Our transfer policy is simply unacceptable. by KM
Okay. With more or less a week until the window ends, we are again terribly unprepared for the start of the season. We missed all of our targets apart from Xhaka and to all the people who kept saying “wait until the window ends”, I believe the time to panic is right about now. No wait, it was 1 month ago, when it was clear where we are heading.
Arsene came out with statements like the fact the club has 600 employees and that he treats transfer money like it is his own. This is an abuse in our face. He practically said “I am Arsenal and Arsenal is me” and this is well true. But I’d like to address the reason why are things so bad? How can we improve our transfer policy?
Well this is impossible. This means that either Wenger changes or he is stripped of some of his power, to allow transfers into the hands of other people. Both are as unlikely as it is for us to win the league. The end of Arsene is near. This year, next one or in another 3, with this policy he is simply self-destructing his own legacy.
We miss a man like David Dein. We need a director of football, a transfer manager/committee and practically a board and a coaching staff that are capable of doing their job. Transfers are not that hard to do. We make it hard, because we want to bargain in a market where money flies like flies! We will not sign Mustafi and we’ll hardly sign Johny Evans for 25 million and honestly I prefer giving Rob Holding a chance, rather than signing Evans…
Anyway though, when Gabriel got injured it was time for us to go to Valencia and give them 30 or even 35 million and just get Mustafi. We should’ve done it even earlier, so he could be prepared for the start of the premier league. Now it will not happen… We should’ve coughed up 40 million for Lacazette, because with Giroud it doesn’t work.
United and City spend big to improve sides that needed improvement and excluding Pogba they didn’t pay all that much over the odds. Nolito was bought for reasonable money, why didn’t we try to get him? Spanish clubs, apart from Barca and Madrid, are cash strapped and we could use that to our advantage, but of course Arsene has to make the negotiations, because he has to have control over everything and this is why we are so bad at it.
Arsene has the dream job people hope to get their entire life. He gets incredibly well paid to do the entire work, which he doesn’t do really well, but he still gets paid and he’s immortal at the club. The real problem is not that this season will go to hell. The fact that this is the 10th season in a row that goes nowhere, with no ambition and no preparation is what worries me.
Fans fight each other over the fact, some are so attached to the club, they don’t want to believe it’s as bad as it is, while others realise where we are and want to break the wheel. At least we all realised Arsenal is a business not a football club, with an accountant in charge. But even from that perspective we have a problem. In a competitive environment, if you don’t look at the competition they will destroy you, because they always improve.
We just look at numbers, but the numbers will become dangerously bad in a few years time with our suicidal policy. The players themselves are tired of Arsene. Club captain Mertesacker (why exactly is he captain? anyone???) said last year it was a miracle we finished second. Koscielny said this would be a “difficult season”. Oh really Laurent? I feel your pain brother. I wouldn’t want to play for Arsenal under Arsene, and I’m a fan of the club!
Even the story with the employee that left – true or false, either way it put out a serious point. This is not about where the season goes, it’s about how the club is ran in a fundamentally wrong way. Fans booing themselves on the first game of the season! I can rant here for hours with real proof why we need change as soon as possible, but it will still not convince the blind faith some people have for Arsene.
Sure what do we fans know compared to a manager with more than a 1000 games under his belt. Well you don’t need a 1000 games to see the results and the league table over the past decade. You can clearly see the pattern that repeats yet again. I call for the fans to express their frustration.
Arsenal has over a 100 million fans worldwide. Put that as a country and it will be the biggest by population in Europe (excluding Russia and Turkey, which I don’t count european). Arsene is like the prime minister with Ivan the president. Fans over Europe express their concerns with club decisions. Arsenal fans can do it too. Because if we just accept whatever comes our way, we are just part of the problem.
And we need a solution to come from somewhere. The best one would be a new owner and a new board. This is virtually impossible as long as Arsene delivers the numbers though. Decide for yourself what is important.
Konstantin
The Only thing that we an do now is to wait till Arsene era ends, He has completely lost it and effeminately no ambition to win the PL, I will wait and wait till the day comes when some one else will replace him. Now I am OK with any one, Any one whether experienced or not or top quality manager or not does not matter. What matter most is replace him.
