Why are they showing more ambition than us?
Because Benteke > Auba 
I said relative to their size.
We are a top European club, while Bournemouth and Crystal Palace have a fraction of our revenue, yet our spending and lack of quality is embarrassing.
I would go as far as to say that Crystal Palace have two or three defenders that are as good, if not better, than ours.
How are they?
Palace donāt have a bona fide striker and opted to get Jordan Ayew on loan, itās not worked out at all. They havenāt spent significantly since Sakho and Benteke.
Bournemouth made a couple signings in the summer and have bought Solanke for Ā£19mil and Clyne in on loan but again none of their business dwarfs ours.
We know youāre the resident Grinch around here but cāmon mate you canāt be serious.
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Until we start sorting out our defence, which has been a shambles for several seasons, and get some top quality players in other clubs around us are going to start to catch up with us.
I can remember just a few seasons ago I was slated on here by several other posters for suggesting spurs and Liverpool would catch us up which has happened and we wouldnāt be in the CL, which has also happened.
Iāve noticed this seasons and last a lot of supporters expectations have lowered so much that they donāt even consider not challenging for the top trophies a problem.
Personally if I see our owner doing the bare minimum and our supporters just sit by and take it, I think thatās wrong.
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Very clever.
Perhaps others could be described like this:
I agree, Benteke is clearly better than anything we bought.
They bought that wonderkid with the weird hyphenated nameā¦ what was it again?
:giroud:
When did I say he was?
If youāre going down that route then what about the 35m we wasted on Mustafi.
I doubt if he would get in their team.
My point is, relative to their size, a lot of mid table and lower PL clubs, are showing more ambition than we are, and to me that a disgrace.
If you mean ambition by splashing loads of cash on mediocre players, then yes, I guess youāre correct.
Its not clear that is true, number oneā¦ if we look at data from last 5 years or so, we have spentā¦ our wages massively dwarf those clubs you mentioned and transfers-wise, I reckon the sameā¦ the reality is that people fail to appreciate that the vast majority of clubs operate not that far from transfer-spend neutralā¦ it isnāt like these clubs spend 50 million net in a year or twoā¦
We spent over 120 million on our two strikers, correct?
The big problem we have isnāt spending really - it is spending more wiselyā¦ Moose, Xhaka (maybe), Chambers, El Neny, Papa (maybe), Leno, and a bunch of others just werenāt the best investments at allā¦ I am sure I am missing obvious ones tooā¦ we really havenāt hit on any bargains other than (maybe) Guendouzi, but to me the jury is still out. Torry was a smart buy it seems, but it isnāt exactly like he was cheap.
If you mean splashing loads of cash on Xhaka and Mustafi who are just about mediocre, then I would agree.
Every club wastes money or makes bad decisions in the transfer market, but I have no problem if the owners are giving the manager the best opportunity to get the players he wants.
Everton have wasted almost 100m on very average signings but Iām not going to criticise them for their ambition.
Our defence has lacked quality for several seasons and, apart from Mustafi, what have we done about it?
Ah so money spent = amount of ambition?
He has a fair point if it were actually true - Iād need to look up the numbers, but we are very competitive when it comes to net spend and certainly wages in the last 4-5 years.
Itās true, we bought two very good strikers and I have no problem with that.
But itās not as if we spent that on players to play alongside Sanchez who was the best player in the PL, they were bought to replace him, and a large amount of that money came from the sales of Walcott, Giroud, and others, including Sanchez.
But our board are lazy and indecisive.
Look at all the top clubs, apart from spurs who have no money, and they are far more pro active than we are.
We are always two or three players short of having a team that can really challenge for the PL title and all we seem to do is replace top players rather than buying them to play with the few top players we have.
Youāre pointing out lots of things that no one disagrees with. Itās your comment about relative ambition which is stupid, and demonstrably untrue.
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Or lack of money spent, no ambition.
See Newcastle and Blackpool for details.
We pay 70 million a year more in wages than Spurs, as of May, 2018ā¦ pretty sure our net transfers beats them in last 4 years tooā¦ As for Everton, we pay 95 million more per annum in wages. Crystal Palace? We pay 115 million more per year. Iāll get into transfers later and profits.
Where I would agree is that we havenāt been decisive enough under Wenger last 5+ years and we didnāt invest intelligently on the up curve of player values, especially on younger onesā¦ and we still sometimes buy 2-3 meh players when I would personally rather buy 1 WC player and sprinkle in younger, developing players (having said that, it is a risky approach too).
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Right, and thatās the result of having a shit negotiating team for years. So much so that other clubs would hate doing business with us.
But thatās incompetance, not lack of ambition.
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