The Bitter Truth?

[IBK]

There are a couple of 'truisms' - on here and amongst Gooners generally - that IMO need looking at.

The first is the automatic assumption that Wenger has remained a winning manager, despite nearly a decade now of winning nothing. The problem has been that there have been justifiable reasons for being also rans. The stadium, of course. The rise of the billionaire playboy clubs. The financial constraints that are so easy to hang the perennial losses of our best players on.

But I think that since the end of last season, a few things have happened to lay our belief in our manager bare.

The demonstration of world class management that SAF's league title showed, now that Moyes is at Manure...but also, in other ways - why his judgment was on the wane.

The progress made by the likes of Pochetino; Rogers and Benitez who are showing what asute tactical reading of the game; efficient football (see also Dortmund) and good man management can achieve on a lot less than Arsenal's budget.

Canny player deals (Sp*ds excepted of course) done by a number of clubs; and surprising player advances at others.

The press have scented our frailties for years. We have accused them of being anti Arsenal; or not appreciating the achievement of building a stadium and balancing the books. We have accepted the mantra of how financial self sufficiency is a trophy in itself - while we have 2 billionaire owners who have never put a penny into the club despite raping its share value.

But more importantly, we have continued to hope. While NONE of the clubs above us in the global pecking order, and many below would have taken steps to change things. Because Wenger is a safe pair of hands as regards CL status, and because of the above 'reasons' he needs to be given a chance to show that he is still great.

And that's why I think that even for those of us who would love Wenger to justify our faith in him now see this season as an ending. For once last Summer he had money to spend - but he ballsed it up and spunked a German record fee on, lets face facts, the wrong player. For once he kept all his best players. For once he seemed to have a defensive coach who had sorted a recurring problem. For once - no SAF; a Mourihno without his own choice players; and a Chilean who was to draw 4 and lose 5 this year to date even with his outrageous squad.

And at Christmas - the fact that we were finally regaining our strength as a club seemed to be there for all to see.

But in a way that we have never seen before under Wenger - his basic faults have been laid bare. He doesn't work in the transfer market without a David Dean alongside him - yet he remains 'the boss' in transfer affairs that he should simply not be involved in. He has clung to a watery 'tiki taka' style of play and players (even Giroud must surely have been chosen because he is adept at little flicks when supported in and around the box). He breeds no enduring confidence in his players. And most importantly - he has shown that whenever he is faced by players the equal of ours in ability, he does not have the tactical acumen to prevail. The fact that we have been thrashed away from home 4 times - more than ever under Wenger - has shown a man stubbornly, desperately, clinging on to a flawed system - and being, frankly, embarassed by those with the ability to analyse their enemies' weakness. It is almost shocking to see - and I have never before seen widespread reporting analysing how Wenger has been out thought and out executed. We were wrong; Wenger now seems to realise it - and our players look like they have lost confidence in Wenger's ability to win against decent opposition.

The second, nagging convention is that because the majority have held on to the dream, it is somehow 'disloyal' to criticise Wenger. There has been a fair degree of antipathy to those critical of a supposedly improving team - even when this was in the heat of the moment after a bad result, or intelligently argued.

I think that the truth is that Wenger has enjoyed an extraordinary degree of support from Arsenal fans and the broader football world. Even after this season was revealing itself to be yet another false dawn, there was dismay at Mourinho's 'specialist in failure' jibe (and look how Wenger put him in his place). He has become more than a football manager - almost an untouchable, because he allowed us to remain top 4 despite what (we accept) were financial constraints. He is paid more than any of his players other than Ozil. And while he has certainly been prudent - he has run the club like a personal fiefdom, answerable to noone, and arguably but his beliefs in front of our success and reputation. He has enjoyed every bit of the support that his historic, or off-field achievements have merited.

And for me, the truth finally seems clear enough to want Wenger to leave with fondness rather than adulation.

Thoughts?

[Bumble]

as much as wenger achieved for us as an arsenal probably creating the best individual team to have played in England, you wonder if he really he couldn't have done better. A team with Bergkamp, Henry, Campbell, Cole, Pires, Vieira etc to win a couple of leagues and a couple of FA Cups seems like it could have been so much more. Perhaps this is what we are seeing now when he has lesser players he isn't able to conjure up anything. He is the most successful Arsenal manager, the longest serving arsenal manager and he brought a team together that sadly will probably never be topped. So as Arsenal fans we have been blessed and when Arsene does go, we will all look on his reign with wonderment and awe (the first half!!)

[Power n Glory]

Good , IBK.

Arteta in FourFourTwo. Posted this in another thread but it pretty much sums up where we're going wrong if this is the mentality and philosophy of Wengerball.

http://performance.fourfourtwo.com/technique/mikel-arteta-pass-your-opponents-off-the-park


Don’t join the battle
“Take the game where you want. If you get drawn into the battle you will suffer. If you start making fouls and giving away throw-ins and corners then you lose your momentum, which is hard to get back. Stick to your passing game and keep the ball in their half. If you start forcing the play and giving the ball away you give them the opportunity to hit you on the counter attack. Arsene Wenger is so calm. He tells us to keep playing our football until the last minute of the game, and that has paid off.”

Tire out the opposition
“Make the opposition run for 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes – they will struggle to maintain their work rate for the entire game. Once they get tired, they start to make mistakes and you can draw them into two versus one or three versus two situations. This is your opportunity to find the spare man. If you keep the ball then the opposition will get tense and want to get aggressive. This will force them to break out of their positions and this is when you expose the space. Patience – that’s the difference between a good player and a top player.”

Confidence is key
“It doesn’t matter what system you play, or how hard the opposition press, you can find an advantage somewhere on the pitch. You have to pass with speed and precision and believe not only in yourself, but your team-mates, because sometimes you have to put them in trouble with a one-touch pass in a tight area of the pitch. You have to play the ball to their safer side – their stronger foot or where there’s more space for them to turn into. Sometimes just playing the ball into his feet isn’t good enough.”

ARTETA ON PASSING THE ARSENAL WAY
Work your way out of any dead end with this intricate drill, straight from the Gunners training ground

“At Arsenal, we do a lot of exercises where you have to play through the mannequins, but you can use cones.
This is a great drill because it’s real, you’re moving and finding the holes to play the diagonal pass, just like in a match.



After reading this, I think I get why the players appear so lifeless at times with no urgency, why we're so weak in the challenge and why Wenger takes so long to make subs. We're trying to ware down our opponents and hope their tiredness opens them up. In most games we try to play high up the pitch and pin our opponents back into their box. We try to avoid fouls to keep the momentum and maybe that's why we're so frail physically.


Stick to your passing game and keep the ball in their half. If you start forcing the play and giving the ball away you give them the opportunity to hit you on the counter attack.



You have to pass with speed and precision and believe not only in yourself, but your team-mates, because sometimes you have to put them in trouble with a one-touch pass in a tight area of the pitch.

That seems to be a bit of a contradiction or confusing at least. How do the players switch from safety passes, keeping calm and trying not to lose possession because your worried about a counter attack to trusting your players and putting them in a risky position with a pass in order to open up space? Especially against a well organised team that aren't rattled by the possession stats? I know we practice a lot of five aside and Wenger says the players are forced to deal with a lot of situations during those sessions and the brain acts like a computer and teaches them how to react naturally when faced with a challenge. It's why Wenger is never shouting instructions and losing his shit on the touchline because in theory they should know what's required. All in theory.

When Wengerball works, we fly and we're confident but we lose confidence way too easily after a defeat and Wenger needs to intervene. I wonder what Wenger will do when he says 'going back to basics'. More passing drills and five aside? How will we get the confidence back?

This is just a short snippet of Wengerball but it's interesting to read. I think we'd need supremely superior players for this to work in this era. You can see when the players look lost. I don't think it's down to a lack of desire and you always hear Wenger say that the spirit is there. I believe him. I can understand why Henry, Pires and co blasted away the competition in the Prem years back because fitness levels were way below ours and the same goes for the quality of players. In the Champs League it was always a different story. I think we'll really need to adjust under Wenger if we're to go any further.

[fakeyank]

There are a couple of 'truisms' - on here and amongst Gooners generally - that IMO need looking at.

The first is the automatic assumption that Wenger has remained a winning manager, despite nearly a decade now of winning nothing. The problem has been that there have been justifiable reasons for being also rans. The stadium, of course. The rise of the billionaire playboy clubs. The financial constraints that are so easy to hang the perennial losses of our best players on.

But I think that since the end of last season, a few things have happened to lay our belief in our manager bare.

The demonstration of world class management that SAF's league title showed, now that Moyes is at Manure...but also, in other ways - why his judgment was on the wane.

The progress made by the likes of Pochetino; Rogers and Benitez who are showing what asute tactical reading of the game; efficient football (see also Dortmund) and good man management can achieve on a lot less than Arsenal's budget.

Canny player deals (Sp*ds excepted of course) done by a number of clubs; and surprising player advances at others.

The press have scented our frailties for years. We have accused them of being anti Arsenal; or not appreciating the achievement of building a stadium and balancing the books. We have accepted the mantra of how financial self sufficiency is a trophy in itself - while we have 2 billionaire owners who have never put a penny into the club despite raping its share value.

But more importantly, we have continued to hope. While NONE of the clubs above us in the global pecking order, and many below would have taken steps to change things. Because Wenger is a safe pair of hands as regards CL status, and because of the above 'reasons' he needs to be given a chance to show that he is still great.

And that's why I think that even for those of us who would love Wenger to justify our faith in him now see this season as an ending. For once last Summer he had money to spend - but he ballsed it up and spunked a German record fee on, lets face facts, the wrong player. For once he kept all his best players. For once he seemed to have a defensive coach who had sorted a recurring problem. For once - no SAF; a Mourihno without his own choice players; and a Chilean who was to draw 4 and lose 5 this year to date even with his outrageous squad.

And at Christmas - the fact that we were finally regaining our strength as a club seemed to be there for all to see.

But in a way that we have never seen before under Wenger - his basic faults have been laid bare. He doesn't work in the transfer market without a David Dean alongside him - yet he remains 'the boss' in transfer affairs that he should simply not be involved in. He has clung to a watery 'tiki taka' style of play and players (even Giroud must surely have been chosen because he is adept at little flicks when supported in and around the box). He breeds no enduring confidence in his players. And most importantly - he has shown that whenever he is faced by players the equal of ours in ability, he does not have the tactical acumen to prevail. The fact that we have been thrashed away from home 4 times - more than ever under Wenger - has shown a man stubbornly, desperately, clinging on to a flawed system - and being, frankly, embarassed by those with the ability to analyse their enemies' weakness. It is almost shocking to see - and I have never before seen widespread reporting analysing how Wenger has been out thought and out executed. We were wrong; Wenger now seems to realise it - and our players look like they have lost confidence in Wenger's ability to win against decent opposition.

The second, nagging convention is that because the majority have held on to the dream, it is somehow 'disloyal' to criticise Wenger. There has been a fair degree of antipathy to those critical of a supposedly improving team - even when this was in the heat of the moment after a bad result, or intelligently argued.

I think that the truth is that Wenger has enjoyed an extraordinary degree of support from Arsenal fans and the broader football world. Even after this season was revealing itself to be yet another false dawn, there was dismay at Mourinho's 'specialist in failure' jibe (and look how Wenger put him in his place). He has become more than a football manager - almost an untouchable, because he allowed us to remain top 4 despite what (we accept) were financial constraints. He is paid more than any of his players other than Ozil. And while he has certainly been prudent - he has run the club like a personal fiefdom, answerable to noone, and arguably but his beliefs in front of our success and reputation. He has enjoyed every bit of the support that his historic, or off-field achievements have merited.

And for me, the truth finally seems clear enough to want Wenger to leave with fondness rather than adulation.

Thoughts?

:gp:

A very good post. I sympathize (not necessarily agree) with the fact that we were financially broke in every transfer window. What I cannot sympathize with is the absolute lack of fight shown by the players. I cannot sympathize with no planning, tactics being shown by the manager. I cannot sympathize with playing absolutely dire boring football we play.

[Globalgunner]

I agree, but wish people would stop repeating untruths. We have never been broke and never had too little money to buy players. We (Wenger) chose not to spend. Do you think we suddenly ended up with 120m in the bank. It is the cumulative savings from not spending in window after window. Either by accident or design. We have chosen to buiold up a cash reserve instead of buying players. However given Wengers track record I dont think any set of players would have changed the situation we now find ourselves in. He would have either bought the wrong players, Chamacks, santos, Gervinho. Or bought the right players, Arshavin, Podolski, and trained used them badly.

There is little option to changing the manager. He brought us some great times yes, but I believe he could, should, have done much better. He was the weak point, even when things were going great.

[Letters]

I agree, but wish people would stop repeating untruths. We have never been broke and never had too little money to buy players.

"We had to beg, steal and borrow to pay wages" - David Dein. I don't know all the ins and outs of our finances but I suspect David Dein did and in his interview ahead of Wenger's thousanth (sp?) game he mentioned how tight our finances were at one time. I don't dispute Wenger could have spent more but it's just not true to say we've never had restrictions because of the stadium move and poor commercial deals.

I wish people would stop repeating untruths too. Things like how Wenger isn't bothered about us winning trophies and how he's 'clueless' or 'inept'.
I'm not sure he's the right man to take us forward any more but people don't need to make up stuff or massively exaggerate.

[Power n Glory]

"We had to beg, steal and borrow to pay wages" - David Dein. I don't know all the ins and outs of our finances but I suspect David Dein did and in his interview ahead of Wenger's thousanth (sp?) game he mentioned how tight our finances were at one time. I don't dispute Wenger could have spent more but it's just not true to say we've never had restrictions because of the stadium move and poor commercial deals.

I wish people would stop repeating untruths too. Things like how Wenger isn't bothered about us winning trophies and how he's 'clueless' or 'inept'.
I'm not sure he's the right man to take us forward any more but people don't need to make up stuff or massively exaggerate.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/fiszman-was-real-reason-arsenal-did-so-well-says-adams-2319483.html


Those calling for more spending on the current team will be interested to learn how highly Adams rated Fiszman's contribution. "I think that a significant factor, 90 per cent, in why we achieved so much is that Danny Fiszman invested £50m in the club and we were able to go to the next level," he said. "I got my first decent contract at the club, so did David Seaman, we were able to bring in Dennis Bergkamp – and that was before Arsène arrived – David Platt, Patrick Vieira, Nicolas Anelka, and were able to pay them – top players from around the world.

If Fiszman could invest his own money, I don't get why we haven't asked for help from our two Billionaire's or the other board members?

[Marc Overmars]

Kroenke won't do shit, he's just here for a return. Usmanov won't invest anything without a controlling stake.

[Globalgunner]

"We had to beg, steal and borrow to pay wages" - David Dein. I don't know all the ins and outs of our finances but I suspect David Dein did and in his interview ahead of Wenger's thousanth (sp?) game he mentioned how tight our finances were at one time. I don't dispute Wenger could have spent more but it's just not true to say we've never had restrictions because of the stadium move and poor commercial deals.

I wish people would stop repeating untruths too. Things like how Wenger isn't bothered about us winning trophies and how he's 'clueless' or 'inept'.
I'm not sure he's the right man to take us forward any more but people don't need to make up stuff or massively exaggerate.

Speak to the question.David Dein has hardly been with us since the move to the Emirates. Arsenal financial results are not a hidden detail its all over the web. The club has repeatedly stated that there are funds to buy players. Yes not 50m players each window but that is not what we are talking about are we?. The club has money, a wagebill 50% higher than Spurs, 70%b higher than Everton

You are the same person who used to get all upset when 2 years ago people would abuse Wenger and call him a cunt. Now that its commonplace to call him a cunt. Your new hated words are clueless and inept. Even when those words are not used like in this thread you find way to insert them to justify your umbrage. No hes not clueless and inept, but hes definitely not up to the job of winning titles, not anymore anyways.

What you fail to realise in your blind veneration of all things Wenger is that the club stands on the brink of a precipe. This season offered a unique opportunity for the club to win the league....one that we have in our habitual way capitulated on. If Ferguson had not stepped down, we would be 5th at best with no hope of CL. Next season, if we do not make CL, the club that does in our place, either Spuds, Everton or dare i say it United, will strengthen and reinforce to maintain that status. we on the otherhand will stick with Wenger and stick with ineffectual football and flawed approach to success. No we wont do a Leeds but we may not get that CL place back for maybe half a decade. In orderv to come 4th, nowadays you need to be targetting 1st place

[Niall_Quinn]

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/fiszman-was-real-reason-arsenal-did-so-well-says-adams-2319483.html


If Fiszman could invest his own money, I don't get why we haven't asked for help from our two Billionaire's or the other board members?

More like if Fiszman could invest then what about the other shareholders who shared in that bonanza when they fucked off? Poor bastard died and the jackals got the lot.

[BlindFaith_8]

Danny Fiszman (RIP) was a true legend. He supported the club financially with is own hard earned money while the other rich cunts were all in hiding. It's a real sad shame that he lost his life so early as he would have been the perfectfit as Chairman of Arsenal. Its a crying shame that the club didnt even name a restuarant or stand after the great man. Now we have a bunch of blood sucking parasites just taking every cent out the club and prostituting the club for their own personal gain.

[Power n Glory]

They've named a Bridge after him. They're not that bad.

