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.
I'm dismissing your assertion that his words are vindication of Wenger's policy.
What else is a new signing gonna say eh?
As for MC Campbell, he's a 19 yr old kid from one of the least hearalded football countries in the world, he's just been offered the chance of a lifetime in coming to the english premiership, he turned it down. Something is seriously wrong there, no?
I am confused.
What do you know about Campbell that the rest of us don't?
Gangster?
an MC?
Have you been PMing him on Twitter?
As for Wenger's youth policy, yes Cole and Wilshere are the two that have made it as first regulars.
Gibbs looks on the verge of it too, injuries may scupper that.
Plenty others have made careers for themselves away from the club though, and the club has earned money from their sales.
Quartz,
Unless you are privy to the club accounts you cannot say for certain that the club made money on them.
When you take into account what it cost to school and accomodate them as youngsters, what they cost to insure, what their wages cost when they were professionals along with any bonus or signing on fee plus many other outgoings it is not so cut and dried.
I'm dismissing your assertion that his words are vindication of Wenger's policy.
Well when he's saying that Wenger played a big role in him coming to Arsenal because he feels that Wenger is one of the world's best managers and that he will best develop under Wenger then that is clearly a vindication against your premise that Wenger and the club are no longer respected.
As for MC Campbell, he's a 19 yr old kid from one of the least hearalded football countries in the world, he's just been offered the chance of a lifetime in coming to the english premiership, he turned it down. Something is seriously wrong there, no?
That doesn't necessarily mean it's anything against Arsenal. You're assuming that because the player and his dad didn't turn up to finalise the deal that it shows that Arsenal are no longer respected throughout football. Yet you're not taking into account that this kid and his family might not be the brightest/most respectable people out there and that there could be hundreds of reasons as to why they didn't turn up to the final meeting. Maybe they were holding out for more wages, or more of a signing fee, or more incentives to the family etc... This one teenager does not reflect the views of the majority of footballing society that both Arsenal and Wenger are well respected.
I'm dismissing your assertion that his words are vindication of Wenger's policy.
What else is a new signing gonna say eh?
As for MC Campbell, he's a 19 yr old kid from one of the least hearalded football countries in the world, he's just been offered the chance of a lifetime in coming to the english premiership, he turned it down. Something is seriously wrong there, no?
I am confused.
What do you know about Campbell that the rest of us don't?
Gangster?
an MC?
Have you been PMing him on Twitter?
As for Wenger's youth policy, yes Cole and Wilshere are the two that have made it as first regulars.
Gibbs looks on the verge of it too, injuries may scupper that.
Plenty others have made careers for themselves away from the club though, and the club has earned money from their sales.
Quartz,
Unless you are privy to the club accounts you cannot say for certain that the club made money on them.
When you take into account what it cost to school and accomodate them as youngsters, what they cost to insure, what their wages cost when they were professionals along with any bonus or signing on fee plus many other outgoings it is not so cut and dried.
Fair point, I meant they had made money from transfer sales but I am not privy to the club's accounts other than the ones published on the website, which do not go into such detail.
But if Wilshere had played for another club, performed as well as he did this season, and was bought by us on the open market this summer what would he cost?
Judging by the fee paid for Henderson it could be as much as £20 - 25m perhaps?
So it could be argued just one player every few years pays for itself?
Selsdon
I think the club's youth policy is primarily to develop players for the first team, with the idea that any who do not make it can be sold.
Which is the majority of players.
How many first team regulars are they aiming for in each year of youth players?
No idea.
But realistically could it be more than one or two?
selsdon wrote:MM99, the club itself announced on the official site that he was joining, they later pulled the article.
That's embarassing and indicative of our standing when it comes to transfer dealings under Wenger thesedays.
In all honesty, that doesn't bother me. They thought the transfer was going through until the kid decided not to turn up. Oh well, i'm not going to lose any sleep over that.
What troubles me though is that i'd agree with you to an extent that our transfers aren't really excellent. Although it's not as bad as people try to make out, i do think there's room for great improvement in all aspects of our transfer dealings.
QuartzGooner wrote: I think the club's youth policy is primarily to develop players for the first team, with the idea that any who do not make it can be sold.
Which is the majority of players.
How many first team regulars are they aiming for in each year of youth players?
No idea.
But realistically could it be more than one or two?
One or two a year yeah, not one every seven years. If anything the facts suggest our youth policy is a failure, unless of course it's designed primarily to generate income. Although I strongly suspect we don't show much profit at all on the ones that don't make it with us.
