No her point was Arsenal was not a big club period… I’m curious do you actually read things properly ?
In his last six seasons, Graham won the league title twice and a European competition and an FA Cup.
That is a lot more than Wenger’s has won in the last twelve seasons.
Graham also spent a lot less money.
We were the biggest club in London and among the biggest in the league, so we were clearly a big club.
1 Like
it depends what you mean by big club, We were no way near being a big club in the way that we are now and that’s a fact
No one is disputing that we are a bigger club since then Wenger tenure 
.
1 Like
So why didn’t people stop argueing when GG made this point, that you all now seem to agree with?
One thing I will say is we were a lot more respected in Europe say 5 or 6 years ago, now we are considered a bit of a laughing stock when it comes to the Champions League.
With our own fans maybe, I’d say a large proportion of football fans think he fact were were in it for 20 years running is a fuckin massive achievement
With everyone’s fans/ media IMO, up until about 2012 people used to think ah yeah Arsenal they could possibly win the Champions League, no everyone knows we are just fodder making up the numbers. Qualifying that many years straight is an achievement though I’m not denying that.
Do you think people think AC Milan can win he CL? When was the last time anyone thought they could? Are they not still a missive club with worldwide reputation for bein one?
No we weren’t.
2 Likes
Yes we were, due to many things, largely due to only the champions qualifying for the eurpoian cup we were not a massive club like Liverpool and Utd were at that time, the only English clubs of that era that had any type or reputation outside of England with anyone other than real football fanatics,
Now their are people that live in the Amazon jungle run in around wearing arsenal shirts
I’m not sure I do entirely agree with that stance though. Being labelled “boring” is of no relevance to the size of a club. That chant started because other clubs didn’t like that we’d get a 1-0 lead and shut up shop. A tactic we could actually do with implementing in some games nowadays.
The only part I agree with is that Wenger made us into a bigger club. However we were still a big club. He made a big club bigger. Your definition of “big club” is quite strange. You say a club such as ours with a history of winning major honours was not a big club. But West Ham who have won hardly anything (unless you count the 1966 World Cup 
) are currently a big club?
3 Likes
This is the part everyone now seems to agree With but continued to argue against
West Ham have a massive fan base domestically, similar to ours under Greham, same with Everton and Newcastle, I said that although we were more successful our reputation on the world scale was much more in line with that sort of club than it was with Utd, Liverpool, Real Madrid, juventus etc
People seem to forget that in that era no English club was big in Europe apart from Liverpool.
There were almost no foreign players and Arsenal had almost only English players like a lot of clubs did.
Wenger and Devin were responsible for making us bigger in terms of profit but as for being a powerhouse in Europe, in footballing terms, that hasn’t happened.
The fact is that when Graham was manager we were successful on the field and were one of the biggest in the league.
We might be a big club in Europe financially, but three FA Cup wins since we moved to the Emirates and no CL football means our reputation as a big club in footballing terms is going down.
That’s why our best players keep leaving.
3 Likes
You seem to have gone too far in one direction. I disagree that we were closer to the West Ham of today. In the late 80s/early 90s for example we were getting the third biggest home attendance in the league, not that much less than what United and Liverpool were pulling in. Not being as big as Liverpool were doesn’t put us at the other end of the scale.
That’s because West Ham (for example
, could be numerous clubs) didn’t have wenger when football changed
If a club like Everton or Newcastle or West Ham has had the success wenger brought during the period of the premier league explosion they would be a much bigger club than us now
You don’t know that Wenger would have had as much power at West Ham or any other club. You don’t know if at another club he’d have attracted the same players. You don’t know if the likes of Thierry Henry would have wanted to play football in Newcastle or Liverpool. Not to mention the fact that Arsenal already had decent players when Wenger joined us – Seaman, Dixon, Wright, Adams and most notably Dennis Bergkamp so who’s to say we wouldn’t have had any success without Wenger? Saying Everton or Newcastle would be bigger than us if they had Wenger is a pointless exercise and something we’ll never know the answer to.
1 Like
Just imagine for a second that we had stuck with Bruce reoch instead of signing wenger and wenger took over at Everton and had the same sucsess he had here up in Liverpool
How do you think the two club should would currently Be viewed on a global scale?
Oh god! This discussion again? It is such a plastic argument. We won titles before Wenger, we won them with him and we are gonna win them without him.
5 Likes
but without wengers sucsess coming at the time it did, with the style of play that he brought and all the wonderful players that played for us during that period our standings in world football wouldn’t Be anywhere near what it is now, Do you not agree?