I can understand the sentiment but stretching as far back to 2006 is false dichotomy. We were in the UCL final in 2006. We challenged for the league in 07/08. We made it to the UCL SFs in 2009. For better or worse, we finished 2nd in 15/16. We just couldn't build on those "successes," in comparison, for various reasons.
Older fans here could vouch for this, Arsenal have always been a conservative club. We were run like a bureaucracy even before the Premier League started.
Back then, the playing ground was even for most clubs. With the stadium move coinciding with Abramovich's arrival, shortly followed by UAE acquiring City, the Kroenkes staking a claim, and the subsequent explosion of television revenue, we basically found ourselves arriving at the party during the hour of the wolf.
People in charge of Arsenal failed to foresee the drastic change in the dynamics of football ownership.
Football, as a business, is rarely about business and profits alone. It's such an irony. That's why you won't see many owners become elite billionaires by just owning a football club.
Have a glance at all giants of the game today: for Abramovich, Chelsea is his pet project. For UAE and Qatar, their clubs are soft-powers. They don't care about money. Real and Barca are cultural institutions. The entire BuLi favors Bayern to maintain it's hegemony. Juve is Italy's symbol in the global market today. Man United is a financial juggernaut.
The only club that's solely interested in finances there is ManU, and they haven't been the same since Sir Alex retired. Even then, their revenue drowns most clubs.
The reason Real, Barca, and Juve are pushing for the super league isn't financial self-sustainability. They want the leverage to spend astronomical money on players again. They are trying to augment their grip on European football for the foreseeable future.
Take the example of Real. They bid €220m for Mbappe on deadline day when they've been moaning about lack of money for months now. Of course they knew what they were doing. Plating such a bid, hours before the deadline. PSG didn't even bother responding because they don't care about money. It's about the UCL for them now.
On a different note, I personally feel they'd be better off without Mbappe now that Messi is there, but I can understand why they turned it down.
Nonetheless, Arsenal's owners really seem to lack forethought. The super league is inevitable. I feel. It will happen in some way or the other.
Besides that, we have an open passage to the UCL again starting from 2024. UEFA, deliberately and consciously, staged such rules to allow fallen giants like Arsenal back into the Champions League. We're at risk of losing that pathway too. Because the owners seem to love doing the wrong thing at the most opportune time.
As PairyGrows stated, this clubs, weirdly, seems to love spin-doctor antics, with the fans lapping it up. Whether it was Gazidis and his, "Catalyst of Change," Raul/Emery's, "Project," or Arteta's, "Process" now; this club is focused on throwing buzzwords around than doing what's best for football.
Drive, desire, ambition, etc. come from the upper hierarchy these days. We don't have that. There are few exceptions like Klopp, Simeone, Conte, et al., but football today has become more about the vision of the directors over the manager.
So, yes, we're rotting. Putting complete trust on a novice isn't awe-inspiring either. Such has been the story. However, this administration has only made matters worse, especially in the last 5 years.
aniym wrote:We haven't brought in a proper big name player since Aubameyang. Somebody that immediately took us up a level and helped us win tricky games.
Why would anyone who's Auba-tier want to join Arsenal? Auba stated explicitly that he joined Arsenal to play for Wenger.
Even during Wenger's reign, the legit superstars we signed were few: Overmars, Ozil, Alexis, and Auba. Ozil was at a different level when we signed him. He's the biggest signing since Bergkamp.
The difference is players performed to the best of their abilities under Wenger. Adebayor, Hleb, Ramsey, Walcott, Giroud, Ospina... These players aren't world beaters. But they experienced their best individual spells under Wenger. Cazorla, Monreal, Koscielny, Sagna, Mertesacker, etc., became stars here. Alexis had his best ever campaign for Arsenal. Ozil had his best goal-scoring and assist-making season under Wenger.
A manager's influence cannot be understated. However, as I mentioned earlier, ambition comes from the board. It's up to the board—who we hire, who we sack; what team leads the club, who directs football activities within the club.
Arsenal, the emblem, is still a huge draw. But I can't imagine many players wanting to join to play out of their sheer admiration for Mikel Arteta or Stanley Kroenke.