Angelito wrote:Jayram, I entirely disagree with you. But I don't have the energy to go over this as you've completely closed your mind to a new perspective.
@ Others
It's not like Wenger could sign the creme de la creme and chose to sign those players, eh? How many times do we have to explain that we didn't have the resources to buy world class players? The ones we did like Ozil, Alexis, and Auba were timely, strategic buys that presented itself. Ozil had Arsenal, PSG, and ManU after him. He decided to join Wenger. Alexis had an option of Liverpool and Arsenal. He snubbed Rodgers. Every top club in the world had a world class striker, and we had Mislintat, which opened the way for Auba to join Arsenal.
It's still debatable as to who signed Xhaka and Mustafi. Many claim that those were StatDNA purchases pushed forward by Gazidis.
Wenger's poor signings after 2013 were Chambers and Welbeck for a combined £35m.
Debuchy was an unlucky signing because of that horror injury. Plus, we paid a meagre £11m for him. And I have no idea why we signed Lucas. He did well in his limited minutes here, nonetheless.
Phil, Jeffers was a one-off during the Invincibles era. And he only cost £7m. Frimpong was an academy player. Denilson, for whatever he was, played as our DLP during a time we dominated possession and played amazing football, whilst reaching the SFs of the UCL. Chamakh was a free transfer who scored 11 goals overall and was brought in as a back-up to the best striker in the world at the time.
Squillaci was of course a shitty signing, which wouldn't have happened if City didn't decide to pay £200k a week to Kompany at the time.
What we're failing to recognize is that Wenger didn't have the money. You can't blame him until 2013 at the very least. He did what he had to do. We'd have won the title in 07/08 if we had a penny to spend. Even at that, we lost the league to a ManU that had Ronaldo and Tevez alongside the best defensive unit in the League. We would have reached the UCL final in 2009 if we hadn't come up against a ManU with the same unit, with Ronaldo, with Tevez, with peak Rooney, with Berbatov.
10/11 was where the actual capitulation began. It was perhaps United's weakest side since losing the title to Chelsea, and we went on to have an Emery-esque collapse in the final 10 games. That season was an absolute disaster after the Barca win. Yet, Wenger still took a side with Bendtner, Eboue, Djourou, Song, a raw Szczesny, and a young Wilshere to an epic win against Barca—perhaps the only side to beat the great Barca side playing football.
It's not difficult to understand that we didn't have the resources and that meant Wenger had to gamble more. Our record purchase until Ozil was of Arshavin at £15m. It was nothing. Until 2011, Wenger was right about in contention as one of the best coaches around. He started declining after that. It took a toll on him and the money game had changed. By 2015, Wenger was out of his depth. We should have asked Wenger to step down when Klopp was available.
But if a past-it Wenger could win 3x FA Cups and still make it into the UCL, we did ourselves no favor by hiring a coach who couldn't hold a candle to a done and dusted Wenger.
My point is simple: if we had an ambitious board, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Last year, for the first time in 22 years, we lost money. We invested wisely on Lacazette, Auba, Leno, Torreira, etc., But we messed up with the recruitment of the manager.
That's why we're where we are right now.
Wenger, with Denilson, Squillaci, Bendtner, Eboue, Djourou, etc. was never as bad as we are currently. With the same Xhaka and Mustafi, we clocked in 75 points and won the FA Cup. With a better squad today, we're closer to relegation than to top-4.
It was never this bad. And, Wenger doesn't own Arsenal. All of your grievances are misguided. It's like blaming your poor mother of not pampering you when what she did was the best she could have done.
Wenger doesn't own Arsenal.
WOW - What total and utter revisionist nonsense ....
Wenger's transfer spend since 1996 was 687 million - he sold 444 million - a net spend 243 million ... only Chelsea, Utd, and City (
all in the last decade) spent more. Wages over the Wenger years were the third highest in the EPL, only Chelsea and Utd spent more.
So just get over this "
we had no money" we had more than nearly everyone else, and way more than most ...
and let's be honest for 15 years Arsene did a fantastic job, right through the move and on into the Emirates ... but ... as the gap between the rich and the poor shrunk with TV money seeing the likes of Leicester, Spurs and Everton all up their game, he simply lost his way.
In fact it was only when he was given the money 65m in 2011, 56m 2012, 50m 2013, 118m 2014 that things started to go so badly wrong ... it wasn't just the poor signings but the terrible contracts, we created an atmosphere where the players just needed to show up to be paid, where having a spine was no longer required - we became socialist Arsenal ... and it was a disaster.
Was that the owners? the board? the manager? or a combination of all three? who knows but for sure we're suffering now. That's not because of Emery he had no chance, it's because of the poisonous mindset that has hung like a shroud over our club since, well some would say 2005, but certainly since 2011 ... sure a few great cup wins, and some great days in the CL, but in hindsight it was a long, slow, painful decline ... we just didn't stop it fast enough.
Just a look at those transfer numbers again - since July 2014 Liverpool have a net spend of 18m - Spuds 50m - Leicester 113m .... in the same period we've spent net 166m only to go backwards ... that shows the real damage that had been done in those final Wenger / Gazidis years.
It takes many good years, if not decades, to get a club up competing at the top, it takes just a few bad years to send one all the way back down.
