Goonersworld

Marsbar100 wrote:I think he did a respectable job but you are overating it.

For a start the quality of managers was abysmal, take the 06/07 season these were the managers

Stuart Pearce
Gareth Southgate
Mark Hughes
Alan curbishley
Paul Jewell
Neil Warnock
Aidy boothyrd
Martin jol
Steve compel
Harry redknapp
David Moyes
Lawrie Sanchez
Alan pardew
Sammy Lee
Martin o'neill
Nigel Pearson

Are we really suggesting there aren't at least 10-20 managers around now that couldn't have beat that list?

Laugh at that list all you want but those guys knew how to stop a team from playing. Today even crap sides have guys like Nuno Sanchez, Edie Howe and Marco Silva who come out to play. You don’t see a team of 11 Orks standing behind the ball for 90 mins. That period between 2006-16 was weird because every week you had managers looking to take a point off us or snap our players legs. You don’t see that nowadays.

swipe right wrote: Share some numbers please. Don’t see how we could have been in the top four salary wise during the 2006-16 time-frame.

You should know the history, how can you keep debating when you don't know the facts? We have only been out of the top four wage payers four times in the last fifteen years ... we slightly 'under-perform' on position in table versus wages, we are not alone in that all the old top four Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea are slightly under, that's entirely due to Spurs being well over, and that one-off Leicester season ....

Here's our comparative wages spend, the first position, and our comparative net transfer spend the second position ...

2002/3 - 2nd - 8th
2003/4 - 3rd - 14th
2004/5 - 3rd - 2nd
2005/6 - 3rd - 14th
2006/7 - 3rd - 9th
2007/8 - 3rd - 20th
2008/9 - 4th - 8th
2009/10 - 4th - 16th
2010/11 - 5th - 18th
2011/12 - 5th - 10th
2012/13 - 4th - 17th
2013/14 - 4th - 3rd
2014/15 - 4th - 2nd
2015/16 - 5th - 5th
2016/17 - 4th - 3rd
2017/18 - 5th - 18th
2018/19 - 5th - 5th (summer only)

As you can see we were massively under-spending on transfers right up until 2013/14 when desperation cash was thrown around to stop the rot ... to little to late as it turned out. What these numbers show is that while the squad was regressing over a decade, when every year at least 10 clubs were spending more money on better players than us, we still somehow managed to pay our lesser players even more money in salaries ...

If you look at 2007-2014 we spent almost nothing on net transfers for six years, yet somehow our wages bill increased by a greater amount than 17 of our rivals, how did that even happen? the money certainly didn't go on new players so just where did it go? ..... stupidly expensive long term socialism based contracts on a whole bunch of injured, lazy, just plain average players that's where .... a problem that we are still dealing with today.

Ach wrote:That list cant be right surely?

Damn that was shocking

Well it does conveniently leave out Fergie, Rafa and Jose to paint a worse picture.

The three above were in their peak at this time so Wenger was competing with those first and foremost. Beyond that Jol actually did a good job at Spurs and started their progression to where they are now by getting them into Europe 2 seasons in a row (yes that's how shit they used to be). Moyes was also more than solid at Everton, we all know that.

I admit, the rest of that list is pretty dreadful but you could argue the same about a lot of today's managers, some look great at the moment (E.g. Nuno) but so did Paul Jewell for a season or two

Revisionism never works that well tbh

Wenger did a great job in planning for the Emirates, he was a step ahead in the scouting back then, the market also wasn't anywhere near as inflated so even if he wasn't spending a lot it wasn't as detrimental pre Emirates, off the back of the double wins as well he also had a reputation where all these top young talents wanted to come and play for him

Wenger knew funds wouldn't be massive going into the emriates and he planned for the Emirates by acquiring a phenomenal amount of young talent.

Going into the emriates we had fabregas, RVP, diaby, rosicky, theo, song, Clichy, Flamini, hleb, adebayor, eboue.

