So what you’re saying is that in 4 years we’ve spent what United/City pretty much spend in 1 year? And less than Liverool and Spuds. Let’s hope we can make 6th place then.
Liverpool were the dominant force of the 80s no doubt but a league cup win in 87 and 2 titles over them was a huge achievement.
Their 88 side was a great Liverpool side and for us to take a title off that side was massive.
They were not ageing either as they came right back and won the following season.
In 91 when we reclaimed the title lets not forget we lost 1 game which seems to get forgotten too.
1 Like
They may have spent more on strikers, but they also sold them for a LOT more… end of the day, our net spend in the last 4 years was about 218 million… Liverpool’s net spend in the last TEN years by comparison is around 230 million. Suarez, Bale, and those situations definitely skew things, but that comes with the territory in making good buys or developing superstars that you are willing to/have to sell.
No question we underspent them in transfers a few years during the stadium transition (still maintaining on average significantly higher wages), but our last 5 years or so we have way outspent them on net transfers and wages…
Yes they could sell them for way more because they actually invested in the first place when we were getting freebies like Chamakh and you’re expecting us to sell them for the same amount as huge investments like Suarez/Torres/Carrol/Keane???
That’s the whole point, Arsenal invested the whole some of fuck all for 10 years and yet fans complain about net spend when we make less off the transfer market after the values have gone up because there’s no value to sell because well we didn’t invest anything in the first place.
And no we haven’t been investing for 5 years. Our net spend prior to 2013 was break even at best year on year. In 2013 we had a 30m net spend.
Anyway you’re basically arguing about a house being a bad investment after house prices went up. No shit sherlock.
No that isn’t the argument I am making at all. I am correcting factual misstatements. If you want to ignore the fact that our net spend in the last 4 years is virtually equal to theirs in the last 10 and somehow dismiss that, I don’t agree. It is the only objective measure of transfer spend. Same thing in last 5 - our net spend is higher and our wages significantly higher.
You could argue that it takes more time for the last 3-5 years of our massively overspending them to catch up - there is reasonable argument to be made there. And we did invest when we sold - we just didn’t invest well and ended up selling low on some star players as well. Anyway, it is an academic argument but fact is, we are massively overspending Pool in the last 5 years given our financial might are also certainly underinvesting our ability (again, read SwissRamble).
1 Like
I bought a 67k house 15 years ago, my sister bought a 200k house in a better area. Her house is now worth 350k, mine is worth 120k. So now when I upgrade to a 300k house she made the better investment? Or did she just have more money to spend?
Or were you just saving the rest of your money in case you needed to buy an emergency house?
Yes - on the flip side, we were coming out of the Invincible era with massively valuable assets, including Fabregas, RVP, Henry, etc. and had the advantage of CL attraction…
And your example would hold water if we didn’t have so much money in the bank along the way (and were paying higher wages than them) and if it wasn’t overly simplistic and if it actually represented what Liverpool’s situation has been. Really other than Suarez and maybe Xabi Alonso and Torres (on a smaller scale), they don’t have any of those examples like your house example, do they? They have plenty of examples of players they bought and then sold for less or comparable. Fact is, this is true for a lot of the big clubs.
Examples: Glen Johnson bought for 17 million, left on a free; Aquillani bought for 17 million, left for 1.7; Benteke bought for 39.5 million, sold for 26.5… just three examples. Can’t believe I forgot Andy Carroll…
It isn’t clear what exactly we needed in reserves to satisfy our loan requirements, but our turnover was massively ballooned once we started getting the bigger gate receipts. We didn’t invest as intelligently or aggressively as we should, especially with the predictable inflation now upon us (EPL contract).
[quote]“And the same people who spoke after the game said with 10 minutes to go that PSG was absolutely outstanding. Ten minutes later, they’re absolutely rubbish. People brainwash you with what they think is right.
“Get out of that heated atmosphere and look at things in an objective way. Sometimes it confirms what people say. Sometimes it doesn’t.
“I managed about 2,000 games – I might know a little something about the game as well.”[/quote]
I don’t think he realises how fundamentally flawed his coaching has become. If you even forget the fact that we can’t compete for the League and the Champions League anymore, it’s about how stale and predictable the football have become. How certain clubs or managers have figured Wenger out and he can’t do nothing to turn that around. That has become the main problem now.
