The Mata one was the most infuriating because if true we missed out on getting him for 16m because the release clause expired. That was just incompetance of either Dick Law or Wenger. Unless ofcourse Mata agreed with Valencia to let it expire to help his club get a greater fee, I suppose that’s possible.
But really someone other than Wenger should of been pushing the transfers through as they were in the David Dein days. And Dein is quoted as saying Arsene came back saying he wanted the player but the team demanded X amount above our budget so Dein just told him to sign the player anyway. That’s definitely something that changed.
The general consensus during those seasons (09/10 and 10/11) was that Arsenal was 1-3 players away from actually competing. You can’t possibly believe funds weren’t available in order to do that? Wenger trusted the players he had at his disposal. The frustration stems from the fact that exactly that didn’t happen. I can’t remember anyone expecting or demanding that we would win the PL. Just that we were close. In stead of getting closer to those sides the gap became wider because Nasri, Fabregas and van Persie were replaced with shit. I think that is also a big reason why these three players left anyway. City, Barcelona and United provided that environment to compete whilst Arsenal was busy saving money. After that it has always been a case of catching up.
The beautiful football had already died down during the ‘FA Cup-wins Era’.
