Match day - Arsenal v Newcastle United

[MultipleJesuses]

No, we had a much more talented squad back then. That's not an opinion. Allardyce (and pretty much every other manager in recent history, bar Hughton maybe?) had a much better squad that what Benitez has to work with.

A squad which Benitez assembled but apparently can't be blamed for because (insert lame excuse here) ...

And the football in my opinion is worse now. See how that bit in bold works

Literally no one has said Benitez is blameless. He's got a lot wrong and his transfer history is s**** (although as Jaiston said, that might be due to limited funds but Pardew was never blessed with great riches either)
Btw, I never said it was a fact that our football was worse back then. I said it was a fact that we had a much more talented squad. But please, be more patronising.

[ALF]

No, we had a much more talented squad back then. That's not an opinion. Allardyce (and pretty much every other manager in recent history, bar Hughton maybe?) had a much better squad that what Benitez has to work with.

Carroll, Ben Arfa, Barton, Nolan, Coloccini, Enrique, Tiote... I’d say Hughton had the better squad. Sadly as mentioned we could have Messi in the team but he probably wouldn’t play due to not fitting in to the team dynamic

Carroll was a kid brought through by Hughton. Scored 3 goals the year we went down, Hughton gave him a chance.
Ben Arfa broke his leg, played 4 times under Hughton.
Barton hadn't done anything for a few years before 2010-11 and hasn't done anything since.

What have all of those players done before or since signing for us? It was a team Hughton got the best out of. They worked for each other and his man management skills were the reason.

[jpg]

We were decent today. Unfortunate that we lacked the final touch, and our lack of quality was exposed, but we were beaten by a great goal. If we can maintain that level of intensity, structure and discipline - as we did at the beginning of the season - we'll be OK. The challenge is we didn't have it the last month, which is probably going to define our season.

Agreed.

[Mbemba You're a Womble]

Having limited funds is a pretty good and very valid excuse mind

He spent £91.2m on players and we have this lot to show for it. That is not limited funds.

Not totally about money spent, it's a fairly simplistic way of assessing things. I think if you looked at the wages were paying would be more reflective of the problem. Which Rafa has no say in whatever, and he has no say in transfer fee paid either. That's Charnley, or whoever is negotiating.

He's essentially limited to a sorry group players that the club would attract by the budget in place. Within that he can be questioned by not prioritising certain areas, or going for quantity over quality.

[ALF]

He spent £91.2m on players and we have this lot to show for it. That is not limited funds.

We also keep hearing that "he didn't get his first choice signings". Remember who we were linked with and didn't get? Tammy f***ing Abraham. Scouting.

Spent a month chasing a kid that never wanted to sign for us. It's fine, we moved on to Lucas Perez after.

[jpg]

No, we had a much more talented squad back then. That's not an opinion. Allardyce (and pretty much every other manager in recent history, bar Hughton maybe?) had a much better squad that what Benitez has to work with.

A squad which Benitez assembled but apparently can't be blamed for because (insert lame excuse here) ...

And the football in my opinion is worse now. See how that bit in bold works

Unlike any of our previous managers, Benitez had to start from scratch and in the Championship. He's not blameless and nobody has suggested he is.

[ALF]

A squad which Benitez assembled but apparently can't be blamed for because (insert lame excuse here) ...

And the football in my opinion is worse now. See how that bit in bold works

Unlike any of our previous managers, Benitez had to start from scratch and in the Championship. He's not blameless and nobody has suggested he is.

Hughton. Hell he didn't even get the job officially until 2 months into the Championship season.

[Don Sholeone]

So close to being done with this forum.

[Sir Bobby]

Carroll, Ben Arfa, Barton, Nolan, Coloccini, Enrique, Tiote... I’d say Hughton had the better squad. Sadly as mentioned we could have Messi in the team but he probably wouldn’t play due to not fitting in to the team dynamic

Carroll was a kid brought through by Hughton. Scored 3 goals the year we went down, Hughton gave him a chance.
Ben Arfa broke his leg, played 4 times under Hughton.
Barton hadn't done anything for a few years before 2010-11 and hasn't done anything since.

