AW: 'Barca Don't Want To Sell Villa'

Didn't Rosell go public that Villa was not up for transfer a few weeks back? Conceivably that was what Wenger was referring too. It seemed a strange target for Wenger anyway other than possibly as a loan until the end of the season. I think the scattergun nature of Wenger's answers is an inevitable consequence of reporters scattergun tendency to launch any name that comes into their heads and ask if we're going to sign him.

Dont Arsenal have enough strikers already.? i would have thought it was the midfield/defence that needs some strenghtening

Somebody on Twitter posted a link to an Arsene quote last summer 2 days before the transfer window closed that said "We are definately not in for Mikel Arteta" .... I've given up listening to Arsene in the transfer window, it's completely pointless.

Did he really say that? That's nuts, the only way we could be weaker if we signed someone would be if we resigned Mikel Silvestre.

I also feel I'm stronger if I do nothing. My missus however calls me a lazy unambitious negligent workshy dosser. Watching Arsenals' inaction this window makes me come round to seeing her POV a little more. Would we actually do any business even if we wanted to? Are we that incompetent we have sent Dick Law all the way to Barcelona when a quick phone call would've established he'd be wasting Arsenals time and obviously precious money? Why is Wenger making personal calls to clubs? I understand to players but to clubs? Are we really that unconfident of those that make up the squad off the pitch as well as those on? The whole thing just reeks of Wenger taking on board way too much as ever and failing dismally to appoint or have someone appoint a competent team that have experience in getting deals through with the minimum of fuss. It all just seems a horrible horrible mess that as always is so avoidable, but having winged it for so many seasons this could well be the one where luck runs out and it costs the club dearly. I just don't think Arsene can see the wood for the trees any longer.

*Cue*

Arsenal + Wenger + Kroenke + Transfers + Dick Law = Rolling tumbleweed.

And forgot to mention that after saying there was no room for negotiation with Barca on DV, he was asked whether that was it and replied, when a club says a player is not for sale, you respect that. If they want to be classless, they can. We're not.

Yeah AW has been pretty consistent with his comments. I think some fans are desperate for him to say he will definitely sign someone and are misinterpreting his comments. I suspect we have made offers for players and most clubs will leave it until the last minute to do a deal if no better offer comes in. That's why he made the comment about most deals being done in the last 48 hours a few weeks back.

I can't find those quotes in 'schizophrenic' list of comments LD. Are they direct quotes as I can't see to find them ? If so are you completely happy you've got the full context of both phrases?

Well here are some more choice phrases, "We know we are short." Followed by "Our squad is quite complete." "We know what we need to do and we look everywhere" was followed by "we have two players in every position" which then proceeded "numbers wise (upfront) we are short." It's flip flopping in the extreme. It's fair enough if he's trying to throw people off the scent or whatever, but set against a background of constant inaction, it looks incompetent, I have to say.

Again are those direct quotes and do they suffer when out of context LD? Being short on numbers due to injury or international calls wouldn't be a permanent condition and the squad probably is complete on numbers. When quoted fully, as in that list of supposedly schizophrenic comments, which are fairly consistent in theme, there isn't really any flip flopping at all. He clearly wants to add better players and in all probability always will want to, as indeed he should, whatever the existing make up of the squad.

