When Was The Damage Done?

[bingobob]

Fwiw it's often downplayed how much Wenger and Arsenal were a match made in heaven. He found in our board and eventual owner Kroenke synergy in the way things could and should be done. I've no doubt Arsène loved and still loves Arsenal but he was given an opportunity to mould the club in his beliefs. The low squad cost narrative is one that he oversaw and established. And one that when we ended our long term commercial deals transformed into a high squad cost, all be it still spending sustainably.

Arsène didn't spend much because Arsène decided his philosophy was how to do things. If anything squad cost proponents should be critical of Arsène. Just a thought.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Fwiw it's often downplayed how much Wenger and Arsenal were a match made in heaven. He found in our board and eventual owner Kroenke synergy in the way things could and should be done. I've no doubt Arsène loved and still loves Arsenal but he was given an opportunity to mould the club in his beliefs. The low squad cost narrative is one that he oversaw and established. And one that when we ended our long term commercial deals transformed into a high squad cost, all be it still spending sustainably.

Arsène didn't spend much because Arsène decided his philosophy was how to do things. If anything squad cost proponents should be critical of Arsène. Just a thought.

Stupid argument anyway for people like myself talking about his years from 2013 onwards.

Spent close to £400M but we didn't improve. In previous years spending nothing he did the exact same.

Says a lot about his decline as a manager and those are the years we should've replaced him.

 

[bingobob]

Stupid argument anyway for people like myself talking about his years from 2013 onwards.

Spent close to £400M but we didn't improve. In previous years spending nothing he did the exact same.

Says a lot about his decline as a manager and those are the years we should've replaced him.

I'll preface this by saying it cannot be understated how revolutionary and great Wenger was as a manager. I also don't believe what I'm about to write but if I was Makingtrax or another user who believes in squad cost then the decline is self evident. When Wenger arrived we were one of the biggest spending clubs, we achieved great things, we then spent less but still had a fantastic squad from previous spend and heights but achieved far less. Wenger started spending big and won 2 Fa cups. Wenger was just a cheque book manager but a bad one at that. After an initial burst he flopped. He broke club records and domestic records for spend and he failed to have the same impact as Pep, Mourinho, Klopp and Ferguson when they spent big.

 

[goonergaz]

I think the problem was the transfer landscape had completely changed.

No longer were there a flow of sub £10m players you could take a gamble on, those are now £30-50m. Wenger had a vision but he got totally blind-sided by the money men coming in and completely changing the dynamics.

You had those financed teams picking the best talent and loaning out rather than risk letting us pick them up. They also started raiding us to make us weaker and cause unrest.

Then, after the tight years we made a couple of good signings (Sanchez and Özil) but we never pushed on like we should have and the purchases just started getting worse, and much of this (I personally think) was down to a reluctance to spend 'the right amount' that a player is 'worth'.

To put it another way, there is a saying "buy cheap, buy twice". Essentially it's better to pay £70m for the right player than (say) £45m for someone who might be as good. But it's hard when you want to get the best value...and that's what I feel Wenger was trying to do.

What was/is upsetting is the reluctance (which seems to be with all the managers we have) to cast certain players adrift. This makes me think that there is pressure from above...but then the Özil scenario is just weird, we are essentially paying £350k p/w for nothing, we may as well terminate the contract so at least the negativity around it will go.

 

[Makingtrax]

But then when Arsène had money again from 2013/2014 we didn't improve from getting into CL places, we didn't come close to challenging for a title...

So he had declined. If it was his early years and we just went through a stadium build and he started spending he would've won titles. But he didn't, because of a decline. Which is only natural and happens with every single manager as they age.

Arsenal rose to having the 5th most expensive squad by 2015/16 according to CIES figures. Before that 2004 to 2012 they were below that. Name me another club spending 5th in the league that challenged for a title?

 

[Makingtrax]

The low squad cost narrative is one that he oversaw and established. And one that when we ended our long term commercial deals transformed into a high squad cost, all be it still spending sustainably.

Where do get this stuff from . Wenger was an employee, Kroenke was the owner. During the stadium build our spend was low through necessity. Wenger’s squad was never more than 5th in the league even at it’s highest according to independent figures.

You’re just making stuff up.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Arsenal rose to having the 5th most expensive squad by 2015/16 according to CIES figures. Before that 2004 to 2012 they were below that. Name me another club spending 5th in the league that challenged for a title?

