Summer Transfer Misery and Recriminations.

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

The cold and ultimate fact is Kroenke has at least doubled the value of his investment. Wenger has delivered at minimum a 100% increase to the shareholders. This is spectacular success by any shareholder's measure. I'm sure they are sitting there on their hands, mouths zipped. Don't do or say a thing that could possibly upset this golden goose. The rest of it I see as going through the motions. The big pretence. Yes of course we are ambitious, yes of course we want to be part of the elite. I believe them when they say this. But I also believe they are speaking in financial terms, I don't imagine they pay a blind bit of attention to the football itself. That's Wenger's domain, the vehicle for the profits. And he manages in just that way, with profitability as the main (perhaps only) focus. I bet if they could make more profit from being relegated they'd push for that. But for maximum profits a certain bare minimum standard has to be maintained on the pitch, offset by the smallest possible expenditure. Wenger has found this happy (for some) balance. The top 4 "trophy" (again, this is a financial rather than football measure) and the whole convenient idea of sustainability. They have very successfully convinced the media and the fans that what is nothing more than a cost control exercise is a virtue to be admired and aspired to. Some poor saps actually look down their noses at the clubs winning trophies and hammering us 6-0. They may have a trophy, they may be competitive, they may have humiliated us in a football sense. But in terms of the balance sheet, they are dirty and we are saintly. Honestly, the very idea of football fans offering up daylight robbery as a source of pride and superiority is mortally embarrassing. That's why other fans laugh at us, or pity us. They also say, well yes, I'd take the top 4 finishes. But again, they are talking about it in football terms. We never are. It's always financial with us. The whole reason for the club has been subverted.

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Hence why I had to step back a little when looking at the outside investment argument compared to the model we have here. It started to sound and look like a con and a way for the fans to foot the bill whilst the wealthy owners invested nothing at all. It was made even more clear when Wenger said the new TV deal money wouldn't result in lowered ticket prices.

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Originally Posted by Kano

I think that qualification is quite subjective. The end result isn't but certainly one persons idea of doing their best can differ to what something thinks. If that wasn't the case, there would only ever be one method of achieving or doing something. The key is I think, constantly reviewing the process after the event and aiming for improvements. Whether you were successful or failed, that should always happen. But it doesn't appear to be the case with Wenger. He appears to have remained static with his methods for the past twenty years, hence the repetitive cycles we have become stuck in. But without anyone around to push him into analysing his failings, he has become entrenched within his own bubble.

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I agree with your point as regards the highlighted text - and the failings in Wenger's methods can't fairly be attributed to him lacking a will to win. But I don't think his obvious reluctance to pay what has become the going rate for additions to his team that he clearly sees the need for is a subjective qualification to this. It is an objective failing. You might say generally that whether or not reinforcements are needed is a subjective decision for the manager that is difficult to fit into the 'doing the best he can' judgment call, but we are looking at a trend here with Arsenal that has undoubtedly denied us chances of league success. For this reason I don't see why his failings and obstinacy in the transfer market should be regarded as anything other than a failure to do the best possible job of making us competitive. The evidence is that he chooses not to spend what is necessary; and therefore deliberately takes risks with his squad, not that he has been forced to do so and is doing his best in straightened circumstances.

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

Is Gazidis actually on the board?

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The board is actually used to denote those in charge of the club

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

It's an escape route, away from the more troubling aspects of Wenger's record. The top 4 trophy is another such route. Or the idea Wenger is so ingrained that we'd suffer if anybody else tried to do his job - they never mention that nobody should do Wenger's job ever again, we should never have another manager with so much reach and control. But, because there's nobody out there that could do a job we don't want done, then Wenger remains the best and only option. These arguments have been honed over many seasons, they form the doctrine of the Cult of Wenger.

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The question one has to ask is would the club act to make sure the next manager had significantly less responsibility and authority than Wenger, I'm not convinced they would.

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Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie

The question one has to ask is would the club act to make sure the next manager had significantly less responsibility and authority than Wenger, I'm not convinced they would.

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Is that a huge problem? Would this sort of set up pose a problem for any other top manager? If anything, I've seen more managers struggle where they don't have this sort of freedom.

As long as the next manager has a focus to win trophies and doing what's best for the club on the pitch and not the board room, we should be fine.

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Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory

Is Wenger responsible for penny pinching and does he deserve the flak? Nobody asked if he cared about the club. Stan’s position is pretty clear. This is just an investment to him. Nobody has argued otherwise. If that’s his stance on the club but Wenger genuinely cares about what happens here, you have to question why he seems so eager to serve their agenda and not the supporters that have been here a lot longer. That’s a side note. It goes back to who is messing up the deals and it sounds a lot like it’s Wenger.

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Wenger deserves flak if he's penny pinching and messing up deals, but the board deserve flak for letting him have responsibility for this sort of thing in the first place. I don't think other clubs are run this way.
I actually don't think Wenger is doing what he does to server their agenda, I think he's doing it for other ideological reasons about the "right" way to do things and because he does care about the long term future of the club.
It suits the board very nicely but I don't think he's doing it because of that.

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Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory

Is that a huge problem? Would this sort of set up pose a problem for any other top manager? If anything, I've seen more managers struggle where they don't have this sort of freedom.

As long as the next manager has a focus to win trophies and doing what's best for the club on the pitch and not the board room, we should be fine.

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It's a massive problem, no manager in football has the same freedom and authority in their position as Wenger does. Whatever Wenger's failings, Managers are not infallible and it would be wrong to give someone else the same carte blanche. We know full well the way Wenger reacts to criticism from journalists simply because it's the type of criticism/scrutiny that does not come from above.

No-one is saying make the manager powerless, but let's not pretend that Wenger's shortcomings haven't been exacerbated by a club that takes a laisse faire approach to the way the club is run in a footballing sense.

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

Is Gazidis actually on the board?

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Yep.

Afaik it's:

Stan Kroenke
Josh Kroenke (Wonder how he weasled on there :rolleyes:)
Chips Kewsick
Lord Harris of Peckham
Ken Friar
Gazidis


As H_C_Z, it's basically Kroenke and Gazidis who call the shots. The likes of Chips and Harris seem the type who don't give a fuck what's going on and only attend for the benefits.

Wenger will probably get invited onto once he decides to call it quits.

I don't care why he is doing this any longer. For whatever reason he is doing it, he is either complicit, incompetent or both.

Sadly he has no pride, not even in whatever legacy he has remaining, otherwise he'd be gone.

Long gone.

If the last decade is the best he can do then the face smacking and obvious question is, why hasn't he been sacked? If failure to compete is the accepted standard then why does a man who cares so deeply about the club put up with it? With Wenger, I'm afraid the evidence has long since moved against him. I believe he does his best, but not for the club and for the fans, but for his shareholders and for himself. I believe that because the evidence points to it. And the evidence against is extremely flimsy given the behaviour of the club and the manager over the last decade.