Andrey Arshavin, Sébastien Squillaci, Gervinho, André Santos, Park Chu-young and Marouane Chamakh. To name but some. I know we like to laugh at Torres, but have we made more mistakes than others signing players, and if so, why?
Andrey Arshavin, Sébastien Squillaci, Gervinho, André Santos, Park Chu-young and Marouane Chamakh. To name but some. I know we like to laugh at Torres, but have we made more mistakes than others signing players, and if so, why?
Yep, I reckon we're the only club who sign players that don't work out.
Not the point. I know I am centred on AFC but I would honestly like to know objectively how we measure up...or whether we are bleating over nothing when it comes to our overpaid failures.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimandi's Perm
Liverpool /threadQuote:
Originally Posted by IBK
Well..... quite.Quote:
Originally Posted by Injury Time
We've signed a fair few duffers but that's a natural consequence of going for bargains as the standard option. Other clubs end up with players that contribute just as little eventually though, it happens to all clubs. Look at Malouda, contributed to Chelsea at times (09/10) but now is their Arshavin essentially.
Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
Gervinho £10,600,000
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain £12,000,000
Joel Campbell £950,000
Park Chu-Young £3,000,000
André Santos £6,200,000
Mikel Arteta £10,000,000
Per Mertesacker £10,000,000
Some fairly chunky fees in there?
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Suarez Is Boss
Not really, I mean, not in football terms.Quote:
Originally Posted by IBK
I'd love to know how much Swansea's squad cost. Anyone know how much Newcastle have paid for their Frenchies?Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
As well as Swansea have done, ultimately, they're midtable (not a criticism). And Newcastle are much further down than that.
Agreed - but given that AW is obsessed with value for money, are we getting it?Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
Not when you factor in wages.Quote:
Originally Posted by IBK
We just might be ahead of the pack, especially when we narrow it down to our stature, where we're said to one of the supposed 'big' clubs.
Not sure any other 'big' club has so many of its players out on loan simply because they turned out to be massive slags who the club can never sell for one reason or the other.
We have a player named Park whom, personally, I can't recall ever seeing in action for us. Did we manage to sell him? :shrug:
Agreed - Wenger's blind spot!Quote:
Originally Posted by GB.
Reckon it might be the reason why they are on loan. Other clubs seem to sign or develop project players and loan them out. We seem to sign players intended for the first team and then have no choice but to loan them to try to cut losses when they fail.Quote:
Originally Posted by BoringBoringArsenal
Some may disagree with the "chunky" bit because some of those figures are peanuts in modern football terms. But I'm inclined to agree with you based on what we got for those monies.Quote:
Originally Posted by IBK
Frankly, most of those shouldn't be here even if they were for free.
"Chunky" referred to what we tend to pay...Quote:
Originally Posted by BoringBoringArsenal
Oh sorry, left off the 'with you' after the '...agree ...' there.Quote:
Originally Posted by IBK
Wenget plays the odds. Everything he does is based on percentages and risk. From injuries, to squad depth, to player positions and tatics.
Its the same with transfer fee versus player potential. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but he has unwittingly lowered the level of quality in doing so.
Ha ha - understood. Its interesting how low our transfers are compared to other EPL teams with CL aspirations.Quote:
Originally Posted by BoringBoringArsenal
Wonder if he's losing his nerve though - now he is tapping second tier 'established' players, and fucking up badly with his punts...Quote:
Originally Posted by LDG
Yep when you factor in wages we're pretty way down in terms of value for money I suspect which makes some of the board/Wenger claims of financial prudence ridiculous. We have the fourth highest wage bill in the country, not that far off Man United's and when you note down the difference in performance on the pitch then you realise just the sheer scale of wastage there is on the books. I'm not sure if one exists already but someone really needs to compile a joint Transfer Fee + Wage chart for easy comparison.Quote:
Originally Posted by GB.
I'd also add in the likes of Diaby, Denilson, Djourou & Bendtner as other waste who are essentially getting paid to do nothing.
With regards to the original question, in terms of whether Wenger getting it wrong more often then not when it comes to player transfers, it's really hard to say as EVERY manager has their share of duds. Even Ferguson: Kleberson, Djemba Djemba, Veron, Bebe, Miller (lol new Keane) etc etc. It's impossible to determine accurately in terms of number of duds without actually carrying out some significant transfer analysis of the past twenty years which I can't be bothered to do.
