Do you think WC players have been impressed and swayed by our last half dozen showings in the CL then? I'd think it logical to assume Ozil, Sanchez and Cech signed in spite of our CL showings, not because of them. United signed Di Maria, Depay, Schneiderlin, Martial, Schweinsteiger etc without any CL football... just the knowledge that they would probably get it back again shortly. I really can't see one single off-form season of CL making or breaking any potential deal. And if it did, then that's the not the sort of player we'd want anyway.
Man U had to over pay hugely in terms of wages for Di Maria, Mata, Falcao, ect. And look at how much they paid for an unproven youngster in Martial - hardly a player who would turn down a big club because they are not in the CL, though Man U were in the CL when they signed him, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger ect. I'd imagine the fact that we'd qualified for the CL and got to the knockout rounds consistently for such a long time helped attract Ozil and Sanchez (and helped make us more attractive to Cech than say Spurs) or do you think it made us less attractive?
Overpay for Mata and Di Maria?? At the time of their moving, they were both valued about correctly in my opinion. I doubt any other club would have got either cheaper than what United paid for them. I would have paid £60m for Di Maria easily. With a supportive manager he is absolutely top notch. Would have loved to have signed him from United.
You misunderstand me - we are talking about attracting the player, not enticing the club to sell. It's the wages that matter more to entice a player. Apparently Falcao was on £300k+ a week, Rooney needed to be paid £280k+ just to stay, Di Maria was paid £280k a week, and while he's a world class player (if played properly) that's a hefty amount that Man U needed to pay to encourage a player to come to a club that wasn't competing in Europe. I agree, I would love to sign Di Maria
I should add that apparently Man U gave Mata double the wages he was on at Chelsea to convince him to move up North, to a lot more than any Arsenal player is earning* *reportedly
Any top player would have to think twice about signing for a team NOT in the Champions League. It makes a massive difference to your ability to attract talent. Not to mention the fact that each stage of the Champions League is worth a good £10 Million+ in revenue.
So a Zagreb player tested positive for doping after our game against them. Wonder if that'll have any impact on the result (not that we deserved a win but I'll take a freebie)
Actually scratch that. Needed 2 or more players to be doping according to UEFA regulations. Hard way to qualify it is then.
That's a concern then, as it appeared that a few of our players were under the influence in that game...
It depends on how you look at it. If you mean it makes a big difference in terms of competing with the best teams and being in the competition to win it, then I wouldn't agree. The primary pulling factor for a player nowadays is money. The reason why CL has been so important for us is that we need to attract/keep top players at the club by affording their wages (and in the case of buying a player, to cover the transfer fee). It's less to do with actually competing in the competition than it is being able to attract them through offering large wages. If we had (well, technically we do) a shareholder willing to pump money into our club, but weren't in the CL, it wouldn't make a big difference in regards to recruiting talent because we would still be in a position to afford top players' wages.
I disagree, players want to play in the best competitions against the best players. If two clubs are competing for the same player and one is in the CL and the other is in the Europa then a player would be much more interesting in the CL team, and the Europa club may have to drastically increase it's financial offer to entice the player to them (such as Man U did when they were out of Europe totally), but the issue is that you are paying more for players and potentially breaking your wage structure to entice them, while losing out on the millions of CL money which your rivals are getting. A club as big as Man U can absorb this costs in the short term, but look at how Spurs are struggling now, despite making a fair bit of money from player sales, because they haven't been in the CL, and aren't as big/rich as some of the top clubs.
When was the last time we competed with a CL club for a player and they signed for us over them?? Subjective and impossible to prove. We've no way of comparing how much a United team in the CL would have had to pay Di Maria if they had qualified for the CL. We've had this circular debate before. Right now, being in the CL is pointless because AW does not use the benefits of it to attract the best players and develop his squad. He simply uses it to allow Arsenal to make enough money to maintain a good enough squad to finish top 4 to qualify for the CL the season after... which is only there to make enough money to allow Arsenal to make enough money to maintain a good enough squad to finish top 4 to qualify for the CL the season after. With Wenger in charge, that is what is happening. Endlessly pointless. There is no squad development to get anywhere near winning the title or champions league. While your stated benefit of 'we need CL for the money and player attraction' might be logical... our situation right now does fit that model because we're stuck with Wenger in charge. The only real argument right now that I could get on board with is that Arsenal need to maintain CL simply so that when we eventually get a half-competent manager, said manager isn't hampered in his player recruitment by a lack of CL.
That's not what he said. He said Europa vs CL team for the same player. Were Liverpool in that scenario when we went for Sanchez? Either way it's not the deciding factor but most players are going to be tempted by more prestigous competitions. Arteta took a pay cut to join us because he was desperate to play in the Champions League.
Yes, if we were in the Europa and were up against a club in the CL for the signing of a player... we would probably lose out. But my point is... have we ever competed successfully with a club in the CL for a player? And if not (we haven't), does it matter right now if we're in the CL or not? We might not have signed Ozil (probably not) or Sanchez (still possibly could have)... but given neither of those two are driving us to the league title or CL right now (because they're being stifled in an AW team), would it have mattered if they hadn't have actually come? We finished 4th before they arrived, who's to say we wouldn't if they'd never come. It's not like they've helped us achieve anything in the big two trophies that we weren't doing before they came in. Their presence in our squad (and our overall presence in the CL) is worthless right now for those that have aspirations of winning the title or CL. The worth of those top players and the CL however will become invaluable once we get a decent manager. But until that time comes it's all a bit of a groundhog day. And Arteta would have moved to us regardless. No other CL team would touch him and we were a better club than Everton regardless of CL (and still are of course).
I'm not convinced by this argument at all. There are numerous players that have either taken a step down or joined an unambitious league where players have been offered more financial benefits than a 'better' side would offer, yet have joined the team that have offered higher earning potential. There are players that have rejected the chance to join us or other Champions League clubs in order to join lesser sides because they wouldn't offer the wages that other clubs could as a result of having richer owners. Kondogbia, Adriano, Bacca and M'Vila being a few key examples. Then we have clubs like QPR as well. This isn't to say that all players are like this - after all, they do have to factor in playing time as well - but I believe most of them will pick the team who offer more money. Not necessarily because if clubs have wealthy owners who are capable of offering the same, if not, more than the CL clubs, then it isn't a straight forward decision for a player. I just think it's something players say because they don't want to admit they are mercenaries. If if made that much of a difference, United wouldn't have been able to attract the likes of di Maria, Falcao, Herrera and Mata who all had offers from clubs that weren't in turmoil and were in the CL, yet chose United because of the money that they were offering which was better (it is safe to assume). The Spurs example is disingenuous because Spurs don't have an owner who is willing to invest loads of his own wealth into the club, it mostly comes as a result of player sales and the turnover they make. But some of the 'lesser' clubs do have external benefactors that are willing to pump loads of money into the club, rather than spending just the money that they make from success on the pitch & commercial deals - and this is where I feel players can be swayed by the £ sign over everything else.
The testing is soo easy to cheat. I guarantee at least 50% of Europe's Top players are using either EPO and/or Anabolics. I believe there is only two scheduled test per year. Which weirdly seem to be more aimed at recreational drugs. I've heard they quite commonly don't even test for EPO. (but cannabis/cocaine are included) Then there's a very small number of random tests per year. They estimate that almost 70% of Premierleague footballers have never been randomly tested. When you consider scheduled test are easy to cheat (by simple cycling off the drugs and flooding your system using an IV) and random testing is so uncommon it's clear there is going to be some cheating.
