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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby theHotHead » Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:28 pm

I think Wenger was fired because as Wenger frequently stated, he has honoured every contract that he has been given. I think you have over simplified the owner's position and underestimated the level of fan opinion - which most likely contributed to Kroenke waiting to let Wenger go. Here is why.

Kroenke always stated that Arsenal will continue to be run as it is, the self sustainable model would continue. some fans were not pleased by this, but some fans (I was one) was perfectly fine with it, I didn't want us to become Chelski. Kroenke let Wenger continue to run the club as he saw fit, I think Wenger's remit was simply to provide CL football. When English teams got 4 teams in the CL that task became a little easier for a while.

Now we move into the late 2000/early 2010, Wenger's magic has significantly dwindled but he still had massive support from the fans. Only the diehard Wenger Out people were calling for him to be replaced at that point but it was like one voice among hundreds. CL football was still being provided so there was no reason for Kroneke to do anything. Then the atmosphere gets more toxic, season to season more fans openly voiced they wanted Wenger to leave. By 2015 I think we saw banners and all sorts, there was infighting amongst the fans and it looked bad. At that point I think Kroenke was aware he needed to do something, but Wenger still had the support of the majority of the fans, it would've been a brave move - I feel - for Kroneke to let our best ever manager go, especially because we won an FA Cup, our first trophy in over a decade, hence him giving Wenger a contract extension.

At this point Gazidis tells the world we are no longer hamstrung by the stadium move and we can spend some money, but even after spending money we went backwards, Wenger's decisions became more and more bizarre. Fan fury reached fever pitch and by now the Wenger Out voices far outnumbered the Wenger Ins, in my opinion. At this point Kroenke knew he had to do something .. and he did.

I don't think Kroenke could've sacked him earlier because there were too many fans that were pro Wenger. I cannot find fault with Kroenke, we all hoped Wenger would do something once he had real money to spend (but he spunked it on Mustafi and Xhaka etc). We all hoped the FA Cup win would kick start us being competitive, but it didn't, we became worse.
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby CrimsonGunner11 » Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:46 pm

theHotHead wrote:I think Wenger was fired because as Wenger frequently stated, he has honoured every contract that he has been given. I think you have over simplified the owner's position and underestimated the level of fan opinion - which most likely contributed to Kroenke waiting to let Wenger go. Here is why.

Kroenke always stated that Arsenal will continue to be run as it is, the self sustainable model would continue. some fans were not pleased by this, but some fans (I was one) was perfectly fine with it, I didn't want us to become Chelski. Kroenke let Wenger continue to run the club as he saw fit, I think Wenger's remit was simply to provide CL football. When English teams got 4 teams in the CL that task became a little easier for a while.

Now we move into the late 2000/early 2010, Wenger's magic has significantly dwindled but he still had massive support from the fans. Only the diehard Wenger Out people were calling for him to be replaced at that point but it was like one voice among hundreds. CL football was still being provided so there was no reason for Kroneke to do anything. Then the atmosphere gets more toxic, season to season more fans openly voiced they wanted Wenger to leave. By 2015 I think we saw banners and all sorts, there was infighting amongst the fans and it looked bad. At that point I think Kroenke was aware he needed to do something, but Wenger still had the support of the majority of the fans, it would've been a brave move - I feel - for Kroneke to let our best ever manager go, especially because we won an FA Cup, our first trophy in over a decade, hence him giving Wenger a contract extension.

At this point Gazidis tells the world we are no longer hamstrung by the stadium move and we can spend some money, but even after spending money we went backwards, Wenger's decisions became more and more bizarre. Fan fury reached fever pitch and by now the Wenger Out voices far outnumbered the Wenger Ins, in my opinion. At this point Kroenke knew he had to do something .. and he did.

I don't think Kroenke could've sacked him earlier because there were too many fans that were pro Wenger. I cannot find fault with Kroenke, we all hoped Wenger would do something once he had real money to spend (but he spunked it on Mustafi and Xhaka etc). We all hoped the FA Cup win would kick start us being competitive, but it didn't, we became worse.


