Recovering Our Image

As we all know, the single biggest issue we are facing as a club is that our best performers want to leave as soon as they produce their best campaigns. After the departure terminal opened back when Vieira was told to leave for Juventus, the outgoing traffic has drastically increased with big performers leaving on an annual basis. The superstitious amongst us could argue that Wenger's ruthlessness in dismantling the Invincible's has now resulted in the players taking the plunge before they are pushed.

The precedent has been set. It's standard practice for our top players to leave the club, and this attitude has no doubt filtered right down to the youngest playing members of our club. We have a millstone around our neck in the form of -no trophies in x years- which is getting heavier each year, and all the more difficult to destroy. We can't possibly build a sustained challenge for success, if we are constantly being eaten away at the core through losing star players. The issue is now greater than money or success, or is it? Will a higher wage coerce Song into rejecting Barcelona's overtures, will Van Persie have signed a new contract if we were domestic champions?

Or is it more simple than that, have we opened the door far too wide for the vultures to forever feed off our flesh? Have we let open Pandora's box, and allowed our rivals from yesteryear taste blood and return for more? Have we truly become a selling club in the eyes of the leading pack, hence why they keep on returning, and a stepping stone for players, hence why they continue to leave? Has our image been completely destroyed? It's not like money didn't rule before. It's not like we didn't previously employ top class players. However, our image was stronger, and sure we were successful, but our rivals knew the deal. How do we ever recover from this painstaking predicament?

What a time to start this thread, recovering our image lol, we just lost it completely once again

Song and Walcott will probably leave, a season later it might be Ox and whoever performs better than last season.

It will go on until we finally drop out of the CL positions, and our 'self-sustainable' project happens to be a big pile of ****.

If anything, we've enhanced what image we might have lost with this current crop of transfers. I havent met a friend or collegue at work who doesnt think we've actually improved our team.

Its not the image that we've lost, we're still an attractive club and players still want to come here with enought belief that they will win things. Its within the fans and media that seem to see AFC as some winded fighter staggering, going on about not having won a title in 7seasons as the biggest factor in "our decline".

I'll agree we have been shaken somewhat over the past few years and players that have left have been big ones, but hell Ronaldo left Utd in that same time. We're not the only team who loose some big names.

If anything, this transfer window has given me renewed optimisim that we're better now then for a long time. The times, they are a changing.

Yeah awful timing

Not the time to talk about this, too much asterisks would be involved.

I think we as fans should put things in perspective. We are far harder on our club than others are on us. Our image is not in tatters as the headline suggests. We are the third best club in London and regulars on the European stage. Nothing to be embarrassed about.
The challenge is not our image but our business model. If we are to follow self sufficiency we will have to figure out a way to balance payrolls so the van persies earn significantly more than the diabys and garner revenue that allows us to bid for top players. That will bring success and when you are successful people want to be a part of your success.

Yep, our business model makes us an eternal construction site.

It's not like there are no other business models possible. I refuse to believe that a little more investment is impossible or suicidal. Even think it's counterprodutive the way the club is run. The value of our brand (not the way I think, but the way the board should think) has gone down the drain.

What's been happening in the last few years is a prime example of how to F*** up something good.

We need change at board level.

Offering 200K a week would soon recover the 'image'.

When City was hoovering up players like Toure from Barca and yet didn't even have CL football (let alone won a trophy for 50 years) was it image or getting £200K a week that made up their minds?

If Arsenal could offer that sort of money then problem solved. Maybe things will equalise when FFP is finally in place, in which case you'll see a change.

The short-term answer is to sign players at or near their peak so will give you their best years (rather than buggering off just as they come good). Something which Wenger seems to have been trying to address by signing the likes of Arteta, Mertesacker, Podolski, Giroud, Cazorla, Santos.

Arsenal is the biggest club in London and one of the strongest in Europe none-the-less. It's only domestic tribalism that muddies this.

I think we as fans should put things in perspective. We are far harder on our club than others are on us. Our image is not in tatters as the headline suggests. We are the third best club in London and regulars on the European stage. Nothing to be embarrassed about.
The challenge is not our image but our business model. If we are to follow self sufficiency we will have to figure out a way to balance payrolls so the van persies earn significantly more than the diabys and garner revenue that allows us to bid for top players. That will bring success and when you are successful people want to be a part of your success.

third best club in London? Surely its not quite that bad yet?