[Dein-machine]

If we go back to our Highbury days, regular 30,000+ watching every week with 8 year waiting list for season tickets. A good team that suddenly turned into an "invincible" team that looked like we could rule Europe. This would ofcourse attract investors all wanting to have their names associated with the success of Arsenal. We had this before the move, we weren't the richest club in the world but we certainly weren't skint.
When the financials of the move to the Emirates were questioned by minor shareholders the obvious question was " how can we afford this & still buy to compete ". The answer was that only needed 34,000 seats sold every week at the Emitrates to cover Stadium repayments, the other 30,000 ( if stadium was full ) was in the bank to add to the massive increase in matchday reveune in Arsenal store, burger bars,corporate hospitality, big increase in TV money at that time, increase in money from the P.L & ofcourse these wonderful sponsorship deals flowing though the doors, inc the one that lead to our stadium being named. When you deduct our running costs we were still down to make huge profits.
Not once in any of the stadium discussions were we told that this would mean a decade of struggle financially. I heard certain posters say "ofcourse we knew we were going to struggle in order to pay back the Stadium - NO WE DIDN'T - all the financials provided by the club led us to believe we would be better of financially every year even taking into account stadium repayments. That is why the stadium excuse for Wenger's decade of nothing is not an excuse. It suited him to not discuss our financial position in too much detail, it sorted him to have rumours of lack of money because he was hell bent on showing the world he could rule with his youth poilicy & buying cheap. We've had money all along if we'd wanted it.
In his early years he looked at Man Utd as the team to beat. The only real mega money team in England at the time but obviously not in the same league financially compared to Chelski & City nowadays. We played United those days with a real chance to win. They had youngsters, home grown lads mixed in with experience & quality. It was what Wenger craved but the United team at that time was one in a million, where such a good crop of youngsters were unearthed. Not being able to compete short term on that score we bought in our own French foreign legion of quality youngsters who could compete with Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, Keane etc. Over these next few years the only thing that threatened the Man Utd/Arsenal domination was MONEY. Leeds had a go by overstretching themselves financially, Blackburn proved that money could buy you the title & then MR Abramovich arrived on the scene. The idea of buying success was proven - Wenger didn't like it, not many of us do but we don't get paid millons of pounds every year in order to deliver AFC the success that that salary requires.
His stubborn refusal to think that he can compete today with City, Chelsea & the big boys in Europe without spending big money on quality players shows him stuck in a time warp, back to the days when he did prove he could build a team to compete with Utd. Every year it gets harder & in the next few years we may have the Spuds, Everton, Newcastle all owned by Sheiks & Oligarchs - its the way football is now, most of us don't like it but its happening. These teams will one day form a European Super league where the financial rewards will be even more fruitful. Do we want to be part of that or playing in a newly formed Premier League competing for the title with West Ham & Stoke. Surely that's not what we built the Emirates for.
Wenger doesn't like the fact that money rules these days & as we all know is too stubborn to change his

[Globalgunner]

If this hasn't been posted before, please read. I suggest Letters should read it too and quit with the delusion that we've been poor and incapable of spending because of the incredible burden of a mortgage of 20m a year. Anything that interferes with his worldview of poor Wenger, hampered by the odds is made up.
http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/arsenal-money-dont-matter-2-night.html

[Özim]

Got to agree about the stadium, we were told it wouldn't affect transfer funds and that "what would be the point of having a world class stadium without a world class team playing in it?", at no point were we told "oh listen we're going to build a big new shiny stadium so we can make lots of money, the only thing is there won't be any investment in the team and we won't have a chance of winning anything and we might have to sell all our best plays, bummer eh <_<?".

The repayments were 20 odd million or so which were reasonable for a club of our size and which we should have been able to pay off without a problem, we did sell players but we also spent some of that money and I'm sure we could have spent more if we'd wanted to.

Why wouldn't the board members be thrilled with Wenger, from a business point of view things were rosy, money rolling in, a manager happy to keep spending to a minimum, if I owned a business and this happened I'd be over the moon. Problem is this isn't just some other business, it's a football club where people fork out huge amounts to support their club only to be rewarded with 4th place and be told it's a "major trophy" and you should think yourselves lucky.

[Niall_Quinn]

Hypersonic inflation in football caused by huge amounts of cash being dumped, a Great Depression style financial crash and the property market sliding into the shitter probably changed the equations a bit. Or entirely.

[Özim]

That didn't change our repayments, nor did it affect football attendances.

As for the property crash, there was some impact but we seem to sell all of our properties, in addition London wasn't affected in the same way, it's in its own bubble where there's so many rich people wanting to buy prices just get driven up further and further.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Hypersonic inflation in football caused by huge amounts of cash being dumped, a Great Depression style financial crash and the property market sliding into the shitter probably changed the equations a bit. Or entirely.

Undoubtedly, even without these factors the old guard knew that the stadium project was going to leave us brassic in the short term. The property collapse meant that the expected revenues from the Highbury square project never materialised. You can pretty much understand in retrospect David Deins outspoken reluctance to move away from Highbury. Even before the rise of the oligarchs it's abundantly clear that the vast amount of money a club generates is not from gate receipts so the Emirates move has not exactly done much for us in terms of finances.

[Dein-machine]

No - if you look at our cash reserves & interest/payments on the stadium over this period, none of what you mentioned has had any effect on our ability to spend. Its all relevant, you pay an extra £10 mill for Suaraz because of inflated price on previous year, you score more goals, you finish higher, you win something - you earn £10 mill more from TV/C.L. rights than you would have done the year before. The lower interest rates that always follow recession have helped us not hindered us. Read the financial report shown in the post from globalgooner regarding our finances.

[selassie]

There are a couple of 'truisms' - on here and amongst Gooners generally - that IMO need looking at.

The first is the automatic assumption that Wenger has remained a winning manager, despite nearly a decade now of winning nothing. The problem has been that there have been justifiable reasons for being also rans. The stadium, of course. The rise of the billionaire playboy clubs. The financial constraints that are so easy to hang the perennial losses of our best players on.

But I think that since the end of last season, a few things have happened to lay our belief in our manager bare.

The demonstration of world class management that SAF's league title showed, now that Moyes is at Manure...but also, in other ways - why his judgment was on the wane.

The progress made by the likes of Pochetino; Rogers and Benitez who are showing what asute tactical reading of the game; efficient football (see also Dortmund) and good man management can achieve on a lot less than Arsenal's budget.

Canny player deals (Sp*ds excepted of course) done by a number of clubs; and surprising player advances at others.

The press have scented our frailties for years. We have accused them of being anti Arsenal; or not appreciating the achievement of building a stadium and balancing the books. We have accepted the mantra of how financial self sufficiency is a trophy in itself - while we have 2 billionaire owners who have never put a penny into the club despite raping its share value.

But more importantly, we have continued to hope. While NONE of the clubs above us in the global pecking order, and many below would have taken steps to change things. Because Wenger is a safe pair of hands as regards CL status, and because of the above 'reasons' he needs to be given a chance to show that he is still great.

And that's why I think that even for those of us who would love Wenger to justify our faith in him now see this season as an ending. For once last Summer he had money to spend - but he ballsed it up and spunked a German record fee on, lets face facts, the wrong player. For once he kept all his best players. For once he seemed to have a defensive coach who had sorted a recurring problem. For once - no SAF; a Mourihno without his own choice players; and a Chilean who was to draw 4 and lose 5 this year to date even with his outrageous squad.

And at Christmas - the fact that we were finally regaining our strength as a club seemed to be there for all to see.

But in a way that we have never seen before under Wenger - his basic faults have been laid bare. He doesn't work in the transfer market without a David Dean alongside him - yet he remains 'the boss' in transfer affairs that he should simply not be involved in. He has clung to a watery 'tiki taka' style of play and players (even Giroud must surely have been chosen because he is adept at little flicks when supported in and around the box). He breeds no enduring confidence in his players. And most importantly - he has shown that whenever he is faced by players the equal of ours in ability, he does not have the tactical acumen to prevail. The fact that we have been thrashed away from home 4 times - more than ever under Wenger - has shown a man stubbornly, desperately, clinging on to a flawed system - and being, frankly, embarassed by those with the ability to analyse their enemies' weakness. It is almost shocking to see - and I have never before seen widespread reporting analysing how Wenger has been out thought and out executed. We were wrong; Wenger now seems to realise it - and our players look like they have lost confidence in Wenger's ability to win against decent opposition.

The second, nagging convention is that because the majority have held on to the dream, it is somehow 'disloyal' to criticise Wenger. There has been a fair degree of antipathy to those critical of a supposedly improving team - even when this was in the heat of the moment after a bad result, or intelligently argued.

I think that the truth is that Wenger has enjoyed an extraordinary degree of support from Arsenal fans and the broader football world. Even after this season was revealing itself to be yet another false dawn, there was dismay at Mourinho's 'specialist in failure' jibe (and look how Wenger put him in his place). He has become more than a football manager - almost an untouchable, because he allowed us to remain top 4 despite what (we accept) were financial constraints. He is paid more than any of his players other than Ozil. And while he has certainly been prudent - he has run the club like a personal fiefdom, answerable to noone, and arguably but his beliefs in front of our success and reputation. He has enjoyed every bit of the support that his historic, or off-field achievements have merited.

And for me, the truth finally seems clear enough to want Wenger to leave with fondness rather than adulation.

Thoughts?

Excellent post :gp:

My thoughts on this are that whilst it's not entirely Wenger's fault, he is largely to blame for the state of the current team, he built the team it's his mess. I personally don't feel he can achieve anything more than the annual 4th place scramble irrespective of whether he is given large funds or not. 4th place scrambles are not good enough for a club of our stature and financial muscle, we should be aggresively challenging for honours now.

My personal opinion on our financial situation having read up on it in the past is that we have always had a budget per say, but have choosen not to spend, we have been very sensible with the funds. We (Arsene) is cautious at the best of times, we were/are awash with money and he didn't spend much in the summer...with a limited budget, early Emirates years, Arsene didn't spend a penny.

Finally, I do believe a lot of these rules and policies have been self-enforced. Whether that is right or wrong is up for debate.

[Letters]

I suggest Letters should read it too and quit with the delusion that we've been poor and incapable of spending because of the incredible burden of a mortgage of 20m a year

I have never said that. Please stop making up things.

[Dein-machine]

Undoubtedly, even without these factors the old guard knew that the stadium project was going to leave us brassic in the short term. The property collapse meant that the expected revenues from the Highbury square project never materialised. You can pretty much understand in retrospect David Deins outspoken reluctance to move away from Highbury. Even before the rise of the oligarchs it's abundantly clear that the vast amount of money a club generates is not from gate receipts so the Emirates move has not exactly done much for us in terms of finances.

There was NO major property collapse in London. Those with money not trusting the banks to gain any returns from investment during recession/low interest periods would look to property/buy to let markets for investment. The new build properties in London ( depending on area ) continued to thrive during your so called property collapse.

[Power n Glory]

In light of this season, I’m sure Wenger had money to spend in the past but chose not to spend. Ozil was a massive signing this year but it’s never been beyond us to spend money on one star player and look for the odd bargain.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

In light of this season, I’m sure Wenger had money to spend in the past but chose not to spend. Ozil was a massive signing this year but it’s never been beyond us to spend money on one star player and look for the odd bargain.

I'm less and less convinced the money is there, this 120million in reserves is probably being kept to guarantee the players wages in the result of finishing outside the top four. In last years we have posted pre tax profits, and in the one summer where we haven't made a profit in the transfer market we make a loss. I am beginning to think the operational running costs wipe out any money we make as a club, of course Wenger and the club are to blame for tieing down average players to large contracts that a club of our size simply cannot afford, and in fact a club that is anyway self sustaining can't afford.
Also what does 120m buy you? Well if you sign a player for 43million like Ozil and pay him around 150k a week for five years that's two thirds of that money wiped out.
I think Wenger should have done better with the players he has or spent the money he has more wisely but we cannot waste 250m over three years like a Liverpool because we don't have a financial benefactor.

[Globalgunner]

I have never said that. Please stop making up things.

You say it all the time. But i really cant be arsed to check your history. Not to worry, you'll be saying it again soon, once you think no ones watching.

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

but we cannot waste 250m over three years like a Liverpool because we don't have a financial benefactor.

:blink:

[Dein-machine]

I'm less and less convinced the money is there, this 120million in reserves is probably being kept to guarantee the players wages in the result of finishing outside the top four. In last years we have posted pre tax profits, and in the one summer where we haven't made a profit in the transfer market we make a loss. I am beginning to think the operational running costs wipe out any money we make as a club, of course Wenger and the club are to blame for tieing down average players to large contracts that a club of our size simply cannot afford, and in fact a club that is anyway self sustaining can't afford.
Also what does 120m buy you? Well if you sign a player for 43million like Ozil and pay him around 150k a week for five years that's two thirds of that money wiped out.
I think Wenger should have done better with the players he has or spent the money he has more wisely but we cannot waste 250m over three years like a Liverpool because we don't have a financial benefactor.

Depends what you call waste - if we spend that money on quality players that bring success you will find that that the rewards will repay that money & ofcourse you still have the players value as as asset. you mention Liverpool wasting £250 mill, if they go on to win the league, get C.L money next year, attract bigger sponsorship deals because of their success then it will be money well spent.
Seems to me your attitude of not being able to afford this expenditure is in line with Mr Wenger's - others would say can we afford not to!

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Well more four years Carroll, Suarez, Henderson, Downing, Sakho, Allen, Coutinho, Johnson, Jose Enrique, Sturridge,

Yes you have recouped a lot of that mine but regardless you make less than us through gate receipts and have had less tv revenue the last few years...so I'd imagine a lot of your transfer outlays are paid for by Henry rather than a self sustaining model. Don't get me wrong your not in the bracket of city and Chelsea but you can afford to spend money on players 15 million + consistently, we cannot.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

We can't afford to spend 20 million on Jordan Henderson in the hope that he's as good as Aaron Ramsey, 12 million on mid table players like Joe Allen and Fabio Borini. It's like you telling me I should invest in property, but if I can't afford the deposit and I can't borrow the money it's empty advice.

[Marc Overmars]

We shouldn't still be talking about money really because we haven't collapsed due to a lack of it. I think it's become quite apparent the manager cannot extract anything else from his players now. It's the time of year where everyone is fighting for something but for some reason our players look dead on their feet and like they'd rather be elsewhere. Why???

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

We shouldn't still be talking about money really because we haven't collapsed due to a lack of it. I think it's become quite apparent the manager cannot extract anything else from his players now. It's the time of year where everyone is fighting for something but for some reason our players look dead on their feet and like they'd rather be elsewhere. Why???

I don't disagree I dont think Wenger can motivate these players, but I don't think the club can afford a new set up. I am not talking about our finances to absolve Wenger of blame because I don't think our lack of money explains the performances and lack of game plan. But it's easy for the board to keep him on because the managerial and coaching set up we would need to take us forward is beyond the clubs finances when we struggle to break even without player sales

[fakeyank]

We shouldn't still be talking about money really because we haven't collapsed due to a lack of it. I think it's become quite apparent the manager cannot extract anything else from his players now. It's the time of year where everyone is fighting for something but for some reason our players look dead on their feet and like they'd rather be elsewhere. Why???

Thank you baby jesus! The problem is not the money! Even with 100 billion dollars, wenger would sign CAM players who would tippy tappy the ball all over the field and their mentality would be as fragile as that of an adolescent girl.

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

My confusion was more down to it sounding as if every penny had been wasted in that time, when that isn't really the case.And the time has been extended a bit, for example Johnson was actually bought in 2009 and complicated because of Portsmouth's financial problems. We've had more than our fair share of duds in the last few years though.

And though our matchday and TV revenue is far lower than yours has been, our commercial revenue has been quite a lot higher (both things to change next season which will obviously take time to filter through accounts etc... touch wood) and we've been cutting our wage bill/holding it steady for the last few years which I think I'm right in saying is also a fair bit lower than yours.

But yeah, I wasn't really arguing. More confused.

[Dein-machine]

We can't afford to spend 20 million on Jordan Henderson in the hope that he's as good as Aaron Ramsey, 12 million on mid table players like Joe Allen and Fabio Borini. It's like you telling me I should invest in property, but if I can't afford the deposit and I can't borrow the money it's empty advice.

we can afford to spend £20 mill on players - the Chief Exec is telling you that & has done for the past few years. You argument doesn't make sense. How much did we spend on Ramsey in the hope he could be a world class player, not £20 mill but in todays inflated market probably not far off. Its taken a while but he's now proving himself & whether its playing well in a successful Arsenal team or selling him to Real for £60 mill it was money well spent. Your example in relation to property is not relevant. You state you can't afford to buy another house or even put down the deposit, well Arsenal football club can afford to buy £50 mill + players & put down any deposits required. The problem is our manager chooses not to because he's stuck in his twilight world of bringing in the likes of Flamini's & Sonogo's on free transfers whilst spouting crap about competing with the big clubs.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

It's there in black and white, we bought one 43million player blowing two thirds of our cash reserve, and because we didnt recoup any big money from player sales in the summer we recorded a financial loss.



we can afford to spend £20 mill on players - the Chief Exec is telling you that & has done for the past few years. You argument doesn't make sense. How much did we spend on Ramsey in the hope he could be a world class player, not £20 mill but in todays inflated market probably not far off. Its taken a while but he's now proving himself & whether its playing well in a successful Arsenal team or selling him to Real for £60 mill it was money well spent. Your example in relation to property is not relevant. You state you can't afford to buy another house or even put down the deposit, well Arsenal football club can afford to buy £50 mill + players & put down any deposits required. The problem is our manager chooses not to because he's stuck in his twilight world of bringing in the likes of Flamini's & Sonogo's on free transfers whilst spouting crap about competing with the big clubs.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

We bought them in on frees because we could just about afford a one off outlay from the money we have saved down the years.

[BlindFaith_8]

The Bitter Truth;

A manager who has failed to win anything in 9 years, yet remains one of the highest paid managers in th world.
A manager who has no ability to motivate his players which was confirmed by the 6 nil drubbing on his landmark 1000th game.
A manager who has signed average players on long term contracts who are not fit to the wear the shirt.
A manager who is so stubborn and will never change his old ways and bad habits, like playing the same shit players week in week out, and not changing the teams shape or players when the game is going away from us.
A manager who always backs his shit signings even though the whole world can see they were a dud signings ala Arteta and Giroud and Sanogo and Bednter
A manager who refuses to sign world class players apart from Ozil which we paid £42 Mill too much for.
A manager who is so deluded believes that 4th place is the same as winning a cup and better

To sum it all up, Arsenal FC has become a total joke in everyones eyes, I mean who cares about the debt or the money, all we fans want is a succesuful club which is challeneging on the domestic front and in Europe. I want to see a manager who has Plan to Plan e, a manager who is tactically aware of his opponents strengths and weakness and who can set up a team from being humiliated every other game.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Thank you baby jesus! The problem is not the money! Even with 100 billion dollars, wenger would sign CAM players who would tippy tappy the ball all over the field and their mentality would be as fragile as that of an adolescent girl.

The problem with people on this board is that they either take one view or the other as if the two are necessary polar opposites. Stating that the money is not there doesn't mean I'm defending Wenger I'm not, I don't think he is good enough anymore but the point is that we cannot afford the financial outlays that Liverpool have, we cannot afford to sign players like Aquilani, Downing etc and then write off the money when they prove to be duds. The cost of running the club and the wage bill has meant that our profits have occurred from player sales, and when the sales aren't being made we run at a loss. Wenger is not good enough, but the board know we cannot overhaul the management and coaching staff anymore than we can the squad and we have to overplay and risk injuries to players like Ramsey, Wilshere, Walcott have to spend loads on them to keep them from joining other clubs and we are stuck with geriatric flops like Arteta who doesn't have the legs to stop Everton, Chelsea, Liverpool making him look stupid whatever game plan we put out.

[Letters]

You say it all the time.
No. I have literally never said that. :tiphat:

[Dein-machine]

It's there in black and white, we bought one 43million player blowing two thirds of our cash reserve, and because we didnt recoup any big money from player sales in the summer we recorded a financial loss.