You said you can’t fault Kroenke, but how can you not?

Let’s go back to what you said earlier: you said Wenger met his objectives, but as fans he did not. So if the objectives of fans are/were not being met, doesn’t that mean the objectives given to Wenger all this time were wrong? Had the board and owner been more ambitious, does this not mean they would have had a better measuring stick to judge Wenger by and does this not mean that it would have been easier to spot that Wenger was not the right man for the job much earlier?

In business, timing is everything. Most fans have no right to know better than the suits running a club about business decisions. As an owner, it’s your name and your money on the line. You want to make decisions that are ultimately in your best interest. If simply qualifying for the CL is good enough, then this is something to fault Kroenke for.

You said Kroenke was fine with the self-sustainable model, despite pretty much no one else using it. Like you, I have nothing against the model but only if everyone else is abiding by the same principles or at the very least you can make it work. If Kroenke fails to see that we’ve been handicapped by this model, then it’s something to fault Kroenke for.

You mentioned that letting Wenger go earlier would have been a brave decision. Well, isn’t that what we all want: proactive, ambitious men running the club? You pretty much revealed with this comment that Kroenke is anything but that. This is as well something to fault Kroenke for; a flaw that has us currently playing EL football and could cost us again later down the line if he’s unable to change his ways.
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby theHotHead » Thu Feb 28, 2019 4:46 pm

Crimson, no I can't fault Kroenke. Lets be clear, I don't think the mandate to Wenger was any different from Peter Hill-Wood as it was fro,m Kroenke. Nobody has injected any of their own cash to further the arsenal cause, I'm fine with that, I didn't blame PHW and so similarly I can't blame Kroenke. If the objectives from the owner differ to those of the fans (and clearly they are), the manager does not answer to the fans, it doesn't mean his objectives are wrong. Kroenke has shown no less ambition than PHW and the rest of the old board, if it wasn't a problem then, why should it be now ? football has changed but Arsenal's revenues are greater than most - without cash injections from the owner as you will see below.

I don't care about what other clubs are doing, I have NEVER wanted Arsenal to be a big spending club and I don't want that now. I am baffled as to why we have no money to spend but, we have generally spent a fair amount of money over the years. The only clubs that have not had to worry about player sales were Chelsea, Man City and Man U - but even Chelsea have put a halt to spending at the rate they used to. Spurs and Liverpool have recouped money by player sales, its the norm rather than the exception.

If you look at the info posted by Swiss Ramble that shows owner financing of the Premier league clubs over the past 10 years, it shows Arsenal and Middlesborough as the only clubs to have £0 invested by the owner. But for me what is more telling is the next piece of info; from 2008 to 2017 the only clubs that have had greater funds have been Man U (£1.6bn), Man City (£1.4bn) and Spurs (£0.83bn). Arsenal are 4th with £0.75bn, then Liverpool with £0.64bn then Chelsea with £0.6bn.

The next key point of info is the breakdown of those funds:
Man U - approx 20% of their funds came from their owners (£318m)
Man City - approx 90% of their funds came from their owners (£1275m)
Spurs - approx 1.6% of their funds came from their owners (£14m)
Arsenal - 0%
Liverpool - approx 40% of their funds came from their owners (£257m)
Chelsea - approx 85% of their funds came from their owners (£520m)

