http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-big-is-arsenals-transfer-budget.html
Posted in another thread I think. I would give him another season before promoting him to director of football or chief executive or something. We have a big summer ahead of us, hopefully a new GK, two CB, DM and a FW.
Yes I posted it in the other thread about an hour or two ago.
Knee jerk reaction this thread isn't it? Just look at the posts in this thread and you'll see that Wenger even though he's slipped up a few teams this season has on the whole done a decent job especially with the finances and now this summer after several seasons of saving and selling we are finally able to put together a little bit of a war chest. Wenger has his targets he says and I trust him, I've trusted him the whole time he's been at Arsenal and I did say in the other thread I'm going to give him next season and then start asking the questions if we don't get the results we deserve, we should at least be making the semi finals of the Champions League and it should be us that's competing for the league along with Utd and Cheslea.
We've got a great history and Wenger has given us some of the best moments in the clubs history and yes, we've had a barren 5 years but the end product has not always shown the full story of our seasons, we came very very close 2 or 3 years ago to winning the league and again this season we've been right amongst Chelsea and Man Utd when at the beginning of the season nobody gave us a chance before the first ball was even kicked, then of course we put 6 goals past Everton and people started paying attention.
We've had a long and hard season racked with injuries and while the other clubs have had injuries, especially Utd, they all have much better class and quality in depth than we do and that's where Wenger needs to strengthen the squad. We've got too many players who are all identical in style to each other and when the game plan isn't working they don't know how else to play. I think that's why Bendtner has been such a revelation this season, he hit that really good form and started banging some goals in for us and I think that's because he gives us a different dimension with his physical presence. For a long time we've been a very physically soft team and we still haven't gotten over losing all of our stars in a short space of time, players such as Bergkamp, Henry, Vieira, Pires, Ljungberg and then of course the Keown's and the Dixon's that we've missed. We've sold so many great players and haven't replaced them with players of identical talent.
At the moment we've obviously got some real world class players in Andrei, Robin, Cesc, Samir, Thomas Vermaelen, Clichy when he feels like it, Sagna is very solid and Song is coming along well too, that's a great, and more importantly young backbone to the team. For my money those are the absolute standout players and we need to keep all of them and give them all as much game time as possible, what Wenger needs to do now is surround our current stars with ready made players and if he has to spend over the odds then so be it.
One thing I will say in Wengers defence is that we could go for the league cup or the FA cup and probably win it if that was our main focus, but unlike some of the mid table clubs or even Portsmouth in the cup final for instance, they only have two focuses, staying in the Prem and if they get a good cup run that will please them, we've been fighting on many different fronts all year and with players that maybe aren't very physical like ours aren't then it's always going to be tough.
Wenger is great with finances and he's great at finding youth but come on, we've waited a very, very long time for a trophy and next year should be our year to at least win something. Don't be so frugal Arsene and buy us some world class talent.
