They agreed because that’s what happened, not because people are narrow minded bro. He was basically in charge of the players, the wage structure, who was going to get a contract extension, player purchases, players sold, staff from top to bottom - anyone remember the whole: “ What matters to me is when you have a club with 600 employees you have the money to pay them at the end of the month." press conference back in 2016, is that something a football coach should be concerned with? But he was because he was running everything at the club.
Why do you guys get upset when people point out Wengers flaws or the fact that he absolutely plays a role in the clubs demise? we all love the guy bro. But he will never say anything about the Kroenkes because he ran the club for them during that period, and the more power he had the less of a proper structure the club had, so ultimately when he left we were left in this mess.
In a way yes. But we were definitely massively constrained in the transfer market at least until the Ozil deal. That was when we re-negotiated the commercial deals and had more income. Does anyone really believe Wenger didn’t want to re-invest the Adebeyor and Toure transfer money? I don’t. The youth project let us get away with selling our best assets season on season. We made a board decision to become a selling club. It was always going to have long term consequences of long term under investment. That alone isn’t Wenger’s fault because it’s a decision taken at board level.
When we sold Fabregas, RVP and Nasri. We bought cheaper 26 year old players like Cazorla, Alexis Sanchez, Giroud, Podolski, Arteta and Mertesacker. Those players papered over the cracks. They only had a 4 year cycle before they would all need replacing. When they were done we’d need to replace all of them. It became essential all the replacements were a success. So what happens? We buy Mustafi, Xhaka, Perez and Lacazette and all are inadequate. That’s the short story of why we are where we are. But it shouldn’t have come down to 2 transfer windows being essential to steady the ship.
Also the board should of worked harder to push Arsene’s transfer targets over the line. Let’s say we get Mata and Cazorla when Cesc leaves, which was the target, we’re in such a better position to compete. Maybe RVP even stays after playing with them
Before you read the post below -
Answer this to me separately - When did you know about the existence of Vinai Venkatesham?
No it didn’t.
First of all. Lets determine the premise of your statement
David Dein was the co-chairman of Arsenal football club when he left. His job profile was more than what went on in the pitch.
So no Wenger didn’t replace David Dein. Wenger may have received a subset of his responsibilities.
Commercial deals, Accounting, Financial matters were never under Wenger despite what people would like to believe.
Wenger would perhaps recommend a hike but he is not the one to manage contracts, negotiate transfer amount as people would naively like to believe.
It does my head when people go on about it when it is ridiculous to even contemplate that Wenger sits down with agents to negotiate their fees or determines the minutes of Carl Jenkinson’s wages.
Just look at the quotes below
“Samir’s situation is clear for me,” Wenger said. “He stays. We are in a [financial] position where we can say ‘No’ and we will, in the case of Samir.” Wenger said that it was better to keep Nasri for another season and risk losing him for nothing than to sell him to United or City before the closure of the transfer window, even if it represented a £20m gamble.
“You are the same people who reproach me for not spending money and now you reproach me for wanting to spend it,” he added, with a smile. “It is in the interests of the club. Fábregas is in no-man’s land … Imagine the worst situation, that we lose Fábregas and Nasri; you cannot convince people that you are ambitious after that.”
Does that look like a person who had every say in the club financially?
Wenger was the figurehead. While cunts behind him did the deeds, Wenger was left taking criticism.
Wenger didn’t want to sell Nasri, yet The club vetoed the move.
That is a clear indicator that the below is an incorrect perception
You guys are so unwilling to understand the man Wenger was.
He was the person who never said ill about his players while they made visible fuckups, while managers like Mourinho would gladly throw a player for just messing up a throw.
Wenger would never expose an internal employee like say Vinai back in 2012 for fucking up a contract negotiation or Dick Law for fucking up a transfer deal.
This was an internal matter and never exposed to the fans. None of knew Vinai Venkatesh but he was an employee of the club since 2010 and now he is a CEO. We fans don’t know the inner workings & job responsibilities of the staff.
Wenger would take the hit for their incompetence and fans naively would believe Wenger is the only employee in the club.
Next you would say Wenger is responsible for his subordinates. He isn’t.
Gazidis is responsible for his subordinates.
Why the fuck did we let players to reach final years of their contract without extension doesn’t fall on Wenger, it falls on backroom staff & Gazidis.
What you’re effective doing is patronising people who have a different viewpoint to you, and a viewpoint that happens to be more popular and widely accepted (at least on this forum).