Recording a financial loss is not an excuse for any business to not spend. In some cases its the end of the road for them if they don't. You have to spend to become more competitive, more reliable, recruiting better staff etc etc. We have been building cash reserves for years. I agree with you that we could have done more to sell players but again Wenger chose not to. IMO we could sell Monreal, Arteta, Rosucky, Giroud, Bentdner, Vermaelen & Podolski & easily expect to recoup £50 mill - why with our high cash reserves & stadium dept dropping would not want to strengthen our squad with quality/expensive players if we are to compete.

[Globalgunner]

Your argument doesnt hold water. Are you saying that we havent had our own share of financial flops. Arshavin, was written off, as was Santos and Gervinho. If you havent written off Giroud then you better had cos no one is going to take him off our hands for decent money. Also are you arguing that we cannot afford to change our unsuccessful backroom staff so we MUST keep them. Doing nothing is not an option i humbly suggest.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

The point I am making is the fact that we are running at a loss means the money is not there to spend, I can't buy expensive things to speculate to accumulate because I don't have the capital to begin with and the same is true of Arsenal, the only way we could afford to do that is borrowing and we would not make the money back that we outlay...anymore than city, Chelsea and yes to a lesser extent Liverpool do. There is no amount of money you can make in football as a club to be a successful business and none of the successful clubs have a successful business model they run at losses. We don't have a benefactor so we can't run at a loss

QUOTE=Dein-machine;386353]Recording a financial loss is not an excuse for any business to not spend. In some cases its the end of the road for them if they don't. You have to spend to become more competitive, more reliable, recruiting better staff etc etc. We have been building cash reserves for years. I agree with you that we could have done more to sell players but again Wenger chose not to. IMO we could sell Monreal, Arteta, Rosucky, Giroud, Bentdner, Vermaelen & Podolski & easily expect to recoup £50 mill - why with our high cash reserves & stadium dept dropping would not want to strengthen our squad with quality/expensive players if we are to compete.[/QUOTE]

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Your argument doesnt hold water. Are you saying that we havent had our own share of financial flops. Arshavin, was written off, as was Santos and Gervinho. If you havent written off Giroud then you better had cos no one is going to take him off our hands for decent money. Also are you arguing that we cannot afford to change our unsuccessful backroom staff so we MUST keep them. Doing nothing is not an option i humbly suggest.

We have no Nasri, Fabregas, Van Persie to sell off to offset such a loss anymore. Gervinho we made at least two thirds of the money back for him from Roma. Arshavin was paid for by selling off Toure and Adebayor and the remaining money was banked.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Your argument doesnt hold water. Are you saying that we havent had our own share of financial flops. Arshavin, was written off, as was Santos and Gervinho. If you havent written off Giroud then you better had cos no one is going to take him off our hands for decent money. Also are you arguing that we cannot afford to change our unsuccessful backroom staff so we MUST keep them. Doing nothing is not an option i humbly suggest.

Clubs like Chelsea, Liverpool in terms of personnel number have far more than us, and the kind of expertise we need would cost us too much in wages especially when even after clearing out the dead wood we are crippled by our wage bill. With Podolski, Walcott, Ozil, Ramsey all on 100k a week or more, a club that can't afford to run at a loss can't afford that kind of wage bill and afford to sign players without selling.

[Power n Glory]

Clubs like Chelsea, Liverpool in terms of personnel number have far more than us, and the kind of expertise we need would cost us too much in wages especially when even after clearing out the dead wood we are crippled by our wage bill. With Podolski, Walcott, Ozil, Ramsey all on 100k a week or more, a club that can't afford to run at a loss can't afford that kind of wage bill and afford to sign players without selling.

We're operating at a loss? Is that including the new sponsorship deal? Where are you guys getting this info? It's the opposite of what Ivan and Wenger were saying in the summer. Regarding backstaff, we've just brought in the former Assistant Coach to Van Gaal, Andries Jonker and two of his men to work with the kids. He brought through Muller and Kroos for Bayern. That can't be a cheap appointment. We could have promoted from within, that would have been the cheaper option.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

We're operating at a loss? Is that including the new sponsorship deal? Where are you guys getting this info? It's the opposite of what Ivan and Wenger were saying in the summer. Regarding backstaff, we've just brought in the former Assistant Coach to Van Gaal, Andries Jonker and two of his men to work with the kids. He brought through Muller and Kroos for Bayern. That can't be a cheap appointment. We could have promoted from within, that would have been the cheaper option.

We posted a loss at the end of last year, and the sponsorship deals will net us 30-50 million more a season, that barely covers the cost of one player with a transfer value of 10 million when you take wages into consideration. Like I said Chelsea and Liverpool probably have twice the amount of back room staff as we do, do you honestly think a cretin like Brendan Rodgers could bring about the changes in Liverpools fortunes single handedly?.

[Power n Glory]

I'd have to check the records on that one regarding the loss and the circumstances. It's a very different picture to what's being painter at the club and something is going badly wrong if we're talking about a £20m mortgage crippling us. Someone got the maths badly wrong. You sure we didn't pay off a chunk from the stadium?

As for Rogers...a cretin? Very harsh. He had Swansea playing good football and if it's not him pulling the strings and it's the backroom staff, what happened with Hodgson and Kenny? Surely they'd have performed at a similar level?

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

it's not the stadium costs, it's the wage bill.....






I'd have to check the records on that one regarding the loss and the circumstances. It's a very different picture to what's being painter at the club and something is going badly wrong if we're talking about a £20m mortgage crippling us. Someone got the maths badly wrong. You sure we didn't pay off a chunk from the stadium?

As for Rogers...a cretin? Very harsh. He had Swansea playing good football and if it's not him pulling the strings and it's the backroom staff, what happened with Hodgson and Kenny? Surely they'd have performed at a similar level?

[Dein-machine]

We posted a loss at the end of last year, and the sponsorship deals will net us 30-50 million more a season, that barely covers the cost of one player with a transfer value of 10 million when you take wages into consideration. Like I said Chelsea and Liverpool probably have twice the amount of back room staff as we do, do you honestly think a cretin like Brendan Rodgers could bring about the changes in Liverpools fortunes single handedly?.

We posted a loss last year on our P&L accounts - so did virtually every other big team in Europe if you want to take player spend into the equation. Arsenal's cash reserves are bigger than those of most of the other premier league teams put together. When you buy a £30 mill player you will immediately see revenue in the form of shirt sales, increase in season tickets etc but the player becomes a £30 mill asset which can either appreciate or depreciate. It increases the value of the company & can be used as a means to borrow ( should we need to ), just like any other business.
Our biggest overheads are our wages - approx £150 mill per year + stadium repayments = £19 mill per year. Our turnover last year I think was approx £250 mill. That turnover doesn't include our new kit & other sponsors. I'll let you do the maths, but bearing in mind this has been happening for years ( since 2002 ) & Wenger has managed to spend just as much as he has sold in that time, you should see why we aren't & haven't been short of money - its all a fabrication which enables Wenger to repeatedly try & show us how he can win the league with his basement buys - Arsenal fans paying the highest ticket prices in Europe to allow Wenger to fuck us over year after year with the blessing of the board.

[Power n Glory]

it's not the stadium costs, it's the wage bill.....

Ok, so do we know when what money gets accounted for in each financial quarter? Are you talking about the £2m loss announced in Feb?

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

I'm not really sure you're onto anything with the whole staff thing, zombie.

Going off the 2012/13 accounts for both clubs, your wage bill for both staff and players was £20m higher than ours (not including social security and pension costs - £135m and £116m respectively) and we seem to employ, on average, 10 fewer players and training staff than you do. Our accounts don't break it down, but yours showed you had 64 training staff.
What I would say is that we employ an additional 60 or so part time (less than 20 hours per week) coaching and scouting staff that doesn't seem to be included in those figures, for example a consultant nutritionist who works a couple of days a week, whereas yours doesn't mention whether it includes both. Though frankly I can't imagine that amounts to a massive amount of money in any case.

[fakeyank]

We posted a loss last year on our P&L accounts - so did virtually every other big team in Europe if you want to take player spend into the equation. Arsenal's cash reserves are bigger than those of most of the other premier league teams put together. When you buy a £30 mill player you will immediately see revenue in the form of shirt sales, increase in season tickets etc but the player becomes a £30 mill asset which can either appreciate or depreciate. It increases the value of the company & can be used as a means to borrow ( should we need to ), just like any other business.
Our biggest overheads are our wages - approx £150 mill per year + stadium repayments = £19 mill per year. Our turnover last year I think was approx £250 mill. That turnover doesn't include our new kit & other sponsors. I'll let you do the maths, but bearing in mind this has been happening for years ( since 2002 ) & Wenger has managed to spend just as much as he has sold in that time, you should see why we aren't & haven't been short of money - its all a fabrication which enables Wenger to repeatedly try & show us how he can win the league with his basement buys - Arsenal fans paying the highest ticket prices in Europe to allow Wenger to fuck us over year after year with the blessing of the board.

:gp:

Dein Machine :bow:

[IBK]

Quite surprised that this has become a financial argument. For me, the reason why I am no longer interested in talk of how much we have to spend is that 2 clubs - Everton and Liverpool - have shown that arguments about Arsenal's cash reserves are facile. That is part of the watershed for me. Never before have teams with their own financial concerns pushed us so hard.

Financially, it is a disgrace that AFC has encouraged a situation where we make money for billionaire shareholders who have invested nothing on the playing side. But it is IMHO a sign of how diminished we have become as a club that we plead poverty to excuse a lack of ambition, and a lack of success.

If you look at the cold, hard facts - we have finished pretty much where we should have done in terms of financial resources for the past decade. Yet we praise our manager for achieving parity. I believe that Wenger has not exceeded expectations. He has met them. And in his biggest spending season he is in danger of performing below what should be expected from a club of our stature.

I have a fondness for Wenger now - but I have become disenchanted by the way in which he has milked our goodwill for recurring seasons.

[IBK]

Also. Has their ever been a football team in history that has asked their own fans to applaud corporate efficiency ahead of success on the pitch?

[IBK]

Excellent post :gp:

My thoughts on this are that whilst it's not entirely Wenger's fault, he is largely to blame for the state of the current team, he built the team it's his mess. I personally don't feel he can achieve anything more than the annual 4th place scramble irrespective of whether he is given large funds or not. 4th place scrambles are not good enough for a club of our stature and financial muscle, we should be aggresively challenging for honours now.

My personal opinion on our financial situation having read up on it in the past is that we have always had a budget per say, but have choosen not to spend, we have been very sensible with the funds. We (Arsene) is cautious at the best of times, we were/are awash with money and he didn't spend much in the summer...with a limited budget, early Emirates years, Arsene didn't spend a penny.

Finally, I do believe a lot of these rules and policies have been self-enforced. Whether that is right or wrong is up for debate.

The 'bitter truth' question is that given the praise that we have received for planning and forsight re the Emirates Stadium - with a guaranteed 64K attendance at every match do we really believe that post 2005 we have been so far behind what we could afford at Highbury that we have sold the crown jewels every year but last - when basically we had none?

[Letters]

Quite surprised that this has become a financial argument. For me, the reason why I am no longer interested in talk of how much we have to spend is that 2 clubs - Everton and Liverpool - have shown that arguments about Arsenal's cash reserves are facile. That is part of the watershed for me. Never before have teams with their own financial concerns pushed us so hard.

Agree with a lot of your post but I would point out that neither Everton or Liverpool have been in Europe this year. As well as Liverpool have done this year, they'll find it hard to repeat it next year with the added strain of a CL campaign, especially if someone makes a big enough bid for Suarez, someone is bound to try and turn his head. Everton will be in the Europa league (if not the CL!) and again that will add strain to their squad. Kinda agree that 4th is about par for us but I don't think achieving it every year like Wenger has is as easy as some people on here seem to think.

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

Agree with a lot of your post but I would point out that neither Everton or Liverpool have been in Europe this year. As well as Liverpool have done this year, they'll find it hard to repeat it next year with the added strain of a CL campaign, especially if someone makes a big enough bid for Suarez, someone is bound to try and turn his head. Everton will be in the Europa league (if not the CL!) and again that will add strain to their squad. Kinda agree that 4th is about par for us but I don't think achieving it every year like Wenger has is as easy as some people on here seem to think.
Given it's taken us 5 years to even get close, I'd have thought that would be quite obvious.

[Power n Glory]

http://le-grove.co.uk/2014/04/09/youre-not-going-to-believe-this-correction/#more-19006

Pretty shocking regarding our 'use' of video analysis.

[Globalgunner]

Nothing shocks me anymore about Arsene`s Arsenal. We are a shambles of an organisation bent to the whims of one individual and with an owner so laid back he may as well be horizontal and six feet under

[AFC Leveller]

Nothing shocks me anymore about Arsene`s Arsenal. We are a shambles of an organisation bent to the whims of one individual and with an owner so laid back he may as well be horizontal and six feet under

Its just bad tbh. This manager is actually nicking a living! what does he do for a man who gets 7m a year? if he doesnt sign the right players, doesnt prepare well for the big games, doesnt win any trophies and cant motivate his players then surely its time for him to resign.

[Niall_Quinn]

Also. Has their ever been a football team in history that has asked their own fans to applaud corporate efficiency ahead of success on the pitch?

This would only be the case if the stadium move was an end goal rather than the means to an end. The additional finances are not the prize, the resources they can buy are what we're after. If those resources end up in a shirt then this has been a success. If not then it'll get nasty. Either way, I can't imagine there's a single fan out there who takes the finances as an ultimate prize over and above what happens on the pitch.

[Letters]

what does he do for a man who gets 7m a year?
What have the Romans ever done for us...

[selassie]

Agree with a lot of your post but I would point out that neither Everton or Liverpool have been in Europe this year. As well as Liverpool have done this year, they'll find it hard to repeat it next year with the added strain of a CL campaign, especially if someone makes a big enough bid for Suarez, someone is bound to try and turn his head. Everton will be in the Europa league (if not the CL!) and again that will add strain to their squad. Kinda agree that 4th is about par for us but I don't think achieving it every year like Wenger has is as easy as some people on here seem to think.

Yes but regardless of whether Liverpool challenge next season, they are challenging now and with a squad that is thin. Rodgers has achieved what Wenger has been unable to do so over the past 9 years. The sad thing is we have actually had some very good teams over the past 9 years.

I don't think 4th place finish is easy but I do think we could and should have achieved more if you factor in some of our collapses.

I also believe Wenger isn't using all of his available resources.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Its just bad tbh. This manager is actually nicking a living! what does he do for a man who gets 7m a year? if he doesnt sign the right players, doesnt prepare well for the big games, doesnt win any trophies and cant motivate his players then surely its time for him to resign.

Neither Liverpool or Everton are run as a business, we are. And as for Liverpools commercial revenue it is most likely tied into the ownership, much like Man City's sponsorship deal for the stadium.

[selassie]

Neither Liverpool or Everton are run as a business, we are. And as for Liverpools commercial revenue it is most likely tied into the ownership, much like Man City's sponsorship deal for the stadium.

Regarding them not being run as a business, what do you mean?

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

My point is we are trying to do something that is not possible and be self sustaining, it's just not possible in the top echelons in football with the money in football in terms of players wages

[Letters]

Yes but regardless of whether Liverpool challenge next season, they are challenging now and with a squad that is thin. Rodgers has achieved what Wenger has been unable to do so over the past 9 years. The sad thing is we have actually had some very good teams over the past 9 years.

I don't think 4th place finish is easy but I do think we could and should have achieved more if you factor in some of our collapses.

I also believe Wenger isn't using all of his available resources.

I think that's all fair enough.

What annoys me is all the hyperbole. Wenger is useless, the club is a shambles.

We clearly have some problems but does everything really have to be so extreme?

[Letters]

My point is we are trying to do something that is not possible and be self sustaining, it's just not possible in the top echelons in football with the money in football in terms of players wages

How can you not run as a business in any sustainable way?

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

How can you not run as a business in any sustainable way?

Because the cost in terms of players and players wages will always greatly outweigh any money you make from match day revenues, conmercial deals etc.
You can be sustainable but not if you want to challenge

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Case in point, Mesut Ozil when you consider his transfer few plus his wages plus signing on fee and adds on, I strongly suspect the 120million we supposedly have in reserve would have been mostly used on this.

[Letters]

Because the cost in terms of players and players wages will always greatly outweigh any money you make from match day revenues, conmercial deals etc.
You can be sustainable but not if you want to challenge
OK. So the two options are:
a) A sugar daddy
b) A non-sustainable model which at some point will surely collapse a la Leeds.

No?

[selassie]

My point is we are trying to do something that is not possible and be self sustaining, it's just not possible in the top echelons in football with the money in football in terms of players wages

Yeah but there is a middle ground. It's not a choice between having a 120million in the bank or being a 120million in the red.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

That's exactly it, money wins out...I'm not saying either way is desirable but unless we introduce a transfer and wage cap it's the only way clubs will win.
I'd rather us be sustainable but we can't expect to have a pot to piss in

[selassie]

I think that's all fair enough.

What annoys me is all the hyperbole. Wenger is useless, the club is a shambles.

We clearly have some problems but does everything really have to be so extreme?

Oh I agree, and I am at times am guilty of going on the extreme attack about Wenger...I do think there is a middle ground, but I do think we have a club are not taking that route...which is kind of what Herbert is touching on.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Yeah but there is a middle ground. It's not a choice between having a 120million in the bank or being a 120million in the red.

Not when your competing with clubs that spend ridiculous amounts of money, and have your owners tie you up to commercial deals which they are linked into

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

Neither Liverpool or Everton are run as a business, we are. And as for Liverpools commercial revenue it is most likely tied into the ownership, much like Man City's sponsorship deal for the stadium.
As in we're essentially sponsoring ourselves a la Etihad?

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Oh I agree, and I am at times am guilty of going on the extreme attack about Wenger...I do think there is a middle ground, but I do think we have a club are not taking that route...which is kind of what Herbert is touching on.

Again for me the two issues are seperate, I think Wenger can no longer take us forward but it's irrelevant anyway because we don't have the finances to take us forward

[Power n Glory]

Case in point, Mesut Ozil when you consider his transfer few plus his wages plus signing on fee and adds on, I strongly suspect the 120million we supposedly have in reserve would have been mostly used on this.

How is that possible?

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

How is that possible?

43 million transfer fee
150 grand a week wages over five years = another 40 million
Plus add ons and signing on fee and you are looking close to 100 million

[Power n Glory]

43 million transfer fee
150 grand a week wages over five years = another 40 million
Plus add ons and signing on fee and you are looking close to 100 million

Yes, wages over 5 years. We don't pay that much outright.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Yes, wages over 5 years. We don't pay that much outright.

But you need to know your going to have the money to pay the wages whilst the player is at the club, that's why wages always figure in our transfer budget, so when we have had a 30 or 40 million to spend that means one player worth 10-15 million.

