To be fair, if you're just talking about finances, then most of those players you mention were either very cheap or free (Kallstrom was a loan deal) Also Squillaci looked like a good signing at the time, he was playing CL football regularly and in French national squad. Even Gervinho was decent at times. They only one out of that list that was a proper WTF singing was Park Chu-Young. No idea what the **** Wenger was thinking when he signed him
You're saying two league titles in six seasons is not much better than no league titles in 12 seasons??? WTF are you talking about? Is it even worth debating with you?
You really must hate my guts But I'm going to have to pull you up on this post, as well. Dortmund, if anything, are an example of what to do when you do not have the vast wealth of resources that a club like Bayern/PSG do. Irrespective of whether they fall short in the end or whether they're not as good, they have won two league titles far more recently than us, in addition to a Champions League final which they were quite unlucky to lose (overcoming Real Madrid along the way). Bayern might win the league most seasons, but at least Dortmund try and give them a good run for their money. That's not too much to ask from Arsenal, surely, and even we seem incapable of doing this. Second of all, saying we can't compete with Chelsea/City doesn't wash anymore I am afraid. It is not an excuse. Look at our wage bill and how close it is to City's. please log in to view this image In addition to this, we've actually leapfrogged Chelsea in Deloitte's Football Money League. We earned more revenue than them in the 2014/15 season. http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/21/arsenal-leapfrog-chelsea-to-become-londons-wealthiest-club-5636522/ When you couple these variables in with the fact that these clubs have had to curb their spending (in terms of net spend), this argument has no legs any longer. The excuses that people have kept using for the last 10 years are wearing thin now.
Excuses, excuses, excuses. I hope "some" Arsenal fans are happy with another "nearly" season whilst getting charged extortionate ticket prices to come so close yet so far, again!
If you are going to post wage bills you may as well post the actual squad costs - it gives a better indication. This is taken from October 2015 by CIES Football Observatory. 1. Manchester City - €560 million. 2. Manchester United - €533 million. 3. Chelsea - €407 million. 4. Liverpool - €344 million. 5. Arsenal - €305 million. Chelsea spent over 100m more than ourselves on assembling their current side while Manchester City have spent €255 million more than ourselves. The only thing keeping these Clubs from injecting more and more cash are the 'not very limiting' confines of the FFP rules. *Chelsea's holding company, Fordstam Limited, has £984million debt (in June 2013) in the form of an interest-free loan from owner Roman Abramovich. Also I am not making excuses for Wenger, like I said in my original post he should have added another holding player and a top class striker to this side. But when it comes to finances. Like I said the 'playing field' is uneven. Whoever manages Arsenal next will have to deal with that.
Im not making excuses. (if that was aimed at me) I agree Wenger should have added more quality. But I also think we need to accept whoever takes over will have to operate under difficult circumstances. Until FFP is really working the likes of City/Chelsea have a HUGE advantage over clubs like ours.
But squad costs don't take into account a club's decision to choose on whether to spend or not. And I'm not sure whether those figures are net spend, which is a greater indicator, in my opinion. We have willingly chosen to not reinforce our squad over the years, despite having finances available. I'm not sure how far back those figures have gone back, and the playing field may well be uneven, but ultimately, we are far closer to the clubs above us in the 'Money League' compared to the club's below us. So the gap is narrowing and all the statistics show that we are getting closer to the richest clubs, rather than them pulling away. If Dortmund with a wage bill of €80m in 2012/13 could still challenge the best teams in Europe and challenge for the Bundesliga, against a Bayern side that have a wage bill of €180m + a significant revenue gap, then what is our excuse? Also, this is the whole point of having a scouting system. You identify other players that have the potential to do very well or you take advantage of an opportunity. If money was the only indicator, and I'm not doubting for one second it is a factor, you would have Sanchez, Ozil and Cazorla at the other richest clubs in the league. They're with us. This 'uneven playing field' is being overplayed and it's nowhere near as huge as you're making it out to be. Whichever way you look at it, all the figures would show you this.
The uneven playing field argument only works if (a) there were only a tiny number of players to be bought of sufficient quality, and (b) this tiny number of players were all solely motivated by money and therefore moved to City, PSG and Chelsea where there wasn't much competition for squad space because there were so few quality players available in their position. Neither of those are true. The unevenness of the playing field between City/Chelsea and us is a very slight vague slope barely noticeable. The unevenness of the titles being won between City/Chelsea and us is a lord's rake. The odd top drawer player here or there might only go to City/Chelsea that otherwise we would have tried to sign, but those players are rare. Most players are clearly going to pick Barca, Bayern, Real, City over us because they know they're more likely to win titles. That's for those players that actually have a choice of those clubs over joining us with the assumption that we've actually moved for them and been turned down. There aren't many players in the world who wouldn't come to us simply based on finances. And FFP is having an effect (quite how significant, who knows)... exactly why Chelsea haven't made really huge signings for a while now. And City had to use less players in Europe. Arsenal have the funds to be able to spend £50m+ on a single player and pay that player £200k a week. There is no way any quality manager should find it hard to build a title winning team and/or CL challenging team on our funds. Uneven playing field is a cop-out excuse of the highest Wengerite order. The reason for our squad being in its current state of being weaker than it should be is because in August 2015 Arsene Wenger thought his current squad was good enough, not because Chelsea and City have bought all the available players.
