What exactly are we expecting to happen this Summer?

[Power n Glory]

You really don't see how two teams pushing the prices of players and their wages up into the stratosphere affects a club with a limited budget due to a large-scale project incurring large amounts of debt? Wenger has been part of why we've failed but he's also part of why we've remained 'relatively' competitive.

There is no denying the fact that money makes a difference in football but the sneaky Russian arrived and spent millions on Veron, Crespo, Mutu, Duff, Cole, Parker, Makelele, Germemi and co in the same season we had the Invincible run. They finished 2nd that year. Money is an issue, but the tipping point for Chelsea was the arrival of Mourinho. If they had stuck with Ranieri, things would be different. The real game changers are the managers. Tottenham used to spend millions but it took Redknapp to get them into the Champions League.

[Cripps_orig]

You really don't see how two teams pushing the prices of players and their wages up into the stratosphere affects a club with a limited budget due to a large-scale project incurring large amounts of debt? Wenger has been part of why we've failed but he's also part of why we've remained 'relatively' competitive.

Man City and Chelsea spending has nothing to do with us letting leads slip be it a 2 goal lead, a 4 goal lead or one we took in the 98th minute etc

Thats just last season but im sure if we go down the last 6 years, we can see plenty of self made problems which Chelsea had f all to do with that cost us

[Olivier's xmas twist]

The league is made up of 5 mini leagues

Theres the big 3 - 2 Manc clubs and Chelsea

Laughing stock - Us, Spuds, Liverpool for various reasons. Basically clubs who won trophies in the past but are shit now

Making up the numbers - Villa, Everton, Fulham, Bolton. Wont threaten the big clubs in the league and wont go down so do f all really.

Pub teamers - Blackburn. Stoke. Teams that cant play football but do enough to stay up.

The rest - fighting for survival

Yep i think your bang on the money with that. Where you have put us is spot on and even Wenger would tell you the same.

The Arsenal bored know were not part of the big 3 hence why there was no need to spend big these last 5 seasons. all we were was champions of getting 4th spot and once we finshed 3rd wich was a bonus for the club.

[budesonide]

Well, my comments weren't really relating to the rest of the post, just the first part that mentioned that Wenger was doing his thang way before City came along, which he was and part of the reason that didn't work was due to Chelsea.

In terms of the rest, it's very misleading to point to individual incidents like the CC final and say 'that could have been prevented by xyz' when the fact is the reason top players are top players is due to their consistency, the top players going into their peak cost a lot of money and, I think you know where I'm going with this, we can't afford to fill our team with them. I think there should be a balance between experience and youth, attitude and ability, the balance was wrong and that is down to Wenger so essentially I agree with you on that point, there's just a few things around it I don't agree with.

Incidentally, I think we could afford 25m for a Torres (Benzema?) now but back then? No chance.

Fair dos.

However, there is nothing misleading about using those examples to make a point IF it is to counter a fallacy that Chelsea and City's millions have handicapped a club of our stature so much so we avoid strengthening the squad as necessary. That is also down entirely to wenger. He'd rather reward his project youths handsomely with the money.
As it is, we are now looking to flog them off for as much as we can weasle out of the clubs dumb enough to buy these failed youth projects. But that is the market today -- it is a seller's market; weren't we asking for 50mil for cesc? What is the moral high-ground here?

Anyway, we needn't fill the whole squad with 25mil players -- that is unnecessary and irrelevant.

[AKBapologist]

Yeah, I personally think we do need several +20 mill players in the squad to get the strength in depth, quality and experience necessary to win the league or CL. I don't think I'm alone in this either (far from it if ex players and people from the club are to believed)

If you don't get how price and wage inflation has degraded the quality of our signings over the last 6 Years then your a moron tbh. And No, focusing on individuals or single results as proof big money doesn't make a difference is equally moronic.

[Flavs]

All Chelseas and Man Citys money has done is elevate them to title/trophy chasing status. That is no reason for us to go in to decline. .

If that is waht you believe you dont know much about either business or modern football

[Cripps_orig]

If that is waht you believe you dont know much about either business or modern football

Yeah cos the money they spent made us win 2 out of our last 11 games.

The money they spent made us lose to Birmingham in a fianl we should have walked.



We were comfortably above both of them for the majority of the season and only reason we didnt finsh above either is down to Wenger.

[budesonide]

Yeah, I personally think we do need several +20 mill players in the squad to get the strength in depth, quality and experience necessary to win the league or CL. I don't think I'm alone in this either (far from it if ex players and people from the club are to believed)

If you don't get how price and wage inflation has degraded the quality of our signings over the last 6 Years then your a moron tbh. And No, focusing on individuals or single results as proof big money doesn't make a difference is equally moronic.

Equally, ignoring:

1). proof that you don't need to spend 'BIG' money to avoid collapsing season on season in the same fashion is an incomprehensible self-serving idiocy.

2). proof that you could spend 'BIG' money (the kind no one is referring to here on GW except those who farcically make it a convenient strawman in their argument) and end up with nothing is embarrasingly dumb.

[Olivier's xmas twist]

If that is waht you believe you dont know much about either business or modern football

Well Cripps is not wrong really is he? ok so we may have looked close to winning the league, but we have bottled it the last 5 seasons. No amount of chavs and city spending made a diffrence to that.

all their spending did was, put us a place lower to where we were.

[AKBapologist]

With cesc being out, alumina having a shocker and Arshavin, bendtner and chamakh in being our key goal threats for the majority of the season, it's outstandingly clear to those who nolonger overestmate that quality of our squad that we just didnt have the strength in depth needed to win anything this season.