[selassie]

Again for me the two issues are seperate, I think Wenger can no longer take us forward but it's irrelevant anyway because we don't have the finances to take us forward

Herbert, we're awash with money, how much do you think we actually need to take us forward? Take us forward being an improvement on 4th place or wherever we finish this season.

I'll be honest and it's been brought up already on this thread...the issues with the team and our lack of progress are not directly related to finances.

Sure..we need to improve the squad and we need to spend...but we need to sign the "right type of players".

[selassie]

Not when your competing with clubs that spend ridiculous amounts of money, and have your owners tie you up to commercial deals which they are linked into

Clarify what you mean regarding commercials deals.

[Özim]

But you need to know your going to have the money to pay the wages whilst the player is at the club, that's why wages always figure in our transfer budget, so when we have had a 30 or 40 million to spend that means one player worth 10-15 million.

Ozils wages would have been partially offset by the players we got rid off and thus got off the pay roll.

[Power n Glory]

But you need to know your going to have the money to pay the wages whilst the player is at the club, that's why wages always figure in our transfer budget, so when we have had a 30 or 40 million to spend that means one player worth 10-15 million.

Impossible. Last season we bought Cazorla, Podolski, Giroud and Monreal for that fee. Does that mean we had £120m - £160m to spend in the year? And that's before the sponsorship announcement. What about the season we bought Ox, Gervinho, Arteta, Merts, Santos, Jenkinson and Park? That's got to be over £200m. It can't be done that way. How do other clubs manage? How were Spurs able to spend £100m from the bail money and find the wages for those players as well? This can't be the way.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Ozils wages would have been partially offset by the players we got rid off and thus got off the pay roll.

No that offset the players we already had at the club that have been awarded new contracts in the last 18 months

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Impossible. Last season we bought Cazorla, Podolski, Giroud and Monreal for that fee. Does that mean we had £120m - £160m to spend in the year? And that's before the sponsorship announcement. What about the season we bought Ox, Gervinho, Arteta, Merts, Santos, Jenkinson and Park? That's got to be over £200m. It can't be done that way. How do other clubs manage? How were Spurs able to spend £100m from the bail money and find the wages for those players as well? This can't be the way.

The players you have mentioned, Cazorla, Podolski and Giroud offset by the sale and wages off the books for Song and Van Persie....but even then our wage bill would have skyrocketed with 130k a week for Podolski.
Arteta, Gervinho, Santos, Mertesacker etc - Eboue, Clichy, Nasri, Fabregas

[Bumble]

when you compare arsenal to liverpool, its alot closer than you realise in 2013 we earned about £47m more in revenue than liverpool, despite getting the CL money and higher average attendance. of course both liverpool and everton are run as businesses. they arent bankrolled like city or the chavs.

also i believe with transfer fees they are often paid in instalments over the length of the contract, so it is possible that we didnt give all that money to Real in one go and hence we always seemed to be owed money by Barca.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

when you compare arsenal to liverpool, its alot closer than you realise in 2013 we earned about £47m more in revenue than liverpool, despite getting the CL money and higher average attendance. of course both liverpool and everton are run as businesses. they arent bankrolled like city or the chavs.

also i believe with transfer fees they are often paid in instalments over the length of the contract, so it is possible that we didnt give all that money to Real in one go and hence we always seemed to be owed money by Barca.

I realise about doing it in instalments but the money still has to be there, we made technically have the 120 million but I would be surprised if 100million hasn't been earmarked for paying the club we bought him from, paying his wages etc.

That's why Wenger is adverse to spending big money, because unless you sell them off at a bigger fee than what you bought them for your making a huge financial loss.

One that a club run as a business cannot afford to make

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

when you compare arsenal to liverpool, its alot closer than you realise in 2013 we earned about £47m more in revenue than liverpool, despite getting the CL money and higher average attendance. of course both liverpool and everton are run as businesses. they arent bankrolled like city or the chavs.

also i believe with transfer fees they are often paid in instalments over the length of the contract, so it is possible that we didnt give all that money to Real in one go and hence we always seemed to be owed money by Barca.

I believe Liverpool are bankrolled, I don't believe even with better commercial deals than us that they can afford independently the transfer outlays that have been made by them in the last few years.

[Power n Glory]

The players you have mentioned, Cazorla, Podolski and Giroud offset by the sale and wages off the books for Song and Van Persie....but even then our wage bill would have skyrocketed with 130k a week for Podolski.
Arteta, Gervinho, Santos, Mertesacker etc - Eboue, Clichy, Nasri, Fabregas

That's not right because our wage bill decreased in 2013. There is no way it works like that because that would mean we’ve had £100m to £150m to spend in some seasons.

[Dein-machine]

No one on the site thinks we have the ability to compete with the Mancs or Chavs financially. In Europe we would same the same about Real & Barca. That's four teams in the world that can stupidly outbid us for any player we wanted. These teams cannot buy every player in the world so we cannot keep bleating on about competing with these clubs. Top players these days are sold with clauses in their contract about having to always play when fit etc, you cannot have the 20 best strikers in the world warming the bench of 4 teams. Bayern Munich are a self substaining club, good fan base, good match day revenue, good sponsorship deals. They have their pick of the decent German kids coming through but add the experience & quality when needed. They are European Champions & could be the 1st team to win the C.L back to back. Apart from Neuer & Ribery, who do they have that is talked about as true world class! - none of their players would fetch anywhere near the kind of money you would have to find to buy a Bale, Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Suarez, Aguero. Their forward choice is Manduzic or Muller, both better versions of Giroud but not world beaters. They simply fill the areas around these guys with good quality players that pass & move & keep the ball well. Robben & Ribery have far more impact on games than our wide players do & their CM's ( Schweinsteiger & Kroos ) are quality ball players who might the correct decisions 90% of the time. We have Wheelchair falling over or running into people, Arteta playing suicide balls sideways, Rosicky & Cazorla giving the ball away 50% of the time. Our full backs are average players, no more than that - they have Aliba & Lahm.
We may not be able to buy the likes of Suarez, Messi or Ronaldo but there is no excuse for us to not have quality. We need players with good feet who read the game well & not only make the right decision most of the time but have the ability to execute that decision. Players like Kroos & Reus are what we need, not Kalou. We may have to compete with the likes of Man U or Liverpool for some of these players but that's life - isn't this the reason why we moved to the Emirates.
Lets stop bleating on about the unfairness of it all & buy quality - No free transfers, no basement buys - just quality.

[Özim]

As a club we've become obsessed with finances, rarely do you hear the other big clubs talking about it so much, it's been the perfect excuse for the club to hde behind for years now and it looks like it's going to remain the case which suits them.

[selassie]

I realise about doing it in instalments but the money still has to be there, we made technically have the 120 million but I would be surprised if 100million hasn't been earmarked for paying the club we bought him from, paying his wages etc.

That's why Wenger is adverse to spending big money, because unless you sell them off at a bigger fee than what you bought them for your making a huge financial loss.

One that a club run as a business cannot afford to make

You are making this sound way more complicated than it needs to be.

Why do you think we moved to the Emirates in the first place? It certainly wasn't to not compete....

[Dein-machine]

You are making this sound way more complicated than it needs to be.

Why do you think we moved to the Emirates in the first place? It certainly wasn't to not compete....

:gp: - lets just go back to Highbury, it was so much better then

[Niall_Quinn]

I realise about doing it in instalments but the money still has to be there, we made technically have the 120 million but I would be surprised if 100million hasn't been earmarked for paying the club we bought him from, paying his wages etc.

That's why Wenger is adverse to spending big money, because unless you sell them off at a bigger fee than what you bought them for your making a huge financial loss.

One that a club run as a business cannot afford to make

The revenues come in each season to offset the costs. Gate receipts, sponsorship, TV revenues, prize money, cash spinning tours, merchandising domestic and foreign, property, interest accrued and other intangibles that can lead to increased revenue. These are all increasing. The players are a special type of asset that can appreciate as well as depreciate in value, that's where I'd say Wenger casts a keen eye and it's probably at least a partial explanation for the over 30s policy. If FFP is properly enforced...

IF...

we could be in a very strong position in a couple of years specifically because we have gone down the route of sustainability.

[Power n Glory]

You are making this sound way more complicated than it needs to be.

Why do you think we moved to the Emirates in the first place? It certainly wasn't to not compete....

It really is crazy talk. I have no idea how other clubs survive if we're struggling with a new stadium.

[Özim]

:gp: - lets just go back to Highbury, it was so much better then

Looks like we're going to have no choice, it was the only place where we could compete.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You are making this sound way more complicated than it needs to be.

Why do you think we moved to the Emirates in the first place? It certainly wasn't to not compete....

Why are you bringing the Emirates move into it? 20million a season isn't the reason why we are poor its players wages, we weren't sustainable at Highbury all the time Danny Fiszman dipped into his pockets so we could afford players like Overmars, Petit etc.
Wages have been an issue for twenty years or more, even back then the sport was not sustainable as a business, but since the oligarchs came in wages have skyrocketed three times over in ten years. Henry was on 60-70k in 2004 now a comparable player is on 250k a week

[Niall_Quinn]

Plus, as a follow-up, we will sell a player rather than let the contract run down. If we'd had RvP this season who knows he would have been injured. Liverpool kept Suarez, not entirely a similar situation but still a wantaway player they went to extreme lengths to keep on the pitch banging in the goals for them.

Not specifically related, but on the other hand - had we not sold RvP then Fergie wouldn't have won the title and Moyes might not have been hired. Funny old game.

[Niall_Quinn]

Looks like we're going to have no choice, it was the only place where we could compete.

LOL - you must have missed a few decades then.

[Özim]

LOL - you must have missed a few decades then.

Did people bitch about not being able to compete because of money in the 60's too then?

[selassie]

Why are you bringing the Emirates move into it? 20million a season isn't the reason why we are poor its players wages, we weren't sustainable at Highbury all the time Danny Fiszman dipped into his pockets so we could afford players like Overmars, Petit etc.
Wages have been an issue for twenty years or more, even back then the sport was not sustainable as a business, but since the oligarchs came in wages have skyrocketed three times over in ten years. Henry was on 60-70k in 2004 now a comparable player is on 250k a week

http://www.sporteology.com/top-10-richest-football-clubs-in-the-world/

We moved to Emirates to make us suistainable so we could compete with the richest clubs in the world. That is what we were told and given the figures re: gate receipts etc why should we not believe that?

We as a club make a lot of money, of course we have big outgoings but to suggest we are poor is nothing short of ridiculous...

I don't even know where you are getting your figures from....

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Well how routinely do clubs that are not bankrolled/super rich win the premier league or champions league?. I would say that when it doesn't happen it's more of an anomaly. If you think we can compete in terms of squad depth with a club like Chelsea that can as a matter of course being 20million valued players off the bench than your deluded and a better manager than Wenger won't change that.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

http://www.sporteology.com/top-10-richest-football-clubs-in-the-world/

We moved to Emirates to make us suistainable so we could compete with the richest clubs in the world. That is what we were told and given the figures re: gate receipts etc why should we not believe that?

We as a club make a lot of money, of course we have big outgoings but to suggest we are poor is nothing short of ridiculous...

I don't even know where you are getting your figures from....

Again posting profits isn't about being rich, it's saying that we can sustain ourselves financially but we cannot compete with clubs at the top that don't run like a business like Chelsea, city and Liverpool.

[selassie]

Again posting profits isn't about being rich, it's saying that we can sustain ourselves financially but we cannot compete with clubs at the top that don't run like a business like Chelsea, city and Liverpool.

So what are you suggesting we just sit on millions of pounds just to prove we are self-sustainable? We are a football club Herbert, we are in the entertainment business, a business where winning is rewarded.

I am not suggesting we spend like Chelsea or City, I am suggesting that our current manager makes more of his resources, if he can't then he should move on and we should hire someone that will.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

So what are you suggesting we just sit on millions of pounds just to prove we are self-sustainable? We are a football club Herbert, we are in the entertainment business, a business where winning is rewarded.

As I have explained that money has probably been spent, and even if I'm wrong about it being used to sign Ozil (and that would make sense) than the money will be needed to help pay our players next season if we don't finish in the champions league.
And as I've pointed out that figure is not a vast angling of money it can buy you one decent player and that's my point

[Globalgunner]

Gents Business 101. You never pay salaries from your savings. Its non sustainable. Salaries are considered recurrent expenditure and will be paid from annual income such as matchday revenue and other commercial income

HCZ s proposal that we saved up 120m over 5 years just to pay Ozils wages is not the way businesses are run. Yes you could buy a player from your savings as that could be considered an investment but again you would prefer to include it in your expenses, for accounting reasons, especially if the payments are instalments.

We have 120m and yet to hear some people on this forum it makes as a poor outfit. That is more than almost all the other EPL clubs combined, If we are in dire straits then everybody else must be functionally bankrupt. A football club does not need to make a profit, unless either it wishes to satisfy shareholders or it is investing in something...eg a stadium. We have not declared a dividend in years so no shareholder has taken a dime out of the club except maybe sitting fees for directors. In a publicly listed company you cant just do what you want even if you own 67% of the shares like Kroenke does

The facts are available. Just visit AST instead of posting hooey

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Clubs like Chelsea can spend billions on their squad and wages and with that stratospheric obscene amount of money, there is no amount of money as a club you can bring in to generate that money to offset that spending. If we can just about afford someone like Ozil after stock piling for years and Chelsea can buy five similar type players without raising an eyebrow it tells you we are pissing into the wind even trying to compete and run as a business

[selassie]

As I have explained that money has probably been spent, and even if I'm wrong about it being used to sign Ozil (and that would make sense) than the money will be needed to help pay our players next season if we don't finish in the champions league.
And as I've pointed out that figure is not a vast angling of money it can buy you one decent player and that's my point

Your point doesn't make sense though, You are factoring in our wealth on a 120million surplus fund, you do realise our club generates income every single day?

[selassie]

Gents Business 101. You never pay salaries from your savings. Its non sustainable. Salaries are considered recurrent expenditure and will be paid from annual income such as matchday revenue and other commercial income

HCZ s proposal that we saved up 120m over 5 years just to pay Ozils wages is not the way businesses are run. Yes you could buy a player from your savings as that could be considered an investment but again you would prefer to include it in your expenses, for accounting reasons, especially if the payments are instalments.

We have 120m and yet to hear some people on this forum it makes as a poor outfit. That is more than almost all the other EPL clubs combined, If we are in dire straits then everybody else must be functionally bankrupt. A football club does not need to make a profit, unless either it wishes to satisfy shareholders or it is investing in something...eg a stadium. We have not declared a dividend in years so no shareholder has taken a dime out of the club except maybe sitting fees for directors. In a publicly listed company you cant just do what you want even if you own 67% of the shares like Kroenke does

The facts are available. Just visit AST instead of posting hooey

:gp:

[Globalgunner]

Again posting profits isn't about being rich, it's saying that we can sustain ourselves financially but we cannot compete with clubs at the top that don't run like a business like Chelsea, city and Liverpool.

Athletico Madrid are competing with everybody right now, they have no benefactor and their wage bill I an certain is probably half ours. The difference is that they as a club wish glory for their fans and they have found a manager that is doing the right things, so please stop with the balderdash about competing being impossible.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

We spend between 150million and 200 million a season on wages how is it possible for us to spend that much and still according to you be flush with cash. It's just not possible. I repeat you cannot compete and run a financially sustainable operation it is not possible.

QUOTE=Globalgunner;386662]Gents Business 101. You never pay salaries from your savings. Its non sustainable. Salaries a
re considered recurrent expenditure and will be paid from annual income such as matchday revenue and other commercial income

HCZ s proposal that we saved up 120m over 5 years just to pay Ozils wages is not the way businesses are run. Yes you could buy a player from your savings as that could be considered an investment but again you would prefer to include it in your expenses, for accounting reasons, especially if the payments are instalments.

We have 120m and yet to hear some people on this forum it makes as a poor outfit. That is more than almost all the other EPL clubs combined, If we are in dire straits then everybody else must be functionally bankrupt. A football club does not need to make a profit, unless either it wishes to satisfy shareholders or it is investing in something...eg a stadium. We have not declared a dividend in years so no shareholder has taken a dime out of the club except maybe sitting fees for directors. In a publicly listed company you cant just do what you want even if you own 67% of the shares like Kroenke does

The facts are available. Just visit AST instead of posting hooey[/QUOTE]

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Athletico Madrid are competing with everybody right now, they have no benefactor and their wage bill I an certain is probably half ours. The difference is that they as a club wish glory for their fans and they have found a manager that is doing the right things, so please stop with the balderdash about competing being impossible.

Again why are you assuming I'm
Defending Wenger?. He has grossly overspent by putting average players on wages they don't deserve. But as admirable as stories like Dortmund and Atletico Madrid are, neither club has the finances to do anything other than challenge once in a blue moon

[Globalgunner]

Again why are you assuming I'm
Defending Wenger?. He has grossly overspent by putting average players on wages they don't deserve. But as admirable as stories like Dortmund and Atletico Madrid are, neither club has the finances to do anything other than challenge once in a blue moon

Dortmund won 2 titles in a row only 3 seasons ago, so hardly a blue moon. I agree with you that our salary structure is ridiculous but again it all boils down to one man. If your opponent is bigger than you then what you need to do is box clever, rather than give up.

[Power n Glory]

Gents Business 101. You never pay salaries from your savings. Its non sustainable. Salaries are considered recurrent expenditure and will be paid from annual income such as matchday revenue and other commercial income

HCZ s proposal that we saved up 120m over 5 years just to pay Ozils wages is not the way businesses are run. Yes you could buy a player from your savings as that could be considered an investment but again you would prefer to include it in your expenses, for accounting reasons, especially if the payments are instalments.

We have 120m and yet to hear some people on this forum it makes as a poor outfit. That is more than almost all the other EPL clubs combined, If we are in dire straits then everybody else must be functionally bankrupt. A football club does not need to make a profit, unless either it wishes to satisfy shareholders or it is investing in something...eg a stadium. We have not declared a dividend in years so no shareholder has taken a dime out of the club except maybe sitting fees for directors. In a publicly listed company you cant just do what you want even if you own 67% of the shares like Kroenke does

The facts are available. Just visit AST instead of posting hooey

:gp:

It's crazy talk. We've had more than £120m if we're talking about paying including wages and other fees in on transfer budget.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Dortmund won 2 titles in a row only 3 seasons ago, so hardly a blue moon. I agree with you that our salary structure is ridiculous but again it all boils down to one man. If your opponent is bigger than you then what you need to do is box clever, rather than give up.

Three seasons ago and now they are 25 points behind Bayern.

