Has Wenger really benefitted AFC since 2006?

[Letters]

Wenger's performance precisely accommodates the financial project at the expense of the football team, it's easy enough to see that. If we needed to finish 3rd to qualify for the money, we would be 3rd every year. If 15th was enough then we'd finish 15th. It really isn't about the football at Arsenal any more. Not in a competitive sense anyway. The youth project fits nicely into the financial agenda too. Cheap fees, cheap wages, get a few years out of them and move them on. If they make it then grab the big transfer fees. Rinse and repeat. Until the Utd result. Maybe even the board has realised there's only so much the fans will put up with before the income stream is jeopardised. All about the money, all the time. And they are so fucking dishonest about it.

Cheap wages?! Our wage bill is one of the highest in the country, only exceeded by 2 clubs who can throw money around like it's going out of fashion and Utd whose income is much bigger than ours. Wenger has been roundly criticised on here for paying players too much money.

@FY - agree with your post. We needed a mix of youth and experience, the signings in the scramble on deadline day will hopefully give us that so there are some signs that Wenger has somewhat changed tack in that regard.

[Letters]

From what I can understand, backing AW is the elite thing to do these days. Its what intellectuals do... the masses who want AW out are the dumbasses with no college education.

Well, no. But your disrespect towards him is uncalled for IMO. And those who portray Wenger as this bumbling idiot are being ridiculous. For all our problems last year we still finished 4th. Whether we will this year remains to be seen and it will definitely be our hardest battle to date for a top 4 finish but that is in part because of City's billions which we can't do anything about.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

From what I can understand, backing AW is the elite thing to do these days. Its what intellectuals do... the masses who want AW out are the dumbasses with no college education. You should be ashamed of your ignorance IBK.. in fact, I should be ashamed of myself too..

Says the guy who not so long ago basically called people 'blind idiots' for voting for Wenger to remain as manager. All this 'woe is me/woe is us' stuff doesn't do this board any favours and I mean that for either 'side'.

[Özim]

Well, no. But your disrespect towards him is uncalled for IMO. And those who portray Wenger as this bumbling idiot are being ridiculous. For all our problems last year we still finished 4th. Whether we will this year remains to be seen and it will definitely be our hardest battle to date for a top 4 finish but that is in part because of City's billions which we can't do anything about.

4th is all we hear when it comes to Wenger these days.

Let's be honest here, which top club athlete/sportsman is happy with 4th place everytime...it's a rubbish position to be in and to hail it as some sort of great result is way off the mark.

I'm sorry but 4th place is no achievement and when you look at some of the embarrassing results he's managed to produce he shouldn't still be here IMO, the way some of his teams have gone out for matches with next to no desire and have collapsed so often is just unbelievable.

For it to happen as often as it has reflects very badly on him, as does giving away some ridiculous leads and the manner in which we have been outclassed by certain teams in recent years.

The 8-2 defeat was beyond embarrassing and the fact he still gets support after it is mystifying, he's the guy who built this team and decided he didn't need players after all, he's also the guy that sent his team out with no apparent game plan like lambs to the slaughter, he also decided that it's OK to play rookies in games against sides as good as Man U.

On top of that Man U didn't have to play as well as they could and had players out themselves. I'm sick of these supposedly "freak results", for years these were very rare, but recently they seem to be happening more and more and that's down to a guy who just doesn't know what he's doing.

He's dragging the club down IMO and making us a bit of a laughing stock, both with his actions/words and his management style.

[Xhaka Can’t]

Finishing 4th sucks. But I doubt we will even manage that. But I've now come to accept that under our current model within the way the EPL is now, we have no chance at all of winning the league in the forseeable future - regardless of who manages us.

That is not to say I would like us to adopt the model of Man City or Chelsea. Far from it.

[Letters]

4th is all we hear when it comes to Wenger these days.

Let's be honest here, which top club athlete/sportsman is happy with 4th place everytime...it's a rubbish position to be in and to hail it as some sort of great result is way off the mark.

In terms of a league 4th says you're the 4th best side in the country. Given that two of the sides above us are fuelled by billionaires it's nonsense to say it's 'no achievement.' A few sides have spent big to try and achieve it and failed. Obviously we need to suppliment a decent league finish with some trophies and that is where Wenger has failed but to keep any club in the top 4 for so long is more than any other manager bar Fergie has achieved. You're acting as though it's easy to finish in the top in the PL each season, that's obviously not true. Given that he has done that the failure to win trophies is damning but it's just plain wrong to think that any idiot could have kept us up there. Plenty of other clubs aspiring to finish in the top 4 have hired and fired other managers and given them pots of money to spend to try to get there and they've failed.

