Wenger: People Want Big Names

Not being funny, but who's asked for Messi? I was excited about Podolski, Cazorla i'd seen a few times and he excited me, Mertasacker i was pleased with as a signing. Arsene don't half spout some nonsense at times, like when after the fulham "spend some ucking money" game he gave it the "we can't spend 50m on one player" - well no one's asked you to Arsene!

A few people went nuts when we signed Oxlade... "we don't need another youngster"... I remember it well. That's what he's talking about, Shewore. 50m is easily spent on a player if you offer them whatever wages they want as well as having to pay a big transfer fee; 25m fee +100k/wk for 5 years = (over) £50m.

Damiano don't bore me with that, it was a direct reference to the Torres transfer. Amos, just had a butchers mate (difficult with all the effin pop ups on this site), mildly interesting, doesn't really tell you anything you don't know does it? A Wenger disciple absolving him of all criticism then rounding up with a nice "Wenger is not exempt from critique", just to balance it up. We pay the highest prices in the world, we want to see proven quality joing us. Another thing that gets my goat is the amount of defeatism there appears to be with transfers "oh well! we couldn't sign him cos Chelsea wanted him", we're officially a bigger club than them, aren't we? Do Chelsea and City sign all of the top players possible in the world? We've got more wrong than right over the last few years in the transfer market, just look at who we're trying to shift out. And the times we have got it right we've had to sell them cos they won't wanna be surrounded by the dross they've had to endure playing with.

and the immediate thing that struck me with the article (didn't make the point above) is how damning the strap line is "Arsene hasn't changed, we have", well, guess what? So has football, so has Fergie, so has absolutely everything. Evolve or die.

No need to guess that football has changed as that's exactly the point made in the article. You're taking the word 'we' too literally. The grasp of nuance and complexity referred to still seems to be evading you. ;)

Shewore - "we can't spend 50m on one player" was said by Hill-Wood, rather than Wenger, wasn't it? And in what way is it demonstrated as a direct reference to Torres - or is that something you've assumed (given his statement was made 20 months after the Torres transfer)?

"We pay the highest prices in the world, we want to see proven quality joing us" - so if we'd signed Michu for £2m, you'd have been unhappy? We should return Oxlade to the Saints, because he wasn't proven quality when he signed?

We're trying to shift the captain of the Russian national team, who scored four goals in a game against Liverpool and was incredibly hot property when we signed him - but he lost form. Similar to if we'd signed Torres for 50m. Also a proven striker in Chamakh, who came here and never found his form. And Squillaci, signed for (next to) nothing as a cover player.

Dross? Really? Vermaelen, Koscielny, Szczesny, Sagna, Gibbs, Arteta, Wilshere, Cazorla, Podolski, Chamberlain, walcott, Giroud, Diaby, Rosicky... Dross?

Sorry Shewore, which obvious names? I thought Chamakh, Arshavin and Squillaci were the obvious ones (because we're trying to shift them right now).

Ah, see that's a different quote, isn't it? made four months after Torres' move, much more likely to be a reference to him, yeah. Do you believe it is a fact that we can't spend £50m on players? I suppose that's what it comes down to... I don't think we can. Partly because if we bought two of those (players being the plural) we would quickly empty the bank account. But mostly because anyone at that level - and there aren't too many players at that level - would a) want 200k/wk minimum, potentially ruining our wage structure and unsettling the squad, and b) want to play for a team expected to win things every year, which we are not.

No response to the Michu/Oxlade point? Or your comment on dross?

Arshavin mismanaged? How's that, then; because he wasn't played through the centre? Boo-hoo. He's an experienced, professional footballer, and to blame his shocking drop in form on playing ten yeards further left than he's used to would be churlish; that does not explain we he can't make a five yard pass anymore. Also, I remember him playing up front once or twice, as opposed to leading the line for much of a season.

Listen carefully and read slowly. The quotation I referred to was made after the Fulham game, at the end of the season, when we drew 1-1 with ten men and a lot of the away end chanted "spend some ucking money", Wenger's "50m" inferrence to Torres was exactly that - as he was the big money move made halfway through that season. The point I am making is that we all KNOW that we CAN'T spend 50m on player, but that no one has asked/demanded/whatever that we spend that amount on one player, much in the same vein that no one has said they'll only be happy if we sign Messi - geddit....? With regards dross. Eboue, Denilson, Bendtner, Djouro, Almunia, Squilacchi, Silvestre are all names i'd describe as that - and their subsequent playing time at either our club, or other clubs, would back that up. re Arshavin, did you even read what I said? I said he was played through the middle, leading the line, too much. A 5ft midget being used as a battering ram! It worked for one home game and Wenger played him there for about another 3 months. And i'm not excusing his performances since then! I just think he hasn't been played in the right positions since, he did get us in the champions league spots though when we signed him, he gave us fresh impetus and no one can deny that. Michu/Oxlade didn't really register as a "point" to be honest.

Hey Shewore.
Quite aggressive, and ignorant. Well done you.

"Listen carefully and read slowly. The quotation I referred to was made after the Fulham game" - yes, I have registered that, now that you have actually provided that quote (as opposed to Hill-Wood's 16 months later). Did you see the words "Ah, see that's a different quote, isn't it? made four months after Torres' move, much more likely to be a reference to him, yeah." I agreed with you. Read it slower, maybe?

"The point I am making is that we all KNOW that we CAN'T spend 50m on player, but that no one has asked... no one has said they'll only be happy if we sign Messi" - okay, well the first point is that Messi is a 5-letter way of making a point quickly, as he is (arguably) the best player in the world. No-one asked us to sign Messi, and Wenger is not inferring that someone did, he's making a point. And second... if you're not signing someone in that very top bracket - Messi, Villa, Hazard(?), Mata(?), Falcao(?), people criticise - like when we signed Oxlade. Another point he was making very succinctly, but seems to have flown over a few heads. How much do these players cost, at the very top level? What would it take to buy Messi, £300m? Villa for £25 (at his age)? Hazard for £100? Mata the same? How much will Falcao cost Chelsea (if he moves)? Wenger has spent £44m on three players this season; spent £20m on Santi alone, spent £53m last season, £15m on Arshavin, both our centre-backs cost £10m each, Gervinho cost £10m, Oxlade £12m, Nasri was £16m. How much more do you want him to spend - every penny we have, taking a gamble on recouping it through tournament wins (like Leeds did)?

