Has Wenger taken us as far as he can?

[FinnGooner]

The Arsenal board have always thrown Wenger at the Wolves by talking up big warchests pre an underwhelming summer.

I get the feeling times have changed though, and even Wenger talks up more spending potential now.

It has according to Gab Marotti , part of him signing a new contract apparently hinged on him getting a decent sized budget 100 mill apparently .

Will this be seen as a confirmation of the fact that the guy has been financially hindered all these years?

For me, no. nothing the papers say will confirm anything because they all have a different story. If Arsène starts spending now and next two summers show that the Özil deal was indeed just a start of a new spending policy instead of singular case of opportunistic behaviour, then I will be convinced that Wenger's hands have been tied in the past few season regarding player transfers (obviously they've been tied to some degree compared to the managers of City and Chelsea).

And just for the record, I hope that he has been financially restricted and that we will now see transition but the messages have been so mixed between the board and Wenger that I'll just judge all of them by actions, not words.

 

[tap-in]

I think he has been financially restricted, no doubt in my mind. I just cant see him sitting back and selling the players we have in the last 4 years if we could afford to keep them. I know people go on about cash mountain but was it available to him? I dont think so!

Last year the rot stopped and we smashed our transfer record, new deals are very public and we had a good clear out last season, with B52 still to come this season. If it wasn't for the sale of JVP & Song that years set of accounts would have shown a loss, so people shouldnt be fooled into thinking we have always had money for Wenger to spend. This summer I expect him to do what is required ie CF, WF, DM + replacing those that leave ie RB, Keeper.

 

[dbig]

But I wanted C. Ronaldo AND Messi.

Now they say we can't have them? I'm giving up my season ticket.

 

[celestis]

Well even DD recently in an interview - was it for Arsène's thousandth game ?

Mentioned he was financially restricted .

 

[Jasard]

Fascinating if Wenger really did ask for a "war chest" in his contract. I really doubt it though. If it was true it would probably suggest he was fed up of taking the hit for the lack of spending.

 

[Anzac]

I don't believe it's been a case of financial restriction in the sense that the money has not been available/there, but more that it's been a case of the funds being there and available, but until these new deals it's essentially been a 1 off because of our single figure cash flow.

 

[a_fourteen]

Is anyone else worried about this quote

<a class="postlink" href="http://www1.skysports.com/transfer/news/12691/9321845/arsenal-director-lord-harris-of-peckham-insists-Arsène-wenger-will-have-money-to-spend" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www1.skysports.com/transfer/news ... y-to-spend</a>" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"We will support Arsène with the players he wants to buy. He has always been encouraged to spend."

Every time I hear something like this it gets em thinking the board want to keep the money and blame Wenger for not spending it.

"If Arsène has asked for any player then we have always backed him to go and buy. With the exception of Messi, Ronaldo or Bale, we could buy most players."

Just do it - no excuses.

Yet they bid 40+1 for Suarez? F.ck off.

 

[truth_hurts]

An FA cup win isn't significant enough to suggest that Wenger is the man to take us forward. it is how we use this win that will show whether he is still great. This is a team which Wenger has built up and put a lot of faith (but not money) into. This summer we have Champions league football, allegedly a lot of money and genuine optimism around the club.

Last summer we brought one of the worlds best players and bid or at least enquired about two top class strikers in Higuain and Özil. Cazorla is a 25-30m pounds player and his impact was noticable, Özil despite not reaching top form has took us up a notch and we need to be similarly ambitious this summer. If we are then I believe Wenger is the man to take us forwards.

IF our ambition is simply to replace Sagna, persevere with the likes of Diaby and wilshere hoping that they perform at the level that they are capable of whilst staying fit and supplementing our attack with the likes of Remy and Vela then no U will have zero faith in Wenger.

I want a quality full back any other replacements and at least 1 WOW! SIGNING OF AT LEAST cAZORLA prestige but hopefully Sol, Arshavin or Özil level.

 

[say yes]

"If Arsène has asked for any player then we have always backed him to go and buy. With the exception of Messi, Ronaldo or Bale, we could buy most players."

Just do it - no excuses.

Yet they bid 40+1 for Suarez? F.ck off.

We thought he had a £40m release class. How hard is this to understand?

 

[The_Playmaker]

"If Arsène has asked for any player then we have always backed him to go and buy. With the exception of Messi, Ronaldo or Bale, we could buy most players."

Just do it - no excuses.

Yet they bid 40+1 for Suarez? F.ck off.

We thought he had a £40m release class. How hard is this to understand?

Penny pinching and arrogance to the extreme. If we thought there was a clause we should have bid £42 million. Suarez was there for the taking.

 

[Caz19]

That's not penny pinching. How exactly is 2 million "pennies". If there was indeed a clause, throwing in an extra 2 million would

A.Be making Liverpool, one of our rivals,2 million richer than they should be
B.Be making us 2 million poorer than we should be.

