THE WENGER THREAD

[GoonerMuzz]

Everyone seems to going on about having 200 million to spend, others say 100 million.

Regardless of whether it's 100 or 200, De Maria with wages cost 150 million, that's it, gone.

So, question, would you have been happy with us signing De Maria and him turning out to be rather average?

Would you all say what a wanker he was for wasting all the money?

Just a question so no need to get all tetchy cos the last few replies had me sleepless

Classic. £200m is turned into a magical sum that is "not that much really"
And of course, use the most extreme example in Di Maria the £63m flop
A list of players that could have been signed for less fee/wages:

Suarez (£40m +1 eh?)
Lewandowski
Benzema
Griezmann
Reus
Hummels
Kroos
Lukaku
Isco
Rakitic
Cavani
Higuain

Every single one of these players could have been signed for around £50m and there's no way they'd command the £250k a week ADM did. Not one of them would have earned anywhere near that. But of course, better to use one extreme example of a big money signing, instead of looking at, you know...Aguero...Silva...Hazard...Sanchez etc etc.

So desperate a defence of Lord Wenger!

No-one knows how a player will turn out at a team and therefore you don't know if ADM would have been the same disaster if he'd come here so not really an argument you can use.

I think Messi cost Barca £2M, some would say a steal considering and i'd say they got their moneys worth, but could you guarantee he'd have become the same player at another team under different managers?

However there have been more than enough disastrous players who have come through the door under Wenger, some of whom undeniably were ruined by his management and use of them yet he gave contract extensions and payrises, and they can be used to make the opposite point.

On Wenger's first 10 years i'm afraid i'm going to disagree that he was a great Manager, i think he was a good manager who brought some excellent ideas into the PL and used them to build a great squad the backbone of which was bequeathed to him but that he definitely completed.

But prior to coming to us though lets remember he was hardly a great success at either Monaco or Grampus.

[northbank123]

Hang on - this transfer kitty we're promised is money to spend on transfers.

It's easy to distort figures when you are talking about wages over a long-term contract. Reality is if we bring in an absolute superstar and pay them £150k a week that equates to roughly a 4% increase in our wage bill - hardly drastic. On top of that you would expect us to lose a squad player to make way for the signing, and we notoriously grossly overpay our squad players. On the topic of which our wage bill is about £2m less than Man City (who will finish above us for the 6th year in a row - that's right, Man City who are ruining football by chucking money about and who we are supposedly the antithesis of

Yes if Wenger had signed di Maria he would have taken stick. Taking a risk to your ego like that is part and parcel of the role if you want to be a top side - instead Wenger prefers shopping in his safe zone of £8-15m where he won't get castigated too much for wasting money on any single player. On top of that the top players will always retain value, especially with so many sides in Europe now having cash to splash about - di Maria being case in point by recouping £44m!

Besides, singling on one particularly unsuccessful big signing is basically one step away from the standard ardent AKB response to any criticism of Arsenal's transfer policy of "oh so you would rather us spend money like [insert most profligate team in the last transfer window]?" as though there is no alternative.

[Henry Norris 1913]

have to agree with armchair lefty, choosing di maria as you example is similar to posing the question "do you want us to become another leeds/pompey"? which is an often maligned akb tactic. it's a straw man move.

how much did sanchez and ozil cost together? 72 million or a figure in that ballpark. was that not money well spent. why have we not strengthened our makeshift defence with anything better than stopgaps?

[northbank123]

have to agree with armchair lefty, choosing di maria as you example is similar to posing the question "do you want us to become another leeds/pompey"? which is an often maligned akb tactic. it's a straw man move.

how much did sanchez and ozil cost together? 72 million or a figure in that ballpark. was that not money well spent. why have we not strengthened our makeshift defence with anything better than stopgaps?

Exactly - pay that money for players with established class and that is what you will get. Funny how this 'adjustment period' that is supposedly inevitable with new signings to the PL isn't mentioned with the likes of Aguero and Sanchez.

Pay £12m for a relative unknown from Ligue 1 and you will get a player who after a year or two at the club might possibly turn into a decent squad player.

[officepest]

But none of those players listwd wantedvto come to Arsenal and you all know that

We also ALL know that the premiership pays a premium for players because of the huge TV revenues.

If the premiership wanted Messi he would be on 500,000 PLUS A WEEK.

