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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2011 22:58 by Padre Pio.

Wow is that right 1204 views in just over 10 minutes???

Well I just don't know what so say really, Eduardo, Speedy and others have said it. Wenger's been communicating to the board with his comments all along it's actually been quite obvious.

I actually could believe 100% that thats what is going on with the club at the minute, It would answer so many things we've all been trying to work out aswell.

Myles has said that theirs a rift between the board and Wenger aswell.

he could still have bought modest purchases that would be better than what we have (I am thinking Rosicky Chamakh Squillaci) so although this is very interesting and I am sure it is true, I cannot accept that Wenger is blameless in the state of the team. We have a fleecing,cynical board and a manager who has lost his way.

yeah Celine is a bight right there.
Wenger has relied way too much on both players who are using the club as a stepping stone and those who are injury prone. His tactical decisions have also been suspect for a few years now.

But in all honesty nothing surprises me about what I read above. We are talking about the same manager who would have been willing to pay £20+ on Julio baptista before the loan move took place.

What I want to know is what was the point of the emirates move if we are still not going to be able to compete with the likes of city, chelsea, united? At the moment it seems it was just pure greed...

The sooner Alisher takes over the better...

If above is true then its time for Wenger to speak out.
It does explain Nasri saga maybe Wenger is trying to provoke them to sack him

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- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

If this is true then it all makes sense now.

I read somewhere in the blogspere today that Mata would be on £55K a week at Chelsea which isn't a lot at all in today's market and must be within our wage structure surely. I've thought for years that we've always punched above our weight as a football club and this is down to one man. It's a really tough time to be a gooner at the moment and we are coming to a crossroads where the future of the club will be essentially decided by what happens in this transfer window. If we dont invest or if your article rings true, and Wenger isn't allowed to invest properly, i fear we will never recover! Sounds like scaremongering? Look at it this way, if we go out of the CL on Wednesday, that's £20m gone and the board will essentially hold back that amount to boost the balance sheet. With no CL football this year, which 'super quality' players will even want to come. Our squad wasn't good enough at the end of last season and come the end of this season where a top 4 finish looks unlikely, will RVP , Vermaelan and Theo want to hang around?
Tough times and I wish I didn't care as much as I do.
COYG

Pretty much to be expected if the article rings true.
If it is true......Good luck Arsene. Hope you win this battle!!

I hope this is true, as the amount of flak that Arsene is getting at the moment from fans/media is reaching biblical proportions. Which makes me quite sad, as I am (and still) a big Wenger supporter.

It goes a long way to explaining Arsene's behaviour and utterences recently. I have no doubt that there is money available. I think Nasri would stay if we offered lower wages then Man City or Man U, but better then our current top of £90k. I think we have as a club punched above our weight under Arsene's stewardship. He's spent so many years with his hand tied because of the Emirates stadium, which he openly embraced, on the assumption that one day we would have the means to compete with the big boys.

Well the day has come, and he should be allowed to have a crack. Unfortunately, American owners of the clubs, are not here as a fan (Chelsea) or state power (Man City) but purely for profit. I would argue that the best way to make profit is to win trophies. If this story is true then Arsene should come out because he needs allies, and I think the majority of the fans would back him.

Good article Ed, the scenario you present seems that it could well be the exact situation unfolding at the club.However without been able to reveal your source its very hard to establish the veracity of these statments given the wide number of journos and bloggers who claim to have the insode scoop at this time.
Lets for arguements sake take what you say is a true and that the 4 point plan for the summer was Wenger's objectives I think its fair to say at this moment in time these plans are in disarray.

Point 1-lost one of the best CM in the world and his replacemnt also very likely to leave.In total lost 3 1st team players with only one 1st team player brought in.
Point 2- looks dead in the water unless over the next ten days there is a major drive to get the required quality in.
Point 3/4- I combined these two because their related.Young promising players brought in yes,players promoted yes, but in both cases and with the failure of points 1 and 2 they are been throwin into the deep end straight away as we saw yesterday.


Now if the imminent failure to complete this plan is down to an inpasse between Arsene and the board (and by board I mean Stan) over whther to take this club to the next level, combined with supporter sentiment been at an all time low somethings going to have to give.
Personally I have felt for a long time that the club has lacked any direction at an executive level since the move to the Grove.

The old board seemed happy enough to use the initial period after the move the hide behind the fact we needed to tighten our belts and played on the goodwill towards Arsene to shield themselves from critism over lack of transfer spending.
Now whether it was greed or the sudden realisation that the current sustainable business model could never compete with the rich benefactor clubs one by one the old board came around to the notion of selling out to a billionaire.

