The most recent Arsene poll here got me dangerously thinking again. I used to have great belief in our manager and felt the pain with him when he went through all those agonising moments when the team wasn't doing well and especially in the fairly recent years when we seemed so near to glory and yet so far please log in to view this image Truth be known my view of him began to change after our defeat in the Carling last February, not because of that defeat but his apparent inability to stem the tide of our decline through the remainder of the season. We all know about the delays of last summer and how it affected our start to the season. Now of course, we seem to be in a period of freefall again. I believe it won't be anywhere as bad as the one last spring. We have RvP as our captain now and his rallying call of today on Facebook was something largely unknown ( at least from what I can recall ) during the time of Cesc. In fact our previous captain was quite conspicuous by his absence through the final stages of our last season. Sorry to digress. I was thinking therefore that Arsene had come to the end of his time with us and pondering on the various possibilities as a replacement, as one does. There was pep talk of Pep, hints of Hiddinck, thoughts mulled over on MON and more recently visions of a taxi bringing Mr Boas There is one thing though that delayed the casting of my vote in that poll. What if Arsene over these past years had been unable to do what he wanted, spent as he may have liked because despite all their declarations, the men in the corridors of power at N5 kept a tight rein on the purse strings. And Arsene, be it the 135K a week which he banks or that he is a man who stands by his word, had chosen to maintain his silence. 135K would probably buy a stiff upper lip too. Assuming that the men in suits have prevented our current manager from securing players who might have lifted our recent seasons, would a change of coach make any difference? He would surely be faced with the same shutters going up each time he wanted some badly-needed funds to reinforce the team. Who would you change first? Who is holding us up more? We probably don't need another poll but I have a free morning today
Still wont say Arsene has done much wrong. He needs to stop being so proud and adopt a plan B when the attractive football isnt getting played. However as none of us really know how much money he is given to spend, I cant blame the board either. Hypothetically, if we do get a new board. How long would we have to spend their money until the Financial Fair Play rules kick in? would it be worth it?
I picked other. As long as we are following a "sensible" financial model, I think we have to accept financial consraint at some level. I know people are impatient but we did shore up our central defence in the end, and I think Wenger does know where he need players, but it takes a lot longer to do it than people think. It takes time to spot bargains and we can't afford to break the bank on obvious names. Most people had never heard of Vermaelen, Gervinho and Koscielney before they were bought but all 3 were good buys. So both the board, and the manager are doing the best they can in my opinion. I don't think what most fans want would work quite the way they expect. Even Man City with their unlimited cash are hardly blazing a trail right now and we are very far away from their resources.
The board should go. 1. The buck stops with them. 2. They are responsible for our transfer policy. 3. They are responsible for six seasons of having our hopes raised and then dashed again. 4. They are responsible for making sure that we have the right man for the job, and if Wenger is not the right man then he should be moved on or moved upstairs.
I voted other - Not aimed at anyone in particular on here, but I'd change some of our whinging and booing fans for some who actually get behind the team.
Yes that would be silly. We do need to make some changes, replacing Fabreags for a start, if rumors were true Wenger's bid for Goetze in the summer was a step towards making that type of change. I'm not sure if I've ever heard anyone saying that we don't need to make any changes though ?
I don't want us top get into bidding wars for any players, we should go about our business, buying men. Had we bought a few more men in recent years we wouldn't have the drama we have now. We dont need to spend £30m on a player and I wouldn't want us to !! I'd sooner that plank Hill-Wood leave than Wenger .. I don't see the point of Kroenke either so he should go and whoever deals with our transfers should go to cos they are **** !
Arteta was his back up plan, successfully signed I think £30m bid for Goetze was more than reasonable, I wouldn't want to see us held to ransom over transfers like Chelsea and City have.
Bravo Arsenal - leading the way with the right football, the right way of running a club, and the right policy on transfers. I wish the media would wake up to the fact that Arsenal way should be lauded and all clubs should be looking to manage their organisations in the same way. Personally i would rather we carried on running our club this way than win things
So, if we cant spend 30K on Goetz (he wasn't for sale but I think the asking price was 1M more than we were willing to pay; i.e. Chelsea, City or United would have kept bidding til they outbid us) and no one else 'A' list was available, and Arteta was a panic buy, what was the right thing to do?
