Do you honestly believe we can only spent 25 million a year without making us potless??An ammount less than what cardiff spend.If so we need a billionaire and quick.Oh sorry i forgot that we have 2 at the club already.What is even more criminal is that our manager earns 8 million a year and we can only spend 25 m a year on players..
Again people seem to be obsessed with the idea of transfer fees, transfer fees mean nothing....so you can spend 30 million on six players, have them all on relatively low wages at a club like cardiff and it won't impact on you. But a club like Arsenal the players expect to be on high wages and so if a player costs 10-15 million in the transfer market, the real sum you are looking at is anywhere between 45 and 50 million when you factor in wages.
Player Wages is the reason we cannot compete, there is not a player out there we could sign for 15million that won't expect at least 100k a week....that's why Wenger has been adverse to big transfer fees....he knows we can't afford it.
I agree with you, DM. But IMO the situation is even clearer than that. Herbert Chapman's Zombie is a great example of a fan who can present cogent financial excuses for why we are where we are. And he shows how easy it is to look on the game in a corporate kind of way.No one on the site thinks we have the ability to compete with the Mancs or Chavs financially. In Europe we would same the same about Real & Barca. That's four teams in the world that can stupidly outbid us for any player we wanted. These teams cannot buy every player in the world so we cannot keep bleating on about competing with these clubs. Top players these days are sold with clauses in their contract about having to always play when fit etc, you cannot have the 20 best strikers in the world warming the bench of 4 teams. Bayern Munich are a self substaining club, good fan base, good match day revenue, good sponsorship deals. They have their pick of the decent German kids coming through but add the experience & quality when needed. They are European Champions & could be the 1st team to win the C.L back to back. Apart from Neuer & Ribery, who do they have that is talked about as true world class! - none of their players would fetch anywhere near the kind of money you would have to find to buy a Bale, Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Suarez, Aguero. Their forward choice is Manduzic or Muller, both better versions of Giroud but not world beaters. They simply fill the areas around these guys with good quality players that pass & move & keep the ball well. Robben & Ribery have far more impact on games than our wide players do & their CM's ( Schweinsteiger & Kroos ) are quality ball players who might the correct decisions 90% of the time. We have Wheelchair falling over or running into people, Arteta playing suicide balls sideways, Rosicky & Cazorla giving the ball away 50% of the time. Our full backs are average players, no more than that - they have Aliba & Lahm.
We may not be able to buy the likes of Suarez, Messi or Ronaldo but there is no excuse for us to not have quality. We need players with good feet who read the game well & not only make the right decision most of the time but have the ability to execute that decision. Players like Kroos & Reus are what we need, not Kalou. We may have to compete with the likes of Man U or Liverpool for some of these players but that's life - isn't this the reason why we moved to the Emirates.
Lets stop bleating on about the unfairness of it all & buy quality - No free transfers, no basement buys - just quality.
But bottom line is that we could, and should have achieved a lot more with Wenger and the funds at our disposal. His obvious failings have not, principally been down to a lack of funds. Martinez or Rogers would have won the league with this season's Arsenal team.
Putting the laughter back into manslaughter
You're making huge assumptions about how we calculate deals. If he knows he can't afford the wages he'd keep the young players on low wages like our rivals. We've given bumper deals to players like Wilshere, Gibbs and Ramsey when there was no need for such huge pay rises. They have no intention of leaving, they have years left on their contract and the £50k to £85k we've given them won't ward off other clubs if they hit form and it's not going to blind them to the fact that rival clubs may be willing to pay more than we're willing to. It doesn't protect us. Just hikes the wage bill quicker and keeps it high if these guys end up like Bendy or Diaby.
If they do start showing form and it's time to renew their deals, we're in situation where we're reluctant to pay their wages and we stall, just like what we saw with Theo. It's suicidal planning and it's all because Wenger thinks a huge disparity in wages disrupts team harmony. He's chosen to pay such a high price for these guys. Inflation is one thing but our rivals don't have this sort of structure and certain young players wouldn't earn what they earn here over there. Read for yourself.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...wage-plan.html
You are deluded if you think that, our squad is wafer thin and we have Giroud leading our line with no able replacements. I agree that Wenger should have done better than the humiliation we suffered but there's no denying that in the games against Liverpool, Chelsea and Everton their starting xi was vastly superior to our own especially in an attacking sense