Wenger Referendum: Yes Or No

[Letters]

For a club of Arsenal's size and resources, I'd call that mediocre. We are stagnating in mediocrity.

We have the 4th biggest resources. I'd call it par.

[Power n Glory]

That's not what I said actually. I said the fact that people only post in here when we lose makes it look kneejerk although I also said there are obviously long standing reasons for people wanting Wenger to go. I've also repeatedly said we do need to move on from Wenger, I just don't want us to panic and sack him with no plan for what we do next. And yes, I'll defend Wenger when people start overly insulting him or criticizing every single thing he does as though literally nothing he does makes any sense.

I've seen people say that Chelsea and City's infinite money cheat is an 'excuse'. Clearly it isn't. The top two clubs right now are City and Chelsea, miles clear of anyone else. Liverpool managed to muscle in on the party last year in a season when they had no European football and had one player on insane form, even then they fell short in the end. Some on here were hailing Rodgers a genius but they're nowhere near repeating it. The only person who has managed to stop one of the two billionaire-fueled clubs winning the title in the last 10 years is Ferguson who, in my view, is the GOAT in terms of management. That last season he was there...there's just no way they should have won the title with their squad vs City's or Chelsea's yet they won it at a canter. I don't care who our manager is, that problem is always going to be there unless the footballing authorities bother to impose financial fair play regulations that have any bite, which will never happen. All that said, we should be closer to those two with our resources and that is where Wenger is failing.

As for how managerial changes have affected other clubs, Moyes was a disaster for Utd, Van Gaal has had to go nuts in the transfer market to get them back in contention, even then they have no serious chance of the title this year. Spurs have repeatedly got on the managerial merry-go-round trying to break into the top 4 and failed to do so with any consistency. A change of management - especially when a manager has been with a club for so long and is so involved in every aspect of the club - needs to be carefully planned.

We were actually on a pretty good run before the Southampton game. Southampton have lost to City and Utd at home but no-one else, Chelsea only drew there. Losing there is not a disaster although from what I heard we were awful, which is more of a concern. But overall in our last ten games in all competitions our results have been pretty good: W7 D1 L2 (Chelsea's last 10, for comparison, are: W6 D2 L2). This season has been a bit of a fiasco but there have been some signs of improvement of late, if only in terms of results which, ultimately, are what matter. I see no reason to panic and sack Wenger right this second with no plan as to what to do next.

Not sure what that rant is about but I get the feeling you're not paying attention to what I'm saying at all.

How are you under the impression that I'm suggesting we sack Wenger with no plan?

[GP]

We have the 4th biggest resources. I'd call it par.

It's all over anyway.

[Letters]

Not sure what that rant is about but I get the feeling you're not paying attention to what I'm saying at all.

You started this exchange by completely twisting something I said. And it wasn't a rant, this is Arsenal Debate, it was part of a debate I thought we were having.

How are you under the impression that I'm suggesting we sack Wenger with no plan?

I'm not.

[fakeyank]

We have the 4th biggest resources. I'd call it par.

We generate the 2nd most revenue from day to day matches. Charge no.1 in ticket prices in Britain and possibly no.2 in the world and have a manager whose salary can be seen in my signature (). Our wage bill is currently more than Chelsea and we have outspent City and Chelsea this window. On top of that, we have had the 'history of a big club' alongside Utd and Liverpool, which City and Chelsea had to catch up to. We also had 'continuity' with the same manager for nearly two decades... thats got to add up to something more than just coming 4th.

[Letters]

We generate the 2nd most revenue from day to day matches. Charge no.1 in ticket prices in Britain and possibly no.2 in the world

OK, but that's not relevant to what I said. It is relevant, I guess, in terms of expectations. If you're paying £60+ to get into the stadium, you arguably have a right to expect more than the crap we're serving up right now. But it doesn't matter where the money comes from, the fact is in terms of total income we have the 4th highest resources so in a sport where success and resources are so highly correlated 4th is about par for us.