Most of that hub of players saw us through most of the early Emirates days even as late as 2012 song and RVP saved our asses for CL.

He did make one almighty massive f**k up pre/early Emirates though, he discarded far to many invincibles, keeping 3-4 of them around the place could have been the difference from top 4 to winning the pl or cl, 07/08 obviously springs to mind.

The point is I still think he wasn't a great manger going back to 06 but he was able to maintain some level of standards to 2012 because of the good young players he signed pre Emirates, not because he was a wizard.

Since he lost them players he couldn't really replicate signing good young players, to many good teams with to many scouts, to many teams with money in an inflated market to compete with, to many good managers to compete with etc...

What pochetino has done now is far more impressive than Wenger 06-12

People really do love to paint a black and white picture, don't they?

Until 2008, we were challenging for the title and would have won it if we had some funds to spend that season. In 2009, we were in the SFs of the UCL. In 2010 and 2011, we came up against the greatest club side in modern history in the UCL.

Until that catastrophic collapse in 2011, when we could have won the title had we not failed to win like 10/12 matches during the final run. Wenger was doing a top job at Arsenal. But that collapse in 2011 and the subsequent summer did indicate that Wenger was losing his touch.

It's after that he lost way in a sense. We could have won the title in 13/14 had we signed Higuain on top of Ozil. We would have won the title in 15/16 if we had a top class striker or even Lacazette to complement Giroud. I don't know why we didn't get those strikers. Perhaps Wenger was stubborn, or perhaps Kroenke simply didn't want to spend.

Wenger should have left after 15/16 and we should absolutely not have extended his contract after the FA Cup win in 16/17. It was an incredible way to leave for Wenger—beating City and Chelsea to the FA Cup.

Alas.

Angelito wrote:People really do love to paint a black and white picture, don't they?

Until 2008, we were challenging for the title and would have won it if we had some funds to spend that season. In 2009, we were in the SFs of the UCL. In 2010 and 2011, we came up against the greatest club side in modern history in the UCL.

Until that catastrophic collapse in 2011, when we could have won the title had we not failed to win like 10/12 matches during the final run. Wenger was doing a top job at Arsenal. But that collapse in 2011 and the subsequent summer did indicate that Wenger was losing his touch.

It's after that he lost way in a sense. We could have won the title in 13/14 had we signed Higuain on top of Ozil. We would have won the title in 15/16 if we had a top class striker or even Lacazette to complement Giroud. I don't know why we didn't get those strikers. Perhaps Wenger was stubborn, or perhaps Kroenke simply didn't want to spend.

Wenger should have left after 15/16 and we should absolutely not have extended his contract after the FA Cup win in 16/17. It was an incredible way to leave for Wenger—beating City and Chelsea to the FA Cup.

Alas.

Should've never come to that. It was clear he was finished after the 2010-11 season and should've been fired. But sentimentality won the day...

swipe right wrote:

Marsbar100 wrote:I think he did a respectable job but you are overating it.

For a start the quality of managers was abysmal, take the 06/07 season these were the managers

Stuart Pearce
Gareth Southgate
Mark Hughes
Alan curbishley
Paul Jewell
Neil Warnock
Aidy boothyrd
Martin jol
Steve compel
Harry redknapp
David Moyes
Lawrie Sanchez
Alan pardew
Sammy Lee
Martin o'neill
Nigel Pearson

Are we really suggesting there aren't at least 10-20 managers around now that couldn't have beat that list?

Laugh at that list all you want but those guys knew how to stop a team from playing. Today even crap sides have guys like Nuno Sanchez, Edie Howe and Marco Silva who come out to play. You don’t see a team of 11 Orks standing behind the ball for 90 mins. That period between 2006-16 was weird because every week you had managers looking to take a point off us or snap our players legs. You don’t see that nowadays.

