Summer Transfer Misery and Recriminations.

[Power n Glory]

The ongoing TDK D90 saga shows the schizoid nature of journalism

Lacazette 26th July - Arsenal made a derisory offer that wasn't even deserving of an answer, no higher bid forthcoming and Lacazette staying

Lacazette 1st August - Arsenal to go in with a higher bid

It’s nothing unusual. Boil it down to the basics. We have a striker in France that wants to leave, a stubborn club that won’t let him go for cheap and a club that needs to but a pacey striker. If we don’t sign Lacazette but end up signing another striker, we’ve moved on. If we don’t sign a striker at all, we’ve fucked up. Until I hear murmurs of a medical or Lyon confirm they’ve accepted our bid, I’m not paying too much attention to the rest of the stuff.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

My personal preference is to sign Mahrez and play Alexis or Walcott up front. Of course anyone might say to me why not buy Mahrez and a striker....I personally would, but let's be realistic it's an either or situation.

The lack of chances created from the right wing last season was telling.

[Özim]

100% agree with this. I have some sympathy with Arsenal not wanting to pay way over the odds for a striker. However we desperately need a striker and we simply have to pay what it takes to get a good one, even if it's more than their value.

Assuming that Welbeck wasn't out for the best part of a year and Giroud wasn't going to miss the start of the season I would still want a striker. When you take into account neither of them will be available for the first few games it's madness to stick with what we have. I can only assume Akpom will start up front

I've got no sympathy at all, the club are happy to charge sky high prices to the fans for an sub-quality product, getting huge amounts from the new TV deals and have been making lots of money for quite some time now, everyone else pays up, even smaller clubs so I don't see why we should be any different.

[selassie]

[Özim]

If someone spent a decade pissing on my face then I may well accept their apology but I certainly wouldn't entertain the notion of giving them a chance to continue to do so. So if you really think the decade from 2004-2013 were as bad as that then I don't believe the FA Cup (which, to continue your analogy, is a half-hearted apology at best if you think it's as minor a trophy as you now claim) would be enough for you to be happy with Wenger signing a new contract.


Well, that's just not true. You know it's not true.
But I will defend him against bullshit and hyperbole and people who spout bile at everything he says, even if they agree with it.

I'm sure you think that's clever. It's hardly Oscar Wilde.

He's built a good squad, one capable of challenging for the title in my view or very close to, and done so while keeping the finances of the club very healthy and keeping us in the CL places. I don't think he should be our manager but we're in very good shape for whoever comes in, Wenger deserves some credit for that. If he was as bad as you suggest then we'd be nowhere near the top 4.

You're always defending Wenger which I simply don't understand, the stuff he comes out with, he's very arrogant and also quick to point fingers at other people without ever accepting responsibility, I could understand your viewpoint if the man was more apologetic and accept he's made mistakes, but no the guy does the same thing every season, harping on about how he's right because this or that (now it's Leicester) despite being a failure (and yes he is a failure because he's not won a major trophy since 2004 despite numerous opportunities and plenrty of resources at his disposal as well as a very stable environment where he can do whatever he likes), making allsorts of excuses and of course blaming the refs/the fans/ the money.

If he was more humble you might have a point, but quite the opposite, his head has got so big you they have to use a crane to lift him out of the Emirates stadium. I've got no sympathy with him and don't feel at all sorry for him, he earns a load of cash off the back of the fans and has the easiest job in football IMO, a job at a big club where he's his own boss and failure comes with no penalty, he won a few trophies many years ago and yes it was great, but that was a long time ago and he's now spent 12 years without any real success, to put it bluntly he's won 3 titles and had no sucess in the CL in 19 years and has seen nothing in 12, that's a damning stat.

[Letters]

You're always defending Wenger which I simply don't understand.

Again, I will defend him against hyperbole and bullshit. If I'm 'always' doing so it's because you and others are 'always' spouting it.
All top managers are arrogant, all the things you hammer Wenger for are equally true of managers you admire. This is another example of your goalpost shifting.
This is not about sympathy or feeling sorry for him, it's about calling out bullshit.

All that said, your post above about paying up I agree with. Prices are crazy and I understand if Wenger baulks at them, but ultimately we have the cash, we need to compete and we should spend big to do so now we're able to.

[Power n Glory]

Again, I will defend him against hyperbole and bullshit. If I'm 'always' doing so it's because you and others are 'always' spouting it.
All top managers are arrogant, all the things you hammer Wenger for are equally true of managers you admire. This is another example of your goalpost shifting.
This is not about sympathy or feeling sorry for him, it's about calling out bullshit.

All that said, your post above about paying up I agree with. Prices are crazy and I understand if Wenger baulks at them, but ultimately we have the cash, we need to compete and we should spend big to do so now we're able to.

Take some responsibility in that case. For last 3/4 pages you've carried on the stuff you say is driving people away from the Board. Give it a break.

[Özim]

Again, I will defend him against hyperbole and bullshit. If I'm 'always' doing so it's because you and others are 'always' spouting it.
All top managers are arrogant, all the things you hammer Wenger for are equally true of managers you admire. This is another example of your goalpost shifting.
This is not about sympathy or feeling sorry for him, it's about calling out bullshit.

All that said, your post above about paying up I agree with. Prices are crazy and I understand if Wenger baulks at them, but ultimately we have the cash, we need to compete and we should spend big to do so now we're able to.

He's not a top manager, he's barely won a thing in 12 years, I can accept arrogance from successful manager but not a guy who wins nothing, other manager win league titles, champions league and their teams don't repeatedly collapse, they also don't stick to a losing formula year after year, they make changes when things don't work. In addition if they don't deliver they get the sack, unlike Wenger who gets to carry on as if nothing has happened, as Mourinho once said he gets to play kids whenever he wants because if he doens't win he still has a job, no other manager has that luxury. There isn't one other manager at a top club that would hae survived anywhere near as long as Wenger with his record.

You still see him as top manager and can't see the distinction between a manager who fails and tries again with a new method and one that fails time and time again and won't change and what's more insists he's right.

In the end thought this is a thread about transfers and every single season he leaves us short and fails to deliver in the transfer market, it's really not bad luck anymore (if it was even), its' incompetence.

[Letters]

Take some responsibility in that case. For last 3/4 pages you've carried on the stuff you say is driving people away from the Board. Give it a break.

I will 'give it a break' if they do. If I ignore it then it will happen all season. If I and others call people on it then maybe we'll return to some more sensible debate.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

To be fair i don't think i've seen anything Letters has written which has even implied he is a top manager, he's not

Where i disagree with people on the Wenger out side (not that i am not Wenger out) is something which is irrefutable to me, that regardless of his shortcomings that a new manager would be rubbing their hands in glee at what they had to work with in terms of financial and squad resources. Does the squad require additions?....are there a few players who arguably have been kept at the club too long? yes.....but Wenger when he decides to shove off leaves the club in good health....the problem is waiting for him to go so that a more ambitious and more tactically innovate manager can make the most of the tools he has to work with

On the other hand i don't think people stay away from here because of the adversarial nature of the discourse, if anything i think that's the only thing that keeps people coming here.