Do you still want Wenger as Arsenal manager?

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

of course his responsibilities have grown but he does not control the club strategy, no lower level director (and that's what he is) would do so.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...-Football.html

2008/09 was when madrid last came sniffing

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'but he does not control the club strategy, no lower level director (and that's what he is) would do so.'

are you out of your mind? you're comparing a football club to any other business. a manager at a football has 100 times more responsibility and control than a manager on the high street. can you not see that? when wenger first came, he probably did not have control over club strategy or control off the pitch, but over the years he won trophies and gained the trust of the board, and now he clearly has. you earn the trust of the board and wenger done that, so now has full control. the board trust him and if you cant see that then this debate can go no further.

was it wenger who advocated this youth project, yes or no? yes. therefore he has controlled the club strategy. something you said he cant.

also from the link you posted, ""It looks like managers have less of a say but I will go on my way if that happened.". If that doesnt state that if someone blocked him doing what he wanted to do he would walk, then i dont know what is.

sure a manager on the high street but that has no relevance here, as i keep stating, his level is equivalent to a lower level director. it's unbelievable that you think someone would invest and let someone lower down control their strategy. it is a business, don't forget that.

what you're doing here is confusing their belief in his strategies that have returned stacks of money for shareholders to flog off, with the idea that he is dictating it all. put in simple terms, the board and the manager agree on many many things, so why would they be blocking his ideas around the pitch?

selective quoting from that link. he says that he would go if undermined and that he has control of all the technical aspects (ie the team). that doesn't mean he tells the board what to spend, if they say no, then it's no but it probably hasn't happened much, as he likes to do it all on the cheap and they love it.

You're saying Wenger has full control of the club and that no-one else is involved with the club's direction or transfer dealings?
Seriously?

As for 'project youth', why did he do that? Because he wanted to? Because the board imposed transfer restrictions on him? What? I don't know.

Again, you're claiming far more knowledge of what's going on at board level in the club than you actually have.

Was it Wenger that championed the idea of building new training faculties, setting up the academy and building the Emirates so we'd be able to compete with best clubs in the world?

If he had so much of an influence on what we've built over the years, how can he all of sudden be relegated to some sort of puppet and 'yes' man?

He doesn't have full control but he's a very influential figure. As soon as he arrived we moved up the food chain. Now as everything is falling apart it's as if he has no power.

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Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory

If he had so much of an influence on what we've built over the years, how can he all of sudden be relegated to some sort of puppet and 'yes' man?

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no-one has argued that.

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He doesn't have full control but he's a very influential figure.

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Agreed.

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Now as everything is falling apart it's as if he has no power

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Again, no-one is saying that.

I've said before that Wenger is a free market fundamentalist and this is no exaggeration. He had already complained about the imposition of the 50p tax rate, and when he said that it was a prime example of him becoming obsessively concerned with financial considerations and forgetting that football takes primacy, especially for fans. "Project Youth" wasn't a project in idealism, it was a project that would allow him to put his free market philosophy into practice.

Think about it, this project involves a lot of market transactions, buying up young players from all around the world, as if they're commodities to be traded on the international transfer market. When Arsenal supporters who are also shareholders complain at the AGM about our lack of progress as a club in the last 5 years, he points out that shareholders have the least to complain about, since they've had a good return on their investment. He claims qualifying for the Champions League is equal to winning trophies because he sees things purely through a narrow economic prism, and therefore the rewards of UCL qualification in monetary terms outweighs the monetary rewards of winning, for example, the FA Cup.

What Wenger has forgotten in the last 5 years is that most supporters are not such free market extremists, and care about things beyond the bottom line. This is the reason why the board are so loyal to Wenger. This is because Wenger shares their belief in the free market and the commodification of football. People like these fail to understand the value we attach to concepts like heritage, tradition, community values etc etc. You can't place a market value on these things, even though as Arsenal fans they mean a lot to us and in many ways define Arsenal FC and what makes us unique as an institution. This is why PHW and Wenger criticise fans and make subtle digs at our intelligence. In reality, it's not our intelligence that is inferior to Wenger and the board, but our value sets that are diametrically opposite.

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Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz

sure a manager on the high street but that has no relevance here, as i keep stating, his level is equivalent to a lower level director. it's unbelievable that you think someone would invest and let someone lower down control their strategy. it is a business, don't forget that.

what you're doing here is confusing their belief in his strategies that have returned stacks of money for shareholders to flog off, with the idea that he is dictating it all. put in simple terms, the board and the manager agree on many many things, so why would they be blocking his ideas around the pitch?

selective quoting from that link. he says that he would go if undermined and that he has control of all the technical aspects (ie the team). that doesn't mean he tells the board what to spend, if they say no, then it's no but it probably hasn't happened much, as he likes to do it all on the cheap and they love it.

