Again, using Transfermarkt, last 5 years combined net spending on transfers (no analysis of wages whatsoever):
City: 625 million for 120 million net spend per year… insanity
ManU: 529 million for 102 million net spend per year… insanity
Arsenal: 287 million for 57 million net spend per year… respectable
Chelsea: 235 million for 47 million net spend per year… respectable
Pool: 215 million for 43 million net spend per year… respectable
Spurs: 32 million for 6 million net spend per year… Wengerific
Not sure these are totally accurate, and Mhikitayran wasn’t a fee obviously. I take you central point though, obviously we’ve overspent on a lot of these players. Mustafi is the prime example, and Xhaka is a player who I like more than most but he’s about a 20m pound player, not 35m or whatever it was. Lucas Perez was never actually given the chance to prove himself, and when he did play I thought he was decent so the 18m we spent on him was poor just based on the fact that Wenger never gave him enough matches, and it looks terrible now considering the hit we took on him.
I continue to defend Leno moreso than a lot of our fans. He has issues (like his strange wish to never want to catch the ball), but his shot stopping has been pretty good for the most part and I was led to believe that be was much poorer at it than he is. I think the defense in front of him is the much bigger problem.
Never with us really… he was poor investment given other options… similar price to Mane or others… we should have invested in a couple of top prospects or alternatives… anyway, can argue if it was a mediocre buy but certainly it hasn’t looked like smart investment.
I think this was one of Wenger’s biggest faults.
He rarely went out and got the best.
He would often settle for spending a lot of money on several average players, like he did for the DM position, rather than getting one world class player to do a proper job.
He did the same when we needed a world class replacement for RVP and all we got was a procession of highly paid, under performing strikers that we made a loss on when they were eventually sold.
On the few occasions he did spend big, like with Ozil and Sanchez, he got quality and they performed to a level expected of a top player.
But we are now stuck with so many high earning players, that are worth a fraction of what we paid for them, that it looks like a complete mess.
Realistically, can anyone tell me if we have more than three or four players that are genuine top four quality?
One other point I’ll belabor b/c I didn’t highlight it in the table above, last five years AVERAGE, we spent 50 million more than Spurs in net spend… F I F T Y MILLION … per year… over 5 years…
@ljungbergkamp@JakeyBoy Micky and Sanchez are both listed as going in/out for the same amount on transfermarkt.
Also there always very little point comparing a few transfers between teams and/or if one believes so unless you check how large the fluctuations over that period are. example: If you spend £40m more or less than another team in a period where players have gone for £100m (in/out of those teams) it doesn’t say much.
I also think we shouldn’t be too harsh on Wenger when it comes to Xhaka and Mustafi compared to Liverpool, because even though they were clearly bad buys at £35m each or w/e - no doubt, Caroll and Benteke cost the same. Right now ofc. it looks sour that we spent so much on two players that didn’t work out while Liverpool spent less on Salah, Firmino and Mane but you can’t just cherry pick stats like that. They bought Ox at the same time for again as much as Xhaka or Mustafi cost so they actually bummed out more, and the Wenger era if you will also bought Laca and PEA so. And that is regardless of how they sold Firmino and Suarez to Barca for probably close to £200m total. Either way Pep bought players for £50m and £60m who do nothing and sit on the bench. My point is I feel it is a bit too “picky” imo.
Yes it is. But if we have two managers who play with a high line, choose to go one-v-one at the back, but can’t install a proper pressing game and/or keep the pitch compact players aren’t exactly helped either. Now we have one in charge whose offensive gameplan is completely based on cutbacks from our fullbacks. How weird is it that that is easy to defend?
That’s true, but the difference between us buying players that are useless, and Liverpool, is that we keep our useless players and even keep them in the first team while they get rid of theirs and get better ones as soon as possible.
The same goes for the other top clubs and even mid table teams.
To some degree yes, as we both in short mean canwejustsellGranitandShkodranffs but for example the last year of Wenger (and Sven) we bought PEA and Laca we got rid of Walcott, Ox, Giroud, Coquelin, Chestnut, Gabriel, Gibbs, Debuchy and Sanogo. And we went plus a few million pounds (transfermarkt) that year on top of it. But all those players were gotten during the stadium debt time. But we also took a few chances on Xhaka and Mustafi and they did not work out, and as we are stuck with less leeway vs. our ambitions I feel, it reflects worse on us than it does that Liverpool spent £35m, £37m and £42m respectively on Ox, Carroll and Benteke right now because they’re steaming with momentum right now (because of other players).
Ummmm you’re talking about our transfer spending and comparing it to what other teams spent, so it couldn’t be more valid to point out that we didnt spend thirty million odd quid on Mkhitaryan. To say we did is simply inaccurate.
You can bring up hypotheticals about what you think we should have got for Sanchez all day, but thats irrelevant. Who is to say United were offering that money for him when they could get hin for free six months later or whatever? Just because they were willing to give us an underperforming, high earning player supposedly worth thirty million quid to expidite the process does not mean they’d have given us the equivalent in cash.
but for example the last year of Wenger (and Sven) we bought PEA and Laca we got rid of Walcott, Ox, Giroud, Coquelin, Chestnut, Gabriel, Gibbs, Debuchy and Sanogo. And we went plus a few million pounds (transfermarkt) that year on top of it. But all those players were gotten during the stadium debt time. But we also took a few chances on Xhaka and Mustafi and they did not work out, and as we are stuck with less leeway vs. our ambitions I feel, it reflects worse on us than it does that Liverpool spent £35m, £37m and £42m respectively on Ox, Carroll and Benteke right now because they’re steaming with momentum right now (because of other players).