Where is the romance? by DS
Some Arsenal fans struggle to believe in Sky Sports hype that transfer deadline day is must see TV but us Gooners will be in a very unique situation comes Tuesday, we will either have very good news or be very disappointed come 6pm.
As things stand we are the only team in the Premiership yet to sign an outfield player. Failure to do so will have a greater impact than just this season, it will have a greater effect on the long term picture. The next few days will tell us just how ambitious our board are in terms of turning us into Champions. Many including this writer have long known that answer and it’s not a positive one.
Senior staff have come out this summer and said that paying off the stadium no longer affects transfer policy, in fact only Messi and Ronaldo would be out of our price range. In other words there are no more excuses, if we get to Tuesday evening and haven’t spent any money it is because we our board have chosen to, it is as simple as that.
If you leave this squad untouched we will finish in the top 4.
Which is why our board would give Wenger a job for life. While the likes of Spurs and Liverpool have thrown millions at transfers over the years just to have the occasional flirt with the Champions League, Wenger guarantees qualification with a modest nett spend.
I always believed that one day we would look at the handling of the transitions from Highbury to the Emirates as one of the Frenchmen’s greatest achievements. Let’s be honest, once the owner of the club is selling your best players what normally follows is a decline into the Europa League, Wenger made sure that never happened.
I believed in his ethos that once out of that transition we would be in a great position to compete again but I’m not sure the Board will push him enough to make that happen. You can’t be overly critical that we have people who are cautious with our money. I’m sure the likes of Leeds and Portsmouth fan wished that they had had similar owners.
No one though is demanding Arsenal open an unlimited cheque book; just catch up with the times and realise if teams around us are spending, standing still means the gap widens. No fan will believe that there was not significant talent aviable to make our squad together. Already this past couple of months we have seen the likes of Dezeko, Jovetic, Benteke, heck even Van Persie, all were within our budget and could have competed with Olivier Giroud.
Judged purely as businessmen the people who run our club are very good at what they are doing, but what supporters now want to see is a bit of romance…. Romance like when Sir Alex Ferguson signed Robin Van persie. Sir Alex knew that approaching his thirties there would be little resale value of the Dutchmen. However he put economics second to romance, knowing that he was the one stellar signing that would fire him to one last title before retirement. For Wenger to do the same he needs his bosses to equally have romance. Would they for example offer a package to loan a Zlatan Ibrahamovic, putting romance ahead of business?
It has long been said that Wenger spends money like it his own. He does that because of his love for the club but he must realise that other managers are not showing any concerns in burning their clubs money, spending 50 million on average players..
All Arsenal need to do from now till Tuesday night is show some romance.
Dan