One for our resident Gooners. Arsene Wenger.

[Crouchinho]

They might not have a huge net spend but they had the second highest wages for more than half a decade and still top 4 of huge wages. Arsenal and liverpools wage bill is almost 40m more than a chasing club like spurs. Do the points on the table reflect that?

Not to mention poaching youngsters from all over the world, even before the likes of barca can get in there.

While wenger complains about city's spending and all the FFP rules they're meant to meet they have been chucking money at it for years.

They spent huge when wenger joined and just prior. It's bollocks they've always been tight and played beautiful football. Anyone around in the George graham era will back me up.

They have spent shitloads on nasri, arshavin, Reyes, wiltord, oxlade, vermalen, walcott etc and over half a billion more in wages than spurs and city in wages but that doesn't count because wenger is a professor

 

[Cheshuntarsenal]

Im constantly changing my mind on Wenger. Whilst we continue to get champions league football his away game tactics haven't changed from when we got to the final in 06. Milan away this year should make him change his tactics but I suspect he won't.

This year we have to challenge for trophies, last year we didn't. Weak in Europe and both cups, out of the league in September.

Standing by players who let him down and players who failed to push on after the faith he has shown them.

But from what I saw in GG's last days to the football we see now we can't complain. Yes he comes out with some utter guff, but we wouldn't be were we are without him.

And on the development we just sold some more land.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.24dash.com/news/housing/2012-06-26-Arsenal-announce-26m-deal" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.24dash.com/news/housing/2012 ... e-26m-deal</a>

 

[am41410]

I do feel to much is made of how he has juggled finances with players the last few years. I agree he has done a fine balancing job but feel this should never have been the situation to start with.

Unfortunately, it was always going to be the situation with a £260 million bank loan. I'm not going to pretend like I know the ins and outs and as much as I enjoy reading the Swiss Ramble, it mostly goes over the top of my head, lol. We need to make a £15/20 million profit every season and my guess is that figure is our loan repayment. He's still had some money to spend but that figure ties his hands to a certain extent. Too many Arsenal fans want indiscriminate spending to try and close the gap between City and United but I look at the likes of Rangers and Portsmouth and thank god that even if we've gone 7 years without a trophy, our finances are being properly managed. It's been tough but Wenger has laid firm foundations for the future and whilst a lot of Arsenal fans don't appreciate it now, they will in 5-10 years time.

In some ways it would be good if you had a catastrophic season and fans were really really livid.

Certainly this year was the closest we've come to a total breakdown in the relationship between manager and fans. More people than ever were questioning Wenger's abilities and no one gave us a chance of a top 4 finish. Last summer was so poorly handled it was embarrassing and the frantic, last minute shopping on transfer deadline day should never have happened. We need to learn from that and the early sign are that, for the most part, we have.

The board set-up at Arsenal is now very different with Kroenke holding the majority of the shares and Usmanov the rest. No one really knows what their plans are, particularly Silent Stan's.

Yup. No one quite understands why Kroenke is on the board and the call for Usmanov will get louder the longer we go without a trophy. Personally, we have a measure of stability in the boardroom and I'm loath to see anything disrupt it. But realistically, we're in a situation where two men own something like 95% of the club but have no intention of working together. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a concern but the last thing anyone wants is for Arsenal to become a toy two billionaires squabble over.

They've been a bit lucky in the sense that there has been no serious competition for a top 4 spot but they nearly blew it this year. If Spurs hadn't screwed up again on the run-in & Chelsea not under-performed under AVB, there might have been no CL football next season. That could have made life difficult as the windfall from the Highbury development dried up at the time they might have to stretch the finances a bit to stay in touch.

Definitely, which is why it's great to see players being brought in quickly. We still need a GK to push Szczesny, a versatile defender would be great and a defensive midfielder. Sorting out the contracts of RVP, Walcott and Song is also a pressing issue that needs dealing with.

They might not have a huge net spend but they had the second highest wages for more than half a decade and still top 4 of huge wages. Arsenal and liverpools wage bill is almost 40m more than a chasing club like spurs. Do the points on the table reflect that?

I agree, it's a massive issue. The problem is Project Youth demanded signing up promising talent on long-term, high paying contracts to ward off potential suitors. The only problem is, many of them haven't progressed as the club would've liked. Hence, we have the likes of Bendtner, Diaby, Vela and Denilson stuck on huge contracts that still have a few years to run and we're finding it impossible to shift them.

Not to mention poaching youngsters from all over the world, even before the likes of barca can get in there.