It's hard to argue that 'the dross' doesn't include some poor players, but did Nasri leave Arsenal because Eboue, Denilson, Bendnter, Djourou, Almunia and Silvestre were on the bench?

"re Arshavin, did you even read what I said? I said he was played through the middle, leading the line, too much" - yes, I read it, and responded to it. I just disagreed. I said "I remember him playing up front once or twice", as opposed to a three-month run. Anyone got any 'Arshavin up-front for Arsenal' stats? What do you think is the right position for him?

"Michu/Oxlade didn't really register as a "point" to be honest." - bless you, I'll explain. you said "We pay the highest prices in the world, we want to see proven quality joing us" - so I asked if you would be unhappy if we had signed Michu - a non-proven player - for £2m like Swansea did, and he was now banging in the goals for us like he is for them. Does that register?

"Arshavin has bags of natural ability he's just chosen not to use it for a couple of seasons now" - it's been a while since I read something as ridiculous as that, unless I'm misunderstanding you. He chooses to be poor; to annoy his team-mates, the fans, the manager; to ruin his career to not be able to make a five-yard pass?

I have a very short attention span, and even shorter appetite to respond in kind, so let's try and break it down thus; i) Torres - great, we're in agreement. ii) not exactly sure what your point is, Wenger is using Messi as a ridiculous starting point from a defensive point of view, there's no need to mention him as no one else on the planet has, it's rather patronising (unless of course you're an intelligentsia and can see that it's not, everyone else is just baying for blood and frothing at the mouth - heathens!) iii) dross, yep, they were dross, more agreement. Nasri probably more to do with money and trophies, players like Cesc and Van Persie more like my original point iv) Arshavin, not sure, probably where a team's built around him, which thankfully it's not, i think he's been massively poor for a while now v) boring point, can be made nicely with a select few examples, for your Michu i give you Chamackh, and raise you Gervinho (see? kinda cyclical ain't it) vi) yea, i think he's a lazy bar steward who doesn't apply himself. It does happen you know, not every player applies themself to the utmost of their ability.

Wenger's purchases have of late been panic reactive buys rather than considered strategic ones. Can anyone honestly point to Arteta and Mertesacker and say these were marquee signings that got people excited about the club's chances of winning honours? Nope. Giroud and Podolski were reactions to RVP's ultimatum. Carzorla virtually fell into Wenger's lap, a truly fortuitious set of circumstances which he took advantage of. Some of you will recall Arshavin also being something of a panic buy following long term injuries to Rosicky, Fabregas and walcott. So after years of underspending, of buying predominantly young and cheap, we now have a manager who acknowledges that the youth experiment hasn't fully paid off. That you need a blend of youth, experience and sheer fecking proven class. It's taken him long enough, but what he doesn't want to do now is patronize the fans with guff like 'we expect caviar and Messi'. We don't. We expect a team that is balanced and can compete. We expect to win the odd trophy. And we'd prefer not to have to sell our best player every season.

You really can't see that saying 'no-one's happy unless we sign players like Messi' makes a big point in a short time? It's not patronising, and the fact that the *****tersphere has blown-up with idiots baying for blood is irrelevant. Too many stupid people who don't understand the meaning of words, other than 'spend', 'some', '********' and 'money'.

RvP left, basically, the team we have now. A team with plenty of quality players, only missing an RvP. I doubt that the *****ness of 6th-choice-striker Bendtner, out on loan, had much influence on him. And I have little doubt Cesc would have stayed with us for much longer if Barca didn't exist (as opposed to flouncing off somewhere for bigger wages, like a Nasri), but I suppose we'll never know.

So your assertion is that Arshavin was good, hasn't been played in the right positions since, and now isn't trying? When he was good, wasn't he playing left-mid, where he's played 99% of his playing time for Arsenal? That doesn't make sense to me. not much about Arshavin does.! He came and showed his quality on the pass, dribble, and shooting with both feet, and nowadays can't make a simple pass. I don't understand how or why that is - much like Torres' fall from grace, or Shevchenko's. I think to call it laziness is a bit odd, though. He always appears genuinely distressed when I see him play, disgusted at himself.

Chamakh and Gervinho are interesting people to choose - both proven, experienced players to some degree. Absolutely nothing to do with the point under discussion though, which is that you said "We pay the highest prices in the world, we want to see proven quality joing us". Michu does not fit this category. As a point of fact, Gervinho and Chamakh fit your criteria much better, so it would seem by your logic that you should be happier with both of those players than you would have been if we'd signed Michu for £2m. And the reason I mention this is to point out the exclusive, poor logic being applied within the argument, which also highlights one of the biggest problems in football - spiralling wages and fees. Why should players cost 50m? Are £50m players better than 'cheap' players (£2m is a lot to me, personally!) - and for a perfcect illustration of that, is Torres better than Michu? Maybe, maybe not. But I can say for sure that writing off players because they cost less than £20m, or because they haven't already won everything with someone else, would be cutting off your nose to spite your face. And expecting players to be perfect for the club or to be more successful than existing players, just because of a high transfer fee, would be pretty naive.

Wenger's words come as no surprise - he's been saying this for a while now, so that he doesn't have to answer the tough questions. I would be pleased if we spent 10-15M on similar quality player as Poldi, Mertesacker or Arteta (and the squad is crying out for 1-2 more). There is a certain portion of the fan base calling for big name signings but I believe that is a minority. Wenger is clever, who understands this. As for the scouting, we have not been innovative enough, others have caught on to our tactics and we've been left behind as a result. Of course it's tougher to pick an Henry or Vieira from obscurity now, but that is the scouting team's job - I'm sure they are paid more today than they were 10 years back. If they are 'scared' (as Wenger seems to suggest in his comments) to take a risk with a player from a smaller club, that is a reality check for the scouting team who need to re-invent their strategy.

So why didn't he buy them a year before? Reason...Merts was available on a cut-price fee and we'd just been stuffed 8-2 by Utd. Carzorla? Another steal at 12m and Wenger was fortunate in taking advantage of the financial turmoil at Malaga. Would he have bought the same player for over 20m? Doubt it. Yet we all know he's worth it. Wenger may not have explicitly stated the youth policy hasn't worked but it clearly hasn't, and his recent purchases reflect a greater emphasis towards experience.