Boxing clever will allow you to compete for trophies maybe once every two or three years and my beef with Wenger is that he hasn't made the most of those opportunities. But in terms of competing every season, it cannot be done. Atletico will be back to square one like Dortmund because it will have to sell its best players to the bigger teams because they won't be able to afford the wages the players agents will demand for their performances

[Globalgunner]

As a follow up. If you read the report by Swiss Ramble, we accumulated the 120m over a period of over 5 years, from our surplus. That is profits. Now if you imagine that we kept our wage bill reasonable and paid players like Djourou and bentner what they are worth 15k pw instead of 50k. we could reasonably have added maybe 40m per year as that has been the gap between us and Spurs wage bill. a team that has finished mostly right behind us. Over 6 years we would have an additional 240m in the bank. a total of almost 400m. Which player in the world could we not buy with 400m in the bank.

[Globalgunner]

Three seasons ago and now they are 25 points behind Bayern.

Boxing clever will allow you to compete for trophies maybe once every two or three years and my beef with Wenger is that he hasn't made the most of those opportunities. But in terms of competing every season, it cannot be done. Atletico will be back to square one like Dortmund because it will have to sell its best players to the bigger teams because they won't be able to afford the wages the players agents will demand for their performances

It would be nice to have a track record of failure as bad as Dortmunds, but I agree with your sentiments.....we need change

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

It would be nice to have a track record of failure as bad as Dortmunds, but I agree with your sentiments.....we need change

Dortmund financially almost went bust eight years ago, but I agree in the sense that they created a team by spending sensibly and having a brilliant youth academy. Our youth academy has been disgracefully neglected, but with their best players both going to be wearing a Bayern shirt next season (Gotze this season, Lewandowski next) they just cannot compete with the Bavarian club to be challenging them year in year out for the title.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

It would be nice to have a track record of failure as bad as Dortmunds, but I agree with your sentiments.....we need change

We do need change but if you think that change will see us being able to consistently challenge with Chelsea, City and United when they get their act together you are deluded. Maybe winning one title in the next ten years is better than nothing though

[BlindFaith_8]

Also. Has their ever been a football team in history that has asked their own fans to applaud corporate efficiency ahead of success on the pitch?

:gp:

[Maestro]

No one on the site thinks we have the ability to compete with the Mancs or Chavs financially. In Europe we would same the same about Real & Barca. That's four teams in the world that can stupidly outbid us for any player we wanted. These teams cannot buy every player in the world so we cannot keep bleating on about competing with these clubs. Top players these days are sold with clauses in their contract about having to always play when fit etc, you cannot have the 20 best strikers in the world warming the bench of 4 teams. Bayern Munich are a self substaining club, good fan base, good match day revenue, good sponsorship deals. They have their pick of the decent German kids coming through but add the experience & quality when needed. They are European Champions & could be the 1st team to win the C.L back to back. Apart from Neuer & Ribery, who do they have that is talked about as true world class! - none of their players would fetch anywhere near the kind of money you would have to find to buy a Bale, Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Suarez, Aguero. Their forward choice is Manduzic or Muller, both better versions of Giroud but not world beaters. They simply fill the areas around these guys with good quality players that pass & move & keep the ball well. Robben & Ribery have far more impact on games than our wide players do & their CM's ( Schweinsteiger & Kroos ) are quality ball players who might the correct decisions 90% of the time. We have Wheelchair falling over or running into people, Arteta playing suicide balls sideways, Rosicky & Cazorla giving the ball away 50% of the time. Our full backs are average players, no more than that - they have Aliba & Lahm.
We may not be able to buy the likes of Suarez, Messi or Ronaldo but there is no excuse for us to not have quality. We need players with good feet who read the game well & not only make the right decision most of the time but have the ability to execute that decision. Players like Kroos & Reus are what we need, not Kalou. We may have to compete with the likes of Man U or Liverpool for some of these players but that's life - isn't this the reason why we moved to the Emirates.
Lets stop bleating on about the unfairness of it all & buy quality - No free transfers, no basement buys - just quality.

Absolutely fantastic post, and should have really closed the debate.

[saintnickle]

As I have explained that money has probably been spent, and even if I'm wrong about it being used to sign Ozil (and that would make sense) than the money will be needed to help pay our players next season if we don't finish in the champions league.
And as I've pointed out that figure is not a vast angling of money it can buy you one decent player and that's my point

Do you honestly believe we can only spent 25 million a year without making us potless??An ammount less than what cardiff spend.If so we need a billionaire and quick.Oh sorry i forgot that we have 2 at the club already.What is even more criminal is that our manager earns 8 million a year and we can only spend 25 m a year on players..

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Do you honestly believe we can only spent 25 million a year without making us potless??An ammount less than what cardiff spend.If so we need a billionaire and quick.Oh sorry i forgot that we have 2 at the club already.What is even more criminal is that our manager earns 8 million a year and we can only spend 25 m a year on players..

Again people seem to be obsessed with the idea of transfer fees, transfer fees mean nothing....so you can spend 30 million on six players, have them all on relatively low wages at a club like cardiff and it won't impact on you. But a club like Arsenal the players expect to be on high wages and so if a player costs 10-15 million in the transfer market, the real sum you are looking at is anywhere between 45 and 50 million when you factor in wages.
Player Wages is the reason we cannot compete, there is not a player out there we could sign for 15million that won't expect at least 100k a week....that's why Wenger has been adverse to big transfer fees....he knows we can't afford it.

[IBK]

No one on the site thinks we have the ability to compete with the Mancs or Chavs financially. In Europe we would same the same about Real & Barca. That's four teams in the world that can stupidly outbid us for any player we wanted. These teams cannot buy every player in the world so we cannot keep bleating on about competing with these clubs. Top players these days are sold with clauses in their contract about having to always play when fit etc, you cannot have the 20 best strikers in the world warming the bench of 4 teams. Bayern Munich are a self substaining club, good fan base, good match day revenue, good sponsorship deals. They have their pick of the decent German kids coming through but add the experience & quality when needed. They are European Champions & could be the 1st team to win the C.L back to back. Apart from Neuer & Ribery, who do they have that is talked about as true world class! - none of their players would fetch anywhere near the kind of money you would have to find to buy a Bale, Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Suarez, Aguero. Their forward choice is Manduzic or Muller, both better versions of Giroud but not world beaters. They simply fill the areas around these guys with good quality players that pass & move & keep the ball well. Robben & Ribery have far more impact on games than our wide players do & their CM's ( Schweinsteiger & Kroos ) are quality ball players who might the correct decisions 90% of the time. We have Wheelchair falling over or running into people, Arteta playing suicide balls sideways, Rosicky & Cazorla giving the ball away 50% of the time. Our full backs are average players, no more than that - they have Aliba & Lahm.
We may not be able to buy the likes of Suarez, Messi or Ronaldo but there is no excuse for us to not have quality. We need players with good feet who read the game well & not only make the right decision most of the time but have the ability to execute that decision. Players like Kroos & Reus are what we need, not Kalou. We may have to compete with the likes of Man U or Liverpool for some of these players but that's life - isn't this the reason why we moved to the Emirates.
Lets stop bleating on about the unfairness of it all & buy quality - No free transfers, no basement buys - just quality.


Absolutely fantastic post, and should have really closed the debate.

I agree with you, DM. But IMO the situation is even clearer than that. Herbert Chapman's Zombie is a great example of a fan who can present cogent financial excuses for why we are where we are. And he shows how easy it is to look on the game in a corporate kind of way.

But bottom line is that we could, and should have achieved a lot more with Wenger and the funds at our disposal. His obvious failings have not, principally been down to a lack of funds. Martinez or Rogers would have won the league with this season's Arsenal team.

[IBK]

As a club we've become obsessed with finances, rarely do you hear the other big clubs talking about it so much, it's been the perfect excuse for the club to hde behind for years now and it looks like it's going to remain the case which suits them.

Succinctly this.

[Power n Glory]

Again people seem to be obsessed with the idea of transfer fees, transfer fees mean nothing....so you can spend 30 million on six players, have them all on relatively low wages at a club like cardiff and it won't impact on you. But a club like Arsenal the players expect to be on high wages and so if a player costs 10-15 million in the transfer market, the real sum you are looking at is anywhere between 45 and 50 million when you factor in wages.
Player Wages is the reason we cannot compete, there is not a player out there we could sign for 15million that won't expect at least 100k a week....that's why Wenger has been adverse to big transfer fees....he knows we can't afford it.

You're making huge assumptions about how we calculate deals. If he knows he can't afford the wages he'd keep the young players on low wages like our rivals. We've given bumper deals to players like Wilshere, Gibbs and Ramsey when there was no need for such huge pay rises. They have no intention of leaving, they have years left on their contract and the £50k to £85k we've given them won't ward off other clubs if they hit form and it's not going to blind them to the fact that rival clubs may be willing to pay more than we're willing to. It doesn't protect us. Just hikes the wage bill quicker and keeps it high if these guys end up like Bendy or Diaby.

If they do start showing form and it's time to renew their deals, we're in situation where we're reluctant to pay their wages and we stall, just like what we saw with Theo. It's suicidal planning and it's all because Wenger thinks a huge disparity in wages disrupts team harmony. He's chosen to pay such a high price for these guys. Inflation is one thing but our rivals don't have this sort of structure and certain young players wouldn't earn what they earn here over there. Read for yourself.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/9782420/Arsenal-manager-Arsene-Wenger-defends-his-socialist-wage-plan.html

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I agree with you, DM. But IMO the situation is even clearer than that. Herbert Chapman's Zombie is a great example of a fan who can present cogent financial excuses for why we are where we are. And he shows how easy it is to look on the game in a corporate kind of way.

But bottom line is that we could, and should have achieved a lot more with Wenger and the funds at our disposal. His obvious failings have not, principally been down to a lack of funds. Martinez or Rogers would have won the league with this season's Arsenal team.


You are deluded if you think that, our squad is wafer thin and we have Giroud leading our line with no able replacements. I agree that Wenger should have done better than the humiliation we suffered but there's no denying that in the games against Liverpool, Chelsea and Everton their starting xi was vastly superior to our own especially in an attacking sense

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You're making huge assumptions about how we calculate deals. If he knows he can't afford the wages he'd keep the young players on low wages like our rivals. We've given bumper deals to players like Wilshere, Gibbs and Ramsey when there was no need for such huge pay rises. They have no intention of leaving, they have years left on their contract and the £50k to £85k we've given them won't ward off other clubs if they hit form and it's not going to blind them to the fact that rival clubs may be willing to pay more than we're willing to. It doesn't protect us. Just hikes the wage bill quicker and keeps it high if these guys end up like Bendy or Diaby.

If they do start showing form and it's time to renew their deals, we're in situation where we're reluctant to pay their wages and we stall, just like what we saw with Theo. It's suicidal planning and it's all because Wenger thinks a huge disparity in wages disrupts team harmony. He's chosen to pay such a high price for these guys. Inflation is one thing but our rivals don't have this sort of structure and certain young players wouldn't earn what they earn here over there. Read for yourself.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/9782420/Arsenal-manager-Arsene-Wenger-defends-his-socialist-wage-plan.html

Wilshere is 22, Gibbs is 24 and Ramsey is 23 hardly kids anymore we know we have to stretch our resources to the limit to keep them going to other clubs. If we lose our domestic players to our rivals it's an even more bitter pill to swallow

[Power n Glory]

Wilshere is 22, Gibbs is 24 and Ramsey is 23 hardly kids anymore we know we have to stretch our resources to the limit to keep them going to other clubs. If we lose our domestic players to our rivals it's an even more bitter pill to swallow

Can you please tell me how £50k - £85k would stop them from going to City or Chelsea when those clubs could offer well over £100k? If City decided they wanted Ramsey next year and offered him £150k in wages, we're pow less to stop it and just have to hope he knows it's a wrong career move.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Can you please tell me how £50k - £85k would stop them from going to City or Chelsea when those clubs could offer well over £100k? If City decided they wanted Ramsey next year and offered him £150k in wages, we're pow less to stop it and just have to hope he knows it's a wrong career move.

Even City and Chelsea can't show disregard to FPP to the point where they can pay every player 150k, and Ramsey would only be a squad player at those clubs at best.

[Power n Glory]

Even City and Chelsea can't show disregard to FPP to the point where they can pay every player 150k, and Ramsey would only be a squad player at those clubs at best.

You just said we had to stretch our finances to compete with other clubs.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You just said we had to stretch our finances to compete with other clubs.

Yes?...and when a club like man city has about a dozen players on 150k plus a year, there are only so many dodgy deals they can do to keep inside the watered down boundaries of FPP. So we stretch our finances to the limit, by offering our players 100k a week to prevent them going to Chelsea or City for the same kind of money.

[Power n Glory]

Wild assumptions there. Did you read what Wenger had to say about our wage structure? It sounds to me like your making excuses for silly structure that's stretching our finances for no reason. Did the wage structure stop us from losing Flamini to Milan? Or losing RVP when the PHW said we couldn't compete with the wages of City? Did it prevent Nasri from leaving for City? Or Ade?

You're reaching. The fact that we've stretched our wages for players like Djourou, Denilson, Bendy, Diaby...prevents us from offering better deals to top performing players that have caught the eye of the elite clubs with money to burn. Nobody cares about our youngsters. When was the last time you heard about a group of top clubs clamouring to poach one of our young academy players? It doesn't happen. It never happens! It's the young players like Hazard, Gotze and Neymar that get swallowed up by the big clubs. None of them care what we've got going on in our academy. They're not producing the type of performances to warrant an approach from those clubs and we certainly shouldn't be paying them a bundle as if they're about to swoop in at any minute. We have overvalued players and stuck Harrod price tags on Primark products. A huge chunk of our academy players end up playing in the Championship or some other lesser team abroad. There is no need to pay the young players so much.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I agree about the dross being overpaid obscene wages and it hasn't helped. But since Van Persie departed you can see although we prevaricated we agreed to signing up Walcott on 100k a week, and now Ramsey has joined him and yes that is stretching us to the limit to stop them going to city and Chelsea. With Flamini it was clear we weren't prepared to pay him what he wanted in 2008, and Nasri and Van Persie are on a higher quality bracket that anyone we've got at the club now (with perhaps the exception of Ozil) so we were always bound to lose players like that when clubs will offer them up to 200k a week.



Wild assumptions there. Did you read what Wenger had to say about our wage structure? It sounds to me like your making excuses for silly structure that's stretching our finances for no reason. Did the wage structure stop us from losing Flamini to Milan? Or losing RVP when the PHW said we couldn't compete with the wages of City? Did it prevent Nasri from leaving for City? Or Ade?

You're reaching. The fact that we've stretched our wages for players like Djourou, Denilson, Bendy, Diaby...prevents us from offering better deals to top performing players that have caught the eye of the elite clubs with money to burn. Nobody cares about our youngsters. When was the last time you heard about a group of top clubs clamouring to poach one of our young academy players? It doesn't happen. It never happens! It's the young players like Hazard, Gotze and Neymar that get swallowed up by the big clubs. None of them care what we've got going on in our academy. They're not producing the type of performances to warrant an approach from those clubs and we certainly shouldn't be paying them a bundle as if they're about to swoop in at any minute. We have overvalued players and stuck Harrod price tags on Primark products. A huge chunk of our academy players end up playing in the Championship or some other lesser team abroad. There is no need to pay the young players so much.

[Globalgunner]

I really dont understand HCZs position because he is all over the place. Is it that this club with the 3rd highest turnover in the EPL. soon to be the 2nd when the new sponsorships kick in cannot afford to pay its best players commensurately, Or that we cannot afford to pay high enough transfer fees to get the players we need, Or that there really is nothing we can do on the finance side so we should just accept 4th...or maybe 5th or then again 6th seeeing as Everton, Spuds and Pool are better run clubs than we.

[Letters]

Wait :lol:
You think Spurs are a better run club than us?

[Globalgunner]

Wait :lol:
You think Spurs are a better run club than us?
Sarcasm deficiency alert:

[Letters]

It's not that obvious in written text :shrug:

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I really dont understand HCZs position because he is all over the place. Is it that this club with the 3rd highest turnover in the EPL. soon to be the 2nd when the new sponsorships kick in cannot afford to pay its best players commensurately, Or that we cannot afford to pay high enough transfer fees to get the players we need, Or that there really is nothing we can do on the finance side so we should just accept 4th...or maybe 5th or then again 6th seeeing as Everton, Spuds and Pool are better run clubs than we.

Everton are better than us because they have been better in the transfer market than Wenger (again because everyone sees things in a dualistic perspective they can't see the argument that the money isn't there and that Wenger has blundered with what little he has had avaliable to him) . But even with Everton it's ephemeral because their two best players are on loan. It's up to you what you feel able to accept or not accept, doubtless this season hasn't been good enough I'm simply making the point that the money isn't there to consistently challenge and I'm not convinced we would have done miles better with someone else the last few years, maybe the odd FA cup but when we cànt spend the same amount as spurs or Liverpool let alone Chelsea or City it's rather futile.

[Letters]

I'm not convinced Everton are better than us.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I'm not convinced Everton are better than us.

Well the table doesn't lie and the chances are they will be above us in the table within 48 hours

[Letters]

Well the table doesn't lie and the chances are they will be above us in the table within 48 hours
It's a point here and there at best. A point here and there over a season doesn't mean you're that clearly better than the other side, there are too many fine lines in games and they don't all even out over a season.
They've not been in Europe this year so they've not had that strain on their squad to deal with.
They probably will beat Sunderland away but they have both Manchester clubs to play at home yet, we've got an easy run-in.
IMO it'll be quite close at the end of the season, too close to say one is clearly better than the other whichever order we finish in.

[Globalgunner]

Everton are better than us because they have been better in the transfer market than Wenger (again because everyone sees things in a dualistic perspective they can't see the argument that the money isn't there and that Wenger has blundered with what little he has had avaliable to him) . But even with Everton it's ephemeral because their two best players are on loan. It's up to you what you feel able to accept or not accept, doubtless this season hasn't been good enough I'm simply making the point that the money isn't there to consistently challenge and I'm not convinced we would have done miles better with someone else the last few years, maybe the odd FA cup but when we cànt spend the same amount as spurs or Liverpool let alone Chelsea or City it's rather futile.Every post on this board is an opinion......I simply cannot accept yours, its not substantive and certainly not logical...fatalistic...but not logical, ,Everton have not been above us all season and have not ended above us in 18 years so where is the logic that they are better than us. The season has so many turns yet to make. We as a club are underachieving but IMO 1 change could make all the difference. We certainly dont need more money to be able to consistently challenge

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

It's a point here and there at best. A point here and there over a season doesn't mean you're that clearly better than the other side, there are too many fine lines in games and they don't all even out over a season.
They've not been in Europe this year so they've not had that strain on their squad to deal with.
They probably will beat Sunderland away but they have both Manchester clubs to play at home yet, we've got an easy run-in.
IMO it'll be quite close at the end of the season, too close to say one is clearly better than the other whichever order we finish in.

