This is the definition of an expert today.
What a fucked up world.
Printable View
This is the definition of an expert today.
What a fucked up world.
Yep, that is a top point. We really need to keep a hold of our top players. We paid Chamakh, Park and Squallaci to sit on the bench for a whole season so I don't see the harm in giving Walcott the wages. Once he has a new deal we have more security and we can sell him if things don't go according to plan. It makes no sense to dig our heels in over this. What also pisses me off is the fact that we're now prepared to keep Walcott for the season and risk losing him on a free transfer. Why wasn't the same approach taken for RVP? Because RVP had a massive offer on the table for his services and I suspect we haven't had an outrageous bid come in for Theo. Money is the priority with this club and it gets on my nerves when I hear fans getting sucked into the same talk of value when we should be focused on retaining our best players and getting better on the pitch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz
:gp:Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz
Top post
Again. 2 different issues, I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz
I don't think it's seriously doubted that Wenger's gamble with a development team has not really worked out (albeit that this is a relative concept - given that it has at least kept us in CL football, unlike some of our bigger spending peers). It seems self-evident that in hindsight we have overpaid players who have failed to deliver, and this has hurt us by leaving them difficult to shift, and using up our cash resources.
But I'm not so sure the answer is as simple as many on here seem to think. Bottom line is that the only world class players we have had for 5 years have been development players. Unknowns or kids that the manager has seen potential in and developed. Players that in many cases we have had to reward relatively richly to come to us rather than our more illustrious competitors. We might all agree that we have gone too top heavy on prospects rather than the so-called proven talent, but it seems to me ironic that on the one hand some lament the departures of players like Hleb; Adebayor; Toure; Cesc; Na$ri; RVP and Song, but on the other forget that all of these players were completely, or relatively unknown when they arrived.
And lets fact it - we cannot afford an Aguero; a Silva; a Torres or a Mata with the competition there is out there - and couldnlt do so even if we did not have, say, 4 or 5 of the players whom we now can't shift. Sure, you can buy the likes of Arteta - but he is a very good player, not a world class one. Some of the players we have developed have been world class - and its basically the only way we can have world class players in our team these days. It seems churlish to criticise completely the system that has resulted in this.
Next - I'm not sure our want away problem is to do with planning/timing. What do people want the club to do? Reward players who become want away before they have proven themselves; or cut off their noses to spite their faces by 'getting in first' to flog them before they make Van Persie type announcements. We would like to keep Walcott, sure, but has he really done sufficient to justify a large price tag? Should he be keeping Oxlade on the bench? What should the club do? The fact is that football is player and agent led these days. You either have deep enough pockets to buy loyalty, or you do your best to keep your best assets, but are basically beholden to them - more so once they start performing.
A catch 22 IMO.
It's true, Wenger has developed a lot of talent. And then that talent has been sold on. So we get the top 4 finish (CL money), the club gets the sell on fee. Rinse and repeat. But you don't build a team doing it that way. If you want to build a team you don't set yourself up as a selling club as we have done. Every problem stems from that policy and has a cumulative effect. Other clubs know we will sell, the players know we will sell, the fans are only too aware we'll sell. So we are a waypoint for talented players, a shop window. The fans get cheated and the board cashes out. Wenger makes it all tick, either willingly (which realistically you have to say is the case) or resignedly but without the actual resignation. And the con got played off the back of a time when we did have a team, stuffed with talent. The sting run by the last batch of shareholders was built on inertia, the hangover period where the past fuelled the hope of the future. But as we have seen, it was a giant scam operated for the benefit of the few. All this bullshit about financial prudence, developing teams and infrastructure for the future. Now if the previous shareholders were still in this with us and their investment was on the line, maybe you could believe their bullshit. But their pay day tells the real story. And what about this Kroenke guy. From his own mouth - nothing will change. The objective is not success on the pitch, at least not beyond the level required to keep the financial agenda producing. This is why we look at the direction of the club and wonder WTF? We want one thing, the board wants something entirely different.
:gp:Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Fuckin A post mate.
I'm hearing ya - but I'm still not sure it all adds up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
If you are saying that you want the owners to put their hands in their pockets to fund player purchases, or to match the transfer fees/wages available elsewhere then that's one thing - and at least I follow an argument that people are up in arms because while the Chavs and Citeh have "altruistic" billionaires who will supplement/provide their clubs' incomes and we don't, then our billionaires are wankers.
If not, then I don't understand what we could do to avoid being a selling club. We are not as rich as the 3 clubs above us. Fact. We have not been as successful as they have over the past 7/8 years. Fact. What can we do to stop our players wanting to leave for them; or AC Milan; or Real Madrid, or Barca? We either settle for players who aren't good enough to be wanted by them, and do worse than we are now, or we accept that the bigger boys will always steal our pocket money.
Your approach suggests that the board/owners are hoovering up any profit that the club makes. I don't follow this. There is a potential profit to be made via a share increase, yes, and board members in the past have sold out to Kroenke and Usmanov. But currently, no dividend is paid. How are profits reaching the owners' pockets, exactly?
And if this is the model, how is it to be sustained. You don't increase the value of a company merely by ploughing modest profits into its cash reserves. OK if football clubs are commodities, it may be that with more money coming into the game the value of a solvent club like Arsenal will increase without any input - but the best way to achieve this is by upping the club's profile and support base. And the best way to do that is to win things.
Second - I simply don't think that AW wants to sell the players he has developed, out of choice. And I smply don't believe that his best players are being sold under him - he could walk into a place like PSG and be paid just as much as he is now. The only thing that makes logical sense to me is that he knows, and the board knows that there are more tempting destinations out there for mercernary players and that once a player and his agent have decided that they are going, there is very little AFC cn do about it.
Might it just be that the board see AW as the best way to achieve success - and are prepared to give him more time to do this while being careful to keep the club solvent? This would make more sense to me - even if even I feel that manager and therefore board are being over cautious in their approach.
The idea of us being a selling club by design just doesn't add up, to me.
Sub, we're a profit making machine. It makes the club a valuable commodity, and a tempting business aquisition for the next person who wants to bleed it dry.
If we operated the club buy splurging on players, it would create a loss making club, and a not-so-tempting business opportunity.
We are a profitable club, yes. But how certain are we that these profits are not being re-invested on the playing side? Does anybody, anyware, have any proof of this? Yes, we have cash reserves. But we also have a hell of a wage bill.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDG
When you put your eggs into one basket and it does not work out, then this is how things turn out in most instances. Man Utd won the league with kids from their academy built around some experience, which is something we decided not to do and eventually put us into this corner. So what then happens is you may develop some stars as we have and the talent ratio across the team becomes disproportionate, so regardless of how they were developed they eventually stand head and shoulders over the rest of a squad that has not been supplemented correctly. That is bad planning of a myopic vision.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice Berg Kamping
The system we have of buying players from the ‘middle’ tier is fine, but again players like Cham and Park for example are not being used, so what is the point of using them? Surely if we are in danger of losing yet another key player to the team it would make sense to pay the going rate to maintain some sort of status quo, instead of this constant feeling of being in transition.
Justifying a price tag no longer counts I believe. No one, not one player – including Messi – can justify the wages they take home every month. If the club can find a way to justify paying for players like Denilson, Park, Cham, Bendtner etc for so long, then arguing against Walcotts rumoured demands seems pointless. Just pay the money. What does it matter anymore? None of them really earn their rate, none of them have any loyalty and it well serve to provide much needed stability in the squad – surely that counts for more than paying for Arshavin to keep his British visa or Park to escape military duty?
