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Agreed - if Vermaelen had remained healthy and Chamakh had turned out to be not another Bendtner, we could have been in serious contention. We need to buy a backup Vermaelen and someone who can actually put the ball in the bloody net instead of pissing about. I don't think that has to cost that much money.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nasri Scoreng
Yes, Wenger is doing the right thing 'morally' if you ask me (if there are morals in business). If these rules have any teeth (I'm skeptical but hopeful) then long term we might be sitting pretty and Wenger would have shown to be right. We all want success but we surely all want the club to have stable long term foundations too. The issue for me is with a bit more spending and a decent captain we could just have both.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coney
i hear it at games and on the net, this constant harping on about pay packets whilst at the same time wanting us to spend money, you can't have one without the other anymore.
one thing is for sure if we were winning, then wages wouldn't be mentioned. and there is nothing to suggest that just by winning a trophy they would 'earn' their stupid ott wages. nothing can justify it and using it against players is meaningless.
Yeah, I do agree with that. It is hard to resist the rise of clubs like Chelsea and now City who can spend what they like without consequence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nasri Scoreng
But last year's collapse was nothing to do with that, we should have easily finished above City last year.
There was some suggestion (can't remember where I saw it - a few days ago anyway) about increasing the proportion of performance related pay against straight regular salary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
The plan may not have worked out for the fans but for AW and the board this could have been what they wanted all along. Their ambition was not to win the league but finsish top 4 and winning the league or a cup would be a bonus.
Untill the Ambition of the board and manager changes this club will be indecline every seasons. This is something that is selfmade and could be stopped very easily.
thats probably true but i dont understand using it to bash players with when we are underperforming, when if they are succeeding that would not justify the level of pay they achieve. nothing would.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coney
We are definitely on the slide. We only need to look at results in the last 5 years to see that we have stagnated, committing the same mistakes season after season and losing steam in the title race around March/April time. Every season we don't take the FA Cup seriously and go out in the 5th/6th rounds. We did well in the Carling Cup this season, but again, when it came to the crunch, we failed again. The Champions League shows we are not good enough against Europe's elites, and it's relatively predictable that we will go out in the Quarters every season.
You could argue, how can we be on the slide if we're simply stagnating? The thing is, teams like Liverpool, City, Spurs are looking to improve on the back of impressive seasons (end of season in Liverpool's case). The teams above us are not sitting on their laurels and are continually looking to improve themselves. While we have a squad of spoilt, overpaid footballers, many of whom have a higher opinion of themselves than their performances justify. Quite a few of our first team players are looking to leave (Clichy, Cesc, Nasri), while others have made noises about leaving (Denilson, Bendtner)
I'm not that concerned about the players leaving, because IMO they are cowards who were as responsible for our underachievements as anyone else. However, the lack of incoming players is a worry, and the fact that, in that article that you posted, the author claims that we offered Phil Jones higher wages than United (and a higher transfer fee) shows how far we have fallen in status, and the detrimental effect of this is that we are much less competitive in the transfer market. To put it in language that Wenger and our corporate board will understand, our lack of success has reduced the "brand value", making it harder to entice potential "customers".
I agree with the article in that a complete culture change is needed. We need players who can combine quality with substance, who are willing to run through brick walls and who do not rest on their laurels, and are intelligent enough to realise that a few good performances doesn't make you the dog's bollocks. Those players are available on the market, and do not have to cost the earth (look at Sagna and Vermaelen for instance) If Wenger took his head out of his arse, perhaps he'd see that.
It would certainly help if we were winning, in terms of money they would bring to the club (in terms of commercial revenue, sponsorship and prize money) and of course in terms of transfer value of a player.Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz
I don't see why players like Denilson, Bendtner etc should get big money when they've achieved nothing in the game, you have to at least earn your salary not have it handed on a plate to you.
In a sense. I mean, if you are earning 80K a week, I guess a performance bonus of a few K if you win a match is going to have less impact. However, there may be a psychogical effect that will make them find that extra mile. A purist would say they should not need it and so on, but human nature is not always 100% ultruistic. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry Tuffnutz