Beautiful football, youth policy, kids...it's all a load of rubbish. Facts speak for themselves, no trophies on six yrs, two players in 15 comign thru the ranks.
The whole thing needs to be torn down and started over.
Read an excellent article on ANR, summed up perfectly by this quote:
This is a team lacking identity, lacking quality, and lacking character. And no matter how many years you wait, no matter how many individually-talented players you have on your squad, if there is a stagnancy infused into the attitude of the team as a whole, the final glory of hoisting the Premier League or Champions League will remain out of reach.
I am not saying our youth policy is an amazing success though, never have done, do not know anyone who has.
It is part of the answer, and I still think the youth academy should operate, but most of this Forum agrees that we have not had enough experienced players in the recent squads, to guide the younger players.
QuartzGooner wrote: As for Wenger's youth policy, yes Cole and Wilshere are the two that have made it as first regulars.
Gibbs looks on the verge of it too, injuries may scupper that.
Plenty others have made careers for themselves away from the club though, and the club has earned money from their sales.
A first time reader of this forum would think the poster Quartz is happy with our youth policy reading that m8.
The amount the club must spend on our wourldwide scouting network is disproportinate to the return we fans see as a result.
Valuable funds wasted as they are on the useless dross we reward so well.
Well as Percy said, unless any of us are privy to the detailed club accounts we cannot know how much was spent on youth policy/scouting compared to how much we earned from player sales, and how much we saved from developing players who would have cost a lot on the transfer market.
But the youth policy as the answer to providing 11 players for the first team?
No, it is not something that has happened and we need to buy in experience.
Would you shut down all our youth teams and just have a first team squad?
selsdon wrote:MM99, the club itself announced on the official site that he was joining, they later pulled the article.
That's embarassing and indicative of our standing when it comes to transfer dealings under Wenger thesedays.
In all honesty, that doesn't bother me. They thought the transfer was going through until the kid decided not to turn up. Oh well, i'm not going to lose any sleep over that.
What troubles me though is that i'd agree with you to an extent that our transfers aren't really excellent. Although it's not as bad as people try to make out, i do think there's room for great improvement in all aspects of our transfer dealings.
They can't really have any control over someone's decisions etc...However when we signed Ramsey - Wenger was in Austria and flew Ramsey and his parents out to Austria on a private jet to meet with him/them - as a way of showing how much they wanted him....this kid may not (yet) be in the same league as Ramsey...but because wenger is on the other side of the world with the pre-season tour selling as many shirts as they can....we need someone to 'do the business' in such circumstances so that the deal doesn't fall through...Dein used to look after all of that...so we need someone to take charge of the wheeling/Dealing to ensure if we ARE signing someone we don't fuck up....had Wenger or an Arsenal representative had been able to speak with Alvarez face to face - regardless of the price haggling he would probably now be an Arsenal player.....but the other teams rep was there in person and that's how we got out manouvered on the deal....
I think you're deliberatly missing my point Quartz.
Every club needs a youth policy, George Graham pissed all over Wengers with the likes of Adams, Rocky, Thomas, Merse bringing massive success to the club. Look at Utd: Scholes, Beckham, Giggs, Neville and Barca now.
My argument is against the myth of Wenger's youth policy. It's produced two regular first team players in 15 yrs. It's spin, bullshit and lies to go with the rest of the spin, bullshit and lies and the sheep lap it up and in doing so drag my club further and further down.
We have to admit that Wenger has failed in his project, he cannot hold on to his best players, he cannot attract (for whatever reason) top drawer players, he cannot motivate, he cannot lead, he cannot change.
OneBardGooner wrote:
we need someone to 'do the business' in such circumstances so that the deal doesn't fall through...Dein used to look after all of that...so we need someone to take charge of the wheeling/Dealing to ensure if we ARE signing someone we don't fuck up...
We did have someone there; Richard Law. He's a part of Gazidis' team and has been a scouting consultant for many years with us and since 2009 has been acting as head of scouting operations in South and Central America. So we hardly sent a 'nobody' out there to do our business for us.
OneBardGooner wrote:
They can't really have any control over someone's decisions etc...However when we signed Ramsey - Wenger was in Austria and flew Ramsey and his parents out to Austria on a private jet to meet with him/them - as a way of showing how much they wanted him....
And allegedly offered him 3 times as much money as United did.
OneBardGooner wrote:
Dein used to look after all of that...so we need someone to take charge of the wheeling/Dealing to ensure if we ARE signing someone we don't fuck up....