When the fans are asking him to spend money, why is he not spending on more players at 10-15M , rather than look at a Messi? He has evaded that question for a few seasons now. Wenger's stock response to a question of not spending money is to compare it to signings of 30+M and say we cannot compete.

DT - the Messi comment wasn't needed, it's just a wind up and he knows full well what he's saying. He's not thick, he'll know exactly what kind of reaction it'll get. Your next comment 'only missing an RVP' that'll be the best player in the league who's carrying Utd towards the title then? Only RVP....Yeah i used to rate Arshavin when he joined, not any more tho, and when i've seen him play he doesn't seem that arsed tbh - you must be watching different matches. I'm not picking players in retrospect, please stop harping on about Michu. Spiralling wages and fees are a problem, you won't hear me arguing for that.

Was that the tough question? Why don't we buy more players for £10 or £15m? I think Damiano has already pointed out that the club has bought a number of players at or around your price level. There's not much point just buying players simply because they cost £10-£15m though.......and squad restrictions mean you can't simply stockpile players. You really need to look beyond the superficial to understand what is being said. The point is not that we cannot spend £50m or £30m on this or that player, or that anyone is asking the club to do so, it is that other teams have been doing so. Criticising someone simply for making that observation is a bit churlish.

'We only need 2 more world class players' is the standard fantasy football mantra from the supporters of every club that has fallen short of a trophy throughout history. The supposition is that you can simply go out and buy them as and when you want them from wherever you wish at the price you want and you would then be able to sweep all before you. It seems easy doesn't it? It's a tad less straightforward than that though.

It seems to be a tough question since Wenger doesn't seem to want to answer it - instead, he always deflects this question by quoting 30-50M prices. I don't under estimate the amount of effort it takes to sign a player of that quality, it's not a simple 'on switch' to sign a player (you're also taking the argument to an extreme), it's not a fantasy mantra - it's the job of the scouts and the legal suits at Arsenal football club. A professional set up that complains about the constraints and says 'hey dont judge me on the outcome due to those constrains' is not that professional in the first place, is it.

"The point is not that we cannot spend £50m or £30m on this or that player, or that anyone is asking the club to do so, it is that other teams have been doing so" Actually Amos, i don't think that's the point (at least it's not mine). Forget what the other teams have been doing, for a min. We have some money in the bank to spend 20-30 M on 2 more players, we have a net transfer surplus consistently - can that money not be used more effectively so that we can challenge more effectively for honours?

It is the point prits. Instead of thinking about wages and transfer fees as though they were somehow different things, start thinking of player budgets (wages plus transfers). AFC have the fourth highest player budgets in the PL. Only City, Chavs and ManU have consistently spent more. Spend more on transfers and you have less to spend on wages and vice versa. How much bigger would our player budgets have to be to ensure we would have challenged City, Chavs and ManU more effectively for honours over the last 6 or 7 years? I'll leave you to do the maths on that one but you can only answer it to your own satisfaction if you 'forget what other teams are doing'. In other words ignore the very point that answers your question.

We could always spend £30m on a £20m player I suppose! Would than make you any happier? Personally I'd prefer to spend £12m on a £20m player though Wyn was rather upset that we did. Maybe I should have told him that a few weeks back you'd rated Cazorla as a £30m player - that would have really *****ed him off! :)

"How much bigger would our player budgets have to be to ensure we would have challenged City, Chavs and ManU more effectively for honours over the last 6 or 7 years?" I'm not saying that by spending on 2 more 15 M players, we would have won the title (I do realize the financial gap between us and those 3 clubs). Are we using our resources effectively? The amortized transfer fees of 2 players will be 6-7M per year (assuming combined fees of 25-30M over 4 years), add 8M in wages to that (80K per week for 2 players) - we could afford another 15M in costs in our financials (and yes, I have gone through those numbers as well). Can we afford that? Yes. Will that result in a better outcome than what we're currently achieving? Maybe, maybe not. Should we be taking that risk, irrespective of the uncertain outcome? Yes, most definitely. It could result in a comfortable 3rd or 4th place finish, rather than the scramble we've been seeing recently, and maybe a cup win since we have more quality in the squad. We should at least be trying.

And I'm not saying - spend for the sake of spending. Do the normal due diligence before making those signings, evaluate the player and take a reasonable risk (just like we do with every signing). The club can agonise over it all they want - again, I'm not advocating flippancy. But take a risk on 2 more players. There was a telling comment that Wenger made - it seems like our scouting team is afraid to take risks. Perhaps, we're not identifying players because of that. And those are things that can be fixed internally, even though the competitive constraints are enormous.

We all know the club can spend more. They freely make that claim themselves. But simply spending more on transfers doesn't guarantee that the success would be proportionate to that spending. Indeed both Spurs and Liverpool have regularly spent more on transfer budgets than we have and have achieved less. Therein lies the flaw in your argument. In order to achieve more you have to find players that add value - irrespective of what they cost. What Wenger was saying is that our scouts possibly weren't taking risks at a low enough level. Hence they missed players like Michu at £2m because they were looking for your £10 to £15m players.

"Therein lies the flaw in your argument" If there are 2 such players who can add value to the side, it gives us a better chance (not a guarantee) of a trophy win. I don't understand the flaw in that argument. I'm saying that the scouts could be doing a better job in finding value in the market (alternatively, they could be finding them but Wenger may be reluctant to spend, we just don't know). You don't agree with that, fair enough. I don't see how that makes my argument more flawed than yours, especially when I've made the point that spending the 15M may not necessarily result in a better outcome.

Has Wenger lost his mind? He lets a 29 year-old RVP go to United of all places, then brings in a 31 year-old from La Liga half-way through the season?

What I was saying was also that 'when you invest is important' not just where. You seem to be saying that if we'd invested more over the last 7 years we still wouldn't have been able to match the resources of those clubs that have dominated and we would in all probability only have achieved what we achieved anyway - just a little more comfortably. However we would also have increased our indebtedness and reduced our potential to invest now or at a time when those who have dominated may find their potential to invest on the scale that they have done inhibited while our relative resources should still increase. We have the 4th largest playing budget now. Upping that by the levels you suggest would still have left us with the 4th largest playing budget. Taking a risk is fine but if you're going to do so then take it at a time when it stands a good chance of being rewarded. Otherwise you're just chasing rainbows.

theres is no point in having a scouting-network unless you have a fanbase that buys into the strategy... with most 'fans' of the bigger clubs they dont cos all they want are FAMOUS PEOPLE who happen to play football.. these are the FAMOUS PEOPLE currently potentially open to transfer: Falcao, Llorente, Damiao, Isco, and a handful who used to be FAMOUS PEOPLE currently plying their trade in Italy.... hands up for Llorente !!... yeah Llorente, he's FAMOUS.