Do we take advantage of Spain's employment laws? Of course, but to be fair, no one forces these kids to sign for us. Remember that Messi was 'poached' by Barca at the age of 13, Dos Santos at 11 and Thiago Motta at 17. They also made offers to two of our young stars, Benik Afobe and Chuks Aneke. Both turned them down, hehe :) We're not doing anything against the law and we're offering these kids the opportunity to train in world-class surroundings under a coach who knows how to develop young talent. All clubs are compensated accordingly.

Phew, that was long. Nice chatting with you chaps.

 

[more lazy than useless]

It'll be interesting to see how Arsenal's wage structure changes over the next few years. The better players weren't (supposedly) getting paid much more than the average ones. That was part of their problem, they didn't have the budget left to pay the good players better without finding the money by getting rid of the ones that hadn't worked out. Then the better ones left for more money/chance to win things. They could find it hard to shift out the overpayed also-rans, and therefore hard to bring in quality. Might well hold them back for a couple of years. Equality was a noble idea, but impractical.

 

[Big Tackle]

If you look at the start to the season they had and the fact they spent most of the season without any full backs then to finish were they did is pretty impressive. They pay him so much because without him they are screwed the same as utd when bacon face retires. No manager is going to play the same football, balance the books and finish as high up in the league as wenger with some very average players. When they struggled early doors the phone ins were full of arse fans wanting him out it will be hilarious to watch them sink when they get what they want.

 

[mat]

How do Arsenal fans feel about being a feeder club for successful teams?

:)

 

[M18CTID]

They might not have a huge net spend but they had the second highest wages for more than half a decade and still top 4 of huge wages. Arsenal and liverpools wage bill is almost 40m more than a chasing club like spurs. Do the points on the table reflect that?

Not to mention poaching youngsters from all over the world, even before the likes of barca can get in there.

While wenger complains about city's spending and all the FFP rules they're meant to meet they have been chucking money at it for years.

They spent huge when wenger joined and just prior. It's bollocks they've always been tight and played beautiful football. Anyone around in the George graham era will back me up.

They have spent shitloads on nasri, arshavin, Reyes, wiltord, oxlade, vermalen, walcott etc and over half a billion more in wages than spurs and city in wages but that doesn't count because wenger is a professor

That's a good post which covers a lot of ground, especially the often overlooked fact that Arsenal have spent big on wages and continue to do so. Granted they have a strict wage structure for individual players but collectively their wage bill is larger than many people realise. Wage spend is as much, if not more, a correlating factor in where a team finishes each season.

Wenger often likes to talk about financial doping and doing things the right way but as you say he conveniently forgets his continual exploitation of loopholes in other countries that enables Arsenal to sign up so many young foreign players on professional contracts, many of which are discarded at the drop of a hat if they don't make the grade.

He's a great coach, of that there is no doubt, but he really should learn to keep his mouth shut. That way, we almost certainly wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

[Trevski]

Wenger should change his job title to Financial Director.
Nowadays he seems to be more concerned with that side of the club than the business of winning trophies.

 

[jlc09]

Don't go back to lurking because that's a bloody good first post and a very accurate and honest assessment. I'd agree with pretty well all of it. It's also nice to hear from a Gooner who isn't spewing bile about our wealth yet forgets about Danny Fiszman's £50m injection in 1994/5 that allowed Wenger to build such a great team.

Wenger wasn't at the club in 94/95. He took charge a few months into the 96/97 season and won the title(and fa cup) in his first full season the following year.<br /><br />-- Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:38 pm --<br /><br />

How do Arsenal fans feel about being a feeder club for successful teams?

:)

Tbf I have no problem with the players we've flogged to you guys.

And success comes and goes, we've done more than most clubs will do.

 

[NipHolmes]

Made this post in the RVP thread in Transfer forum and it bears relevance to this.

How many times has he overseen bad business?

*Henry was wanted by Barca for £35million, Arsene kept him for another year when he was injured and later sold for £15million, a £20million loss.
*Flamini ran his contract down and left on a free.
*Nasri ran contract down and forced through a move.
*Clichy same as above.
*RvP doing same.
*Walcott doing same.

Now how many times must a mistake be made before sense is seen?

When was Arsenal last likely to win the EPL? They blew their load to Bham in the CC. Arsene should go imho, he's stale and the club needs a shake up to get rid of players that are just happy collecting wages as Nasri put it.

His work as a coach cannot be criticised really but as a manager I question him. His team had a shaky defence all season yet his first signings of this window were forwards? Why he never went for Cahill in Jan I will never know.