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When Was The Damage Done?

Oxeki

Match Day Thread Merchant
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Country: Nigeria

Player:Saliba
When did our decline as a top four began?

I'd say In 2016. That year we shelled out 100m (including add-ons) on three of our worst signings ever (Xhaka, Mustafi and Perez).

Since then we've never recovered.
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
Recruitment wise we’ve been poor since the Nasri window in 2008.

Even though we had limited funds some of the purchases were very suspect. It’s the root of every problem for Wenger, Emery and now Arteta.

We’ve never got our house in order and been consistently good in the window.
 
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A_G

Rice Rice Baby 🎼🎵
A-M CL Draft Campeón 🏆
In 2016 when the fan campaign of boycotts, planes, protests and social media rants put intolerable pressure on the team and management causing us to decline. It was no coincidence that Wenger dropped out of the top 4 for the first time in 20 years when all that started.
 

El Duderino

That's, like, your opinion, man.
Moderator
When did our decline as a top four began?

I'd say In 2016. That year we shelled out 100m (including add-ons) on three of our worst signings ever (Xhaka, Mustafi and Perez).

Since then we've never recovered.

Arguably when Kroenke took over. If we're being more precise about the state we're in now, when Gazidis left and Raul went for the power grab.
 

Oxeki

Match Day Thread Merchant
Trusted ⭐

Country: Nigeria

Player:Saliba
In 2016 when the fan campaign of boycotts, planes, protests and social media rants put intolerable pressure on the team and management causing us to decline. It was no coincidence that Wenger dropped out of the top 4 for the first time in 20 years when all that started.
The airplane and fan campaign didn't start in 2016, did it?
It's no coincidence that the summer we signed those players we dropped out of the top four.

If I remember correctly. The fans have been at wenger's throat for years. Not really convinced that was the reason we dropped out of top four in 16/17
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel
Recruitment wise we’ve been poor since the Nasri window in 2008.

This is probably it.

Though we always had a bit about us from 2008-2015, even with the squad issues...if we had bought better in summer 2015 and 2016, I feel we would have been fine...those 2 windows just killed the club.
 

Oxeki

Match Day Thread Merchant
Trusted ⭐

Country: Nigeria

Player:Saliba
Recruitment wise we’ve been poor since the Nasri window in 2008.

Even though we had limited funds some of the purchases were very suspect. It’s the root of every problem for Wenger, Emery and now Arteta.

We’ve never got our ship in order and been consistently good in the window.
We've not the most excellent window since 2008. But you could argue that none of those windows were as disastrous as the 2016 one and possibly the 2015 window.
 

A_G

Rice Rice Baby 🎼🎵
A-M CL Draft Campeón 🏆
The airplane and fan campaign didn't start in 2016, did it?
It's no coincidence that the summer we signed those players we dropped out of the top four.

If I remember correctly. The fans have been at wenger's throat for years. Not really convinced that was the reason we dropped out of top four in 16/17
Dunno man, I just copy/pasted a random Makingtrax post.
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel
highbury1.jpg


:(
 

juice man

Can't make his mind up
Recruitment wise we’ve been poor since the Nasri window in 2008.

Even though we had limited funds some of the purchases were very suspect. It’s the root of every problem for Wenger, Emery and now Arteta.

We’ve never got our ship in order and been consistently good in the window.
Yup. Think that was one year after Kroenke's investment in the club began, and probably around the same time he was starting to gain favour with the board.
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
Trusted ⭐

Country: Wales
We've not the most excellent window since 2008. But you could argue that none of those windows were as disastrous as the 2016 one and possibly the 2015 window.

Before and after there have been some baffling moves.

Deciding against buying Koscielny when he cost 1M then buying him a year later for 10 times that.

Debuchy over someone like Trippier. We became excellent at wasting money on medium priced acquisitions with little resale value.
 

Sniper Mik

Not a Closet Sp**s Fan
2013/14, 2014/15,2015/16,2016/17 all 4 windows were bad. 2013 we desperately needed a world class striker, ended up getting Özil which improved us maybe a bit but it wasn't what we really needed. Same situation next summer, where we got Alexis but once again missed out on a proper striker and ended up with Wele after fan pressure caused a panic buy. And we all know what happened in the next 2 summer windows.
 

Penn_

Established Member
Trusted ⭐
Always feel that as soon as we were able to spend a bit more our recruitment plummeted.

It’s like we were caught in two minds as to whether to go for potential stars such as we did with Nasri or wait till the bigger opportunities in Özil, Alexis and Partey arrive.

So in the end we land ourselves with the likes of Xhaka, Chambers, Mustafi etc who are neither huge potential nor big stars. Just regular interchange players.

Even the smart with getting Giroud for 10M, have we done that recently?
 

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