Alexandre Lacazette - OFFICIAL BID turned down

[Kano]

There were no quotes at all about Higuain as far as I can remember and not buying Cabaye was hardly a player we've missed, given where he is now. The Lacazette bid is obviously true because Lyon came out with that press release. When transfers do come through, some of the large ones have been reported on before but think of the hit rate, the ratio of how many evolve into real transfers against those that don't. It's always safer to read with caution as far as the media are concerned until they can provide something concrete.

This is the trap that so many people fall into, that just because something is duplicated by multiple media outlets, that it has to be true. You say something enough times then of course it becomes 'a truth'. People tend to pick and choose the storie we believe because it fits in with a larger narrative we have on the situation. It's part of a wider manipulation and stranglehold that the media have on people's lives, that's why rags like The Sun and Daily Mail have such awful reputations for making shit up yet so many people believe the bollocks they print because it fits in with their version of 'the truth'. Did we try and buy Higuain and few years back or Alonso? Maybe. Did we miss out for the reasons the press stated? God knows, why should we believe what they've printed when there is nothing beyond their hand in the story? Well 50 media outlets all rinsed the same story with zero quotes or evidence so it must be true I guess.

Football transfers are one of the easiest to cook up and because we are traditionally slow and secretive about our business, and Arsenal fans online are one of the most fervent, too many allow themselves to get taken for a ride season and after season. The Arsenal board is shit but we don't need to believe the journalists are our friend. As far as they're concerned, we're easy bait.

[selassie]

There were no quotes at all about Higuain as far as I can remember and not buying Cabaye was hardly a player we've missed, given where he is now. The Lacazette bid is obviously true because Lyon came out with that press release. When transfers do come through, some of the large ones have been reported on before but think of the hit rate, the ratio of how many evolve into real transfers against those that don't. It's always safer to read with caution as far as the media are concerned until they can provide something concrete.

This is the trap that so many people fall into, that just because something is duplicated by multiple media outlets, that it has to be true. You say something enough times then of course it becomes 'a truth'. People tend to pick and choose the storie we believe because it fits in with a larger narrative we have on the situation. It's part of a wider manipulation and stranglehold that the media have on people's lives, that's why rags like The Sun and Daily Mail have such awful reputations for making shit up yet so many people believe the bollocks they print because it fits in with their version of 'the truth'. Did we try and buy Higuain and few years back or Alonso? Maybe. Did we miss out for the reasons the press stated? God knows, why should we believe what they've printed when there is nothing beyond their hand in the story? Well 50 media outlets all rinsed the same story with zero quotes or evidence so it must be true I guess.

Football transfers are one of the easiest to cook up and because we are traditionally slow and secretive about our business, and Arsenal fans online are one of the most fervent, too many allow themselves to get taken for a ride season and after season. The Arsenal board is shit but we don't need to believe the journalists are our friend. As far as they're concerned, we're easy bait.

It was widely reported that we were discussing a 23million deal with Real for Higuain and Napoli came in and offered 35million for him or whatever the fee was. We refused to up our offer to match Napoli's. All of the evidence pointed to that happening, it was reported everywhere. Sure we didn't need Cabaye but that's not the point I am making. My point is our laissez faire approach in the market and the fact we have form for not following up or increasing our offers for our transfer targets due to having some principled stance on setting our own valuations, what's the point? It gets us nowhere, the Higuain & Suarez examples are proof of that, we screwed up massively.

I see your point and you can't always take what you read as the gospel truth but let's face it, it would hardly be a surprise to anybody if the club came out and confirmed what everybody has suspected regarding not meeting selling clubs valuations. There is no reason for the media to report on us doing this kind of thing multiple times. Also, Wenger has hinted on more than one occassion that he's not followed through on bids for certain players because it would kill player x, y or z.

I wouldn't be so bothered if we had a complete squad but we have gaping holes in certain positions yet wont address them due to our principles, it's absolutely ridiculous TBH.

