I disagree with this. I believe that he was actually happy to lead the youth movement, as he knew that finances would be restricted and it gave him the chance to lead a great experiment. The experiment, although almost succeeding, ultimately failed and has been more or less abandoned. Now i'm not sure what he is doing, trying to blend teams together with veteran players who never made it to the top level and unproven youth? Is that something to see through? I don't know. I feel bad for the guy, i think he got into the whole stadium project because he wanted to level the playing field with the top clubs in Europe. As it turns out they have rocketed away from us farther than ever. He is tearing his hair out trying to cajole mediocre squads to finish in the top four so his paymasters can stockpile more cash. What i fear is that he will never get to spend it, and his eventual successor will blow through it in a few years, and be even less successful than Wenger was without it.
Sadly that is a very reasonable fear, and if the bookies took bets on that I think the odds would be quite good.
I dont believe that. What I do believe is that he is complicit in the lack of spending now (as well as just flat out bad buys like a Park, Marouane, and increasingly Gervais). When he built the Invincibles, he spent big money compiling that squad. And he has spent a lot on Gervais, Podolski, and Giroud. I really think another problem isnt just the spending, but the club hasnt done a good job at evaluating talent over the last 3 years.
excellent point. I said this earlier to bigman, I dont think Wenger and co have a plan/vision with this group. It just feels like a bunch of disjointed players put together. We have this big target forward in Giroud, yet no one to send him crosses and it seems like no one on the team knows how to play with him. Because of no other creators, teams just crowd Santi now since its clear we have no other creative options. We are a team that wants to play wide, yet have no one that is really capable of it. Its a mess of a team, imo. Of all the things that bothers me, I think the lack of a real squad vision is what gets me the most.
I agree, it's similar to what i've thought of the Liverpool squads of the past. A group of good players, but thrown together with no rhyme or reason. As far as the spending goes, Wenger has been railing against the bubble in soccer for years, and has repeatedly predicted that it will pop. It still hasn't as of yet, but it seems to me the clubs strategy right now is to maximize profits while waiting for FFP to pop that bubble. It's not an unreasonable strategy, but it's hard to embrace, as it essentially has us treading water while waiting for other clubs to drown.
We as Gooners need to get real about Kronke. He's not going to be a Roman or Shiekh. they simply are using their clubs to make money quick. I bet even in Roman's case, he has so much money, that seeing Chelsea win trophies is kind of like self-actualisation for him. I know it may sound silly, but it's how I see it. Stan simply is using us as a cash cow. And as we've been a profitable club for a long time, that seems a sound investment. The only way I see this changing is if City, Chelsea, etc. go to far ahead, and he puts aside a £50 million fund every season to buy players.
Are you serious? How is dropping a billion into a club which loses 100 mil a year a way to make quick money? I'm sorry, but that is just a patently ridiculous statement.
I think that lack of honesty is precisely the point you've raised. Arsenal is never going to catch up to Utd barring some massive change in the rules. In fact I predict Utd will continue to pull away - as essentially england is now a one club league. The only teams that will compete are ones that have massive financial inputs - but even then i doubt they will break even. But that may not matter to operations that are much bigger than simply football - as there are lots of synergies - and football can be viewed as their brand building activity. I think Wenger is the one who has spoken the truth - its just fans don't want to hear it. Best Arsenal can hope for is qualification.
i don know what data you are talking about, but what I see is some bad buys, especially at the forward position.
I'd take it further back than 3 years. Based on the numbers on transferleague, when was the last time we paid below fair value for a player? Who was the last player we bought (not counting those who have yet to make it, like Joel Campbell), who will be sold for a profit? You would have to go back to 07/08 when we signed Nasri for a fee that was very likely to be less than his resell value, and Sagna was the last true bargain.
I'd say we got Cazorla for below market value. Oxlade Chamberlain will likely be a bargain too: also Arteta and Mertesacker.
LOL Arsenal bought Arteta at basement prices who then performed at elite level. But this isn't even arguable. Numerous teams have outspent Arsenal in the over the last decade. Wenger gets best return in terms of points per £
Jitty is correct. Wenger outperforms based on dollar for dollar expenditure. DaPrince, We have a bunch of players thrown together with no rhyme or reason as we've discussed. Look at Ajax they're spending £4 million on their starting lineup yet beat City. We can't even beat City lol Jitty, Manutd just bought out their training kit deal and are angling for a HUGE deal from Nike. I've read that they want to increase on the £500 or so deal they are in that will end shortly. Furthermore we're supposed to sign a £25 mill annual deal with Adidas lol. We can't compete. Manutd is the defacto English national team and will continue being so. Waiting on FFP to kick in is folly I expect no trophies anytime soon.
i've always liked arteta, but £10m for a player 7 months off his 30th birthday was far from a basement price.
Why Arsenal are becoming a speck in their rivals' wing-mirrors good article about why Arsenal have fallen behind
I still cannot believe they sold RvP to Manutd. I understand selling him they aren't about actually winning but I mean talk about pissing in the face of your fans by selling him to United. That's just blatant. That's just like hey I'm going to come into your house and defecate in your morning cereal and tell you it's chocolate fudge and you will like it. Oh and I'm going to charge you more for that breakfast as well.
I *would* like to know how Gazidis salary/bonus compared to other chiefs in the league, especially ManU, ManC, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs. Anybody got this info handy? (assuming it's all public domain)
i'll start you off. in the year to may 2009, gazidis was paid £667,000 in total. in the year to may 2010, gazidis was paid £1,818,000 in total. in the year to may 2011, gazidis was paid £1,729,000 in total. in the year to may 2012 , gazidis was paid £2,150,000 in total. btw. i see in the arsenal email that we are going to the far east, yet again, during pre-season.
Wow, that's obscene. But I suppose this is "collateral damage" from the ridiculous salaries that athletes make on elite sports teams. Still I'd like to know how this compares to his counterparts at ManU, Liverpool, Tottenham (and I suppose ManC & Chelsea too... although I wonder if those 2 are outliers b/c of their deep-pocketed owners)