January Transfer Window 2012/2013 Season Rumours/Signings
- Thread starter BaZ87
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It never fails to baffle how consistent CL qualification in light of the amount of money that has been invested into some Premier League clubs is considered a dismal failure.
When I speak to Arsenal fans most of them don't even seem to know why they are upset. Spend more money? How much? 30mil? 50mil? To what end. Chelsea and City spend that on one player. We still won't win the PL or the CL. It's almost as though we want them to spend money just to make us feel a bit better.
Some Arsenal fans have become far to cosy with how things were under the early Wenger era and have lost a grip on the reality of how football currently is. Do any of them remember the Rioch days, the football under Graham? How about Howe or O'Neill? Probably not. Bertie Mee won our first trophy after an 18 year period with nothing and in 10 years of management did the double once. Not bad but not Wenger.
I'm not saying everything is rosy but the problem ultimately lies with the inflated expectations of the fans.
When I speak to Arsenal fans most of them don't even seem to know why they are upset. Spend more money? How much? 30mil? 50mil? To what end. Chelsea and City spend that on one player. We still won't win the PL or the CL. It's almost as though we want them to spend money just to make us feel a bit better.
Some Arsenal fans have become far to cosy with how things were under the early Wenger era and have lost a grip on the reality of how football currently is. Do any of them remember the Rioch days, the football under Graham? How about Howe or O'Neill? Probably not. Bertie Mee won our first trophy after an 18 year period with nothing and in 10 years of management did the double once. Not bad but not Wenger.
I'm not saying everything is rosy but the problem ultimately lies with the inflated expectations of the fans.
Caporegime
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Unfortunately its fans like you, the majority which means we won't have change.
Did I say spend money anywhere? we are spending, please actually take note, 100% more on wages than the last time we were successful. We ARE spending more and GETTING LESS. I want to SPEND LESS money, Spurs should have beat us spending 2/3rds of what we do, the money we are spending is simply not effective. We can win the league without spending a penny more, or more accurately, had we not wasted 100's of mils in the past 8 years, we wouldn't have to spend much to win things.
Diaby, Denilson, Song, Gervinho, Santos, Djourou, Squillaci, Mertesacker, Walcott, and the list goes on and on... do you know what it costs to NOT renew a contract or NOT buy a player who isn't remotely good enough.... errm, you save money, money that could then go on other players who aren't crap.
Can you expect every single player you buy to shine, no, can you expect after 5 years of completely failure to be a good footballer like Diaby, or several years of horrendous injury problems like Rosicky that you can easily easily see giving them a new contract is a truly awful idea, yes. Wenger walks into those kinds of problems every single season and has for years.
For every player we should never have bought, we could have 100mil + more in the bank today, we still don't have to spend that money we should have saved on new players, you can still find fantastic deals on fantastic players every single transfer window. Wenger is buying worse players, and spending more on them, giving new contracts to players who have failed completely and letting our best players leave. Can you stop RVP leaving if he wants to win things, no, should you, no. Can you stop forcing players like Arshavin, Vela, Pires, Gilberto out of the club by treating them like crap to favour players who can't play football. no.
People still kid themselves that Arsenal play the same football we did 7-8 years ago, we don't, its not a patch on it. Whats the point of champs league qualification, every sensible club pays players more when they are in the champs league and less when they don't qualify, who in the current team will suddenly be wanted by every team when we don't have CL, who was wanted and left when we do have CL anyway? Financially it makes little difference, the quality of players we bring in makes no difference. I want to be in the CL to try and win it, not just be in it for the sake of it.
I want to TRY to win things, or fail trying, I don't want to try to get 4th and achieve it.
How many times have you gone to play pool at a pub, and just wanted to come second, is that fun? Trying and failing is infinitely better than a club that doesn't want to try at all.
The board and Wenger have already said they are for some reason aiming low till FFP comes in when we'll somehow be better, even though we've already seen just about every major club pick up new sponsors which will, for all intents and purposes, completely negate FFP. So what will change in a couple years, nothing, except the quality of our squad.