As for some numpty evoking the oh so classic "strawman argument" on online gooner, my question is still relevant, we could sign 3 players whose fee and wages exceed 300 million and yet might fail, regardless of what player it is.

De Maria was just an example of what a premier league team have to pay for top players and AGAIN YOU ALL KNEW THAT, crack on boys because I haven't seen a valid reply yet

Anyhow I'm off for an hour in the hot tub so I might not see you replies through the steam, just as well going by what I've seen so far

None? Really? Good skills.

I don't suppose you've got the winning lottery numbers for Saturday to hand too?

[armchair]

But none of those players listwd wantedvto come to Arsenal and you all know that

We also ALL know that the premiership pays a premium for players because of the huge TV revenues.

If the premiership wanted Messi he would be on 500,000 PLUS A WEEK.

As for some numpty evoking the oh so classic "strawman argument" on online gooner, my question is still relevant, we could sign 3 players whose fee and wages exceed 300 million and yet might fail, regardless of what player it is.

De Maria was just an example of what a premier league team have to pay for top players and AGAIN YOU ALL KNEW THAT, crack on boys because I haven't seen a valid reply yet

Anyhow I'm off for an hour in the hot tub so I might not see you replies through the steam, just as well going by what I've seen so far

None? Really? Good skills.

Just some ridiculous, outlandish pro-Wenger nonsense with no merit or substance. Thrown out there deliberately to get a reaction from WOB's.
In other words wumming. Worked quite well though.

[SteveO 35]

My eldest thought it would be hilarious to buy this for me for Christmas.....my favourite journo and manager in one go. I've read it from cover to cover whilst on holiday - will share some of the gems over the coming weeks

[LeftfootlegendGooner]

I am out of the hot tub and cannot believe how weak your arguments are guys, at first I thought the wine had got to me what with being hot and the blood pumping faster

OK I'm going to ignore most of you because clearly you missed as much school as I did but didn't have the same IQ

NB123 (even your avatar alludes to some sort of mathematical understanding), any top player will cost in excess of 40 million, plus a wage of, lets say 150,00 a week (rooney is on 300,000 or am I being unreasonable again ) so thon a 4 year contract that's 71,200,000 pounds per player (that's 3 quarters of our yearly stadium income per player).

Now that is a very conservative estimate of a TOP player, how much would Benzema cost (50 million?) and what would he want a week (200,000 at least), so that's 91,600,000.

Now I am giving you guys roughly a 60 million deficit when comparing to de maria, yet we can only realistically buy one (by some estimates) or two top players.

Now you can argue about other players being sold off to make way and free up wages but we still need to replace these players and still need back up so they are still an expenditure unless of course we can make it through the season with 16 players.

As per the list of players that icatchagoogoo listed, tbh I only looked very briefly but in my defence you could list a thousand players on here that have succeeded but that's hindsight and if you all have that then maybe you can give me the lottery numbers

[officepest]

NB123 (even your avatar alludes to some sort of mathematical understanding), any top player will cost in excess of 40 million, plus a wage of, lets say 150,00 a week (rooney is on 300,000 or am I being unreasonable again ) so thon a 4 year contract that's 71,200,000 pounds per player (that's 3 quarters of our yearly stadium income per player).

Now that is a very conservative estimate of a TOP player, how much would Benzema cost (50 million?) and what would he want a week (200,000 at least), so that's 91,600,000.

No. It is a £40m write-off (assuming a one-off transfer fee) and then £150k p/w eating into whatever our allotted wage allowance is. It isn't just one massive sum of money that we have to immediately write-off.

[LeftfootlegendGooner]

I have to add this guys.....

I'm not winding anyone up here, what I am asking is "how would you spend the money and how can we overcome these super rich clubs?"

To me football is not the same anymore, these players are on astronomical wages and out of touch with the common guy (fuck me they are out of touch with the middle class guy), now I grew up a common guy and first went to watch The Arsenal in 1979 with a supporters club with a youth football team and I felt a part of it.

Likewise when I first took my son to Highbury he felt the same, obviously we have since been to the Emirates and thoroughly enjoy it but it's not the same.

This is a whole new game and I'm afraid most of you guys aren't accepting it, arsenal in the past have been the richest club (the richest club in the world in the 1930's) but we aren't anymore, in fact we are quite a way down and that is why we have to reevaluate our expectations.

