And you tapped into my sentiments entirely.
Although to be fair, the FC Cup is the most precious hardware outside the Premiership and being Europeans Champions and he has won that twice in the last 3 years.
But I love your Rams analogy, if you were to try and anoint a team of the last decade in England who have played the most entertaining, exciting soccer, it would be Arsenal. They are consistently great year in year out, as their record shows and under Wenger they are almost always exciting.
They just can't quite get over the edge (again a great Rams analogy for that era). Arsenal fans frustration started after the 70's and the era of Charlie George (who later played for my mighty Rams, Derby - and was possibly the greatest soccer player I ever saw live), Bob Wilson and George Graham, and then the David Seaman, Tony Adams, Paul Mariner era of the early 90's era and then the incredible Theirry Henry and the awesome Vierra era when they won their titles.
Like Dallas and Yankees fans, Arsenal fans bred a sense of entitlement. that Kroenke has walked into. And I may add, walked into at just the wrong time. Just as the fans had had enough of not being perpetual Premiership champions.
Some people just look at stats without knowing the history and the complexity of the sport and the era and think Kroenke's to blame!'
Yeh right, and Queen Elizabeth II is to blame for the Empire collapsing.
I'm not even a fan of Kroenke, but I am a fan of people understanding what they are talking about and not jumping to conclusions when they really have no clue what they are talking about and the substance behind that.
Thanks for articulating my point RFL.
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RFL
An interesting point.
Money. Winning titles.
They aren't necessarily the same thing. But I do think that, if an owner wants to make money, he needs SUCCESS. You can't make money with a perennially losing team, especially in LA.
UK's point is an apt one. Arsenal of late have frustrated their fans the same way the Rams of the late 60s-early 80s frustrated us. They perennially contend and then come up short. Arsene Wenger perennially fields excellent teams without winning much hardware.
Now, if you're a money-oriented owner, that's fine. There's enough success to fill the Emirates and sustain the global Arsenal brand.
But imagine if Wenger started losing and the Gunners fell out of contention altogether. That would NOT be acceptable, and he'd be gone in a trice.
Which brings me back to Kroenke and Fisher. In a fresh thread, I tried to pose a single question" WHY would anyone think Kroenke finds this year's effort by Fisher acceptable? I don't get that.
SK had a reason to keep Fisher to handle the move. I think it's daft, but clearly Kroenke wanted Fisher to shepherd the team's migration west. And in THAT CONTEXT, winning and losing didn't matter.
But the move is finished. And SK needs to try to make money in notoriously fickle LA. He has GOT to get at least CONTENTION to make money on the Ram brand. He may not care about titles as such. But I cannot imagine him not demanding CONTENTION from his coaches moving forward.
I fully expect him to hire a new HC for next year. I expect him to demand contention. Money concerns demand that.
Now, perhaps we'll get into an Arsenal situation. Perhaps we'll get to contention level and plateau there. I can imagine him being satisfied with, say, an Arsene Wenger/Chuck Knox level of achievement. And I can imagine us becoming frustrated with that.
But that's a long way off. And I cannot imagine Kroenke looking at this year's debacle and finding it acceptable. That makes no sense to me.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
