That would be good. I believe Mr Gazidis isn't too fond of the idea of DD's return so perhaps the CEO too can ply his skills elsewhere Cheers please log in to view this image
I think the problem is with Hill-Wood. He fell out with Dein after the Kronke affair famously saying 'We don't need their type at our club' (despite then eventually embracing the American) A lot of the old school have now gone. Eldeman, Fizman (rip) Bracewell Smith. I don't think Ken Friar ever had a problem working with Dein. But Hill-Wood did. Dein saw the future of football and what Arsenal needed to do to respond before any of the other board members did - and what was his reward? They shafted him. Dein still has a future at Arsenal, but it won't be until Hill-Wood is gone.
Ok that was a long reply so I will try to address your answer one paragraph at a time. 1)With Nasri I think we could have sold him earlier, I really don't know why we let it drag on so long as Man city were perfectly happy to offer us the same amount of money at the start of August. Wenger seemed to change his mind about 3 times on whether to sell him or not which is bad management. Fabregas was a more difficult situation as Barcelona were unprepared to deliver the money we wanted for him, however I still feel that we could have been tougher with them, set a deadline or something so that we didn't end up going in to the new season with it still unresolved. I accept that it may have been more difficult than that in reality though. As for availability of other quality players what about Mata, Aguero, Sneijder, Inler, Sahin (yes was sold before Fabregas but we still could have made a bid), Pirlo, Pastore, Cazorla, Falcao, Forlan, Eto etc who were all on the market this summer? Yes the likes of Eto, Aguero and Sneijder were unrealistic but we had at least 60 million this summer so we could have pushed out the boat a bit more. 2) You make a good case for the benefits of doing your business at the end of the transfer window but I still think its better to do the bulk of your business at the start and look for bargains in the final days as a bonus. By doing your signings in early August you: are able to go for your primary targets instead of risking that they will be sold to someone else, have more time for your squad to play together and send some intent which gives a lift to everyone associated with the club. SAF always gets most of his business done early and it hasn't done him any harm has it? We shouldn't be too focused on not overspending if the player is good enough and it doesn't break the budget. 3) I too am happy about getting Benayoun and Arteta but I do feel we could have got someone else in addition. Inler or Vidal for example went to Napoli and Juventus respectively for affordable fees. I am sure they would have improved our squad so why did we not even make a bid? Just because Fab is irreplaceable does not mean that we could not get someone a bit closer to his quality than Arteta (not that I don't rate him). 4)Mertesacker-excellent buy, have no complaints. 5)Gervinho- seems good so i am reasonably pleased but could we have got a little better? 6)Santos- probably the same level as Clichy or a bit higher so an ok signing. 7)Oxo-I don't think he is a joke i just think the signing of him is. If there is one thing we have enough of it is young attacking midfielders with potential but no end product, to have a deal that could possible rise to 12 million for him is ridiculous considering where else that could be spent. 8)Jenkinson is cheap, looks like he will be a solid player and loves our club but how can our 2nd choice right back be a kid from league 1? Not fair on him or us. 9) Don't know about Park but because of his price and his attitude I like him already. Problem is I felt we really needed another striker around RvP's level and I don't think he can be it. 10) I do think there were good midfielders available. Have already named Vidal, Pirlo (he was on a free for gods sake!) and Inler but there were others like M'Villa, Moutinho and Pastore who we could have got if we were a prepared to pay slightly over the odds for. Wenger did strengthen where we needed strengthening on the whole but I still feel besides Mertesacker and perhaps Santos were could have got better quality players. The likes of Benayoun, Arteta and Park are all good buys but if we want to challenge for the title (which is what we should have been aiming for this season) then we need to aim for better.
Can't disagree too much with that mate - although wages would have presented a problem (we nearly missed out on arteta because of them) I just think the Modric saga summed up the availability of creative midfielders in this window - not even a £40m bid could secure a transfer either. They are not great signings, but as Keown said 'They are Solid signings' I still think we'll be in for Cahill and another creative CM in the near future.
Cardiff fan, If you no longer wish to support the club then go somewhere else. Fans are those that support in good and bad times. As for high prices you can get cheap tickets for conference games, just depends on what standard of football you want to watch. Over time Arsenal have a good reputation and that reflects on the manager turning mediocre players into something much better and selling at a huge profit. At Cardiff we lost 12 players and are rebuilding that is what you must do now you lost your two star players which by the way came late into the transfer window. How does anyone know how your new signings will do until they are tested. I hope they do well because I came to like Wenger during this rough period.
Yes and no. Fair enough people should support their club through hard times but when us fans pay through the noses to watch a game, we deserve a certain level of service. Do you think Newcastle fans deserve to have a fat greedy **** of an owner - should they unconditionally support him as he owns their club? Should I as a Liverpool fan have supported the debt h and g were loading onto our club? It's one thing to support the players when they're losing or the management through tough times not brought on by themselves but it's entirley different to be expected to support club management when they are destroying your club.
The world is not black and white, you shouldn't have to make a choice between blind faith in your club and not supporting them all together.
Have we really written pretty much 2 essays just to come to the conclusion that we agree with each other? i guess we draw the line at you being happy with them and me not being.
interesting how some pundits and journos seem to think how it was wenger who was the one to blame for the nasri and fabregas deals dragging on throughout the summer. also interesting how people are trying to say mertesacker is not the best player in the world because he isnt mobile. and samba is?
We could have easily sold Nasri earlier so that one has to be Wenger's fault unless the board are pulling the strings here (which there is no evidence for). As I said above I feel we could have been a bit more forceful with Barcelona and set a deadline or something.
You're quite right Robin in that we could have been more forceful with Barcelona and indeed with our erstwhile captain but like David Moyes in relation to Micky when he put in for a transfer, Arsene probably felt that there was no point in keeping a player let alone one who was captain who felt no longer totally committed to the club. There is evidence of this sadly. I don't think that had Mikel Arteta or Per Mertesacker been in Cesc's shoes at St James' Park, that some form of rallying the troops would not have been forthcoming. Cesc didn't seem to me, able to give us his all and that over the final three months was hugely costly to us and we really could not bear for it to be repeated. I'm not talking about ability or style but of mindset. I wonder too how committed Nasri was to us when his performance fell away. So to recap, while we could have stood our ground, it might have been best to make wholescale changes as we have. Allied to that in an effort to achieve the best possible result, we would of course need to plan and co-ordinate, get our tactics in place, have every player in the team focused on his duty and for each and every player to play for each other. I have no doubt that a purposeful squad can achieve heights beyond their supposed strength that is measured on paper. One hopes this can apply to our squad. If Arsene can get this done it will be a far greater achievement I believe than to have made his youth policy work. The road ahead is long and we can prove them all wrong
do hope you put out a strong team in the carling cup, we need something to aim at. you underestimate us at your peril. man utd played their groundsmen, chaplain and some youth but we still beat them 2-1 at home, derby county 3-2 away and swansea city 3-1 at home. bring on the arsenal. floreat salopia, amwythig am byth, come on you shrews breath on em.
He didn't make 9. He made 11: 1. Mikel Arteta 2. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain 3. Andre Santos 4. Park 5. Chu 6. Young 7. Carl Jenkinson 8. Gervinho 9. Joel Campbell 10. Per Mertesacker 11. Yossi Benayoun Get your facts right
