Quote Originally Posted by mastermind84 View Post
thats a fair point, but outside of Cazorla I am not sure any of those guys were undervalued.



only Adebayor was undervalued. Eduardo cost almost 10 million, iirc. 10 million for a player who only came from the Croatian League?


we abandoned our strategy because Henry, Vieira, and Pires types cost 20-30 million now.


they arent out there is my point. During the 2nd Wenger era, our players were more valuable than United's. Now they are behind United, City, and Chelsea. Those undervalued players are now going for 15-20 million. Look at Anderson at United, he was sold to them for over 20 million 5 years ago. If Aaron Ramsey was 17 years old and leaving Cardiff today, he would be at least £15 million. Conversely, Ox 5-6 years ago would have been around what we paid for Theo.

Eden Hazard is 20 years old and was sold for 30 million. Same is true for that Lucas fella that is going to PSG.

Its not as easy as us fans think it is. This is not a defense of the board at all because I feel they have made many mistakes over the years, but signing quality players is tough. Look at Koscielny for instance, he was signed for 9 million at 24 and only one season in Ligue 1. Football player prices have gone up and its hard for many of us to understand.
Henry and Vieira type players get to that sort of price range when the big clubs start sniffing around. We were linked with Falcao before he moved to Porto. They bought him for stupid money. Less than £5m. Look what he's worth now.

Ba, Cisse….look what they'd be worth if Newcastle sold them now. Eduardo cost us £10m but would have been worth double that if he hadn't have broken his leg. Nasri and Hleb are other examples. Hazard and Lucas are the Rondalinho's and Robinho's of this generation. Clubs have known about them for ages and we've never stood.

Prices have gone up on players because it's not £1997 anymore. It's 2012. A player that would be £5m - £7m will now probably cost a few more millions. It's not as if we haven't boosted our revenue earnings either. If Spurs, Sunderland, Fulham, Villa, Everton, Newcastle…etc can find these sorts of player, then it shouldn't be a problem for a guy like Wenger and it isn't when you look at the amount of players we''ve signed recently. Most of us have been saying we've needed more Sagna, Vermaelen, Eduardo type signings for years! We're now starting to see it, finally!