Ok I cant imagine how bad yesterday must have felt for arsenal fans so I am not going to dwell on the game, other than to say it wasnt exactly your proudest hour. in many ways it is a crying shame, as I have always enjoyed watching Arsenal play, and have immense respect for what Arsene Wenger has been doing in his efforts to build and nurture a team from scratch. I hate to sound like a broken record, but those of you crying out for Wenger's head, please consider the following: 1. If he truely had the money, not just to buy expensive players but more importantly to pay the wages of expensive players, he would. The man is not an idiot. The club is running to a tight budget and he is doing the best he can with the resources available. Having 30 million available to buy a player means diddly squat if you can only pay them 50,000 a week and they can earn 3 times that figure elsewhere. 2. Due to the aforementioned financial constraints, big players will not feel comfortable joining, and top players at the club need constant reassurance that the club is going in the right direction. I maintain that any manager in world football, given similar resources and expectations, would struggle. 3. In the modern financial footballing climate, building a team to compete with the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea (and to a lesser extent, Liverpool) whilst being able to offer considerably less to the top players can only be achieved by building a team of young players. There are very few more up to this job than Arsene Wenger. 4. Whilst Man Utd fielded a very young team yesterday, it is a very young team that is guided and supported by relatively experienced, expensively bought and very expensively paid star players (Rooney, Evra, Giggs, Park, even Young. Add Ferdinand, Vidic, Berbatov, even Nani has been around a few years!). Their ability to keep hold of these players over the years (and even they have struggled at times) has been due to their offers of success and financial reward. This is due to a worldwide fan base and historical, global appeal meaning they have one of the largest operating profits of any football clubs in the world, meaning they can financially come close to competing with the megabucks of city and chelsea. This is not to take away from the good work done by Ferguson and his coaches, indeed it is largely as a result of it, but without this financial clout United would be struggling just as badly as Arsenal. All of the above said, he does have a big job on his hands. Through (in my opinion) no real fault of his own, Arsenal are now seriously struggling, and he is in grave danger of losing the faith of the supporters and the board. I only ask one question in summary: Who, given identical resources, expectation and competition, could do a better job? Not a better job than losing 8-2 to your biggest rivals, but a better job than he has over the last 15 years, and will undoubtedly continue to do.
Wenger and the Board have brought the situation on themselves, continually selling star players and not replacing them. Financially Arsenal are strong, making substantial profits each year even after stadium loan repayments. The economics at Arsenal are good, fans are paying a minimum of £1300 per year for a season ticket more than twice as much as the other clubs in the top 4, the match day income is approx £60 Mill a season and the stadium loan £20 Mill per year. Sky TV & Champions League revenues and Merchandising rake in approx £150 Mill giving a total revenue of over £200 Million, take out wages of around £115 million plus other costs and you are left with a profit of around £50 Million a year. The money is there, Wenger wants to prove to the world how good he is by trying to assemble a team of nobodies to win everything and it won't work in the Premiership. He should go now and give some one else a chance before he ruins Arsenal.
Sweet FA - don't believe the hype. WE play our players handsomely hence the reason why we have the 4th highest wage bill in the league (used to be 3rd until Citeh came along). WE earn £3m gate receipts - the highest in world football. Our stadium debt is probably less than £100m now (it was £100m almost a year ago), down from circa £400m WE have far more disposal income now than we did. The season we bought Arshavin we spent around £35m on players. The board stressed that our survival is not dependent on CL football so even if we went out, losing that £25m wouldn't hurt us. The stadium debts were ring-fenced meaning they don't affect our operating budget. We sold the Highbury flats and clawed back more money than we anticipated when the Credit Crunch hit our forecasts a few years back. So we are very healthy. Nobody is asking for a £30m player, but buy 2 £15m players FFS and stop penny pinching.
This is the bit where I disagree - He does replace players. The issue is he doesn't replace them with players of equal/similar ability. And I still believe this is because of the financial constraints placed on him by the board. To clarify - I am not suggesting that Arsenal are a poor club, or in financial difficulty. What I am suggesting is that they cannot and wont for the forseeable future be able to compete in the transfer market with either Manchester club, Chelsea, Barcelona or Real Madrid. For Arsene Wenger to convince somebody of a similar ability to Cesc Fabregas (for example) that Arsenal is the place for them, when that player is almost certainly being chased by all 5 of the aforementioned clubs is a monumental task. And I can't see how it would be any different with a new manager.
