Quote Originally Posted by Syn View Post
That Auclair bloke also reckons we pretty much had the Mata signing in the bag but pissed around and delayed things...maybe trying to save a bit more money. Sometimes it's better to pay a premium of a couple of million and get the guy in a month early. Maybe that's a naive way of thinking in business terms but I think the gain in footballing terms beats that.

I don't think Wenger planned on going into the season having sold Nasri and Fabregas and not having any replacements lined up. He made those "you cannot sell both Nasri and Fabregas and tell people you're a big club" comments a month before the sales. Not sure what happened there - but it wasn't decisive management in any case. Same story off-the-pitch as on it.
Winterburn said the same thing yesterday on TS, That Wenger lined up a deal and the money was not released in time, thats why he tried to panic bu Gotze on the last day of the window but it got rejected.

Wenger thought he'd keep cesc all in all, i Think he knew the board would never have accpeted Nasri staying and going on a free, so i think he tried to convince cesc to stay when he knew he could not he caved in to pressure (being their friend not their manager mode) and gave in.