Summer transfer joy and happiness

[Marc Overmars]

I'm not sure what you mean "after they fell out of the top 4"?
Since they won the title they have been bobbed around all over the place, never lower than 8th but never consistently inside or outside the top 4.
They have never had more than 4 seasons in a row either inside or outside the top 4.

I was more referring to their period under Benitez when they had a strong team. After he failed it took them 4 seasons to qualify again and their signings at the time were a reason for that.

[Power n Glory]

That's a bit of a weird argument. Chelsea and City have usurped us by spending a shit ton of money, so have Liverpool actually.
Only Spurs have sorted themselves out with good management.
All the other teams were trying to get into the top 4, none of them consistently succeeded till the money men came along.
Wenger was far too proud of just keeping our top 4 status, but the fact no other teams managed it shows it wasn't an easy task to be that consistent for that long, we weren't spending big in the transfer market to do it.

We don't spend as much as Chelsea, City and Utd, but we've spent a shit load more than those outside of the top 4 to stay in that position. We're a much bigger club than those that were outside of it, hence why they could never get in, hence why I don't go overboard with the praise for Wenger.

[I am invisible]

We're in a mess but for me, it would be an even bigger mistake to trust Emery with everything in the bank straight away. Let's see what he can do and how far he can get with little before we give him everything we have. If he were to spend a shit load and turn out to be flop, we'd be in an even worse position.

Yeah, I agree. Even if we're 100% confident that Emery is the real deal, I still don't think it would be unreasonable to expect him to spend a bit of time with the existing group before we go on a mega spend up. Bring in an immediate handful of trusted players who can help him to quickly transmit his ideas and the professional standards he expects - that makes sense - but I'd hold off on the total tear-down until he's a) done a thorough assessment of what he has, b) gone some way to addressing the culture at the club, and c) made sure his authority is established.

Not much point in bringing in 100m players until the attitude in the group has started to change and the players are fully behind the coach - we'll just end up ruining them...

[Power n Glory]

Yeah, I agree. Even if we're 100% confident that Emery is the real deal, I still don't think it would be unreasonable to expect him to spend a bit of time with the existing group before we go on a mega spend up. Bring in an immediate handful of trusted players who can help him to quickly transmit his ideas and the professional standards he expects - that makes sense - but I'd hold off on the total tear-down until he's a) done a thorough assessment of what he has, b) gone some way to addressing the culture at the club, and c) made sure his authority is established.

Not much point in bringing in 100m players until the attitude in the group has started to change and the players are fully behind the coach - we'll just end up ruining them...

Very true. We need to address the culture first and he needs to see what players can do what before we start with the sweeping changes. Set the foundations first and then start building.

[Cripps]

We don't spend as much as Chelsea, City and Utd, but we've spent a shit load more than those outside of the top 4 to stay in that position. We're a much bigger club than those that were outside of it, hence why they could never get in, hence why I don't go overboard with the praise for Wenger.

Our wage bill was huge as well.

[Power n Glory]

Our wage bill was huge as well.

The wage bill, the stadium, facilities such as our training ground, scouts, medical team, revenue generated... it all counts. We have a huge advantage over a lot of teams which is why we were able to stay in the top 4 for so long.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

I think it comes down to expectations. If they expect him to win a trophy and challenge for the title straight away then not giving him the personnel he thinks he needs to do that is a little daft.

Realistically though the aim is probably to get us back into the top 4, which they can hide behind for why his funds may be limited.

I haven't been delighted by the transfer dealings so far but in spite of that I thought the squad was good enough to get into the top 4 last season anyway, so the fact we didn't hows an enormous level of underachievement with needs to be addressed in the training field first and foremost.

[Letters]

We don't spend as much as Chelsea, City and Utd, but we've spent a shit load more than those outside of the top 4 to stay in that position. We're a much bigger club than those that were outside of it, hence why they could never get in, hence why I don't go overboard with the praise for Wenger.

There were times when Liverpool and Spurs were spending loads more than us to try and leapfrog us and failed till very recently.
I don't think we should go overboard about the top 4 thing but I don't think it should be dismissed as though any idiot could have done it, especially during the period when the stadium move was hampering our spending.
Other big clubs have changed managers and failed to keep them in the top 4 despite spending loads of money.

I think we're well placed to push on, we have the infrastructure and fanbase to push us on. I don't think any manager could take us over and we'd be sweeping all before us, too many clubs have too much money now.

[Letters]

Wenger damaged our rep mate. We got away with it initially as we always finished top 4 but the minute we dropped out of top 4 that was it, curtains!

We should never have been in this position, if Wenger would have done his job properly he would have left us with a competitive squad to work with. As it happens, he's left us with a mess of a squad and an owner that won't release proper funds because Wenger has blown it on duds.

Rubbish!

I realise that is not a very intelligent reply but this is nonsense. We have the infrastructure and fanbase to compete. I don't think our squad is a million miles away.
The owner is a certainly a problem though.

[Power n Glory]

There were times when Liverpool and Spurs were spending loads more than us to try and leapfrog us and failed till very recently.
I don't think we should go overboard about the top 4 thing but I don't think it should be dismissed as though any idiot could have done it, especially during the period when the stadium move was hampering our spending.
Other big clubs have changed managers and failed to keep them in the top 4 despite spending loads of money.

I think we're well placed to push on, we have the infrastructure and fanbase to push us on. I don't think any manager could take us over and we'd be sweeping all before us, too many clubs have too much money now.

Liverpool and Spurs were behind us in terms of how much was being spent on wages, infrastructure, stadium and resources. But Liverpool have finished above us on quite a few occasions. Now it looks like Spurs have finally caught up. It's not about any idiot being able to keep us top 4, it's just a club of our size and resources had more of an advantage over the majority.