Arsenal don't win trophies because they don't splash out the cash. Teams like Chelsea and Man City do, and so do Man Utd when they need to. The difference is that those three clubs spend more than they earn yet they get away with it by having rich owners. Arsenal may not spend loads, but they are certainly secure financially; look at all the players that they have bought for pretty cheaply, turned them into top players and sold them onto the big spenders (which includes the said teams at the beginning!) Wenger's one of the best managers at getting the best out of his players, he buys mainly average players and makes them very good and if they get too good then they'll probably get sold. RVP-Man Utd. Clichy, Nasri, Toure, Adebayor-City. Cole-Chelsea.
So basically they're a stepping stone. Rather than being one of the top clubs, which they certainly have the foundations to be, they're just a feeder club to the clubs who are ambitious enough to splash the cash on the world-class stars. Many top players have come through Arsenal in recent years, but they always see their future at a bigger club like Barcelona or Man City. Arsenal's thriftiness is certainly commendable, and there's no denying that they are good at buying and selling for a profit, but to be a top club you have to be willing to make pretty massive losses by splashing the cash on players who are already developed and capable of winning titles now. It's a risk that they haven't been willing to take.
Don't forget: Adebayor to City for £25m Anelka to Real Madrid for £30m Overmars (£35m), Petit (£13m), Hleb (£15m), Henry (£21m), Fabregas (£30m) and Song (£16m) to Barcelona They've raked in £130m from Barcelona alone! And £73m from City for Adebayor, Nasri, Clichy and Touré.
Yeah, they're financially secure though and don't make losses every year like all those clubs do. They can't afford to, they don't have Abramovich or Mansour underwriting them. Surely the transfer profit they have made on these players is yet another feather in Wenger's cap? Do you still not think he's ever been one of the best in the game?
Doesn't it? Where do you think they would be without that money? And how is this Wenger's fault anyway?
Exactly. Therein lies the injustice to Wenger. The non-plastic Arsenal fans are actually venting their anger at the directors for their lack of ambition and willingness to rest on their laurels and make profit, season after season, rather than taking necessary measures to prevent losing the stars they've nurtured, time and time again. Add Van Persie, Song, Fabregas and Clichy to this Arsenal side and they'd certainly be challenging for the title. As for Wenger, for such a notoriously willing student of the game, Arsenal have become an incredibly predictable side to play against. Stand off them, and they're unplayable. Press them high up the pitch and they're very, very beatable. There doesn't seem to be a Plan B tactically, something which my Arsenal supporting friends are more and more annoyed about, every time we talk about it. But believe me, Wenger still has the backing of the real Arsenal fans
No, the transfer profit they've made is a result of not being able to hang onto their best players. It's not like they wanted to sell the likes of RVP and Fabregas. Well done to him for getting these players in for cheap in the first place, but turning a profit is not the point. He's got to keep the best players and win some trophies with them. They may not have a tycoon injecting a ton of money into the club, but neither do Man Utd. They do have an enormous support base and an enormous stadium, and are bigger than City and Chelsea in both those regards. It's not like they can't afford to buy top players - they've spent £20m on Cazorla, £13m on Giroud, £11m on Podolski, £10.6m on Gervinho, £10m on Arteta, £10m on Mertesacker and £8.3m on Monreal. They're not bad players, but other teams have signed better players for similar prices. If those transfers were Wenger's decisions, then they weren't very good ones in my opinion.
I'm reminded of 1981-82. Saints had their celebrated team of Channon, Keegan, Ball, Armstrong, etc.., and at the turn of the year were top of the league and stayed there until the end of February. Steve Moran got his back injury and Saints needed to strengthen in order to win their first ever First Division [now PL] title. They didn't. They continued to make a profit, and at the end of the season finished 7th. Not 2nd or 3rd, but 7th, and Keegan buggered off to Newcastle. In a way you couldn't blame him. He still wanted to win things and SFC weren't really that fussed. Is that really the attitude a football club should have, on the brink of major success..? Responsible certainly. Worthy of support from fans..? That's more difficult to answer, in my opinion.
