You used Wenger in your argument of there being too much money floating round, when he has used that excuse for countless transfer windows now.
Out of the 3 'big' signings we have been linked with only one has actually turned us down, Costa - who got a nice pay increase off the back of our interest. Willian we never had a bid accepted and Mhktaryan (??) I dont think anyone knows the true story (I've seen stories claiming 3rd party ownership issues prevented us from getting him, I've seen stories saying we wouldn't go above our intial rejected bid). Regardles, he just signed for the auropean finalist, no shame in losing out to him if we had a bid accepted, I'm doubtful.
I can't recall Wenger every saying that before but I'll take your word for it. As I've said, it's very true this summer though. We were willing to pay the asking price for Costa and Mhktaryan but for differing reasons we missed out. Both times it was out of the clubs control - I have no doubt that we'd have paid more wages than both Atletico and Dortmund.
We're apparently back in for Ilori, depsite walking away becuase we didnt want to meet the asking price. if he signs do you think we've low balled again or we will be have paid the price they want? Do you think we would have paid the 18million for Papadopolous if he had no knee issues or do you think we would have gone it at 12million like we did with knee issues?
This isn't football manager nor are we buying players with monopoly money. We don't have a bottomless pit of money to throw around and if a player doesn't work out just dump him and throw cash at a replacement.
Who knows why we're back in for Ilori. Maybe we always were willing to eventually pay ~£6m for him but hoped we could pressure Lisbon into selling him on the cheap. It's a negotiation, you don't make you best offer straight away. Maybe on the other hand we've been pressured into paying slightly more than we wanted because of the injuries to Coates and now Toure (who'll no doubt be out for a couple of months).
Had Papadopoulos not had any injuries then we'd have probably had very little chance in signing him at all. Who knows whether we'd have been willing to pay £18m but if the club were willing to gamble £12m on him when there's question marks over his knee, I'd imagine we would have.
We know the owners admire Arsenal business model and they want to ape it, but it seems they are also adopting their transfer strategy too.
The point is, if we want a player then pay the rate, dicking around over a few mill here and there makes us look like chumps. I'd rather we go in balls deep and make mistakes than not at all. Before you bring up Downing & Carroll & Adam - the problem wasn't the amount they signed for, it was the fact we were looking at them in the 1st place.
Show me the similarities in transfer strategy. They want to run the club in a self sustaining way which is a good thing (although they have put £70m odd into the club) but since they've taken over we've continually had money available to spend and spent it.
And how can you say we should pay what it takes to sign a player if we want them and then say not to bring up Downing and Carroll? It doesn't matter who you're looking at, whether it's Downing or Willian, every player has a value and we're not in a position to spend any significant amount beyond that value.
We went after 3 big money transfers and with 2 of them we missed out through no fault or lack of effort/willingness from the club. Even the Willian deal, I don't know what you expect. If you've got the extra £10-15m, that we'd have needed (over the course of a 4 year deal) to have made the deal happen, then give it to the club.
It's a sad reality that without CL football and without either a Sheikh or a massive windfall from the sale of Suarez, we're going to struggle to sign big name players when other clubs (that have CL and/or $$) come in for them. We need to wait for the right opportunities and spend wisely, like we did when we signed Suarez, Coutinho & Sturridge and like we tried with both Papa and Willian this summer.
Although we are desperate for new signings...
