As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
OneBardGooner wrote:"The biggest problem facing this club is that we do not get anywhere near proper value for the amount of total wages we pay."
This is due to the manager he pays very average players extremely high wages - and then as the world and his dog knows - we are then stuck with these average players - because
a) no one else wants them
b) they won't budge because they're earning a fortune for doing zilch
What continues to baffle me is that Wenger is always arguing how he is against the monetisation of football - but that ship has long sailed, the way of the world (at present) is that everything revolves around money - which is power - and football is a very lucrative business within the world, so how he expects to stand against that tsunami is ridiculous ALSO he keeps trying to claim this higher (financial) moral ground and yet he is happy to be paid £7.5 million a year whilst failing at his job. Sadly there are those who have been hypnotised into believing that he is doing a good job, merely by attaining 4th and no trophies, but the whole reason for the clubs desperation to get 4th is all about money.
Unless the way of the world changes drastically in its financial stance over the next few years we have to join in, or we are screwed...well we have been screwed for 8 seasons actually.
In order for Wnger's (so called) Fair play/pay system to work we would need to :
Get rid of agents - have one (Impartial) Official Body that oversee's players contracts
Cap players & managers wages
Have a system for setting prices for tickets
and do this Globally
So it it is NOT going to happen - we may wish it to but it is impossible.
Great post.
As for the move - agree with Rodders, Flash, Reb etc above. If we had a manager that wasn't so up his own arse with his stupid failed fucking project then the move from our beautiful home to this dead soulless vapid AnyStadium might have been worth it. The night the Chavs became the first London team to win the CL should have been the end of The Project and the end of Wenger (though I've wanted him gone since May 2010). Hopefully the next manager will be pragmatic and spend this supposed new income we will now have.
I miss Highbury and The Conglomerates will NEVER be the same for me.
There is the tendency to romanticise Highbury and everything it meant to us when we were younger ; I'm sure many of us went there as teenagers, grew into men, and met our first loves in those times when we had part times jobs, went out every weekend, and the sun always seemed to be shining.
The fact that the team has won nothing in the period since we left makes us yearn for our first love of Highbury, but I still think it was the correct decision to move when we did.
I love the old girl in the same way I still think of my first love ; but looking closer I am reminded she was a selfish bitch who loved a big drama and I have since moved on, with no regrets.
Irreplaceable memories. But right to move.
Quiet simply for me, the fact that 22,400 more fans can see each game is the decider.
Of course it is expensive and a far cry from when I used to stand for £3, but ticket prices rose out of proportion to wages at Highbury about decade before we moved, not after we moved to the new stadium.
As for atmosphere, it was better at Highbury partly because we were closer to the pitch, but once standing was removed and prices rose the change in atmosphere was felt at Highbury, before we moved.
As for playing spending, we will eventually payoff the stadium. I know we tightened our belts because of the move, bit I think the combination of Kroenke/Wenger being in charge and the economic recession would have seen belt tightening anyway had we stayed at Highbury.
Highbury was never the same to me after they knocked the North Bank down in 1992 and it was a bit shabby in the last few years as they stopped spending money on it so I was neutral about the move. But even though I watched a lot of rubbish football there in the 70s and 80s my abiding emotion with the Emirates is utter frustration.
Highbury was the Garden of Eden of football grounds. We moved because we were told that was the only way to compete but the facts and medium-long-term subsequent strategy were withheld from us. Wenker himself has admitted that. In time, the move may be proved correct but we could and should have had success in the new ground by now. Had we got rid of North London Mugabe, we may well have done.
Some great posts by Dan_85, Bradywasking and Onebardgooner.
I found myself hating the new ground and lack of atmosphere. But the move has happened and I have decided to concentrate on the positives. I want to take my son to Arsenal when he is older, as my father took me.
The Highbury fanbase has already been decimated since the move. I don't want it to decline further.
Last edited by hugh jardon on Sat Jul 27, 2013 7:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
Without wishing to sound too much like I'm in the know, I have it on pretty good authority that Highbury could have been redeveloped to make it close to the capacity we have now - if that was the aim. But the move wasn't really about allowing thousands of extra fans to watch the team. It was dressed up that way to make it sound noble but in truth it was more about the commercial side, the increase in revenue, the multi-purpose side appeal and the extra control over monitoring fans etc. I'm sure the legacy thing appealed to the ego of several of them too.
Highbury was something unique, something money cannot buy. The Emirates is the exact opposite. I cant help feeling that if it really was necessary for us to move, they could have built us something a bit more attractive than a fcuking bowl. Something that lacks so many of the characteristics a football stadium needs. But then these decisions were made by people who either didn't have a clue of didn't care.
For financial resons, very long term, it was probably the correct decision but I just cannot get behind the Grove, it just doesn't feel right & I very much doubt it ever will.
If it was up to me I would've moved Heaven and Earth to redevelop THOF, council permitting too.
