As a one off I get it, but I can't help but really blame the economics degree-holding manager for failing to see that players were the fastest appreciating assets in world football.
...........sanchez ....welbeck...... ozil Gibbs...xhaka...ramsey...ox ........kos....must...holding ...................cech
Can't develop one, he did back when we went unbeaten (yes I know more Invincibles stuff), hello, do Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell in 2003-04 ring a bell to you??? Hello???
Yeah I'm gonna say no to this as well. Campbell was already a stud and Cole seemed to kick on into another gear when he left Arsenal... It's quite telling that anything worth really cementing to memory regarding Wenger and this club took place over a decade ago. Sad.
Sol was developed at Spurs - but was certainly one of the greatest CBs of his generation. But no one disputes Wenger was able to create elite teams at that time. He routinely had players like Overmars, Bergkamp, Petit, Vieira, Anelka - these are all euro-elite players
Our two best players are castoffs from Madrid and Barca. I love this club, but I don't have any delusions that we can sign the absolute best players anymore. I cringe at United having to pay 90m for Pogba and his 300k salary (and probably the same for Griezmann this summer), but there are three teams in England that can/will buy the best. Chelsea, United and City. The rest of the teams in Europe who can/do (Real, Barca, Bayern and maybe Juve) have the prestige that Arsenal don't.
That's no way forward. No other top European sides have a front three where only one is a reliable goal-scorer. Ljungberg stretched plenty of defenses, put in intensive defensive shifts every week, and still found ways to grab 10+ league goals in some seasons as a right winger.
Nothing wrong with cast offs though. The market for football players is so inefficient that you can build one of the best teams without ever competing for the hottest most expensive players. Robben was a Madrid cast off. Higuain was a Madrid cast off. Even Eto'o was a cast off, and he did pretty well. We've built teams around cast offs before. Bergkamp and Henry, for example. Some players can look shit in one team, and a world-beater in another. Just look at Boateng. People said he couldn't defend, and relied too much on his athleticism. Turns out, nobody taught him how to defend, until Pep came along, and turned him one of the best around. This is less likely for us, since very few players actually improve defensively under Wenger, but the possibility is there. It is true we can't compete with the very best in the market, but we ourselves are not operating anywhere near our club's potential in the market. We ourselves have been very inefficient.
Would you prefer Giroud slowing our attack down? I'd rather give this a chance than just dismissing it altogether.
Ok... I only just saw Monreal's goal. It was a great goal props to Ox and Monreal. That's why he is a pro and I work in government would have skied that into row Z.
It's not like we've never seen Welbeck play for us. We weren't exactly cutting teams open with free-flowing football when he was starting for us. Giroud doesn't necessary slows us down. It's the way he's been used that slows us down. Take Walcott as an example. You'd think he be perfect for the front three. Plenty of pace, and an actual goalscoring reliability, but if he's misused, as he often has been, he'd be wasted just the same.
it's . . . i think, the nature of our buys/personnel. because we make economically sound transfers (as opposed to blowing our budget on a more complete player), they come with flaws. flawed players are useful if they are used correctly. where a superior and more complete players can often "make it work" in suboptimal condition (training? formation? usage?*), our more flawed players (the walcotts and the girouds) struggle to do so. *hell, insane shit like using someone like holding - who is predominantly right footed and has played right-back capably - on the left while playing gabriel - who is predominantly neither footed as far as i can tell but was a left-sider at villareal and filled in supposedly capably as left-back there - on the right. yes, i know he was almost certainly thinking to have gabriel protect oxlade-chamberlain while holding would be nominally protected by monreal. but, frankly, gabriel needs to focus on protecting himself (although he did well in this game) before he can protect someone else and it's not like he can communicate with oxlade-chamberlain so that isn't going to work regardless.
I think you may be misinformed about Gabriel. All I've ever heard is that he's a right-sided guy who's tended to play CB or RB.