"Bought titles"

[mancitymick]

As someone said the other week on the radio. They were spending 100k a week on wages for Sol Campbell whilst we were paying Jamie Pollock 2k a week.

 

[squirtyflower]

As someone said the other week on the radio. They were spending 100k a week on wages for Sol Campbell whilst we were paying Jamie Pollock 2k a week.

all that money and the twunt still got man of the season for QPR

 

[mancitymick]

As someone said the other week on the radio. They were spending 100k a week on wages for Sol Campbell whilst we were paying Jamie Pollock 2k a week.

all that money and the twunt still got man of the season for QPR

Was that after his OG?

 

[Joga Bonito]

In response to the OP, there's a wonderful graph posted somewhere on bluemoon which shows the correlation between spending and finishing position in the league and it clearly shows that you have to spend money to do well.

I'd love to see that if you ever come across it

Arsenal finished 5th in the second division and illegally/corruptly bought promotion and their place in the first division. They then went around buying all the first divisions best players and poached the top team of the time's top manager from Huddersfield. They went on to dominate the follwoing decade and were never thrown out of the league.

Arsenal Football Club deserve every bad thing that happens to them because they are nothing but a dirty and corrupt organisation. They are the biggest disgrace that's ever happened in football.

Thanks for that insight!

 

[The Pink Panther]

Arsenal's problem is that they have a lack of ambition and by becoming a selling club they've run out of good players.
When you listen to Wenger answering critisism that L'arse haven't won anything in six years he always replies with, "but we always qualify for the Champions league and we play in a nice new stadium"

Arsenal fans are now in a similar situation we were in a few years ago when we were skint. We had a team that was very average and we were scratting around trying to bring players in on the cheap whilst the Sky four were spending untold fortunes on players. But the difference between us then and Arsenal now is they have money but refuse to spend it, we didn't have a pot to piss in.

 

[chislewick]

Frankly without "sugar daddy" titles to Blackburn and Chelsea, the Prem would have been won by all of TWO clubs in its history, and by one of those clubs 15 times. Taking the second placed team as winners in those seasons, this is the "level playing field" history of the Premier League:

Season Champions
1992–93 Manchester United
1993–94 Manchester United
1994–95 Manchester United
1995–96 Manchester United
1996–97 Manchester United
1997–98 Arsenal
1998–99 Manchester United
1999–2000 Manchester United
2000–01 Manchester United
2001–02 Arsenal
2002–03 Manchester United
2003–04 Arsenal
2004–05 Arsenal
2005–06 Manchester United
2006–07 Manchester United
2007–08 Manchester United
2008–09 Manchester United
2009–10 Manchester United
2010–11 Manchester United

Wow, that looks a competitive, vibrant competition!!!

 

[NICKS BACK]

I have a degree of sympathy of fans from clubs like Everton (Not popular here I know) when they complain about buying success.

I have none whatsoever for Utd 'Pool and Arsenal who created the champions league cartel to try and guarantee them recurrent exposure and income and thus guarantee their success at the expense of clubs who cannot break the cartel which as has been shown by ourselves and Chelsea can realisticaly only be done with serious money.

Dont waste your sympathy, Neverton were one of the clubs iirc that were leading the push for the FAPL breaking away from the football league so they could keep more of the TV money.

they were indeed, along with those mentioned above and villa/spurs

Don't remember Villa, remember talk of the "Big Five" They were Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs?
& Everton? Certainly no mention or place for Man City and Chelsea. Always wondered how we voted for the Premier League. However, how ever much you may hate Leeds, I always found it funny how they pissed on the parade by winning the last League Championship. TWO years after coming up from the 2nd Division.

We will never see that happen again.

 

[ccr]

Using my Harry Potter magic wand I will make City, United, Chelsea,Liverpool and Arsenal disappear................................... Now the league is a much more equal place.............No wait a minute, Spurs are now the richest and spend more money on players and wages than the rest of them. Ok (swish with wand). Spurs gone .Thats better, much fairer now...............................

ONE HOUR LATER..................Ok thats Macclesfield gone lets start on the lower leagues now.

Every club is richer than the next one down but to hear other fans complain that its unfair is a bit rich (pun intended)

 

[spacecadet]

I would tell them that a generation ago football was run along much more equitable lines.

Sure some clubs were richer than others, but the TV money was spread throughout the game.

About 25 years ago a number of clubs decided that this wasn't suiting them. They wanted a bigger slice of the cake. Arsenal were one of these clubs.

And from that point AFC supported and drove a number of initiatives that were designed with one aim in mind - to enrich Arsenal Football Club and fuck the rest of football:

The Premier League
The G14
The Champions League

They have created this monster. It was all too inevitable that external factors would come into play if football grew - that is the nature of human affairs.

