I reckon at least 2 titles in the 00’s. But honestly like others have said, we’ve lost a lot of intangibles as well like our identity, our history, the atmosphere at the stadium etc…
People always say the Emirates move was necessary, but honestly what good has that supposed extra match day income done for us as club? May as well have never had that money because we didn’t do anything with it anyway. A fraction of the £390m we spent on a new stadium back in 2004 or whatever could of had us competing all the way to the end of the decade.
Based on the seasons we had at least two, but probably at least 4-5 trophies given those 1-2 Elite signings would of transformed the team. Our squad was always carrying 2-4 dead players.
I still think David Dein is the bigger loss, we never had anyone else that made bold ambitious moves. Wenger seemed to trusted him a lot too. Gazidis is and will always be a paperweight in the footballing world.
It’s a damn shame that Dein backed the wrong horse and it led to his departure from the club. That’s not me passing any judgement on which of the figurative horses would have been better for the club when I say “wrong”, I just mean it in terms of his candidate not winning.
We did compete for a title in 07/08. Let’s not forget that. I genuinely believe Abramovich has more to do with us missing out. If Chelsea isn’t established in 2003, Arsenal wins the League in 04/05. The Invincibles got older, we rebuild to compete again in 07/08. At that point when we needed to do another rebuild the transfer landscape completely changes. I mentioned Crespo, Kezman and Shevchenko, but they also bought Mutu, Veron, Robben, Cole, Duff, Makelele, Essien, Ballack, Kalou. Inflate the market. Can we compete with that if we stay at Highbury?
As @JakeyBoy points out without Dein we also lost somebody who was really savvy on the market in hindsight it wasn’t Wenger who was the big man behind Arsenal but it was him. The fact that Arsenal also won a lot with Graham under his leadership underlines that.
Losing Highbury was a big loss for the clubs identity and history agreed. That stadium, the size, the pitch etc was unique. But I don’t think it was a big reason in Arsenal declining.
It has been reported that Gazidis was against Milan signing Zlatan because of his age. There were also reports this summer that Zlatan (what van Persie did too ;)) blasted him/the direction the club was taking. Now because of his influence (it seems like Zlatan personally changed the culture at that club) they are, for now, competing for the title. If you want to go somewhere as a club it seems like you shouldn’t listen to Gazidis. To much focus on the books rather than competing.
God the whole father figure thing with Wenger was so played out, Ozil came here as a grown ass man and he’s talking about big Daddy Weng. Fed up with our players constantly being soft cunts who need held by the hand for everything.
Henry was a teenager and a rookie, same with Fabregas who said similar. Ozil was, as previously stated, a grown ass man who already had a career and identity as a footballer and you’d assume as a man too.
Henry was 22 and a WC winner when he arrived no?
He didn’t make his big break on his own till he arrived here but I don’t think you can call him an teenager or a rookie at that point.
Personally, I don’t find anything wrong with players bonding a relationship with their managers.
Btw, if I recall correctly Ozil and his father wasn’t on good terms and even had to settle things in the courts of law around the time he arrived from Arsenal.
Maybe I’m the only one, but in my almost 20 year working career I’ve had a ton of managers. There are only one or mayyybe two guys that were my boss that I still stay in contact with because they were actually great guys, good mentors, and we got shit done and still managed to have fun. I dont see it as farfetched that Arsene had a similar style thus all his players loved him.
