In Response To The Overreaction and The Fickle Fans:

Raptorgunner wrote:What is the point of buying a player in 2 weeks time when we dont need one.
If is podolski then now we talking, knowing Arsenal they will bid 10 million and another team will pick him for 20 million.

It has nothing to do with Arsenal or any other team. Podolski already said that he is staying at Cologne for his NT, not for anything else.

Raptorgunner wrote:
Wenger is stubborn and lies to fans and always plays with our heads. No one is bigger than Arsenal, if the day comes and Wenger is gone I am sure the next one will be up for the job and could do a better job. Just so you know I dont want him gone but if we dont make top 4, I dont think we will be able to hold on to RVP and it could be hard to attract quality players.

If we don't make the top 4, then it will be hard to attract quality players for sure; however, all managers lie to the media. There's a difference between lying to the media and lying to the fans. I realize that the media is the connection between us and Wenger, but they have done enough twisting and manipulating with Wenger's words to give him the right to be a bit precocious when speaking to them. He doesn't say the truth about transfers...but then again, how wise is it to say the truth? How wise is to inform other clubs that you have loads of money to spend or that you're trying to sign a certain player? It's not really wise at all

Raptorgunner wrote:
Stan Kroenke has done nothing since the day he joined us, the only thing he has enjoyed is his big profit Wenger has made for him. If he gave a shit he would have invested in the club and helped out with debt.

What do you expect him to do? As I said above, investing in the club will not help us at all. He could have taken on the debt, but why would he do that if the club is already on its course to removing it all together? Seems a bit pointless. As I said, Kroenke, the board and Wenger are all in agreement over the courses of action that need to be taken with regards to the club, so this isn't just Stan, it's everyone. As I said, we're close to finishing this debt thing off once and for all....why do you want to ruin it all by being impatient? I understand that the club doesn't seem very ambitious at the moment, and it bugs me too, but we all need to be patient and understand that this is all for the better of the club.

Raptorgunner wrote:
How embarrassing its when other teams are after big name players and we are after some Omani guy who plays in Oman second division and Wayne *bleep* Bridge.

What other teams are after big name players? There has only been 11 million pounds spent in this transfer window, and that's including all the transfer activity in Europe IIRC....so who is after the big name players? Because I don't see anyone. If we're going by rumors, Arsenal are after Hazard, Cissokho, Podolski, Vertonghen and a whole host of other class players. Don't limit it down to the one or two rumors with players that you don't like.

Raptorgunner wrote:
face it we are a selling club and teams like Man city will take any player they want with their money and Stan Kroenke will sit there and say nothing and take the money to the *bleep* bank.

How many times do I need to explain this debt thing before it sinks in? We cannot afford the wages that players are demanding, we were challenging for everything last year before everything blew up in our faces with these "WC" players that left us, we are trying to be conservative with our money so that we can get past these last couple of years. The club will be ambitious and will return back to our days of glory, but we need patience. It's not too much to ask for, is it?

Raptorgunner wrote:
We are one man team and what happens if RVP was not playing out of this world and what would have happened if we only lost to Man united 5-2 do you think we would have had, Arteta, Mert, Santos? No.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry merry Christmas.

Raptorgunner wrote:
We dont want no sugardaddie, all we want is a reasonable owner who would invest and buys players that can compete.

As I said, it's all about the principle, not about how much the owner spends on the club. We don't need an owner to spend for us, because we already have money. Having the owner become the one who is in debt instead of the club makes very little difference.

Raptorgunner wrote:
How do players like diaby get a 4 year contract when there are players dying to play for Arsenal?
What is Arshivan still doing at Arsenal? the whole says he suck and what Wenger says he still quality.

So just you all know I dont really agree with Sacking any coach.

Lets not blame Diaby for his injuries here. I really doubt that he wants to be injured this often, don't you?
And Wenger has never criticized his players in public. Ask him about any player, even Squillaci (Who he reluctantly plays), and he'll say that he is quality. Criticizing your players in public isn't something we should be asking our manager to do.

kiranr wrote:Maybe what the fans that are overreacting want is for Arsenal to show ambition.

