Was this Wenger’s biggest mistake as Arsenal boss?

After the collapse of the latest Arsenal Premier League title challenge made it 12 years since the invincibles squad was the last Arsenal side to be crowned champions of England, Arsenal fans will be lining up to tell you all of the mistakes that have been made by Arsene Wenger.

The list of options is pretty long and includes his tactics, his substitutions and his ability to motivate the players properly for the really important games. But right at the top of most Gooners’ list will be something to do with the transfers he has made, or more importantly the ones he has not made.

And it is one of these in particular that former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher reckons is the Frenchman’s biggest mistake in his time in charge of the Gunners. And it is a transfer that we know that Wenger wanted to make because his offer of £40 million and a pound to Liverpool for their striker Luis Suarez back in 2013 was well publicised as well as being highly ridiculed by the scousers and the football media both.

Carragher wrote in his Daily Mail column that the nature of the bid from Arsenal, instead of triggering the release clause that Wenger was under the impression it would, actually made Liverpool so cheesed off that the chances of us getting him for any money was then gone. Carragher reckons that Arsenal would have won the title that year with Suarez leading our attack, as Liverpool so nearly did themselves.

He wrote, “If you look back at Wenger’s 20 years in English football, there are so many highlights, but that day in July 2013, with the bid that enraged Liverpool, cannot be ignored. Not signing Suarez is the biggest mistake of Wenger’s reign.

“Had Arsenal pushed the boundaries for Suarez, perhaps with an offer of £50m, I believe they would have won the Barclays Premier League in two of the last three seasons. That’s the thing about Suarez: whichever team he plays for, he drags them to a higher level.”

I do agree that we probably would have won the title, at least once, with Suarez in the side, but I am not so sure we can really blame Wenger. As Carragher himself admits, Arsenal were led to believe that the amount we offered would trigger a clause and then it was just down to whether the player wanted to come, which he did. What do you think Gooners?

Tags Carragher Suarez

13 Comments

  1. How can a sane person offer one more pound in a business of millions? Yes 50m could have triggered Liverpool to sell and a good salary would have been top of the cherry to Suarez, that from then to now we would have been a force to reckon to. But the manager has the last say, and whenever things go wrong, he blames the whole world around him but himself.

    1. Wenger is a fraud. He was lucky to sign ozil, alexis and cech. He only looks to sign average players like elneny, Gabriel and welbeck. Next year will be no different one good player and one average and he say bs about cohesion.

  2. I vividly remember not too long ago when “Own goals” used to be our highest goal scorer

    L()L …..

    #FunnyTimesAtArsenal#

  3. Oh yes, it definitely was! I love Ozil but if he had offered the 42.5 he offered for Ozil, I’m sure Liverpool would have considered, now Ozil is busy creating tons of chances with no one to finish them off. Cazorla would have done a decent job of feeding Suarez and who knows, Ozil might still have come anyways….now imagine Ozil and Suarez in the same team, they would have raised the entire team to an insane level but hey, Wenger and ‘what might have been’ fit perfectly in the same sentence. *Sigh*

  4. Wenger, in my opinion, is what I call a ”NEARLY Man”.
    I can give a list of 10 players without breaking stride…that he NEARLY signed.

  5. No his greatest mistakes were
    missing out on ronaldo messi ibra hazard di maria kompany toure.
    Not raising nasri van persie sagna ashleycole kolo and fabregas salaries.
    Not matching the european ambitions of henry vieira petit and overmars
    Not building a team around fabregas van persie nasri clichy and sagna.

    Not raising his ambitions high

  6. I dont know about suarez but one player I would have loved to see in Arsenal fc is Anthony MARTIAL. When I saw him last season for Monaco and the way he tore us apart, I was under an impression “Hey wenger, a french lad playing for MONACO, Sign him” I saw the talent back then and our coaching staff did not. We all laughed at 36 million tag but holy cow Martial is going to be one heck of a player. All he needs to do is improve his finishing and with his raw finishing, he ha managed to score 15 goals this season so far. I hate to say this but I really envy MU having two talented strikers, Martial and Rashford. They are hear to stay and if United get a new manager, surely they will just keep going up.

    PS. IF FRENCH NATIONAL TEAM STILL CHOOSES GIROUD AHEAD OF MARTIAL , THEN THEY CAN SAY GOOD BYE TO THEIR CHANCES OF LIFTING EUROS.

  7. ah!……yea…. Then fast forward a season after he wasted 10mil on debuchy

    when he could have just made it 51 mil (40+10+1pound) for Suarez

    #AppaLingStuff#

  8. It’s a very BIG SHAME because i believe Wenger did not want to sign Suarez that year,
    he just wanted to tease Liverpool and piss them off.

    Fast foward 2016, Luis Suarez is currently on 53 goals this season as we speak, and today he just became the first player in La Liga history to score FOUR goals in two consecutive games.

    Meanwhile our dear Oliver Giroud is still our top scorer with 12 goals.

  9. Wenger’s biggest mistake is getting money to spend. I hope he gets no money to spend at least we won’t have heart attack looking for new players on twitter. Wenger is a bottler.

  10. Giroud is 12 league matches without goal lol. Wenger says he is in the same league as lewandowski and aguero. What a deluded joke.

  11. Xhaka 30 m
    Hummels 20 m
    Mahrez 25 m
    Chilwell 6 m
    Aubameyang 60 m
    Total 141 m

    Sell:
    Theo Walcott 25 m
    Ox 20 m
    Ramsey 20 m
    Mertesaker 5 m
    Gibbs 8 m
    Debuchy 5 m
    Szczesny 5 m
    Giroud 10 m
    Total 100 m
    30 m from puma
    We will save 200 k per week salary by releasing arteta, flamini, sanogo and rosicky
    30 m champions league money
    30 m tv deal
    Total money available for transfer 400 millions

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