Wenger - Madrid talks already underway

[flash gunner]

I heard the french guy on the radio not sure of his name Reviour i think? Anyway he seems to think there is a big chance of Wenger leaving. There was a time i would have been worried shitless about this but not anymore if he stays and spends money fine if not and he goes then we will get on with it. Maybe its time anyway

[green gooner]

I heard the french guy on the radio not sure of his name Reviour i think? Anyway he seems to think there is a big chance of Wenger leaving. There was a time i would have been worried shitless about this but not anymore if he stays and spends money fine if not and he goes then we will get on with it. Maybe its time anyway

But let's say for the sake of argument, there is no money to spend, and despite what Hill-Wood say's there never was in the first place, 4th place year in year out is a brilliant job. Spurs spend more than we do as have Sunderland not to mention Man City. If tight purse strings bind the hands of Wenger and we as fans condemn his policy, then will the promise of free spending Real finally tempt him away

His remark saying "I am not the man to bust this club" is the clearest indication yet that he will have no transfer funds of any real meaning.

[proudtosaythatname]

There is too much complacency about Wenger leaving. He is rightly upset at the number of 'supporters' have booed his team in recent weeks, not to mention the ludicrous number who walked out with 30 mins to go against Man Utd. He feels shabbily treated for all he has done for us - and not without due cause it would seem.

There may be an alternative manager capable of steering Arsenal above 4th place on very limited resources, but I wouldn't like to take the chance on finding out. Not just yet, anyway.

Phillip Louis(e) Scolari anyone?

[Skooner]

If the club want Wenger to stay and there is not much money available they need to tell the fans more about what is going on. You can’t make statements like “If Arsene wants to sign a player for £30m he canâ€

[SPUDMASHER]

I don't think there is anything that Madrid can offer, that would be enough to tempt Wenger.

Now, I'm not saying there is nothing that could happen that would result in him going there but it wouldn't be anything they did that caused it. I honestly believe he is above all that but I am even more certain that he values respect, dignity and fairness above all that.
The fact that Adebarndoor is being virtually driven from our club by the supporters is, for me, the issue that could swing it. I think he would be so appalled at the way his star striker was treated that he would take it as a personal assault and would go as a result.
So the situation in my eyes is this:-

"If you want to keep Wenger then you have to get off Adebayors back and keep him too".

Horrible prospect isn't it? I don't want to keep the lazt *word censored* either but if we want Wenger to stay (and I think we all do really even if we do want him to spend etc.) then we might have to.

[augie]

[quote="Skooner"]If the club want Wenger to stay and there is not much money available they need to tell the fans more about what is going on. You can’t make statements like “If Arsene wants to sign a player for £30m he canâ€

[JohnGoon]

[quote="augie"][quote="Skooner"]If the club want Wenger to stay and there is not much money available they need to tell the fans more about what is going on. You can’t make statements like “If Arsene wants to sign a player for £30m he canâ€

[Its Up 4 Grabs Now]

Hill-Wood lives in a little world of his own with his port, pinstripes and cigars and unless Wengers joined him I'd be surprised if he was really thinking of leaving because of a bit of stick from fans. Are there any French speakers on here that have actually heard the Madrid interview, in full and in context? We all know what mis-quoted wrongly-translated crap we had to put up from the Spanish press whenever our top players went on international duty

I don’t think this was a case of Wenger being misquoted, or the press putting a different slant on his words. I think Wenger knew exactly what he was doing when he made these comments & how they’d be interpreted.

As soon as it became clear he had actually said these words, it seemed like a pretty clear-cut case of either Wenger sending out a little warning of “careful what you wish forâ€

[green gooner]

George Graham. Now what has he to do with all this you may ask Well there can be no doubt the success that Wenger is credited with early on, was achieved on the back of foundations put down by George, namely a strong, tight back four.

DB10 was brought in by Bruce Rioch, not Wenger. Yet Arsene added a mix of tried and tested players to these foundations and we saw a lot of trophies, which is what we all yearn for again. However the Arsenal of 09 is all Arsene's own work and we have won....erm...nowt

Now factor in the Emirates and the huge debt that goes with it, and the projected long term crippling effect this will have on our spending power, we have to wonder if we will ever see a trophy again.

I don't really know where this line of thought is taking me myself other than asking is Arsene's "grow your own' project the only show in town

[hadareud]

George Graham. Now what has he to do with all this you may ask Well there can be no doubt the success that Wenger is credited with early on, was achieved on the back of foundations put down by George, namely a strong, tight back four.

DB10 was brought in by Bruce Rioch, not Wenger. Yet Arsene added a mix of tried and tested players to these foundations and we saw a lot of trophies, which is what we all yearn for again. However the Arsenal of 09 is all Arsene's own work and we have won....erm...nowt

Now factor in the Emirates and the huge debt that goes with it, and the projected long term crippling effect this will have on our spending power, we have to wonder if we will ever see a trophy again.

I don't really know where this line of thought is taking me myself other than asking is Arsene's "grow your own' project the only show in town

That's really not a good argument. How many players of the previous managers were in the invincibles side? Two.

Vieira was 19 years old when he joined us btw.

[Its Up 4 Grabs Now]

George Graham. Now what has he to do with all this you may ask Well there can be no doubt the success that Wenger is credited with early on, was achieved on the back of foundations put down by George, namely a strong, tight back four.

