what about them? we weren’t as important as we are now does not = not important at all does it?
They all were well supported but we had more support and were in London.
Newcastle were in the relegation places and Leeds and Everton were usually below us.
But none of those teams were nearly good enough to win the League in the first season if Wenger gone there, while we had the basis of a great team.
Remember Graham was sacked after winning the FA Cup, League Cup and getting to two finals of a European competition in his last two seasons.
So it’s not exactly a team going nowhere and Wenger took full advantage of it.
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That’s because this whole debate started because someone had said exactly that.
No one is saying Wenger wasn’t a brilliant manager.
I’ve said that he is not just the best manager we have had but the best in the PL.
The problem is he isn’t any more, and it’s annoying when people seem to assume that before Wenger we were not a big team.
That is how this all started.
I’m sure its not what you mean but this kind of reads like you think thats a bad thing lol
if you wanted to be harsh you could say a team full of ageing alcoholics were going exactly nowhere unless a calming outside influence came and gave them an opportunity to extend their playing careers
You have to think football was not a worldwide movement like it is now.
this debate started with these 3 posts, nobody thinks arsenal didn’t exist before 1997
exactly and luckily during the period that it did become a worldwide movement we had arsene wengers success and beautiful football and amazing players to boost our profile and become one of the biggest in the world
This is just going round in circles. Of course we became a bigger global club under Wenger – that’s the modern era/TV/social media for you, all clubs are more global than they used to be. That’s not evidence of us not being a big club pre-Wenger though.
In the decade before him we won the title twice and finished in the top 4 six times. The 1991 title winning team only lost 1 game and actually scored more goals and conceded less than the invincibles. I’m not knocking what Wenger has done for us, it’s acknowledged that he made us bigger but he did not make us, he did not drag us up from the bottom of a pit. We had great players before him as well as great players under him.
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i posted this yesterday
gunner girl quickly followed up this post
with this post
this is when everyone saying “but arsenal existed before 1997” could have said fair enough i guess your right but didn’t and kept arguing, whilst also admitting that yes, we are one of the biggest clubs in the world now but were not back then
I can’t comment on Europe and the stature of Arsenal as a club, but the argument Wenger is responsible for the massive fan base the club have abroad has a lot of merit. Look no further than me and my Arsenal supporting pals out here all two of them lol. The only reason I know about Arsenal is because of the CL final and Thierry Henry.
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People took what I said too seriously, what I was trying to say all along Arsenal were big in UK but not outside of UK like we are now
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But we were one of the biggest clubs in the world. No we were not Real Madrid or Barcelona level but we’ve never achieved that under Wenger either. Given how much padding the Champions League now has, we actually had a better European record before Wenger, not to mention being banned from the competition after winning the league in 89.
This argument about us not being global pre-Wenger doesn’t have much merit with me. It’s far easier to follow any club in the world now than it was in 1980/1990 etc.
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See a4tts post above, I think it’s safe to say a large majority of our forign fan base would credit wenger or one of his signings as the reason they support us
I would also say it’s debatable wether we were actually a club with any kind of major global appeal before wenger but I really can’t be bothered to do it all again
Because that’s when football became a more international affair. When you first start watching an international league of course you’re going to be attracted to the team playing sexy football - as we were at the start of Wenger’s tenure.
It’s ridiculous to compare the two eras by talking about global appeal.
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So we were very lucky to have wenger and that it came at exactly the right time to boost our global appeal to a level it was no way near at any other point in the clubs history weren’t we? That’s all I’ve been saying, I’ve said it about 5 times now and people want to keep debating the point
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According to the Deloitte football money league we weren’t in the top 10 richest clubs until about 2001 - 02. Until then we were behind lolpool and Chelsea, Milan, inter, Juve, and Bayern. In 06-07 we took a huge leap and catapulted above all those clubs just trailing United, Barca, and Madrid. Since then we’ve exchanged spots with Bayern and Chelsea, but we’ve mostly been in the top 6 or 7 richest. The Italian teams have fallen off big time.
If you really want to make the argument Wenger is the reason the entire English league had done so well considering he’s widely regarded as changing the entire league to a more aesthetic way of play, that just so happens to coincide with how rich the club and entire league has become during that time period.
He didn’t though. For most of Wenger’s reign English football was ruled by Alex Ferguson and his cronies and it was generally shit until relatively recently. Even 5 years ago we were seen as the poncy club that didn’t like being bullied by proper English teams. When English football really started to get competitive in Europe I’d say it was with Ferguson’s United, Mourinho’s Chelsea, Benitez’s Liverpool and Wenger’s Arsenal and none of them were playing anything like Wenger.
If Ferguson played like Wenger in the late 90s/early 00s then the rest of the league probably would have ended up following at some point but I’d say it wasn’t until Pepcelona that English clubs started to consider it might be a good idea to try and play better passing football than the other team.
Coaches like Coyle, Holloway, Howe, Martinez and a few Swansea coaches got a little recognition for basically attempting to play football (and mostly got slated for their shit defending) but I can’t really think of anyone beyond them in 25 years. English football on the whole has been filled with guys like Bruce, Hughes, Pulis, Mourinho, Benitez, Moyes, Hodgson, Redknapp, Allardyce, O’Neill, and many more of that ilk, going from club to club spreading their survivalist football.
Writing this I’ve actually got no idea why English football got so popular 
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It’s quite simple, Thierry Henry
From my personal experience I became an Arsenal fan as a decision as when I got into football I liked the football Arsenal played, which was built around guys like Cesc, a Wenger creation at the time, my 1st season was 2007/08. I doubt if Arsenal still had Graham’s type of football and traditions I would’ve became a fan. A modern example you could compare Graham’s Arsenal to is Atletico, who don’t have a big worldwide fanbase like Arsenal do, most of their fanbase is from Spain
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You seem every bit as keen lol
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