Only Loans In January ….Again !!!!! by Dan Smith
I have written a few times this week that I feel the choice of Arteta to be our manager is nothing more than Stan Kroenke finding the cheapest option.
Some have said it’s unfair of me to assume that, pointing out the Spaniard will still be receiving 5 million a year.
I wasn’t in fact talking about his salary, although, while it’s mentioned, it’s worth pointing out that is less than what Arsene Wenger or Emery were earning.
Do you think that’s the wage Klopp, Jose or Pep are on?
To be fair though, they are 3 of the best in the last decade.
But that is kind of my point, you get what you pay for. If you’re cheap expect a rubbish product, if you pay over the odds most of the time you get quality.
I was more referring to what stops us from getting an Allegri, for example, is our lack of ambition. Any big name would want to challenge for the title eventually and therefore would want the squad to be strengthened.
The only individuals who would accept a limited budget are those not proven enough, so would be so grateful to get such a high-profile position they would tolerate the negatives.
Hell, Luis Enrique has already confirmed, according to rumours, that what put him off about replacing Arsene Wenger was when the discussions turned to the transfer market.
So, when they told us that Emery had succeeded out of a shortlist of 20, that’s probably because 15 of them laughed when they heard how much was in the piggy bank.
At some point this week we will be told the same, how Arteta topped a list of 12 candidates, yet in reality the reason Ancelotti is joining Everton and not us is because he would demand more, both in terms of his own contract and support for the team.
Incredibly some on JustArsenal.com still defend our American owners. It’s getting to the point where what do they have to do or not do for some to see the bigger picture?
How about not spending a penny next month?
According to the Metro, that’s apparently what they already warned Arteta….
Rumours? Of course…
Yet, if for the second January in a row we are only looking at loans (those reports were true last year) then will you accept that the Kroenke family don’t care?
You can’t tell me they really sit there and believe our defence does not need improvement?
In fact, even non-Arsenal fans would review all 20 Premiership sides and say that the Gunners are near the top when it comes to those who could benefit from some reinforcements.
To me you’re writing off the season, especially with Chelsea now allowed to spend.
To clarify the Blues can cement their place in the top 4 by spending 150 million while we have yet again run out of money.
If that was the case, why get a new manager now. How is Arteta meant to show what he’s learnt at Man City if you’re not going to give him the tools to do it?
Even from a pure business point of view, shouldn’t our owners want to win the Europa League. It means they get more revenue, more sponsorship, etc.
Sure, they saved money this time last year by only loaning players but how much could you have made if you brought a centre-back and then maybe we could have won the Final in Baku?
Take the hit now to get the reward later. It seems though ‘why bother while the TV contracts are so huge’. They make money no matter where we finish.
To be fair we did have a net spend in the summer of 10 million.
But again, Arteta’s getting the job on merit, not because he’s a cheap option?
It’s our choice not to be hiring a bigger name?
Nothing to do with the likes of Poch, Ancelotti , Allegri laughing in our face when told zero money to spend.
But this is Wenger’s fault, right?
Dan Smith
DAN, “Will we accept that the Kroekes don’t care” you ask, astonishingly! Well, whoever would have thought that could possibly be true; what with them both being present at every single game, at each board meeting and splashing the bountiful cash around so readily! CALL IT AN INSPIRED HUNCH IF YOU WISH, BUT I THINK WE MIGHT SAY YES, WE DO ACCEPT THAT THOUGHT.
Perhaps we could persuade J.K.Rowling to write one of her fantasy books on why the Kroenkes DO CARE! She does fantasy so brilliantly!
Kroenke has spent more than 200 M to build the squad, so we can’t say he doesn’t care. Since 2017, he has been giving us 50+ M attackers like Lacazette, Aubameyang and Pepe
Arsenal have to sell some players first to get extra transfer budget. Except players who can’t be sold like Ozil, because of their unrealistic demands
Kroenke is not giving that out of his own pocket, that is the clubs money and they still make a profit, that profit isn’t being invested back into the club.
The Arsenal Group’s profit for the 2017/18 year after taxation was £56.5 million (2017 – £35.3 million).
So its not Kroenke spending 200 M on building the squad and he hasn’t invested his own money into it.