I'm merely talking about the current state of our squads, their strike force is vastly better than us and their midfield is better than ours made up of those over or at least pushing thirty. Who don't have the pace or legs to prevent the humiliation that sides like Everton will lavish upon them

[Power n Glory]

I agree about the dross being overpaid obscene wages and it hasn't helped. But since Van Persie departed you can see although we prevaricated we agreed to signing up Walcott on 100k a week, and now Ramsey has joined him and yes that is stretching us to the limit to stop them going to city and Chelsea. With Flamini it was clear we weren't prepared to pay him what he wanted in 2008, and Nasri and Van Persie are on a higher quality bracket that anyone we've got at the club now (with perhaps the exception of Ozil) so we were always bound to lose players like that when clubs will offer them up to 200k a week.

But if we didn’t pay dross players so much we’d be able to pay out bigger wages to the players that haven’t actually earned the right to command that sort of fee. It’s not even just dross player – Wilshere, Gibbs and Ramsey shouldn’t be on big contracts. £85k a week for Wilshere is a joke. We offered that to him whilst he was still crocked. We have no idea if he’ll ever reach that potential and if he doesn’t, we’re stuck paying that out. We doll out the money too early and it’s based on potential instead of actual performances. Out of the three players mentioned, say it’s only Ramsey that delivers on the pitch and when his next contract is due. Say he feels he deserves a lot more but we can’t pay because the wage bill is bloated and players on high wages that haven’t fulfilled their potential are still on the books and difficult to shift? The ‘dross’ we paid money out to originally all had potential. Djourou, Denilson, Beny, Diaby….all had moments where we thought they be great in the future.

Also, I think it’s time we stopped using other clubs finances as an excuse to why he have want away players. It’s the lack of progress, poor polices and management that eventually grinds the players down and they leave. We haven’t had a player that’s coveted by the whole of Europe in a long time. Cesc and the whole Barca saga was the last I recall and he left because he knew Arsenal had taken him as far as he could go. The other clubs are taking advantage of our situation and it’s never a case of us having player that clubs just want to throw money at.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

[QUOTE=Globalgunner;386732]Every post on this board is an opinion......I simply cannot accept yours, its not substantive and certainly not logical...fatalistic...but not logical, ,Everton have not been above us all season and have not ended above us in 18 years so where is the logic that they are better than us. The season has so many turns yet to make. We as a club are underachieving but IMO 1 change could make all the difference. We certainly dont need more money to be able to consistently challenge[/QUOTE

Obviously I feel the need to explain this, even though I felt this was obvious. Everton are better than us at the moment when you compare the players avaliable to both teams. They are not a bigger club than us that's patently ridiculous, but Roberto Martinez and what he has acheived whilst commendable are an example of why achievements with clubs with no money are ephemeral. They have even less money than us so even if they finish above us this season they won't consistently do it.

[Letters]

I'm merely talking about the current state of our squads, their strike force is vastly better than us and their midfield is better than ours made up of those over or at least pushing thirty. Who don't have the pace or legs to prevent the humiliation that sides like Everton will lavish upon them
For most of this season they've been nowhere near us. Our traditional collapse and a very good run from them and yes, now it's close.
But they have a harder run-in than us. It's obviously going to be close.
In the 3 games between the sides they won one comfortably, we won one comfortably and one was a draw.
There's no clear gap between the two sides.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

For most of this season they've been nowhere near us. Our traditional collapse and a very good run from them and yes, now it's close.
But they have a harder run-in than us. It's obviously going to be close.
In the 3 games between the sides they won one comfortably, we won one comfortably and one was a draw.
There's no clear gap between the two sides.

There's a clear gap in terms of attack. And yes they have a hard run in and may drop points but the point is I expect us to drop just as many points with easier fixtures, when we have won two out of the last seven away games I wouldn't be confident of us getting results away at Hull and Norwich. When we have won two games from the last eight in all competitions I've no faith in getting maximum points home to west ham, Newcastle and west brom

[Özim]

But if we didn’t pay dross players so much we’d be able to pay out bigger wages to the players that haven’t actually earned the right to command that sort of fee. It’s not even just dross player – Wilshere, Gibbs and Ramsey shouldn’t be on big contracts. £85k a week for Wilshere is a joke. We offered that to him whilst he was still crocked. We have no idea if he’ll ever reach that potential and if he doesn’t, we’re stuck paying that out. We doll out the money too early and it’s based on potential instead of actual performances. Out of the three players mentioned, say it’s only Ramsey that delivers on the pitch and when his next contract is due. Say he feels he deserves a lot more but we can’t pay because the wage bill is bloated and players on high wages that haven’t fulfilled their potential are still on the books and difficult to shift? The ‘dross’ we paid money out to originally all had potential. Djourou, Denilson, Beny, Diaby….all had moments where we thought they be great in the future.

Also, I think it’s time we stopped using other clubs finances as an excuse to why he have want away players. It’s the lack of progress, poor polices and management that eventually grinds the players down and they leave. We haven’t had a player that’s coveted by the whole of Europe in a long time. Cesc and the whole Barca saga was the last I recall and he left because he knew Arsenal had taken him as far as he could go. The other clubs are taking advantage of our situation and it’s never a case of us having player that clubs just want to throw money at.

Totally agree, we have a horrible way of overpaying players who've done nothing, we've got a host of crocks we keep on our books and constantly offer new contracts too, we bring in unheard of kids and overpay them, we overpay players like Wilshere who's repuation is based on a handful of games, it has to stop. I don't mind us paying top class proven players big money as they have shown what they can do but not players who have potential because 90% of the time they never reach their potential.

[Özim]

I don't think Everton are better than us either, I do however think tactically they are superior and that they do have a better strikerforce (albeit on loan).

They got a pasting in the Merseyside derby albeit by a side I do think are better than us Liverpool, what I will say is for a side on their budget and with their finances they've done very well, we should be miles better than them and the gap should be much bigger between us and them.

[Letters]

There's a clear gap in terms of attack.
They've scored fewer goals than us :shrug: It's not that clear.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Totally agree, we have a horrible way of overpaying players who've done nothing, we've got a host of crocks we keep on our books and constantly offer new contracts too, we bring in unheard of kids and overpay them, we overpay players like Wilshere who's repuation is based on a handful of games, it has to stop. I don't mind us paying top class proven players big money as they have shown what they can do but not players who have potential because 90% of the time they never reach their potential.

Yes too much money was paid to dross like Chamakh, Bendtner, Denilson, Squillaci etc but the vast majority of our wage bill now is taken up paying Ramsey, Wilshere and Walcott to keep them away from city and Chelsea. There is still wastage with Bendtner and Podolski but it will still stretch us to the limit even without them.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

They've scored fewer goals than us :shrug: It's not that clear.

Weve scored more goals from midfield, and our midfield when fully fit is better than ours

[Power n Glory]

Yes too much money was paid to dross like Chamakh, Bendtner, Denilson, Squillaci etc but the vast majority of our wage bill now is taken up paying Ramsey, Wilshere and Walcott to keep them away from city and Chelsea. There is still wastage with Bendtner and Podolski but it will still stretch us to the limit even without them.

You don’t get it. The money we’ve given Ramsey, Wilshere and Walcott isn’t the thing that’s stopping them from going to Chelsea or City. None of the three would even get into the City and Chelsea squad. They don’t want them and if they did, the chump change we’re offering wouldn’t sway them to stay.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You don’t get it. The money we’ve given Ramsey, Wilshere and Walcott isn’t the thing that’s stopping them from going to Chelsea or City. None of the three would even get into the City and Chelsea squad. They don’t want them and if they did, the chump change we’re offering wouldn’t sway them to stay.

Nonsense, players care about money nothing else...you can't be motivated by football more than money when such an obscene amount is thrown at them. If Chelsea or city were prepared to play Wilshere or Ramsey 200k a week they'd be gone no matter how seldomly they got played. And anyone claiming they'd do different is lying to themselves.

[Power n Glory]

Nonsense, players care about money nothing else...you can't be motivated by football more than money when such an obscene amount is thrown at them. If Chelsea or city were prepared to play Wilshere or Ramsey 200k a week they'd be gone no matter how seldomly they got played. And anyone claiming they'd do different is lying to themselves.

You still don’t get it. It’s boarding on paranoia. This perceived threat from big clubs looking to poach our players is non-existent. We’re not batting off bids from clubs left right and centre like we used to because we have no outstanding candidates. Wilshere, Ramsey and Walcott can’t get into Chelsea or City’s teams. There is no threat from them. We don’t have to pre-empt any bids with inflated wages because that bid isn’t coming unless they perform on the field. Even if that day were to come, what we’re currently paying won’t keep them if they wanted out. And if they wanted out, it wouldn’t be down to the wages. Also, you’ve already said those clubs can’t bid £200k for players because of FFP. These players haven’t done enough to warrant bids from rival clubs or done enough to the extent we’re we need to sweat about what they’re paid.

[Power n Glory]

Totally agree, we have a horrible way of overpaying players who've done nothing, we've got a host of crocks we keep on our books and constantly offer new contracts too, we bring in unheard of kids and overpay them, we overpay players like Wilshere who's repuation is based on a handful of games, it has to stop. I don't mind us paying top class proven players big money as they have shown what they can do but not players who have potential because 90% of the time they never reach their potential.

It’s maddening. We just create the rod for our own backs. It stops us from signing more important players and just pushes these players closer to a wage bracket we’re uncomfortable with so when it comes to renewals, he hesitate to offer anything more. Absolutley mental policy.

[Letters]

Weve scored more goals from midfield, and our midfield when fully fit is better than ours

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/everton/top-scorers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/top-scorers

Doesn't seem much in it tbh, their top scorer has the same number of league goals as Giroud.

[Bumble]

People always say wenger is good with money but often overlook the ridiculous contracts we have our players on. if you pay a big fee and they dont work out you can always sell them on if there salary is sensible. If a player is on huge wages already then it is alot harder for them to move on and only do so at the end of their contract so giving us no value at all. Wenger has mismanaged the wages for years.

If we finish 4th that isnt an underachievement as that is where we should finish, although at the start of the season if you said United were struggling for a European place then you would have thought we would at least be 3rd. Liverpool are a surprise. Everton are not better than us, but they are younger and have a better future than our squad where there are mainly late 20s and early 30s. They also use the loan market well, so instead of Wenger moaning about it why doesnt he try to exploit it more.

[Letters]

The point about wages is spot on. Wenger rewards players far too young before they've really achieved anything.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

People always say wenger is good with money but often overlook the ridiculous contracts we have our players on. if you pay a big fee and they dont work out you can always sell them on if there salary is sensible. If a player is on huge wages already then it is alot harder for them to move on and only do so at the end of their contract so giving us no value at all. Wenger has mismanaged the wages for years.

If we finish 4th that isnt an underachievement as that is where we should finish, although at the start of the season if you said United were struggling for a European place then you would have thought we would at least be 3rd. Liverpool are a surprise. Everton are not better than us, but they are younger and have a better future than our squad where there are mainly late 20s and early 30s. They also use the loan market well, so instead of Wenger moaning about it why doesnt he try to exploit it more.

I agree i think Wenger has overspent in the last ten years considering our finances

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You still don’t get it. It’s boarding on paranoia. This perceived threat from big clubs looking to poach our players is non-existent. We’re not batting off bids from clubs left right and centre like we used to because we have no outstanding candidates. Wilshere, Ramsey and Walcott can’t get into Chelsea or City’s teams. There is no threat from them. We don’t have to pre-empt any bids with inflated wages because that bid isn’t coming unless they perform on the field. Even if that day were to come, what we’re currently paying won’t keep them if they wanted out. And if they wanted out, it wouldn’t be down to the wages. Also, you’ve already said those clubs can’t bid £200k for players because of FFP. These players haven’t done enough to warrant bids from rival clubs or done enough to the extent we’re we need to sweat about what they’re paid.

What did Scott Sinclair and Jack Rodwell do exactly to be worth a bid from Man City?. I wouldn't be surprised if both of them are on wages near to 100k at city, our players may not be of the quality to deserve 100k but it keeps the top clubs from signing them. Bayern Munich used to do it all the time, they buy the players not because they want that player but because it destabilises rivals.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

The point about wages is spot on. Wenger rewards players far too young before they've really achieved anything.

Depends on whom your referring to really, if your talking about Wilshere he's on 55k a week and Raheem Sterling who is 19 is on 60k a week at Liverpool. It's not Wenger, that's the money culture in the sport.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

And i am sorry to keep referring back to Liverpool, but the token Liverpool fan who comes on here claims that their wage bill is smaller than ours.

Suarez - 200k a week
Gerrard - 140k a week
Jordan Henderson - 70k a week
Lucas Leiva - 65k a week
Jose Enrique - 65k a week
Glen Johnson - 85k a week
Daniel Sturridge - 70k a week
Kolo Toure - 75k a week
Joe Allen - 50k a week
Raheem Sterling - 60k
Agger - 75k a week
Skrtel - 80k a week

Still think ours is bigger?

[Power n Glory]

What did Scott Sinclair and Jack Rodwell do exactly to be worth a bid from Man City?. I wouldn't be surprised if both of them are on wages near to 100k at city, our players may not be of the quality to deserve 100k but it keeps the top clubs from signing them. Bayern Munich used to do it all the time, they buy the players not because they want that player but because it destabilises rivals.

You're still not getting this. If City were to bid for Ramsey, do you think we'd be able to stretch our wages even more to ward them off?

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You're still not getting this. If City were to bid for Ramsey, do you think we'd be able to stretch our wages even more to ward them off?

Yes because they won't want to pay him 150k-200k just to spite us, where as if he was still on 50k a week they would pay him 100k a week to spite us

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

And i am sorry to keep referring back to Liverpool, but the token Liverpool fan who comes on here claims that their wage bill is smaller than ours.

Suarez - 200k a week
Gerrard - 140k a week
Jordan Henderson - 70k a week
Lucas Leiva - 65k a week
Jose Enrique - 65k a week
Glen Johnson - 85k a week
Daniel Sturridge - 70k a week
Kolo Toure - 75k a week
Joe Allen - 50k a week
Raheem Sterling - 60k
Agger - 75k a week
Skrtel - 80k a week

Still think ours is bigger?

I said that from the last set of accounts (2012/13) your wage bill for both staff and players was larger.
http://www.arsenal.com/assets/_files/documents/sep_13/gun__1380277138_Arsenal_Holdings_plc_-_Annual_.pdf - page 46.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/210342664/LFC-2013-Accounts-Submitted-to-Companies-House - page 17.

How they stack up as of right now I don't know.

[Power n Glory]

Yes because they won't want to pay him 150k-200k just to spite us, where as if he was still on 50k a week they would pay him 100k a week to spite us

And why wouldn't we be able to match those wages?

[Power n Glory]

Depends on whom your referring to really, if your talking about Wilshere he's on 55k a week and Raheem Sterling who is 19 is on 60k a week at Liverpool. It's not Wenger, that's the money culture in the sport.

Wilshere is on something like £80-£80k.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

And why wouldn't we be able to match those wages?

erm because we can't afford to.

[Power n Glory]

erm because we can't afford to.

Why wouldn't we be able to? It's quite simple, spend too freely and waste money when unnecessary, you've got nothing left in the pot for when the crunch hits. If we stopped dolling out big contracts to players based on potential and out of some paranoid, pre-emptve, protective strike as you say, we might actually have money left in the pot for players that have fulfilled their potential and at a greater risk of getting poached.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Why wouldn't we be able to? It's quite simple, spend too freely and waste money when unnecessary, you've got nothing left in the pot for when the crunch hits. If we stopped dolling out big contracts to players based on potential and out of some paranoid, pre-emptve, protective strike as you say, we might actually have money left in the pot for players that have fulfilled their potential and at a greater risk of getting poached.

As i've just explained players at clubs like Liverpool who are even younger than ours are on similar wages, it's not about paying too much for potential it's unfortunately just a sign of the times.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Wilshere isn't potential, he's been a first teamer for over three years now. Therefore he's on the same wage as players like Rosicky and Cazorla.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Ozil who arguably is no better than Fabregas is on 160k a week and cost us 43 million pound, so when Wenger talks about who can improve the squad you are looking at players that will cost anything between 35 and 50 million in transfer fees and about 200k in wages; it doesn't work not for a football club that wants to be self-sustaining. Our turnover is 270 million a year and almost two thirds of that is eaten up straight away in players wages, the kind of spending you think we are capable of of just isn't possible.
When you consider the 20million debt on the stadium plus other overheads without player sales you are just about breaking even every year.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

in fact the turnover isn't even as high as that it was 254 million last year

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

And sadly that's the bitter truth, it would be nice to believe that we are just beholden to one man's intransigence and the board don't care enough to do something about him. That would be lovely to think that when Wenger goes things are going to get better for us and we will start signing players, but the reality is that nothing comes from nothing. Things won't improve when Wenger goes, they will get worse because our squad will get thinner and thinner because the wages will go up and up and up and we will have to release more and more players on the periphery to afford the main bulk of the squad, the same small squad will be beasted and we will have the same situation again....even with all the tactical nous and match preparation you think will change things.

[fakeyank]

What a pointless debate going on... similar to the debate or comment about having Ramsey killed after last season :rolleyes:

[Power n Glory]

What a pointless debate going on... similar to the debate or comment about having Ramsey killed after last season :rolleyes:

I know. One last shot at this and the I'm done. One last point.

[GP]

HCZ has crushed it. Awesome posting.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

What a pointless debate going on... similar to the debate or comment about having Ramsey killed after last season :rolleyes:

To be honest Ramsey isn't suddenly world class or anywhere near worth what he's being paid...but yes he's made a significant stride forward from last season. One because he's no longer being played in a deeper role because he can't track back or tackle, and two fair play to him when he has played he has worked his nuts off to counteract the fact that he isn't as technically gifted (anywhere near in fact) as those around him.
Very similar to Jordan Henderson, Henderson has been under pressure to justify his 20m price tag which of course he can never do because he doesn't have the natural ability or quality in his game, but he runs and runs and runs and works hard and it pays off for him.
Obviously Ramsey has to do a bit more in other areas because he can't run as he is too slow but there are definite parallels.

[IBK]

You are deluded if you think that, our squad is wafer thin and we have Giroud leading our line with no able replacements. I agree that Wenger should have done better than the humiliation we suffered but there's no denying that in the games against Liverpool, Chelsea and Everton their starting xi was vastly superior to our own especially in an attacking sense

I'm sorry. But if you really think that we would not have picked up more points so far with a manager able to exploit his oppositions' weakness; to make bold tactical decisions, and to bring the best out of our players - a number of whom have been below par recently - then it is you who may be deluded.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

look at the xi we put out against liverpool, chelsea and everton.....i think with maybe the exception of everton you are hard pushed to say it was possible for us to get anything from those games. I agree the scorelines and the way we played is unacceptable, no fight, no gameplan etc but chances are we still would have been beaten simply because the teams they put out were just much better than ours....liverpool going forward especially, chelsea all over the park seeing as by that time we'd lost wilshere, ozil etc to injury and by the time we played everton we looked leggy and didn't physically have it in the players we had to not be pulled about by their attacking three.
It doesn't really matter in the final analysis whether you lose 5-1 or 1-0 you are not getting any more points for the credibility of your performance.