What have all of those players done before or since signing for us? It was a team Hughton got the best out of. They worked for each other and his man management skills were the reason.

Erm Carroll went on to play for England a few times, got sold for £35m and is considered an injury-prone but good Prem striker. Fair enough with Ben Arfa. Barton also was considered a good reliable Prem midfielder whose only real downside was his hotheadedness. He went on to play for Marseilles in the champions league didn’t he???

Hughton absolutely got the best out of them but they were more or less all either proven in the Prem or went on to prove themselves. I’d absolutely swap our team for that team and, although I wouldn’t expect to do as well as we did with Hughton, I’d expect us to do better than we are now

[ALF]

What are the odds Benitez goes full McClaren when he talks to the press and smiles and blames bad luck?

[Jaiston]

Having limited funds is a pretty good and very valid excuse mind

He spent £91.2m on players and we have this lot to show for it. That is not limited funds.

Can't ignore that most of that was in the Championship, it's not like we were ever going to get many quality players, no matter how much was spent while in that league. It was obvious we were a Championship quality side in the summer and there needed to be a lot of money spent but that didn't happen. Still a profit made on sales in the past 2 seasons despite Ashley supposedly allowing Rafa to spend what is made.

Hell, in the Championship when everyone was saying we had bought the league, it was none stop "but look at our net spend, we made so much profit!"

[Donkey Toon]

A squad which Benitez assembled but apparently can't be blamed for because (insert lame excuse here) ...

And the football in my opinion is worse now. See how that bit in bold works

Literally no one has said Benitez is blameless. He's got a lot wrong and his transfer history is s**** (although as Jaiston said, that might be due to limited funds but Pardew was never blessed with great riches either)
Btw, I never said it was a fact that our football was worse back then. I said it was a fact that we had a much more talented squad. But please, be more patronising.

"No, it was definitely much, much worse under Pardew/Carver/McLaren. I know you have some weird personal issue with Rafa, probably because of how he treats Mitrovic (which I don't like either) but the football definitely isn't as bad as it was back then. And even the current football was as bad as back then, our current squad's ability is probably a quarter of what it was back then. Nothing to do with expectations, it's just a fact. "

At no stage do you state whether your so called fact relates to the quality of the squad or the quality of the football and it can be read as being applicable to either or both.

And i'm capable of being much more patronising as you will find out if you keep stating opinion as fact.

[bodacious benny]

How many 1-0 defeats this season

[Sir Bobby]

The idea of men getting angry at other men on the internet because another man either is or isn’t to blame entirely for their sport team’s downfall amuses me no end

[ALF]

Carroll was a kid brought through by Hughton. Scored 3 goals the year we went down, Hughton gave him a chance.
Ben Arfa broke his leg, played 4 times under Hughton.
Barton hadn't done anything for a few years before 2010-11 and hasn't done anything since.

What have all of those players done before or since signing for us? It was a team Hughton got the best out of. They worked for each other and his man management skills were the reason.

Erm Carroll went on to play for England a few times, got sold for £35m and is considered an injury-prone but good Prem striker. Fair enough with Ben Arfa. Barton also was considered a good reliable Prem midfielder whose only real downside was his hotheadedness. He went on to play for Marseilles in the champions league didn’t he???

Hughton absolutely got the best out of them but they were more or less all either proven in the Prem or went on to prove themselves. I’d absolutely swap our team for that team and, although I wouldn’t expect to do as well as we did with Hughton, I’d expect us to do better than we are now

Carroll hasn't hit double figures in the PL since that half season for us. Struggled for form and fitness at both Liverpool and West Ham.
Barton did play in Europe for Marseilles, who didn't sign him permanently. Other than that he's bounced between the PL and Championship and had one very short spell in Scotland. Every one of the players we had in that team had the best spell of their career here other than maybe Nolan and Ben Arfa. Hughton got them playing at their best and that carried on for some under Pardew at first. All of them either lost form here or went elsewhere and struggled.