While all the boardroom power politics was unfolding upstairs Wenger was pretty much running the club from deciding on the stlye of play to the style of napkins in the club level.This is where I agree with Celine in so far as even if Wenger may had been operating with one hand tied behind his back we had opprotunites to win silverwarwe in 2008 and last season where a few tactical purchases would have got us across the line.
Now we have a billionare on board and while I acknowledge that he aint like the ones at City or Chelsea you have to wonder what exactly his plans are for the club.
Does he plan to invest an inital sum to keep the club competitive while also exploring and exploting new streams of commericial revenue.Or was he simply content to let Wenger keep taking the flack, finishing in the top 4, paying off the debt and punting the club on for a profit in a few years.
So far he has been true to his title,silent, and has let his slick messanger boy Ivan deal with the hard questions from the supporters groups. If you read between the lines from these meetings Ivan has in so many words stated the current sustianable model will not keep this club competitive. If Ivan thought the staus quo could be maintained he has been very much mistaken. The supporters will not tolerate any more excuses and have already began voting with their feet.
This club is very much at a crossroads, its @#$%& or get off the pot time for the new owner.All the good will has been used up, no more spin, no more fudging the issues, start backing up all that talk that were a big club with actions or risk been left behind.

since your source is not disclosed, i'm at liberty to take it with pinch of salt...i refuse to make excuses for wenger as regards the recent happenings..you could be right in all your analysis but wenger & board are looking for excuses..who is to blame then...are we not supposed to balance our squad??? keeping a large number of some misfits & paying them the wages that could be used to get in the so called caliber of players needed is what has kept us in this state..

WHAT I ASK IS THIS: CAN ARSENAL STILL ATTRACT THE CALIBER OF PLAYERS THAT WILL TAKE US THE NEXT LEVEL OR HAVE WE BECOME JUST A FEEDER CLUB ATTRACTING PLAYERS WHO ARE LOOKING FOR FLAT FORMS TO STEP UP THEIR CAREERS OR A TRAINING CLUB TO MATURE TO THEIR FULL POTENTIALS?????????

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Arsene will not speak out, like most managers he has a clause in his contract that does not allow him to,(that is why he gets £6M), he will hint, like he did in the last week with his comment about "one day you will know" when talking about the restrictions he works under and how much of an acheivement it really is.

He has also more and more spoken about roles at the club, and that as an employee he will "do his job" and let others get on with theirs.

I agree that he should and could have done more with the players he has, and I would advocate he buys the middle range players the board wants,but this just delays the problems for another year. Wenger is right to want a major signing on major wages, so as to set the trend for both, in so doing he would be able to advocate Vermaelen, RVP etc get the sort of mega contracts here, that they would get elsewhere

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

I think we are heading for one of two outcomes

1. Wenger accepts that we will not be going up to the mega player wage structure, a couple of good size transfer fee signings will be made to apease fans, and we fight for 3/4 and hope to win a cup

2. Wenger digs in his heels, sticks to wanting only those he wants to sign, we have a bad season, Wenger gets the sack, the board appoints a new manager who will accept the budget as it is, and fans will give this new man a couple of seasons to get it right, and if not another new manager of similar stature comes in, and this goes on till we get the new sponsorship deals done and improve the commercial income enough to allow us to go up a level in spending

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

It's not really an 'analysis' as such though is it. Eduardo's simply passing on what he's heard from his source to us readers.

I think there is so much more underlying issues in this post then to worry about whether we can attract the calibre of players or whether we're a feeder club right about now.

or maybe they give new man the money - thats what often happens

---

- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

Sorry about this, but I forgot to include one major point in the the article itself

The reason why Wenger is digging in his heels, is that he now does not have any faith in FIFA/Uefa to enforce the FFP rules, the inaction by them over the city stadium deal, has convinced him that its no good us waiting for a level playing field, we have to act or be left behind.

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

padre I think it would only look like they have given the new man the money, we would end up signing say a cahill, and parker and virtually nothing changes, neither improve the first team much if at all, wages don't go up, and we still end up in a dog fight to keep our best players.


Having said that, I think Wenger should go with the board and sign the second level player

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

Us fans just want to know the truth and where the money is going.

Sounds like we may not hear until Wenger retires, but he will probably be joining the board so may never hear the truth. Respect to Wenger if he is taking all this flak because of the board, but he's spent a lot of money on youth players when he could have spent on senior players too so he cannot be totally blameless imo.

as I said, there is still a very large budget there, its how it is to be spent is the cause of difference between the two.

For me wenger should stick to his guns on raising player wages, but then spend the rest on who ever he can get for what is left

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

I find it very hard tbh to believe the club was naive enough to think the FFP rules were suddenly going to create some sort of footballing utopia where our current financial model would see us dominate world football.
This little world of ours runs on money more specificaly debt.Added to the fact the the worlds footballing governing body runs itslef along the lines of the mafia what chance is there for an equitable run game.Can you invisage a sitation where Barcelona were excluded from the Cl on the basis of their income to expenditure ratio??I cant and if they were Uefa's coporate sponsors for the CL would be running a mile.

Right now the most important thing for the club is winning Wed's game, everything hinges on it.

Quote:

Gooner_Sans
Us fans just want to know the truth and where the money is going.
Sounds like we may not hear until Wenger retires, but he will probably be joining the board so may never hear the truth. Respect to Wenger if he is taking all this flak because of the board, but he's spent a lot of money on youth players when he could have spent on senior players too so he cannot be totally blameless imo.

exactly..knowing the Truth won't hurt..

as much as i'm @#$%& with wenger, getting a new manager will be the biggest mistake.

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Quote:

Chrispy10
I read somewhere in the blogspere today that Mata would be on £55K a week at Chelsea which isn't a lot at all in today's market and must be within our wage structure surely.

