Are the glory days over for good?

[IBK]

Man Utd
Chelsea
Manchester City
Liverpool
Spurs

Neither Liverpool nor Spurs can afford the kind of salaries that are required for the very, very best players - look at the Modric scenario at Spurs, for example.
£6OK per week. I would be willing to bet that certainly until this season, our wage bill was the equal of theirs.

[IBK]

The three who finished above us can.
Liverpool and Spurs have thrown quite a bit around too to try and displace us in the top 4 and failed.
This season top 4 is looking a long way away (although a few good wins and it all gets close again, it's only October) but till now Wenger's done well to keep us top 4 and badly not to have won a trophy or 3 given how close we've got on a few occasions. His achievement of keeping us top 4 should not be overlooked but his failure to land trophies should not be dismissed either.
As always on here, people fail to see a middle ground between "Wenger is the greatest genius in human history" and "Wenger is a bumbling incompetent who couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag".

Are people really saying that, though? The sense I'm getting is that people are disenchanted at how the powers of a manager who used to have a reputation as one of the world's best seem to be declining at a frankly alarming rate. I'm not even sure that this is down to ability - IMO its more a loss of perspective. And many of the most successful leaders in human history have been afflicted by this in the end.

[Flavs]

Neither Liverpool nor Spurs can afford the kind of salaries that are required for the very, very best players - look at the Modric scenario at Spurs, for example.
£6OK per week. I would be willing to bet that certainly until this season, our wage bill was the equal of theirs.

Maybe, but we massively overpay shite players. Spurs have spent obscene amounts of money in the last 5 years, look at when Harry came in and bought back the players that had left like Defoe and Keane.

Liverpool were on the brink of bankruptcy and then this speccy twat comes in and they are spending £35mil on Jimmy Nail, £20mil on Downs and £20mil on Henderson and so on.

Also the big misconception in football is that Fergie doesn't spend much money, despite spending £28mil on Rio, £27mil on Rooney and so on.

[Power n Glory]

So we're saying three clubs can out spend us. One of which has only just come on the scene. You can't say top four is punching above our weight.

[Power n Glory]

3. And we are now falling behind clubs that are essentially as limited or more limited than we are finance wise.

Which is the point I'm getting at.

[Xhaka Can’t]

No. But you can say finishing top 4 or better every year is punching above our weight, particularly so when it was accomplished while undertaking the biggest capital infrastructure project in the history of world club football.

[Flavs]

So we're saying three clubs can out spend us. One of which has only just come on the scene. You can't say top four is punching above our weight.

While stripping out and completely replacing the core of arguably the best league team this country has ever seen and undertaking a near £500mil stadium move i think you can

[Power n Glory]

But it's not as if we've been without world class players during that period. We took on the move but we didn't lose players like Henry and co overnight.

Also, there hasn't been a team under us that can match our wage bill or attract international stars. The teams below us can't match us because of stadium, wages, appeal...etc. We're not some small time team punching above our weight.

[Fist of Lehmann]

Neither Liverpool nor Spurs can afford the kind of salaries that are required for the very, very best players - look at the Modric scenario at Spurs, for example.
£6OK per week. I would be willing to bet that certainly until this season, our wage bill was the equal of theirs.

Not at all.
Spurs' wage bill is well well below ours and has been for a while. It's in transfer fees that they have far outstripped us.

This, I assume is because it's easier for Harry to hide kickbacks in large transfer fees. It's just a theory.

[Özim]

He's done an awful job of stripping out and replacing a team of world class players frankly, could have easily done a much better job.

Looking at the team in recent years there's been a distinct overall lack of top quality players, character, desire to win and leadership.

he lack of planning for departures has also been very amateurish, time and time again he's let our better players go with noone lined-up, he never learns unfortunately which is a big problem for us.

The guy gets far too much credit for the sh*tty job he's been doing in recent years.