I am, personally, ambivalent about football today. I think the standard of stadiums and football on offer is much higher than it was previously and I think we all take for granted just how lucky we are to be able to watch our club on TV so much. But there's little doubt that it is prohibitively expensive to watch football these days - especially at Arsenal btw.

All these developments have been as a consequence of Arsenal's conscious decision to feather its own nest. The fact that I've not seen one Arsenal, Liverpool or Spurs fan acknowledge this says everything about their priorities being more about their personal sense of loss, rather than any wider concern for the game.

Well put

 

[PistonBlue]

Not really. They bought Lehmann, Clichy, Reyes and van Persie for less than £20m.

But football has changed; you need to spend big now to succeed. Wenger hasn't seen this, making Arsenal being trophiless for 6 years

Arsenal have spent big in the past though. When they were splashing £10.5M on Henry our big summer signing was Alfie Haaland for £2.5M. In fact they also bought Sylvinho (£4M) and Lauren (£7.2M) in the same year.

The following year (2000/01) they bought Pires,Wiltord,Edu and Jeffers for a combined sum of £33M while we were getting giddy over Wanchope and Huckerby.

The figures might look fairly insignificant now,but it's all relative. Could we compete with that level of Wenger's spending back then? No. Was that a level playing field? No it wasn't.

Now somebody has come along with enough money to blow them all out of the water and all of a sudden money's ruining the game. It's not fair. Well sorry lads,but it never was very fair was it?

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

This myth of buying success -

Arsenal have been the 7th biggest gross spender in the history of the Premiership, having spent £311m. The thing with them is that Wenger has sold very astutely so that their net spend is negative (i.e. they've made about £7m net). But they haven't won that much, even before we came along.

In 6th place is Newcastle, with a gross spend of £330m (£84m net). Remind me what success has that bought them?

With a net spend of £100m, Sunderland are up there with the big boys yet they've barely managed a top half finish and ditto for Aston Villa who have spent £125m net.

Liverpool have spent more than the rags (gross and net) and only us and Chelsea have spent more. So how many league titles have they won since 1992? (Clue - it's a nice round number).

Boro spent nearly £200m and they can't even buy the Championship.

 

[IcriedwhenTueartleft]

Was at a family christening yesterday and watched the games with my 2 rag brothers, they went on and on about us trying to buy the title. I just smiled and said, deal with it! because i don`t think they can.

Yes exactly, cos of course Utd brought through all those local Salford lads like Vidic, Rooney, Ferdinand, Young, Berbabtov, Nani, Ronaldo, Evra, De Gea, Jones, Tevez, Hargreaves, Carrick...all local lads born and raised within 10 miles of Old Trafford and all came through Utd's youth system without a penny of money spent on them,

 

[BlueMo']

Dalglish got it right when he said money doesn't
guarantee success but no club as won anything without it.

 

[bluemanc]

Arsenal finished 5th in the second division and illegally/corruptly bought promotion and their place in the first division. They then went around buying all the first divisions best players and poached the top team of the time's top manager from Huddersfield. They went on to dominate the follwoing decade and were never thrown out of the league.

Arsenal Football Club deserve every bad thing that happens to them because they are nothing but a dirty and corrupt organisation. They are the biggest disgrace that's ever happened in football.

Just to add,the mega super rich owner at that time henry norris bought them Highbury and then got banned from football for life.
Oh yes they also went 30yrs without winning a Trophy.
Send the depressed Arse fan these 2 posts it might cheer him up.

 

[Cityfan]

This myth of buying success -

Arsenal have been the 7th biggest gross spender in the history of the Premiership, having spent £311m. The thing with them is that Wenger has sold very astutely so that their net spend is negative (i.e. they've made about £7m net). But they haven't won that much, even before we came along.

In 6th place is Newcastle, with a gross spend of £330m (£84m net). Remind me what success has that bought them?

With a net spend of £100m, Sunderland are up there with the big boys yet they've barely managed a top half finish and ditto for Aston Villa who have spent £125m net.

Liverpool have spent more than the rags (gross and net) and only us and Chelsea have spent more. So how many league titles have they won since 1992? (Clue - it's a nice round number).

Boro spent nearly £200m and they can't even buy the Championship.

I don't think buying success is a myth but that the correlation between success and transfer payments is not very good.
I cannot remember the original source but believe that there have been decent quality studies that emonstrate that there is a close correlation between success and wage spend across all major European leagues. Wage spend is generally a far bigger proportion of a clubs spend than transfer fees.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

This myth of buying success -

Arsenal have been the 7th biggest gross spender in the history of the Premiership, having spent £311m. The thing with them is that Wenger has sold very astutely so that their net spend is negative (i.e. they've made about £7m net). But they haven't won that much, even before we came along.

In 6th place is Newcastle, with a gross spend of £330m (£84m net). Remind me what success has that bought them?