I totally get what the press’s game is etc. Prior to us playing Manchester City there was a journalist that asked AW four (4!!!!) questions about Mario Balotelli. Listen, if I had to speak to those idiots every other day I’d patronise them too. But I watch all of Wenger’s press conferences online and I have to say that, no, I don’t believe there’s any suffering of context here. In one conference he’s adamant that he is looking for players and in the next he says he’s not that bothered. It is total flip flopping. That would be fair enough if there was evidence to believe that he was throwing the press off the scent, but set against the action (or rather, lack of- which is a pretty constant theme), then it’s difficult to believe that he isn’t, to use his own parlance, “jaded” by the transfer market. I can’t psychoanalyse the reasons but he looks petrified of the market. If he’s saying one thing to the press and doing another, that’s one thing. But he’s saying a myriad of different things in a variety of different ways and doing absolutely nothing. I’d have a lot more tolerance for the “super, super quality” and “we’re keeping our powder dry” lines if they weren’t spun in every single window, bar none whilst our squad always looks short. (We’ve basically played for 18 months now with one centre forward in our squad). If he consistently and genuinely can’t find these players year after year after year, what on earth are we paying him £7.5m a year for? I get where he’s coming from, it’s hard, we shouldn’t just sign any old clogger. But you know, that’s why we pay him what we do. If the CEO of Barclays just turned around and said, “Yes, but it’s really, really hard to sustain interest rates, serve our shareholders and run a huge corporate operation” I doubt he’d get a favourable response from his paymasters. “We know it is, that’s why we pay you *****loads of money to do it. So stop whingeing and do it.” You've kind of exemplified the point in your last sentence, "He wants to add better players." Well that's great, but so often he fails to actually do it.

Well the Barclays CEO is on about the same as Gazidis, so he needs to get into football administration ASAP for an easier ride.

The frustrating thing about Wenger is that the result of tonight's game won't make the slightest difference. It might do if someone suffered a serious long term injury though which is how we ended up with Arshavin I guess.

Not that i fancy us to get stuffed, I think we should win tonight relatively comfortably, especially if the attack clicks again. Just that they have Suarez who's the real threat

We wanted Mertesacker the year before but instead decided to wait a year to get him on a free, same with Chamackh, we baulked at Cahill (who is a very good player for Chelsea, probably their next captain). I read the article in the Toriegraph the other day talking about Dein doing the deals, even if Wenger baulked at the price Dein would've made the signing if it was 1 or 2 mill more - as the football guy why does he have to be in charge of the purse strings so much? Surely it's better if that's taken out of his hands - i'm not saying anyone else identify the targets, Wenger should do that, just let other people take care of the administration side of it - jesus, they're paid well enough to do it.

Sorry yeah, 8m. So the only impact Dein had was on Ashley Cole's balls up? Ah right ;) Nothing positive on any other transfers then? Dein was intstrumental in most of our top signings.

It's well known David Dein had a yacht in the south of France on which quite a few major deals were brokered, including Anelka's £23m transfer to Madrid. That whole deal only happened because Dein was holding out for £22m from Lazio. Not waving a flag for Dein but you can't just trash his influence. No need for him to fly down to Barcelona when he could cruise across and invite Villa to his onboard party.

@ Wyn Mills - you're not paraphrasing, you're changing the meanng entirely. He says you have to be strong enough not to succumb to pressure to sign players you don't need.

Then the meaning, in my view, is unclear. And it still does not change the underlying problem.

Fun, our win percentage without Arteta is less than 20% isn't it?

Arteta missed the last five weeks of the season last year and missed the whole of January too, West Brom was our only win. I wouldn't be so convinced that the sale of Clichy meant Wenger was definitely going to buy a LB in the summer of 2011, he sold Song this summer then pulled out of a deal to sign Sahin, so he must have decided that he wanted a midfielder, he hasn't signed one since. It's not just a demand that he buys any old player, but personally, and I accept that this is subjective, I've had the feeling for the last 4-5 seasons that our squad has been a few players short of pushing on and achieving more than they have. I've always had that feeling in August and then again in May. 4-5 seasons in a row now. If for 4-5 years they're really has been this massive dearth of players on the market that could have improved us whilst a huge stack of cash sits in our bank, then again, I have to ask why we are paying the manager £7.5m a year when a big part of his job is apparently impossible anyway.

But if such a huge part of the job, scouting, identifying and purchasing talent, is impossible, why would it matter if we only had an average manager?

Because of all of the other parts of the job?

Bit of a stretch, Wyn... if he was the Real manager he wouldn't have a recent on-field Arsenal record, would he. Real are 4 points closer to the top of their league than Arsenal are to the the top of the Premier league.

