A very good (if lengthy) blog from another forum and one that raises interesting points, that I mostly wholeheartedly agree with: http://www.arsenalvision.co.uk/my-v...ding-failure-denilson-mvilla-vertonghen.html? The below is a small extract from it: Ultimately offering Chamberlain a new contract would be doing the exact same thing that fans complain about. What's the new buzz phrase again.. 'rewarding failure' in other words giving players new contracts based on potential. Clearly it has its downsides as we can see with a few squad players who are still on our books but look increasingly like not having a future at the club. But I do not know what the club is supposed to do when the manager feels like he has a player that could turn out into the way he expects. We have seen what happens when it goes the other way, Mathieu Flamini was deemed as surplus to requirements before his one super charged season where he found his best form. That is the margin the manager has to play with. A player close to joining Birmingham City and not being able to force his way into the team to a player who dominates AC Milan at the San Siro. We could have offered Flamini a large pay rise before he got to the last season of his existing contract and he could have not stepped up, suffered injury and lost form. Then all hell would break loose about how we are paying a player handsomely to sit on the bench and no other teams would take him due to his earnings. Thoughts?
Exactly - Wenger is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't He has to make a judgement call without a crystal ball, it's not an exact science. For the most part he gets it spot on though, his track record for plucking unknown players and turning them into world class stars is second to none. I wonder how some of those moaning about this issue would feel if Oxo or Wilshere left on a free because we hadn't tied them down to long contracts ?
It is nonsense to reward OXO, what is he being rewarded for ? As usual PISKIE has to paint a picture that doesn't exist. OXO chose Arsenal because he said it would be the best place to learn his trade. There is no way he would leave Arsenal if a big offer came in if he wasn't given a contract extension because he didn't join Arsenal for money. He is playing football at the highest level and is on the verge of getting an England call up. The other kids we have that came through our youth system do NOT need to be rewarded to keep them because they are Arsenal players through and through. The likes of Frimpong wouldn't leave because he was getting first team games. You talk like these players would jump ship if someone waved a cheque book at them, of course they wouldn't and they don't need to be rewarded until they have done something.
How do you know that the likes of OXO, Frimpong, Wilshere, Ryo, etc. wouldn't leave? You don't. Same as I don't know that they wouldn't. Fabregas left his boyhood club for a better contract when he was 15. How do you know what salaries they were on before breaking into the 1st team, or what stipulations were / are in their current contracts that could get triggered? Read the whole article (if you haven't). It's quite a balanced piece.
I did read the whole article thanks, did you ? Its called common sense. Kids don't sign schoolboy forms only to jump ship at the first opportunity, these kids get an affinity for the club. Kids leave clubs if they don't think they will get first team opportunities - its not about money for most at that age. We all know why Fabregas left Barcelona - he said he didn't think he would get games there, sound reasoning. OXO said he chose Arsenal because he knew he would get opportunities to play and Wenger would be a great tutor. Ramsey chose Arsenal over Man U for exactly the same reason. These are kids who made sound judgements at young ages not based on money but their career. Frimpong is Arsenal through and through, he was a first team regular, he wouldn't leave for money if he was getting games. Wilshere has come out and said he wouldn't leave Arsenal. this is all common sense and very logical. I didn't mention Ryo. I am talking about specific players who have either come through Arsenal's books or come to Arsenal to "learn". Why would they leave if they are playing football at the highest level ?
Paolo Vernazza, Isiah Rankin, Stephen Hughes, Jermaine Pennant, all Arsenal boys I know personally, only left Arsenal because they were not getting games - not for money. The only young player I can think of who left their boyhood club for money is none other than Wayne Rooney.
I think once again there is a lack of understanding of the process. Oxo was signed on acontract that would have covered him training with the under-18s/reserves. As soon as he started X first team games for the club, he became a first team/squad player and is entitled to the salary and benefits associated with that position, so a new contract is signed. I don't have a clear understanding of what "Positions" in the employment sense that Arsenal carry, but this reflects Oxo moving from one to another. If you like a promotion in a regular company. This reflects more of a sign that (for example) Arshavin is being sold and Oxo is taking his slot in the first team/squad than anything else. Whilst I agree that sometimes the Arseal process is confusing, there will be some structure in there. It's not just Wenger pulling numbers out of his head.
