Transfer Budget... What Transfer Budget?

All_Arsenal_1886 · Post by **All_Arsenal_1886** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:08 am

At the end of last season the premier league teams were told how they would be getting Â£50m cach injection each, so this is why we have seen mega spending in pre-season

So far teams have spent an estimated
Aston Villa Â£9m
Birmingham Â£7m
Chelsea Â£14m
Derby Â£7m
Everton Â£5m
Fulham Â£11m

Liverpool Â£30m
Man utd Â£50m
Newcastle Â£10m
Suderland Â£8m
Sp*rs Â£30m
West Ham Â£22m
Wigan Â£9m

The reason im bringing this up is we have spent less than Â£15m we have sold Henry for Â£17m where is our Â£50m ?????
The figures don't add up i know we have bills to pay but so do Fulham and they have spent over Â£10m and haven't finished yet

I know we look like there are more signings coming but i still believe us fans are being cheated somewhere

maybe the board don't want to spend money because they know they are about to sell up ?????

Its Up 4 Grabs Now · Post by **Its Up 4 Grabs Now** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:53 am

To be fair though, if the Sagna deal is made official and if the reported fees we've paid are correct (which is pretty hard to tell given our penchant for "undisclosed fees") then we will have so far spent Â£10M on Dudu, Â£7.5M on Sagna, Â£2M on Fabianski and Â£2M on the Norwegian kid... which makes Â£21.5M!

I know we could argue that Henry, Aliadiere, Muamba etc's outgoing fees pretty much balance that out and bring the net spending to Â£Zero but the same goes for some other teams (Liverpool for example) who have also recouped some of their outgoing fees (Bellamy for Â£7.5M, Cisse Â£8M, Garcia Â£4M etc) and that hasnt been accounted for on your list.

My point is not to criticise your list and/or your point of view (I would love us to go and buy at least 1 or 2 more class players), just to point out that we have not been quite as inactive as it might seem.

More than anything the issue is the quality of what a club buys not how much it spends. Spuds for example might have spent Â£30M but the main reason for that is that they threw away Â£16M on Darren Bent!!! Man'Ure spent Â£17.5M on Nani and fair enough he might go on to be a great player, but he is still unproven at practically every level! It's only the fact that he cost so much that has got the majority of people assuming he is a great signing. Had they got the same player for Â£5M in a quiet deal they're wouldnt be nearly as much hype around how great Man'Ure's squad is (even though it would be the same squad)!

In fact, with the Tevez transfer still seemingly far from being resolved, to what extent can we say Man'Ure have really strengthened? Hargreaves is by all means a decent player, but the majority of the hype around him stems from one good performance in the World Cup... think back a year ago just before the WC kicked off, he was almost universally derided as average at best! And even if he is a good signing, to implement him into the team they'll have to disrupt what was (as much as i hate to say it) a pretty effective midfield partnership for them last season. Anderson & Nani are for the future (and we have a few of those ourselves!). They haven't rectified their goalkeeping weakness, or got quality cover for the ever more injury prone Gary Neville. Even with Tevez their only out-and-out striker will be Saha (constantly out injured till the 32nd of Neveruary!!!).

All due to respect to everyone with a different opinion to mine, but i just feel we will be much stronger this season than 99% of us seem to believe. Apologies for the lonnnnnggggg post!

RaM · Post by **RaM** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:09 pm

All due to respect to everyone with a different opinion to mine, but i just feel we will be much stronger this season than 99% of us seem to believe.

I agree with you, we have potential to be title contenders next season.

I also agree with what you've said about Man U.

Its Up 4 Grabs Now · Post by **Its Up 4 Grabs Now** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:20 pm

Cheers RaM, good to know i'm not a lone madman!

Just to clarify my point about Man'Ure for everyone... I'm not saying they haven't strengthened at all, just that the press/media's OTT assessment of their "amazing" squad seems to centre much more around the Â£50M they spent rather than the players that that money actually bought... namely a somewhat overrated/overpriced part-time headless chicken called Hargreaves and two kids with potential (who come with absolutley no more guarantee thay they will fulfill said potential than any of our own next-big-thing youngsters)!

RaM · Post by **RaM** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:32 pm

Also the teams that have spent all this money will be left with squads full of unhappy players.

After all they can't all play every week, despite the fact that they all want to.

Too many 'big personalities' at the clubs.

Post by **DB10GOONER** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:33 pm

Excellent posts IU4GN.

Some very salient points. So much next season depends on which players gel quickest for which teams.

I think Utd have spent way too much for what they've signed. And as for spurtz? Bent and his agent must be lying on the floor of their bank managers office right now and they must be laughing, long and loud.

Remember August 1997? No one gave us a hope of winning anything. The following May wasn't half bad was it?

You just never know how new players will impact on a side.