Now, what stands out to me is this, for all of the whinging and complaining about how tight Kroneke is and how he is not investing in the team, are Spurs any different ? £14m over 10 years is hardly going to make any difference. But you are right, not many other clubs are following the self sustainable model, but why do we need to follow them ? And its easy to say we want ambitious proactive men running the club, but arsenal's situation was pretty unique/special - how do you go about sacking the greatest manager in the club's history, Notts Forest couldn't sack Cloughie during his decline and I dare say you will struggle to find owners that were so ruthless - apart from some of these Arab/Russian owners who have these clubs as their play things. Real Madrid are excluded because they are bonkers with their managers, look how they treated Del Bosque.
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby CrimsonGunner11 » Thu Feb 28, 2019 6:20 pm

theHotHead wrote:Crimson, no I can't fault Kroenke. Lets be clear, I don't think the mandate to Wenger was any different from Peter Hill-Wood as it was fro,m Kroenke. Nobody has injected any of their own cash to further the arsenal cause, I'm fine with that, I didn't blame PHW and so similarly I can't blame Kroenke. If the objectives from the owner differ to those of the fans (and clearly they are), the manager does not answer to the fans, it doesn't mean his objectives are wrong. Kroenke has shown no less ambition than PHW and the rest of the old board, if it wasn't a problem then, why should it be now ? football has changed but Arsenal's revenues are greater than most - without cash injections from the owner as you will see below.

I don't care about what other clubs are doing, I have NEVER wanted Arsenal to be a big spending club and I don't want that now. I am baffled as to why we have no money to spend but, we have generally spent a fair amount of money over the years. The only clubs that have not had to worry about player sales were Chelsea, Man City and Man U - but even Chelsea have put a halt to spending at the rate they used to. Spurs and Liverpool have recouped money by player sales, its the norm rather than the exception.

If you look at the info posted by Swiss Ramble that shows owner financing of the Premier league clubs over the past 10 years, it shows Arsenal and Middlesborough as the only clubs to have £0 invested by the owner. But for me what is more telling is the next piece of info; from 2008 to 2017 the only clubs that have had greater funds have been Man U (£1.6bn), Man City (£1.4bn) and Spurs (£0.83bn). Arsenal are 4th with £0.75bn, then Liverpool with £0.64bn then Chelsea with £0.6bn.

The next key point of info is the breakdown of those funds:
Man U - approx 20% of their funds came from their owners (£318m)
Man City - approx 90% of their funds came from their owners (£1275m)
Spurs - approx 1.6% of their funds came from their owners (£14m)
Arsenal - 0%
Liverpool - approx 40% of their funds came from their owners (£257m)
Chelsea - approx 85% of their funds came from their owners (£520m)

Now, what stands out to me is this, for all of the whinging and complaining about how tight Kroneke is and how he is not investing in the team, are Spurs any different ? £14m over 10 years is hardly going to make any difference. But you are right, not many other clubs are following the self sustainable model, but why do we need to follow them ? And its easy to say we want ambitious proactive men running the club, but arsenal's situation was pretty unique/special - how do you go about sacking the greatest manager in the club's history, Notts Forest couldn't sack Cloughie during his decline and I dare say you will struggle to find owners that were so ruthless - apart from some of these Arab/Russian owners who have these clubs as their play things. Real Madrid are excluded because they are bonkers with their managers, look how they treated Del Bosque.


The answer to one of your questions sums up my issue with the board and owner.

You asked that Kroenke has shown no less ambition than PHW and the rest of the old board and that if it wasn't a problem then, why should it be now?

You then go on to say that football has changed. The lack of ambition is more of an issue now than before precisely because of what you have said here. The fact that he’s richer than most football club owners further adds more insult to injury.

We’re not just competing with Liverpool and Manchester United now whose history should have them over us most seasons, but the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City too. This means we should be finishing fifth at best most seasons. Kroenke and the Board have believed and continue to believe that what worked in the past will continue to work. We’ve been very fortunate to have qualified for the CL as much as we did after moving to the Emirates and I honestly don’t know how many other managers would have been able to achieve this.

Regulations does seem to finally be catching up with some other clubs but there’s no doubt that the damage has already been done to us and it will either take time or monumental changes to current policies to get us back to winning major trophies like we did before. Had Kroenke or the Board been proactive, we would most likely be much better off now. Wenger’s ability to consistently achieve top 4 four finishes combined with the Board and Kroenke’s inability to change with the times is a major reason why I’m always trying to divert attention away from Wenger despite some of his flaws.