Chrispy, If Mata is being signed for £35m plus, his wages will surely be a lot more than £55K. Wenger wanted Mata but the Board said he'll cost too much. Now Chel$ki comes in with their deep pockets and signs our targets. Now you know why Wenger likes to keep things close to this chest.

In terms of Wenger speaking out, Wenger's not type of to aired Arsenal's dirty laundry in public. He's been getting a lot of flack lately from the fans and media but I really believe that is the Board that is responsible for the mess we're in.

jonny bravo I don't think that they ever expect the FFP rules would mean AFC would dominate, but they did expect that it would even out the field, and that clubs would have to show some controls on thier spending, and this would aid us but not so much that it would put us in with a major advantage

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

This is what I wrote after tuesdays game "Wenger was ensconced in the top left corner of the directors’ box, flanked by Ivan and Boro. The way he sat facing all match I was surprised he could actually see the game."
Point is he wasd doing everything he could to not look at Gazides, his body language was strange, in fact I made a mistake he put Boro between himsefl and Ivan

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- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

chrispy I think you must have meant to say mata would be on £155K a week

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

People on Twitter are calling for Board to be sacked on twitter

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- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

I was exagerrating a bit there but I think you get the point.
Besides the CL is one of the causes of the outlandish spending in the first place with clubs trying to get into it(city) and those trying to win it(Barca, Madrid Chelsea)

How about the board and Wenger compromise about the wage structure? Celtic under Peter Lawwell (who was offered the CEO role at Arsenal, but opted to stay with Celtic) has i think a 4 tier pay pyramid. The main problem to iron out in this case, is the relatively high amount of wages we provide to tempt young players to the club. But, this perhaps can be overcome by being more selective in the potential of the player.

The system would enable our very top players to be on a more competitive salary.

GUYS, THE REASON HE CAN AFFORD TO SPEND £12M ON OXO IS SIMPLE, THE BOARD WILL PAY HIS WAGES, WHICH AS HE'S YOUNG WILL BE ONLY 15,000 A WEEK OR SIMILAR, BUT A £12M EXPERIENCED PLAYER WOULD COST 50,000 A WEEK

And the board are being idiots by refusing to pay the high wages.

Well that has certainly put the cat among the pidgeons, if the loggerhead story is true no wonder WENGER LOOKS NEAR DEATH I would'nt blame him if he did walk, why does he keep saying obtuse things to press conferences, he was obviously very upset re cesc leaving, but he is acting a bit strangly with the press Usinov must be licking his lips, all of a sudden Dein comes out to protect Wenger in the media, something is going on?

Stan overruled him, he is not used to being overruled, and he is trying to flex his muscles, pity he did not do it a year ago, when he had more power, and a weaker overlord

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

Still could have signed jagielka and parker combined for 20million and not have the dross we put out on saturday.

Thanx for that Ed. We will find out how good Ivan G is at being our CEO in the next few days, I dare say.

GRU tell me would Jags or Parker have played any better than Frimpong and Kos/Miquel, as there was nothing wrong with the central defenders or DM on saturday

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

Quote:

eduardo
GRU tell me would Jags or Parker have played any better than Frimpong and Kos/Miquel, as there was nothing wrong with the central defenders or DM on saturday

They would not have made the mistakes both players did (to be fair Miquels was hardly a mistake).
Also sticking with Gibbs albeit knowing his injury issues is using the development of a player and their form when fit to cloud your judgement in the window.

GRU I'm glad you brought up Gibbs, this was something I ment to include in the article, no left back was on list of transfer targets this summer, and this is clearly only down to Wenger, he is not blameless, far from it.

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

don't know of the truth of the article...but its what makes sense either that or Wenger would ave to be bloody lunatic

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[arsenalsigs.blogspot.com]

As well as Frimpong played, Parker wouldn't have gotten sent off. That's what experience gives you, Maturity.

Not that i'd want Parker anyway.

[bit.ly]

Someone make a facebook group.

Eduardo

Why has this information been leaked to you and not a newspaper or the more well known fan sites? The logic fits in terms of what has been happening, but not sure about the authenticity...

eddy always seems to get these kind of inside information GY...we've gotten steady doses of it for years now

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[arsenalsigs.blogspot.com]

Arsenal Times is quite well known thanks and is featured on Newsnow and Twitter

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- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

May I suggest sending this to a news paper?

One that isn't owned by Murdoch...

Quote:

Gunner Young
Eduardo
Why has this information been leaked to you and not a newspaper or the more well known fan sites? The logic fits in terms of what has been happening, but not sure about the authenticity...

Another board I visit has it on.
They claim,
A very good source at the club ( yes ) has leaked there is a problem with the board and Wenger over how the transfer funds are spent.

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Gunner Young this was told to me from one gooner to another(we aint friends, just have Arsenal in common and locality), it was not told to me so it could be leaked, as rocky says, I pass on what I'm told, but nothing has ever struck a cord like this, the fellow gooner who is the one with the source may not be pleased if he finds out but as I don't think he is into football blogs and I've never told him I pass it on, maybe he will not find out and will keep giving me some snippets.

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

Boston which other site has similar thread

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

Oh what an article. Great work boys.

Hey twitter.

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Official 1000th poster in the classic transfer rumors thread of 2014.

