There were a lot of things for Arsenal fans to consider and talk about from the interview given this week by the club’s chief executive Ivan Gazidis. Most of the papers and sports websites have focused on his comments about the Gunners not being able to beat our big Premier League rivals when it comes to spending power and his suggestions that the club’s youth policy combined with an ultra careful and disciplined transfer policy will continue to be the Arsenal way.
Gazidis did go into quite a bit of detail about the way the club goes about these things things as well and one little nugget of information popped out at me, especially as it contradicts what we have been told about this side of things in the past.
We have heard boastful chest thumping from the chairman about how much money Arsenal could spend (if they really wanted to) and this often leaves the buck with the boss. Gazidis has often said in the past that the money is there for the Frenchman to buy whoever he likes (remember him saying we could afford Rooney and his astronomical wages a few years ago?).
The implication has been very clear that it is the manager and only him that decides whether Arsenal buy a player, but as reported by the Evening Standard, Gazidis let slip this week that the board does have a say and if they do not feel that a signing is good value then it may not happen.
He said, “We don’t sign players in response to public pressure. We sign players because we believe they will progress us as a club. We’re really disciplined about that. We have to be. We don’t have the financial resources of some of the other clubs.
“If we went out and just tried to compete only on the basis of spending more than others in transfer windows, that wouldn’t be a successful strategy for us. We have to be very disciplined about staying true to our values, staying true to the foundations of the club and making sure that we make smart decisions.
“Looking ahead in this transfer window, we’re going to retain that discipline. We will certainly add players if we think and our manager thinks they add value to our squad. We’re actively in the market, as is every other club. We won’t do it if we don’t see the value that’s added to our squad.”
So does this give you another perspective on why Arsenal seem to be so careful and why the fans are constantly frustrated about the lack of big money transfers? Will it make us go a bit easier on the manager when the going gets tough?
Bob.
That is why they sent Wenger to referee a game for the Vatican and then signed Welbeck while he was trying to give the pope a red card for swearing.
Hahaha ? That’s a myth ?
The truth is that SAF convinced Wenger to sign Welbeck ?
Wenger gets paid millions to take the heat off the board and owner . The owner meanwhile is on a ranch buying spree
This chief should please shut his mouth……
Amazing all the thumbs up to this comment. Gazidis is shedding some light on how things operate at arsenal. Just because you do not like what gazidis says, do you think if he shuts up arsenal will operate differently?
Nowhere in those comments does it state AW does not have the final say, seems more like he is just explaining the transfer policy, which we all are already aware of. We need a new front office this is ridiculous.
I think it should be pretty obvious, we had 100m available last summer and only spent 10m, we should’ve had 190m available to spend this season so what happened to the 90m from last year ? You can’t go from spending on Henry to thinking Sanogo is the best buy unless you either have mental problems or someone is forcing to quit spending. Wenger clearly doesn’t suffer from dementia otherwise he wouldn’t be allowed to work, and he keeps praising the likes of Suarez and Benzema which means he does know what sort of player we lack. I think the main reason the manager is one of the highest paid managers in the world is so that he can take the blame for all the board’s decisions no matter how annoyed the fans get.
I think you are assuming that cash reserves are to be spent on player transfers.
Here is a quote on 18 sept 2015 from the bbc website “”We’re focused on delivering more success,” said Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis. The cash reserves of £193.1m are intended to cover costs for a full season and are not solely designated for player transfers.”
In 2015, arsenal operating expenses without player transfers were £281.4m and cash reserves were £228.2m. This implies that the arsenal board consider that cash reserves need to be some £50m higher.
Mahrez + Ben from Toulouse + mustafi
Beautiful
@vinjoe………..where’s the beauty in no signings?
Last year it was …. “if wenger got a target, we back him!”
this year it’s “wenger does not have sole control over arsenal transfer”
Fishy ,greedy and saucy board of directors and that includes Wenger as well as bald bould!
I wouldn’t take any notice of what Gazidis says, as he has proven in the past that he talks aload of ?!!
Even Wenger has been brushing Gazidis’s comments under the carpet, lately.
