Arsene Wenger was quick to play down the bold and incautious boasting from the Arsenal director Lord Harris this week. The claim made by the member of our board was that the manager could afford to sign just about any player in the world and that the club would let Wenger use the reportedly available £200 million if he so wished.
But Lord Harris also qualified his words by saying that the two best players in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were still out of the reach of Arsenal. And this is not necessarily because of the money involved, as Ronaldo especially would not cost any more than other big name players like Bale, Suarez, Pogba and the like.
The problem for Arsenal, assuming that Wenger would like to sign the very best players, is in persuading them to join. For that we need to have the same sort of lure as clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid and to be able to do that we need to be winning things like the Premier League and looking capable of winning the Champions League, rather than getting put out at the first knockout stage every year.
So the first step for Wenger and the Gunners is to become champions of England. That in itself would probably not be enough to get Messi or Ronaldo to want to come to north London but it would be a start and would help us get other big name players which in turn would help us do better in Europe.
Do you think there is any chance that Arsenal could pass the Messi test in a couple of years?
Lol! Crazy article!!
Indeed.
The title of the article is misleading
11 years without
winning the EPL and
never winning the ECL
make it unlikely.
Several EPL wins an ECL win
and 300k p/w wages might do the trick.
Real Madrid won 1 title in 11 years and won’t win another until Messi retires. It’s all about celebrity status for big name players, reason most of them refuse to come to England is because titles aren’t guaranteed even for the best teams.
We don’t really need to pass the “Messi test” IMO. We have many exciting players coming through. Gnabry, Zelalem, Akpom, Iwobi, Bellerin and ADELAIDE. Arsenal is brimming with young talent. We’re sorted for the next few years 😉
they may have talent but at this stage they are not good enough and not ready yet….
maybe in 2-3 years…..they should go out on loan for 2-3 seasons to get games..
We need to completely focus on Premier League this season. For that we do not need Ronaldo and Messi. Strange topic at this point. Yesterday’s match showed how much depth we have ,
We have won against a very good side who is just behind Bayern in Bundesliga.
Next is Wembly and if we win that, there is definite cource of excitement for the PL.
Common Gunners one more win at Wembly
Sunny
Messy stuff
If we are ever in a position to entice Messi or Ronaldo they`ll be well past their best but there are other players of their caliber in the pipe line so it`s only a matter of three to five years before one of them plays for Arsenal.
Never heard of such test before ..lol
It’s a messy test.
Results can be messy
We’ll get through when we get through. Wrong timing article. Post this article again when we are facing the ECL knock out stage against Barcelona.
There were three types of ECL winners team :
1) Super crazy attacking team like Barca
2) Super boring defensive team like Inter (was) or Atletico Madrid
3) Super balance team like Munchen or Madrid.
Emulate those three and we don’t need Messi to win ECL.
Imo the best teams win CL with either option 1 or 3. Chelsea’s win was pathetic to say the least, Wenger would rather lose gracefully than to win in such manner, even I would.
Atletico have never won it.
Correction: Atletico wasn’t win ECL because Simeone changed their super defensive tactic at the finale. Real Madrid nailed them with counter attacks.
The only Messi test we should be thinking about is producing an academy player that is somewhat close to messi’s class
there was no meaning in this article, so man! Look for something better and write, do u need to a win trophy before u sign messi, if u got the money u sign him up is part of the ambition, collection of quality players makes u a champion, afteral when barca signed him were they champion? Duo he is from their academy but he wasnt born there
Monaco were a team freshly promoted from relegation when they recruited Falcao,James,Abidal,Carvalho … PSG were a team struggling to make top10 in France when they signed Ibrahimovic,T.Silva,Moura.. Chelsea were a midtable side when they Abramovich started splashing d cash.
City were a midtable team before the Arabs got Adebayor,Given,Tevez,SWP etc..
Lesson of the story: you can get any player u want (aside messi n ronaldo) if u are willing to pay ostentatious for them n give em an unrejectable wage.
No matter how small u think ur club is.
All of the clubs mentioned were oil rich. There was no ceiling to wage or fee. Thus they can do this. Arsenal cannot. It’s kinda a moot point to say infinite money can buy you any play when we do not have infinite money. The real question is, how could we entice the best to play for us if we can manage to pay the fee without then needing to break our whole wage structure for the player. The answer: You can’t.
Youth system/buy talent young is our best course for securing the next Messi/Ronaldo.
And Monaco won nothing since, lost James within a year, can’t rid themselves of Falcao……looks a failed project.
Chelsea hadn’t finished lower than 6th for 8 seasons before Abramovich. Finished 2nd behind Invincibles in the year he took charge. Hardly mid-table. 2 x FA Cup, UEFA CWC, Super Cup and LC winners in 6 years before.