Because the players Chelsea go for have inflated prices attached to them - not because they are better players I am struggling to think of a single player that Chelsea bought in the last 5 years that I wish we had. Not even Mata, he is not a player we desperately need. Kyle - when we were linked to Mata Chelsea had not shown any interest. It was us and eventually Spurs who had shown an interest. Once the deadline passed for the clause and Arsenal continued to dither Chelsea stepped in, it was only at this point that he went out of our reach. We did NOT miss out on Mata because Chelsea stepped in, we missed out on Mata because the club are a bunch of tight, dithering oafs ! How can you say we missed out on Mata PISKIE because of Chelsea's spending when there are reports the player stated a desire to come to Arsenal in various newspapers ?!! http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/01/arsenal-valencia-juan-mata
The are some accounts that Chelsea offered £8m more in wages. But as HotHead says, there was a clause that we could have bought him under before Chelsea came in, so I do agree that we stalled and missed out.
to win the title you need squad depth , this is where we lose out in the money stakes. On our day we can beat anyone, but the season isnt just one game, its 38 . Our team is a strong team. Our squad isnt , Its miraculous that RVP has missed hardly any games , we were lucky to have finished third in my opinion . It could have been disastrous if he picked up an injury. We need to lose some of the B team and try to achieve TWO A teams . Some of our second level players are really not good enough for Arsenal.
According to Nigel Winterburn we were unable to buy Mata until we sold Fabregas & Na$ri as we didn't have the money to buy him
If you gave me the choice of Podolski or Hulk, I'd take Podolski any day of the week. I don't see Hulk shining to the worth of 38 million pounds, he's not going to be anywhere near to that worth in terms of performances for them. As for Hazard, I have a feeling he will do good for Chelsea next season, and will do good for them in the long term as well. He may not have a fantastic season (who knows) next year, but he will become better and better over time, he's still very young so he will learn the game, adapt etc. With Arsenal it's gone all quiet at the moment, we made a good start with getting Podolski, but haven't done much since then, I'm sure we are negotiating and trying things behind the scenes, but from most of the reports, it seems our negotiations are going really sh!t, as usual.
Maybe if we didn't waste over 2 million pounds on Park, that extra 2 million pounds would have helped us in acquiring his services? That right there is the epitome of Arsenal's stupidity, we talk about finance this finance that, but we spend so much money on utter uselessness. We spent 2 million, and give this player a good weekly wage yet he never did anything for us, and never made a single start in the Premier League. We then have other players like Squilachi etc who are getting good wages, yet never play, never contribute anything meaningful to our side. Perhaps if we stopped spending money like idiots, and used the good money we have, in a wise manner, we'd be able to afford those top targets we want.
Exactly Arsenal as of the beginning of last season (before the Nasri and Fabregas sales) had over £150m in reserve .. sat there .. waiting .....
I'm not in the camp that believes we should be using that reserve. We have 150 million in there, so does that mean we spend it all??? We have enough money to spend on good quality players, without having to dip into our reserves.
Big difference between dipping into the reserves and spending it all. It doesn't have to be an extreme ! why do we have the reserve anyway if we can't use it ? What rainy day are we saving for ? £20m per season for the stadium (mortgage) only, we are making massive profits, the rise in wage bill is a mere nick, not even a dent.
All very well to criticise in hindsight. At the time I thought he was right to fight to keep them, if he'd sold them at the start of the window, he would have been accused of caving in and selling our best players.
Its the dithering thats the problem. If you say you are going to keep the players - keep them. Don't sell them at the last minute and put the season in turmoil.
He's right to fight to keep RVP he's our best player. Jayram was calling for him to be transfer listed if he didn't sign before the Euros, I'm glad he's changed his tune to something akin to mine, which is that we should keep him, even if he doesn't sign. He will have one more year with us, and by the time he leaves he will be nearly 30. The front three of Podolski, RVP, Walcott is much stronger than Gervinho, Podolksi, Walcott.
I agree with that. I think we need to take a firm stance with RVP - and that means the board supporting Wenger to keep his players, not pulling the rug out like they did with Nasri.