[jpg]

Unlike any of our previous managers, Benitez had to start from scratch and in the Championship. He's not blameless and nobody has suggested he is.

Hughton. Hell he didn't even get the job officially until 2 months into the Championship season.

Exactly. He had virtually zero say in who came and went. I love Hughton but fortunately for him he had a core of experienced, Premier League players who had decided to buck their ideas up and started playing to their potential in the Championship.

[Sir Bobby]

Erm Carroll went on to play for England a few times, got sold for £35m and is considered an injury-prone but good Prem striker. Fair enough with Ben Arfa. Barton also was considered a good reliable Prem midfielder whose only real downside was his hotheadedness. He went on to play for Marseilles in the champions league didn’t he???

Hughton absolutely got the best out of them but they were more or less all either proven in the Prem or went on to prove themselves. I’d absolutely swap our team for that team and, although I wouldn’t expect to do as well as we did with Hughton, I’d expect us to do better than we are now

Carroll hasn't hit double figures in the PL since that half season for us. Struggled for form and fitness at both Liverpool and West Ham.
Barton did play in Europe for Marseilles, who didn't sign him permanently. Other than that he's bounced between the PL and Championship and had one very short spell in Scotland. Every one of the players we had in that team had the best spell of their career here other than maybe Nolan and Ben Arfa. Hughton got them playing at their best and that carried on for some under Pardew at first. All of them either lost form here or went elsewhere and struggled.

I don’t disagree, but I’m still failing to see your point as to how that makes them a worse squad. The a large part of that squad played a part in our 5th place finish also. Does that count as doing something?

[ALF]

He spent £91.2m on players and we have this lot to show for it. That is not limited funds.

Can't ignore that most of that was in the Championship, it's not like we were ever going to get many quality players, no matter how much was spent while in that league. It was obvious we were a Championship quality side in the summer and there needed to be a lot of money spent but that didn't happen. Still a profit made on sales in the past 2 seasons despite Ashley supposedly allowing Rafa to spend what is made.

Hell, in the Championship when everyone was saying we had bought the league, it was none stop "but look at our net spend, we made so much profit!"

That was when we were defending Rafa

A lot of it was in the Championship, but it was still spent pretty poorly. We didn't need a keeper but we spent £5m on Sels. We bought Gamez and Lazaar who barely played. We bought Hanley for £6m yet he wasn't exactly needed. We bought Diame for £5m more than he was worth.

Then this summer we bought Manquillo despite having 3 RB's at the club already. We bought Joselu. We bought Murphy rather than buying a PL ready winger. Lejeune isn't looking like a great signing either at the minute.

It was a strange strategy to buy 12 players to get us through the Championship when only 2 or 3 of them would be able to make the step up. It overloaded the squad and meant a huge turnover was needed this summer.

[ALF]

Carroll hasn't hit double figures in the PL since that half season for us. Struggled for form and fitness at both Liverpool and West Ham.
Barton did play in Europe for Marseilles, who didn't sign him permanently. Other than that he's bounced between the PL and Championship and had one very short spell in Scotland. Every one of the players we had in that team had the best spell of their career here other than maybe Nolan and Ben Arfa. Hughton got them playing at their best and that carried on for some under Pardew at first. All of them either lost form here or went elsewhere and struggled.

I don’t disagree, but I’m still failing to see your point as to how that makes them a worse squad. The a large part of that squad played a part in our 5th place finish also. Does that count as doing something?

Because it was similar to the current Burnley squad. It was a group of players who as individuals weren't particularly good but played out their skin for each other. Even when we went on to finish 5th it was still that core group playing out of their skin with the added goals of Ba and Cisse. We've got characters like Elliot, Lascelles, Clark, Dummett, Hayden, Ritchie, Mitrovic who aren't the most talented in the world but they'll play for each other and pick up results with the right motivation.

[Remember Colo]

It is a pretty dumb debate, everyone shares the blame. And everyone involved needs to find a way to reverse form and avoid relegation. No point is arguing over who is more at fault. I'm just glad we looked more solid at the back this week and mitigated stupid mistakes - which we've been terrible about lately.