[IBK]

In terms of a league 4th says you're the 4th best side in the country. Given that two of the sides above us are fuelled by billionaires it's nonsense to say it's 'no achievement.' A few sides have spent big to try and achieve it and failed. Obviously we need to suppliment a decent league finish with some trophies and that is where Wenger has failed but to keep any club in the top 4 for so long is more than any other manager bar Fergie has achieved. You're acting as though it's easy to finish in the top in the PL each season, that's obviously not true. Given that he has done that the failure to win trophies is damning but it's just plain wrong to think that any idiot could have kept us up there. Plenty of other clubs aspiring to finish in the top 4 have hired and fired other managers and given them pots of money to spend to try to get there and they've failed.

The irony is that Wenger has created these expectations. The frustration is the realisation that the same manager's shortcomings have most likely prevented us from winning any trophies for 6 years. The regret is that had those shortcomings not been present, we could probably have won the title at least once before Citeh had become a serious obstacle to doing so. The sadness is that 4th may be as good as it gets for AFC now.

[Niall_Quinn]

The irony is that Wenger has created these expectations. The frustration is the realisation that the same manager's shortcomings have most likely prevented us from winning any trophies for 6 years. The regret is that had those shortcomings not been present, we could probably have won the title at least once before Citeh had become a serious obstacle to doing so. The sadness is that 4th may be as good as it gets for AFC now.

I can live with 4th being as good as it gets provided we are always trying to be 1st, and no bullshit - a genuine effort to be 1st in everything all the time. That's the absolute minimum I expect from a supposedly competitive team. 100% effort, 100% ambition and 100% desire. We don't have that at Arsenal, we have players that give less than 100%, we have ambition tuned to the balance sheet rather than the team, we have zero desire when the going gets tough. Not good enough. Manager's fault for sure in terms of what goes on on the pitch, board's fault for sure in terms of what goes on off the pitch. They can pretend the buck stops with Man City but it doesn't. Aiming for 4th is shit, shit, shit.

[IBK]

Cheap wages?! Our wage bill is one of the highest in the country, only exceeded by 2 clubs who can throw money around like it's going out of fashion and Utd whose income is much bigger than ours. Wenger has been roundly criticised on here for paying players too much money.

@FY - agree with your post. We needed a mix of youth and experience, the signings in the scramble on deadline day will hopefully give us that so there are some signs that Wenger has somewhat changed tack in that regard.

I'd love to believe this, but the jury's out a bit for me on this front. Palmer posted this blog extract (he's too 'anti' and sensationalist for my tastes, but I'll take a third party souce)

The BBC blog by Dan Roan described the scene at Highbury house at 9pm on deadline day :

In the chief executive's office, Ivan Gazidis had spent the day making phone calls to agents and officials at other clubs as he tried desperately to complete the spending spree that the summer sales of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri had enabled and which the humiliating 8-2 defeat by Manchester United had subsequently made a necessity. A few yards away, club secretary David Miles, chief accountant Stuart Wisely and head lawyer Svenja Geissmar were working furiously, filling out registration documents and ensuring they were emailed to the Premier League. In all, 20 officials from the club's finance and legal departments were working harder than they could remember.

Now looking past this unseemly last minute scramble (which is equally bad, IMO, whether it was a strategy designed purely to drive incoming transfer fees down - thereby putting profit firmly above the interests of the team; bad planning; or a knee jerk reaction to the Manure result) - in this extract I see signs of board influence, rather than Wengers (he was in Switzerland, wasn't he - and has a reputation of being meticulous rather than last minute).

I'm not sure that a leopard as entranched in his ways and views as AW changes overnight, and I am sceptical as to whether he is humble enough to have accepted even now that his vision is flawed. I am glad of the change of policy whether intended or enforced, and if the new signings dramatically change our fortunes then even Wenger will have to bend. But I'm biding my time before anticipating a real change of tack from our manager.

[Coney]

The irony is that Wenger has created these expectations. The frustration is the realisation that the same manager's shortcomings have most likely prevented us from winning any trophies for 6 years. The regret is that had those shortcomings not been present, we could probably have won the title at least once before Citeh had become a serious obstacle to doing so. The sadness is that 4th may be as good as it gets for AFC now.

I don't think Wenger wants us to be 4th - I'm sure he'd like 1st the same as we would. The 4th thing is the minimum target for the year - in effect, he is saying that we must try and have CL football each year. Looking at his face during the last few games of the season make it quite clear that he does not like coming 4th. However, the loss of revenue from not getting to at least 4th would be significant and whether he stays or another manager comes along, we need that money coming on a regular basis, plus we need the carrot of CL football to stand a chance of attracting players.