You'd make an excellent dickhead politician avoiding points like they're the plague.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Mod Edit: can you make just one post today without name-calling>

 

[Makingtrax]

Stupid argument anyway for people like myself talking about his years from 2013 onwards.

Spent close to £400M but we didn't improve. In previous years spending nothing he did the exact same.

Says a lot about his decline as a manager and those are the years we should've replaced him.

2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16 is not enough years to transform a squad when you’re coming out of austerity and in 2014/15 we only bought Özil of note.

Yet we went from 4th to 3rd to 2nd and won two FA Cups. That is an improvement. The fact that you don’t want to see it because of your agenda doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The last time we were 2nd and won a cup was 2004/5 before the stadium build started to bite.

 

[Makingtrax]

.

As soon as you start to lose ground you start throwing insults. You need to leave the forum if you can’t debate properly. @ mods

 

[Atlas]

On a superficial level it might seem like we weren’t spending money but we had one of the highest wage bills in the league. In 2008 for example we had the 3rd highest wage bill in the league.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/table/2009/jun/03/premier-league-turnover-wages-debt

A simple take would say we did well while being outspent by the rest of the league while the truth is our total spend has always been among the highest. If you think clubs like Sp**s were outspending us you need to look at the wage + transfer spend ours was much higher.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

As soon as you start to lose ground you start throwing insults. You need to leave the forum if you can’t debate properly. @ mods

The only person who cant debate here is yourself. You refuse to answer questions and are constantly against anything that's against Arsène. You dont have a bad word to say about him which is itself delusion. He isnt God, you can be negative against some things he did.

Delusional.

 

[novar]

Don't use money to defend Wenger, he didn't care about that learn from him.

 

[UpTheGunnerz]

The rot started during Wengers tenure and have only increased since.

 

[Macho]

The rot started during Wengers tenure and have only increased since.

Very poor signings aside which every manager has done, please expand?

if anything to me he gets more vindicated by the day to me.

 

[bingobob]

Where do get this stuff from . Wenger was an employee, Kroenke was the owner. During the stadium build our spend was low through necessity. Wenger’s squad was never more than 5th in the league even at it’s highest according to independent figures.

You’re just making stuff up.

Sometimes I wonder are you just taking the mick. Arsène was always a believer in a self funding model. He was one of the first to call for FFP and clubs spending in relation to their own income. Kroenke couldn't ask for a better manager and Wenger couldn't ask for a better owner.

 

[UpTheGunnerz]

Very poor signings aside which every manager has done, please expand?

if anything to me he gets more vindicated by the day to me.

A palpable sense of complacency and lack of responsibility among our troops. That started during Wengers latter day. Lack of winning mentality.

He shall have some cred for keeping it together relatively well all the way through his departure, even if we were clearly stagnating.
And the "lesser" teams in the league have become stronger now than in Wengers days, is my feeling.

 

[Atlas]

For all the talk of developing players we did a very poor job post Highbury of getting good value for our players. Fabregas for 30+m, RVP for 20+m, Nasri 20+m. Awful business there. Then guys like Diaby, Bendtner and Denilson stuck on the payroll for years on wages so high we couldn’t give them away. Turning down 60m for Alexis and losing him for worse than nothing by getting a player who was useless, letting Ramsey run down his contract. The amount of money lost due to poor player contract management has been staggering.

 

[novar]

Nasri for 20+m was ok at the time, only Fabregas and RVP were awful sales.

Fabregas really left us with no room to operate after all that Barca love campaign, RVP was just us being too nice and taking a gamble that backfired badly in our face.

 

[Atlas]

Nasri for 20+m was ok at the time, only Fabregas and RVP were awful sales.

Fabregas really left us with no room to operate after all that Barca love campaign, RVP was just us being too nice and taking a gamble that backfired badly in our face.

Look how Fergie handled the Ronaldo sale for example. Wenger never had the ruthlessness needed to get full value for Fabregas. How the **** does Fabregas go to Barca for around the same as Overmars did?

Nasri and RVP were allowed to run down their contracts into the last year before we panic sold for less than what they were worth. Obviously lessons weren’t learned and we ended up giving Özil an insane contract to keep him while Sanchez and Ramsey went into the last year again and ended up leaving for nothing.

It was a pathetic situation that doesn’t happen at Sp**s for example. Who is to blame for that?