Who ever come , just need to have ambition unlike Wenger who works for money.
Even a so called low profile manager, could do a better job than Wenger.
1st in transfer business , it was simple- Spend 100 million and get a forward and a defender,
2nd : In terms of Pragmatic approach during a game, Wenegr keeps on failing ,
3rd: Weneger has also lost making unknown players into stars,
So may i ask what is the benefit of Paying Wenegr 8 million?
Here I can only request the Season Ticket Holder and other members who unlike us has some Power, to do something for this Beloved club, Protest as much as you can against Wenger. You have the Power.
Ok then, let’s vote.
Joachim Loew ??
Diego Simeone ??
Max Allegri ??
Laurent Blanc ??
Manuelle Pellegrini ??
Roberto Mancini ??
Ronald Koeman ??
Slaven Bilic ??
Eddie Howe ??
Thierry Henry ??
Mikel Arteta ???
Lars Lagerbäck
Only if he fondles himself frequently, and then holds his fingers up to people asking how it smells
I’m not sure if I can allow that comment! This is a website for all the family!
my nan is on here im sure of it.
shes 93 an a war veteran- have some dignity people!!!
That Josh37 sounds like your nan Muffy!
I wouldn’t mind a job at Arsenal. getting overpaid and doing absolutely NOTHING.
you will do something, paying 600 employees
Also will have to attend 1 or 2 a week, a back slapping board meetings and G&T sessions afterwards…does get tiring and stressful after a while.
Wenger, Ivan, Kroenke are all in for ‘sustainable business’ – Wenger just get more slacks as the manager. If the manager already identified Mustafi and Lacazette as targets, I don’t believe the board can not pressure the manager to spend – especially the one who negotiate transfer is Dick Law, not Wenger
Let Wenger go alone won’t change anything. Don’t expect top managers like Ancellotti, Simeone to join us with the current shoestring transfer budget.
I would rather go by this order – change the owner, add a director of football (like David Dein) then change the manager
I think the overall policy is set by kroenke but he has his good points as follows
1. He has not bought arsenal using borrowed money with arsenal as security, then using income from arsenal to pay off the loan.
2. He does not take money out by paying share dividends.
3. His salary and sons salary for being on the board is very small, about £25k per annum each.
4. The £3m he takes out for “strategic and advisory advice” is small compared to the investment he has put in.
5. He has built up cash reserves, some of which could be used for player transfers.
Abramovich has actually loaned chelsea over a billion pounds. The glaziers have done 1 and 2 above, they must now be borrowing heavily so manu could be very susceptible to future interest rate rises.
Arsenal are hopeless at communications. Kroenke basically says nothing then goes to a conference and talks about “not being involved to win championships”, causes confusion about what he means and then does not clarify it. Gazidis on one hand says we can compete for top players then says we cannot compete. Wenger is the master of saying a lot of words but little substance. In steps the media with made up stories.
Manc sack managers who win PL but do not do well enough in CL. Abramovich wants to win everything, manu want to win the PL judging by what they have been spending.
We do not know what the footballing aims of arsenal are, is it top four and occasional domestic cup. Is it to win the PL? The suspicion us fans have is that it is top four but arsenal will not openly say that for fear of losing support.
The “Whine and cheese” parade continues…
i will have some brie an a nice glass of merlot, thank you
and some grapes… please..
Sour grapes?
We know Kroenke is against
winning because it’s too
expensive while Wenger lost the will
to seriously compete after Mourinho burned him in ’05-’06.
Ferguson in comparison responded by winning 5 more Premierships.
Kroenke gave Wenger the ideal job for life 7 mill per year with no pressure to win.
For the Manager who has no life away from football the job for life
(and the 7 mill p/y) is an addiction he does not intend kicking.
Most of the players too are on fat salaries with no pressure to perform
let alone win titles and few if any show any inclination to leave.
Only Campbell on low wages accepted a loan.
The only way anything will change is if the fans demand change.
But when the fans had their chance at the Emirates at the end of
last season they responded by singing “And it’s Arsene Wenger…”
“No titles are us” is deeply ingrained at Arsenal FC because
the Owner, the Board, the Manager, the Players and the fans
are all very happy not competing for the title.
