One - who says we'll attract these top managers everyone wants if we're dropping down the league, playing Europa League and losing even more ground on the top teams? Also - considering Wenger has attracted a number of our signings, and encouraged others to stay, if as you say players just care about money, then surely any rich/sugardaddy clubs will rape us for our best players before we get another manager in. Then we'll need to do a massive rebuild, while in the Europa, unable to offer the £350k it took Man U to encourage WC players to sign for them, but scrabbling for the Spurs style signings. And trying to reduce the widening gap with the top 2. Doesn't sound appealing - personally, when we do make a massive regime change I'd like to do it from a position of strength and stability, so ensure we have the most chance of instant success
I agree Smirnoff. That's why I wanted Wenger to be replaced the summer before this one, and then this summer. If he gets CL, get him out before the club drop out of the CL places. If he doesn't get CL, get him out before he can do any more damage. He isn't improving. 4th this season would be a good result from the position the club are in now and that simpply isn't enough.
Not sure I understand this losing passion for your team. It is frustrating when your team dips below where you expect it to be (mine has since 1967) but supporting a team is in your blood. The times I say that's it, it hurts too much (Chelsea winning the CL being the last occasion) are numerous, but come 3:00 Saturday (or whenever these days) I am still anxiously waiting for news. I can't turn that off.
Maybe, with hindsight saying I am losing my passion for Arsenal was too extreme, but I am still very disillusioned with the club. I just do not know where we are heading as a club.
Pay some of the highest ticket prices in the world and have one of the highest wage bills in the league and this is what we are supposed to console ourselves with? Pathetic.
No its a perfectly normal as we have a senile idiot managing our team. A hypocrite at that as well. Goes on sanctimonious about players wages etc yet gladly accepts £7m a year.
Not exactly sure how your point stands considering managers tend to make far more in a year than players do and our wages are some of the highest in the country. Just because we're not going to blow 300k/week on a single player does not make the manager a hypocrite. And I doubt Sanchez is on anything less than 6 figure wages, not to mention the boost in Theo and Ramsey's wages as well as Ozil earning high wages as well.
What are you on about ? I was responding to Cini65's comment about the players we attract now 'not making the difference' and countering the claim that it would be good for us to drop out of the CL to shake things up. If we dropped out of the CL it would make it even more difficult to attract top players to the club. It's madness to advocate it as being beneficial for the club.
Actually, Wenger was a big advocate of players getting good wages and fought for the rights of players. It was only when the oil money came in that wages went off the scale. Also a manager should be paid more than any player in my opinion, otherwise it sets a dangerous precendent that one player is 'worth' more than his manager.
Now that we can spend, people equate that with instant success, but rarely is it that straight forward. Just ask Liverpool, Spurs, Utd. Even Chelsea and City had 2-3 years of huge spending before any of it brought trophies. Wenger isn't blameless, he has his faults. But he's brought the club to where they are today. Being able to spend £42m on players and with the stadium and revenue that's secured the club's future. He will go one day soon anyway, so things will change. Personally I don't think it will be the easy transition that some people seem to be making out it will be Maybe he should have gone at the end of last season to give the new manager the chance to start the transition ? That's a big maybe and entirely dependent on whether the right man was available. When we do change manager, it's going to be one of the biggest things to happen at Arsenal in two decades and we need to get it right.
Illogical and nonsensical comment. What's wrong with one player being paid more than his manager? Does Luis Enrique moan that Messi gets more than him? Ancelotti moan that Ronaldo gets more than him? Why exactly does a manager have to be 'worth' more than a player in your eyes? You think Ancelotti is 'worth' more and is more important to Real than Ronaldo? Wenger's salary is entirely disproportionate to what he manages to achieve on the field when you compare him to other managers paid similarly in world football. He's been paid £60-70 million over the last 10 years and led us to a solitary FA Cup. And why do you only care about the 'dangerous precedent' of a player being worth more than his manager? Why don't you label it dangerous for one player to be paid more than another player and therefore be deemed 'worth' more than them? Or is it because that happens at every club in the world and most players are fine with that?
A player is more marketable than a manager. He's worth more to the club in a lot of aspects, therefore he gets paid more.
No, I think it sets a dangerous precedent because it shifts the weight of importance towards the player instead of the manager. The manager should have overall control and I think paying a player more implicitly suggests that he is more important than the manager. For the record I also think players should be paid on a similar footing. Not a flat wage throughout, but based on age, experience etc and I definitely believe in a ceiling cap. You can still give players bonuses for winning trophies, qualifying for CL etc. But it would stop the ridiculous situations like Falcao being paid £350k per week to play for a team that hasn't even qualified for the Europa league.
That is part of the problem of the modern game in my opinion. How many times do we see players forcing moves to clubs that will pay them huge wages ? The loyalty is no longer to club and manager, it's to the chequebook.
Not individually. A team is more important than a manager. But I would say the manager is far more valuable than any one individual. If that wasn't the case the best team would always win.
Agreed. Look at Utd between Fergie and Moyes. Champions one year, then finished 7th the next season with the same group of players.
