What do our transfers tell us about our club/manager?
Lets start with the positives - firstly, as slightly underwhelming as our last minute purchases are, I am happy that at least there will be some interest and (dare I say it), even a change in the way we play this season, with so many new faces. And I would like to think that these new signings will refresh and re-animate our existing players who had clearly lost a lot of faith.
Secondly - I think our signings represent a long overdue slice of humble pie for Monsieur Wenger, and I think that we owe Manure some gratitude for the reality check that everyone but the manager had seen for months before last weekend.
But for me there are some worrying aspects of the transfer window too. Wenger is famed for his meticulous planning and attention to detail. Yet we were left with an unedifying last minute scramble which patently resulted in us not signing some of our first choices. Wenger's obvious failure to plan for the departures of Fabregas and Nasri seems at best a massive error of judgment as to both players' desire to leave the club, and at worst simply inept. While I have tended in the past to support the club over David Dein, the Summer lends weight to the theory that in a similar way to Brian Clough and Peter Taylor - Dein was an intrinsic component of AW's success.
Also, I wonder whether Wenger's underlying philosophy has really changed. There is no doubt in my mind that the true Wenger signing of the Summer was Oxlade-Chamberlain - and it is telling that he cost £2M more than Arteta - who is in football terms many times more important than the teenager. The fact that AW is up to his old tricks here despite the humiliating evidence that the money he spent (in transfer fees but mostly wages) on the likes of Bendtner; Denilson; Vela has been wasted (clearly noone else being prepared to meet Arsenal's valuations).
The reported underbidding for the likes of Jagielka, Cahill and M'Villa despite the cash at his disposal has all the hallmarks of Wenger's stubborn principles - and makes me wonder how much our signings (injury-prone MF's; unknown quantities at LB and up front) were driven by perceived value for money and how much by their true value football-wise.
On the playing side - you do have to wonder how our last minute signings can form part of a coherent vision for the team. Does AW really have a plan or has he just panicked - once it became clear that he was close to losing the dressing room?
Lastly - and here one does have to look at the ££ left over from the kitty available before July; the Cesc and Na$ri and CL money - was there ever any serious desire to replace our 2 departed 'world class' players with equal quality? And would we even have done the business we have without last weekend's wake up call? It is difficult for me to escape the impression that both board and manager were content to 'wing it' - and even more difficult for me to believe that even the signings we have made are intended to do anything other than try to keep us in the top 4. We have had previous evidence (Arshavin being the best example) that the club will only take positive action when the CL place is under threat. Here we have the same thing happening - and to my mind, the purchases we have made are 'top four' purchases, not title winning ones. And to me that remains the mentality of our majority shareholder; board and manager.
So while I welcome the new faces, and welcome even more having the lift of at least having some cause for optimism on the pitch, I remain concerned that realistically we remain bereft of the star quality that is needed to push for long-awaited silverware.
Thoughts?
