Soldato
Not a bad 12 months for him.
UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE FINAL ... Chelsea v Arsenal ... **Spoilers** [29th May 2019]
- Thread starter Cosimo
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Not a bad 12 months for him.
Associate
It doesn't sound like Arsenal will be spending much this summer, which is worrying if you're a supporter.
Caporegime
Worrying,.......but not surprising
Caporegime
I genuinely think the season finale to Arsenal fan TV was better than the GOT finale 
I was going to ask if Arsenal fans regretted getting rid of Wenger but I think the main problem Arsenal have today is there are now 4 teams better than them in the league, whereas they were comfortably a top 4 team under much of Wenger's reign.
Soldato
Its unai first season whilst Wenger had 8 seasons to win the title or cl but failed and never came close and you hit it on nail. The competition was easier back in wengers days and still couldn't do it
I genuinely thought we'd turn Chelsea over, even after we went 1 down. That was a Wenger-esque performance in the second half though. No urgency, no tactics, no creativity and **** poor defending. Yes our front 2 weren't great but we didn't really create anything of note all game. We need a massive overhaul of the defence this summer, some wingers and a creative centre mid, might struggle to get all of that with our 40 million "warchest".
Associate
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It's like they said on Arseblog, a fish rots from the head down. Nothing will change at Arsenal unless the club actually decides it wants to compete and not just be a comfortable earner for it's owners. Sadly i think if it ever stops being a nice earner the owners will sod off and just leave it. I'm not sure what any manager could do with this squad and a fiver to spend over the summer. Maybe Ozil could donate some of his 1 million a month towards new transfers, either that or turn up once in a while..
Caporegime
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This defence is so bad primarily because of the players Wenger put together. Ozil was Wenger's desperate attempt to hold on to him and a noose around our neck likely for the next 3 years. Xhaka was dire defensively again, Ramsey leaving is on Wenger as well, both due to not getting him signed up earlier AND that Ozil wage which led to Ramsey upping his wage ask by pretty much an extra 100k a week.
Monreal has never been good defensively, Kola can't defend to save his life, Niles is okay but inconsistent because largely he's barely played at a senior level. Bellarin with a horrible injury but had gone downhill under Wenger's training. I've mentioned before but Iwobi and Bellarin were far better players in their first 6 months playing in the first team after a longer period in the reserves than after training with the first team.
The team is fundamentally broken with the wrong attitude and many of the wrong players.
The two things I can't get over in terms of Emery himself is.... how on earth did he start Ozil when that performance is what he produces every time in similar games, with Iwobi he may be often crap (one great goal aside) but he works hard and would have helped close down, win the ball and keep the pressure on in a way Ozil is simply incapable of. Then Torreira, if there was one person attempting to make extra driving runs to create the extra player offensively it was Torreira, he made a few good runs into the box that Ozil just plainly ignored and you could see him getting frustrated. But he was doing the right thing, something no one else was and he takes Torreira off instead of Ozil, the worst player on the pitch by a mile. The team has MAJOR issues but most of them are due to Wenger, the key for Emery to fix it is replace coaches who aren't cutting it, replace players who aren't cutting it, but regardless, his decisions in that line up both for the start and to make changes were bafflingly stupid.
In terms of money spent, it's not hard to do good business, it's not hard to bring in quality cheaper players. Our midfield pair were a steal tbh and given a couple years to form a partnership will be great, Leno was also great value. We've spent huge on strikers which people seem to ignore when they pretent Arsenal don't spend.
I believe the stat is that over the past 5 years Arsenal have spent 40mil less than Liverpool in net spend. The idea Arsenal dont' spend is basically absurd and Liverpool aren't particularly stronger than us financially except now being in the CL, but over recent years that really hasn't been true. They got better hugely due to Klopp, changing the type of players they are going for.
Arsenal have wasted a lot of their money over the past decade and then held on to players by handing out more wages to players who couldn't more clearly have needed to be shown the door. We should have sold Ramsey for 30-50mil in the last couple of seasons and we should have sold Ozil 2 years ago when it was plainly clear he failed to do anything in big games.
A good scout and manager can pick good CBs, we could buy a left back and one or two cbs with the money we have available if we can also get some players out. Just because VVD cost a bomb doesn't mean you can't get great defenders for less than 30mil. For every 70mil CB there will be a 10-20mil CB who turns into the next highly rated CB.
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Soldato
Have you watched this yet mate? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZIx_LaWho They explain how they will change things at arsenal. This summer wil be the true testing point of how much they say on that interview that they will do
Caporegime
A load of flannel, scripted and beamed out to pacify the unsettled natives and boost season ticket sales, which are struggling, and I know that for a fact. Won’t believe a word until I see the results on the pitch.
Caporegime
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I haven't, the real issue is reality vs hopes. We'll see who they buy, who gets moved on, how the mentality changes, how the players adapt to certain players being shown the door. To date basically Ozil has been allowed to cost for years, as has everyone, and everyone plays like they know not much is on the line. Ramsey was told to stfu when demanding insane wages, Ozil finally got dropped a load this year for dire performances but without lots of alternative options. Same goes for Mustafi, terrible performances but often times no other choices.
Could be that we see massive changes next year, a few key buys, cheap or not, a few key people being shown the door which starts a fire under the arses of other players. More time to adapt to a new system. It could be that emery with better players and options keeps making poor choices. Ozil is a difficult one, he's on so much cash that not using him at all seems mad but ultimately if he's playing poorly he shouldn't be playing and starting him in Baku was crazy to me, he's shown absolutely nothing that implied he would step it up for an important game. Torreira going off was unthinkable and the amount of times he is rested this year seems ridiculous to me. He's the guy we should be building the midfield around.
Soldato
They touched up on runing down contracts in that video or the part 2 one. basically saying they will never be in a ozil/ramset situation again and will either sell up shop or give them a contract when they have 2years left.
They say will look at there reserves pool of players to try and bring from within for obvous benefits and that we should have slightly bigger budget for transer due to our adidas kit deal of 50m a year?
All that as well as the TV rights/league/football bonuses are apparenty all available for us to use and spend. all of it. Also, Emery has little say to who they offer new contracts, how much? who they scout, who they recruit etc. Thats the footal director and technical diractors role.
All Emery does is work on tactics, training and team selection. He will of course chip in and tell the technical directors that he needs a player of certain caliber, its up to the technical directors to honour his request.
So all in all, this summer success or failings of signing players wil be purely down to the techincal director team, not emery
Soldato
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Yup, he employed a very socialist wage structure, ensuring there wasn't a massive disparity between top earners and the rest of the squad.
It's a reason why moving Arsenal players on was so difficult, due to the wage demands during contract negotiations with would be clubs.
Up until a couple of years ago, it also ensured Wenger was the highest paid person amongst the players and coaching staff.