Its Up 4 Grabs Now · Post by **Its Up 4 Grabs Now** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:57 pm

Cheers DB10, between me, you and RaM that makes 3 helplessly deluded Gooners... if we can just recruit a couple more lunatics we might actually be able to spread some optimism around GoonerLand

By next May we'll be able to say "we told you so"... better get those "IU4GN Knows", "DB10Gooner Knows", "RaM Knows" t-shirts printed asap!

we_are_the_arsenal · Post by **we_are_the_arsenal** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:12 pm

make that 4!

exiled in notts · Post by **exiled in notts** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:17 pm

And then there were 5.

We're at our best when people have written us off. Bring on the new season.

Post by **REB** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:21 pm

num 6, bring it on

Trevheff · Post by **Trevheff** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:22 pm

I'm in agreement with the original post to be honest. For me there are glaring weaknesses in our squad, the main ones being a winger and a new centre back. Yet as we stand we're currently in profit for the summer.

Back in February when we went out of the Champions League, Edelman stated Arsene would have Â£20 million to spend in the summer despite the loss to PSV. Had we progressed it would have been more, but Â£20m was the worst case scenario. Since then we have pocketed the following (approx);

Henry - Â£16m
Muamba - Â£2m
Aliadierre - Â£2m

Added to the Â£20m that should give us Â£40m. It's looking a good bet that we'll pocket around Â£5m for Freddie and at least Â£6m for Reyes taking our transfer pool up to Â£51m. Of course we've already spent Â£13m on Eduardo and a combined Â£4m on Fabianski and the young Norwegian. And Â£6m looks to be heading out the door for Sagna. That still leaves us Â£28m up, if the Boards comments in Feb were to be believed, and Â£8m in profit for the summer. OK fees need taking into account but we should still have a sizeable budget.

I agree we shouldn't pay over the odds for a player. But if there is a player who Arsene really likes who he thinks will improve us, Arsene is only prepared to go to Â£8m but AN Other club are prepared to go to Â£10m, if the player is that good and we've got Â£28m burning a hole in our pocket we should pay the money! I don't agree with paying Â£15m for a player who is only worth Â£8m. But if we have a choice of paying Â£2-3m over the odds or get left behind, I'd rather see us push the boat out a little.

green gooner · Post by **green gooner** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:25 pm

OK sign me up as well! I know we do not think too much of the press around here but a number of them are spreading the "Rumour" that Wenger has been given considerable sums of cash to freshen up the team.

A few more "quality" players in and who knows what might just happen.....

donaldo · Post by **donaldo** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:44 pm

Trevheff your point about a new centre back is even more relevent with the recent comments by Gallas, is his heart in the club?Will he still be here next season? I felt we were weak at the centre of defence last season.And with Toure away on African nations duty we will be really short anyway.I think we need to buy a centre half before the season starts.I have no confidence at all in Senderos who is a mistake waiting to happen.And i dont want to see Gilberto used as a centre half because we are short of players.We need a centre half who is good in the air like Terry and Vidic.Are we still interested in Curtis Davis?

Its Up 4 Grabs Now · Post by **Its Up 4 Grabs Now** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:46 pm

/\ /\ /\
Ohhhhhh, just as we were building up some momentum as well!!!

Only joking Trevheff, to be honest i dont think your point of view and the rest of ours (if i can take the liberty of speaking on anyone else's behalf

) are at complete odds. I agree that we have a need for a winger and a centre-back and am by no means against us spending money to get what we need.

But at the same time Arsene has already taken steps to rectify some of our weakpoints from last season. Dudu, as much as being Henry's "replacement" has obviously been bought to help solve the issue of us missing hatfuls of gilt-edged chances (which easily cost us a minimum of 14/15 points last season). Sagna, who by all accounts from what i've read (whatever that's worth), is a quality player will provide much needed cover at both right and left back and perhaps even take over Eboue's position in the 1st team, thus making us defensively stronger (here's looking at you ECD!).

As far as a centre-back goes, provided Gallas stays and manages to do his ability justice this season, in Toure and Gallas we have a centre-back pairing as good as any in my opinion. They only had a 1/4 of the seaon (if that) playing together last season as a partnership. At the start of last season i'm sure Man'Ure supporters would have had serious doubts about Ferdinand and Vidic as their 1st choice centre-back pairing! So in terms of needing a new CB (and i agree we do) it's more a case of buying to strengthen the depth of our squad than buying a 1st choice superstar. Coping without Toure during the ANC will be important no doubt, but we dont need to spend Â£10/15M just on the basis that Toure will be away in Africa for a maximum of 4 Premiership games! And Djourou and Big Phil compare favourably with Man'Ure's back-up options of Silvestre, Wes Brown and/or O'Shea in my opinion.

A quality winger would be very nice, especially if we're sticking with 4-4-2 (although i'd prefer we switched to 4-3-3) but there's still time left yet for us to splash a bit more cash...

Post by **REB** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 1:46 pm

cant see wenger spending big money on curtis davies,, unproven english players just cost 2 much