[IBK]

Totally agree, we have a horrible way of overpaying players who've done nothing, we've got a host of crocks we keep on our books and constantly offer new contracts too, we bring in unheard of kids and overpay them, we overpay players like Wilshere who's repuation is based on a handful of games, it has to stop. I don't mind us paying top class proven players big money as they have shown what they can do but not players who have potential because 90% of the time they never reach their potential.

Bang on. Our overall wage bill dwarfs Liverpool's or Everton's - even (I think) Sp*ds'. Wenger's wage parity obsession over the years has left us unable to apportion money where its due. And too many of our players appear comfortable and not hungry.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

but if you can't afford squad depth you can't rotate players, of course wenger has taken this to absurd lengths like playing Ozil against coventry city etc

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Bang on. Our overall wage bill dwarfs Liverpool's or Everton's - even (I think) Sp*ds'. Wenger's wage parity obsession over the years has left us unable to apportion money where its due. And too many of our players appear comfortable and not hungry.

Liverpool have a bigger wage bill than us, and our wage bill is cripplingly us two thirds of our turnover goes on wages. It's the way the game is, you cannot be both a football club and a business....that's why FFP is illogical because you cannot punish every single club that spends beyond what they generate because too many do.....they simply have to because of the obscene money in wages.

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

Liverpool have a bigger wage bill than us

Source?

[IBK]

but if you can't afford squad depth you can't rotate players, of course wenger has taken this to absurd lengths like playing Ozil against coventry city etc

No - but you can play them more sensibly. Wenger is not bold enough to rest Kosceilny by playing Vermaelen - who might have been kept fresher and more interested by being played a bit, even without injury. Wenger kept playing Ramsey - even when he was clearly in the red zone - when an Ox experiment in the middle with Ozil still controlling our shape might have been a better introduction than lately. Gnabry - who had done nothing wrong when he did play - could have been used to relieve the first teamers. And you can rest players by judicious substitutions, but you ain't going to do it at 70 or 80 mins with the team under pressure....

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Source?

I just posted earlier what your players were on.
Arguably i don't think there is a great deal in it, but none of our players are on 200k a week.
And you have a higher number of players in the 70-80k a week bracket than us.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

No - but you can play them more sensibly. Wenger is not bold enough to rest Kosceilny by playing Vermaelen - who might have been kept fresher and more interested by being played a bit, even without injury. Wenger kept playing Ramsey - even when he was clearly in the red zone - when an Ox experiment in the middle with Ozil still controlling our shape might have been a better introduction than lately. Gnabry - who had done nothing wrong when he did play - could have been used to relieve the first teamers. And you can rest players by judicious substitutions, but you ain't going to do it at 70 or 80 mins with the team under pressure....

I agree with everything you say, but i just don't believe it would have made a great deal more difference in terms of our overall points. I think the media like to pretend that it's all a tactical chess game so as give people hope weighed against the fact that 95 times out of 100 the club with the most money and the best players will win football matches. Especially when you consider the main area where we have suffered this season is away at the top sides, and for me the small changes and margins you mention weren't enough to bring us anything against those sides...a little bit of rotating here and there didn't change the fact that our squad is too small to have resisted injury.

[IBK]

Source?

This is the first thing I could find ('Football rich list Feb 2014')


Manchester United £162 Million
Chelsea £173 Million
Arsenal £143 Million
Manchester City £202 Million
Liverpool £119 Million
Everton £63 Million
Tottenham Hotspur £90 Million
Newcastle United £64 Million

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

I just posted earlier what your players were on.
Arguably i don't think there is a great deal in it, but none of our players are on 200k a week.
And you have a higher number of players in the 70-80k a week bracket than us.

You posted a list of unverified numbers. What was your source?

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

This is the first thing I could find ('Football rich list Feb 2014')


Manchester United £162 Million
Chelsea £173 Million
Arsenal £143 Million
Manchester City £202 Million
Liverpool £119 Million
Everton £63 Million
Tottenham Hotspur £90 Million
Newcastle United £64 Million

That tells you what a business is worth not what it's spending power is, with a fairly new stadium actually the value of the club isn't particurlarly that high compared to both Liverpool, Chelsea and United.
The simple Maths are the turnoveer is anything between 250 and 260 million a year, the wage bill is 160million....other operational costs means we are only able to generate profit through player sales.

[Power n Glory]

As i've just explained players at clubs like Liverpool who are even younger than ours are on similar wages, it's not about paying too much for potential it's unfortunately just a sign of the times.

It's really not the sign of the times.

Take a look at this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2250578/Jack-Wilshere-Alex-Oxlade-Chamberlain-Aaron-Ramsey-Kieran-Gibbs-Carl-Jenkinson-sign-new-deals-Arsenal.html

Carl Jenkinson joined us in summer 2011 and already in December 2012 we've bumped up his pay with many years left on his contract.

Oxlade joins in the same year as Carl and we triple his pay to £60k in December 2012 half way through his 2nd season for us even though he's just signed a long term deal.

Jack Wilshere signed a £40k-£55k deal in November 2010 that would have had him here until 2015. He was originally on £15k. In December 2012 he signs another long term deal that puts him up to £80k to £85k. That was whilst he was out crocked for most of the season too. It wasn't performance related. From £15k to around £85k before he's 21. This off the back off 1 full season in the first team as a regular.

Ramsey signed a new deal in December 2012 and he's just signed a new contract again in March. He was on £60k then no idea what he's on now. £80k maybe? Just over a year into his new deal. :blink:

Does all this seem logical? Why are offering new deals to players less than two years into their new deals or first joining the club and they're already committed to long term deals? We've bumped up the wage bill for no reason. If they've signed new deals they're happy and have no intention of going, plus they have long contracts. There is no risk of them leaving. Rival clubs don't want them and they weren't unhappy with the original deals they signed. All this was happening in the midst of the Theo contract saga. We're signing up players with 3 maybe 4 years left on their deals, haven't reached their full potential, some have already had major injuries whilst we've got our top assister and scorer in the last year of his contract and we're pleading poverty! ;)

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You posted a list of unverified numbers. What was your source?

Multitudes of sites on google will give you the wages of the Liverpool squad as of August 2013, it's certainly no secret that Luis Suarez is on 200k a week and that Gerrard is on about 150k a week.
I wouldn't take it hard, Spurs' wage bill is also bigger than ours and look at how they are doing.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

It's really not the sign of the times.

Take a look at this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2250578/Jack-Wilshere-Alex-Oxlade-Chamberlain-Aaron-Ramsey-Kieran-Gibbs-Carl-Jenkinson-sign-new-deals-Arsenal.html

Carl Jenkinson joined us in summer 2011 and already in December 2012 we've bumped up his pay with many years left on his contract.

Oxlade joins in the same year as Carl and we triple his pay to £60k in December 2012 half way through his 2nd season for us even though he's just signed a long term deal.

Jack Wilshere signed a £40k-£55k deal in November 2010 that would have had him here until 2015. He was originally on £15k. In December 2012 he signs another long term deal that puts him up to £80k to £85k. That was whilst he was out crocked for most of the season too. It wasn't performance related. From £15k to around £85k before he's 21. This off the back off 1 full season in the first team as a regular.

Ramsey signed a new deal in December 2012 and he's just signed a new contract again in March. He was on £60k then no idea what he's on now. £80k maybe? Just over a year into his new deal. :blink:

Does all this seem logical? Why are offering new deals to players less than two years into their new deals or first joining the club and they're already committed to long term deals? We've bumped up the wage bill for no reason. If they've signed new deals they're happy and have no intention of going, plus they have long contracts. There is no risk of them leaving. Rival clubs don't want them and they weren't unhappy with the original deals they signed. All this was happening in the midst of the Theo contract saga. We're signing up players with 3 maybe 4 years left on their deals, haven't reached their full potential, some have already had major injuries whilst we've got our top assister and scorer in the last year of his contract and we're pleading poverty! ;)

Again i hate to keep harking back to Liverpool but if you look at what their young players are on relative to us the difference is no difference.

Joe Allen, Raheem Sterling, (Jay Spearing was on 60k a week before he moved to Bolton FFS), Jordan Henderson etc all on at least 50k a week. Henderson on 70 in fact (because you can't move for 20million and accept anything less)

[Power n Glory]

No - but you can play them more sensibly. Wenger is not bold enough to rest Kosceilny by playing Vermaelen - who might have been kept fresher and more interested by being played a bit, even without injury. Wenger kept playing Ramsey - even when he was clearly in the red zone - when an Ox experiment in the middle with Ozil still controlling our shape might have been a better introduction than lately. Gnabry - who had done nothing wrong when he did play - could have been used to relieve the first teamers. And you can rest players by judicious substitutions, but you ain't going to do it at 70 or 80 mins with the team under pressure....


Yep, I agree with that. Not sure why he hasn't made use of players like Gnarby, Bendy, Vermaelen, Jenkinson....even Ryo. They're all bound to have ups and downs but they need match practice to get sharp, it gives other players a rest and we could potentially have an extra weapon from the bench if they're played into form. Not wholesale changes, just small from game to game just so it doesn't disrupt the balance of the squad.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You can deny the obscene money culture awash through football all you like, especially prevalent in domestic talent in this country.....make Wenger out to be thoroughly incompitent maniac who thinks he is Napoleon. I think he has got a lot of things wrong, tremendous amount of things wrong in fact but it really doesn't make any difference his errors pale into insignifance when your fighting against clubs that have the power to vastly outspend you like chelsea, city and liverpool.

[IBK]

That tells you what a business is worth not what it's spending power is, with a fairly new stadium actually the value of the club isn't particurlarly that high compared to both Liverpool, Chelsea and United.
The simple Maths are the turnoveer is anything between 250 and 260 million a year, the wage bill is 160million....other operational costs means we are only able to generate profit through player sales.

No. Its the salary expenditure of each club 2013/14.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Yep, I agree with that. Not sure why he hasn't made use of players like Gnarby, Bendy, Vermaelen, Jenkinson....even Ryo. They're all bound to have ups and downs but they need match practice to get sharp, it gives other players a rest and we could potentially have an extra weapon from the bench if they're played into form. Not wholesale changes, just small from game to game just so it doesn't disrupt the balance of the squad.

Problem is you couldn't rely on Bendtner to get you goals enough to play him, and i agree we might not have had quite the problem with injuries if Wenger had rotated more but the fact remains that the three big defeats came against clubs who would have beaten us come what may because they have better and more expensive sides (by that i mean city, chelsea and liverpool).

[Power n Glory]

Again i hate to keep harking back to Liverpool but if you look at what their young players are on relative to us the difference is no difference.

Joe Allen, Raheem Sterling, (Jay Spearing was on 60k a week before he moved to Bolton FFS), Jordan Henderson etc all on at least 50k a week. Henderson on 70 in fact (because you can't move for 20million and accept anything less)


Did Jordan Henderson get a bumper deal less than two years with Liverpool? He signed in 2011 and they're talking about a new deal now in 2014 when he's down to his last two years. That's logical.

[IBK]

Problem is you couldn't rely on Bendtner to get you goals enough to play him, and i agree we might not have had quite the problem with injuries if Wenger had rotated more but the fact remains that the three big defeats came against clubs who would have beaten us come what may because they have better and more expensive sides (by that i mean city, chelsea and liverpool).

I would rather have relied on Bendtner - who has not been the worst striker we ever had and would be playing for a new contract elsewhere - than a French Ligue 2 player who is clearly nowhere near Premiership standard yet.

And have you forgotten our results at Liverpool and Everton away?

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

No. Its the salary expenditure of each club 2013/14.

salary expenditures are published at the end of the season, so that figure you mention is where we have had chamakh, denilson etc still on our books and liverpool haven't doubled suarez's salary, aren't paying a combined 160k a week for toure and sakho or the spanish strikers that don't play poncing 60k a week off the club.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I would rather have relied on Bendtner - who has not been the worst striker we ever had and would be playing for a new contract elsewhere - than a French Ligue 2 player who is clearly nowhere near Premiership standard yet.

And have you forgotten our results at Liverpool and Everton away?

I agree and fortunately Sanogo has hardly played in the league, but neither of them could be trusted to fill the boots of a mid-table quality striker like Giroud.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Did Jordan Henderson get a bumper deal less than two years with Liverpool? He signed in 2011 and they're talking about a new deal now in 2014 when he's down to his last two years. That's logical.

The players of a young age are still there or there abouts on the same money, so makes little difference. Plus when you have lost players like Nasri, Fabregas and Van Persie in such a short space of time would you not go out of your way to protect what assets you have remaining from the bigger clubs?.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I would rather have relied on Bendtner - who has not been the worst striker we ever had and would be playing for a new contract elsewhere - than a French Ligue 2 player who is clearly nowhere near Premiership standard yet.

And have you forgotten our results at Liverpool and Everton away?

No Liverpool have more money and therefore a better squad than us, and because of our small squad (Everton have taken the approach to bring in more players on loan so they are taking less financial burden in the long term, but really only brings you short term advantage) the players we had avaliable to us against Everton made it unlikely that we could get anything. When you have no pace in your side and a striker that's mid-table quality you can't really bemoan the game plan.

[IBK]

I agree and fortunately Sanogo has hardly played in the league, but neither of them could be trusted to fill the boots of a mid-table quality striker like Giroud.

My personal view is that the likes of Bendtner; Vermaelen; Jenkinson and Gnabry are not much behind our first team in ability - but both their development and their confidence has suffered by Wenger's refusal to trust them in a rotated team. Monreal is no better quality than these four - yet for some reason he's been rotated in. Fabianski has exceeded expectations when used. Wilshere has been backed by Wenger with disappointing returns. The previously neglected Rosicky has turned out to be arguably our man of the season. Wenger is inconsistent in the use of his players, and he has not made the best of the resources he has - sometimes with damaging results.

[IBK]

No Liverpool have more money and therefore a better squad than us, and because of our small squad (Everton have taken the approach to bring in more players on loan so they are taking less financial burden in the long term, but really only brings you short term advantage) the players we had avaliable to us against Everton made it unlikely that we could get anything. When you have no pace in your side and a striker that's mid-table quality you can't really bemoan the game plan.

Sorry - but I just do not accept your points about Liverpool and Everton. Both teams are below ours in terms of resources - and that is partly why the Wenger edifice is crumbling.

[IBK]

salary expenditures are published at the end of the season, so that figure you mention is where we have had chamakh, denilson etc still on our books and liverpool haven't doubled suarez's salary, aren't paying a combined 160k a week for toure and sakho or the spanish strikers that don't play poncing 60k a week off the club.

Wrong again, I'm afraid. The figures are based on the weekly wages the teams' players are paid.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Sorry - but I just do not accept your points about Liverpool and Everton. Both teams are below ours in terms of resources - and that is partly why the Wenger edifice is crumbling.

Everton have done exceptionally well this season, but the fact remains that they have bought 14 players in this season, they might have made a profit in the transfer market but this is offset by the exponential rise in their wage bill (especially in the short term even if they are only paying 50% of Barry and Lukaku's wages). Maybe it's Wengers fault that he doesn't have the right scouting network to bring in half decent players on free transfers but i am partly being frivalous because such a thing is near on impossible, and we were incredibly lucky to have Flamini fall in our laps the way he did.
Liverpool have spent 300 million in the past four or five years, with what i've explained to you about how we can only make a profit from player sales because whatever turnover we make is depleted by the wage bill, the only conclusion you can make is that like most of the clubs competing Liverpool are doing so as a result of a financial beneficiary rather than self-sufficiency which is impossible.
As i explained we benefited similarly (albeit on a smaller scale) when Danny Fiszman opened his wallet so we could buy players like Emmanuel Petit and Marc Overmars.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Wrong again, I'm afraid. The figures are based on the weekly wages the teams' players are paid.

Yes but what i'm saying to you is the weekly wages you are taking that figure from is at the end of last season, not this current season. And i have doubts about it's veracity anyway, especially with what it claims about Spurs who have Adebayor on 180k a week.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

The fact remains is that for a club of our size, the money we bring in is as much as we can possibly can. The board aren't upping the ticket prices just for greed, it's because they know they can't run a club as a business
A lot through tv revenue, high gate receipts, good commercial deals....yet two thirds of this is going to pay players wages. And we know we can't cut the wage bill without decreasing the quality of the squad still further...you can shout, no, no, no and deny it all you like but football is not a sustainable business. It's a playground for oligarchs and plutocrats.

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

Multitudes of sites on google will give you the wages of the Liverpool squad as of August 2013, it's certainly no secret that Luis Suarez is on 200k a week and that Gerrard is on about 150k a week.
I wouldn't take it hard, Spurs' wage bill is also bigger than ours and look at how they are doing.
I'm happy to say they'll be broadly similar without knowing exactly whose is higher than whose until the next set of accounts are released, if only to end this.

It's all much of a muchness anyway.

I'm still not sure who is arguing what on this thread, or why. I'm not even sure why I care.

[GP]

Anyone fancy a pint?

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I'm just trying to make the point that it's overly reductive and simplistic to blame it all on Wenger

Has Roberto Martinez done better with the funds at his disposal than Wenger?...of course

But Martinez has planned for short term gains, we have to plan for the long term because Everton can afford not to have top four football where as we cannot.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

I'm happy to say they'll be broadly similar without knowing exactly whose is higher than whose until the next set of accounts are released, if only to end this.

It's all much of a muchness anyway.

I'm still not sure who is arguing what on this thread, or why. I'm not even sure why I care.

I am just pointing out that the reason your in the title is because your current squad cost you far in excess of what we paid for ours, obviously comparatively speaking your current squad is far less than what city and chelsea have paid for theirs but you also have the added bonus of having the third best player in the world....which could have been a pearl amongst swine with someone like Brendan Rodgers but seemingly he has a competent enough team around him to make sure he doesn't fuck it up like King Kenny did.

[IBK]

Yes but what i'm saying to you is the weekly wages you are taking that figure from is at the end of last season, not this current season. And i have doubts about it's veracity anyway, especially with what it claims about Spurs who have Adebayor on 180k a week.

Unless you can provide unequivocal and up to date proof that Liverpool have accelerated past us - despite our signing of the most expensive player in the clubs history, then we can only base our arguments on the latest available figures - and common sense. The only event that we have seen that was likely to fundamentally change Liverpool's salary profile since the Summer is Suarez being persuaded to stay. Logic cannot accept that whatever they paid him - if indeed they did. Was more than 42M plus Ozil's wages. I mean come on!