Quote:

eduardo
Boston which other site has similar thread

Ed,
just read it again and the person who posted it says he got it
of another well respected forum.
If it's this forum I don't know.

Link
[arsenalfc.myfunforum.org]

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Well he has got the 4 point format that Eduardo used and I had that by 3:30 today so it must be this forum

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- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

i dont believe any of it

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The future is now!!!!!!!

If this story is true, then bringing in an ally of Wenger like Dein could be a very good thing for the club. Right now, it appears that Wenger is fighting a lone battle against the likes of Silent Stan and Gazidis. Dein with the financial support of Usmanov can be a counterweight to help Wenger.

I hope the newspapers run with this. Best explanation as to what is going on so far - I'd believe the source.

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A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.
Winston Churchill

GIFSoup Jose The King.



Jose champion, king, legend.

Look like another Rafa vs "Gillett & Hick" drama.

Guess the end result?

Yes merl I stated that on another thread on AT on the subject, when the board is under pressure the usual fall guy is the manager

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

IS there a prize for the correct answer to eduardos source origin?

Friendly fire..to keep the tempo up till 31 Aug..absolutely no substance.

This article really puts into perspective what's going on @ Arsenal.

The board is whack. If we were able to keep Nasri & get Mata, just imagine how much stronger we would be this season?

Anyway, I have an article backing this one in which RVP says in an interview back in May that Arsenal need to increase their wage structure to improve:
[www.goal.com]

Quote:

Jack_is_the_truth
i dont believe any of it

Why not? It makes sense. Would explain why Wenger has failed to sign the sort of experienced player we need. Or do you think Wenger is mad? Because that would be the most likely explanation regarding his failure to sign any big name players.

Quote:

eduardo
chrispy I think you must have meant to say mata would be on £155K a week

I'm not going mad

[football-talk.co.uk]

At a time we're losing big wages Cesc,Nasri,Eboue, Bendtner,Clichy and promoting kids, we are have conflicts about wages.??????

I think Wenger and the board have a good relationship, Wenger knows what he can and can't do, it's the fact that teams don't want to lose their best players and we don't want to spend over 15mil for one.

Surely we would have been capable of putting Mata on Arshavin's wage and paid 23mil for him, which would be within the wage structure, the more likely outcome is it won't be in Wengers price range, something Chelsea could do for 7 more million.

By the end of the window we'll pick up a few players all under 17mil.

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The real problem here is stan Kroenke and to a lesser degree gazidis (kroenke's little @#$%&). We have an owner with the means to invest but who is not willing to do so. We have an old khunt of a chairman too.

What we need is for stan to sell his shares to Usmanov and for him to get dein back in as chairman or CEO.

There is no good relationship between Wenger and board, they are not on speaking terms. Wenger turned his back on Gazides for whole of Udinese game, I watched it from my seat.
There are more storioes to come out on this

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- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

great post Eduardo.
The fact that it has received 69000 page views shows what a red hot topic this is.
I had been wondering if Wenger had gone off the deep end and really lost the plot. In any event, even if everything in the post is right, it still doesn't let him off the hook. He could have and should have signed a dominant centre half last season and maybe it wouldn't have gone so pear shaped. He has consistently refused to make top notch purchases when the chance was there, and he has shown an unfathomable loyalty to sub-standard players. Granted, he's done well within a limited budget, but he's now living on past glories.
There are several players in the club who need a good bollocking, to say the least... the lazy Russian prat Arshavin being high on my list.
But more important than anything has been the team's lack of collective bottle when the going gets tough, as it does at the money end of every season. Where does this come from? It has to be Wenger. love them or hate them, Man Utd are nothing if not resilient, they are hard to beat and never give up. It reflects something in Ferguson's character. If only we could say the same about Arsenal!!!!

Guys I just don't understand why so many of you are putting so much blame on the board for all this, Wenger to me is far more at fault, and is the one causing the row.

Lets look at the situation.

What the board are doing right
On the one hand the board are making very large funds available for transfers and new contracts, so what is wrong with that - NOTHING
The Board want Wenger to buy players who's wages fit in with our wage levels, whats wrong with that - NOTHING
The board actually want signings the calibre of Cahill, Parker and the like, so what's wrong with that - Nothing

What are the board doing wrongThe will not sanction an overhaul of the wage structure, they don't want a whole host of players on mega wages, they see our top level as massive wages in their own right, are they wrong. So whats wrong with that - It probably means we miss out on certain cailbre of signings and that some of our better players will leave for extra cash elsewhere

What is Wenger's role in thisWell he is refusing to buy much needed players, yes they may not be the Benzema's of this world, but do we really need them, it was not the lack of a benzema that cost us trophies last season - no it was the parkers and cahills of this world we lacked

For me the biggest gripe I have with wenger over what I was told yesterday was that THERE WAS NO LEFT BACK on his wanted list this summer - I'm in agreement with him that Gibbs/Traore are due a chance, but both are injury prone, so AW should have had a veteran left back on his wishlist, a squad man just there when needed, so we do not have to play our right back at left back

The big thing I don't understand with all this board bashing is that for me its clear WENGER is the one who has instagated this whole thing, Kroenke overruled him on Nasri and encouraged him to let Cesc go, and FORCED the Asia tour, and this has put Wegner's nose out of joint, and he don't like it, so he is flexing his muscle, and trying to regain the upper hand with the board, but he should know that will not work when you have a single owner in charge

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

@eduardo

So basically, kroenke forced the asia tour. kroenke put up tickets prices to highest in the world. And yet kroenke doesn't want to increase the wage structure...