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why would a new owner go against wenger when the club is making profit? noone seems to be answering that one. we are making profit, wenger is in charge, why would stan change this strategy and go against wenger which is what some of you are implying.

i also never said they are blocking his ideas around the pitch. where did you get that from? im saying they arent blocking anything and its wenger who has chosen not to spend on experience. whilst some of you are saying it 'must' be down to board, as your beloved wenger cant suddenly have gone mad.

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Originally Posted by Letters (TPFKA WWTL@WHL)

You're saying Wenger has full control of the club and that no-one else is involved with the club's direction or transfer dealings?
Seriously?

As for 'project youth', why did he do that? Because he wanted to? Because the board imposed transfer restrictions on him? What? I don't know.

Again, you're claiming far more knowledge of what's going on at board level in the club than you actually have.

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no stop talking rubbish. i said he has full control over the club not that noone else does anything, or that people dont suggest ideas/how to deal with transfers/wages. this does not mean there arent people who help out or do the work for him. but wenger runs the rule of everything. in that sense, he has full control.

as for the youth project, wenger quite openly admits he decided to go youth because he saw the trend towards takeovers and teams spending millions, and knew we couldnt compete. thats not claiming to know board level information, its simple, open information available to anyone. so dont imply things that simply arent true.

http://arsenal-mania.com/articles/31...th-policy.html

"The decision was to go for more youth when we decided to build a new stadium because we are not in a position where we could spend £30m or £40m on players," said Wenger. "Whether people accept it or not is one thing but, today, we have a good side, we make profit and we pay our debtors back. People are scandalised when banks lose money but I'm scandalised when football clubs lose money. For me it's the same process. I'm not against spending money; I'm against losing money."

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Originally Posted by Joker

I've said before that Wenger is a free market fundamentalist and this is no exaggeration. He had already complained about the imposition of the 50p tax rate, and when he said that it was a prime example of him becoming obsessively concerned with financial considerations and forgetting that football takes primacy, especially for fans. "Project Youth" wasn't a project in idealism, it was a project that would allow him to put his free market philosophy into practice.

Think about it, this project involves a lot of market transactions, buying up young players from all around the world, as if they're commodities to be traded on the international transfer market. When Arsenal supporters who are also shareholders complain at the AGM about our lack of progress as a club in the last 5 years, he points out that shareholders have the least to complain about, since they've had a good return on their investment. He claims qualifying for the Champions League is equal to winning trophies because he sees things purely through a narrow economic prism, and therefore the rewards of UCL qualification in monetary terms outweighs the monetary rewards of winning, for example, the FA Cup.

What Wenger has forgotten in the last 5 years is that most supporters are not such free market extremists, and care about things beyond the bottom line. This is the reason why the board are so loyal to Wenger. This is because Wenger shares their belief in the free market and the commodification of football. People likes these fail to understand the value we attach to concepts like heritage, tradition, community values etc etc. You can't place a market value on these things, even though as Arsenal fans they mean a lot to us and in many ways define Arsenal FC and what makes us unique as an institution. This is why PHW and Wenger criticise fans and make subtle digs at our intelligence. It reality, it's not our intelligence that is inferior to Wenger and the board, but our values sets that are diametrically opposite.

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free market fundamentalist :bow:

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Originally Posted by She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

"The decision was to go for more youth when we decided to build a new stadium because we are not in a position where we could spend £30m or £40m on players," said Wenger. "Whether people accept it or not is one thing but, today, we have a good side, we make profit and we pay our debtors back. People are scandalised when banks lose money but I'm scandalised when football clubs lose money. For me it's the same process. I'm not against spending money; I'm against losing money."

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This quote again highlights that Wenger is treating Arsenal FC as purely a business, by repeatedly pointing ot how we are paying our debtors back, how we make profit etc. I'm not saying that paying our debts is a bad thing (of course it's a very important aspect of any institution) but he fails to mention that football is ABOUT MORE THAN THE FINANCIAL BOTTOM LINE! Nowhere does he mention in this quote about understanding the fans frustrations at failing to compete for trophies (which is different from demanding that we silverware every season, which no fan has ever done)

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Originally Posted by She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

no stop talking rubbish. i said he has full control over the club not that noone else does anything, or that people dont suggest ideas/how to deal with transfers/wages. this does not mean there arent people who help out or do the work for him. but wenger runs the rule of everything. in that sense, he has full control.

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And how do you know that?