marcengels wrote:So who watched Stepanovs and Cygan - Ray Charles?Bergkamp-Genius wrote:By all accounts Grimandi and co were watching Sagna for at least 2 seasons..before we decided to take the plunge...so you can guarantee they know this guy inside out...and they are certainly not judging him on just a couple of good games..
Then what happened from 1998-2005 Augie? Seriously, I understand what you are trying to say but how do you square that notion with what the manger did from 1998-2005? Mr. Wenger clearly was never one for spending crazy money but it hardly seems as though his practicing ethos as you put it was anywhere close to what you are suggesting here.augie wrote:To a certain extent every player a club buys is a gamble but paying 8m for a 25yr old player with as limited experience as this guy has is fcuking way beyond the point of a gambleIs this falling in line with wenger's plan to bring sucess to the club but only with his ethos.....as in he would rather buy an 8m unknown player than 10m for an experienced international centre back ? I cant take much more of this guys transfer dealings
USMartin wrote:Then what happened from 1998-2005 Augie? Seriously, I understand what you are trying to say but how do you square that notion with what the manger did from 1998-2005? Mr. Wenger clearly was never one for spending crazy money but it hardly seems as though his practicing ethos as you put it was anywhere close to what you are suggesting here.augie wrote:To a certain extent every player a club buys is a gamble but paying 8m for a 25yr old player with as limited experience as this guy has is fcuking way beyond the point of a gamble
And again look at the annual spending from 1998-2005 and then from 2005-now, not just the actual net spending numbers but who the spending was on? Can you explain either why the manager suddenly changed his ethose as is one of the the only logical conclusions under your theory? Or why the manager would have abandoned his own ethos from 1998-2005 as is the one of the only other possible explanations under your theory?
I expanded on this in another thread FWIW
) cos at the time he was the hottest young talent in england and can accept that at this stage signing him hasnt quite worked out but what I cannot accept is the habit of giving these under performing pricks huge pay rises when everything we see suggests that their either not good enough or not committed enough and sometimes both Can anybody see wenger spending this much on a reserve centre back ? I dont so if that is the case we are looking at a player with one seasons experience in frances top division being pushed into a key position in a league featuring some of the best strikers in the world and that is totally unacceptable for me 
It's not a no brainer, because you've never seen Koscielny play!augie wrote:[Anyway my real gripe here is that it now appears that this player has or is about to join us for 8m and I look at kjaer on the market for 10m and really imo the decision on which player we should buy is a no brainer.
also, I'm assuming you're basing your opinion of Kjaer on nothing more than hype and a couple of games in the world cup, I'd imagine (sorry if I'm wrong)
after all, if he's so fucking good, surely Citeh and Real Madrid will start a bidding war any time now.... 
I think this is largely correct, but not entirely so and that distinction is critical. I think when you look at what Arsene Wenger did from 1999-2001 which is when the Invincibles side was assembled (excepting only Lehmann and Reyes) that team did not feature more than maybe half a dozen pre-Wenger players and that was only in 01-02 honestly. There is no doubt that from 1997-2001 Arsene Wenger benefited significantly from the presence of players pre-dating his arrival at the club. By the same token there is no doubt that 2001-2005 before the club was financially over-stretched that he was more than able to recruit and sign more than adequate replacements (Campbell, Lauren, and Cole were all regulars in defence by 2002)augie wrote: In the early wenger years he could afford to take a gamble by bringing in players like PV4, manu petit etc cos he had a solid backbone of experienced players and these buys were being brought in to supplement what was already there. Now cos of the way wenger and the board have been running our club we have a flimsy backbone epitomised when you look at the spine of the team (keeper-centre backs-centre midfielders-strikers) and any purchase we make now has to be ready to make a real difference now cos it has already been proven that we cannot and will not win any-fcuking-thing when we are depending on the likes of almunia, diaby etc
My only view of the Board is that I want them to invest more money in the football team. If they were doing that I’d have no concern either way about anything else honestly. As to the notion Mr. Wenger is not at fault for any of this, that’s simply not true. Having said that I’m not sure he is as much to blame as you’d like to suggest because I don’t know that he would be making the same choices if he genuinely had more money to spend. Now you referred to his managing ethos( aterm I’ve only heard publicly used by Dan Fiszman to defend the club’s current wage structure which says a lot to me ). So how do you explain the very different ethos he practiced from 1998-2005 then? Or why would he tolerate having to ignore those ethos during those years? Or why would the Board tolerate him changing his ethos to the club’s detrimate if he never had to do that?augie wrote: I believe that you have an agenda against the board and on that point we are in 100% agreement but where we differ is that you appear to absolve wenger for every fcuk up in the club over recent years. I can defend his signing of theo the brainless winger (
His judgement of players and lack of tactical nous is becoming a real milestone around our necks and believe me I could give you countless examples of these issues.
Again this is where the petition can help. My guess is this is much a wage structure-driven decision perhaps as it is anything else. Again in 2004 our wage bill was 30% smaller yet we had at least twice as many players among Europe’s 50 highest paid footballers and two players earning at or over 100K a week as opposed to having one player among the fifty highest paid footballers – just – and none at or over 100K a week.augie wrote: Anyway my real gripe here is that it now appears that this player has or is about to join us for 8m and I look at kjaer on the market for 10m and really imo the decision on which player we should buy is a no brainer.
There isn't anybody who doesn't hope you're right but really what if you are wrong? Oh well at least we didn't spend 15 million - even if with 15 million we almost certainly get our money's worth?brazilianGOONER wrote:when koscielny prove to be an excellent centre half, there will be lots of peoples with eggs on their faces
g88ner wrote:It's not a no brainer, because you've never seen Koscielny play!augie wrote:[Anyway my real gripe here is that it now appears that this player has or is about to join us for 8m and I look at kjaer on the market for 10m and really imo the decision on which player we should buy is a no brainer.
Anyway, the Palermo chairman has said that Kjaer is close to agreeing a move to Wolfsburg. Now, this may not happen of course, but if he does join Wolfsburg for £10m, then it makes you wonder why, doesn't it?
Until we've seen Koscielny, I'm at a loss at how people can be so dismissive of him, yet talk glowingly of Kjaer. Hell, maybe Kjaer is a better defender than Koscielny, but at this point we haven't got a clue!
You also totally ignore the fact that kjaer has 2 full seasons playing in a tough italian league and while it is nowhere near as strong as it was it is still a hell of a lot stronger than a french league where govou is viewed as a top striker in his league and he has only 1 seasons experience playing at that level too 
) viewed as a moaner on here but I just cannot get on board and support our transfer business this summer especially if we have the transfer kitty that is supposed to be available. If these deals are indicitive of how we will be in this summers transfer window than I would rather sell cesc for 40m, buy a replacement like gourcuff (20m get out clause) or kaka (if available for 20m as rumoured) and use the other 20m to buy a better quality keeper and centre half
marcengels wrote:So who watched Stepanovs and Cygan - Ray Charles?Bergkamp-Genius wrote:By all accounts Grimandi and co were watching Sagna for at least 2 seasons..before we decided to take the plunge...so you can guarantee they know this guy inside out...and they are certainly not judging him on just a couple of good games..
Top work marc