Going on from here (and I have had a shit load of wine now) I can't believe the reaction (could have said abuse but am being generous) I have had, I have never wummed you lot, in fact I have taken hours of my time to replenish you cunnts with a shit load of jokes, (yeah yeah a shit load of shit jokes). Got to say I'm disappointed.

To summarise, I fukin know Wenger needs to go BUT who the fuck with, is Stan going to bankroll the next manager and who should we buy in now to make the difference that we can realistically afford.

You can't have it all your way on here.....

[armchair]

Will you ffs stop with the attention-seeking vanity posts lefty.

[LeftfootlegendGooner]

Will you ffs stop with the attention-seeking vanity posts lefty.

I expected nothing less from a twat like you, go back through your own posts, just because I'm not agreeing with you I'm on the wind up or attention seeking

Fuck me I'm a very handsome man that gets attention wherever I go and the only attention I seek is from the females (that would probably include you in a half and half manner) so please stop stalking me and post the answers to the questions

[armchair]

Will you ffs stop with the attention-seeking vanity posts lefty.

I expected nothing less from a twat like you, go back through your own posts, just because I'm not agreeing with you I'm on the wind up or attention seeking

Fuck me I'm a very handsome man that gets attention wherever I go and the only attention I seek is from the females (that would probably include you in a half and half manner) so please stop stalking me and post the answers to the questions

Go go bed ffs.

[LeftfootlegendGooner]

Will you ffs stop with the attention-seeking vanity posts lefty.

I expected nothing less from a twat like you, go back through your own posts, just because I'm not agreeing with you I'm on the wind up or attention seeking

Fuck me I'm a very handsome man that gets attention wherever I go and the only attention I seek is from the females (that would probably include you in a half and half manner) so please stop stalking me and post the answers to the questions

Go go bed ffs.

No, I'm enjoying this

[northbank123]

I am out of the hot tub and cannot believe how weak your arguments are guys, at first I thought the wine had got to me what with being hot and the blood pumping faster

OK I'm going to ignore most of you because clearly you missed as much school as I did but didn't have the same IQ

NB123 (even your avatar alludes to some sort of mathematical understanding), any top player will cost in excess of 40 million, plus a wage of, lets say 150,00 a week (rooney is on 300,000 or am I being unreasonable again ) so thon a 4 year contract that's 71,200,000 pounds per player (that's 3 quarters of our yearly stadium income per player).

Now that is a very conservative estimate of a TOP player, how much would Benzema cost (50 million?) and what would he want a week (200,000 at least), so that's 91,600,000.

Now I am giving you guys roughly a 60 million deficit when comparing to de maria, yet we can only realistically buy one (by some estimates) or two top players.

Now you can argue about other players being sold off to make way and free up wages but we still need to replace these players and still need back up so they are still an expenditure unless of course we can make it through the season with 16 players.

As per the list of players that icatchagoogoo listed, tbh I only looked very briefly but in my defence you could list a thousand players on here that have succeeded but that's hindsight and if you all have that then maybe you can give me the lottery numbers

Firstly, I said about ONE expensive signing directly replacing ONE squad player - not about flogging off various squad players/deadwood (which we all know we can do) or completely restructuring our squad to balance the books. As an example if we signed a quality striker on £160k/w in place of Walcott who is a squad player, you wouldn't need to come up with some ridiculous calculations about spreading his wages across 4 or 5 years because the increase in our wage bill would be a modest £20k/w. We overpay our squad players to such a ridiculous extent that actually we could replace a lot of average players with much much better players with negligible difference to our wage bill.

Secondly, it is just misleading to include wages spread across four or five years in the cost of signing a player, because that is not the benchmark anybody uses. Wages are of course a relevant consideration but if you are going to put it into context Arsenal's turnover over the next four years will probably be about £1.3bn - suddenly £70m-odd all in for a class player throughout that period (around 5% of our revenue) doesn't seem so ridiculous. Likewise I don't remember you saying about Walcott being our £30m summer signing, even though that's the rough cost of his wages for the next four years.

Ultimately you can present statistics to support whichever argument you want to run. The numbers we are talking about in football these days are sheer silliness but it's all about relativity. At the end of the day we can afford to buy these sorts of players and if we don't we aren't going to compete with the best. I do agree that we're not going to be able to buy more than two players at that sort of price a season (and not two players every single season) - but you also have to consider the resources we would have available if we stopped pissing away money on the false economy of mediocrity.