Lol, yeah right.
No we couldn’t. Why would Ramsey have accepted 200k a week last summer when he knew if he held on a year he’d get 400k a week? The time to tie a player down is probably 3 years before their final year. Anyone on 2 or less years knows they’re on a big payout if they run their contract down.
All big name players are doing it now. So Ozil, Alexis, Sterling, Ramsey, Martial, Pogba, De Gea.
They’re all holding out to get paid 250-500k a week and they’re getting it
Yeah you’re probably right, but we definitely should have been looking to sign him up much earlier than we did and as a consequence we were totally trapped.
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I agree.
For a club notoriously as tight as us and never wanting to spend more to get a player we need because “they didn’t meet our valuation,” some of our contract negotiations are laughable.
Not only have we lost a good player, we can’t even afford to replace him because he left on a free.
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Arsene was right. I seem to remember him making a comment about how we’d see more players running down their contracts which would make transfers incredibly difficult.
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Maybe one day in universities we’ll see Wengerism economics along the names of Keynesian, Marxism 
Yeah I remember him saying this during the Sanchez contract saga and he’s been proven correct for sure. I think his main point was that clubs would shy away from the outrageous transfer fees and would just wait to find players out of contract instead.
Has he though? Is there really data to support the idea that players are running out contracts more often than previously?
In recent times Goretzka, Meyer (perhaps didn’t work out for him as he’d have liked) and Ander Herrera have done so.
Whether De Gea and Eriksen etc do remains to be seen.
Regardless though, I’m with you. Each player has his own scenario. Take Welbeck as an example, assuming he leaves, did he ‘run his contract down’? Assume not. So even then I’m not sure what the data would represent in all honesty.
It certainly seems like it’s true.
Juventus really pioneered signing big players on free transfers. Pirlo and Tevez come to mind on that front.
Sanchez opted to run his contract down forcing Arsenal to sell him at a big discount. Griezmann ran his contract down and opted to have a Lebron James-style Decision special just to announce he was re-signing at Madrid.
Now you’ve got Ramsey leaving Arsenal on a free. Ander Herrera leaving United on a free. Even Hudson-Odoi is probably going to leave Chelsea on a free or a huge discount because he won’t re-sign.
Transfer fees are so ridiculous these days that it makes sense for a bigger prospective buying club to leverage player power and push for free transfers. If I’m Bayern and I’m trying to poach the best player from another German team Bayern can wait out 18 months until the contract expires.
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With players like Welbeck, it means that, not only have we paid out money for wages, and he hasn’t played, he is leaving for nothing as well.
Wilshere was another player that went for nothing and now Ramsey.
All these players could have been sold a couple of seasons ago for at least 20m, so we have effectively thrown away around 60m because of the clubs ineptitude involving contract negotiations.
You would think we would learn from our mistakes, either in the transfer market or contract negotiations but it doesn’t seem as if we have learned anything.
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This really was the most absurd stunt wasn’t it…
It’s definitely the second dumbest thing he’s done in his career. Wearing blackface during a costume party is number one with a bullet.
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what about his shit dancing?
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Griezy can fuck off, and fuck his new haircut as well. Used to love the guy back at Sociedad but he really soured on me, especially the past two years.
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Yep, and if you take into account thst Pique’s company produced the special… 
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That book has been out since 2008 before anyone gets excited. 
Will always remember where I was
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I’ve read a few biographies about Wenger and it’s true that his level of scrutiny over every detail as well as his knowledge of players all over Europe was exceptional but it’s the control freakery that ultimately lead to him losing his job because of his stubbornness and lack of flexibility.
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