The recent weeks have been an unsettling time for football managers, players, and supporters alike. First the Board of West Bromwich Albion decided that Steve Clark was not taking their club where they would like, and then the joke club in N17 decided that although he had the best win percentage of any previous Premier League manager for Spuds, and sitting 7th in the league and 5 points off the top 4, it was time for AVB to leave. I am no fan of AVB but you have to question the sense of the Board for removing him.

This season for the first in a long time there is an argument to say four of seven teams could make the Champions League spots, of those seven teams two are financially doped and therefore can demand qualification from their managers, if Everton, Liverpool or Spurs say to their managers that the minimum requirement is Champions League qualification they may as well give up before the season starts.

There is also the vicious cycle of players wages, represented here:

This becomes worse when we start talking about Champions League Money, and therefore clubs with ambitions to be in the Champions League need to gamble on wages over and above the normal cycle. This is why Champions League money is so important, UEFA by their promotion of the Champions League have left themselves with a dead duck of a competition called the Europa League which does not generate the TV rights that the Champions League does, they have extended the pool of clubs able to enter the Champions League to strengthen their premier competition but it has been at the expense of their other competitions.

A lot of the criticism of the current situation of a Big 4 of Premier League Clubs is seen by many fans as a result of the Premier League full stop, so with this in mind I went off and did a bit of a review of the Top 4 finishes going back 42 years, 21 post Premier League seasons and 21 pre Premier League seasons. To some extent what I found was a bit of a surprise.

Prior to the Premier League era 19 different teams finished in the top four positions, during the Premier League Era only 13 different teams have finished in the top four. Perhaps not as stark as I was expecting, so i added a final criteria, top four finishes since the Champions League qualification became four teams from the Premier League, only 8 different teams.

As you can see the real evil has been that Champions League qualification. I’m sure a similar study of other European Leagues would provide a similar result.

On top of this we have the ability of players to move around Europe, many moons ago a Munich side would have been 90% German, an English side 70% English (except Liverpool), etc. Now we are lucky if we see 50% of players from the country of the team. This in itself is not necessarily the worst thing about modern football but it means that UEFAs premier competition is only going to be won by the Leagues with the biggest resources to attract players from all across Europe especially those whose teams used to be European greats but cannot afford to compete with the bigger clubs.

So what can be done to change this? To make Managers jobs more secure to allow clubs to really build again without fear of losing out on the pot of gold that is the Champions League and to make the domestic leagues more competitive?

For me I would like to see a total overhaul of European Competition. And in a three step process.

1) Re introduce the European Cup Winners Cup, as a straight knock out competition. Winners or Runners Up of the domestic competition only.

2) Reduce the places in the Champions League to 2 spots for each country.

3) Apply the coefficients for the Europa League for each country so we may have four teams in it.

What would this do? In my opinion it would increase the quality of the Europa League and hence increase the prize money and rights on offer. The Europa League would also feature teams that are traditionally big European clubs. This would probably also reduce the money on offer in the Champions League but that may be no bad thing as it will reduce the need of so many clubs to retain Champions League status.

One thing is for certain the gravy train will not last forever, the money BT have paid to secure Champions League rights indicates that the gap will only widen in the future. This cannot be a good thing for domestic football and the managers that work in it as the task becomes more impossible.

Gooner in Exile

So our weeklong journey through Europe and the Upper echelons of the premier league is done, our wish to test ourselves against some serious competitors granted. Was it what we wanted, are we happy and contented?

Some say weak officials cost us dear against City, others like me feel we had a bad Saturday at the office and were completely outplayed. Have we been found out, has the constant reiteration by the pundits that we are a thin squad been proved correct, Indeed is Rasp insightful when he asks the intriguing question can Aaron and Jack play together, or are they our own Gerrard and Lampard?

I somehow think not. Surely players who have come through the reserve teams together must know and understand each other’s game? Far better than International players who have only the odd weekend together training. What can they do in that time beside irritate us fans, by either turning out or coming back injured?

Now is the time to test the mettle of us fans are we I wonder in for a plethora of  Christmas Lists requesting players we should buy irrespective of whether they are available, cup tied or on such salaries that our own hard earned  wage policies will be instantly destroyed.

It is one thing to sell City a player who rubs his hands at the thought of inflated wages, and can’t wait to leap into his Bentley or chartered jet to put his cross on the dotted line. Quite another to ask them to step down and come the other way

Is the addition of Ozil to the squad going to become the yardstick that is used to measure the stature and price we should be paying for all new joiners, let’s hope not, Everton ran us close with three loan players in their ranks, so it not all about money. Napoli arguably benefitted from tired legs, but CL away is in so many ways different from the Premier League.

As I write this the 5^th goal has just gone in against the spuds and they spent £100 million on new players this year are they I wonder nails in AVB’s coffin. No doubt the cry of sack him will reverberate around White Hart Lane, will it I wonder find an echo on the terraces of the Emirates.

Written by dandan (before AVB was sacked)

We’re a pretty calm lot here on Arsenal Arsenal, well some can be relied on to vent their feelings loudly, but largely the comments after the game were sensible.

There was some poor officiating which many felt helped Man City where really they didn’t need it. Milners dive for their penalty was a disgrace.

Defensively, we looked all over the place with limited connection between mid-field and the back four so that when City had the opportunity to break they pretty much had the run of the pitch. Flamini seems to have a dose of ‘Songitis’ at the moment, he needs to be reminded that one goal ‘doeth not a centre forward make’ and stick to his job.

A front six all wanting to be number 10’s was never going to work against the excellent attacking prowess that City had to offer and so we conceded pretty much every time they attacked and got a shot on target. Harrumph!!!!!!!!!

We lost Koscielny early on to a cut knee 🙂 which gave Vermaelen a chance to play. Would we have carried on leaking goals with Kozzer on the pitch? We’ll never know.

There were obviously some very tired legs out there but we should have been able to retain possession better than we did. Some of our lapses were suicidal and Wenger was right when he said that we made too many mistakes.

Clearly we don’t like travelling to Manchester but both teams will need to visit us and we’ll be able to get those six points back.

As the sun was shining when I woke up this morning I thought to look for the positives from this game. I’m not saying we should have won, Man City were awesome, but at times like this you have to find things to make you feel better ….. so here goes.

Theo was a breath of fresh air. Fantastic to have him back. I hope he’s been watching how Giroud could use a bit of help in the box and is ready to get into the spaces to score or assist. There have been games recently where we have been crying out for him to come on and unsettle defenses. I think he’s a very important player for us, hope he stays fit now.

We scored three goals at the Etihad, I read that that was more than they had conceded there all season, so well done boys. Actually, of course, we scored four but one was wrongly given offside, a great passage of play culminating in a header from Nik.

Koscielny’s injury isn’t as bad as was predicted but he will need to wear a plaster for a few days. I expect him back for the Chelsea game.

Speaking of the Chelsea game, all of our exhausted legs should be well rested by the time we play them. Nine days rest in December – Ozil will think he’s had a winter break.

We are still top of the league folks, the chasing pack also have their frailties but we need to be strong.

Can you think of any more positives? Let us know in the comments ……..

Written by peachesgooner