I think some people have their heads to far up their own arse to realize just how much money that is. Forget about football for one sec, that is probably enough to feed some african countries for a year. It's probably more than what 90% of the clubs in England entire squad has costed - put together. It's a tremendous amount of money and just throwing it around needlessly is stupid and disrespectful. We're not a ****ing oil club.

 

[US_Gooner]

"If Arsène has asked for any player then we have always backed him to go and buy. With the exception of Messi, Ronaldo or Bale, we could buy most players."

Just do it - no excuses.

Yet they bid 40+1 for Suarez? F.ck off.

We thought he had a £40m release class. How hard is this to understand?

John Henry admitted there was a £40m release clause. He and Liverpool just ignored it.

The +£1 was stupid and naive and guaranteed to kill the deal.

Liverpool's owner admits Luis Suárez did have £40m release clause – reports
The Liverpool owner John Henry has reportedly admitted that Luis Suárez did have a £40m buyout clause but that the club simply refused to sell the player when Arsenal made their £40m plus one pound offer last summer.

At the time Liverpool were adamant that the Gunners' bid would not trigger the release of their striker, but Henry, speaking at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, appears to have suggested that the Reds simply took a hard line because "apparently these contracts don't seem to hold".

"Luis Suarez is the top scorer in the English Premier League, which is arguably the top soccer league in the world," Henry is reported to have said. "He had a buyout clause of £40m. Arsenal, one of our prime rivals, offered £40m plus £1. What we've found … is that contracts don't seem to mean a lot in England – actually, in world football.

"It doesn't matter how long a player's contract is, he can decide he's leaving. We sold a player, Fernando Torres, for £50m, that we did not want to sell, we were forced to.

"Since apparently these contracts don't seem to hold, we took the position that we're just not selling.

"It's been great for Luis, it's been great for us. We have three gentlemen up front Suárez, [Raheem] Sterling, and [Daniel]Sturridge, [they] are young, I think those three could be together for a long time."
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/mar/02/liverpool-john-henry-luis-suarez-clause

 

[say yes]

@US_Gooner,
I think that's because the clause wasn't binding mate? Suarez took the case to the PFA and they denied the clause held any weight.

That just sounds like bravado from John Henry:

Suarez's clause was tested by various lawyers & the PFA. John Henry has either been misquoted or not got his own wording right.

— Tony Barrett (@TonyBarretTimes) March 3, 2014

Also, whilst it makes for a good story - I highly doubt the £1 affected the deal in any major way. If we had followed up our failed 40m bid with a bid of 60m (as we should have) then Suarez would be an arsenal player right now.

@The_Playmaker,

The idea that we should have bid £42m from the start is laughable tbh, as Caz19 has pointed out.

Why the **** would we pay 42m for Suarez, when we thought we only needed to pay 40m?

 

[Monstar-Gunn4r]

My opinion of the +1 was a message to Liverpool saying we've been talking to Suarez without actually saying it which could have resulted in Arsenal being sued for tapping up a player. That is it not an insult or penny pinching it was a message.

What interests me more is the player's association saying there was no clause in the contract when there clearly was. There's something funny going on there.

 

[say yes]

Nobody has denied there was a clause. The problem is that the clause did not force Liverpool to sell. To clarify, here is what the PFA said about it:

"It quite clearly states £40million is a minimum offer for discussions, but it becomes really difficult with such clauses.
"There is a 'good faith' clause in relation to serious discussions but I can't say it is cast-iron buy-out clause."

Nothing funny going on.

Not sure why we'd send a '£1m message' taunting Liverpool either. We're a football club, not some taunting mafia organisation. Liverpool would know we'd been in contact with Suarez/his agent the second a bid was launched (and probably well before that). You don't launch a formal bid for a player unless you know they want to join you.

 

[US_Gooner]

Well, that was the PFA's take on it, but they have no say in the interpretation of a player contract.

The clause may or may not have forced Liverpool to sell; Liverpool chose to interpret it that way and Suarez chose not to pursue it, perhaps on legal advice or perhaps not.

 

[infineon]

So Ancelotti has 3 Champions Leagues now. Will Wenger finish his career with none?

 

[Anzac]

So Ancelotti has 3 Champions Leagues now. Will Wenger finish his career with none?

Probably unless he has a massive change of philosophy, (which I don't see any sign of as yet).

 

[Jury]

We could have quite easily won it this year. CL football transforms us into massive players. We were more than good enough to go all the way.

 

[Suave Gooner89]

^ It's very possible that we may have.

I genuinely believe that we could've matched Bayern if we had Walcott and Ramsey fit, whilst keeping 11 players on the pitch in both legs.

Although, I reckon if we drew Chelsea we would've faltered as Wenger always does against Jose.