We don't have a billionaire backing us (well, we do actually, but he's not backing us! Not financially anyway). In fact that's part of the reason why we have such high ticket prices. We do charge too much, but how else can we even hope to compete when 2 other clubs can do what they like in the transfer market. They don't have to rely on income from anywhere, they have multi-billionaire owners who are clearly hell bent on spending till they achieve success. Chelsea showed that buying success was possible, City showed you can do it with any club if you pump in enough money for long enough. We may have outspent them in one window but the way they've thrown money around in a sustained way, we could never have competed with that. It's only in the last year when the new financial deals were in place that we could sign players like Ozil (who, whatever you think about him, is a different class of player to those we signed of late before that) and Sanchez.

In terms of our wage bill, one thing you need to consider is how the clubs I'm talking about cook the books. Chelsea have a ridiculous number of players on their books who they then loan out to clubs who aren't their rivals, I guess those other clubs then pay their wages. City have gone one better and their owners have bought a whole different club where they can stockpile players. Moan about Wenger all you like, and we certainly have some cause to, but it's incredibly difficult to compete with clubs who can do these sorts of things.

History helps, to an extent, but when City were offering silly wages and signing on fees they were able to sign players we couldn't compete for despite our higher prestige as a club. Continuity helps too but, again, when other clubs can keep on buying players of the quality they've been able to it gets to the point where our squad just isn't good enough to compete and while we've discussed Wenger's frugality there's no way we could have competed with Chelsea or City's spending without getting into serious financial trouble.

My problems with Wenger right now are the awful football, the perennial injury problems which he surely must see is killing us every year but seems unable to do anything about and the fact that our team right now is far less than the sum of its parts. We DO have plenty of quality players and yet we're looking like a very ordinary side so far this season. I don't care that City and Chelsea are ahead of us, although we should be closer to them, but sides like Southampton, Spurs and West Ham shouldn't be anywhere near us. I don't mind us finishing 4th, but I do mind us limping in there and scraping past those sides when with our resources we should be miles ahead of them.

[AFC Leveller]

Would you have considered walking away if you hadn’t won the FA Cup last year?’

Wenger rebuked the question out of hand, and said it didn’t even cross his mind:

To walk where? No. I have just won my 600th game out of 1,000. That means I have won 60 per cent of the games and, after 18 years, it would not be serious to walk away for losing one game. I do my job as well as I can and I respect my contracts.

We didn’t win a trophy for years and of course people want that. As well, 2-0 down after 10 minutes and they nearly scored the third. When you know football, normally that means you have very little chance to win so the fact we could turn it around and win was a fantastic relief.”

He just doesnt get it does he? its not "1 game" you moron its 7-8 years of the same mistakes and nelgligence that has meant your time is up.

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Thing is your not going to get an idea of what Wenger thinks from the media, if you admit openly your only still here because you ended your trophy draught then you invite all kinds of pressure and questions on yourself.

I wish people would stop paying so much attention to what l'ouisseau says in press conferences etc, unless you're a shameless media whore like Mourinho the whole thing is so PR managed that there is never likely to be any useful information.

Personally I think with the way things are now, Wenger would have walked if not then certainly by now

[Syn]

Unbelievable that the wrinkly old Faragehating cunt was smoking in the showers with Szczesny. Club is going up in flames. Thank you John Cross for bringing this to our attention.

[selassie]

That depends really...do you have an issue with the players brought in by Wenger in the summer?, the issue was the quantity not the quality.

My only issue with Wenger spending money is bringing in another attacking midfielder to add to the ridiculous number we already have, other than that I don't mind him buying players in the hope that the squad will be decent for whoever replaces Wenger and that person will significantly improve that players on pitch performances

The problem with Wenger is he buys who he likes and not what the squad/team needs. The fact we went into the season with 5 senior first team defenders says it all. He still prioritises "Youth" development over improving the first team with external solutions.

I would honestly rather Wenger leave the squad as it is so the new guy can come in and shape the squad the way he wants to.

We don't need drastic investment, a couple of high class signings and we could be challenging Chelsea and City IMO.