Where does that leave the 10% of us Arsenal fans who do want to win the title?
very true, the ones who still have faith in Wenger may be are satisfied with the titles won 12 years ago (no glimpse of UCL though) and are happy just to watch the mediocre average players playing week in week out while cash is flowing in like no tomorrow and Mr. Wenger is busy improving his contracts and salary every year
Lets look at this objectively:
If we believe that there is a budget of £100m then he has spent around £40m of that already. That leaves £60m. So if he would have bought Higuain………………….well he couldn’t! He went for more than £60m! So why not spend £45m on Lacazette? That would leave £15m for a defender! Let is not forget that Per is probably done as a long term starter so he will need a senior defender either this window or next summer. Leaving it to next summer means a chunk of the budget blown next year!
Lets be realistic here. Wenger has a load of money and he needed to buy a CD, CM ST. But it turns out £100m doesn’t go far. He addressed the deep lying playmaker issue and now has to address two other issues. And this is all assuming that £100m was there.
Give the guy a break. He is working under very difficult conditions. When Stones goes for £50m and Higuain for €75m then that shows the tone that was set for this window. So stop being all high and mighty and being sucked in by this media nonsense.
PS: and no BS over suggesting mediocre players that ‘might’ be able to do a job. He tried it with Chamakh and Gervinho and got alot of slack for that. So let the guy just do his job!
Your objectivity is trash Mr. Robin
If clubs like Leicester and tottenham can scout and find players like kante, mahrez and delle ali, what is Arsene doing? we gooners are stuck with walcott, ramsey and mertesacker
Its unbelievable that Wenger thinks this team is good enough to fight for the Premier league when it is very obvious that some positions need cover and some need replacement. Dont spend 100 mill, go ahead and find the cheap gems that he always looks for but why hasnt he yet? I dont mind Rob Holding type of signings but why hasnt he got such a striker yet?
There is no way to look at Wenger’s actions objectively.. the old man has lost it
Your reply is trash. How much did the following cost?
Monreal
Kos
Bellerin
Elneny
Iwobi
Ospina
The point is that that phase of the team is over. To move up a step it needs established players for now. He has a limited budget (a very large one by most peoples standards but not enough to fulfil the objective he has). He needs two established players that make an immediate impact. To find that solution is going to take some effort and he is trying.
ooohhh… he comes out with 6 players from the A team and knocks the argument out of the park..
Wenger has also spent lock of bucks on mediocre players but i can understand.. not all players succeed in the premier league.. but he has failed miserably in his vision.. he wanted an english core team with ox, jenkinson, gibbs, wislhere ramsey and walcott and they have been miserable..
His rant about 600 employees and other english clubs inflating the market price shows how much he has lost in touch with the way things are moving.. he doesnt know here to go from here
No that is your deluded version of what happened. His only marquee signings have been:
Ozil
Sanchez
Cech
Those are big name players from big clubs. He has never made a marquee English signing in the period you mention. All of those names you mentioned were either youngsters through the ranks or youngsters from other clubs.
His purchasing of English players probably has more to do with rule changes on squad inclusion.
You need a reality check.
100m plus sale of mediocre players .. walcott campbell merteshaker (before he got injured) gibbs debuchy chambers (i would sell ramsey too but understand some logic to keeping him)…. could have netted another 50m for this lot needed to buy a left back a centre back and two attacking options … there were plenty of upgrades on offer within that budget at the start of the window …now every one sees we are in a mess and silly prices quick in …but the problem is clearly that wenger thought that with the addition of xhaka he had enough to secure 4th place and anything above that would be a bonus …not a winning management mindset at AFC any longer … nothing to do with budget constraint
Really?
He bought Ozil when we needed a striker
He bought Cech (though hes been tremendous for us), when we had Ospina who was doing fine until then and there was szcezny on whom Arsenal had invested a lot of money and time.
Wenger never addresses the problem.. and i am the one who needs a reality check
ARSENAL BOUGHT ‘0’ outfiled players last season.. You have a memory of a rodent my friend… the season just passed and you forgot that we had just Giroud as our striker.. unbelievable!!