Mate thats bollox !! The gap between the quality of the top team and the bottom teams now is much smaller than it used to be, there are no easy matches in the Premier League. Plus the scouting networks are better, we have better players in the league than we used to have. Nowadays it is regular for bottom teams to take points from the top teams. Look how well Brighton and Wolves have done against the top 6 sides.

EliteKiller wrote:

swipe right wrote: Share some numbers please. Don’t see how we could have been in the top four salary wise during the 2006-16 time-frame.

You should know the history, how can you keep debating when you don't know the facts? We have only been out of the top four wage payers four times in the last fifteen years ... we slightly 'under-perform' on position in table versus wages, we are not alone in that all the old top four Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea are slightly under, that's entirely due to Spurs being well over, and that one-off Leicester season ....

Here's our comparative wages spend, the first position, and our comparative net transfer spend the second position ...

2002/3 - 2nd - 8th
2003/4 - 3rd - 14th
2004/5 - 3rd - 2nd
2005/6 - 3rd - 14th
2006/7 - 3rd - 9th
2007/8 - 3rd - 20th
2008/9 - 4th - 8th
2009/10 - 4th - 16th
2010/11 - 5th - 18th
2011/12 - 5th - 10th
2012/13 - 4th - 17th
2013/14 - 4th - 3rd
2014/15 - 4th - 2nd
2015/16 - 5th - 5th
2016/17 - 4th - 3rd
2017/18 - 5th - 18th
2018/19 - 5th - 5th (summer only)

As you can see we were massively under-spending on transfers right up until 2013/14 when desperation cash was thrown around to stop the rot ... to little to late as it turned out. What these numbers show is that while the squad was regressing over a decade, when every year at least 10 clubs were spending more money on better players than us, we still somehow managed to pay our lesser players even more money in salaries ...

If you look at 2007-2014 we spent almost nothing on net transfers for six years, yet somehow our wages bill increased by a greater amount than 17 of our rivals, how did that even happen? the money certainly didn't go on new players so just where did it go? ..... stupidly expensive long term socialism based contracts on a whole bunch of injured, lazy, just plain average players that's where .... a problem that we are still dealing with today.

EK, thanks for doing this, you beat me to it. But had you gone back even further you would've seen Arsenal were 2nd in the wage bill list more, during Wenger's earlier years. Top 2 wage bill, finished 1st or 2nd in the league.

Angelito wrote:People really do love to paint a black and white picture, don't they?

Until 2008, we were challenging for the title and would have won it if we had some funds to spend that season. In 2009, we were in the SFs of the UCL. In 2010 and 2011, we came up against the greatest club side in modern history in the UCL.

Until that catastrophic collapse in 2011, when we could have won the title had we not failed to win like 10/12 matches during the final run. Wenger was doing a top job at Arsenal. But that collapse in 2011 and the subsequent summer did indicate that Wenger was losing his touch.

It's after that he lost way in a sense. We could have won the title in 13/14 had we signed Higuain on top of Ozil. We would have won the title in 15/16 if we had a top class striker or even Lacazette to complement Giroud. I don't know why we didn't get those strikers. Perhaps Wenger was stubborn, or perhaps Kroenke simply didn't want to spend.

Wenger should have left after 15/16 and we should absolutely not have extended his contract after the FA Cup win in 16/17. It was an incredible way to leave for Wenger—beating City and Chelsea to the FA Cup.

Alas.

Wenger dropped the ball after the 2008 season, when Jens and Flamini left - it left a gaping hole in goal and a massive hole in the middle of the midfield. Gilberto Silva left the same year. Instead of replacing them Wenger began his youth project and thats what f***ked us up, it wasn't about not having money to spend !! When Wenger bids £2m for Shwarzer and Mark Hughes wanted £4m and Wenger refused to pay it you can see the man is being a bloody idiot.

2011 is when I would pinpoint it, too.

Although I do recall the end of the 2009/2010 season being almost as disastrous as the 2011 ending.

Remember that 3-2 loss to Wigan after being 2-0 up, for instance?