It's not Wenger's decision whether to go and spend money on a big player, its the board and, most importantly, the owners decision. Arsenal laid out a 5 year strategy at the beginning of the financial year in 2011 - free spending and high wages was not part of this. They anticipate the Financial Fair Play rules coming in and changing the game. At this moment in time Arsenal are the model for clubs who compete in European competitions but do not carry unsustainable amounts of debt. The choice for Arsenal fans is long term stability, or short term success. Kroenke is not like Sheik Mansour or Roman Abramovich, who either inherited their money or came to it through a Presidential decree- and spend it like they haven't earned it. Kroenke will continue to try and run the club like a business and, for the time being, disappoint the fans. There is no-one better than Wenger who would want to come into this position.
True - Can't argue with facts, but I don't think its any coincidence that numbers 1, 2 and 3 of the 'highest wage bill' list are almost certainly going to be 1, 2 and 3 of the premier league this year (liverpool fans may jutifiably argue with that statement though). And, whilst I am again making assumptions here, I take it there is quite a gap between the 3rd highest wagebill and the 4th? I don't want to get into making excuses for you, but any team other than the current big 4 (united, city, chelsea, liverpool) with 8 first teamers out injured playing Man United in that form at Old Trafford would have got a tonking. I think yesterdays result is more an indication of the gulf that is beginning to exist between those that can really compete in the transfer market for the top, top players, and those that can't.
You won't have long term stability if we get relegated and we are in relegation form since the CC Final. Nothing i have seen since convinces me that Wenger is the answer to any of our problems now. Oh and we should have £80 Mill to spend from player sales this summer alone. We are being ripped off by the Yank.
Part of the problem is rewarding sub standard payers with lucrative long term contracts, players like Denilson, Squilaci, Bentner, Arsharvin, Rosicky, Almunia, Djourou, Chamakh. Getting this lot of the payroll would save us 20 m a year, I realise this is a little simplistic and other players would need to be signed to maintain a strong squad but these guys are not good enough and are a constant drain on arsenals resorces. It is difficult to move them on because no other team is prepared to match their wages. Arsenal seem to have got the balance all wrong, not paying enough for top quality but paying over the top for mediocracy.
We bought Oxlade-C who we don't need - yet may miss on a defence saving player like Cahill or Jagielka. Its Crazy thinking.
And WHY did we have 8 first teamers out ? 1) because the players Wenger buys are sicknotes or not fit for purpose (in the most physical league in Europe). 2) Wenger neglected to provide sufficient quality in depth. The squad is Wenger's responsibility. No other team would've been in that situation because no other manager would've neglected the squad like Wenger has. When Chelsea and Man U had massive injuries last season I think (or was it season before last), remember when Man U didn't have any defenders and Carrick had to play at Centre Half and they lost to West Ham, they didn't get tonked by anyone !
Arsenal's main problem is a lack of reinvestment. Even when they go out to buy players to replace departing members, they tend to go for relatively inexpensive ones and certainly not replace them on a like for like basis. Replacing a Cesc Fabregas would be a near impossibility but not even coming close would cost a lot more in the long run. Right now, it is a ' make do ' approach and that is clearly woefully inadequate. We need to address the cause of this lack of reinvestment. Their 5 year plan based on the introduction of the FFP rules runs the risk of plunging the club to a level more suited for mediocre performers and with no certainty of a quick fix. It is in fact more likely to take years before Arsenal can be in a position to fight for a Top 4 place let alone challenge for silverware. Yesterday's starting XI was the second team. If the first team can only manage 1 ( YES, ONE ) win in the EPL in 10 attempts ( the last 7 games of the previous season were DDLWLLD ) I fail to see how a depleted first team that we have now, let alone a third rate second team can carry us through a long season. What the board and ownership make of this is a mystery. The main owner says nothing. The board do nothing concrete to address the problems so the short to medium term future for Arsenal is quite unremarkable. In fact, based on the run of form of the last ten EPL games ( 7 points out of a possible 30 ) we are headed for relegation. That's 7 points in 10 matches and with 38 matches in a season, assuming all else being equal, we would be on 27 points!!! Do the maths friends but I warn you - it is depressing. The board and those who sold us out should be escorted to the gallows.
Couldn't have put it better myself. Offer £15 mill each for Cahill and Baines, then another £30 mill on a midfielder and an out and out striker !!
