It's a combination. The debt laden on the club meant that established players couldn't be bought - the price was too high - so the emphasis shifted to inexperience: Song, Fabregas, Nasri, Denilson, Bendy, Theo etc. As the debt has been paid down, there has been a definitive shift in emphasis from "youth with potential" to "here and now" players: Arshavin, Squillaci, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Merts, Arteta, Cazorla, Podolski, Giroud, Santos, Gervinho All in the last few seasons. This shift is great, and will help Arsenal to become competitive once again, however, it should still be supplimented by buying in players for the future where they are available, as those that don't make it should still have resale value (provided they are tied to long enough contracts). The issue is where the young player costs in the many millions, and is therefore a risk with regard to resale value. I'd place Ox in this category, and Zaha also. For this reason, I wouldn't consider him a sound investment. He may turn out great, but at the moment that is a risk, and 10m is a lot to pay for a risk.
This is just a cop out. We were'nt winning things because everytime quality players broke through into our first team the Club would use it as an opportunity to cash in on an established name. RVP wanted to leave BECAUSE we keep selling our best players. Same for Nasri. (Fabregas is perhaps an exception he left for diffrenet reasons) Many players get tempted by offers that come in from other big Clubs. You think United never received offers for Scholes or Giggs? The difference is that we wanted to sell. In fact the selling of players has been part of our financial model. So If you think Adebayor, Fabregas, Nasri, Clichy, Toure forced their way out you are WRONG - the club cashed in plain and simple. We dont need to buy established players in-order to compete and we certainly dont need to make 'Big Money transfers' For example had we kept hold of our best players and continued with our signing policy we could have a squad like this WITHOUT ever going after a 'marquee signing' (in fact not a single player here cost more than 15m - over half were in fact brought in at a young age)... --------------------Sczezney--------------------- Sagna----Mertesacker--------Vermaelen-----Clichy -----------Fabregas-------Wilshere--------------- -------------------Carzorla----------------------- Nasri--------------VanPersie--------------Podolski Bench: Arteta, Adebayor, Diarra, Toure, Walcott, Flamini, Mannone
"So If you think Adebayor, Fabregas, Nasri, Clichy, Toure forced their way out you are WRONG." eh ? "....We dont need to buy established players in-order to compete ........" to compete for what , 4th place seems to be our main ambition these days. ok chief ...you and me dont seem to have the same ambitions. lets just leave it at that .
As good as Flamini was, with the way Arteta's been playing, there'd be no point for Flamini, plus Diara is better than Flamini, so again, there'd be no use of Flamini. As for Adebayor, he can **** right the **** off, I'd have Giroud over him any day of the week, Adebayor had one good season for us in which he got 30 goals, mind you, 6 of those goals were scored in 2 hatricks against Derby County, who got relegated with one of the worst points tally in EPL history, as well as one of the worst defences. Other than that, Ade still needed 5 chances for every goal he scored, and was constantly lazy. Giroud may have missed some good chances, but he's still finding his feet, on top of that, Giroud is hard worker, and helps the team, and that's what fans want to see, and we never got that from Ade, that **** was so lazy it was beyond belief, so no way in HELL should that **** have any place in any Arsenal side. I'd also take Clichy out in place of either Cole or Gibbs, I currently rate Gibbs higher than Clichy because he doesn't just lapse out of concentration like Clichy did on so many occasions, Clichy was a major liability at times at the LB position, and if Gibbs can perform for the whole season as he's doing right now, then he's clearly the better defender of the two. Put it this way, Clichy cost us the title in 2008 with his stupid lapse of concentration VS Birmingham and then conceding a penalty, Gibbs on the other hand saved our 2012 season with an excellent tackle VS West Brom right at the end of the game, and thus insuring our position in 3rd place and top 4. :-D.
Thats not really my point. I was just showing how many quality players have been through the team in the last seven years. None of which where 'big money' or 'marquee' signings. Perhaps if we hadnt been so quick to sell we would have done alot better on the trophy front.
