Has the club changed direction?

[gooney]

Are we preparing to become a feeding club for the elite ala Ajax? The 3 players we are most linked with is two 18 year olds in Saliba and Martinelli and 19 year old in Claude Maurice. I really dont think any of us who watched Arsenal this season thought what we need is teenagers for the future. Big clubs do sign talented kids for the future....but they never prioritise it over what they currently need. Is this Arsenal finally saying we cant compete at the top so may just make money instead?

[Sims]

Our objective has to be Ajax esque

Generate cash by buying young and selling for big profits and hoping that we have a generational team that can come together to challenge occasionally

We do this buy playing great football I have no qualms given with our current direction of buying old average players I can’t see us winning the League ever again

[DiamondGooner]

I'd say yes but we'll see of we opt to buy at least one top player first however ........ but no I think they've seen what Ajax have done and want to buy cheap promising youngsters who they know that in 3-4 years from now they'll be worth £10m-£20m or more than what we bought them for.

As say we are interested in being a profitable business, we're not interested in competing .......... competing costs money.

[theHotHead]

I don't mind us doing an Ajax, we will never be as big as the elite clubs, Barca, Real, Juve, Man U. Our top players will always be preyed upon by those other clubs. Not a problem. It didn't stop us doing 2 domestic doubles with Wenger.

I have no problem buying talented kids but this must be augmented with experienced players and the entire team must have that desire to die for the club.

We can't fully do an Ajax because they are the biggest club in Holland and so, like Bayern, will get the best young players in their country. We have far too much competition to build a team of Ajax's current calibre with kids only. We need to be smart, its perfectly reasonable to believe buying the likes of your Torreiras will work for us. Thats exactly what Wenger did when he came, bought young players that were not courted by the elite clubs so were available at good prices.

[Jedi]

Are we preparing to become a feeding club

How is this changing direction? We've been doing this ever since we sold Henry.

[DiamondGooner]

Are we preparing to become a feeding club

How is this changing direction? We've been doing this ever since we sold Henry.

But we bought big players as well and only really got youngsters for next to free from our youth team.

What gooney is alluding to is we're now spending good money (i.e £25m) on prodigy's who are almost there and ready to slot into the first team or bench.

Before we'd buy a youth for £5m and develop him in the youth team, realise he was sh*t and never see them again.

What we're doing now by buying youth already established as being ready to become good players is we're trying to unearth the next Neymar or Virgil Van Dyke.

........... clubs rarely spend £25m or anywhere near that sort of money on young players.

Basically we're going in strong at £25m before he becomes a £40m player in 3-4 years.

Smart or a huge gamble? ............ because we could end up with a team of Mustafi's and Xhaka's, over priced.

[PairyGrows]

Yes, of course we are. The days of Arsenal competing with the biggest clubs in England, let alone Europe, are long gone and they're coming back. Sadly, we will never win the Champions League, and we will never win the Premier League again.

It may be a tough pill to swallow, but we have no choice. We'll always have the past glories, but there won't be glory for us in the future.

[CrimsonGunner11]

That has to be the plan given the circumstances. We won’t be doing anything of note in the PL or CL anytime soon unless our scouts and coaching team can perform miracles or our ownership suddenly decides they want to be serious about us winning top honors.

[Angelito]

If that's our plan, why did we hire Unai? Why did we let go of Mislintat?

I'm sorry to sound negative, but it seems like we have no functional plan going forward.

Last year, it appeared as if we had that plan. Both transfer windows were sensational last year. We invested in gems like Torreira and Guendouzi, whilst signing a superstar like Aubameyang.

Since Gazidis' (and Mislintat's) departure, however, we seem to have fallen apart at an administrative level.

[gooney]

If that's our plan, why did we hire Unai? Why did we let go of Mislintat?

I'm sorry to sound negative, but it seems like we have no functional plan going forward.

Last year, it appeared as if we had that plan. Both transfer windows were sensational last year. We invested in gems like Torreira and Guendouzi, whilst signing a superstar like Aubameyang.

Since Gazidis' (and Mislintat's) departure, however, we seem to have fallen apart at an administrative level.

We havent had clear plans in over 10 years. We try to be everything. Even this will fail because we wont fully commit

[Mike Dean]

We shouldn't have gotten rid of Mslintat if that is the direction we are going lol

This is exactly what he excels at.

[CrimsonGunner11]

We shouldn't have gotten rid of Mslintat if that is the direction we are going lol

This is exactly what he excels at.

Hence some of the concerns over the future of the club. I’m just hoping that him leaving doesn’t matter and that we have not missed out on another opportunity

[PairyGrows]

Reflecting on my answer to this question, I've come to realise that the club hasn't changed direction; it hasn't had one for the longest time. We've been a sinking ship for a good part of 10 years, and we've considered not sinking at any particular point to be evidence of progress.

[LMAO]

Reflecting on my answer to this question, I've come to realise that the club hasn't changed direction; it hasn't had one for the longest time. We've been a sinking ship for a good part of 10 years, and we've considered not sinking at any particular point to be evidence of progress.

I'd say until the summer of 2011 when Cesc and Nasri were sold was when the wheels fell off. Between the dismantling of the Invincibles and that summer, at least we had Project Youth. Then it all fell apart

Wenger bought Ozil to placate an angry fanbase after a summer of pennies and a 3-1 opening day defeat to Aston Villa (I think it was them?). But he didn't have the players around to utilize Ozil's skill set. Alexis the next summer helped, but we still didn't have a pacy first choice striker. But even Alexis and Ozil weren't a perfect match since Ozil was a through ball master whereas Alexis liked to take his man on. Wenger lost it and was assembling names instead of trying to build a team.

I don't see what this current regime wants to do, but hopefully it becomes clearer by the end of summer.

I don't know where I'm going with this lol, but I agree with you.

[Diablo]

Are we preparing to become a feeding club for the elite ala Ajax? The 3 players we are most linked with is two 18 year olds in Saliba and Martinelli and 19 year old in Claude Maurice. I really dont think any of us who watched Arsenal this season thought what we need is teenagers for the future. Big clubs do sign talented kids for the future....but they never prioritise it over what they currently need. Is this Arsenal finally saying we cant compete at the top so may just make money instead?

No this Arsenal has been saying exactly that for the past 15 years.