200M over 3 season is not good enough. It takes a lot of spending power to win things this days. They should do more. And then, Arsenal recruitment crue have not been fantastic. While bring in a Pep when we need technically and physically good midfielders & defenders.
@gotanidea thats a dumb comment. you know it i know it and every normal fan knows it.
go check net spend since he’s been at club
got no idea, Talk about naive! You have not the first clue about how business works. Kroenke makes lots of profit from Arsenal whilst putting not a penny of his own in. Got that naive kid?
Jon – No owner can just write a 200 million pound check to the club to go and have a party in the transfer market. I am the first to agree our owners don’t seem to care about success. However, it would be too simple to say we are in our current predicament because the owner didn’t release enough funds. Our problem was just as much wasting significant funds on poor players and putting the wrong people in charge.
By the way Jon, I should not assume you know but I am pretty sure you do know, the reason they no longer can just give money is because of the FFP rules. The minimum they have to do to fund their club is come up with fake sponsorship deals etc. But this is a lot harder than it used to be. They can’t just cut a cheque for 75 million and say “here go buy yourself a central defender”.
200m plus, that’s over three seasons though, and we made a lot of it back, in fact, I think we brought in more than we spent over the last two summers. It’s a definitive handicap to have an owner who holds no excitement, no enthusiasm, no passion for the club, it’s ugly what men like this do to sports. I thought I disliked referees but Kroenke’s likes takes the whole biscuit, and nobody is gonna put a stop to him doing it again, using a well loved football team as a premium bank account. I look at Liv owners and city owners, even Che owner, Tott have Levy, why did we get stuck with this plank, I mean yank, no, what am I saying ..I mean wnker.
The problem Arsenal have is the Kroenke’s. Wenger was far too nice to expose the Kroenke’s as being the anchor holding him back. I truly believe Wenger wanted Mbappe. We all know the Kroenke’s said ‘NO’ to spending that kind of money. The Kroenke’s have no idea how football works. You buy a player like Mbappe for £150M and you make £200M in shirt sales and you win titles that earn you another £50M and then you sell the player 10 years later for £200M. Arsenal will never again win a trophy as long as the Kroenke’s are at the club. And,the saddest thing of all is, that they have no desire to prove me wrong.
I agree.
Gotanidea
Kronkie falls in to the category of being a minority
The money generated to buy players has been supplied by arsenal football club
Kronkie has not dipped in to his own personal wealth once to supplement the purchase of players.
Monies have been generated by the sales of our top players and replacing them with sub standard ones. the sad thing is we have over paid on these players in some areas
I do find it hard to understand how you can justify this
I think the issue is more about how the money has been spent than the amount sometimes. We have blown a lot of cash on magic beans the last few years and there is plenty of blame to go around across different managerial and executive cohorts. There have been some good signings, some good potential signings and a lot of poor signings.
In our money bracket we don’t get as many sure things. Blame the Kronkes but Arsenal hasn’t had the cash for a long time. We are a big club, but not European top tier – we don’t have the resources or ownership willing to spend as needed. There are a handful that basically have no limits except when they somehow run afoul of FFP.
In England that is MU, MC, Liverpool (and Liverpool seems to go in and out of this camp by times) and Chelsea. The Spanish monsters, PSG, Bayern and Jueventas – if they really want, they can always buy.
It is more than just cash as well. We are in a nasty place where some players wouldn’t go, even at a premium. The highest caliber players want to play Champions League and they will only join teams in the club. We need the people at the next level right now, to get us back. Then maybe we can have the discussion about the best.
Some kind of buy and sell combo is what we have at Arsenal – a certain amount of money (not zero) and extra to be made by selling. A lot of clubs with a lot less financial firepower do a much better job than us.
I am not a Kronke fan but we do need to be realistic with our place in the world. Would I like an oil sheik or arms dealer, for sure, but that ain’t happening any time soon I think.
Hope for sanity in the back office and some good team management on the training ground and pitch. Lets at least reach our potential for the rest of the year.
and I get the frustration – if Kronkes would spend even a fraction of the interest or use a tiny bit of the equity, we could probably clone the greatest players in the world. Maybe Josh will develop a passion and be able to move things along…wishful thinking perhaps but it is Wish Season!!