Wenger is currently, tactically inept, mistreats players till they leave, backs players who have almost zero ability, picks the wrong squads, buys the wrong players, offers new contracts to the wrong players. I ask you a question under FFP, lets pretend City and Utd have to spend less, and Real and Barca, when we have a manager who still buys and keeps the wrong players, and they all buy and keep the right players, how will that make us more competitive?
Then lastly, the "but we could be lower than 4th like in the old days" arguments mean nothing. Arsenal weren't massively overcharging their fans, not raking in as much money, nor anywhere near as established then as they are now.
So to sum up, I want to try and win the league, even if it means failing and coming 6th, its better than coming 4th, watching every decreasing quality football, every decreasing quality of players and paying ever more for the privaledge.
If, and its a HUGE if, Arsenal were playing the same football, weren't spending WAY WAY more than the teams we're currently competing with, and showing a decrease in quality every single year for 8 years, I'd be fine. I don't expect titles, I don't expect CL qualification, I don't expect spending, I don't expect to keep every one of our best players.
I expect a manager to identify problems and fix them, not ignore than for 8 years, that is utterly and completely unacceptable. I expect players who aren't remotely good enough and show time and time again they aren't good enough, to get shown the door, not a new more lucrative contract.
Everton look better than us this year, as do Spurs, West Brom, Fulham(at home). We spend 120mil+ a season in wages, the rest of those teams, well what 65mil for the highest spending of those teams, 45-50mil for the lowest...... and you can't see why 120mil isn't both, extreme spending, and incredibly ineffectively spent?
This is why I cringe over Arsenal fans, they see a couple players go for 50mil and think Arsenal have no money, waste no money and have no way to spend more money. We spend a buttload, we absolutely should be miles better than we are, we are closer in spending and further away in points to those above us, while miles away in spending and closer in points to the guys behind us, that IS failure, and that gap is getting bigger(and smaller respectively) every year basically, as is the quality of football.
Arsenal are massively overspending on players who aren't worth half of what they get, if we stopped peeing money down the drain, we can't spend 50mil on a player, neither should any team need to. A 50mil player isn't inherantly better than a free transfer player, 50mil for Torres vs 2-3mil for RVP should be proof of that. The biggest teams are paying through the teeth for convenience, buying who they need when they need it.
That is the last argument against Wenger... in what scenario has Wenger needed a player at a particular time? He's been "building" this team that is always apparently a year away from being ready, for over a decade.... the very length of time we've had Wenger is the reason we don't need to spend 50mil on a player, because he has time to build a team buying prospects and younger players on the cheap while Mancini/Mourinho come in and buy a winning team in 1-2 years. Different scale of time, different cost, its not an excuse. Fabregas is for me the best midfielder in the game today, and we had him, RVP is the best striker in this league and we had him, yet didn't have to spend through the teeth.
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What problems do you want identified and corrected? The problem that the team finished 3rd last year? As far as I can see there is no problem there to be corrected.
It's difficult to comment on your individual points as to do that, we would need to know the innermost workings of the club and we don't. Anything anyone posts related to finances and what goes on between the players and the club is just speculation.
Football has changed but we think we are still living in the late 90's early 00's. It is much harder now to pick up young talented players as all of the top clubs not only have the money but also the scouting operations that they didn't have 10 years ago. The idea of scouting someone who is a hidden gem is now almost unheard of. Arsene cannot do anything about this. He also cannot do anything about the fact that while he continues to build, players keep leaving for mega money because of the current climate.
It was funny last week when everyone was suddenly asking why Huntelaar wasn't playing at Arsenal. Well when he went to Schalke he was having a miserable time. Last season was his best by far since his Ajax days and yet the fans seem to think that we should have had him and it was Arsene's fault that we didn't.
What Arsene understands, and what people seem to take the **** out of, is that sadly CL qualifications is the be all and end all at the moment. If we do not have it, how long do you think Wilshere, The Ox, Sagna etc will stay? Will winning the League Cup or FA Cup replace the disappointment of not running out to face Messi and the like the following season?
It's difficult to comment on your individual points as to do that, we would need to know the innermost workings of the club and we don't. Anything anyone posts related to finances and what goes on between the players and the club is just speculation.