I admit that I do like Wenger and would have liked to have seen him do great things with the club but the fact of the matter is that the Board and Kroenke were not prepared or willing to make a big move and support Wenger during his greatest time of need when they easily could have. Whether Wenger wanted change or not really is immaterial because the power was never ultimately with him as evidenced with how he left the club.

You can support Kroenke or the board if you want, but if you had the power to improve Wenger and, as a result, the club and chose not to out of fear, pride, or what have you, then you cannot be exempt from blame as far as I’m concerned.
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby NovaGB » Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:57 am

You can definitely fault Kroenke, the guy has 8.1b and invested 0, why would it hurt to invest a extra 160 m in transfer funds each season whilst we were slipping down the table?

Klopp has spent what 500m in 3 seasons and won nothing but i'd be shocked he doesn't, Guardiola spends like craxy and inherted a already outstandibg squad.

Spuds are going down, no money and tons debt, they will become the next us.

Chelsea look introuble, would not be surprised if Abramovitch sells up, they are in a mess.

Utd are not afraid to spend money so may be challenging next season.

Then us with like 50m then player sells to spend every season.

Lets see how one of the above managers fairs with our resouces.

How can they not see that if Kroenke invested in us the way liverpool have been, we will be on of the top 3 teams again.

f**k it give us 500m, let us sell everyone except for leno, sokratis, Holding, bellerin, torreira, Guendozi, aubameyang, lacazette, and possibly Mkhy and Ozil if they keep playing like last night.

Then go on a rampage and sign, koulibaly, De Ligt, Grimaldo or Tieney, Ndombele, Milinkovic-Savic, Nicolas Pepe, Ismaila sarr.

Lots of big names then talent like Saka/Nelson/Willock/Nkeitah coming through.

Job done and the money will be piling in.

If players dont work out, give us club money and we will replace etc.

Until these sort of things happen then Wenger or Emery, who both of which i like will never be in title challenge.
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby theHotHead » Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:40 am

Lets also be clear about something else, whilst I do not blame Kroenke I am not a supporter of him or anyone else on the board, they can all f**k off!!

I want my Arsenal back, that means having football people on the board and people and an owner that actually care about Arsenal!!!

Kroenke can f**k right off!
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby Sims » Thu Mar 07, 2019 8:38 pm



The only man who can lead football to what it should be
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby Ach » Thu Mar 07, 2019 8:40 pm

Look

He is finished
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby CrimsonGunner11 » Thu Mar 07, 2019 8:49 pm

Sims wrote:

The only man who can lead football to what it should be


Wenger if he gets the job:


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White Saliba Gabriel Zinchenko
(Tomiyasu/Niles) (Timber/Holding) (Trusty/Kiwior) (Tierney/Tavares)
Odegaard(c) —- Rice
(Xhaka/Lokonga) —- (Partey/Elneny)
Havertz
(Jorginho/Vieira)
Saka Jesus Martinelli
(Pepe/Nelson) (Nketiah/Balogun) (Trossard/ESR)


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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby Angelito » Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:27 pm

Wait what? Why the f**k is FIFA hiring the epitome of morality in football?
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby Jedi » Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:51 pm

Image
Is he taking the bus? Didn't expect him to burn through all those millions so quickly
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby UFGN » Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:56 pm

If I was a millionaire living in London that would probably be me tbh. You don't need a car in London
Corinthians 15:57; But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus

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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby Zedie » Thu Mar 14, 2019 9:51 pm

Jedi wrote:Image
Is he taking the bus? Didn't expect him to burn through all those millions so quickly


Absolute don.
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby Ach » Thu Mar 14, 2019 10:21 pm

How far has he fallen?

Dear god
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Re: Merci Arsène

Postby Arsenal Tone » Thu Mar 14, 2019 11:12 pm

Still a tight arse I see! Probably sold his car because he has his pensioner's bus pass.
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