Instead of Gervinho, you could have gone for a better player like Hazard or one of the Germans like Gotze or Reus in the summer window. Arsenal should not have trouble attracting good players to the club.

You guys have a great team. But, one thing i have said over and over again is problem with the defense. You guys need to be incredibly efficient there if you want to challenge for the top spot.

Iceman mentioned some of the mistakes and said it is not too shabby. However not too shabby it is, Arsenal still need to become efficient. I see a problem with Wenger there. When mistakes are made, he needs to do whatever to make sure that they are not repeated again. Zero tolerance for such errors, and Arsenal will start challenging for the title.

So lets get one thing straight: I do not believe that Wenger is immune from criticism, but there is a difference between criticizing and wanting him sacked. Arsenal fans just went to an extreme after a couple of losses, and that's just being fickle.
Wenger has made bad decisions in the past, and everyone has, but his good ones largely outweigh the bad ones. Like I read in an article beforehand, when all of your worst transfers combined make up just around 11 million, in the span of over a decade, then you aren't really doing that much wrong with the money.

The performance in that match was not a performance that any Arsenal fan should accept as a standard, but does it call for the manager, the board, the owner and the staff all to be changed? No, not really.

Edit :- Kudos to Kiranr for getting involved without flaming, ridiculing, insulting or mocking Arsenal or the fans. We all, including myself, could learn a few things from him.

Samuelj29060 wrote:

[

* The playing staff. Our first xi is good, but is it up there with the best? Can it win titles? No. Not in my opinion. There are weak links in our first xi like Walcott.


* And signings we didn't make last summer - Mata, Cazorla, Alvarez, Cahill - I don't know if it was the board or Wenger, but one must take the blame. Anybody who needs reminding of our failure to sign Mata needs to watch this > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a-cJT-afOk

* Injuries. We open up a new medical centre and our injuries double. Just a coincidence, but the physios can't be good enough, or there must be a lack of them. Yes, RVP has stayed fit for a year, but this is like the first time ever, that has happened.

----

So, no, just because I apologised, there are still several problems with the club. We must focus on United now.

Man United has a lot of weak links in their line-up if you are going to use Walcott as a weak link. You have good enough players to challenge for the title.

You just need to become efficient at defending and cutting out the mistakes. Those mistakes are easily worth 5 points atleast and that would actually put you in top 4 and not very far away from the leaders.

aleumdance wrote:My annoyance with the medical staff is

yes the players got injured, but a Good medical team would know when they would coem back and do even better..

look at ours, jenkinson is not yet back, wilshere's come back keeps shifting( anyone remembers when rosicky was injured), ryo miyaichi on a lighter scale came back later than expected

now look at teams like stoke.. I swear I envy their medical team, probably the best in the EPL, their players get injured yes, do they come back.. ES, do they come back on time? YES, do their fans get news like

" Mr deep $hit who got injured eating a banana, would be back when the apocalypse hits..just so you know when the apocalypse comes MR Deep $hit injury would be worse than we expected so we have to make another 10 billion years surgery on him..fvck you for the next 6 years"

Read this :

GoonerJay29 wrote:Also, a bit on injuries:

Is it not remarkable that for a club that supposedly has such poor medical staff that two injury prone players like Mikel Arteta and Robin van Persie have stayed fit for the large part of the season so far?

But how much is the medical team really responsible for these injuries?

Sagna got hurt because of a bad tackle. Can't too much about that.

Fabiasnki was injured in a match because of a collision. Again, can't do anything prevent that.

Andre Santos again injured in a match, though granted playing him was unnecessary. More Wenger's fault than anything.

Jenkinson's and Wilshere's injures proved more problematic than expected. Not sure what's going on with Jenkinson but Wilshere aggrivated the injury when everyone, himself inlcuded, thought everything was fine.

Gibbs and Diaby are just extremely injury prone.

Francis Coquelin and Veramelen picked up muscle injuries. Those tend to happen at this point in the season. Unfortunate, but just a part of the game.

Arteta got a small injury. Again, those things happen.

