Is money still a problem, or is it Wenger?

[Bumble]

people do say that Wenger has had little money to spend but lets not forget we have one of the highest wage bills in the country and even last season we were paying a £1m a week more than Spurs. So when people think Wenger has done well on a tight budget, it is misleading as people forget all the money he has wasted. With 4 spots available has Wenger done amazing work to keep us 4th... not really that is the bare minimum as the real competition is Liverpool and they have been screwed up for years.

[IBK]

It was clear at the end of last year where we needed strengthening & it would have been clear that we were in a postion to spend. This didn't just happen late in July when as per usual we start to get mentioned with various players that never end up signing. We woud have known this in May of last year. By the time all the wrangling about Higuain & Suarez was doing the rounds clubs like Man City & the Spuds had already acquired quality players without the fuss & with the chance of those players having a decent pre-season. In the case of Suarez it was never going to be plain sailing mainly due to Liverpools relcutance to sell to us & also the threat from Real Madrid. For some reason this always seems to be the case when we are linked with anyone. We needed then to act by buying another striker, from our supposed short-list to get the cover we needed. Even if we had gone on to buy Suarez it shouldn't be viewed as a problem when you see the amount of strikers at Man City for example. We startd the season with only Giroud as a 1st team striker & there was even doubts about him being the finished article after only one year in the EPL. Simply not good enough by Wenger & the board after telling us we were finally in a position to compete financially.
We only got Ozil in the final week of transfer deadline & could have lost him to the Mancs last minute, after getting rid of alot of the deadwood our sum total of players in could have been Sonogo & Flamini! - costing fuck all. Ozil's signing has plastered over the cracks of yet another disasterous transfer window for Wenger, why we think we're likely to get better players & better deals by leaving everything to the last minute is beyond me. We give our new players no chance to have a pre-season with new team mates & sometimes can't play them for a few games because of match fitness. It was only two years ago that we bought 3 players a month after the season started due to the Mancs hammering us & embarrasing Wenger, how can anyone justify that having had 3 months to get your squad ready for the new season.

Lots to chew on here - and for me it highlights the issue with our transfer business. For me Suarez was a total gamble and was never going to happen once his get out clause didn't stand up. As soon as Liverpool called our bluff this transfer wasn't going to happen in a million years - and Suarez can never, ever have been a planned signing for us. Like I say, I have real doubts that we'd have spent 40m odd on both Suarez and Ozil.

I think we're a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place with Wenger. Yes, he'll gamble on raw players like Sanogo, and clearly there's a very short list of players whom he will spend big on - but the blind spot seems to be mature players who would be reliable back up in the positions we are short in, and this seems to be partly a deficiency in our scouting network where the likes of Newcastle; Sperz - even teams like West Brom or Swansea seem to function better, but mostly because of the managers adamant stance that market prices are over inflated.

[Ollie the Optimist]

ive figured out the reason why we are doing so well now. Its that 3 piece suit Arsene has been wearing for matches. he rocks the 3 piece suit.

[Dein-machine]

Lots to chew on here - and for me it highlights the issue with our transfer business. For me Suarez was a total gamble and was never going to happen once his get out clause didn't stand up. As soon as Liverpool called our bluff this transfer wasn't going to happen in a million years - and Suarez can never, ever have been a planned signing for us. Like I say, I have real doubts that we'd have spent 40m odd on both Suarez and Ozil.

I think we're a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place with Wenger. Yes, he'll gamble on raw players like Sanogo, and clearly there's a very short list of players whom he will spend big on - but the blind spot seems to be mature players who would be reliable back up in the positions we are short in, and this seems to be partly a deficiency in our scouting network where the likes of Newcastle; Sperz - even teams like West Brom or Swansea seem to function better, but mostly because of the managers adamant stance that market prices are over inflated.

Agree