Football has changed but we think we are still living in the late 90's early 00's. It is much harder now to pick up young talented players as all of the top clubs not only have the money but also the scouting operations that they didn't have 10 years ago. The idea of scouting someone who is a hidden gem is now almost unheard of. Arsene cannot do anything about this. He also cannot do anything about the fact that while he continues to build, players keep leaving for mega money because of the current climate.
It was funny last week when everyone was suddenly asking why Huntelaar wasn't playing at Arsenal. Well when he went to Schalke he was having a miserable time. Last season was his best by far since his Ajax days and yet the fans seem to think that we should have had him and it was Arsene's fault that we didn't.
What Arsene understands, and what people seem to take the **** out of, is that sadly CL qualifications is the be all and end all at the moment. If we do not have it, how long do you think Wilshere, The Ox, Sagna etc will stay? Will winning the League Cup or FA Cup replace the disappointment of not running out to face Messi and the like the following season?
It appears that Chelsea have completed the signing of Wallace, the 18 year old right-back from Fluminense:
http://www.sambafoot.com/en/news/38338_chelsea_complete_signing_of_wallace_-_report.html
http://globoesporte.globo.com/futeb...elsea-mas-fica-no-flu-ate-o-meio-de-2013.html
http://www.sambafoot.com/en/news/38338_chelsea_complete_signing_of_wallace_-_report.html
http://globoesporte.globo.com/futeb...elsea-mas-fica-no-flu-ate-o-meio-de-2013.html
Caporegime
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WEll firstly, as pointed out, paying Diaby 60+k a week, to be injured is a mistake, giving Rosicky a contract extension, was a mistake, refusing to play Vela, was a mistake, refusing to bring in someone to fix the defence, is a mistake, spending 40mil more(half of spurs wage bill) to get a couple points more, is failure, being GIFTED 3rd by AVB and Harry, isn't success, its luck. 3rd is irrelevant, performances are key, playing Messi means nothing to me when we're just out there for the sake of it, not to win, because we can't.
Playing Fabregas against a physical Stoke team while he's suffering from a recurring injury and you've over used him repeatedly all season till he relapses, the game before the only final you've reached in donkeys years is a stonkingly massive unforgiveable mistake.
As for Huntelaar, I see no reason Arsenal should or shouldn't have him, to pretend he's been crap since Ajax days is incorrect though. he looked the same player last night as he did at Real, or AC(8 in 13 starts and 7 in 11 starts respectively). I don't much care about that.
You can't pick up cheap great players any more? Complete and utter rubbish, and the general excuse making people do for Wenger against all logic. Tiote, Cabaye, Ba, Guti, sideshow, Cisse, Arfa are all players that were vastly better value for money than anyone Arsenal has bought in ages. There are FANTASTIC deals on players every single transfer window, Wenger just hasn't found any for ages.
When we got Pires, the best players were going for 30+mil, when we got Henry, some of the best players were going for around 30mil, when we got Gervinho, some of the best players were going for around 30mil. When we got Pires and Henry, we got players who could easily have gone for a hell of a lot more, on the cheap, when we got Gervinho, we could easily have gotten a much much better player, for less.
Bad business is bad business, very few clubs spend 20mil + on players, a similar number of teams have been spending that much for the past decade, nothing has changed, except the excuses are getting worse.
These are excuses, every season there are great deals yet for donkeys years Wenger has thought we don't need replacements for the likes of Diaby, because he recklessly believes both he'll magically play 40+ games the next season, and that he is world class when he does play, neither are remotely close to the truth. The problem is Wenger not being able to see things like that any more, he's lost any impartiality to certain players, while hanging others out to dry(seemingly all those who want to win stuff and aren't happy with the crap players).
Up until 4 years ago, we had a squad that could win the title, but through Wengers tactics/decisions/crapness, we haven't even been close, more recently we've been lucky to finish where we have, not great and we've gotten significantly worse each year. If Chelsea and Spurs hadn't self imploded last season we would not have been in 3rd or 4th, its as simple as that. We did better in the first half of last season than the second, we're doing worse this season than the first half of last season, we have a worse team than last season, we didn't fix any major weakness of last season and created a new weakness upfront.
