenal supporters leaving a scathing review of his time at the club over the last 6 or 7 seasons – many citing the fact that he’s too stubborn, gotten stale and makes the same old mistakes, time and time again.

I love Arsene Wenger, but it’s ridiculous to think anyone can manage forever. There is a culture within the club that believes that without Arsene Wenger, we are nothing. But surely the opposite is true? We are Arsenal Football Club, not Arsene FC.

He has his own ideologies and methods, and that’s fine. But to think that Arsene Wenger is all high and mighty and never makes mistakes would be naive. He is human and even the greatest managers end up failing eventually. Look at Brian Clough for example when he was at Nottingham Forest.

We’ve had 9 years since the FA Cup win in 2005 and since then won one trophy. That is not good enough for a team like Arsenal and the most frustrating thing is he makes the same old mistakes, season after season. It is a vicious circle and we’re forever condemned to be in a world where we finish 4th.

But is 4th place everything?

We’ve had almost a decade of mediocrity and for some fans that’s not enough. For others it’s just getting boring and tedious and for me anyway, it’s just pointless. If you gave me the option to have 4th place for the next 10 seasons, or have an up or down 10 years like Liverpool had in the 2000’s (where they struggled to get into the Top 4 consistently, but won things like the FA Cup and Champions League) I think I would take the topsy-turvy 10 years. At least there’s some variety in the there, some excitement.

4th place every year is dull, boring and a waste of money quite frankly. Yes, we don’t know what the future would hold without Arsene Wenger but isn’t that life? Times change and you cannot keep saying that without Arsene Wenger we would be in big trouble – that is a very narrow-minded view. Life is about risks and at the moment, we’ve settled.

It’s almost like being married to someone who is boring and doesn’t excite you. It’s the same old rigmarole every single day. But with Arsene Wenger, things are actually on a downward spiral.

And I just can’t take anymore.

Vote Here! Should Arsene Wenger Leave Arsenal?

Well what a shambles yesterday was.

Manchester United have travelled to Sunderland, West Brom, Leicester City, Burnley and MK Dons this season and failed to win in any of those away games.

However, they went to The Emirates last night and what happened?

Arsenal happened.

In a game where we dominated possession, Manchester United had a clear game plan and executed it perfectly. A combination of defensive discipline and good fortune saw Manchester United 2-0 up after 85 minutes and if it wasn’t for an awful Angel Di Maria effort they could have won 3-0.

Imagine that? Losing 3-0 to a Manchester United team who were sitting in 7th position in the Premier League. That would have been an all new low.

As it happened, Olivier Giroud lashed in a great effort to bring some respectability to the scoreline, but it couldn’t hide now inept Arsenal were.

We didn’t take our chances and while you could argue you were unlucky, the same old things happen time and time again. Defensively we are a shambles and the two goals we conceded were naive in the extreme. We have a manager who continues to refuse to teach defensive elements of the game which in the modern game is completely unforgivable and extremely narrow-minded.

It’s fine when you inherit a back four consisting of defensive scholars such as Tony Adams, Steve Bould, Martin Keown, Nigel Winterburn and Lee Dixon, and it’s even okay when those players are still around to mould people like Lauren, Sol Campbell, Kolo Toure and Ashley Cole – but after that it’s been a complete joke.

Apart from the Mertesacker/Koscielny axis which seems to work, before that we’ve been ridiculously poor defensively. Players like Gael Clichy and Thomas Vermaelen were prone to defensive lapses and it was clearly because they weren’t being taught how to defend.

And despite it being glaringly obvious that we were short at the back we refused to bring in any defensive cover. Now we have Nacho Monreal in central defence, which is akin to having Patrice Evra or Roberto Carlos in that position – no matter how you dress it up, there’s no way in hell he’s a central defender.

Calum Chambers should be in there and Hector Bellerin should be played at right back.

The whole situation is a shambles and according to the statistics, this is our worst start to the season since the 1982/1983 season. We were also the first English side (in 101 games) to lose a 3-0 lead in the European Cup/Champions League when we capitulated against Anderlecht.

This season is becoming a joke and we’re breaking all the wrong records.

Is it finally time to call an end to Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal career? Should he leave Arsenal?

Leave your vote below and don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments section below:

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Is It Time For Arsene Wenger To Leave?

It’s obvious that Arsenal can’t defend this season, but the big question is, can we still keep defending Arsene Wenger?

Last season, we got embarrassed against the big teams when we played away but today, we’ve reached a new low.

Despite playing badly away from home against the Top 6, at least we managed to do okay at home. But now, we’ve lost at home against a Manchester United side ravaged by injuries, and a Manchester United side that haven’t won away from home this season.

To put that into perspective, Manchester United have visited and failed to win at West Brom, Leicester, Burnley, MK Dons and Sunderland.

Yet they come to The Emirates and comfortably win (Giroud only scored a late consolation in the 90th minute).

Surely things have gone too far now?

Arsene Wenger is a great man who has done great things, but he is becoming stubborn, isolated and someone who is losing the plot.

Do the players believe in him anymore? He fails to see where the team need strengthening and now we’re suffering more than ever.

After a devastating defeat we’re a massive 15 points behind leaders Chelsea.

And it’s only November.

Usually our season is over in February, so things have reached rock bottom.