Viyash people generally want "famous people" because those are the players they've seen most of. Now that Boateng has said he'll meet his agent to reconsider his future in Italy you'll certainly hear calls from Arsenal fans wanting Wenger to sign him, that's not because of some fame-complex, it's because we've seen what he can do (namely the 4-0 demolition of us at the Emirates and the 3-0 reverse when he was absent). If you know me I've been talking about the unnoticed players like Jack Cork and Yacob, but of course if a player like KPB becomes available I want us to compete for him. Going for an unknown is risky. Years ago I was advocating Gojko Kacar and Arturo Vidal as potentials, because back then you could buy from the German League cheaper than you can now. Vidal has gone on to be possibly the best player in the world in his position, Kacar is now an unknown. Similar situation with Yacob and Cork right now, they both look like potential greats, but you end up having to take a gamble. With a player like KP he's played Prem before and excelled, hr demolished us 4-0 and we whipped them 3-0 in the reverse fixture where he was absent, of course people will want KPB. People see Llorente demolishing Man U with a team like Bilbao, rated ahead of Torres in the Spanish National team of course they'll want Llorente.

"Is he really any better than what we have already?" In my and probably every serious football fan on the planet's opinion, yes. I'm not even going to respond to that snipey little claim of judging him on 2 games, I'd recommend instead that you consider a career writing for the Daily Mail, your ability to extrapolate something from nothing and present it as something valid is ridiculous. The worst thing is you don't even realise you're doing it. I now see why you swallowed that bs the Daily Mail writer wrote about Rooney's book deal being scrapped, without quotes, without evidence, without even consulting the thought process the publishers would've gone through when looking at the sales figures (poor Euro 2012, Olympic success -public anger against overpaid footballers). You think making stuff up on based on no evidence is fine because you do it all the time.

Comprehension not a strong point I see. Hence your tantrum. The article didn't say the Rooney book deal 'would' be scrapped simply that it was 'likely' to be scrapped. Join it up with the facts and the thought process makes perfect sense. Assuming you can think that is. So every serious football fan on the planet would agree that we should sign KPB do they? Really? Without exception? And you're not making stuff up based on no evidence? Wind your neck in and try to engage in proper debate.

Answer me this - do you think he was sold for "footballing reasons"?

No that's definitely not footballing reasons i'm afraid. Footballing reasons would be for the good of the football team, he was cashed in on for business reasons.

I think what's good for the owners and what's good for footballing reasons are different things. There is some correlation, sure, but taking a financial hit can mean an improvement in the footballing side of things

When I first read Wenger's quotes I essentially interpreted them as Wenger blaming the unrealistic expectations of the supporters for making his high-paying job so very, very difficult, poor dear.

Keeping Van Persie definitely would have been a financial hit. It wouldn't have gone to court and you know it. I think your logic is too simplistic, i'm sure some owners are in it purely for the money, and this would mean they put that above on field performances, which in the long term can be detrimental to the team - although not the cash reserves short term.

I think you're the one being simplistic shewore. Keeping RvP wouldn't have been much of a financial hit at all. We had to shell out for Giroud which we wouldn't otherwise have done and RvP would have been on relatively moderate wages for another year plus he would have been 30 when his contract ended and may not have been quite so attractive to other clubs. The cash reserves can only be useful to the owners if they draw on them. They haven't though ManU's owners have (indeed they've always paid dividends) and it hasn't yet impacted on their performances. In order for the owners to benefit they have to have a successful club which requires a successful team but you can't have a successful team unless you're a successful club in which case the owners will benefit. Of course the owners are only in it for the money which means the club has to make money which means the team has to be successful which means they have to invest in it hence we currently have the fourth highest player budgets in the PL. The alternative to having owners who are only in it for the money is to have owners who are only in it for personal aggrandisement.

So we only finished 3rd or 4th because the owners didn't invest as much as Chavs, City and ManU and thereby exposed themselves as selfish owners only in it for the money? If they gone heavily into hock and spent more than City in order to ensure we gave the fans what they wanted they would have been good owners would they? As I said you're being too simplistic. We couldn't prevent RvP leaving but in your eyes we shouldn't have taken £24m for him we should have allowed Fifa's dispute resolution committee to set the 'compensation' instead. Precisely how does that make our owners better owners?

No I'm not. You're saying just spend a little bit more than we do but not as much as ManU, City and Chavs and we will do better than them. It's not words in your mouth I'm attempting it's some thoughts in your brain. Player contract law is used all the time as I've explained before. It's still there if you want to re-read it. What parts of unprotected period and player contract rights don't you understand? RvP wouldn't have played on. If he'd intended to do so he would have said nothing - there would have been no need to say anything if he were happy to stay. He was going this summer whatever the club wanted because player contract law allows him to do so. In doing so he was just acting very professionally on his own behalf. All the club could do was to also act professionally on theirs.

You'd be feeling exactly the same if the club had spent another £15m every year over the last few seasons and we still hadn't achieved more than we had. It can't be guaranteed of course but looking at the activities of those we've been competing with and the circumstances in which we've had to compete it is the more logical though less romantic conclusion. If we'd spent that extra £15m chasing rainbows you wouldn't be saying 'well done owners for giving it a try' you'd still be saying that we have poor owners because they should have spent another £15m on top of that. The optimum for the club isn't to do the bare minimum (we have the 4th highest player budgets in the PL) it is to do what is sensible to compete as well as we can consistent with the objective to allow us to continue to compete as well as we can on an enduring and growing basis - that's to say look after the long term health of the club as well as the short term health of an ever changing team.

