GSK_AFC wrote:I still dont understand when people say you need an adequate replacement for when you get injuries though. Are people saying we need another player on the same level as Ramsey and Özil? What are the chances of us buying somebody like Vidal or Silva as back up?
When you get injuries to most of your best players at the same time there's no much you can do about it unless you have oil money IMO.
I think this is the critical point.
Its inevitable that we are held to the same bar of success as the other top teams as we were successful when the top tier field was smaller and have been jsut good enough to get into Europe consistently after the proper success. One thing no one can ever get away from, is that the rest of the big 4 (Chelsea/City/Man U) have spent significantly more than we even have in reserves to get head and shoulders above us trophy wise.
Its debatable whether we go for broke and spend all of the £150-£200m in reserves to get squads that can match Chelsea and City = squads that can genuinely compete on all fronts simultaneously. In any case, the board would never do that.
Arsenal's bottom line is probably +£200m clearly.
Chelsea/City/Man Us bottom line is -£600-700m approx
Different starting positions of course, but ultimately, we cant dance with these guys when it comes to the transfer market when buying in volume. Just look at what the other two have spent/sold this season.
I think Gunflash(?) put it perfectly in another thread when referring to the fans opinions, but it can be applied to us financially = success wise as well. We have a squad and money to be better than those below us, but possibly not good enough to genuinely be better than those above us.
Where do we go? Play it like Spurs and Lpool and drop out of competitions early to give our smaller squad the chance to genuinely compete in 1-2 competitions ie FA + LC / PL + FA / PL + CL / PL / CL etc (probably not with AW in charge)
or
Spunk all our money to break that glass ceiling? (not with Kronke + co in charge)
It's frustrating to watch, because we have the power to build a sick squad now with the Puma etc money, but if we go for world beaters (Suarez/Cavani/Draxler etc), it'll be 1-2 per season coming in, if we go for lower level players it will be more bodies in at once, but at the price of quality (ie Gervinho / Remy / Schniederlin etc).
While this is all happening, Chelsea / City have high value players they already bought to offload and spend money on new high value players, adding to squads that are already superior numbers and quality wise across the board.
We are to City and Chelsea what Spurs are to us:
Good/great first 11, but not enough to truly beat above our weight over the whole race, once you go below the first 11.
My 2 pence worth anyways....
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 8:48 pm
