Don't you understand that Abramovich has more cash than Bill Gates and even he's no longer signing blank cheques to buy any more titles!GunnerTino wrote:Sorry Belfast Boy,don't buy your argument,do you honestly think
that Chelsea & the Mancs will stand still and allow themselves to fall
behind in the 2 to 3 years you say it will take our "young" side to come to fruition? I don't think so,you also said that the Mancs had a very young side that came through together,but was helped by some key signings,which is exactly not what we are doing to help the talented group of young players we have.Surely you can see that?
ManU bein the biggest club in the world and a merchandising monster have a licence to print money and yet for the second season running they have substantially increased their capacity to practically 80,000 AND increased their ticket prices by 3 or 4 times the rate of inflation!
What I said regarding our young guns, was that it was gonna take 2 or 3 yrs before they reach their physical peak as individual players, that does not mean it's goin to be that long before we click as a team and start winnin domestic silverware where AW has already delivered considerable success, but as I said in my previous post what we really want is a period of domestic domination and success in Europe, which the lack of, is what our enemies always point to as proof that we are not yet a truly great club!
It's my belief that AW is a true genius in every sense of the word and not only are we unbelievably lucky to have got him in our corner but he has earned many times over and deserves, our trust, because he is tryin to build something special, and nothing, I repeat NOTHING which is truly great is built without some sacrifice!
As for key signings, you're acting like we haven't signed anyone at all for the last three years..... case in point - who could've predicted the effect Schmeichel or Cantona would've had on ManU in the 90's??? - they are without doubt Taggart's most inspired signings to date and yet the both of them cost the grand total of 1.5M hardly earth-shattering, if you're the sort of person who equates the significance of a signing with the amount of money spent!
Ferguson has also wasted an absolute fortune on about 20 horrendous signings which were recently highlighted in the recent and very excellent open letter to ManU such as Jordi Cruyff, Taibi, Poborsky and of course the near 30M he spent on Veron these are mistakes that we cannot afford to make while in hock to the tune of nearly 300M ourselves!
On that note if you can spare the time I suggest you read the AST report on the Glazer loan currently propping up Utd cos it makes pretty scary reading even for someone who hates the mancs, I would hate to see our club in that position, in fact PHW made this comparison " if Stan Kronke had to borrow roughly 600M to buy our club and was expecting even a minimal 10% return on his money he would have to take 60M out of the club, where would that come from???" and don't forget there would be the interest on the loan as well!
Just one final thing, I remember AW on one of the end of season DVDs from a while back sayin that what he wanted was and this is verbatum "in 20, 30, 40, 50 yrs time people will look back and think there was some people back then who were not too stupid and helped Arsenal Football Club become a truly big club" so take out of that what you want cos altho the time frame mentioned might scare you it gives an insight in to how far ahead the man is lookin but I certainly don't think for 1 second that we are gonna remain trophyless in the meantime, I took that to mean that by that time he wants AFC to be THE biggest club in the world or ie joint 1st with say the Scum and Real (who were also bankrupt at the turn of the century and had to be baled out by their local govt to the tune of nearly 230M something I don't think Mr. Brown would do for us) and if we do get to that stage then it will definately take time, but right at this moment I am still proud and excited to be an Arsenal fan cos we are now respected the world over for our football, so it's just a matter of getting the balance of the team right but we all want silverware so I understand why you are frustrated, but think where we would be without AW, cos who we buy and how much we spend is all down to him and the board have always financially backed him 100%!
The hard facts are that while you might get someone else in who'll spend loads of money and effectively buy a title which we have lately accused the Chavs of doin what do we do after that, with the dramatic changes goin on at our club we simply cannot afford to lose AW, perfect or not!
Belfast Boy, I think I speak for the vast vast majority of Gooners everywhere when I say that we do trust AW implicitly but a growing % of fans, me included, do not trust this board. I think if the board came out and said all along that we have no funds and dealings will be light over the next few years we would probably accept it because we, the fans, have lived through lean times before and know we will again. I think you will find that the opinions of the players with be in stark contrast however because, unlike the fans who have a lifetime of support to give, players careers are short and the best players are highly motivated to win as much as possible in that time. Is it reasonable to expect high quality players like cesc to "waste" 3 or 4 years of a short career playing for a club that is no longer capable of challenging for honours ? You don't have to be a genius to figure out that in recent years we have seen more outgoings in transfer sales (both in quality & finance) than we have seen in incoming transfers. This season after loan repayments we are supposed to be £20m better off and that is without including the extra revenue that the overseas tv contract has brought in so like everyone else I am wondering where this cash is going ? For the last 2 season we have scraped 4th place due to the poor quality of our challengers more than our own performance and thanks to mr platini there will probably only 3 places available from prem league for the champs league from 2008/09 so where will that leave us ? All our opposition has strengthened in quality and only a blind man would deny that so we too must step up and most of us feel that the quality of this squad is not capable of doing this over a season and so we need an big injection of quality and fast. You have 2 choices here - you can either believe that AW is not just being a loyal employee when he agrees with the everything the board says but then ask yourself if he really is happy with the level of support from the board why has he allowed his contract situation become such a major factor in our off-season.
but just like most of yous I live and breathe this club and I rejoice and suffer with every high and low but trust me considering the madness goin on around us we are very lucky to have AW and our board of which DD was the most vital member and I too want to see back!
What are you talking about man? 
Everybody loves me!! 
