Originally Posted by
Blink 1nce Quince 2wice
You're generally talking about how he has done over the course of his career which suggests that what you are actually talking about isn't merely 'form'. The player we have here today, whilst being a good player, is also a player who failed to live up to expectations at Bayern and is far from first team for the national side now too.
Nevertheless he came with good credentials which was why he commanded a good salary. I don't think he should have been paid what he was but that is immaterial. I wanted the club to bring in a quality forward and they did. I wasn't going to be bent up out of shape about it because we made him the highest paid player. We'd been penny pinching for years, showed no signs of letting up and paying it didn't bankrupt the club.
What good is it to talk of what 'most' players of Mertesacker's quality playing for a club like ours get? I'm sure it hasn't escaped your attention but there aren't an awful lot of clubs like Arsenal around. You know the type of club that actually tries to run itself properly on the money it accrues through legitimate business avenues and not rely on the benevolence of a rich benefactor. And I'm pretty sure you're not suggesting Distin or Jagielka are on 90k a week at Everton.... not that they are the quality of Per but they are a club who run themselves properly and have to.
If you sign a new player, then what else can you base his wages on other than the quality he has shown based on his past performances.....or in other words his reputation? If his reputation is a fallacy that is another issue, but assuming it is an honest one, I'm not sure why it would not come into play.
Ramsey will have his wages increased in good time to little argument of most reasonable fans. We didn't cut his wages when he wasn't playing well so why should we be obliged to rush and increase them now he is showing strong signs of coming of age? If we put Ramsey on 150k now....and next season he has a shocker.....can we suddenly cut his wages? No we can't, it doesn't work like that, so why shouldn't we take a breath before we go increasing wages of players on long term contracts who have started to play well.
I'm not saying Sammy K deserves to be Arsenal's top earner necessarily...but if you don't want to be obliged to pay a top wage for a top player then you may as well go and buy Stoke's destroyer rather than Real Madrid's and Germany's DM.