We still play a guy only capable of scoring goals, and completely crap at running with the ball, taking on players crossing, passing, defending, on the right wing... we do that despite having 10 other players better suited to the role. We have one guy who can run in behind defences easily and score some of those chances, and we refuse to play him upfront. We have a fat lazy pratt who can't play football, we paid 7mil for him, we give him 60k a week, and we play him at left back because the other left back, who isn't very good is a perma crock who we all knew was a perma crock and still gave a new contract and refused to buy an actual left back who knows how to play football.
seen mention that chelsea are being put off by the price, which seems a bit weird considering they spent the money on torres when he really wasnt close to top form, and falcao was on top form last time i saw him play.
This is the most I've ever read of any of his posts ................................
............................................... and now I'm bored.
Basically it's now:
/sees wall of text
/must be DM
/can't be worth reading
/skip
I agree with Baz. As a Liverpool fan, Walcott is my number one (realistic) hope for a transfer.
Scores one in three from the right flank for Arsenal along with creating a number of chances.
Also, we saw against Newcastle how important it is to have runners going beyond Suarez. Sterling is the only player we have who will do this at the moment. Walcott can drive past with his pace, allowing Suarez to play him in. Perfect signing for us right now imo, even though his final ball isn't always brilliant.
If we have anything left over, I'd take Huntelaar or Drogba happily though!
Sterling--Suarez--Walcott
Gerrard/Allen--Lucas/Sahin--Suso/Shelvey
Enrique--Skrtel--Agger--Johnson
Pepe
Looks an awful lot stronger than our current team even though we've only added Walcott. It allows us to push Suso and Shelvey back to their proper positions and gives us more depth. Adding Huntelaar would give us another option, to move Suarez to an inside forward position instead of Sterling. If we get those two I'd be incredibly happy. If we only get Theo I'll be reasonably happy. If we get nobody I'll be unsurprised and miserable.
Scores one in three from the right flank for Arsenal along with creating a number of chances.
Also, we saw against Newcastle how important it is to have runners going beyond Suarez. Sterling is the only player we have who will do this at the moment. Walcott can drive past with his pace, allowing Suarez to play him in. Perfect signing for us right now imo, even though his final ball isn't always brilliant.
If we have anything left over, I'd take Huntelaar or Drogba happily though!
Sterling--Suarez--Walcott
Gerrard/Allen--Lucas/Sahin--Suso/Shelvey
Enrique--Skrtel--Agger--Johnson
Pepe
Looks an awful lot stronger than our current team even though we've only added Walcott. It allows us to push Suso and Shelvey back to their proper positions and gives us more depth. Adding Huntelaar would give us another option, to move Suarez to an inside forward position instead of Sterling. If we get those two I'd be incredibly happy. If we only get Theo I'll be reasonably happy. If we get nobody I'll be unsurprised and miserable.
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Totally agree, sadly. It's not totally out of the question if they can't agree terms though. Can't see the biggest teams (Utd, City, Chelsea) wanting him, not sure he'd go to Spurs, and hopefully that leaves us as one of the more attractive options after that along with Newcastle and Everton, if there's any interest from them.
The biggest appeal for Walcott to opt for Liverpool if he went anywhere, is that he wants to play and Liverpool are one team who would guarantee him playing.
Caporegime
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Did you really just try to use flamini as an example of a good player? Pires left at 33. Barca saw something in hleb because they bought him off you for 15 mill euros...
Its easy to pick holes in players. I mean you act like players growing old and being replaced by inferior models is an arsenal thing.
The only one out of giggs, scholes, keane and Beckham that was replaced by someone of similar ability was Beckham by ronaldo. And we have had near enough infinite amounts of cash and nearly 10 years to do it. We werent even able to clear our oaps out. One tried to retire but had to come back due to exceptionally poor midfield cover on the guise of fletchrr , carrick, cleverson etc all much much worse than the players we had before. Brutally so.
Sadly we haven't managed to find a replacement for ronaldo yet.
We got 80 million for the Portuguese winker and have instead ended up with what's turned out to be a wholly intolerable trio of a. Young. Nani. Valencia. I don't see any of these guys fit to clean Ronns boots.