Merry Christmas and a Great Holiday Season to you all! I really enjoy the site and the commentary (whether I agree with it or not!) 🙂
Yeah, this is AWs fault… 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think the answer to the question in this article is ‘yes’ but I’d also say the same even if Stan gave 200m to Arteta (if he does actually get the job).
If Stan cared he’d come to games and perhaps wouldn’t have tolerated some of the nonsense that’s been going on. An owner that cared would be around the club during the week too and know about it if the team had experienced pros not putting in the effort and caring.
We need an owner who cares and comes to games. Until we get that we’re in trouble in my opinion.
In short, I don’t like the idea of a ‘head coach’ because the board control ‘managerial appointments’ (head coach) and player recruitment with impunity. No wonder they went for Arteta (a coach) and not Ancelotti (a manager). Ancelotti would’ve said “I don’t need Raul and Vinai, I’ll sort recruitment and scouting myself.”
Arteta should be manager not head coach.
According to the Metro🤔……
There won’t not be a january transfer unless they sold some of the senior players. The problem is that you can’t buy another CB when you already have 6 of them and one on loan. Arsenal has more CB( albeit mediocre)than any other EPL team and that is something they need to sort. Midfield is another area need to be drastically improved. we have never been this bad even during the latter years of Wenger and unless they improve the midfield, the defense will stay porous.
Fact is we spent a lot of money on duds. Money badly spent by a board who are so out of touch! We had “some” good money on bad players because we also waited too long in the transfer windows to buy the best. Hoping to save some money! Any manager would have suffered with this incompetently run club!
True that: Xhaka, Mkhi, Luiz, Sokratis, Mustafi, who else?
Now I do tend to agree as Emery for the criteria as a good manager in some ways but not in the top echelon.
Enery was a cheap, grateful and ameanable/manageable selection.
“No transfers oh okay then”. That’s what I can imagine Emery saying but not so much klopp pep ot Jose
And yes I so hope that arteta comes in and is supported in the staff he wants and needs to succeed.
But he is again a cheap, grateful and relatively manageable option.
It’s a huge huge gamble that basically I dont understand.
We are pinning a lot on the fact that hes worked with pep but being able to hide behind the front man away from the accountable pressure hell come under is very different to being the man.
I think his character has it to be a leader and also be ruthless when he needs to be as clearly the nicey nicey approach isn’t going to cut it as Freddie has found.
I think arteta will be okay only if he gets an experienced team around him a bit like ole has at MU in Phelan rhinos basically running the club and doing the main job and has the experience.
I would have been intersted and think Vieira would have carried more of a no sh1t demeanour that maybe we need at the moment.
What we also must consider is that a kit of the top managers wouldn’t take it whod want it? Were a mess and oh you cant buy anyone unless you sell loads of players but I’m okay with that as half of our nf players could go so we can actually buy some ballers and see the arsenal way again.
I’m looking forward to Saliba coming and love to think cebalos might stay then I think arteta is going to have too much grief with the senior players so he may as well start again almost.
Just hearing the arsenal fans boo him and call him some pretty vile names at the city game doesnt bode well though.
Yes what is this waiting until the end approach? Is it how the draft picks are done in American football? That would explain things a little.
Arsenal = no short term or long term plan, no identity, no ambition etc etc etc
It really doesn’t matter who we bring in if we don’t do the following things: (1)provide the necessary financial backing, (2) be willing to take a financial loss to get rid of cancerous elements and deadwood, (3) get a proper scouting/recruiting staff so we can finally start taking player development seriously…how can we be such a frugal team yet not take full advantage of this aspect of the organization,(4) get proper CBs and a DM and (5) bring some honour back to the badge
Everyone here is right in saying we buy duds for high value. I like the magic bean comment!
We lag so far behind other clubs in that we take weeks to try and identify a manager and then dont really go all in. When the likes of pool and City have scouts and technical directors who are amazing characters within the club.
Look at pool this week they play Salzburg and minimino is amazing so with the week they’ve bought him for 7.5m!! Incredible although easier when your the champions of Europe.
Our club even now with sanheki and edu seem so slow and weighty.