You're missing the point, the club's failure to keep them isn't Wenger's fault (mostly), but when they did lose them they only made such profits because he bought them cheap and improved them into world class players that bigger clubs in terms of spending power (as Chelsea and City are) were willing to pay top dollar for. Cazorla was £15m not £20m, and a bargain for that price I'd say. I think Giroud and Monreal's fees will turn out to have been good value as well, and Arteta and Podolski are hardly poor value at those prices. Besides, how do these fees show they can afford to buy top players, when they are losing players for £20-£30m?
I'm not quite sure how this thread turned into an Arsenal/Wenger thread, but hey I'll throw my thoughts in seeing as though it has. For two or three years now, I've felt that the moment Arsenal ditch Wenger is the moment they say goodbye to challenging for a top four spot. I could, and still can, see them falling back to a 7th or 8th placed team. Maybe even worse (but probably not). This Arsenal team is a shadow of the side it was 10 - 15 years ago, and yet Wenger is still getting them into the top four each season. That is seriously impressive in my book. They are so, so close to becoming what Liverpool have basically become in the last 15+ years (save for shorts spells under Houllier and Rafa), and honestly my gut feeling is that it's Wenger and Wenger alone that has so far stopped them becoming that. They don't even have RVP this season, and yet they're only five points behind 3rd place. Yes the board might not have ambition, but as a non-Arsenal supporter, I find it very difficult to be critical of some of the very few people at the top end of English football who are not reckless with money. At the end of the day though, in the last eight years Arsenal have run into two teams who have been taken over by billionaires, splashing the cash all over the place. And on top of that, at the same time Arsenal have continued to have arguably the greatest ever English team, managed by arguably the great ever British manager, as one of the major players. (And don't forget that, before Chelsea and Man City came along, Wenger won his fair share of battles against Utd. Winning the double, going the season unbeaten - both very commendable). He may not be up there with a Ferguson or a Mourinho, but in my book Wenger is top manager. A painfully sore loser, and a bit too stubborn, but a top manager.
The club's failure to keep them is due to them not competing for trophies, which I believe is Wenger's job. I haven't even touched on his tactical ability, which I believe to be rather one-dimensional, and his man-management which he doesn't seem to excel at either. With regard to the signings, Cazorla is certainly a good player and probably his best signing in the last couple of years, but Podolski was poor at Bayern and inconsistent at Koln, and despite his very good international record I don't think he's good enough for a top Premier League team. Gervinho was obviously a poor signing, and I certainly don't think Giroud is good enough to warrant a £13m fee. Arteta is good but injury prone, Mertesacker is good on his day but unreliable and Monreal I know very little about. Overall I think the money that Arsenal have received for the likes of Van Persie, Fabregas and Song has not been reinvested well enough. Berbatov cost Fulham £5m in the summer. Pienaar was £4.5m, and Michu goes without saying. These are examples of better signings, in terms of value for money, than any that Arsenal have made. And they could have made them.
Well they're not going to win trophies if they keep losing their best players are they? Money is the key factor, you can see this clearly by Man City's ability to buy good players without having won anything. As for his tactics and man-management, I think he's shown quite capably over the years that he's no mug in those areas. Giroud hasn't hit his best form for Arsenal yet, in much the same way we haven't seen the best of Ramirez, but believe me he's worth much more than £13m, and I'm sure in a few years they'll sell him for £25m. Mertesacker's only weakness is pace and he plays very well in 9/10 games. Gervinho is inconsistent but hardly a poor signing, certainly not "obviously" so anyway. Andre Santos is a poor signing! Yeah, you're right they haven't reinvested the money they've received well enough, but it's not Wenger's fault that the board won't give him the transfer money, and more crucially I think, the wage budget to buy the very best. Most of your criticisms, if they are not flat-out inaccurate, are criticisms of the board, not of Wenger. They certainly don't outweigh the achievements I outlined earlier anyway. If your argument is that he isn't the best man for the job that has to be done now, then maybe you're right, but to say he's never been amongst the best is just wrong.