The muppetidis is just trying to dampen the transfer rumours, since wenger has being getting angry and upset with the leakage, regarding his targets.
As for the transfer rumours, Mahrez has apparently agreed a 5 year deal to join Arsenal and this is supposedly to be confirmed within the next 48 hours lol ? Yeah right! ?
I noticed that Aubameyang was omitted from the Dortmund squad against City today! That’s interesting when the player only recently made a statement about being upset with the journalist made up stories regarding him and Real Madrid.
Is he off to the Olympics? … Or to another club?
@fatboy………he’s off to Arsenal in a fLight that will never arrive at the Emirates
Hahaha ? Well, the Bermuda Triangle and JustArsenal.com have a lot in common…. with things vanishing! ?
Planes, Ships and comments ?just to name afew ?
?@ Admin
“Wenger does not have sole control on transfers”
What else is that “id*ot” going to say?
So far we got Granit, a Japanese striker we might never see and CB branded the new Stones (like it is a reference!! The guy is only rated in the UK and will cost £50 millions only because he is British and we all know that…).
Sissoko would have been a great addition in our “light weight” midfield which will get bullied again and again…!!
We still need a striker, because Walcott is the biggest waist of money this club had ever made…
We were told that we should build a new stadium so that we could compete with the top clubs in the transfer market. Then we learnt that we couldn’t because we had to pay the money back, but when we had, well we’d be off and running. Then we discovered that our wage bill was second highest in the premiership.This after we were selling all our best players every year. Nothing has changed because we still go out and buy rubbish, then pay them too much,and as they are not good enough to play they stay until their contract ends. Far from being a well organised and disciplined transfer policy it’s a joke run by a bunch of jokers with a manager who behaves as if he is trapped in a world of football fairy tales and has lost his grip on reality. Never a dull moment, though.C.O.Y.G.
Proffetic, i agree with much of what you said, however the latest accounts available on arsenal. com show stadium debt as being £233.9m, that is far from “paid off”.
Still remember the season before Walcott injury? 21 goals in all competition, 14 PL goals.. it would be mad for Wenger to not renew Walcott’s contract on those numbers.
It’s always easy to judge people in hindseight.
Shh!! Too much logic in that comment!! No football brain and blah, blah, blah!!
This answer changes every other week. How about the whole lot of you leave the club? That would satisfy many fans. Stop stealing money from fans and offering Sanogo in return
Chief says they wouldn’t yield to the pressure of fans in buying players, that makes Wenger sound loyal to them. They probably will yield when the stadium is empty game after game. Arsenal is a very loved club, they shouldn’t make us retract our love by perceived inactivity in the transfer market or by making such statements that undermines the belief by the fans that we are a top club. Arsenal actually raked in the highest of combined profits for all the teams in the premier league and you can’t compete in signing players, isn’t that awkward. What are they saving the money for? To buy barca? Imagine if we had a coach like Pep, will they making excuses on not signing players? A few weeks to the opening of the PL season and we are short on players in strategic position. If we don’t challenge for the title properly, then there are no excuses,Wenger and the board would have failed.
Sheik mansour, abramovich and kroenke all own football clubs. They are all multi billionaire businessmen. Sheik mansour is promoting abbu dhabi and wants to win the CL and does not care about the cost, abbu dhabi must not be seen to fail. For Abramovich it is a hobby and he wants to win trophies, but seems to be spending less money on chelsea these days. Kroenke wants to make money and concentrates on sports clubs and very large ranches.
We will happily believe that sheik mansour and abramovich control the financial policy of their clubs.
Why is it that many on this site beleive that wenger controls the financial policy at arsenal. Comments like, “he has the money why does he not spend it”, “he treats arsenals money as if it is his own” etc.
Kroenke controls the financial policy at arsenal just like sheik mansour and abramovich at their clubs.
There are plenty of things to criticise wenger for, including how he spends the money made available to him but overall financial policy including taking money from cash reserves to buy players is down to kroenke.
I’ve always said, many will be shocked and indeed have egg on their face when Wenger writes him memoirs.
Changing manager will not change this clubs policy on cutting corners.