Wenger Slaughterhouse

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Originally Posted by Joker

He's not said anything obviously wrong but the implication in his comments is that we are the victims of external forces (City's Arab wealth, Russian petrodollars) and if only the world would change to suit and accommodate our business model, everything would be fine. He doesn't seem to realise that perhaps if we adapted ourselves by making fuller use of our resources, we'd be able to do better despite the current climate of spiralling debt.

He sounds like David Cameron making excuses for the failure of the UK economy. It's the fault of the Eurozone crisis, workers' wages are too high etc, but they never look at whether they've made any mistakes themselves in economic policy.

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Sensible posting at last

Truth be told, it's a garbage paper and Wenger hasn't said anything wrong but he keeps beating people over the head with his message. He should calm down and ease off the issue until his prophecy comes to pass. Or at least until some more folks start singing from the same hymn book. He's like the lonely shepherd at the moment.

People shouldn't mistake Wenger's comments as a critique of commercialisation of football. Indeed, if you read all his remarks about the football economy, his motivation is to further marketise the game, treating football clubs as private sector businesses that should be run purely on business principles, that supporters should be treated as consumers and the main goal for any manager is to find ways to maximise its income streams while minimising costs. He criticises Arabs and Russians who buy clubs because they are NOT treating their clubs as purely commercial enterprises or as investment vehicles. Buying these clubs for them is motivated by the glamour and gain in status with being associated with ownership of a big club. This is why they care deeply about winning trophies, because otherwise the loss in status defeats the purpose of owning the club in the first place. Moreover, these sugar daddies are concerned about keeping the fans onside because they enjoy being worshipped, and consequently keep season ticket prices low and do a lot of community work (look at Man City for example).

Wenger despises all that, because these owners are not responding to market signals and are treating football as a personal toy, rather than as a business. Neither "model" is appealing to me, but at the moment the Sugar Daddies inadvertently are more in sync with the fans than the free market fundamentalists like Wenger and Gazidis.

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Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory

Truth be told, it's a garbage paper and Wenger hasn't said anything wrong but he keeps beating people over the head with his message. He should calm down and ease off the issue until his prophecy comes to pass. Or at least until some more folks start singing from the same hymn book. He's like the lonely shepherd at the moment.

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Maybe but the hypocrisy shown by Tweedledee and Tweedledum is how i know they are WUMming.

If there were no quotes in that article, they'd be the first to defend Wenger with the "there are no quotes so its a shit paper" line

Theres a whole bunch of quotes there yet they still defend Wenger to the core cos he can do no wrong in some peoples eyes :rolleyes:

Anyway back on topic, what goes on at Man City and Chelsea isnt what has turned us to shit and made us win f all for years. Sooner Wenger and his lovers realises that, the better

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Originally Posted by Ach

Anyway back on topic, what goes on at Man City and Chelsea isnt what has turned us to shit and made us win f all for years.

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Exactly. Wenger and the board keep using that excuse, when in reality both have made huge blunders in the transfer window, and Wenger in particular is responsible for appalling tactical intransigence and stubbornness that has allowed teams like Bolton, Blackburn and Stoke continually take points off us because they know exactly how to counteract Wenger's tactics. His substitutions and team selections have cost us points and trophies (Chelsea in the FA Cup semi final in 08/09, the Carling Cup final 06/07). I'm sick and tired of him blaming external factors for his own failings. I hope he can one day be honest and look at himself in the mirror and realise how far he's taken Arsenal down since the heady days of the early 2000s (with massive help from the board of course).

The quotes in there are all accurate and correct. I don't know the context in which they were delivered because the source does not provide it. My preference is for Wenger not to bleat on about it but there is no context provided here.

If the question was about Arsenal's transfer activity, then he is off his rocker with this quotes. If he is asked about the economics if the game or FFP then what he has said is right. But we don't know what was asked. It could however be argued that he should not answer that question any longer.

I need context to make an assessment Ach doesn't give a damn about that and even where there is context provided in articles he posted he seems not to have even bothered to read what was contained within it. Either that or comprehension isn't his forte.

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Originally Posted by Ach

Theres a whole bunch of quotes there yet they still defend Wenger

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Because in those quotes he's said nothing wrong

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to the core cos he can do no wrong in some peoples eyes :rolleyes:

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Both the people you're accusing of WUMming and 'defending Wenger to the core' have said he should be sacked.
You know this.

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Originally Posted by Letters

Both the people you're accusing of WUMming and 'defending Wenger to the core' have said he should be sacked.
You know this.

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We don't know that for sure tbf.

RE: FFP, fair enough he's entitled to his opinion but IMO he's only in favour of FFP because this regulation will protect the bigger, established clubs' position at the top table of European football, making it much harder for smaller clubs to break the oligopoly. FFP restricts the amount of income a club can raise through investment from a single individual (i.e. sugar daddies) and without that avenue open to them, it is almost impossible for someone like Villa becoming bigger than they are. Here's David Conn at the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/davi...michel-platini

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The first is that if clubs are no longer permitted to rely on owners putting money in, then those who make the most income without owners' help could become even more inevitable winners of the game's prizes. The second is that clubs will seek to further increase their income, leading to yet more expensive ticket prices, as is happening in England, with rises announced at United, Arsenal and Liverpool.

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And I quoted a couple of academic articles in a thread a few weeks back that made the same point. I wish Wenger was more honest about why he likes FFP rather than pretend it's because he cares about the welfare of football and football fans. FFP will in fact inhibit competition and hurt the fans' wallets.

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Originally Posted by GB.

We don't know that for sure tbf.

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Fine, but we've both been critical of Wenger on here, I'm pretty sure we've both at various times said he should move on.
Accusations of "Defending him to the core" and "Think he can do no wrong" are WUMming, plain and simple.

But yes, I'll defend him when he's saying reasonable things.

Agree with some of PnG's posts btw.