The Arsenal Club Thread **No Spoilers**Updated Rules - Please read before posting**

[Combat Fighter]

Are you so naive that you really think Arsenal will risk him going on a free?

Not a chance. They'll grab 50m if they can. Arsenal are not a football club any more, just a business more interested in money than success. Kroenke has the final say and he will not lose 50m. What's the point in keeping an unhappy player for a year only to lose him on a free? Doesn't make sense.

You need to look at the bigger picture.

Unless he's the difference between eg. a title challenge/Champions League qualification and missing out on the top four altogether. Then it's far more finely balanced.

Exactly.

 

[Nemeses]

Most of the protests seem to be from younger fans, probably those that started supporting the club during the invincibles era etc, now things aren't going their way they start their toys out the pram in a big way. It won't be different under another manager, you can't expect anything when there's 5-6 teams all capable of winning the league.

This, its the plastic fans who moan the most, AW is and has been brilliant for us, we can not compete financially with the likes of Manu'ure, Chelski, or the oil slick, I truly believe that all clubs should be run like arsenal, which is the only fair way, spend what you make, in the real world.

Besides the very last day (I think) where we saw a AW out protest march (in the streets and very few had arsenal shirts on maybe 10) I have NEVER seen more than 5 AW out placards in the stadium, so its very much a media driven campaign to get rid of AW, if in the stadium on matchdays i saw even 15% of the fans protesting i would maybe agree, that there is a issue, but there never is and the 5 or so singing AW out, are drowned out by the 40K plus singing his praise, but hey the AW out plastic fans think their minority is WAYYYY more important than what the majority want.

Just go back and look at any footage in the stadium and you will see there are always soo few, maybe i missed a match where there were loads, if so pls point me to a photo of it.

 

[iamthenugget]

This, its the plastic fans who moan the most, AW is and has been brilliant for us, we can not compete financially with the likes of Manu'ure, Chelski, or the oil slick, I truly believe that all clubs should be run like arsenal, which is the only fair way, spend what you make, in the real world.

Besides the very last day (I think) where we saw a AW out protest march (in the streets and very few had arsenal shirts on maybe 10) I have NEVER seen more than 5 AW out placards in the stadium, so its very much a media driven campaign to get rid of AW, if in the stadium on matchdays i saw even 15% of the fans protesting i would maybe agree, that there is a issue, but there never is and the 5 or so singing AW out, are drowned out by the 40K plus singing his praise, but hey the AW out plastic fans think their minority is WAYYYY more important than what the majority want.

Just go back and look at any footage in the stadium and you will see there are always soo few, maybe i missed a match where there were loads, if so pls point me to a photo of it.

to an extent i agree fully with everything u have said. now i have a soft spot for arsenal thru my own teams historical link and i have 3 or 4 good friends who are arsenal die hards however i cannot for the life of me understand why wenger gets so much slack.

in fact i have my own theory that offends and stimulates debate but honestly name me one so called big club that would accept the mediocraty that wenger offers.

a club like arsenal should be challenging for the title every season and finishing 2nd should be classed as a failure but accepting 4th as a bonus prize with an occasional cup is totally unacceptable.

how wenger is still arsenal manager beggers belief still small club mentality equals small club ambition

 

[Nemeses]

We never accept settling for 4th place that's another media driven point, but then the gulliable will always listen to what the media say.

We as a club challenge for every title, there are very few clubs in the world as successful as us, and somehow to,you take this as a small club mentality, I get the feeling football is not something you follow a lot but just read what the back pages say.

One thing I will add, if people break down the wins to money spent, we always preform above our level, no other club in the prem can say that.

We could also be like pool, or the spuds and have 25 different managers between the 2, and no one can say either have been more successful than us.

 

[Trusty]

Can Arsenal really compete on all front's? You see both the Manchester clubs spending big amounts, Chelsea have got a deep pocketed owner who loves football, can they really spend over a £100m each transfer window? I'm not sure

 

[Nemeses]

Can Arsenal really compete on all front's? You see both the Manchester clubs spending big amounts, Chelsea have got a deep pocketed owner who loves football, can they really spend over a £100m each transfer window? I'm not sure

It's not the 100m over a window I'm pretty sure arsenal could spend a lot more than that in this window, And lest around 100m in the main window most season, I think people always get it wrong about Arsenal both ways they either say they can't spend 1-200m a season, or they won't. They can, what they can't do if they buy those can type of players is carry the wages.