With a net spend of £100m, Sunderland are up there with the big boys yet they've barely managed a top half finish and ditto for Aston Villa who have spent £125m net.

Liverpool have spent more than the rags (gross and net) and only us and Chelsea have spent more. So how many league titles have they won since 1992? (Clue - it's a nice round number).

Boro spent nearly £200m and they can't even buy the Championship.

I don't think buying success is a myth but that the correlation between success and transfer payments is not very good.
I cannot remember the original source but believe that there have been decent quality studies that emonstrate that there is a close correlation between success and wage spend across all major European leagues. Wage spend is generally a far bigger proportion of a clubs spend than transfer fees.

We used to buck that trend under Pearce when we paid low fees but high wages.

But generally it's a bit of a no-brainer - the more successful you are, the more money you have, the more you can pay in wages, the better the players you get. We've just gone to the second part before achieving the first.

 

[ellspark]

It's always the same. We're "buying" the league.
Chelsea were doing the same a few years ago. Plastic, bandwagon etc. They become the hate figure.

Ya, we're buying the league. Who gives a shit. If it wasn't us, it would be someone else.

In a way, yes I can see how they view that they have earned their money. Yes we've gotten incredibly lucky, we won the lotto. It could have been us, it could have been Stoke. And I'm sure, in the not so distant future a club will become richer than us and their fans will fall off their high horse as fast as they got on it.

The Rags, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, were out on their own for a long time. They in right, earned their money. We didn't. We know that.

But there isn't a team out there who's fans wouldn't be as happy as we are if they were in our position, we'd be on our high horse moaning about them and they'd be laughing at everyone else.

We are doing what is necessary to challenge. Yes we may be "ruining football" but sadly it's a business. It's been ruined long before we got rich.

Players need to be bought, nothing personal, but the highest bidder wins. And yes that means the little guy gets stood on, and we were that little guy 3 years ago.

We've gotten incredibly fortunate and nobody is denying that, without the money we wouldn't be challenging. Not even close.

Are we lesser in a way for it. Maybe we've lost something. Our dark twisted sense of humor and fair play, our lightheartedness. We were a nicer bunch when we were miserable, perhaps, everybody loves a gallant looser.
But if that's the price we have to pay for success. So be it. If it wasn't us, it would be someone else. That's how the game ebb and flows.
We got lucky. But we shouldn't have to apologies for equaling the playing field the only way we knew how. The top teams weren't going to stop spending money, so there was only one thing for it.

 

[ccr]

The Rags, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, were out on their own for a long time. They in right, earned their money. We didn't. We know that.


Sure there was a posting a while ago mentioning how all these teams came into money that was similar to us. Newton Heath a team from the borough of Oldham went (or nearly went AoT) until some local busybodi.....sorry business men pumped (at that time) millions into the coffers. I believe this has happened a few times wlth trafford Rangers. Scousers got the Moores family. Chelsea got the Ruski. Arsenal have been mentioned in this thread. So earned it ? I don't think so.
Won't talk about Tottenham cause they don't have any history. (smirk)

 

[Cityfan]

But generally it's a bit of a no-brainer - the more successful you are, the more money you have, the more you can pay in wages, the better the players you get. We've just gone to the second part before achieving the first.

Well yes and no success does not automatically translate into more money. Wigan for instance run at a significant loss, as they cannot generate the money that their success warrants but they still pay wages above that of many promoted teams. Also that should mean that success would correlate with transfer fees as you can afford a bigger transfer fee and this is a one off expenditure but it seems to correlate poorly with transfer fees but well with wages, which is I guess an effect of the Bosman ruling and clubs being able to retain their own youth products.

 

[dom]

Not really. They bought Lehmann, Clichy, Reyes and van Persie for less than £20m.

But football has changed; you need to spend big now to succeed. Wenger hasn't seen this, making Arsenal being trophiless for 6 years

Arsenal have spent big in the past though. When they were splashing £10.5M on Henry our big summer signing was Alfie Haaland for £2.5M. In fact they also bought Sylvinho (£4M) and Lauren (£7.2M) in the same year.

The following year (2000/01) they bought Pires,Wiltord,Edu and Jeffers for a combined sum of £33M while we were getting giddy over Wanchope and Huckerby.

The figures might look fairly insignificant now,but it's all relative. Could we compete with that level of Wenger's spending back then? No. Was that a level playing field? No it wasn't.

Now somebody has come along with enough money to blow them all out of the water and all of a sudden money's ruining the game. It's not fair. Well sorry lads,but it never was very fair was it?

Well done PB.. post of the day forme ..... the hypocracy of the 'Sky 4' spoilt brats hasbeen breathtaking recently

As corporal jones so succinctly put it ..."They don't like it up 'em!!"