If Wenger had gone this long finishing no higher than 3rd and without winning any silverware at Real he would not still be in the job. You can be certain of that. I don't think its much of a stretch to come to that conclusion.

It's rare to see you exaggerate quite as much LD. So the job Wenger has done in scouting, identifying and purchasing talent shows that it is impossible for him to do it and therefore he isn't worth what he is being paid? Or that we could get by with an average manager who would do as well? I'd have thought his record in that department alone would have shown that he's probably worth a great deal more than he's being paid. Frankly whether he's paid peanuts or 10 times what he's getting it still won't make more players available in this window.

Yes, I believe, based on the last 5 years, his inaction in identifying and recruiting talent has diminished. I understand that there have been external pressures, but I still think he could have done better than he has done. Which is frankly not a lot given my opinion that the squad has been short of a couple of players in my view for a good 5 years. (Not to mention the increase in failures that he has bought). Like I say, I can swallow the "there are no players" for a couple of windows, but I think we're an about 10 now and for around 8 or 9 of those, I don't think we've taken the appropriate action. That's a big sample size.

Wenger is frustrating to even fans who greatly admire him forget those who have nothing but contempt for him (like a few here). I would say the club's primary problem in the last 5 years has been its inability to hang on to its top talent. Thats where the drawback has been. Not in the recruitment or the training of players, its the retention of the players. If players have to leave for reasons like higher wages, home country etc, Wenger cant be solely blamed for it especially given the unnatural explosion in wages offered by some sugar daddy clubs. It was Wenger who recruited and trained Cesc, Nasri, Hleb, Flamini and Song - all excellent players. It was Wenger's immense faith, training and motivation that made the raw talent of RvP blossom into the best striker in the premier league. While I agree that the last 24 months have not been a good period of player recruitment by Wenger's own high standards barring some gems, the main problem was player retention, not recruitment. The club along with the whole unsavoury commercial whoring of football could be to blame not the manager alone.

Think I've already said I understand all of that but he should have done better than he has done. In 2008, Spurs finished 37 points behind us, there's been little more than a point between us the last couple of years now. I accept that City's spending makes it harder, I don't accept that it makes it impossible. I accept 3rd or 4th is pretty much the most we can expect, I don't accept that we should be scrapping for it with the likes of Spurs and Everton. We should be a comfortable 3rd or 4th given resources. Who knows, that extra player or two could have avoided us a few CL qualifiers and enabled us to progressively build a better squad because we'd have not needed to wait until the last week of August to scrap for players. We might even have won a cup or two as well in that time (silly me, what am I thinking? We can't compete with the likes of Bradford and Swansea). We might not have of course, we might be no better off. But I don't see that as a good reason not to try. (Before you strawman me, no, I'm not saying we should overspend like Leeds blah, blah, blah).

We were told that moving to the Emirates would put us in a position to compete with the likes of Utd. So why aren't we? And why are Utd able to build and maintain a settled consistent side while our best players leave? Yes, the landscape has changed, but fundamentally we are still fishing in the same waters as Utd, Spurs and Everton, and frankly struggling to keep pace at the moment. These teams seem to have had no problem finding players who will improve them. So why are we different? There's a touch of the Emperor's new clothes in some of the statements Wenger makes in only bringing in top top quality. Sometimes you don't necessarily need the finest, you just need to cover your @ss.

We have the ability to invest, we're just not doing it in a meaningful way (and I don't mean inflating our wage bill). We've been found wanting in key areas of the pitch at different times (left back being our current issue). Blaming City and Chelsea for nicking our players is all well and good, but we've made a mint from those transfers without taking the advantage to really strengthen the team where its been required. The keeper situation is illustrative. The disruption is partially of our own making. The club can't just sit on its hands waiting for FFP and pronouncing itself happy with reaching 4th every season. Of course players will leave. You often have to aim high to hit your target.