I think the financial argument is no longer valid for us. We've been making marquee signing for the past few years and the funds available are plenty to build a title winning side in the Premiership. This is the legacy that Wenger has built for us, we are now financially self sustainable and can buy those marquee signings that he foretold 10 years ago. Unfortunately for Wenger, he is a victim of his own success. He is in charge of a big European team with vast resources available to him. I would be surprised if anyone would think that we don't have the means to challenge for the league.
I don't think Wenger is without his faults. We definitely should have got a DM in the summer, but he's signed one now. But he's signed Ozil and Sanchez in the last couple of years too, they are absolutely top quality players along the lines of Henry and Pires. Those sorts of players don't grow on trees, they come along once in a while and there is usually big competition for their signatures.
That's why Bear's comment on the financial aspect is irrelevant for us now. We've got in some serious firepower recently, 2 elite young attacking players in their prime, just goes to show that we can get the required players to compete at the very highest. As for Wenger making mistakes, everyone does and no one is perfect, but for me he appears to be involved in the financial side of things too much. He's made us into a financial powerhouse but he is still apprehensive about spending money, especially when he thinks it's not a "bargain". It was understandable before but i find it frustrating that he feels the need to wait for a great deal. This is why i believe someone needs to come in and put him on his toes, make him focus solely on the football side of things and stay away from the finances. Missing out on a DM last summer was another example of Wenger over analysing the situation and getting it wrong.
Now that would depend on who was available but assuming one had free rein and hypothetically speaking, I would have taken Hiddink a couple of years ago or possibly Klop. I would also consider Di Matteo. Perhaps Koeman too. I might even bring in DB10 as an assistant manager and see if he would develop for the longer term. But they on their own in the current squad are not enough IMHO. Just look at our midfield and defence. Arteta has aged beyond being as useful as he once was ( I do like and am grateful he has been with us ), Flamini is definitely past it. Ramsey is inconsistent. Merts and Kos now make too many mistakes, on top of which we need cover for injuries. Oxlade-Chamberlain and Wilshere don't fill me with great encouragement and Welbeck was a poor buy. Over the years it seems we have signed players only to loan them out and with a minimum of exposure in the EPL. Then they are sold on. For profit one assumes and one assumes too, that this was the idea in the first place. We need to concentrate on bringing on players who will become the next generation of our first team. Right now if we end up this season without major honours and perhaps merely consolation prizes, I cannot think the likes of Sanchez, Ozil or Gabriel will not be looking at pastures anew. What a shame if like RvP, we lose them before we can gain big prizes by their presence and contribution. I really think we should be a club that fights for the big prizes, just as we used to when it was essentially Utd or us. I don't think we are that far from being able to compete BUT we are not taking the opportunities as they arise. A few good picks over the past two summer transfer windows and we might well have been defending champions today with a lead at the top of the table. As it is, we are in third with Spurs hard on our shoulders. I am not looking forward to our trip to WHL. We should have beaten them at the Emirates but that game was wasted just as our hosting of West Ham or our game at Anfield or when we met Southampton. We keep throwing our chances away and it happens every year. That is why I think we need above all, a change of manager. Wenger no longer cuts the mustard. OK if merely making the CL is our goal but being an also-ran - that in itself as I said before, diminishes us as a great club and saddens me.
Getting someone better than even an outdated Wenger is a lot harder than some of you seem to think. You could easily drop 5 places with an average manager - look at your record prior to Wenger if you want a clue as to what the outcome will be.
I hate when people make these fallacious statements. As if Arsenal would go for an average successor after Wenger. If we are a 'big' club as people say we are, we should have no problem attracting a manager of a high caliber. But people will carry on with the doom-mongering Post-wenger predictions even though we continue to stagnate as a club, in spite of the fact we've had "financial clout" for the past few seasons.
I think it's more down to fear than anything else. Arsenal was successful before Wenger, they were successful with Wenger and they will be successful after Wenger (thanks to Wenger ). I'm not really worried, Wenger has build a strong, financially strong club that will go on to bigger and better things, unfortunately the man to do it isn't Wenger. A shame really.
Where has this myth come from that Wenger is 'holding us together' and that we'd crash down without him? City and Real change managers all the time and don't get significantly worse...and in Reals case they've actually lost some good managers and stayed as they are as opposed to the overrated hasbeen we'd be getting shot of.
City and Real spend bucket loads of cash to make sure that they don't slide down the table. Do you really want Arsenal to go down the same route of sacking managers and throwing money at the wall ?
Probably just small factors like: history, probability etc.. I'm betting if we do a poll for non - Arsenal fans most will think Arsenal will go backwards without Wenger. That's because it's the more likely sinario. please log in to view this image To just assume we would improve is beyond stupid.
Getting in another manager does not mean that this will happen. You're just assuming that it will. It's a straw man argument.