Seems greedy to me. Wenger wants to improve the team, & if we're a selling club that doesn't like paying players their market value, they will leave & we will never win anything.

Parker got relegated, how the heck is he gonna improve our club. 4th place finish is lame, we need to be challenging for top of league & champions. We can't do that with average players.

but kroenke is giving wenger much more funds than he has had for years, and when I say parker or cahill, I mean that calibre of player, and for me that would be better in the squad than Denilson and Squillaci, and that improves us, as the article states, the board are willing to up the wage structure slightly, but not to the mega level, is £100K a week not very good wages, even if city and co are paying double that

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

Quote:

Padre Pio
or maybe they give new man the money - thats what often happens

No manager of the calibre we need after wenger hangs his gloves up would take over without being assured he will have money to spend and I suspect alot of managers would walk under such circumstances.

This is the most sensible arsenal article I've read my whole life.
This explains EVERYTHING

-transfer market inactivity
-wenger's 'absurd' press conference statements
-all his press conferences have been subliminal messages to the board, ("cesc and nasri leaving will mean we are not a big club"," cesc and nasri not going anywhere" and cesc leaves same day)
-David Dein coming out of nowhere backing arsene and sending subliminal messages to the board.
-Fabregas claiming he couldn't talk because of the clout of secrecy at the club.
-wenger's awkward sitting posture and not even acknowledging Gazidis' presence during the match against Udinese
-Wenger not actually addressing squad deficiencies, and looking for 'super quality', better than what we have.

I could go on and on, this board is actually comfortable with making profits at the expense of success.
I feel so sad for Wenger, he totally hates losing, his frustration is obvious at every loss
Like Dein said, the greatest mistake this club would make is losing Arsene, and I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't renew his contract.
Like Wenger said in a recent press conference, everything will come out sometime in the future. And everyone (press, fans and neutrals) would understand and appreciate him.

As much as I'm not a fan of Usmanov, this present board can not guarantee us success on the pitch.
Are Usmanov and Dein the answer??

i think it is a very interesting angle which Eduardo has taken with his further post.

Gut feeling for most people here would be to feel sorry for Wenger but thats not the way I see this necessarily.

There isnt really any reason why Kroenke should be paying 180 grand a week, only City and Chelsea do this.

There are plenty of improvements that could be made to this squad with 15-20 mil purchases and wages in the region of 80-100 grand a week. Wenger thinks his existing players, who might i remind you are on a run of 2 wins in 16 league games, are a lot better than they are.

This is dog in the manger stuff from Wenger. Like when you are a little kid and you ask for a big present and your mum offers you a smaller compromise and you go in a strop and say you dont want anything at all.

thats not to say I like the board, I dont like their ticket strategy at all, but I dont know why we should expect them to be entering oil sheik territory - they never said they would in the first place.

So what's next lads? If Wenger refuses to bring in at least one or two tough centre backs and one defensive midfielders he should be sacked. NO MORE EXCUSES!!

Jesus wept!!!! No more @#$%& excuses!!!! Sack him, bring in someone like Moyes, give him a substantial budget and give him a year to sort out the squad. I'll bet he could do it and toughen up our team of pansies

SOS Jose Mourinho!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.
Winston Churchill

GIFSoup Jose The King.



Jose champion, king, legend.

I think the one mistake that people have been and are making is in the assumption that things are absolute. That Chelsea came in and bought their way to trophies and assumed 'big club' status, which they did, is undeniable, although the latter is true only insofar as they have an owner with almost unlimitless funds, football wise. Arsene Wenger knew that we could not compete against this model and therefore took an almost diametrically opposite view and acted accordingly. Long-term, new stadium, organic growth, sustainable business model etc. Abramovich instructed Kenyon to have Chelsea breaking even (on a seasonal basis) by 2010. Complete pie in the sky. However, it appeared Abramovich did have some effect, as they had only posted a £43m loss in 2010 (I think).

If things had remained the same, the fact that we hardly had a pot to p*ss in from 2003 onwards, and hadn't won a pot to p*ss in from 2005 until 2009 wouldn't have mattered. Success would have followed, without us having to make signings for Berbatov money. However, with the advent of the Middle Eastlands takeover, the landscape totally changed.

From the transfer market settling down in relative terms, apart from one or two big money signings, it was blown apart by ManCiteh who have spent fortunes on players, paying twice their worth for many of them, just as Chelsea did when Abramovich saved them first from liquidation and then went on his spending spree.

Probably more important than the transfer fees themselves are the wages that go with it. Do you think for a minute David Silva, Tevez or Yaya Toure would have gone there if they hadn't been offered £180k to £220k pw as is largely accepted they do earn? Who was it who said the other day that on top of that ManCiteh are paying the £1m yearly rent on Toure's house?