DB10 was brought in by Bruce Rioch, not Wenger. Yet Arsene added a mix of tried and tested players to these foundations and we saw a lot of trophies, which is what we all yearn for again. However the Arsenal of 09 is all Arsene's own work and we have won....erm...nowt

Now factor in the Emirates and the huge debt that goes with it, and the projected long term crippling effect this will have on our spending power, we have to wonder if we will ever see a trophy again.

I don't really know where this line of thought is taking me myself other than asking is Arsene's "grow your own' project the only show in town

That's really not a good argument. How many players of the previous managers were in the invincibles side? Two.

Vieira was 19 years old when he joined us btw.

Have to agree with Statman on this. It would be massively harsh to suggest Wenger’s success is/was purely, or even predominantly, down to Graham or any other manager before him. Yes he inherited great foundations & that shouldn’t be forgotten but the 2004 & to a lesser extent 2002 teams were mainly made up of Wenger signings.

And without meaning to diminish their roles in the 2004 team, the likes of Keown & Parlour were not the key players they once had been. Important yes, but not enough to take away from the fact the Invincibles was Wenger’s team/squad! Keown nearly didn’t get his winner’s medal until he came on late on in the last game to make his 10th appearance. It was a similar story with Adams in 2002 I think (?).

And besides should we take credit away from Mourinho because Terry, Lampard, Cech, Makalele, Robben etc were all there before he went to the Chavs?

[Skooner]

George Graham. Now what has he to do with all this you may ask Well there can be no doubt the success that Wenger is credited with early on, was achieved on the back of foundations put down by George, namely a strong, tight back four.

DB10 was brought in by Bruce Rioch, not Wenger. Yet Arsene added a mix of tried and tested players to these foundations and we saw a lot of trophies, which is what we all yearn for again. However the Arsenal of 09 is all Arsene's own work and we have won....erm...nowt

Now factor in the Emirates and the huge debt that goes with it, and the projected long term crippling effect this will have on our spending power, we have to wonder if we will ever see a trophy again.

I don't really know where this line of thought is taking me myself other than asking is Arsene's "grow your own' project the only show in town

That's really not a good argument. How many players of the previous managers were in the invincibles side? Two.

Vieira was 19 years old when he joined us btw.

I think there is something in the fact that when Wenger came to the club there was a foundation of good players at the back and Wenger was able to compliment that further up the pitch to great effect. As the back four gradually retired/left the other players that came on the scene either had a Premier League experience (Campbell) or were able to learn from the masters (Cashley).

Where things have changed is that the turnover of players has increased considerably and Wenger has not bought well replacing the defence.

On the assumption that Wenger stays it will be extremely interesting to see what he does defensively. I would suggest that he has never paid money for a good established defender (perhaps Sagna). The only 2 class defenders he has acquired are Campbell and Gallas, both of whom pretty much fell into his lap due to circumstances and didn’t cost the club a transfer fee.

[augie]

The point I made last summer, and I still believe that things aint changed, is that if we remain as we are for the next few seasons with the same old transfer policy and citing a lack of funds then by the time we have this supposed financial windfall the rest of the top 4 clubs will be far out of sight cos they sure as hell aint going to wait around for us. This season has shown that we can no longer hope to cling onto their shirt tails while persevering with this policy and if truth be told we have been fortunate to remain where we have for the last few seasons given this lack of team investment.

[hadareud]

the thing is, I don't think we have fallen behind the other top clubs any further. Nothing that a few (and I mean few) quality signings wouldn't be able to rectify anyway.

If you just look at the table it would be easy to say that we've taken a massive step backwards, compared to last season where we challenged for the title.

But I don't think it's as massive as it seems. We have lost one in the league game since the beginning of December and that came off the back of the massive disappointment that was the Champions League semi final. And even in this game things would have been very different had we scored first, as we deserved to.

Other than that we've pretty much kept the pace of the others, despite a dreadful run of 5 draws in a row where we couldn't buy a goal.

If we can get Alonso (or a similar player) and Chiellini (or a similar player) this summer I am convinced that we will challenge for the league again. We will be a good bit stronger than last season. We will have Arshavin, we will have Eduardo and Rosicky back and the young players will have improved. They new players can be financed by selling Adebayor, Senderos and Toure together with our mini transfer budget. We may even be able to buy a quality striker like Dzeko too.

We'll win the league, in a word.

[Its Up 4 Grabs Now]

The point I made last summer, and I still believe that things aint changed, is that if we remain as we are for the next few seasons with the same old transfer policy and citing a lack of funds then by the time we have this supposed financial windfall the rest of the top 4 clubs will be far out of sight cos they sure as hell aint going to wait around for us. This season has shown that we can no longer hope to cling onto their shirt tails while persevering with this policy and if truth be told we have been fortunate to remain where we have for the last few seasons given this lack of team investment.

Thing is augie, if there has been a serious shortage of cash for Wenger to spend (and certainly up until last summer at least I’d argue that’s more likely to have been the case than not) would you not accept that Wenger’s actually done a fairly good job to keep us in the top 4 in that time? Not an amazing job, but a good one none the less.

Cos if you’re saying that we’re lucky to not have finished outside the top 4 “given the lack of team investmentâ€