We all knew Sagna was going since Christmas- his mind was made up and, despite good offers from Arsenal, he chose another option - fair play to him. From what I have seen of Debuchy, this is a solid signing. I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one and hope that I am proved right, along with others.
Good offers?! How do you know? Nobody has disclosed the amount we actually offered I've read 80,000k a week according to The Mail but its all just speculation. He didn't resign despite always being a loyal. For all we know the deal we offered was a poor one. It probably was.
Come on, either speculation is OK or it isn't, your speculation that the offer was probably poor is no more valid that the Mail's speculation that it was 80K. In any case, given that he is allegedly on 120K/week at City, it really doesn't seem to be an issue. We would never have offered him close to that. Not many aging stars that would even turn down 3 years at 1 1/2 times their next best offer.
Or the other speculation that it was £90k, or the speculation that it was £100k, or the speculation that Sagna now gets £150k per week at City. In the absence of facts most analysis on this sort of stuff is guesswork tempered by people's prejudices.
No.. I'm just using logic here. Sagna declined the offer so its a safer bet to assume it was not near what he was being offered elsewhere. Players don't like to admit that they left for money but ..its happens all the time. I believe RVP left for the same reason - had we not been so stubborn about our wage structure he could still be smashing in the goals for us. Now we are spending something in the region of £10 million on an inferior replacement to Sagna(of a similar age). To me this is just bad management. Ultimatey we loose a great player and we spend more money than we would have just upping his contract.
Actually its not bad management and you are being extremely short sighted, if sagna were to be offered close to what city offered him, that would be more than the likes of ransey, koschelney ect, therefore we might have to significantly improve their deals to keep them happy, and other players, this would increase the wage bill dramatically, over the course of a year, therefore the 10 million spent to replace him could end up saving us money in the long term.
Our TOP players will consistantly leave. If we don't match the going rate. The wage structure is a whole different argument - We spend enough on wages but our oversized squads and overpaid youngsters make it difficult to pay our top performers what they are worth. Again..this is bad management. Even Gazidis has spoken of his desire to change this. A performance based pay structure makes ALOT more sense in football than a socialist idealistic one. RVP was well worth the massive pay rise he was asking and in my opinion so was Sagna.
I disagree with you, this is excellent man-management. Sagna is no longer one of our best players, and paying him as if he were one of our best players is wrong, and disrespectful of those who really are our best players. Yes it lack sentimentality, but if he had stayed and we signed Debuchy anyway, Debuchy would get the start over Sagna every time, just like he has for the French WC team.
I think you are wearing those Crimson glasses again mate. You think letting one of our most consistant, experienced players go to a rival (again) will not have any negative affects on the team? -Letting another player go to a Club for more money just shows the rest of our squad that they can do better elsewhere. Last Season our biggest improvement was defensive. We conceded less than we have in the Previous 8 Seasons. A big part of that was Sagnas defensive displays and the fact we finally had a settled back four. There are soo many reason why letting Sagna go was the wrong call.
Debuchy answering a few questions. “When my agents told me Arsenal were interested, I said yes straight away! There was no question, no debate, no doubt, nothing! You don’t turn down a club like Arsenal. A lot of players would like to be in my shoes right now." I like him. He keeps saying stuff like that, I'm going to like him more!
I will certainly miss Sagna's reliability but he wasn't infallible and I think we've an excellent replacement with Debuchy. Of course it might not work out with us but on paper he looks like he should slot in seamlessly. Nobody knows what was said to keep Bac but I think it's fair to say he was offered decent wages and for a few years too, something we don't normally do. It shows we rate him as Arsene is always loath to do this but he chose City and there's not a huge amount you can do about it bar move on. As to the similar age remark - behave! Debuchy is 3 years young at least and that's a long time in football. Is Debuchy better than Sagna? Maaaybe not (though I wouldn't bet on it) but I think with the addition of Chambers we're stronger at RB than we were last season. I'll wish Sagna all the best but I'm quite optimistic.
I'm not sure why we're assuming that Sagna definitely left for the money and that we definitely didn't offer him a decent contract. The only thing I read from him was that he's only had 2 contracts while at Arsenal, honoured both without demanding more money, and felt that he wanted a new challenge, so quietly and professionally saw out his contract and signed for another team. Also considering how hard the board and Wenger have fought to keep Arsenal competitive and living within their means over the last 10 years, I can't see them trying to match Man C's wage structure just because they have a bit of money now.
Oddly enough I don't think many Gooners would mind if the reason he went was for money. I think most are peeved at what they perceive as him going to sit on a bench rather than play first team football for us. Ah well, best move on I say. Good luck to him and better luck to Debuchy!
I agree that annoys me as well - and he was one of my favourite players last year, and it annoys me having another of our good players playing for a rival. But when I saw that comment from Sagna it made me look at things in a different light. And I couldn't agree more with you, best move on, and we've got Debuchy now, who I'm very pleased with!
