You didn't keep a copy of it by chance did you mate?
Wouldn't mind a read.
Here ya go - I even offered a bit of an olive branch at the end ;)
I've kept out of this one so far, mainly because I've given my views on this several times previously and it gets rather tedious going through the same points over and over. Something I think needs reiterating is that a sense of self-awareness would help when discussing topics like this, otherwise the comments can smack of sanctimony. By that, I mean that while City have benefitted hugely from benefactor investment of late to suggest Arsenal have never had a leg-up the ladder via benefactor investment themselves is stretching the truth to the limit.
One example that I haven't mentioned is the investment in the club by the late Danny Fiszman in the mid-1990's, which was rumoured to be in the region of £50 million. Now £50 million in today's mad world of spiralling costs in football doesn't get you much more than a Sanchez, Sterling, or even a Harry Kane, but back in 1995 it went a lot further. An early example of Fiszman's investment having an effect was that in the summer of 1995 Arsenal broke the British record transfer fee top sign Denis Bergkamp for £7.5 million despite only finishing 12th in the Premier League the previous season. From a net spend of £3,040,000 in 1994-95 against a turnover of just under £24 million, the net spend in 1995-96 more than trebled to £10,500,000 yet the turnover not only didn't increase in line with this, it actually reduced to just shy of £21 million. Incidentally, while this is a side issue I'd be interested to know why Arsenal's turnover reduced by £3 million that season - from what I can remember, the redevelopment of both the North Bank and the Clock End in terms of converting them to all-seater stands had long been completed (1993 I think). Anyway, this pattern of increased net spending was repeated the following season (Wenger's first in charge) when the net spend was £10,130,000 against an increased turnover of £27 million. Now I appreciate there was a very modest net spend of only £50,000 the following season but by then Arsenal, over the previous 2 seasons, had acquired a team capable of winning the league title with Bergkamp, Platt, Vieira, Anelka, Petit, and Overmars now on board and only minor tweaks were now necessary. The effect of this increased spend is that Arsenal leapt from 12th position to 5th position (in Rioch's only season in charge), to 3rd position, to champions. So to suggest that Wenger has always worked with tight constraints on his budget is a red herring. That doesn't mean to say he's not a good manager - of course he is, but even if Fiszman had invested £500 million rather than £50 million at mid-1990's prices it would've taken someone a lot more clued up than my mum to win the league title, so while I'm keen to point out that Arsenal benefitted greatly from this investment at the time which gave them an advantage over many other clubs that had finished higher up the league, I'm not in any way diminishing their achievement of winning the league title in Wenger's first full season in charge.
And it's not just the investment in players where Arsenal reaped the rewards of Fiszman's cash injection. It also enabled them to keep some of their better existing players by virtue of offering them far better contracts. Here's Tony Adams with his take on the situation:
"While Adams' attention is fixed on building a club in the former Soviet republic, Arsenal remain close to his heart. He notes that among the most significant changes since his previous visit has been the death in April of Danny Fiszman, the diamond merchant who joined the board in 1992 and helped finance Wenger's Double-winning teams of 1998 and 2002.
Those calling for more spending on the current team will be interested to learn how highly Adams rated Fiszman's contribution. "I think that a significant factor, 90 per cent, in why we achieved so much is that Danny Fiszman invested £50m in the club and we were able to go to the next level," he said. "I got my first decent contract at the club, so did David Seaman, we were able to bring in Dennis Bergkamp – and that was before Arsène arrived – David Platt, Patrick Vieira, Nicolas Anelka, and were able to pay them – top players from around the world."
There it is in black and white from someone with inside knowledge of the club - one of Arsenal's greatest ever captains in fact. I think certain people should remember this before going all in and slating City's spending. I'll also add, however, that during these spats many of us are in danger of tarring a whole support base with the same brush. Witness the random exiled Gooner saying that City fans are now self-entitled wankers and getting credit for a comment that can't be backed up in any way whatsoever against the City fans saying Gooners have turned into sanctimonious bitters. The reality on both sides is somewhat different from my experience. I can still hold a decent conversation with many Arsenal fans on a match day between the 2 clubs and many fans of both clubs are more interested in their own team than getting involved in pointless spats on the internet.