However the problem with our duds compared to say duds at quite a few other clubs is that we foolishly give them lavish contracts which makes them harder to get rid of once they arrive. Furthermore Wenger often persists with his dud signings a lot longer than other managers. For example I could never see Ferguson persisting with Denilison for as long as Wenger did, likewise Santos & Arshavin would have been out of the door a lot faster under him once their incompetence and unfitness for PL level football was established. These two things combined make our duds more noticeable I believe which may give the impression that we have a lot more duds compared to others.
bit silly to throw in oxlade and arteta as money wasted. ox is far too early to write off and most fans saw arteta as a decent enough player last term. he's far from alone this year in having his problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by IBK
I think he is. He has bought players that just aren't suitable to our style of play. Some aren't that bad and have some uses. Bendy, Giroud, Chamakh....unless we're playing a counter attacking style with fast wingers, these guys were never going to flourish.Quote:
Originally Posted by IBK
It used to be a case of players needing a full year to get used to the league and pace but now that's just not true.
Harsh to put Mert in there. Arteta has been shit since he joined
Every club has their share of hits and misses but the quality of our team has steadily declined, which suggests either the signings are plain not good enough or the manager is unable to get the best out of the team.
Either way, we've wasted a lot for a club who prides itself on being economic.
Agreed on the Arteta bit. Really a pointless player who should have finished his days at some pub team.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cripps
Mert is also a bit shitte too tbh, tall and lanky but can't jumb higher than any Spanish midget, neither can he outpace a caterpillar.
Yep, this.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDG
:gp:
IF we are considered to be a top club, then we buy a lot of shit players who we depend on. Utd has bought a fair share of garbage but they always have someone to cover up their arses and minimize the shit show. We sell our best and buy absolute junk, so our junk stinks more, since its always out in the open.
They also don't hoard the duds they sign as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by fakeyank
We have the fourth highest wage bill in the country.Quote:
Originally Posted by GB.
We have never finished lower than fourth and will probably finish fourth again. Think most of you don't really understand what 'value for money' means.
If you include transfer fees in this argument, we come out a long way on top.
The fans may be getting ripped off (1300 for a season ticket to watch a club that hasn't won anything in eight years - lol) but the club's financial side is, as always, very well maintained relative to our performances on the pitch.
As for transfers, it's a lot more difficult to unearth 'gems' when you're playing around in the bargain bin of the market, but all clubs make mistakes. Chelsea have spent 100M this year to get knocked out of the CL in the group stages and are a mere two points ahead of us, Man Citeh have ended up with a far weaker team despite adding 4-5 players during the summer and we all know about Liverpool.
For the stupid then, can you expand on what value for money means in this case please?
I defy anyone to look at the players on our books, including the dross on loan, and tell me that represents value for money. We obtained outstanding vfm in the past. Those days are gone.
Even relative to others we obtain poor vfm from our wage bill.
We're not like City and Chelsea, we can't waste money without facing the consequences of our actions. Having a large stable of players who are either frozen out or on loan means we have money tied up which could be put to more effective use, that's the consequence we have to live with.
It's really hard to believe that our scouts can't find talent and value in the market these days. I was just watching Yaya Toure and thinking how we had the inside lane for this guy and didn't move for him. It's a shocker. In fact, I'm reading that he had a trail with us! No idea why we didn't work hard enough to get deal done for the kid. Or maybe we didn't want to kill Diaby?
We also could have signed him whilst at Olympiacos. We didn't. He moved to Monaco, Wenger's former club but we didn't move for him and he went to Barca for around £7m. Maybe Wenger thought he'd kill Diaby!
That's an example of one player. There are others we've missed that have the talent but wouldn't have cost a fortune as well. The Prem is littered with such players so I don't agree with this idea that we can't find hidden gems. Wenger and scouts just aren't moving for them.
He was refused a work permit.
Arshavin 80K per week surplus to requirements, Squillaci, Chamakh, Djourou & Bendtner all 50k per week surplus to requirements, that is not value for money, that's approx 300K per week wasted on players who don't play. What makes it even worse is that no other club wants to touch these players because of their ridiculous salaries, we can't even loan some of these duds out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Boss
Relatively speaking we are where we are due to the calibre of player we have and the wages we pay them, sure I agree with this. However...the point here is that we could and should have put our wages to better use.
Additionally, why do we have to unearth gems? We're told repeatedly the club is in great shape financially, we clearly have funds to spend so why don't we target the 15-20mill market more? I accept that we can't spend like Chelsea or City but I would rather we spent 20mill and 100k per week on a top quality player than buy 2 10mill 50k per week risk buys.
I personally feel there is one man stopping us from spending up to 20mill on a player and that is because of some "crazy" principle he has.
PREMIER LEAGUE WAGE BILLS 2010-11Quote:
Originally Posted by Boss
Chelsea - £191m (up from £174m in 2009-10)
Manchester City - £174m (£133m)
Manchester United - £153m (£132m)
Liverpool - £135m (£121m)
Arsenal - £124m (£111m)
looks like we are on course.
value for money right?
Didn't stop us from signing Vela, Ryo, Campbell and Wellington Silva who had similar work permit issues and we could have dipped back in for him whilst in Greece or France but we didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimandi's Perm