Yes, we have the 4th highest player budget in the PL because we have the flatest wage structure in the PL. Giving reserve players like Djourou 50k a week is just crazy, and just a little bizarre given the financial prudency shown by management in other areas. I guess there will always be some who are not bothered by our trophy drought and see no correlation with our ability to retain and attract the best players. Football happens to be one of those businesses where its vital to look after short term health if you want to see

Team improvement in terms of acquisition has happened in most summer and a few winter transfer periods. Our problem over recent periods has been with player retention and external circumstances outwith our control for the most part has been at the root of that. It won't make you or any one else any happier but some attempt at understanding the world we having to operate it 'the complexities and nuances' as someone else put it might provide some degree of satisfaction. Football is a business where it is vital to look after the long term health if you wish to enjoy short term health. Plenty of clubs have experienced short term health only to regret its impact on their long term health. If you only look after short term health you'll only be satisfied for a short time.

Amos, there is virtually no chance of this club doing a Leeds or Blackburn. Weve been spun this particular horror story for far too long. There is however, a real chance of this club doing an Aston Villa/Everton under the sort of pragmmatic managment that values safety and underinvestment above glory. All that will do is lock you into a slow death of dwindling crowds and low expectation.

Not silver tongue speak shewore just plain English and easily understood for those with the willingness to do so. The acquisitions have by and large improved the team - though not in all cases of course but that's always been the case, and for all teams. The inability to retain key players has weakened the team over the last 2 or 3 seasons particularly but we have also coped well with it at times in the past. However, there are reasons for the present difficulties which are a little deeper than just a lack of desire to 'spend some ******** money'. It doesn't require a silver tongue to explain what those are but it does require more than a closed mind and a receptivity only for the superficial. As for Aston Villa you need only look at what they've tried to do chasing the rainbow of CL qualification beyond the resources they really had to understand that particular example doesn't help your case Wyn. I agree there's no chance of Arsenal doing a Leeds, or an Aston Villa, which is good for their short term health as well as their long term.

Villa suffered years of chronic underinvestment under Doug Ellis, as you well know. They then made the error of throwing Lerner's money at a succession of managers and inflated player wages ( around 88% of turnover). Initially a problem of underinvestment, but then one of mismangement.

So let's just agree that it's impossible to say we've improved pur team over the last few transfer windows, ins and outs. Really not up for debate, is it. Number of players in, i.e. deflecting the question and assigning it to "player acquisition" is the stuff that Alistair Campbell would be proud of. I'm just picking up on your point of "you would never be happy if we spent more money cos you' still want more" is not exactly proven true, cos i genuinely haven't been happy with our transfer dealings over the past 4/5 years, and if that is short termist, then so be it - not everyone has the confidence we'll be winning stuff again when ffp rides to the rescue. Which i'm sure you have reservations about. It is a shame that you genuinely never, ever question the administration behind Arsenal Football Club to be honest, it's one thing "looking the other way", and providing "rational" analysis, it's another refusing to see any faults.

I question the decisions Arsenal as a club makes all the time but it's not hard to know when they've got things wrong. It's much harder to understand why things haven't gone as we'd have hoped and concluded that even if they hadn't then the decisions taken at the time made sense. I'd turn it around the other way and say it's a shame you never make a genuine attempt to understand what is happening and why it has happened beyond superficial judgements. You can't judge whether a team has been weakened in a transfer window. Arguably when we signed RvP he didn't strengthen the team but he became a strength. Similarly Walcott has been derided for years now many are saying he's a key player. This whole business or judging even before the season has kicked off which team has weakened and which team has strengthened simply based on which players they have or haven't signed is really the most superficial of judgements. It isn't so much a refusal to see faults that's a problem it's the refusal to see the many good things that have gone into building the club. Any fool can see flaws - understanding the reasons for them and the background behind them takes a more rational analysis.

No, its a club that after years of underinvestment hit the accelerator pedal, lost control and crashed into a wall. For me the danger is our club losing its will to compete even in the short term, falling further behind year by year (perhaps almost imperceptibly) and then being forced to invest massively to get back to where we were. The likelyhood of hitting that wall in those circumstances becomes greater, especially if we no longer have a manager like Wenger, who for all his faults at least has an eye for talent.

The problem is we're not spending the resources we have on improving squad quality in depth. And the more we don't spend or underinvest in the team the harder we will end up hitting that accelerator in the long run. That's the point of the analogy. You keep referring to us having the 4th highest player budget as if its some indication of investment, when many believe we're actually overspending on mediocrity. The team (as opposed to the club as a whole) is not as strong as it could be because we've lost world-class quality and not adequately replaced it (some recent aquisitions excluded). One could state the counter-argument that clubs become stronger as their teams do and for the first few years under Wenger this happened. But we've been close to the bottom of the league in terms of net spending on the team for a few years and its not something you can simply attribute to the increased spending power of Chelsea and City.

The fact we're spending more on player wages doesn't necessarily mean we're investing in quality in the team, although its an easy assumption to make. In our case the popular view is we're spending more on mediocrity. The wage structure at the club is a topical subject at the moment, and for good reason. Its making it difficult to both sell and retain players. Wenger won't publicly say this but we know its a real problem. We may well have been consistently achieving our CL place (increasingly by the skin of our teeth) but we've also consistently crashed out. This year the slow draining away of quality may just finally catch up with us, ironically just as we're beginning to spend more. The club may be starting to press that accelerator but with Wenger's contract expiring next season you do wonder who's going to be driving.

Interesting article on Swissramble. However the very first graph only appears to illustrate that Dortmund achieved their success following a modest level of spending between 2008 and 2011. The appointment of Klopp was probably also a factor. I find the reference to Dortmund also an apt one in that they are now perceived as a 'selling club' who may encounter problems maintaining their level of competitiveness if they can't replace the quality they sell. Their high commercial based revenue is astounding and may help them, but if Arsenal are to get to anywhere near those levels we will certainly need to increase our success on the field. And that means buying and developing quality.