If one player comes in and wants 250k/gets week, then there is the knock on, that every other player and their agent coming knocking for a increase, its the wages that where we cannot compete. Well v man'ure, chelski, Oil-slick)
Funny thing is if fair play was implemted and inforced correctly none of those clubs could afford their wages.

 

[Trusty]

Hmm i'm not sure but i get the suspicion that Arsenal can't spend that amount consistently. It's only recently they've been able to spend a bigger amount, but it does seem to be in line with the extra money received from viewing rights. They aren't going up and above what the other teams are spending.

 

[rebel rebel]

I think we have kept a large amount of cash in reserve for situations like not finishing in the top 4. Which is why you may find we spend more this summer than usual. When we first moved to the new stadium we definitely couldn't spend much, this was why we were always selling our best players. I'm pretty sure Manchester City ended up paying for quite a bit of the Emirates. Which is funny as they didn't pay for their own stadium.

 

[drunkenmaster]

We never accept settling for 4th place that's another media driven point, but then the gulliable will always listen to what the media say.

We as a club challenge for every title, there are very few clubs in the world as successful as us, and somehow to,you take this as a small club mentality, I get the feeling football is not something you follow a lot but just read what the back pages say.

One thing I will add, if people break down the wins to money spent, we always preform above our level, no other club in the prem can say that.

We could also be like pool, or the spuds and have 25 different managers between the 2, and no one can say either have been more successful than us.

In what sense are we always performing above our level? We came 5th, we have the 4th highest wage spend, we spent more than Spurs and Liverpool in transfers recently and finished behind both. Utd overspent and performed poorly, by that measure they were worse than us but not massively.

Arsenal have for a very long time had the 4th highest wage spend and we've come 4th more often than not, we certainly aren't performing above our level. Spurs and Liverpool both beat us on less money, significantly less money. Spurs have a roughly 110mil wage spend and ~20mil net transfer spend for the past three seasons, Arsenal are at roughly 195mil wage spend and 150mil or so net transfer spend in the last three years and Spurs destroyed us this year, both overall in the table and actually in the last game against us.

Throughout the past decade we've been mostly spending around double what Spurs do on wages, beating them wasn't performing above our level at all.

In the CL we've been beaten in recent years by Monaco, Milan, and Dortmund/Atletico have repeatedly gotten to later stages of the competition than us and all of them spend less, some considerably so. We haven't performed above our level in any competition in a very very long time. Even now two seasons ago when Leicester won, we had a pitiful points total, other teams being bad doesn't change the level we were at. With the other big teams all having disastrous years we managed..... no more points than normal and lost to Leicester. We were higher in the league but performed no better than normal, it was categorically the case that Chelsea, Utd and City were drastically worse than normal.

As for the last part of that statement, excluding Spurs, many many teams can say they performed above their level, Leicester sticks out, Stoke with a pretty damn low spend do very well to finish top half repeatedly under Hughes, Everton have crap commercial income, poor match day income and a comparatively low wage bill and transfer spend yet consistent compete for europa league spots with the odd push for a CL spot, they perform drastically better in terms of money spent per point than Arsenal do.

Arsenal 75 points, 195mil wage bill gives around 2.6mil per point. Everton with 61 points with a roughly £85mil wage bill gives £1.4mil per point. Spurs at 110mil for 86 points is even lower at 1.28mil per point. Chelsea got 93 points with a £218mil wage bill, 2.34mil per point, far lower than Arsenal's. Utd's would be embarrassing. I'm mostly going off 2015/16 wages for simplicity, even so Utd would be 220mil for 69 points for 3.2mil per point and the real numbers would be worse still for Utd as they saw afaik the largest increase in wage bill this season due to the likes of Zlatan.

But the idea that Arsenal spend very little and are financially punching above their weight is and always has been utter BS. Arsenal since 97/98 or so were in the top two league spenders up to around the 04/05 period when they became consistently third, then 4th highest spenders behind Chelsea then City. That whole time the gap in spending back to Spurs/Everton has been massive. Liverpool are weird, they had the CL wage spend but dropped out of top 4, wages went down but slowly then they spent huge on english players for big fees. So they sit almost midway between Arsenal and Spurs in wage spend. Still Arsenal are dramatically closer to the likes of Chelsea/City in spending than the likes of Spurs.