So what have Chelsea and ManU done in response? Straight out of the window have gone the improved good housekeeping money rules and straight into spend spend spend keep up with the Arabs mode. What other business could announce the equivalent of signing two players for a combined cost of £73m while on the same day announce a yearly loss of £70m as Chelsea did? On top of that Torres is quite likely to be earning a basic of approaching £8m per year and Luiz another £5m. They have signed an unproven 18 year old for £18m and are after Modric for £30m and appear to be signing Mata for another £30m or so. ManU have signed £55m worth of players, two of which are relatively unproven and are prepared to pay £35m for Schneider.

While the rest of the World and its economies go to sh*t, football clubs are going mad.

When UEFA announced it's FFP initiative, everyone was in agreement (including UEFA) that Arsenal, above all other top clubs was in the best position as the best run, most self-sustaining club.

Now it appears, and I hope I am completely wrong, that the rules are not worth the paper they are written on.

These are the changing scenarios that Arsene Wenger and Arsenal have to put up with.

1) To attract new players of top quality, the parasite agents demands for extortionate wages have to be satisfied. 2) To attract new players of top quality, the selling clubs inflated prices have to be met.

3) To keep top players, see 1) above.

Do we swim with the prevailing tide and give in to these demands or do we battle on against them in the vain hope that someone, somewhere will seize power and take a stand against the greed and corruption amongst officials, owners, agents and players?

If it's the former, where does the money come from? Stan won't fund it, so do we just raise ticket prices or raise the money from the issue of a bond scheme. Or any of the other ways that ManU have done to keep up with ManCiteh and Chelsea on the spending front and try to catch up with the debt laden Barcelona on the playing front?

Wenger wants 'super quality' players. The Board won't, it seems, pay the fee and wages price. Wenger doesn't want to pay over the odds for squad players. We want players in. Anyone it seems. Any signing.

I want players in to improve our match day squad and be excellent replacements for the many injuries and spurious sendings off we incur, which are seemingly inevitable. If we signed Cahill, Jagielka or Samba are they going to displace TV5 or Kos? Not in my opinion. So why spend so much of the transfer and wages budget on overpriced reserves? Do we need an attacking central midfielder of top quality? Yes. Should we pay what is necessary? Yes. Should it have been Mata? Probably, from what I've heard about him. Do we need a centre forward like a Benzema? Yes. Do we need a reasonably priced, experienced centre half not in Squillaci mould? Yes.

But it all costs money. We have some, but when, as we well know, other clubs follow what players we are looking at and have the capability to offer twice what we can, whether wage wise or transfer fee wise, or both, because money means nothing to them, then what chance do we have?

It's all very well saying sack the Board, but who is the Board? Stan Kroenke is the Board. Just him. No-one else matters. Whose going to sack him? Himself? Why doesn't he pay off what remains of our debt and just pay himself back over the same period, interest free? And when he sells Arsenal in the future, have an agreement that he is paid back the balance in full by the new owner? That would release more funds for use on the playing side. Why won't he do this? Because it's not in his interests to, that's why. He's got billions at his disposal potentially from the Wal-Mart empire, but have we seen a bean on the playing side? No, because it's not in his interests.

The way it is currently I'm afraid, what with Liverpool one day getting it right having spent loads of money with debt seeming to be just an occupational minor inconvenience, is that unless our youth policy comes up trumps we are facing a future watching other clubs buy success without giving it a thought while we watch great football without trophies to show for it.

Maybe there is method in Wenger's apparent madness in signing AOC, Ryo, Campbell and Jenkinson, as he sees the writing on the wall and that buying players young is the only option.

Great read, Simon, well done.

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A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.
Winston Churchill

GIFSoup Jose The King.



Jose champion, king, legend.

Quote:

Simon68
Arsene Wenger knew that we could not compete against this model and therefore took an almost diametrically opposite view and acted accordingly. Long-term, new stadium, organic growth, sustainable business model etc.

I may have read it wrong but are you suggesting Wenger thought of the idea to build the stadium because I absolutely don't understand it.

posted this earlier...

[www.thefootballnetwork.net]

To put it simply, the board saw Wenger wasn't spending much so decided to start the project. Wenger has always been a pawn in their plans.

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It was Wenger's suggestion that we needed a new stadium to compete with the artificial spending power of Chelsea and ManU.

yes that is correct, it was Wengers idea but we are not competing are we ?!

could have been anyones idea as we were playing CL games without the regulation size pitch and 20,000 on the season ticket waiting list.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 22/08/2011 13:35 by karsene16.

This article rings true, and it is the most likely scenario causing the current situation. When you run a talent based business, there are only two things that matter: Having the reputation to attract the right kind of talent, and having the money to pay them to come to work for you. Arsenal HAD the reputation which is why so many young players wanted to go there. But starting with Ashley Cole, Arsenal have refused to pay market price in terms of wages to experienced players. And in hindsight, selling players like Viera and Henry had more to do with the weekly wages they earned then with their age. You don't see Man U selling off players like Scholes and Giggs when they get older do you? Or Chelsea selling Drogba or Lampard? They bring other players in and put them in reduced roles because they are willing to pay for experience and continuity.

celine I think you were the only to realise that the article was not an analysis by me of the situation but a relaying of info obtained, and that yes my stance in this is unlike most others here, is with the board, (maybe it was cos most view me as an AKB they jumped to the conclusion that it was anti board article)

we should not need to sign mega players, or pay obscene wages, I actually wonder does wenger not trust his judgement when it comes to mid range signings, he still knows a good young one when he sees one, and of course like most he knows an outstanding player when he sees one, but its the ones that could be great or could be kack that he is unsure of, and is afraid to gamble £15M - £20M plus high wages on, he would rather play safe with young cheap signings, or go all out with a mega signing £25M - £40M with massive wages, just a thought

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

[sup][/sup]

Not sure about the supposed conflict between Wenger and the board, before the game on Saturday Sky showed Wenger in the Directors lounge talking to Ivan quite happily with his hand on the middle of his back. No sign of any problems, infact they both seemed quite happy and relaxed in each others company.