I think what Amy Lawrence's article misses, and quite a lot of similar superficial analysis also misses, is that Wenger isn't operating in the same environment he could before 2003 when Abramovich led the sugar daddy tendency and again in 2008 when contract law made it harder to retain players and Mansour scaled up Abramovichs previous distortion. Glib talk of a Midas touch like magic hats is just fantasy stuff. It's all more scientific than that. The important thing about Dortmund is that they are still very strong. As I've said before teams are never constant. Even Chelsea with all their resources only managed 6th last season though they had the fortune of the CL to compensate. Teams fluctuate and along with injuries, loss of form, managerial changes et c., but they can always recover if the club itself is fundamentally strong. If they've blown their stake money chasing rainbows, trying to find a magical Midas touch they probably won't without a serious period of retrenchment. Nowadays the player is King and wages are more important than transfer fees in team building. In a player budget whatever you spend on transfers and associated agents fees is less to spend on wages. If FFP succeeds and the oligarchs have less freedom to spend obscenely on overall player budgets it's likely that transfer fees wouldn't be the priority. It may also take some form of FFP in the PL, as is currently being contemplated, and even some equalisation of broadcasting rights in Spain to really bring it home but the most successful teams will be those who can spend on wages. If folk don't understand the changes that have taken place over the last 10 years then they'll struggle to come to terms with those that will take place over the next 10 but I'm confident that AFC isn't as blind as others have been.

@ Wyn Mills - we don't set out to buy what you call mediocrity. Some players just don't develop as expected, or fail to adapt, or lose motivation, etc. That's a problem all squads have and a problem that will probably never go away completely. There is a reason for the fairly flat wage structure - a recognition of the nature of football as a team sport. There is room within it for extra remuneration for a special player like Cesc, or RvP if he'd been willing to re-sign. And don't forget there may be performance bonuses and the like to add to basic salaries as well, to further reward the really good players.

Just post your question on this thread FG or open a thread in the forum. It maybe someone could come up with a better answer than I could. As a codicil to the 'why couldn't we keep RvP' issue it seems that there have been two prominent cases of players invoking Article 17. One was Guttierez when he left Mallorca to join Newcastle in 2008. Interestingly the Guardian report at the time includes a telling phrase the player has cited Article 17 of Fifa's statutes, which states that a player aged between 23 and 28 who has fulfilled three years of his contract can move to another club for "footballing reasons". It seems that Gazidis's reference to 'footballing reasons' being behind RvP's move wasn't accidental and he was telling us what had really happened. Another move which gives pause to players thinking they can buy out the value of the contract based on the value of wages is that of a Brazilian Matuzalem who tore up his contract with Shakhtar in 2009 after 3 years to move to Zaragoza where the original £6m compensation settled by Fifa was increased to £11m by CAS. The issue is clear though. There is nothing to stop a player leaving after 3 years (2 years if over 28 when signed) of his contract no matter how long he has remaining and all the club can do is get the best deal they can for the club.

@ Amos - thanks. I was wondering why the club/AW thought they had any chance of keeping the Dutch Badger even before he published his statement, given that the last year of the contract was unprotected. Do you think it was just a case of hanging in there until it became impossible? Also, what do you think was the impact of the statement on the club? I know I may be asking you to hypothesise, but I'd be interested to hear your views.

FG, that would all be understandable if we weren't struggling to a) hold on to our best players and b)get rid of at least half a dozen assorted crocks and abject failures. Do you really believe Arsenal, a club with the sort of global profile and income that we have, should be experiencing these problems? I would argue the problem of paying over the odds for deadwood (given our supposed budgetary restrictions) is fairly unique to us in this league.

@ Wyn Mills - never mind understandable, it's an unavoidable and universal problem. We have to keep doing our best to reduce the numbers of those players but there will never be a time when any club doesn't have at least one or two who aren't cutting it for whatever reason. It can be a sign that the squad as a whole is improving if someone who was good enough two seasons ago can't get a game now. As for the point about losing players, we lose players against our will to clubs who can pay far larger wages which we could not match, regardless of the details of our wage structure.

RvP is a professional footballer, taking advantage of the rules of the game and doing what's best for him and his family. It's hard to see him doing so well at ManU I have to agree but in the modern game players are transient. For the time being the team is weaker having lost him but the club isn't and all our star players are eventually replaced by other star players. The other side of the coin is that the supporters only value loyalty for the players they want to keep. Loyalty doesn't enter into it for the players seen as deadwood. It was only a couple of seasons back that RvP was one the 'assorted crocks' we were burdened with and many wanted rid of. Players are no less loyal than many supporters.

Anzhi Makhachkala. My apologies to any of their fans or anyone connected wth that club who might be reading.

That's just it - it was sooner rather than later. I know his first duty was to his family but he wasn't exactly on minimum wage and we'd have given him silly money, too. It was a move in the hope of instant success - ie about RvP professionally, not his happy and settled wife or kids. We treat our players well, and it would be nice if they returned the favour now and then - we didn't even get that much playing time out of him over the eight years. I can't help getting attached to players - while they play for us. When they're gone, they're gone - Henry excepted, still love him. I can usually let them go and I thought I was succeeding, but clearly I was mistaken in my feelings! But he's in the past now and as you say, someone will take his place soon. Cheers for the chat, see ya.

Again purchases like Park aren't unique to Arsenal for whom read Bebe for ManU. Not quite in same the league as Bentley for Spurs though but every team has them and most with far worse examples - Andy Carroll for £35m anyone? Of course Wenger understands about fans expectations and the inevitable questions that arise while also understanding the superficial nature of many of those questions when it comes to transfers. What's important isn't any decreasing nature of net transfer spending (we're still pretty high on gross spending and we have a net transfer gain simply because we buy better and therefore sell better!) but the overall and consistent increase in player budgets alongside our capacity to sustain that increase. That's what will determine our ability to compete on an enduring basis.

Of course there is nothing unique about Arsenal having deadwood in the squad, but it hurts us more because there isn't a blank chequebook to pay for their wages, like Man City and Chelsea. Can we afford to sign a player for 18M and let him go on loan (like Chelsea have done with Lukaku)? For this reason, we need to have lesser of these players, which is a constant effort, but something which is holding us back from reaching optimum levels. Gazidis' success will be measured on this, after another 1-2 years, once he's had enough time to unwind the contracts of poor performers and replace them with better quality.

It doesn't hurt us more than it does anyone else other than Man City and Chelsea. Arguably it hurts us less because we tend to buy well overall. If we had high net transfer spending it would certainly hurt a great deal more. Wage inflation has its roots not only in increasing revenues but also in the liberalisation of player contracts. That's why of your player budgets it's far more important to build and retain the ability to pay well than it is to spend on transfers.

