Im not sure we have the third highest wage bill in the league, surely city, manu and chelsea are higher, even liverpool used to be higher but possibly not and more, anyway finishing 3rd like we did last year and having the 3rd highest wage bill technically is a good position.
You can't forget Carzola. He's just started playing in the Premiership and is already looking good. He has been our main creative outlet and without him, we would be 8th/9th....
This to me is a slightly more detailed post along the tired old line of - "We aren't winning trophies, so somebody must be under-performing, and the buck stops with the manager." I've given up trying to point out how Arsenal can't be expected to win trophies, based on the fact that there are 3 teams richer than us that also expect to win trophies and there are not enough to go round. I look at the league table at the end of the year, and I very rarely see a team above us, that has spent less money than us. We, as fans, have become so used to beating those teams, despite the fact that the gap in spending between us and the next tier of team down, is far less than the gap between us and the teams above us. I remember reading a study that worked out how much a club on average, had to spend for each point they won in the EPL. In other words each clubs total spending on operations was divided by the number of points they got. Then all the clubs were averaged, to get the total average. Wenger and Arsenal, over 10 years, were running about +11 points per year, above where the average spending should put them. Only SAF and MU are doing better at about +14. After that, no other manager/club had managed more than +5 for even a single season. Obviously a lot of clubs/managers would have minus numbers. If Wenger leaves, for Arsenal to win the league, you will have to expect the new manager to outperform any manager that has ever managed in the entire history of the premiership, including SAF, by about 5 - 10 points. Good luck with that!
Wenger did stay because of loyalty. He was building something here, he felt the club would be loyal to him, allow him to create something very good and in turn he would repay the loyalty by not jumping ship for other offers. Real Madrid and France both offered him the job, there were rumours he turned down the England job and i'm sure there have been plenty of other offers on the table. You forget that he was voted the best manager of the decade 2000-2010 which was done by journalists, other managers etc.... So he is clearly very highly thought of and would walk into several top top managerial jobs. And i'm sure he could be paid moe in one of them as well. I think it is obvious the loyalty he has shown to us, so i don't see why you'd try and belittle that aspect of his personality. Also i think you are unfair to blame Wenger fpor having players on the boosk on good money who arent near the first team - Squillaci looked like a great signing but flopped, he was supposed to be a first team player so was on first team wages, but he flopped. Pre-Arsenal he had a great career. Djourou looked at one point like he would become our first choice CB so i can understand how he ended up on high wages only to end up not being good enough. And its the same with most players who are on higher wages than they should be - they showed great potential, looked like they where gonna be the real deal and then failed. So i'm not sure you can entirely blame Wenger and say he made bad decisions with those players as at the time of those contracts being signed they didn't look like flops. You also mention Park as being a waste of money. But he cost us £3mil which in the grande scheme of things is peanuts. He will have sold us a ton of shirts in asia as well to make up some of, if not all of, that fee. So i don't think you can moan at the board for that as i highly doubt it has had any impact whatsoever on the club. It's not that a ton of us fans are blind to any flaws Wenger has or mistakes he makes. But we also recognise just how good of a manager he is. We would NOT get anyone better in to repalce him and i'm very sure that any other manager would take us backwards at an alarming rate. I also find it hilarious that everyone says FFP is a joke and it won't change everything, its a massive gamble etc... But the driection of football seems to be towards FFP type regulations and we have planned ahead to be very well positioned during this time. Even without FFP the club is doing very well off the field an as such much more money will be available to Wenger to invest in the squad. I sometimes think that fans have a go at the board and Manager even when they are doing things right. The board have got a lot of stick over the last couple of seasons but very little appreciation for the good work off the field for the club. Wenger has had alot of stick for not winning anything, but very little appreciation for continually getting us competing at the top and above the position we should be with money spent. I do not follow blindly, but with my eyes as open as possible. It is clear to me Wenger is the bets man for the job currently. That may change in the future but as it stands he is the man to keep us at the top during our transition to a club who can spend some more cash. And with his scouting network and eye for talent i'm sure we will have some exciting times at the club over the next few years! In Wenger we trust