We're the Ajax of England.

Why is everyone so scared with RVP gone?? Yes he was the best player in the world last year and had the best season ever. But as a team we can be much stronger with Cazorla, Podolski and Giroud.

I will bet anyone that he will turn back to glass and watch from the touchline the rest of his career or he will become a benchwarmer like the others who have left.

We're the Ajax of England.

You're a fairly good poster and all, but seriously mate, stop your hyperbole knee jerking - it's embarrassing.

Well if Song goes then that is pretty much all our established first team players that have left in the past few years. I think TV will be a better Captain for us anyway... he could really make the difference for us to make us into a cohesive unit.

We're the Ajax of England.

You're a fairly good poster and all, but seriously mate, stop your hyperbole knee jerking - it's embarrassing.

It's mostly tongue in cheek to be fair.

@a_fourteen - What the fck you on about 'third best club in London'?

For what its worth, I wrote this thread before the breaking news. ******* hell, what a devastating blow.

PR was this transfer is ******* terrible.

Squad wise....we are still stronger, and it will show in the coming games.

Henry, Vieira, Toure, Adebayor, Clichy, Nasri, Fabregas, RVP all poached at their peak.

It's mostly tongue in cheek to be fair.

Usually they have a '!' or a smiley. I'll take your word for it though.

For what its worth, I wrote this thread before the breaking news. ******* hell, what a devastating blow.

Jinx.

Define irony...

The only way to recover our image is to break the precedent by forcing an unsettled player to stay to set an example. But most importantly we have to win trophies. It's the be all end all.

Players will leave for better wages. Until you pay them competitively it wont stop.

People fail to accept the reality of modern football though. Just look at the Theo threads, people want him to play for less than half whay other players at the top clubs play for.

Sure he meant England.

We're a club who strive for CL football, that's our objective. Players have changed, same goal remains and will probably be achieved.

Players will leave for better wages. Until you pay them competitively it wont stop.

People fail to accept the reality of modern football though. Just look at the Theo threads, people want him to play for less than half whay other players at the top clubs play for.

True.


My main issue is that our board lack the cojones and/or creativity to make sure we're not drowning in the reality of modern football. We don't have to match them pound for pound, but should try harder to get closer.

Disappointed in Wenger too for not being able to make them change policies. If we go on like this it's only a matter of (short) time before we're out of the CL.

Being sub-top after being top for a while s***s big time. Have to reset to hoping we win the FA Cup like decades ago (when that was the best we could hope for).

We can only recover our image on the pitch. If we win, we get success. If we get success players want to stay here. When was the last time a first team player left City, Utd, or Chelsea? (excluding Drogba)

Obviously big salaries also help, so we need both, success and bigger salaries, and as success generates more income, we could afford the salaries.

To do all the above we need to invest, and that is the part we are not doing and the 3 teams mentioned above are!

We are a feeder club. Deal with it and move on.

You will realise there's no image to be 'recovered'

Add to that signing a marquee replacement....Jovetic or something like that would go some way to re-establishing some credibility.

I think Wenger should go all out for league cup this year just to get the trophy millstone gone from around our necks, then we can push onto other things off the back of it

If we re-structure the wage system it will allow for us to pay higher wages to top performers. We could pay RVP 200k if players like Diaby, Chamakh and Squid weren't earning 60-70k.

But it does concern me that players at Chelsea, City, United and even Liverpool don't want to leave.

Obviously big salaries also help, so we need both, success and bigger salaries, and as success generates more income, we could afford the salaries.

Thats backwards. You get the success by paying the salaries, not the other way around.

You can't base wage payments on predicted success anyway, thats exactly what Leeds did. We don't need to do that anyway, we're easily capable of paying the first 11 more than they get now.

We are a feeder club. Deal with it and move on.

You will realise there's no image to be 'recovered'

Realise we've been a feeder club for a while, but we're still not far off from being able to compete.

The EPL is the greatest league in the world, London is one of the richest cities in the world, we're the club from London with the most history. We should be able to attract money.