milo
Jack L. Jones
Surely, by your own argument, it is down to them spending the third/fourth most in the league on players?
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The Goon Thread - Officially Second In A One Horse Race
- Thread starter Jordinho
- Start date
Surely, by your own argument, it is down to them spending the third/fourth most in the league on players?
yes, but they are in a position to be the 3/4th biggest spenders being of how wenger has managed the club during his reign. imo, had wenger been at liverpool for the past 20 years, they would be in arsenals position right now. i have a feeling he may even have been able to do it with us.
had wenger pointlessly tried to catch the subsidised clubs above them, they may have got a bit closer to those clubs. but i have no doubt they would have failed to make the top 4 a few times too. because of lack of player continuity and transitional reasons (like man utd atm). this would have put clubs like us and lpool in better financial positions long term (by getting ucl revenue). and so the challenge of making top 4 wouldve got harder for arsenal. and long term, they would be in a weaker position than they are in now.
as it is, wenger has almost suffocated liverpool. and he has put arsenal in such a great financial position that even a superbly managed club like ours has little hope of catching them long term.
this is exactly what great management is about.
how people think the likes of mourinho is a great manager, and tactical genius shows how little people understand the game imo. subbing off your 200k p/w target man for a 200k p/w fast striker because you see that the oppositions 30k p/w defender tall but slow cb is dealing with your target man well is not tactical genius. its amazing how often mourinho gets praised when his team have won simply because they had the better set of players.
and its this line of thinking that gets so many managers and clubs into trouble. wenger and arsenal avoid it all. thus, they are the best of the rest
as it is, wenger has almost suffocated liverpool. and he has put arsenal in such a great financial position that even a superbly managed club like ours has little hope of catching them long term.
this is exactly what great management is about.
how people think the likes of mourinho is a great manager, and tactical genius shows how little people understand the game imo. subbing off your 200k p/w target man for a 200k p/w fast striker because you see that the oppositions 30k p/w defender tall but slow cb is dealing with your target man well is not tactical genius. its amazing how often mourinho gets praised when his team have won simply because they had the better set of players.
and its this line of thinking that gets so many managers and clubs into trouble. wenger and arsenal avoid it all. thus, they are the best of the rest
milo
Jack L. Jones
I think that the two things that have resulted in Arsenal being where they are now is the stadium and getting into the Champions League when they did. Wenger certainly deserves credit for the latter but we also need to remember that at that point Arsenal were the second/third biggest club in the country. I think that where they are now is where you would expect given what they spend.
youre right in that they cant afford it if they are sane. but the arsenal owners are supposedly richer than abramovic. if they made this transfer, their financial losses with arsenal would still be significantly less than abramovic's
they were below man utd and liverpool. and not much off the teams just below them. but now they have overtaken liverpool and the gap between them and the next few teams is massive.
you have to ignore city and chelsea for this comparison because they are going to spend more than whoever has spent the most.
milo
Jack L. Jones
Liverpool were on the slide when Wenger pitched up at Highbury and if we are going to give any manager credit for that it has to be Ferguson.
man utd overtaking liverpool was down to ferguson. arsenal overtaking them was down to wenger. and i have a sneaky feeling that in 5-10 years time i might be having to defend levy (in a similar manner to how i am defending wenger) for not spending crazy money when he has been responsible for us having overtaken liverpool.
liverpool were not on a never ending avb downward spiral. the teams that overtook them did so because their management team was exceptional, or they spent loads more than them. just cos 1 team overtook liverpool, it didnt make the job for the next team easy to do so too.
Baleforce
Ron Henry
arsenal were on the slide when wenger pitched up at highbury as well, he arrested that and left the dippers in the dust
united were another level though, even if liverpool had held station united would still have knocked them off their fudging perch
milo
Jack L. Jones
Not really. They finished 4th in 93/94. The following season they finished 12th after Graham was sacked in February for having his hand in the till. 95/96 they finished 5th under Rioch. They definitely stepped up a level from those season when Wenger came in but they weren't on the slide.
Gazzasrightboot
Pascal Chimbonda
Really respect you @Neymar for answering all the various posts directed at you! Quality discussion.
I get what you are saying, but I would still maintain that accepting the status quo is, for me, kind of defeatist. You can be the richest club in the world, and buy a squad of the best players and have the best manager, but there are enough good players out there for 6-7 clubs in the world to really be on a par with each other and at least be competitive. Looking at the finances, I think Arsenal could buy two or three £30m players without it having that much of an effect on their profit, as they would sell off some players to "make way". That they are choosing not to, is the interesting point.
If we were in their position, I'd be a little annoyed. Not massively, but a little because at the perceived lack of attempt at challenging and showing no discernible progress. That brings it to the original point which is they have accepted where they are and are going to continually be third or fourth with an occasional dalliance with first and winning the odd cup competition.
In any case, I think I have spoken enough about them. The longer they stagnate, the better as when we do get the finances to compete, it will be easier to catch them up and overtake.
I get what you are saying, but I would still maintain that accepting the status quo is, for me, kind of defeatist. You can be the richest club in the world, and buy a squad of the best players and have the best manager, but there are enough good players out there for 6-7 clubs in the world to really be on a par with each other and at least be competitive. Looking at the finances, I think Arsenal could buy two or three £30m players without it having that much of an effect on their profit, as they would sell off some players to "make way". That they are choosing not to, is the interesting point.
If we were in their position, I'd be a little annoyed. Not massively, but a little because at the perceived lack of attempt at challenging and showing no discernible progress. That brings it to the original point which is they have accepted where they are and are going to continually be third or fourth with an occasional dalliance with first and winning the odd cup competition.
In any case, I think I have spoken enough about them. The longer they stagnate, the better as when we do get the finances to compete, it will be easier to catch them up and overtake.
Baleforce
Ron Henry
I suggest the slide started further back, the 93/94 cup winners cup win was a blip in the steady decline from around the turn of the decade, where they had won it a couple of times, later graham sides, and the rioch one, didn't have that same presence
milo
Jack L. Jones
I think that it was a blip rather than a slide. Wenger relied on a large chunk of that team for his early success.
glorygloryeze
Ian Walker
Arsenal consistently spend the 3rd and 4th top amounts in the PL and finish 3rd and 4th in the PL. Using that analogy one could say that Jose and Pellegrini manage their resources exceptionally as they always finish 1st or 2nd in the PL. And to think you believe Wenger manages/managed his resources better than Fergie shows your bias towards Wenger as well...
the real brilliance of what wenger has been doing in recent years isnt that he has managed to finish 3rd or 4th. its that he understands football better than anyone else and isnt being suckered into spending 50-150m for no reason. they couldve bought better players with that money but they wouldnt really be much better off. and he knows this. can you name any other manager who has the self control to do this? look at martin oneill at aston villa. every year he deluded both himself and randy learner into spending tens of millions in a false dream to chase top 4. brendan rodgers - deludes himself into spending hundreds of millions over the course of a few years because he thinks they can overtake the likes of arsenal. the genius of levy is that he only deluded himself once.
Lemonade Money
Steffen Freund
Lol
milo
Jack L. Jones
How do you explain the change in Wenger from being a manager who was happy to be active in the transfer market to one who isn't?
I have been wondering whether it is just a case that he has failed to develop. When he came to England his training and fitness methods were ahead of the other clubs. He also had a knowledge of French and African football that other managers/clubs could not match in this country. What I was wondering was that as other clubs have developed international scouting operations, he has lost this advantage and failed to find others. Is it this that has lead to him becoming wary of entering the transfer market?