Anyone calling for Wenger to be sacked...

[Alan B'stard]

I'm sure you're right. And I understand the frustrations, I share them. But I'd never write about Wenger the way some people do on here. It's uncalled for IMO.

It certainly is. However I think people have it arse about face - I reckon Wenger is actually doing well to keep things going and its the board who are most to blame. His job is to be the fall guy for their policy and keep us in the CHampions league, nothing more. Hasnt been for a while either.

The 'sustainabliity' model is a chimera too. Think of it this way - Arsenal geenrates a load of value, through its property investment, gate receipts, TV rights etc. The stakeholders are basically the fanbase, the shareholders and anyone drawing a wage from the club, most notably the players, manager and certgain directors.

All those people have been rewarded except for the fanbase who are basically being bled dry. And dont give me any of that 'we never took a dividend...plurality ownership' cack either. A small coterie of shareholders have made out like bandidts and taken it all as a backdated payday when they cashed their shares in (I'm looking at you, Dein/LAdy Nina/ Fizsman estate). Even now they are looking at planning permission for a new tower block and flats on Queensland road before they look at spunking money on players and - heaven forbid - trophies. Face it - Arsenal is a property / merchandising outfit with a lossmaking football club tacked on as an afterthought.

So, agsint all taht, if the board have only reeally wanted to spend the bare minimum on sporting success to keep things on an even keel, Wenger has done a fantastic job. Its not until fan unrest redresses the balance at elast partway towards the fans again that those incentives will change. When they do you will see us show more 'ambition.'At taht point wenger wont have to put a brave face on and talk about how young the team is. He wont need to - we'll be recruiting men instead of boys. Personally I think we're close to coming out off hibernation and Wenger'ss still got it. I do think he has used up his goodwill and cant push it any further though.

[Toronto Gooner]

It certainly is. However I think people have it arse about face - I reckon Wenger is actually doing well to keep things going and its the board who are most to blame. His job is to be the fall guy for their policy and keep us in the CHampions league, nothing more. Hasnt been for a while either.

The 'sustainabliity' model is a chimera too. Think of it this way - Arsenal geenrates a load of value, through its property investment, gate receipts, TV rights etc. The stakeholders are basically the fanbase, the shareholders and anyone drawing a wage from the club, most notably the players, manager and certgain directors.

All those people have been rewarded except for the fanbase who are basically being bled dry. And dont give me any of that 'we never took a dividend...plurality ownership' cack either. A small coterie of shareholders have made out like bandidts and taken it all as a backdated payday when they cashed their shares in (I'm looking at you, Dein/LAdy Nina/ Fizsman estate). Even now they are looking at planning permission for a new tower block and flats on Queensland road before they look at spunking money on players and - heaven forbid - trophies. Face it - Arsenal is a property / merchandising outfit with a lossmaking football club tacked on as an afterthought.

So, agsint all taht, if the board have only reeally wanted to spend the bare minimum on sporting success to keep things on an even keel, Wenger has done a fantastic job. Its not until fan unrest redresses the balance at elast partway towards the fans again that those incentives will change. When they do you will see us show more 'ambition.'At taht point wenger wont have to put a brave face on and talk about how young the team is. He wont need to - we'll be recruiting men instead of boys. Personally I think we're close to coming out off hibernation and Wenger'ss still got it. I do think he has used up his goodwill and cant push it any further though.

A couple of quick and simple questions:

(1) If Wenger is the fall guy for the board, why has he renewed his contract so often. His reputation was cemented after the first 5 or 6 years. He could have taken huge money at Real Madrid and several other clubs.

and

(2) How much money has been spent on the planning permission for the housing projects? Is it enough to pay a week's worth of Fabregas' wages?

[Power n Glory]

Ivan Gladis from the AST interview. "...Removing the manager from the financial aspects to me doesn't make a lot of sense because you have to discuss the worth of a player, and as I've said, everything is about efficiency when you have a limited spend, so you need to prioritise where your going to spend your money and how much an individual player is worth, so it's very difficult for me to imagine having a manager that says 'now that's the player I want now go get him' and you make up what you think the price is - there has to be a dialogue with the manger."

Wenger isn't the fall guy. He has a say in these matters. Wenger feels a lot of players are overpriced which is why we don't spend as much on players.

[Alan B'stard]

Wenger isn't the fall guy. He has a say in these matters. Wenger feels a lot of players are overpriced which is why we don't spend as much on players.

I dont doubt that he agrees with the penny pinching model but that just says to me he is made for the jobspec the board have set him.