In fairness, we didn't want to get rid of Flamini or Lass, Flamini left on a free, and we all assumed Flamini would sign, which made us commit the mistake of sending Lass out. When it comes to Adebayor and Clichy, I don't really see them as major losses, didn't mind the backs of them. Fabregas, I think we had to let him go too, he wanted to head home, and had already given us a lot of seasons. Nasri and RVP on the other hand, I don't think we should have let them go.
We got a truly amazing offer for Ade considering just how annoying he was in his final season. He had moments but his attitude was pathetic at times. His 'performance' in the two games against Man Utd in the CL semi-final was nothing short of a disgrace. I do not get why some fans felt angry when he left. The deal we did for him was astonishing. And from City's side of the deal, that was one of their worst buys ever.
Chamakh had a good 1st season and Vela was alright. There will ALWAYS be failures If we went by your logic then Cesc, Robin, Wilshere, Chez, Ramsey, Coq, Oxo, Frimpong, etc... would not be here.
I agree entirely Bear. The issue has been selling to cash in, which is a business-motivated decision, rather than a footballing one. The books had to be balanced, and player sales were the ideal way to do it. The exciting thing is, if Arsenal carry on producing / enhancing players at the same level over the next few years, with less pressure to sell once FFP comes in fully, hopefully they will take their place at the top again.
I admire your optimism but i think you are living in dreamland. FFP will not make a blind bit of difference. If Arsenal are clinging on to that liferaft , we are going to be dissapointed. But good luck anyway .
This is what im talking about. See what we have come to accept now. "Chamakh had a good first season , and Vela was allright. " Remember when Arsenal were invincible. ? Its got nothing to do with cashing in on players . Those players were NOT GOOD ENOUGH ANYWAY . Who cares if we sold Nasri for cash , he did nothing . We have settled to be a top four finish team . Tell me you think THIS team can win the league. Go on . We may be lucky and snatch the FA cup or League cup but really , do you think we can win anything else. ? I am waiting for the day when the board shows REAL ambition to win BIG things and not just top four finishes.
It's like your talking but not actually listening. No our team is'nt strong enough to win the league but if we still had Fabregas and Van Persie it certainly WOULD be. Thus proving it's the selling that really hurts us. Our signings have been class and we need to keep buying young talent to maintain a strong future.
Most of the players that you say 'were'nt good enough' to win trophies at Arsenal have gone on to win trophies elsewhere... Fabregas - Won the Cope del Ray in his first Season at Barca (- and I expect he'll win alot more.) Nasri - Premierleague Title Clichy - Premierleague Title Toure - Premierleague Title Diarra - Has won La Liga and the Copa Del Ray. even Thierry Henry - Won La League x 2 Copa del Ray x 1 and the Champions League. I expect Alex Song and Robin Van Persie will also win trophies at Barcelona and Man Utd.
Exactly . Because those teams have SPENT money on class players. Look at the team nasri ,Toure and clichy play in and you wonder why they have some silver on the sideboard. Dzeko (27 million ), Balotelli (22 million ), Aguero (38 million ), Tevez (47 million ) Do you reckon Arsenal would EVER for out fork those players ? Gervinho ( 10 million ) Giroud ( 12 million ) They are good , but they are a class down from the best and it shows over the length of a season .
Your talking absolute non-sense. Van Persie was 2.5 million as a youngster!! Are you saying Fernando Torres is the better player just because he cost 50 Million? We signed Vieira for 1 million as a teenager and look how he turned out. Fabregas cost us next to nothing. Yet he was one of the very best players in the Premier-league. Wilshere is a product of our youth academy and again is a potential World Beater. Buying young and producing talent is the way to go. All that we need to do is keep hold our our experienced players and we will win things again.
Sure we could. As far as I'm awaire the club recently admitted we have 45 Million of unspent transfer funds. Thus pretty much proving the club could easily have manAged to keep RVP and Fabregas and still continue to spend.