The post made by @BizzySignal was well articulated and one I wholeheartedly agree with. I don’t think me agreeing with is in anyway an indictment of my “lack of critical thinking” and the same goes for the many people who do agree with it.
This was a pretty clear message to the board. The ‘Arsene had complete control of spending’ narrative is debunked with this quote. It’s also debunked by people on the board stating ‘Arsene didn’t complain when we couldn’t offer him a transfer budget’.
Great post, especially this bit.
When Wenger first arrived he was decisive and innovative which was what made him successful.
But, in his last few seasons, he was the opposite and the excuses for his failures in the transfer market were not only predictable, they were also far too frequent.
The lies of only “buying super quality” and “players not meeting our valuation” only frustrated supporters and turned them against him.
How many players did he “try” and get?
Who cares?
If we fail to get a top European player because he “didn’t meet with our valuation” then at least buy an equivalent player, not a cheap, useless version.
When we were desperate for a top quality players, like when we needed a replacement for RVP, Wenger insisted on only buying “super quality” but would fail miserably so instead we got players like Giroud, Park, Gervinho, Sanogo, etc, because they were cheap.
This was, of course, a false economy because all we did was accumulate several average players, in all positions, rather than one world class player, paying them massive wages and, even worse, persisting with many of them because we couldn’t sell them.
I’m sure the board were as much to blame but Wenger didn’t do himself any favours by constantly lying to the supporters who were paying his wages, with the highest ticket prices in Europe, while selling all our best players.
Wenger was the one who decided how much players were being paid which is why we couldn’t or wouldn’t pay the better players better wages. We’ve had one of the highest wage bills way before we even gave people like Ozil those mammoth contracts, because we had so many shitters on high wages. He absolutely had control of transfers, we saw that with every panic buy, suggesting that we didn’t have any money to spend outside of what we paid for Petr Cech back in 2015 because of the board is delusional mate. That was clearly a Wenger decision, because he thought the shitters he had in the club could do the job and they couldn’t, which is why why they splurged nearly £100m a summer later.
Now saying Wenger would never expose some one like Vinai or Dick Law, when they fucked up negotiations and transfers, and that’s cool if it’s a one off. But We’re talking nearly 10 years of bad business, of which Wenger just stood idly by? which would also make him complicit by the way as he let that shit happen on his watch and did fuck all about it. Why stay and take all the abuse to the point of people hiring planes to fly over the stadium if it’s everyone else messing things up? That’s ridiculous, the only constant during that period is Wenger, which means he was a lot more involved. No one is defending the board, and if you go back to my original post I say “some” of the blame, which is true wether you like it or not.
The thing is we sold RVP for £24m and Song for 15m. Then we bought Cazorla for 12m, Podolski for 11m and Giroud for 13m. We made a profit and didn’t invest anything. That’s always going to be a false economy long term unless you can pull a Fabregas and RVP out the bag every year.
Gervinho for 8m, when he got decent end product on par with Theo at the time was decent business. What was unforgivable is not sealing the deal on Mata no matter what it took.
BTW around that time Wenger was asked if he’d bid for Hazard and he replied ‘I have to make a 20 million stadium payment every season’
I think Cazorla was a replacement in midfield for Cesc and Nasri, who we got more than 50m for.
RVP was arguably one of the best strikers in Europe and we replaced him with Giroud and then a succession of inadequate players.
Worse than that we persisted with him for way too long.
It’s fine to do that if you have no money but don’t go telling supporters you are only going to buy “super quality” and that you “aren’t afraid to spend big” when the opposite is true.
Selling your best players and replacing them with dross and panic buys is not going to win many supporters over so don’t lie to them because, after every transfer window, they’re going to find out.
The Emirates was always a bit of underrated fortress. Thread below…
Up until January, I’d characterise this season as unlucky. Özil was different gravy at Emirates much like Arsenal.
A lot of people say Alexis was half-arsing it, but when he played, he was class. He simply declined physically and that was brought into closer view at United.
Yeah not sure what shit ur talking here. 54 goals at home…we only have 44 goals in the PL so far this entire year lol, not much PR about that it’s just facts
True, but to catch us and overtake us, teams had to finish in the top four… Now, feckin West Ham, Everton, Villa and Leicester have just steam rollered past us!
We know what we seen and what we are seeing now. Nothing very relevant.
Don’t understand why people presume that why current underachievement is a reason to embrace someone elses.
Is he meaning the performance by city one of the best he’s seen, or the best performance from a team losing by that score?