Wenger Slaughterhouse

[Özim]

I don't blame other clubs tbh. I blame the players. They all have their eyes on the money, and ultimately it's them that make the choice. Loyalty is non-existent in football.

So, in that respect, given the time we have invested in players (and by that token, the time their youth clubs invested in them), I can understand why Wenger is pissed off. And as far as the clubs we bought them from at a tender age?? Gimme a break. They wanted the money, and I don't remember any of them kicking up a fuss. Feyenoord practically bit our hands off trying to get rid.

As far as I'm aware, Wenger wanted to keep Cesc, Nasri, RVP et al. Maybe the board felt different, but Wenger didn't want to sell them.

Sorry but that's not true, there's a number of players we had to pay compensation for after their clubs complained and we had to give Barca Van Bronckhorst in one particular deal.

Anelka was another we had to pay up for after PSG complained.

It's slightly different in that we take advantage of loopholes, but we're effectively cherry picking from smaller less desirable clubs on a smaller scale than Man City are and have been for years.

It's not as big news as they either have no choice or aren't big enough to kick up a fuss.

[Power n Glory]

Wasn't the fee for Nasri supposed to be some sort of compensatio for City tapping up Nasri?

[Letters]

It's slightly different in that we take advantage of loopholes, but we're effectively cherry picking from smaller less desirable clubs on a smaller scale than Man City are and have been for years.

It's not as big news as they either have no choice or aren't big enough to kick up a fuss.

And we're doing it with our own money, earned from previous success.
And we're not buying players in their prime for money we couldn't normally afford but a billionaire owner will write off the loss.
And we're not paying said players wages we couldn't normally afford (again, City's wage bill is more than 100% of their income. It's ridiculous that a club is allowed to operate like that)

[Shaqiri Is Boss]

I know. The whole system is wrong where the financial rewards throughout the game are so ridiculously skewed.

Indeed. It's all about scale.

Especially now, with EPPP coming in, Premier League clubs can essentially cherry pick youngsters from FL clubs for pretty nominal fees. And even that is weighted in favour of the bigger Premier League clubs, over the smaller ones.

[Özim]

And we're doing it with our own money, earned from previous success.
And we're not buying players in their prime for money we couldn't normally afford but a billionaire owner will write off the loss.
And we're not paying said players wages we couldn't normally afford (again, City's wage bill is more than 100% of their income. It's ridiculous that a club is allowed to operate like that)

Doesn't matter, it's still poaching of sorts.

Whether we do it with out money or not is irrelevant, Wenger is just complaining about players leaving, they'll leave because he's not delivering and they feel their interests are best served elsewhere, just like the young players left those other clubs to join us.

We're not morally superior in this sense because some of the things we do are pretty questionnable, ripping off the fans being the most obvious. I'm tired of hearing Wenger and co complaining about other clubs doing this that and the other, he needs to look closer to home and look at why this is happening....and no it's not just money.

He's oblivious to the reasons players leave, for him it only because of money.

[Letters]

There are differences, Zimm, and they are relevant.

One obvious difference is that Southampton aren't a direct rival. They're in the same division now, but they haven't been. Even now they are they're not going to be a rival for a CL place.
We bought promising players young who were not the finished product and developed them. We didn't just cherry pick the star players of our direct rivals, just because we could.
In fact, City weren't even our rivals when they started all this, they were a mid-table side. Fuelled by the billionaire backers they've bought players from bigger clubs than them to leapfrog them.
The idea that a club achieving success that way can be given the same credit as clubs who have done it by building on previous success is ludicrous.

There have always been haves and have nots, there always will be. And the lot of the smaller clubs is often to lose their brighter prospects to bigger clubs. Arsenal have a bigger stadium than Southampton, a bigger fan base. We'll always have more money. But at least the smaller clubs got well compensated for those players and could hope to replace them with that money. Although we were well compensated for Nasri it's not so easy to replace him as
a) There aren't so many players of that quality around and
b) Those players who are of that quality are going to be swayed by the megabucks that clubs like City are throwing at them, wages that even a club like ourselves can't afford.

The other thing is the rather more subtle tactic which Chelsea used - there were pretty strong rumours linking us with SWP back in the day. Chelsea doubled the price, bought him and stuck him on the bench. Just 'cos they could. It's not easy to compete with clubs who can do that sort of thing.

The gap is way too big now, to the point there the only way City could ever have achieved success is the way they have. That isn't City's fault. But to compare what we've done - chanelling money down the game - to City cherry picking players from rival clubs and blundering their way success by sheer weight of spending is going out of your way to have a pop at the club you claim to support.

I've no idea why you brought ripping off the fans into is as that's nothing to do with what we're discussing, you're just moving the goalposts there.

[Power n Glory]

I can't agree with that. The smaller clubs aren't well compensated. Not in the past anyway. We were poaching talented young players for peanuts and then selling them on for millions. These are rare players that could make a huge a difference for the smaller clubs but they get poached for small fees. For a small club to have a world beater on their hands and that could potentially be worth £30-£40m in years to come but we pay a few million! They're not well compensated and they can't easily replace the player, they have to wait to see who else develops. That's why the premium is going up on young players because they know certain players are worth more than what they're selling them for.

In Brazil, certain clubs aren't accepting peanuts from European clubs anymore because the next Ronaldinho is worth more than a few million. We've actually contributed to prices going up on certain young players because they've seen what we've done with guys like Anelka. That's why we're paying high prices for guys like Theo and Ox.

[Letters]

Southampton had £20m for Oxo and Theo. Hardly peanuts for a club at that level.

[Syn]

Plus the £30-40m players transfer fees only happen if they're playing in the highest league in their country. Nobody's going to pay £30m for a kid from the championship. We get an Oxlade or a Fabregas in, work with their raw ability and help - in no small way - their path to becoming top players. Is it all us? Of course not. The shitter club they were at (Southampton, Barcelona etc.) would've put some work in.

The main difference I find is that when we buy a kid from 'lesser' clubs, they actually need the money more than they need the player. We steal some from Barcelona because we're able to offer them professional contracts before Spanish teams can. But elsewhere, I can't remember us getting a player in a deal that hurt the club. Ramsey and Cardiff is perhaps one - I think they wanted him to stay another season, but in any case he was on his way to Man Utd before we jumped in.

I don't know why it's fashionable to try to argue that Wenger is a hypocrite. We're not whiter than white on many issues. The way we handle transfers, however, Wenger is true to his word. I actually think we're nowhere near ruthless enough in that respect.

[Power n Glory]

Southampton had £20m for Oxo and Theo. Hardly peanuts for a club at that level.

That's the situation now. Prices have gone up because they know who they're selling to and what we think they could be worth. We never uses to pay those prices before and it's pretty patronising to talk like that when we could make £50m to £60m off the pair if sold at the right time. It's bullshit reasoning to suggest these players aren't worth that much to smaller clubs as if they can easily be replaced.

If City decided to poach Wilshere for £20m would we feel we've been compensated well considering we trained him from young for years? I bloody doubt it because it's the principle of the matter and only a fraction of our transfer fees go back on the field and it may be the same case for smaller clubs. It's probably worse on fact because they can't easily lure the next wonderkid to sign for their small club so their soley dependent on youth development. If we solely depended on our academy, we'd be screwed because we know the profits made won't go back on to the pitch and if they did, we'd never be able to attract the same sort of quality in players sold because we'd be too far down the table for such clubs to even look at us. Some or you have a very warped and biased perception on this matter.