Our transfer spend isn't falling. You're being misled by net spending. Our gross spending, the total amount we spend on transfers is very high but obviously not as high as Man City, Chelsea and ManU. The only other clubs that have spent more on transfers over the last 10 years are Spurs and Liverpool but critically, despite both having higher gross and net spending on transfers they haven't performed as consistently well as we have. Neither Spurs or Liverpool have spent as much on overall player budgets as we have. So we have high transfer spending we pay better than anyone other than City, Chelsea and ManU and we consistently perform better than anyone other than those three. Our 'socialist' structure has its failings but it has its merits too but really if we're to compete at the highest level then invariably there're going to be fewer clubs that will pay as well as we do and therefore fewer clubs that can match our wages. That's not to say that a number of other clubs find it any easier to move players on that they no longer need. Spending more money on less quality is the preserve of those over spending on transfers not those that pay well.

"Almunia is world class" GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Smoke and mirrors again, Amos. You know as well as I do that our net transfer spend over the last 10 years was probably close to if not the lowest in the league. While its true that on average we spend more than anyone with the exception of Chelsea, City, Utd, Liverpool and Spurs, this is more than offset by sales, which I believe since 2003 have outstripped every other club. And crucially those sales have involved world class talent leaving the club and in many cases not being replaced. While some may laud Wenger for his frugality and spending so little in achieving so many runner-up places I tend to be more critical in terms of what I feel he could have achieved with just a little more investment, and also what i feel the cumulative effect of underinvestment in the team will be (ie: not a single piece of silverware in over 7 years - Emirates Cup excepted). Anyway I'll stop now as I'm just repeating myself. Maybe I'm just a half glass empty kind of guy.

Er yes, Wenger did say that. The very thought of Almunia just revives all types of memories.

All types of memories but few of them accurate. :) Footballers are usually either heroes or villains. Some supporters find it hard to allow any space between.

@ Wyn Mills - Forgot to finish my point. It is harder to get a player on a high salary out on loan, but that is because you will almost certainly be sending him to a smaller club, maybe to a comparable club in dire need, but very unlikely to a bigger club which pays higher wages. Eg Everton might send a player on loan to Brighton, or even Reading, but unlikely to send one to us, ManUre, Chelski or Money City. So the amount the parent club pays is kind of a red herring.

What was Almunia's wage at Arsenal? 50-60K? We can't be sure of the exact amount but what we can be sure of is that he will never get that sort of deal again... anywhere...ever. Same for Djourou, Denilson, Vela, Chamakh, Park, B52, Santos, Diaby, Squillaci, etc etc. Only we throw our money at average or perenially crocked players like this. No wonder none of them are putting in transfer requests and are simply running down their contracts. Its deeply flawed.

He's on a lot Amos, best paid in the league? 4th in the world?

Apparently Fergie earns more in the PL. Understandably I guess. Depends which reports you trust but some put Ancelloti, Hiddink and even Capello (when with England) ahead of him as well as all the usual suspects. A number of others are put pretty close to him too. With the resources he has had I think Wenger has been good value (relatively) for what he's produced for the club but I'm not sure what point you're making - or even if there is one. Most people associated with football, certainly at PL level, seem to make obscene amounts of money. Some earn it more than others.

I think in this instance Wyn doesn't mean Tax as in the tax you see on your pay slip, but more to do with "tax" in the form of holding back money your talent or weighting within the team should command and give it to players who are yet to prove themselves, ir order for it to be more socialist.

I think they pay structure was different when we were winning things, this whole socialist stuff is a product of the approach of getting a load of youth players to buy into the club, and the way they're treated. Which of course, didn't work. I remember Vieira signing a 50k a week deal, which was massive money then. Unreal really what's happened since then.

^ who has said we'd do better than those clubs? No one on here that i've seen?

Nobody said Almunia was world class either but if there isn't a problem with our pay structure that prevents us competing with the teams that do better than us then what's the purpose of changing it? No I don't see where you're going with it. Merse was sold at a time when Abramovich and Mansour were unknown in the world of football. Wage inflation was less of an issue then. But there're some hints to Arsenal's 'renowned' pay structure in this article from 2004. http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/wenger-no-vieira-pay-hike-6983603.html

@ shewore - if the problem is created by our wage structure, how come everybody else has the same problem?

Ah in 2009 - I suppose on the back of the 2007-2008 title tilt when he'd displaced 'world class' Lehmann that might just have been possible to claim but an opinion difficult to sustain in hindsight. He'd have come to change his mind after that. Times of course have indeed changed, you're beginning to grasp the 'complexities and nuances' at last. The Webster clause hadn't impacted on player contracts in 2004. That was what prevented Vieira becoming a ManU player in 2001 - a contract was a contract back then.

I'm not saying other clubs don't haven issues, i'm just curious as to who has "the same problem" as us.

The clubs with poorer players than we have won't have the same problems to the same extent as we do but ManU took a young Ronaldo, gave him his chance to develop and couldn't hang onto him. City and Chelsea don't bother developing young players but it took Chelsea a while to shift Kakuta. The problem of shifting players you don't want isn't confined to young players though they are usually easier to place than older players. Arshavin seems pretty immovable and he's no youngster. The fact that the predator clubs find our talent so attractive is in some ways a mark of a successful policy. Football has to find a way to stop them feeding from our labours quite so avariciously but it's an external issue not an internal one and as both John Henry of Liverpool and Marwood at City have both said the see the future for their clubs adopting the same policy presumably they are willing to embrace the same problems.

"The fact that the predator clubs find our talent so attractive is in some ways a mark of a successful policy." Shouldn't that read the reason the predator clubs find our BEST talent so attractive is that as a result of our policy they are easy to tempt away? Show them a vision, double their wages and hey presto....gone! You said it yourself Amos. Wages are an example of capitalism at its rawest...except of course at Arsenal.

@ Wyn Mills - Can you identify for me the clubs which, due to their superior wage structure or unwillingness to sign young players, don't have "dead wood"? AW doesn't always get it right when he predicts potential or future performance. It happens with all managers. It's not even mainly the developed youth who are the problem at Arsenal, either. The first team players whom the club is trying to offload at the moment are Squillaci, Arshavin and Park. Chamakh has only just gone. Of the players who we developed, I can only think of Denilson and Bendtner who outstayed their usefulness to the first team squad, and they are both already out on loan. I'm not including Djourou because he is still wanted by AW. Fabianski I'm not sure about, but I think he is the one who wants to leave - AW wouldn't let him go last summer, though he told Almunia he was free to leave. And AW didn't accidentally sign or promote Chesney, btw. He was scouted and assessed like everybody else.

