clockender1 wrote:
the stadium opened in 2006.
EIGHT seasons ago.
whats the excuse for the last 3-4 years ?
plus i don't buy that 'the stadium hamstrung us" bullshit anyway - we still spent 43million on the wages of diaby, djourou, bendtner, denilson, vela, eboue and Song over six years, plus we were still paying wonga 3 million a year.
people forget that most of the funding for the bowl came from the sale of highbury to the property co - owned by us, and a loan from RBS over 15 years, the cost of which has been between 15-13 million over the last eight years - i checked.
and if you look at turnover in the same period, our debt cost is around 7% - which is nothing, comparing the increase in ticket prices of 11% average per year.
so when we actually look at the facts, we see that wenger wasn't impacted and just spent badly.
with those strong finances, at any other club, wenger would have been expected to compete every year - like Bayern did during their move, but the AKB's blame the stadium which again is just horseshit.
Ok - A lot of things here which looks incorrect, but I am pissed
Firstly, I am not a AKB and if you read any of my posts, you would see that. I find that he is incredibly crap at tactics. However, believe it or not, he is an attraction for top players still despite his shortcomings (and this is purely subjective).
Anyway on to your figures - an 11% average increase on ticket prices every year? Seriously? I don't think so. If it was an 11 percent increase every year, the stadium would be empty and the fans in revolt.
Also, the £43 million figure - where did this come from because as far as I am aware, the club do not tell you what each player makes? Over 6 years, you are saying that they averaged over £118k a week. I think that looks very high and probably not accurate.
According to you, the RBS loan is for 15 years? I believe that you if you add about 10 years to this, you will be closer to the mark.
For me, yes, he paid players that he thought would come good and some did to a mid-table level while others didn't make the grade (while the ones who did ended up eventually getting sold eventually). However, if you look at some arithmetic and see that if a player has a 2 year deal for 40k a week and gets and an extension to say 60k a week - it is a little over a million a season more for two more years - so roughly 4 million over the 4 years and a little more than 2 million for the following two years. For another for roughly the same money, you have to figure in transfer money on top of that and that is also a gamble because they may not be as good as what you already know in the team. This to me smells like someone doesn't have money to spend or is being frugal. But why if there is this money that he can spend?
For me, Wenger has stated many times that he needed to make a profit and the board do not dispute this, but also insist that money is there to spend which is also true. For me, Wenger was frugal and did work within a budget based upon my simplistic figures from above. Whether or not that was imposed by the board or by Wenger himself, we will never know. But either way, we did try to live within our means until the past couple of years, thus a restriction. Whether or not you want to believe that is your own prerogative as I am not privy to Arsenal board meetings, I will hazard a guess that they were fully aware and supportive of the frugality or potentially even told Wenger 'This is what you have to spend. Please work with that.'
So essentially, your 'facts' do not add up at all. Wenger did invest money stupidly in some cases, but in other cases, he generated a tidy profit on player sales and kept us relatively competitive during those years (and in the black financially).
I view it as pretty good management even with his shortcomings. That being said, I do wish that he would have walked at the end of last season, but he didn't and we have to live with it.