I think it's a PR article for Arsene supporters !!

This article certainly has legs Ed, even your old friend Myles is referencing it!

ah jonny I knew there would be a downside

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

We must be in deeper @#$%& than we thought if you and Myles are singing off the same hymm sheet!

what's the use of buying the 15-20 million players if in a two years time they want to double their wages and our wage structure doesn't allow it and we have to let them go and start all over. as was with adebayor, now with nasri. as much as i hate those greedy players who doesn't have any loyalty, but that's what the situation is nowadays in football. i think wenger is just getting tired of this same old s*it. buy a relatively cheap player, make hima a star and then sell him cos the club won'p pay the wages others are willing to pay. you can't build a team if you're selling your best players every year, simple as that.

Some great comments - this article has really set tongues wagging. So much food for thought. I bet the board are absolutely sick. There is no way that snake Gazidis doesn't check this site out.

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A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.
Winston Churchill

GIFSoup Jose The King.



Jose champion, king, legend.

i guess wenger has finally realized that having a core of english players goes a long way of keeping the squad together as you don't see big english players moving too often to other top english clubs or abroad like internationals do when real, barca, ac milan or whoever comes calling. so now he's trying to build a new squad with wilshere, rambo, gibbs, frimpong, AOC, jenkinson etc. thank god for that.

Ed, legrove all over twitter calling you a liar. You want me to beat them up for you?

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Total Bro

I could give two f ucks what le grove or anyone thinks, I believe the guy who told me, I know who his source is at the club and see no reason why he would make it up. Any info got from him in the past has been spot on.

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

By the way Ed, bad news, Ive just been talking to PP, remember he said the hit counter was playing up yesterday, well its gone wrong on this article, it should say 150.

yeah celine its 150, thats why the club is having a cow over it

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*Signing Ozil is a signing Bergkamp type moment for Arsenal. It changes things utterly.*

@mihkel

rambo is not english. gibbs & walcott suck. we haven't even seen aoc play. jenkinson would prefer to play for sweden. frimpong states that he would even walk to ghana if he was called up by them.

and if u don't remember, it was a. hole that started the whole leaving arsenal for $$ bit.

bottom line is, when wenger buys players for cheap, they end up leaving when they become stars cause the board don't want to pay them their market value. we r always profitable in the transfer window, we raised ticket prices, we raised food prices @ the stadium, & we hit up asia for a tour to make $$. with all this added cash, why does the board not increase the wage scale so we can keep our best players?? how r we expected to compete when we lose 1 or 2 of our best players every season??



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 22/08/2011 23:17 by arsenal009.

I think Wenger might be reading this so i will say Fabreags didnt leave over money, he took a wage cut

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- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

It will be lovely to hear Wenger's comments during Udinese's post-match interview, and also hsi regular Friday "Meet-the-Press".

I am sure many jurno are dying to get a question in over this "loggerhead" saga.

Wenger says he only wants players that will improve the squad: does that mean he thinks the injury prone Gibbs is better than Enrique? Just if Wenger is reading this.

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A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.
Winston Churchill

GIFSoup Jose The King.



Jose champion, king, legend.

i now understand Wenger he is saying he wants big ticket items - not players on a similar level

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- until Wenger moves on, they'll always be the also-rans in the major competitions. A club in elite purgatory. Always good enough to make it to the big race, never fast or smart enough to push over the finish line in first place. That's all about the manager. Until he changes, Arsenal fans will continue to celebrate glorious failure.

Quote:

Thetruthis
Wenger says he only wants players that will improve the squad: does that mean he thinks the injury prone Gibbs is better than Enrique? Just if Wenger is reading this.

E.g.

1 - Gibbs
2 - Traore
3 - Vermaelen
4 - Jenkinson
5 - Sagna
6 - Botelho

Why should Wenger waste 10-mil on a lB where Gibbs and traore will provide adequate cover till Botelho gains a EU passport by January 2012 and ready to return to Arsenal?

Similarly, recalled Wenger's past statements that he will give all his yougnsters a run of 12 games to prove themselves before he review the situation the necessity of buying in January transfer window.

Remember, this same situaiton occurred in 2007/08 seaosn over Flamini and he was given an opportunity to establish himself as DCM when everyone of us was crying for a DCM to replace Gilberto!!!!

You will never which of them or both - Gibbs or Traore - will improve when given a run of 12 no. consecutive games to prove themselves.

Wenger is obsessively loyal to hsi youngsters and will give them every opportunity to prove themselves.