 

[opethdisciple]

Can Arsenal really compete on all front's? You see both the Manchester clubs spending big amounts, Chelsea have got a deep pocketed owner who loves football, can they really spend over a £100m each transfer window? I'm not sure

£100 million every window? No. But every club is meant to be spending within their means that's what FIFA's financial fair play rules say.

Today's rumour of Sanchez swap for Aguero.... I'd take that to be honest. I'd take that over money anyway. Remember Wenger is not the best at actually getting deals over the line so with Aguero in the bag as a swap for Sanchez, OK lets do it.

Retrospectively we bought Sanchez cheaply. He's worth more than £40 million.

Also I think the Lacazette deal is going to happen. They have just signed a forward (Traore from Chelsea) so hopefully that means Lacazette is available now.

Also Mahrez rumours hotting up.

And there is that rumour of Martial from United too.

 

[drunkenmaster]

I think we have kept a large amount of cash in reserve for situations like not finishing in the top 4. Which is why you may find we spend more this summer than usual. When we first moved to the new stadium we definitely couldn't spend much, this was why we were always selling our best players. I'm pretty sure Manchester City ended up paying for quite a bit of the Emirates. Which is funny as they didn't pay for their own stadium.

Again, unfortunately none of that is true, we keep cash in the bank account because Wenger has some principle about how winning without spending is 'better', Kroenke gets accused of not wanting to back Arsenal but that money hasn't been taken out of the club either. Wenger also spends plenty and gets excused with how Arsenal didn't have money to spend because of the stadium.

THe stadium finances are simple, we pay back about 18mil a year in loans, we bring in an extra 50mil a year from the new stadium, the loans were never at any time an issue. We always had more money to spend since the move. Wenger increased our wages from~70mil a year before the move to the new stadium to ~ 100mil a year shortly after the move to ~200mil a year this season. That is where the money went, it wasn't on massive loans, it wasn't on anything else. He CHOOSES to give Walcott 120k a week for a guy who is injured for major portions of the season and if lucky has 2 good months a season instead of saving it and having 50mil extra year to spend. We have a HUGE squad of often unused and no where near good enough players. We don't have the same available cash for transfers as City/Chelsea, but part of that is success and Arsenal's very weak commercial income(compared to those guys). But we have plenty of money and there was no point we had to sell players.

Those players left because they stayed till they felt they had no chance to win things with Arsenal so left, nothing more or less. At the time for instance RVP or Fabregas left we had anything between 150-240mil of cash in the accounts, it changed over time, up and down, one year we spend 80mil replacing people, another year we're flush from sales. At no time we we even close to needing to sell any of our key players after the stadium move. Sell Fab for 30mil but had say 180mil in our cash account at the time? He left because he couldn't see winning a title with Arsenal if he stayed.

 

[B1gbeard]

to an extent i agree fully with everything u have said. now i have a soft spot for arsenal thru my own teams historical link and i have 3 or 4 good friends who are arsenal die hards however i cannot for the life of me understand why wenger gets so much slack.

in fact i have my own theory that offends and stimulates debate but honestly name me one so called big club that would accept the mediocraty that wenger offers.

a club like arsenal should be challenging for the title every season and finishing 2nd should be classed as a failure but accepting 4th as a bonus prize with an occasional cup is totally unacceptable.

how wenger is still arsenal manager beggers belief still small club mentality equals small club ambition

I'd be interested to know why you think Arsenal or football even is at a point where 2nd would be classified as failure (genuinely interested)? Previous accomplishments really mean nothing in the PL at the moment. Look at Liverpool. Terribly mediocre in the PL and yet still trading off of past achievements. I think any Arsenal fan who thinks finishing in the top 4 is failure or not good enough have completely unrealistic expectations.

I honestly feel a lot of discontented Arsenal fans probably don't understand exactly what we have and get caught up in what the media churns out. You can track the meme's about Arsenal as they get spread. Alun Shaver for example will say "Oh Arsenal don't like it up em" with little wit or intelligence and you bet your bottom dollar that a few days later you'll hear "Oh Arsenal don't like it up em" by Jamey Rodcrapp (names changed to protect the innocent). That's essentially all the fans hear and unfortunately our own actual thoughts drown in the utter crap. It's amazing how someone can play a sport for so long and yet be completely incapable of talking about it intelligently.