TBH I think we were fucked no matter what we did. If we had stayed at Highbury we would have had better sponsorship deals and perhaps have been able to keep Cashely and others. On the other hand the invincible era was coming to an end anyway. I'm going to be in the minority on this but I think moving in hindsight was a huge gamble that has paid off spectacularly. Liverfool, chelski and Spurs are all trying to do it now so we were ahead of the curb. Remember people the dorught started at Highbury in 2005. It's not an Emirates curse or anything. Whilst I am sure the board knew that we were going to have to tighten then belt and hold on for dear life, I don't think they anticipated that a russian billionaire in a mid-life crisis would spark such a frenzy of financial dopers. It's like playing a game of Monopoly and having a player start with 10* more cash. But I can't emphasize how lucky we are that it paid off. What if we didn't finish in the top 4 in 2005/06? What if Spurs got there instead?
Our failures are internal really. Our scouts are fucking awful: Park,Santos,Squillaci and Chamakh all in the past few years. To make matters worse is they are/have been paid far too much money in our 'socialist' wage structure. Our Physios are a joke. Is that a scrape on the knee? No it's AIDS. A slight knock? Concussion. A twisted ankle? Cruciate ligaments. Have a great player? Lets not extend his contract lets wait until the final year. Have a 8 games a year Abou Diaby? 5 year extension. Have a great player, like Cesc, who has more than 2 years left? Flog him anyway. Then there is the slow-mo transfers, haggling over which club pays for the flight ticket. The club likes to brag how it's well run and operates on sound economic principles. The only reason the club makes profit is because of the champions league revenue. In the past 8 years 3 seasons we have had to go to the final day of the season needing a win to qualify. The fact that we have is not testimony to how well run we are as it is how down right lucky we have been. We pay 32m more a year in wages than Spurs yet we finish just a point ahead.
Oh another thing thing: Our youth academy is overrated and overhyped.
Last edited by spendsum4uckingmoney on Sun Jul 28, 2013 5:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.
spendsum4uckingmoney wrote:Our failures are internal really. Our scouts are fucking awful: Park,Santos,Squillaci and Chamakh all in the past few years. To make matters worse is they are/have been paid far too much money in our 'socialist' wage structure. Our Physios are a joke. Is that a scrape on the knee? No it's AIDS. A slight knock? Concussion. A twisted ankle? Cruciate ligaments. Have a great player? Lets not extend his contract lets wait until the final year. Have a 8 games a year Abou Diaby? 5 year extension. Have a great player, like Cesc, who has more than 2 years left? Flog him anyway. Then there is the slow-mo transfers, haggling over which club pays for the flight ticket.
Painfully I have to admit I think it was the right decision - but that we've handled the move extremely poorly. We've failed to balance our football and financial interests and even though the move will probably start paying dividends in the not so distant future we'll not only have pissed away a decade on the pitch; we'll have done it whilst lying to the fans, whilst fleecing them for every penny and whilst sending out any old twat to wear the cannon and paying them £50k a week.
I would say that it would have been the right move had it paid dividends where it matters (on the pitch, just on case anyone was wondering) and where we were told that it would.
It hasn't , so far, (with no indication that will alter in the near future either) so until we become a force in England again, winning trophies regularly then it cannot be classed as the right decision.
So time will tell, but already 8 / 9 years has elapsed.
Was dead against it ,the bullshit theory that we couldn't compete if we stayed there is simply wrong .
We were making 20/30 million profit a year in the old girl and that would have continued without have to worry
about any Debt . The Extra 22,000 on the gate has to be weighted against the costs of building the stadium after the profits from the land development.
The size of the debt 250 million is huge considering we almost paid for the stadium with 150 million from emirates and the property sales profits of ??? 81 million ??? Since the stadium supposedly was only to have cost 300/350 all in where did the rest of 100 million or so go ???? certainly not on player purchases. In fact I hear the real cost was nearer 400/450 million and we cut back on the escalators and all frills to ensure it wasn't more which wasn't as planned at all so having committed we are lucky we are not in financial shite !
It is this that has left us where we are and in someways they have done well ,a 4th placed selling team.
It's where we go now that concerns me though , the debt is now easily managed and with 20/30 million per annum investment with prudent management of the wage bill we can challenge again , which begs the question why did we bother as we could and would have been doing that and more at our real home ?
But its done and we are lucky we have more or less gotten away with it ,if the emirates had turned into a Wembley style cost overrun we would be bankrupt now and we are not so for that at least I'm happy !
The problem with the club now is that its product Management and coaching staff are not fit for purpose everything else is bang on !
It's a difficult one, but the fact most other clubs point to our stadium as an example of a club doing it the right way shows me that the move was correct but the handling has been rubbish.
The issue is we were lied to, pure and simple when we first moved. They knew it would be tight and they didn't say anything. Infact they said the opposite. Football massively changed when Roman and his roubles came along. Dein knew it and looked for outside investment. The club buired its head. Ok the 'project' nearly worked in 2008, when we should have won the league. But a lack of investment at a CRUCIAL time (January) ultimately cost us.
We are in a tremendous financial position, the stadium is bloody impressive, and CAN get a great atmosphere going. But we don't use it as an advantage. We need to spend big. That's football pute and simple. We have the cash cow, it's just our board and manager will not use it as it lines the pockets of a board full of old codgers and a manager who seems more and more out of touch with the modern game, where once he was a pioneer.
