Yup, the money has no bearing on anything, again, quality players come at all price ranges and wages, and CL is no remotely dependant on bringing in top players. Any club that isn't horrendously badly run will have wages increased if involved in the CL and decreased if not.
People love to say the champs league is worth 40mil, its not, because the entire squad ends up on higher wages, at least 20mil, if not more is out of the window the second you qualify. You therefore don't "lose" 40mil by not qualifying, as wages drop 20-30mil. Considering Arsenal make a profit anyway, 20mil less isn't going to be an issue. Even more importantly, if we cut the crap players and stopped overpaying retards, we'd be making 20-30mil more a year profit not even dependant on the champions league.
Arsenal have made a profit most years, have plenty of cash and most of it ends up on the boards pockets. To be fair, we have no clue if the board is completely happy to spend that money, but have a manager who won't, or a manger who will and a board who won't, or neither wants to spend. The only thing we do know, is both aren't happy to spend. If we got Redknapp in and net spend was still even, then we know its the board
I don't get any joy by automatically being in the champs league, its not a great competition, its not automatically better quality football or better teams. There are few better teams in it, and we usually get spanked(these days) whenever we meet one, beating crap European teams from crap leagues in boring games does nothing for me. If we were still actually competitive, could go beyond the group stages with a real shot of getting to a final its just more good games for my club, I'm happy with that.
While the team sucks, I don't really have any interest in some crap group games followed by getting embarrassed.
Long term, of course CL is important, but its completely overplayed how important it is. If we miss out one year, or even a couple, its financially not much of a blip, player wise, not an issue at all and all we're missing out on currently is getting embarrassed in any of the "real" games in the competition.
I want a team I can be proud of, players I'm not embarrassed by, wages that make sense, a club run well, and not necessarily brilliant football, but an overall trend of players, team, manager improving. Currently I'm embarrased by most of the squad, their attitude, our 8 years of decline season on season, the attrocious players we're playing, the £143mil wage bill on a team that is not worth half that, the bad football we're producing and the excuses the manager/players come out with game after game.