Interest: waning wrote:2011 is when I would pinpoint it, too.

Although I do recall the end of the 2009/2010 season being almost as disastrous as the 2011 ending.

Remember that 3-2 loss to Wigan after being 2-0 up, for instance?

That's the game I fully turned on Wenger and wanted him out since then.

Got my wish 8 years later.

Moral of the story. Keep faith. Good things come to those who wait

If he had honour he would have walked after the 8-2, 12 summer the latest

Ach wrote:

Interest: waning wrote:2011 is when I would pinpoint it, too.

Although I do recall the end of the 2009/2010 season being almost as disastrous as the 2011 ending.

Remember that 3-2 loss to Wigan after being 2-0 up, for instance?

That's the game I fully turned on Wenger and wanted him out since then.

Got my wish 8 years later.

Moral of the story. Keep faith. Good things come to those who wait

Better things come to those who take initiative. We could've had Klopp. I'll never get over that one.

I'll tell you what I remember him for now ............

Arsene Wenger was paid £10m a year more than any other manager for him and Gazidis to front it out while they let Kroenke in the backdoor to buy this club 100% under the guise of a false economy success.

Now we have an absentee owner who's not put a fkin dime into this club.

.............. but apparently according to those two fk wits, Arsenal are being left in capable hands??

Thanks Arsene, you fronted and scrapped by with such zeal all because you were overpaid to steady the ship for your boss Kroenke, now look what's doing to this club!!

Enjoy the money.

Gazidis, Wenger and Kroenke are all in collusion as the "Sustainable model" crowd, all making money hand over fist off skirting around top 4 and as soon as the masked finally dropped and he couldn't hold us up any longer to 6th place, they've all fkin scarpered from the crime scene.

EliteKiller wrote:

swipe right wrote: Share some numbers please. Don’t see how we could have been in the top four salary wise during the 2006-16 time-frame.

You should know the history, how can you keep debating when you don't know the facts? We have only been out of the top four wage payers four times in the last fifteen years ... we slightly 'under-perform' on position in table versus wages, we are not alone in that all the old top four Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea are slightly under, that's entirely due to Spurs being well over, and that one-off Leicester season ....

Here's our comparative wages spend, the first position, and our comparative net transfer spend the second position ...

2002/3 - 2nd - 8th
2003/4 - 3rd - 14th
2004/5 - 3rd - 2nd
2005/6 - 3rd - 14th
2006/7 - 3rd - 9th
2007/8 - 3rd - 20th
2008/9 - 4th - 8th
2009/10 - 4th - 16th
2010/11 - 5th - 18th
2011/12 - 5th - 10th
2012/13 - 4th - 17th
2013/14 - 4th - 3rd
2014/15 - 4th - 2nd
2015/16 - 5th - 5th
2016/17 - 4th - 3rd
2017/18 - 5th - 18th
2018/19 - 5th - 5th (summer only)

As you can see we were massively under-spending on transfers right up until 2013/14 when desperation cash was thrown around to stop the rot ... to little to late as it turned out. What these numbers show is that while the squad was regressing over a decade, when every year at least 10 clubs were spending more money on better players than us, we still somehow managed to pay our lesser players even more money in salaries ...

If you look at 2007-2014 we spent almost nothing on net transfers for six years, yet somehow our wages bill increased by a greater amount than 17 of our rivals, how did that even happen? the money certainly didn't go on new players so just where did it go? ..... stupidly expensive long term socialism based contracts on a whole bunch of injured, lazy, just plain average players that's where .... a problem that we are still dealing with today.

Thanks for the detailed response. Appreciated. I am surprised to see these numbers particularly between the time Henry left and Ozil arrived. Who were the top earners? Fabregas at 135k. Nasri was only on 90k when City poached him and I think Ades new deal was only 100k. RVP was not earning much all the way till the end. So where were the salaries going? I assume it was giving a whole heap of u23s pro deals. Any thoughts there?