I hope you are not trying to suggest Oxo was unknown and plucked from nowhere? - or indeed is now world-class?
Well, until Arsenal were interested Oxo was unknown to me. If you have ever been to Southampton it is the absolute definition of nowhere. But I agree with you, Oxo is now merely a world-class prospect. I feel bad for Walcott, how people are saying we should drop him for Oxo, based on a couple of games. Whatever you think of Walcott's technical ability, this guy puts in a shift on the field and always seems to guive 100%. He is right up there with Bale in terms of the numbers and people just don't give him credit, but he takes it all and keeps going. I have to say that I am growing into a Walcott fan.
Fook me, Paolo Vernazza! There's a name from the past. He played against my local team (Dorchester) a few times and was not a player who's worked his way down the leagues with grace!
PNEawf - I just posted on another thread the impact of the Bosman ruling in how clubs approach contract decisions these days with the added pressure of losing players for nothing if contracts are allowed to run down. Magic - good link, thanks for posting
I think someone mentioned it in the thread earlier, remember Flamini ? Average for a couple of years then had one unbelievable season by which time his agent had already begun talking to other clubs and pretty much secured a deal with AC Milan that would blow any improved offer we could make out the water - if clubs are aquiring players for nothing they don't mind paying the salaries. On performance alone a year from the end of his Arsenal contract Flamini should not have been offered an improved contract but he turned out to be a star, AW was faced with the same dilema with B52, Denilson and a host of others, I'm not saying he gets them all right but we sit here with hindsight to hand wheras at the time AW does not....
I don't disagree mate, but to highlight how hard it is to get right B52 scored 12 goals in the 09/10 season including 5 in the champions league, any player scoring 5 goals in the CL must be half decent surely ? He scored a hat-trick in the knockout stages against Porto and having just turned 22 at the time who's to say that he wasn't going to improve further and be worth his £50k a week contract. With the benefit of hindsight and 2 years on the clock we now know how good/bad that player is, but after his CL knockout stage hat-trick did we have the same view ? I'm not saying that AW gets them all right, but it really isn't easy....
The big difference with Wilshere is that he has proven himself at the highest level - Its obvious to all but the blind that he is a cut above Bendtner , Denilson, Vela, etc. Those players did not deserve long term large contracts and it was a big mistake to give them as much as we did (allegedly) based on hope. As for worrying about offering contracts to players who have made an impact, like Flamini, just because they might lose form, I have never heard anything so stupid. Perhaps Barcelona should offload Messi now because he might not be as good next year? In terms of PISKIE's "damned if you do, damned if you don't comment", it's nothing more than an excuse. Arsene Wenger and his coaching staff are paid to get it right. That means spotting the players that will make it and offering them contracts, and dumping the ones that won't make it. When they get it wrong - it is their fault . If it were down to luck, then I hardly think AW deserves his millions a year. The notion that it's ok to offer these contracts to all because a few will make it is crazy. Hardly difficult to throw as much mud as possible at the wall and hope some sticks. Any fool could do that.
So what do you think is the minimum contract paid at Arsenal for a player in the first team squad, or do you honestly think that they pull a numberout of their asses for every player that walks in the manager's office depending on whether they like the look of them or not and say "Shhhh, don't tell anyone what you earn, they might get jealous." I would doubt anyone who is in the first squad at Arsenal or any other "Big Club", for any length of time, is going to earn less than 30-50K, even if he doesn't start a single game.
What I am saying is that it is very unlikely that the wage structure that is in place at Arsenal allows for a member of the first team squad to be paid less than a certain amount of money. You cannot have one player earning 75K and another earning 10K. The basic contract players earn is based upon their position in the team and their experience, it doesn't reflect any subjective opinion Wenger or anyone else has on their ability. That would be a really stupid way of doing it.
exactly. hence players getting bigger contracts, seemingly randomly they get into the first team, they get a better contract, they become a regular, they get a better contract, then as with djourou and probably others, if they play enough they get a better contract
