I am obviously not a Gooner and don`t thus have to pay top money to see a game of a football, but I think you need to remember you could be a club in turmoil and no future expansion fully defined - like a certain club like THFC.
I am sure those who remember the days of Arsenal under Don Howe, will think things have been a lot worse.
Chin up.
In the 30's we did. After that we were never a consistently successful, we won trophies here and there but it was pretty sporadic. We had a good spell under Graham but towards the end of that we were awfully boring to watch and our league form was horrible. We finished something like 6 points above the relegation zone in the 92/93 season when we won both domestic cups.
Wenger took us to a whole new level, we've not sustained that in terms of trophies but the footballing landscape has changed with the billionaires sticking their beaks in. Without Wenger we wouldn't be in the new stadium, wouldn't be as big a club as we are and wouldn't have a hope of competing. We're 1 point off thr top and the team above us have spent a billion quid to get there. I don't believe we'll win the league but I don't see that as the criteria for success this season, especially after the last 2 years when we've just limped into the top 4.
Frustration is understandable when Wenger doesn't seem to have been making the most of our resources, yes it's hard to compete with the billionaires but we give ourselves no chance if we're not willing to spend big where we can. There does seem to have been a long term strategy though, the commercial deals which restricted us look poor now but we needed the guaranteed income to help pay for the stadium and now we have improved those deals we look to be well placed to compete more seriously. Ozil was a sign that we are ready to step up now. We need more and it would have been nice to get that in this window but so long as we do the right things this summer to push on then I'll be fairly content with the direction the club is heading in.
Trouble is, it could well be the same deal in the summer with Wenger not able to find a "fair" price for the player(s) we'll need to climb the last step. Draxler is a gamble, fair enough, but picture the scene if he was arriving for a medical now rather than still sat in Germany actually wanting to come but with Wenger haggling the deal to death. We could have made a bold statement to the fans, the players and football in general and we could have afforded it. If Wenger is saving up for the ideal player at the ideal price then we'll be waiting a long time.
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