Losing mislintat was a real shame and sanlegi should have brought someone else in of similar ilk if he clashed with sven. Abd no edu does not get close to being on par of what we had in sven
I’ve even liked Jermaine Jenas comments this week about the structure identity and strategy of arsenal being non existent he was spot on.
Shall we rally up keown, Adam’s, Gilberto etx and got them to be ever present at the club like pires is.
We need someone like keown to coach the defence
Is the only way up?
“Incredibly some on JustArsenal.com still defend our American owners”…………………..really !…………..who are these people ?……………..name and shame them! hahahaha…………………..get the Just Arsenal.Com stocks out !
got an idea for one, who has absolutely no idea about anything. READ HIS/HER POST HIGHER UP THIS THREAD AND THEN WEEP FOR THE KIDS NAIVETY!
Cheers Jon…………………Gotanidea obviously has gotawigfactory and their biggest customer is Kroenke…………………..can be the only reason why she is what looks like the only Kroenke supporter in the Universe…………………..or are there more on here ?
Also I do think when the next manager comes we must show total support.
We are angry with the board which means we take it out kn the manager and 0layers as the board arebt on the pitch. Then the players are stressed okay badly get booed are more stressed okay ever worse and so it goes on viscious circle.
Never did I think I’d see the Emirates emptying before half time even if we were 3 down. How could the players mount a dime back seeing that?
I look at other stadiums and ling for noise singing drums bringing some fear to the visiting teams!
The simple truth is we need to sell players though. I believe we are almost full or are full in amount of foreign players you can have on squad. If we don’t sell it will be hard to get anybody in.
Our problems will only be solved when there is a change in ownership.
Hopefully Kroenke getting disillusioned with port performance and falling income.
I have no problem with the money we have spent under wenger or Emery. It boils down to the absent owner who isnt an arsenal fan, poor decisions on getting rid of managers and timimings, poor use of funds by the staff of this club in the transfer market when we have spent and the fact one man now is ultimately responsible for everything thing that goes on at a club we actually once partly owned and now we dont at all. KRONK OUT
Reggie, despite the poor, sometimes inexplicable decisions made by AW regarding the buying and contracts of some players, we were a competitive, well run, top four club under him before and after the kronkies took over.
Our fanbase is now so large, the reported waiting list for a season ticket ensures a completely new 60,000 fanbase taking over the Emirates, with room left over and, if kronkie knows nothing else about our club, he most certainly knows this.
Kronkie started running the club, when he and the previous board frogmarched David Dein out of the club and then supported the move to ban Usmanov from the board, despite him being the second largest shareholder in the club.
Those board members, such as Lady Bracewell-Smith who sold out to the kronkies were the real culprits, because they put personal greed above the club – LBS even complained that she hadn’t made enough money selling to kronkie, not once mentioning selling out the club.
Then Usmanov caved in, ensuring he made an enormous profit himself, while stating he was an Arsenal supporter as well!!!
kronkie then brought in gazidis and the rest is history – yes I also recognise that AW should have been more vocal and stood up to kronkie and gazidis, but he was still achieving the results that kept us as a top four club.
Where you and I finally agree, is that kronkie is NOW the main responsibility for the club, simply because he owns it lock, stock and barrel…but let’s not forget those people who were complicite in the beginning ( the old board ) the middle ( Usmanov and gazidis ) and the end, Stan Kronkie himself.
He is a parasite, bleeding the club dry and treating the fans as fools and as you rightly say, ultimately responsible, from the minute DD introduced him to the board, for the dire position we are in now.
You are correct, we do need to oust kronkie, the trouble is, however, it is easier to say it than it actually happening, but at least you and I agree on something!!!
Good to see you back on here Ken. I WAS AFRAID YOU MAY HAVE BEEN UNWELL! Happy Christmas to you and yours, my friend! Great post above too.
Jon, I did answer your previous query as to my well being, stating that I went down for the city game and stayed with family for a few days before coming back to Scotland.
Happy Christmas to you and yours also and I bet we have one overiding wish for Santa!!!
Jack Rodwell is a free agent and desperate for a club. Bring him in for trials as he can play in the defensive midfield position and central defense. He cannot do worse than what we currently have and it will cost us nothing if we decide not to sign him. Arteta should know him well from Everton days.
That’s a joke right ?