[Power n Glory]

It was widely reported that we were discussing a 23million deal with Real for Higuain and Napoli came in and offered 35million for him or whatever the fee was. We refused to up our offer to match Napoli's. All of the evidence pointed to that happening, it was reported everywhere. Sure we didn't need Cabaye but that's not the point I am making. My point is our laissez faire approach in the market and the fact we have form for not following up or increasing our offers for our transfer targets due to having some principled stance on setting our own valuations, what's the point? It gets us nowhere, the Higuain & Suarez examples are proof of that, we screwed up massively.

I see your point and you can't always take what you read as the gospel truth but let's face it, it would hardly be a surprise to anybody if the club came out and confirmed what everybody has suspected regarding not meeting selling clubs valuations. There is no reason for the media to report on us doing this kind of thing multiple times. Also, Wenger has hinted on more than one occassion that he's not followed through on bids for certain players because it would kill player x, y or z.

I wouldn't be so bothered if we had a complete squad but we have gaping holes in certain positions yet wont address them due to our principles, it's absolutely ridiculous TBH.

Leaving aside media speculation, we have enough examples of our laissez faire approach when it comes to doing business. Vardy and Suarez are recent examples. Looking at how we dealt with RVP, Nasri and Fabregas leaving….there is enough there to suggest we’re not really on the ball when it comes to getting these sort of things quickly. I won’t even start on how we can lose key players because we drag out contract negotiations. But we’re looking at next level incompetency if we didn’t even table a bid for Higauin in 2013 when a striker was needed.

No, I take that back. We’re looking at a club that signed a player with a broken back after we lost Ramsey to injury during a key part of the season. That will still take some topping.

[Kano]

It was widely reported that we were discussing a 23million deal with Real for Higuain and Napoli came in and offered 35million for him or whatever the fee was. We refused to up our offer to match Napoli's. All of the evidence pointed to that happening, it was reported everywhere. Sure we didn't need Cabaye but that's not the point I am making. My point is our laissez faire approach in the market and the fact we have form for not following up or increasing our offers for our transfer targets due to having some principled stance on setting our own valuations, what's the point? It gets us nowhere, the Higuain & Suarez examples are proof of that, we screwed up massively.

I see your point and you can't always take what you read as the gospel truth but let's face it, it would hardly be a surprise to anybody if the club came out and confirmed what everybody has suspected regarding not meeting selling clubs valuations. There is no reason for the media to report on us doing this kind of thing multiple times. Also, Wenger has hinted on more than one occassion that he's not followed through on bids for certain players because it would kill player x, y or z.

I wouldn't be so bothered if we had a complete squad but we have gaping holes in certain positions yet wont address them due to our principles, it's absolutely ridiculous TBH.

i don't disagree about our approach and rectifying issues within our squad, Wenger has been guilty of that for years now. But the media use that to intensify the situation and create further panic amongst supporters. What do they get out of it? Hits on their website and free SEO. Every time we put a link online, it creates a free back link to their website and helps with their rankings. A media outlet can only survive if people are reading it and what's the easiest way to do that, beyond the complicated science of Google Ad words or optimising your website? Get thousands of others to do a lot of the legwork work too. For free. On the smaller websites that don't have full time staff, writers often get paid based on the amount of hits they generate. So it's easy to see how they benefit.

The Higuain situation has become gospel without one single bit of evidence coming to light. Even three years later. In fact, the only quote I can recall is Perez saying Madrid hadn't received an offer from us - and that was after we the deal was signed, sealed and delivered. Granted, Perez is and always will be a massive cunt but I don't see what he has to gain from saying there was no offer, in public. How we handled Suarez was a joke, no one in their right mind can dispute that.

None of which is to say we aren't bad at doing transfers or getting in the players we need to sustain or improve the squad. But just because some things are true, it doesn't make everything true. The club wouldn't be able to perform near the top of the table or as a business if we were awful in every department. Arsenal do not help themselves when it comes to their approach to transfers and the media take full advantage of that AND of us, wherever possible.

[Niall_Quinn]

We saw the market, spotted a player we thought could help us, we put in a lowball bid totally at odds with that market. This is normal isn't it? This is how we usually do business. This is why we have almost signed every top player in the history of the world.