For example Koeman, who isn’t a great manager at all just solid, Wenger has bested him once since he came to England. He’s 1-1-3 against him in h2h-results. Not to mention the results when we played Ajax and PSV under Koeman or our results against other top 6 teams and the better teams in the Champions League.
We don’t need pundits/former players to tell us anything. The results are right there.
5 Likes
2000 games but far worse performances than managers with 200 games. He doesn’t help his case of being stuck in the past.
His philosophies are dead. Youth players, not spending big sums, attacking football. Without any of this stuff and average performances on the pitch he’s right now just a run-of-the-mill manager. He genuinely got a decent level of performances from Denilson and co and we all thought how the hell has he pulled this off, but now he’s getting Denilson performances from his 35m signings. That doesn’t feel like Wenger at all to me.
He’s lost his touch, plain and simple. You can’t expect to have it forever. He’s had 30 years at the top if you count his Monaco success. He’s already done more than almost anyone else in the game but he’s simply outdated for 2017. How many coaches stay up there so long?
8 Likes
Trouble is as the league has got increasingly stronger over recent seasons, his team havent. This team would have comfortably got top 4 few years ago but he just hasnt improved it effectively enough to compete.
5 Likes
If anything he doesn’t follow the principles that made him great. He excelled in finding players from the 18-23 age bracket and played good organised football. Our counters were mouthwatering (?) back in the day.
Bar Chamberlain the players he signed since 2011 are older and less ‘mouldable’. Mertesacker, Arteta, Mustafi, Giroud all 23+ players without that much of growth in them.
Also the possession based game that has become rule for us.
I think the last team that really said Wenger(ball), was the 07/08 team.
1 Like
His time is done. Nobody can convince me otherwise. Club needs a change, it’s getting a little rusty.
1 Like
I certainly agree that Liverpool were a better team than us even if we won the League twice.
In fact that Liverpool team of the late eighties was probably the best club side I have seen in the League.
As for Graham spending money, when you consider Smith was our biggest signing, if you look at the rest of that squad that won the league, it must have been the cheapest squad to achieve that.
The team that beat Liverpool was,
Lukic 75k
Dixon 600k
Winterburn 300k
Bould 400k
Adams Youth
Thomas Youth
Rocastle Youth
Davis Youth
Richardson 300k
Merson Youth
Smith 900k
Groves 50k
Hayes Youth
Including the substitutes, the squad cost just over 2.5m, and Smith was a large part of that cost.
It’s true Liverpool paid the same for Barnes but they also paid around the same money for Aldridge and Houghton and almost 2m for Beardsley, so their spending was way more than ours.
I think some supporters under estimate what a brilliant job Graham did.
It might not have been the most attractive football but he spent very little money and built the best defence in Europe and we scored a lot of goals as well, even if a lot of them were route one football.
The second time we won the League when he was manager, we only lost one game, and let in eighteen goals all season.
He got us to several cup finals including the FA Cup, the League Cup and the European Cup Winners Cup and was here for less than half the time Wenger has been here.
He also won the League, FA Cup and UEFA Cup as a player with us.
I’m not suggesting he is better than Wenger but a lot of people dismiss what he achieved with us, and some younger supporters, I’m not including you in this, don’t realise how good he was and what he won.
5 Likes
Another area that I think he’s failed in is his inability or unwillingness to buy prem proven players, especially strikers. If you score goals at west ham or palace or west brom you can score goals for Arsenal…but he either doesn’t buy, buys French, or only looks at French players because they are discounted.
1 Like
We’ve actually bought very few French players over the past 6 years. If anything we missed the boat on the current great generation of French players (Griezmann, Pogba, Coman etc.).
Very few strikers have made it from those clubs at the big clubs. I can’t think of any tbh.
1 Like
Like Benteke or Bony?
I’m struggling to think of a striker that has recently moved to one of the top 6 clubs from a lower EPL club and done well.
Edit: Tevez 
, the only one that comes to mind and it wasn’t so recent.
6 Likes
Or Roque Santa Cruz, Benjani, Darren Bent… the list goes on and on. The PL proven myth was debunked a long time ago.
like Michu? like Charlie Austin? like Loic Remy?
The proven PL strikers play for the big teams and not for the others. Benteke, Remy and others have been a failure.
Mane is the only one i can think of.
2 Likes