Quote:

Merlion96

Quote:

Thetruthis
Wenger says he only wants players that will improve the squad: does that mean he thinks the injury prone Gibbs is better than Enrique? Just if Wenger is reading this.

E.g.

1 - Gibbs
2 - Traore
3 - Vermaelen
4 - Jenkinson
5 - Sagna
6 - Botelho

Why should Wenger waste 10-mil on a lB where Gibbs and traore will provide adequate cover till Botelho gains a EU passport by January 2012 and ready to return to Arsenal?

Similarly, recalled Wenger's past statements that he will give all his yougnsters a run of 12 games to prove themselves before he review the situation the necessity of buying in January transfer window.

Remember, this same situaiton occurred in 2007/08 seaosn over Flamini and he was given an opportunity to establish himself as DCM when everyone of us was crying for a DCM to replace Gilberto!!!!

You will never which of them or both - Gibbs or Traore - will improve when given a run of 12 no. consecutive games to prove themselves.

Wenger is obsessively loyal to hsi youngsters and will give them every opportunity to prove themselves.

Fair enough I suppose.

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A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.
Winston Churchill

GIFSoup Jose The King.



Jose champion, king, legend.

Quote:

What the board are doing right
On the one hand the board are making very large funds available for transfers and new contracts, so what is wrong with that - NOTHING
The Board want Wenger to buy players who's wages fit in with our wage levels, whats wrong with that - NOTHING
The board actually want signings the calibre of Cahill, Parker and the like, so what's wrong with that - Nothing

lol..I don't know what new spin is this Eduardo, board is offering large funds available?? Buying 4 players spending £24 million and then pocketing 42 million from the sell of Fabregas and Clichy hardly you will call making large sum available.

Eduardo, you can spin even bigger than Wenger or board and get 100,000 hits..lol..but you can't hide from the fact my friend. Things are going to come out as it is by 31 Aug, don't forget both Wenger and the club have to get results on the pitch and that's not easy. You don't deal with Arsenal fans to get results on the pitch. I think the issue of Wenger and Stan are just the chicken and the egg story..team doesn't perform on the pitch eventually both have to go..probably one will go and the other one will RUN. So stop the@#$%&and it's Wenger's job is now to figure out how to do well on the pitch to at least bring back the club to a respectable position on the pitch by winning some fuc,king matches and that's not easy my friend.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23/08/2011 04:30 by SandyB.

There is one word to explain the seemingly inexplicable stupidity with which Arsenal Football Club is being run: greed. The owners are playing the fans for suckers. They have a great manager who for 10 years led brilliant teams that stood eye to eye with Manchester United and came out on top. The board capitalized on Wenger’s brilliance and decided they had a great opportunity to squeeze as much money from the fans as they could by buying young players and comparing them to the invincibles or at other times to Scholes, Keane and Giggs when they first started playing at Manchester United (seriously we used to hear that all the time. Remember when Diaby would say, hey don’t compare me to Vieira…I was like don’t worry about it, you aren’t fit to tie Patrick’s shoes!) We have all heard the same line summer after summer: next year this brilliant young team will finally come good. It’s been 5 summers now. The board then takes the transfer fees (from Henry, Vieira, Adebayor, etc.) and gate receipts and just pockets them, without giving back anything to the club. Wenger to his credit was able to keep the charade going for a few years with Fabregas and van Persie and now Wilshere. So the board (and Wenger) continued to lie and say how close Arsenal were to building a team of champions, when their real motivation was to play the fans for fools and sucker them into paying the highest ticket prices and buying new kits every year. Seriously you don’t play Almunia and Squilacci if you are a football club that cares about winning, you just don’t. Period. End of discussion.

The board is taking in record profits and the fans have to watch teenagers placed in positions they shouldn’t be that early in their careers. Greed pure and simple is the cause of Arsenal’s fall. Wenger can hold press conferences every summer and tell to the fans about how there are going to be new “big” signings only to turn around and say we can't buy anyone because it would "kill" the other players—why?, because he himself is getting a massive, massive pay check. If the board doesn’t take the Fabregas and Nasri money and re-invest it in the club, then all true Arsenal fans should boycott for the sake of the club. Because Arsenal Football Club is a great football club and not an ATM for Silent Stan and that fool Hill-Wood. The board has chosen short term profits over the club’s future. The board has chosen greed over football. When Arsene talks about how great it is to finish fourth every year…think about it. It’s 20 million more in the pockets of the owners. Here is the ironic thing: without a result at Udinese there isn’t going to be anymore Champions League money….Greed often has a way of turning on the greedy.

Cesc and Samir knew what was going on, and van Persie does too, make no mistake about it. It’s time the fans let the board know we know what’s going on too.

Quote:

celine dion
I cannot accept that Wenger is blameless in the state of the team. We have a fleecing,cynical board and a manager who has lost his way.

Agreed.

Quote:

Gunners R Us
What I want to know is what was the point of the emirates move if we are still not going to be able to compete with the likes of city, chelsea, united? At the moment it seems it was just pure greed...

Exactly.

Whether what eduardo claims in this article is true or not (most of it is probably true), one thing is for sure and that is that this season will have a huge effect on the future of our club, for the better or for the worse.

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