I think Arsenal are about where we probably should be. Fighting for a top 4 spot with a very outside chance of winning the whole caboodle and no amount of money that we can afford without a sugar daddy or new management will change that.

 

[rebel rebel]

Jens Lehmann coming in as a first team coach. 

 

[drunkenmaster]

There is news suggesting that Cazorla will be out for the season again.... all this following 3 weeks he was supposed to be out for after he got injured. Also the story says that in that game against Ludogorets he said he had pain at half time but Wenger kept him on and his achilles are now completely screwed up after multiple operations. What the hell is going on, we destroyed Vermaelen's career(well playing career, he got paid loads to not play for Barca) with achilles problems, with a simple problem becoming a long term issue, a supposedly fairly drastic surgical option to prevent the problem happening again and continued problems anyway. Kos supposedly has huge achilles problems and now plays in pain and most games he miss is to give his achilles a break, now Cazorla will miss two full seasons with achilles problems. Three guys with awful achilles problems, insane time out after being said to have minor injuries, a lot of surgery being used which all seems to fail miserably, what kind of chop shop are we running.

Also again the situation where in a stupid as hell game a guy who says he's hurt is asked to play, Ludogorets, a nothing team that we thrashed silly, why risk Caz in such a game? We did the same with Ozil where he had an injury, played on then missed months, it happens time and time and time again. A decade and Wenger still doesn't learn on these things, still makes the same mistakes. Player says something is up in a game that has zero importance, protect the damn player.

 

[opethdisciple]

See I'm thinking to my self it's all nice and all bringing in Lacazette, but with talk today that Carzola is as good as finished at Arsenal, it's not too unfeasible to think if Wenger had played his cards right we could have both Fabregas and Kante returning for preseason training.

 

[jonneymendoza]

See I'm thinking to my self it's all nice and all bringing in Lacazette, but with talk today that Carzola is as good as finished at Arsenal, it's not too unfeasible to think if Wenger had played his cards right we could have both Fabregas and Kante returning for preseason training.

well if we can keep Ozil it will be better than nothing. Sanchez can go. He deserves better but we need a replacement.

We also need to tie up the Ox and get rid of walcott and Wilshere

 

[robfosters]

well if we can keep Ozil it will be better than nothing. Sanchez can go. He deserves better but we need a replacement.

We also need to tie up the Ox and get rid of walcott and Wilshere

I think Ozil's done and dusted really. He is staying at Arsenal, said so himself. Just got to finalise the contract, but someone who is a bit of in the know said two weeks ago that the contract is 90% done. Wages and bonuses all sorted. Just a minor couple of things to sort out and then he will sign it.

I get the feeling Arsenal might be stringing out a bit in the hope that they can announce Alexis and Ozil together. What a humongous boost that would be for the fans going into the new season.

Fwiw, I think this is going to be a huge season for Ozil. Finally going to have an out and out striker with bags of pace to feed. What he's been after since he's been here. Can you imagine what he would have been like with Henry? That would have been frightening!

 

[Nemeses]

Ozil will stay, really doubt Sanchez will be there next year, just so long as he does not got to citeh, or any other prem club.
I would rather as a club (easy for me to say as it's not my money) lose him next yeR on a free if that was the only choice.

And unfortunately I'm still not sold on Lacazette seen him do some good stuff, but time will tell.

 

[Iron-man]

looking forward to Lacazette especially if they secure Ozil as I think they will work well together. Going to have a watch at the weekend but still feel that we need to get rid of a handful of players and bring in another first team player.

Rumours Elnenhy turned down Leicester but is in talks with Galatasary so could be movement there but he isn't the one I would get shot of.

Big season coming up for Xhaka aswell as I think he could be a fantastic player in this league but obviously needs to learn to tackle

 

[opethdisciple]

Kolasinac was excellent yesterday. A real marauding power house. I think he can defend as well.

I am concerned however that Arsene's emphasis this summer is on attacking recruitment. I would really like us to bring in a top class centre back considering we are going to be playing with three now.

In typical Wenger fashion it seems he is going to try and convert Elneny to CB. Against classy forwards the poor guy is going to get ripped apart.