I know it's never really been Wenger's style to sign players with a large transfer fee but it seems such a short sighted approach for the stability of the team. Wenger appears to rarely over bid to guarantee getting a player but when others have been willing to spend more (sometime only a small amount more than us) it seems to be a negative philosophy. FOR EXAMPLE: *Rio Ferdinand @ 30M was a huge fee to pay for a 23 year old but he stepped up to become a key player for Man Utd over 9 seasons wining 5 Championships and a European Cup *Drogba @ 24M for a 26 year old from the french league where he had never scored more than 19 league goals but 7 seasons later he's won 3 Championships (and several other cups) *Rooney @ 25M for an 18 year old with only 2 seasons under his belt could have been a massive failure but 7 seasons later and 4 Championships he's been well woth the investment Obviously these teams have had massive failures (Schevchenko, Veron, etc...) and aren't in the healthiest of financial positions but paying over the odds for the long term good of the team could make a massive difference to our own club. You hear rumors that we missed out on players like Alonso or Schwarzer over 2-3M it makes you sick as we would make that money back ten fold from actually achieving success. And now with several players looking to leave we're in danger of struggling even more to convince any of these big names in marker to come join us. We need several players and I don't expect they'll all be 20M+ but we need at least a couple of top notch players who can perform immediately for the team and be players to build the team around over the coming seasons without fear of another Nasri...i.e. they get established then want to move on. Take a gamble on Hazard @ 20M or Cahill @ 17M rather then short cuts which actually cost us more in the long run.
Yeah you can look at it that way or: Henry Messi Xavi Iniesta Fabregas Wilshere Van Persie Sagna Adams Campbell
The key is that a Big money signing or two could be the ingredient to push the club forwards. * Walcott, Van Persie, Nasri have all called for signings and its obvious players are getting restless at Arsenal (in other words players are starting to doubt Wengers philosophy towards transfers) *If Wenger does'nt strengthen in the next few weeks I think we'll see Clichy, Nasri and Fabregas all put in transfer requests. Its constanly the same cycle. If there is one club that would truely benefit from 1-2 WORLD CLASS additions it's Arsenal.
I agree that we need to be less reluctant to spend money but expensive signings does not = success. We shouldn't get an irrational view that to be at the top we need to buy 30 million players every summer because that is not good business.
Exactly. It annoys me that Liverpool will spend £35 million on Carroll and £20 million on Henderson because they're doing even more damage to the market than Manchester City. For me, Henderson is unproven and £7 million should be considered a gamble.