And you think arsenal have come out of this badly!?
Caporegime
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What on earth are you talking about, Pires ruined his knee the season after he left, came back and had 2 brilliant seasons for Villareal, he was brilliant when he left. Barca buy good and bad players, thats life, when they got Hleb, they realised he was **** and essentially never played him. They saw something, they bought him, they tried him they laughed and never went to him again. Wenger saw something, bought him, tried him, and benched two players 10 times as good as him for years then had him taken off Arsenal rather than getting rid. He had 3 good years left in him, minimum, had his knee not been knacked again the first season at Villareal, he might have lasted even better than that. He hadn't grown old, he hadn't lost a single ounce of pace or ability at that point. Flamini, wasn't close to old, neither was Edu, and Gilberto a couple years after he was forced out was still the best DM in the world cup.
Flamini IS a good player, he was a good player for Arsenal, he was FREE to keep, wanted to stay, and only left because Wenger dropped him for crap players. He also went on to start play over half the league games for Milan for 3 years after he left, mostly seemingly not still there because he had "free transfer" style wages at AC, and by all accounts turned down a significantly decreased contract extention because clubs don't want to give the same money to free transfer players on a second contract.
Selling someone for whatever reason, Beckham/Fergie had a falling out, Ronaldo because he wanted to go and both were good deals and then new buys not being as good is one situation. HAVING the replacement, the replacement being worse, massively worse, and getting rid of players who wanted to stay, in favour of those who were worse is not even close to the same situation.
The equivalent situation would be buying Welbeck, seeing he's crap, playing him ahead of Ronaldo, then forcing Ronaldo out when Ronaldo wanted to stay.
That is what happened at Arsenal with Gilberto, Flamini, Edu, Pires, Reyes, Eduardo, Arshavin, Eboue, etc, etc, etc.
Can you not see how mental it is to have a player again in Utd terms, worse than Ronaldo, but you bench Ronaldo and forced him to leave when he infact wanted to stay?
Pires was aside from Henry, our best player, flat out, Hleb was almost our worst. Flamini wasn't the best player, he was solid though and absolutely miles ahead of Song/Denilson/Diaby who we pushed him out to favour. Gilberto was one of our best players, and again we shoved him out to favour crap players.
If Pires WANTED to leave, forced his way out, and we bought Hleb and he turned out to be crap... that wouldn't be Wenger's fault, as long as he recognised Hleb was crap and got rid..... this isn't what happened.
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I didn't realise you were privy to their private discussions. I bow to your greater knowledge...
You too can read football related news sites! It's definitely a money related issue though i'm not sure if the figure is correct.
Caporegime
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Average.... is miles and miles better than the terrible trio(and the other 4-5 meh players we had). He was also importantly a good utility man, which costs us. How much would we kill to have someone like Flamini to fill in when Wilshire was injured instead of crap players, and this season he could fill in at left back instead of Santos. A couple utility players can make a huge difference.
His contract however was expiring because rather than give him a sensible contract, not a massive one, but 30-35k a week(he was on 20-25k iirc) and not treating him like poo, and he wouldn't have been negotiating on the basis of other clubs being able to offer him "free transfer" wages. We didn't offer him a contract as Wenger saw his replacements as ready, same reason we didn't offer Gilberto a contract. Both could and should have gotten contract extensions the previous season and there would have been no problem. Again as I keep saying, ultimately Wenger saw Diaby/Denilson/Song, decided they were as good/better than Flamini/Gilberto and made the concious decision to allow them to leave as he had replacements ready.
When you decide Diaby/Song/Denilson are quality players worth getting rid of Gilberto for, and starting Hleb over Pires, that is your fundamental problem, Wenger has lost all sense of what makes a good player. He consistently for 8 years, starts worse players over better ones, lets better players leave usually on the cheap in favour of keeping worse players in the team.
Its also bad business, had we given Flamini a 35k a week contract, or 500k a season extra, and then we decided to get rid of him the next year, for 500k, we could have made 5-10mil selling him, instead he left on a free.
Since then we've walked into the last season of contract trouble keeping players thing repeatedly, Nasri, RVP and several others, because he's too stupid to sort it out a year earlier.