[IBK]

I'm just trying to make the point that it's overly reductive and simplistic to blame it all on Wenger

Has Roberto Martinez done better with the funds at his disposal than Wenger?...of course

But Martinez has planned for short term gains, we have to plan for the long term because Everton can afford not to have top four football where as we cannot.

Mate - noone can blame you for your loyalty. But this whole thread is about how we have become conditioned, as Gooners, to make apologies for our team and manager. Whatever arguments we can marshal for how well Mersyside is doing this season doesn't change the fact that they are doing better than we are, relative to their resources. And that is throwing our manager's failings into obvious and uncomfortable relief.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Unless you can provide unequivocal and up to date proof that Liverpool have accelerated past us - despite our signing of the most expensive player in the clubs history, then we can only base our arguments on the latest available figures - and common sense. The only event that we have seen that was likely to fundamentally change Liverpool's salary profile since the Summer is Suarez being persuaded to stay. Logic cannot accept that whatever they paid him - if indeed they did. Was more than 42M plus Ozil's wages. I mean come on!

Liverpool have spent 300million in the last five years and have a wage bill in the vicinity of our own, when you consider that even with marketing as a global brand they would bring in less than us when it comes to match day revenue, and considerably less than us from Tv deals. And we as a club with a wage bill in and around that of Liverpools and despite the money we bring in, we have it wiped out almost by our wage bill it makes you question where Liverpool get their money from. It's not from being a self sustaining business because that isn't possible

[Power n Glory]

The players of a young age are still there or there abouts on the same money, so makes little difference. Plus when you have lost players like Nasri, Fabregas and Van Persie in such a short space of time would you not go out of your way to protect what assets you have remaining from the bigger clubs?.

Yes, it does make sense but not when your looking at young unproven players with 3-4 years left on their contract and you have a key player on the verge of leaving for a free or cut down fee. It makes no sense to renew contracts less than two years into a 5 year deal. What sort of business plan is that? And you wonder why our resource are stretched? We could have kept the wage bill lower for a few years.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Mate - noone can blame you for your loyalty. But this whole thread is about how we have become conditioned, as Gooners, to make apologies for our team and manager. Whatever arguments we can marshal for how well Mersyside is doing this season doesn't change the fact that they are doing better than we are, relative to their resources. And that is throwing our manager's failings into obvious and uncomfortable relief.

Look at my posting history I'm hardly pro Wenger. I think that he has blundered, I think when he had the quality of players to win things he hasn't come close. I think a new manager would benefit us and help us, but in terms of winning titles it won't matter one jot.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

To be honest I naively thought till recently that a new manager would change things drastically and everything would be ok, but I've spent the last few days looking at the finances in football it's all a fairy tale. The board are selling us a dream that doesn't exist because otherwise they know we won't turn up for games.

[IBK]

Look at my posting history I'm hardly pro Wenger. I think that he has blundered, I think when he had the quality of players to win things he hasn't come close. I think a new manager would benefit us and help us, but in terms of winning titles it won't matter one jot.

Interesting. Common ground. Where I agree with you is that the way football has gone league places are almost guaranteed to equate to finances. Maybe this is a back handed compliment to Wenger's talent, but the frustration is that he had the ability to buck the trend but fell short.

[Globalgunner]

You've expended more than 30 posts exhorting us to agree that we can't afford to compete, lamenting how our wage bill is too high yet justifying how we must pay average players high salaries to prevent them leaving. Defending Wenger's position while insisting you are not his supporter. Also you started this campaign with the ludicrous proposition that we probably saved 120m to pay for Ozil and his wages. You post unsubstantiated figures and ignore counters with links attached to them.
You seem to be arguing essentially that we can't compete because it's impossible. So in essence we close down the club and divide ourselves amongst the supporters of the minted 3.
Basically, nothing you have said is reasonable or logical.
Please no one should bother replying him anymore because he has no point and Arguing is the only point.
Sad individual.

[IBK]

You've expended more than 30 posts exhorting us to agree that we can't afford to compete, lamenting how our wage bill is too high yet justifying how we must pay average players high salaries to prevent them leaving. Defending Wenger's position while insisting you are not his supporter. Also you started this campaign with the ludicrous proposition that we probably saved 120m to pay for Ozil and his wages. You post unsubstantiated figures and ignore counters with links attached to them.
You seem to be arguing essentially that we can't compete because it's impossible. So in essence we close down the club and divide ourselves amongst the supporters of the minted 3.
Basically, nothing you have said is reasonable or logical.
Please no one should bother replying him anymore because he has no point and Arguing is the only point.
Sad individual.

You make a good point. Whatever you think about Liverpool and Everton - they have shown promise and ambition that we simply haven't seen from our club or manager in recent years. That is impossible to deny.

[Globalgunner]

My frustration with our setup is that basically what Wenger is doing is essentially, bribing these young players with stupid wages to stay with him and his never ending project. This in the long run doesn't work because the really talented ones will leave anyways once they hit 26 or 27 citing lack of silverware. I can bet you in 2 years time Walcott will be talking about wanting to leave to win things. At the end of the day winning is the best way to guarantee good players staying. When you win prizes you attract sponsors with deeper pockets, not the ones who were left off from United and Chelsea, by doing so you broaden your fan base, fill the stadium, sell more merchandise.

Right now all Arsenal is doing is flogging it's existing fan base for all its worth, not growing it's brand. Competing is a mindset. Sadly it's completely lacking at this club

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You've expended more than 30 posts exhorting us to agree that we can't afford to compete, lamenting how our wage bill is too high yet justifying how we must pay average players high salaries to prevent them leaving. Defending Wenger's position while insisting you are not his supporter. Also you started this campaign with the ludicrous proposition that we probably saved 120m to pay for Ozil and his wages. You post unsubstantiated figures and ignore counters with links attached to them.
You seem to be arguing essentially that we can't compete because it's impossible. So in essence we close down the club and divide ourselves amongst the supporters of the minted 3.
Basically, nothing you have said is reasonable or logical.
Please no one should bother replying him anymore because he has no point and Arguing is the only point.
Sad individual.



- I do lament the wage bill is too high, but for me that's lamenting how disgustingly obscene the wages are for footballers in this day and age that almost two thirds of what we make goes to paying wages.

- In regards to paying Ramsey, Wilshere etc...do i agree with paying them what they are paid, no i don't think they are worth the wages they are on. Can i understand why they are on those wages yes perhaps. But again i don't look at everything in such a dualistic black and white sense as people on here, not everything wenger does is either brilliant or totally shit. I'm not saying we should have awarded them with these contracts i'm saying perhaps i can understand where he's coming from, plus using Liverpool as an example as well as other clubs we are in a culture where young domestic talent is being obscenely overpaid.

- We can't have it both ways, we can't both lower the wage bill and have better players in the squad. Unfortunately the way football is now you can either keep the players you have now and overpay them, or bring in footballers that cost twice as much in terms of transfer fee are on the same wages and are half as good....the financial model in football is unsustainable.

- You have made it about defending Wenger not me, i have said the two things are seperate issues. I honestly believe he has looked for years a frustrated, entrenched figure who has given us all he's got....he genuinely believes that his way is the purist and most correct way and partly because of circumstance, partly because of hubris he has taken more responsibility upon himself than any manager at any club should and he's too prideful to loosen his grip. I'd like to see him walk away just so he can avoid further humiliation for himself and get away from abusive fans (again there is this 90% criticism of wenger which is legitimate and 10% which is vitriolic abuse which he doesn't deserve)

- My point is that you seem to think you can simply get wasteful players off the wage bill (podolski, bendtner etc) to clear the wage bill enough to bring in genuine talent, but to bring in players better than that you would have to pay massive fees and expand the wage bill beyond what it even is now, and when we are barely breaking even without selling players what your proposing isn't possible.

- The maths for this assertion is that we bring in anything between 240 and 260million a year, this includes the highest ticket prices going, tv deals and commerical revenues, yet all of this is eaten up by the wage bill. And argue as much as you like, clubs like liverpool, chelsea and city are all paying their players of the same age as wilshere, ramsey the same wage or even more than us....and yet you bemoan wenger when we do it.

- I think it's easy to dismiss me as a Wenger supporter (something you will see from my history that i've never been) because it's easier and nicer to think that we would be winning titles and trophies if only for this horribly stubborn man. I'm saying this stubborn man is doing himself no favours and should have gone years ago, but when the money is not there to spend if you want to run as a business you can make improvements to training methods, tactics etc and it might give the team more character it might give you a few extra points and stop these sickening colllapses in february/march but it won't make us win things....it will just allow us to finish empty handed with more dignity.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Plus i've gone on record as saying in 2008 when we are five points clear the collapse in february/march times has been caused by a lack of character and lack of leadership from the management.
The same story in 2011 when actually i believe we had the best team in the league but in terms of discipline and mental strength we completely folded....and then there is the issue of the 2011 league cup. I lay the blame for this completley at Wenger's door, so please don't tell me what my point of view is i resent it.
I've never been mindlessly loyal to anyone...in terms of sentimentality i'd love to see Wenger win another title with us but to be honest i tend to think even if we had loads to spend he would not be up to the task because to paraphrase David Cameron he's an analogue manager in a digital age. But as things stand in terms of money, the players these days of the quality of the like of Vieira, Pires, Campbell, Henry, Bergkamp are well beyond our ability to purchase.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

http://m.skysports.com/article/sports//9261474

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Rodgers has spent almost 100m since he joined Liverpool

[Power n Glory]

http://www.arsenaltrust.org/news/latest-news/analysis-of-arsenal-half-year-accounts-jun-to-nov-2013

It's worth looking through this as Globalgunner suggested and we can cut the speculation.


Despite the huge increases of recent years and summer culling of deadwood the wage bill is still likely to grow by £11m over the season to around £165m (an increase of 7.2%). This will come as a surprise to many but is explained by the following: the new deals for the 'British Core of Five' coming on stream in this financial year; the impact of Champions League qualification bonuses becoming payable in August once the play-off game was won; the return of Park and Bendtner to the squad from loans last season; the cost of adding a stellar signing like Ozil to the squad with Arsenal for the first time paying Galactico wages.

The club have explained that they see maintaining a wage bill at 65% of the club's total turnover as sustainable and are clear that their aim is to increase wage spending to get closer to the £180m/£190m recently recorded by Man Utd and Chelsea. This reflects the close correlation that exists in modern football between wages paid and football success.

The wages are increasing but is to get it close to the numbers Chelsea and United which is maintainable. We plan to stretch it even further. We just have to distribute smartly. They're is no point in having at that level and not having the squad to back it up.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

The point I am making is because of the wage bill we can't afford the players or to make the wage bill higher than it is already, a wage bill two thirds of your turnover is sustainable only at current spending levels. So the only other option is to sell all our players and start again from scratch, and we can't afford to do that because we need the money from champions league revenue. It's a catch 22 situation we are fucked no matter who we have as manager. What other business in the world spends two thirds of what it makes to pay its staff, not even Banks with the obscene bonus culture.

[Power n Glory]

How stubborn can you get? The club say they can afford to increase the wages and go as far as £190m. You're just plain wrong. The debate is done.

[Power n Glory]

You've expended more than 30 posts exhorting us to agree that we can't afford to compete, lamenting how our wage bill is too high yet justifying how we must pay average players high salaries to prevent them leaving. Defending Wenger's position while insisting you are not his supporter. Also you started this campaign with the ludicrous proposition that we probably saved 120m to pay for Ozil and his wages. You post unsubstantiated figures and ignore counters with links attached to them.
You seem to be arguing essentially that we can't compete because it's impossible. So in essence we close down the club and divide ourselves amongst the supporters of the minted 3.
Basically, nothing you have said is reasonable or logical.
Please no one should bother replying him anymore because he has no point and Arguing is the only point.
Sad individual.

:gp:

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

How stubborn can you get? The club say they can afford to increase the wages and go as far as £190m. You're just plain wrong. The debate is done.

So you believe everything that the club says even though the maths don't add up?.
Man United can afford their wage bill because they are a global brand and make loads more in overseas marketing than we do.
We can just about break even with our current wage bill so the idea that we have the money to spend on players to bump it up further still is ludicrous, it doesn't work.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

How stubborn can you get? The club say they can afford to increase the wages and go as far as £190m. You're just plain wrong. The debate is done.

Fine go on believing in fairies and that everything will be fine in the magic kingdom once the big bad Wenger is gone.

[Power n Glory]

Yes, I'll trust you instead. ;) You're not even taking into account the revenue increase from commercial deals and broadcasting in that report. Or what else can happen over the next few years with sponsorship deals. It's all there in the report.

[saintnickle]

Fine go on believing in fairies and that everything will be fine in the magic kingdom once the big bad Wenger is gone.

Herbert can i ask you a question.Would you rather

1/ Have the club completely self suficient in the way it operates but finishing where we do every year and in the process fleece our supporters for £65-£100 per ticket to watch us.

2/ Use one of our multi billionaires to imput say £100m a year which gives us a realistic chance to win the premier league and champions leage and also reduces the Wages in line with the likes of man city to £25-£50

I know which i would choose.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Herbert can i ask you a question.Would you rather

1/ Have the club completely self suficient in the way it operates but finishing where we do every year and in the process fleece our supporters for £65-£100 per ticket to watch us.

2/ Use one of our multi billionaires to imput say £100m a year which gives us a realistic chance to win the premier league and champions leage and also reduces the Wages in line with the likes of man city to £25-£50

I know which i would choose.

Exactly those are the only two choices we have (though City have got a ridiculous wage bill so don't really understand what your saying) and neither are really palatable. I literally don't think I could support the club anymore if we were owned by Usmanov, because I pride myself on having a moral compass and respect for human rights. Things that would be in direct conflict with the values of human garbage like that.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Yes, I'll trust you instead. ;) You're not even taking into account the revenue increase from commercial deals and broadcasting in that report. Or what else can happen over the next few years with sponsorship deals. It's all there in the report.

You mean the commercial deals that might net us another 30-50 million a year which buys you one 10-15 player and his wages for five years, wow I bet Chelsea and Man City must be pissing themselves at our financial firepower.

[saintnickle]

Exactly those are the only two choices we have (though City have got a ridiculous wage bill so don't really understand what your saying) and neither are really palatable. I literally don't think I could support the club anymore if we were owned by Usmanov, because I pride myself on having a moral compass and respect for human rights. Things that would be in direct conflict with the values of human garbage like that.

Would you not support the club regardless and leave the morality to the premier league to do a fit and proper person test??And wheres the morality in our manager when for years hes had a wage structure in place for everyone exept himself.

[saintnickle]

You mean the commercial deals that might net us another 30-50 million a year which buys you one 10-15 player and his wages for five years, wow I bet Chelsea and Man City must be pissing themselves at our financial firepower.

This what you are saying is utter tosh.We dont pay all ozils wages for 5 years upfront .What if he left after 2 years, the 120million becomes 60 million . If we sell him for 60m after hes seen the light and realises how unambitious we are as a club and how one dimensional our manager is , he will of cost us nothing.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Would you not support the club regardless and leave the morality to the premier league to do a fit and proper person test??And wheres the morality in our manager when for years hes had a wage structure in place for everyone exept himself.

Just like the premier league did a right and proper person test on Thaksin Shinawatra.

There is no moral equivalency between being overpaid for not doing a good job, and being an oppressive tool of Vladimir Putin using the Gazprom pipelines to bring countries under Russian thrall, to make money through organised crime, to commit all kinds of crimes and atrocities and use your wealth to make you exempt from prosecution. So no I couldn't carry on supporting the club.

[Power n Glory]

This what you are saying is utter tosh.We dont pay all ozils wages for 5 years upfront .What if he left after 2 years, the 120million becomes 60 million . If we sell him for 60m after hes seen the light and realises how unambitious we are as a club and how one dimensional our manager is , he will of cost us nothing.

It's total tosh. Earlier he was suggesting we may have spent all the cash on Ozil in the Summer. You can see from the reports that it's utterly false.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

This what you are saying is utter tosh.We dont pay all ozils wages for 5 years upfront .What if he left after 2 years, the 120million becomes 60 million . If we sell him for 60m after hes seen the light and realises how unambitious we are as a club and how one dimensional our manager is , he will of cost us nothing.

But you don't buy players in the hope that someone takes them off your hand two years later, and the money to pay his wages over the five years has to come from somewhere. When you buy a car in installments you have to know you will always have the money to pay it back, no the money is not all spent at once but if our current turnover is used to service our current wage bill than any supplementary income is used to service any additions to the wage bill. I'm sorry if I'm sounding patronising but these are alarming simple concepts you don't seem to grasp

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

It's total tosh. Earlier he was suggesting we may have spent all the cash on Ozil in the Summer. You can see from the reports that it's utterly false.

To be fair the point I was making is that 120million doesn't buy you a lot, if you consider Ozil transfer fee, wages and add ons you aren't left with a lot of change. So it wouldn't be hard to suppose that money is being spent on that, not all at once but being ear marked for that. Ill grant you I'm speculating but you seem to be reaching because its too hard to accept that you can't compete as both a football club and a business

[saintnickle]

But you don't buy players in the hope that someone takes them off your hand two years later, and the money to pay his wages over the five years has to come from somewhere. When you buy a car in installments you have to know you will always have the money to pay it back, no the money is not all spent at once but if our current turnover is used to service our current wage bill than any supplementary income is used to service any additions to the wage bill. I'm sorry if I'm sounding patronising but these are alarming simple concepts you don't seem to grasp

And what you cant grasp is that if the 120m you say has been used for ozils transfer and wages this year then the total wages for next year must be say 160million minus ozils yearly wage which is 9m .So either the wage bill reduces year on year or we dont pay everything up front.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

And what you cant grasp is that if the 120m you say has been used for ozils transfer and wages this year then the total wages for next year must be say 160million minus ozils yearly wage which is 9m .So either the wage bill reduces year on year or we dont pay everything up front.

The point being that the money is equivalent and even without Ozil at the club with the wages of the rest of the squad it's still two thirds of what we make. Especially when you have seen a rise in the wage bill this season - Mertesacker, Rosicky, Ramsey all getting a pay rise. You can argue the rights and wrongs of that all you like. But if you break down that a player is costing you 120million if he is there for five years, that's about 10-15% of your turnover for that entire period spent on one player.
It doesn't work

[Power n Glory]

To be fair the point I was making is that 120million doesn't buy you a lot, if you consider Ozil transfer fee, wages and add ons you aren't left with a lot of change. So it wouldn't be hard to suppose that money is being spent on that, not all at once but being ear marked for that. Ill grant you I'm speculating but you seem to be reaching because its too hard to accept that you can't compete as both a football club and a business

You're just plain wrong. The point you made just shows how far off the mark you are.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

You're just plain wrong. The point you made just shows how far off the mark you are.

Wah Wah Wah I'm not listening....you're wrong, you're wrong....take it back. That's what you sound like to me right now