FG, I'm still waiting for the answer to Shewore's original question about which other clubs have the same problem we do with shifting deadwood at the same time as losing their best players every season. Its the inverse question, but one I would have thought slightly easier to answer. The fact that you say its not mainly the developed youth that is the problem is surely more alarming, because it calls into question Wenger's judgement in buying deadwood in the first place. As far as Chesney is concerned it was the coincidence of Almunia being off form and Fabianski/Mannone suffering log term injuries that saw him promoted to No1 at such a tender age. Not convinced Wenger would have taken the chance otherwise. Are you?

Like I asked earlier, when was the last time we improved the team in the summer? Your answer was definition of bogus! 'well we've improved squad recruitment', doesn't really answer it. We've lost more than players that just 'we'd like to hang on to', wouldn't you agree? We've lost our Captain the last 2 summers & best player, coupled with some others that we may wanted to have kept. You're using that Ronaldo anomaly again ;) and the Tevez one was covered off, it was a loan, he was owned by a company, not a football club, not really viable examples. Are you saying Chesney wasn't forced into the first team then? He was put there after injuries to other keepers that were never, ever good enough to be no1 for us, they just weren't up to scratch. I say 'injuries', actually it was more like 'howlers'. I think that's a fair assessment, I don't think you can dismiss that as bogus speculation to be honest, it was there for all to see.

Still not answering the question yourself I see. As I said above the process of team improvement doesn't always take place in any one transfer window except in the simplistic, superficial analysis of some supporters. Some of the players recruited in a transfer window don't improve a team immediately as I explained. RvP wasn't an immediate improvement but we improved the team by recruiting him. In other instances you can lose your best player (Henry) and recruit a virtual unknown (Sagna) in a position most fans wouldn't have seen as a priority and improve the team. Supporters are hopeless at determining what would improve a team. We all think we know what's best but in truth we know very little. The point being made was that we lose our best player EVERY season. That's palpable nonsense. We've lost Cesc and RvP who we might describe as pivotal (though all players are eventually). We might have preferred to hang onto Nasri and even Hleb at the time but neither were really indispensable and were replaced. Why is Ronaldo any more of an anomaly than Cesc or RvP? Please explain your reasoning. ManU agreed a fee of £25m for Tevez, and offered to make him one of their highest players. So clearly, by definition, having been with them for 2 years, he was their player and one they wanted to hang onto but couldn't and lost him to a competitor. In claiming that isn't a viable example you're just deceiving yourself. What do you mean by Szczesny being forced into the first team? If injuries gave him his opportunity earlier than he might have expected that's pretty much an everyday occurrence in football. Almunia only got his chance because 'world class' Lehmann was absolutely crap at the time. But why should anyone think how Szczesny got his opportunity as something to whinge about? The fact is that he was given the chance. In your determination to only ever see the negatives in the club you're becoming increasingly petty. Complaining about the circumstances of Szczesny's inclusion in the team as though it were a failing when many would have preferred us to bring in Given or Green or Schwarzer and delayed his inclusion even further is a good example of such silliness.

You claim underinvestment Wyn yet, for the umpteenth time, we have the league's 4th highest investment of any team in the PL. Your argument is that if we invest more we will improve our position. Yet the only teams that do consistently better than us are those teams who have greater resources to invest than we have. There's always a case for bringing in better players as and when we find them but a little more investment isn't going to reduce the the resources of those other teams. As for other teams with a high proportion of loanees on high wages take a peek at City. It's even more painful when those loanees are players you're also having to write down large transfer fees over each year of their contract. As for FFP kicking in and nobody buying our top players isn't that exactly the position we want to be in?

No wriggling at all, can you really not see the difference between Tevez and Van Persie situations? Really? If not, then no point in discussing it further. What is the correct context for Almunia and Fabianski being called World Class then? It is what it is, Not sure many people have said Rob Green's world class to be honest, think that's something you've just made up. Utd didn't really need to balance the books though did they? As long as they keep winning things they're not gonna have cash flow problems are they. I don't think Cesc's final season is in any way comparable to Utd's with Ronaldo either.

Does this all stem from my comment about Almunia and you saying "no one said that"? Don't be so sensitive, it was a throwaway comment, as i said, Almunia was never good enough for us and was plain to see at the time. If you think there's no difference between Tevez and Van Persie's situation then good luck to you, Van Persie (as i've said, time and time and time again) is a top professional, if we'd have demanded he stay, and not cash in, or used some people skills and maybe got him not to take us to court (as if!) then we potentially could've got a year out of him. Tevez was obtuse and had advisors around him purely in it for them - is that not obvious? Honestly? Why do Utd need to balance the books as much? Didn't they take money out of the club whilst leveraging it against debt? Is that balancing the books?

"not many people were claiming that Almunia or Fabianski were world class". Yes, you're right about that, with one notable exception: http://www.arsenal.com/news/ladies-news/almunia

Ah silly me, being sensitive to something that Wenger said (that was completely wrong and out of context), i forgot, i am on a completely level playing field with the gaffer - everything I say has the same audience and reach, no matter the significance. Wyn i posted that link earlier, apparently the context in which he said "world class" doesn't actually mean that, cos some fans posting on forums said Schwarzer and Green were world class at the same time.

Still struggling with the meaning and consequence of 'context' I see shewore. But at least I understand the reason you don't feel inhibited in making facile arguments and observations is because you don't feel important enough.

It isn't ignorant if you understand context. Ignorance of context does make it difficult to appear anything other than ignorant though.

We can't be unique in paying over the odds for our deadwood if in most cases that doesn't include substantial transfer fee amortisation which comes out of investment funds. For example Arshavin's amortisation alone I believe runs at some £70,000 per week - that's without his salary. Apply that to deadwood at other clubs with high net transfer spend and we won't be unique or even the worst sufferers. At the same time I think net transfer spend is a blunt measure (it can be seen as a positive investment sign) and gross transfer spend and the size of our total annual player budget spend are much better indicators of investment. I not questioning anyones right to have an opinion but all our opinions should be challenged just as much as any actions of the club if there're grounds to do so.