The reason we did a job on man city is because the PLAYERS insisted on adopting a different system and approach to that game

Right, but the point is that he *did* listen to the players and it worked - so no matter what he says to the press, he knows he now has a squad that can play that way ...

Surprised because Cesc isn't historically known for being a fan of Jose, nor is he the kind of midfielder who thrives on spending a lot of time sitting back to hit on the counter.

At the end of the day it's not personal - if the rumours of a £100m kitty are true, then it's reasonable to conclude ...

Don't know, don't particularly care.

See you at the start of the season!

More to the point, who would insist that a year in which the club got some silverware, led the league for a fair chunk of time and started actually spending money on transfers was the same thing as the previous eight years?

Nope, still here. Just not worth arguing the point further with people whose views are so entrenched that they just repeat the same old stuff over and over...

Wow. Looks like I'd have lost that bet then - I've got to admit to being seriously surprised!

Wonder if there'll be enough time for Cesc to get his PCV licence between returning from the World Cup and the start of the PL? :twisted:

Ozil will have a better season than Fabregas next year

I ...

For one thing, if I was going to go around trolling internet forums, I like to think I'd be smart enough to use a different pseudonym/handle for each one. I'm on a few forums because I have quite a few interests... Jeez - some of you have spent so long hating AW that you've ended up more paranoid ...

@VAVAVOOM:

Practically unlimited resources will tend to help matters there.

But my point is, why should that 9-year stretch matter so much? We have silverware, and we've had the best league performance since that period began. Sure, there's a ton of room for improvement - but that's football ...

Yup, and I'm certain he didn't bring Eduardo on either. Seriously - I got better debating skills from my time on the infants' school playground!

It just bothers me that it seems a number of folks on here have allowed this seemingly irrational hatred for the guy to utterly overwhelm everything else ...

Yeah good point, maybe it was a deArsenalisation plan that went wrong- suppose they thought lets make it different to PROOVE its not Highbury :cussing: .

To be honest it looks more to me like an - admittedly short-sighted and dumb - attempt to maximise potential interest (and therefore revenue ...

As far as I can tell, that's based on positive comments AW made about Balotelli back in 2009.

While Balotelli, like Suarez, rubs me up the wrong way, he's a striker and we need one of those. Another attacking midfielder like Cesc would be nice, but we don't really *need* one at the moment.

My ...

I had another moment of agreement with you earlier regarding the Barca shirt "stunt". Cesc definitely didn't look like he wanted that to happen.

But yeah - it's possible for sure, but is it really worth 30m of our (significantly improved, but still limited compared to the likes of Chelsea, City ...

I reckon the question people who are kvetching about turning Cesc down should be asking themselves is how they'd react if we hypothetically spent the 30m plus wages on getting him back, then later in the transfer window it turned out we missed out on a striker because we didn't have enough funding.

Everything I've read on the subject only says that the club as a whole said no to Cesc returning, nothing about AW specifically. Obviously if AW felt strongly in favour than he could probably overrule the decision, but he's got more pressing issues to deal with elsewhere in the squad.

One thing ...

It's a decent enough start. Next f***ing season. eh?