Are you questioning the Ozil signing? He is the only no.10 in the squad!
Just goes to show how much you know about football. Thank God you don’t manage Arsenal – turning down Ozil and Cech wouldn’t have been among your finest moments
read my comment again… where have I questioned the purchase of Ozil and Cech.. my point clearly was that they were not our problematic areas back then…
We needed a striker and we havent got a decent one yet.. we have been needing a decent defender for years now…
I wouldnt be a good manager and I know that.. But you dont need to be a manager to know what a team needs. You just need to watch some games.. Probably thats what you should do more rather than make absurd comments on this page…
I’m a season ticket holder so watch more games than most.
Oh and ironically it has come to light that Arsenal are closing in on a striker between my first post in this thread and this one. May be you should keep up to date
he can do his job but he aint doing it right still, mediocre players weren’t Chamakh and Gervinho only, he had a list of them on a high wages as well, and now it’s not like the whole team is world class, is it? a number of mediocre players and some on high wages as well. and what happened to the 200m they bragged about? we can but anyone except Messi and Ronaldo, and now it’s only 100m and he can’t even find players to buy? he can’t even spend it on improving the needy positions like ST and CB. working 24hrs in the transfer market doing what? criticizing those who buy by saying they overpaid..
Well said bran99
lets not forget about Santos and a few others
its funny that no one picks up on our total outgoing is about 240Million and income is around 340Million a year for the next five years started last summer,
when we already had 200Millon in profits in cash and some investments
with FFP we can spend if we chose up to 400Million if we recover 100Million it two years which we can
minus what we spent this summer 50 Million
AKBs don’t see that, all they care is their master should not be touched or criticized, he won EPL 12 years ago and a couple of FA cups, so he is immune to any criticism now, we should worship him. aye
I think it’s just that they see David Ornstein as a bigger authority on Arsenals spending power than Tas. Ornstein has said Arsenal have 96m for this season, that was before Xhaka. I’ve also read from financial advisors on the subject and it read nothing like what was read here.
Ps, 96m would have gotten us Higuain, or instead it might have gotten us Pogba. But Arsenal fans want Mustafi Mahrez and Griezmann, oh yeah! and Rodriguez. Those wobs sure do know their math. And this is excluding Xhaka.
real talk.. but give it up 90 % on this site think emotionally and not sensible so if you make a thought and want to appeal to their rationality.. you will lose the fight 😀
lucas perez who ive never heard of looks half decent.
i dont believe he leads the line tho he sits behind.
hes quick, scores against the big teams, seems to be technically adept.
17 million aswell,
at this stage hes a good buy, yes hes not a marquee, or proabbly not a 30 goal a season striker, but we dont have a striker like him
the problem- all i have to go on is youtube- LOL
Ben Yedder had similar stats and
everyone went gaga (not lady)
over him too 🙂
Park Girvinho and Chamakh had very
similar stats prior to coming to Arsenal too.
But yes better someone than no one ..I think 🙂
ooosh.
just knocked the wind out of my sails there.
gonna retreat back to my cave
Jamie vardys stats prior to last season wasn’t that good, but hey he just scored like 24 times in the PL last season.
If i had told you before last season that jamie would score 24 goals, would you have believed me? probably not.
I know nothing about mr Perez, but i would never rule out a player based on his former stats. He did score 17 times though, in a league were most teams are better than most teams in the EPL.
I quite agree with whoever wrote this write up on the transfer. They say sole power corrupts absolutely, just like you rightly said it’s time for a change. The senile coach, the unambitious less board of directors who think of their pockets and not the club should all go. A time will come where the so call faithfuls will get tired and then turn on the whole so call bunch @ the herm of affairs. When other clubs are strengthening their clubs Arsenal continually is on the decline, and becoming a shadow of it’s self. If this useless policy is still being upheld, in the next two to three years or if not lesser there will be no Arsenal in the EPL. Where other clubs showcase trophies, and spent money to showcase trophies this club is an archive for history. Well even this that some fans take so much pride in, well be no more. Senile Wenger and the no good Board of Directors should go enough is enough because too much of everything is bad.