Gervinho and Chamakh both on international duty. That's just bad timing.

So I count possible two injuries that could've honestly been avoid: Santos and Wilshere. The rest are mainly unfortunately circumstance or regulation injuries that happen all the time.

All going well, we'll six injured players back in the coming weeks.

aleumdance wrote:

My point on that, was that we are damn easy to read, easy to read

I said this earlier, I did not watch the swansea match, but it was obvious we would lose.

WHY?????

cuz if you watched all 90 mins of our last 3 games, WE MADE THESAME FVCKING ERRORS, THESAME FVCKING ERRORS, Swansea are major quality at home so if we took our hattrick of errors to Cardiff, it was a defeat waiting to happen simple..


I am Tired of Wenger Apologist who won't see outside the tent..

it always
" our supernatural offense of new fantastic players promised by the Dear Leader have changed, you critics have not seen it but my dear leader has promised me that we notice new changes more than you"


EVERY DAMN ARSENAL BLOG, from arsenalmania to here

You didn't watch the match, but you're commenting on how we've been easily readable in the last 3 matches ?
This is exactly the problem. Fans just start getting mad over things they hear, instead of watching for themselves.

It wasn't a defeat waiting to happen because, as I said before, Arsenal could have actually won the match had the dubious penalty not been given and had we taken our chances in front of goal.
Again, how can we NOT be easily readable without any fullbacks at the ready? We were playing with CBs and that severely limits our game. We could have played with 3 CBs and wing-backs instead, but we have no players that are capable of doing that either and the blame cannot be laid on Wenger for that.

As I said, the tactics have changed GREATLY since last season, and Arsenal were performing marvelously when we had fullbacks. Arsene tried different formations in the FA and CC cup (and even the CL) sometimes, and we have seen Arsenal defend with 11 men for most of some matches. We have seen Wenger play without a DM completely and sometimes play without a striker, but without fullbacks and with so many injuries (that are of no fault of his own), how much can he change with the team now? There is only so much that he can do...

You were one of the people who wanted Benayoun to play more often. There you go, he was invisible and was one of the main reason we had no control or tempo in the midfield. Please, do not act like a tactical wiz when you clearly aren't one.

I am not a Wenger apologist. I am a man who rationalizes and you simply aren't one.

Samuelj29060 wrote:Although I apologised for my heat of the moment reactions on here and on twitter, I still fully believe in the majority of my points.

* Wenger is a great tactician? Is he? Never beating Mourinho in his career, and never won the Champions League, where tactics are everything come the latter stages. Constant 4-3-3 formation, never changes. Taking off Walcott, and putting on Bendtner last season and moves like this frustrated the hell out of fans.

Alex Flynn (biographer of Wenger) confirmed he spoke with AW once and asked him why he made subs in games. Was it down to tactics? No Wenger said "Because players drop physically, that's all". Wenger practically confirming lack of tactical nous.

Great tactician? No. Poor tactician? Also no.
He's a very good one. He solved our set-piece problem this season, he managed to recover from the losses of Cesc and Nasri by dividing the midfield duties amongst all the players, his reliance on the wingers helped Arsenal to pull through our horrible start to the season, he's the one that player RVP as a striker and look how it turned out, he changed Henry's position etc. etc.

He makes mistakes, but so do other managers. Do you consider Ferguson to be a great tactician? I'd imagine so, but even he made the most childish of errors of playing with just 2 midfielders against Barcelona. Does that automatically make him a poor one? It doesn't.
Wenger is a very good tactician. He is not poor by any means.

Samuelj29060 wrote:
* The playing staff. Our first xi is good, but is it up there with the best? Can it win titles? No. Not in my opinion. There are weak links in our first xi like Walcott.

We have depth, and we have a really good first XI that can compete with any other team, but we don't exactly have quality in depth due to not being able to get rid of players and replace them with others.
Walcott was our best player at the start of the season. He was the sole/main offensive reason as to why we are in the CL this season instead of Udinese. He was the only one carrying the team at some period during our season, and even a month of bad form cannot make me forget that. I know some people here might be having some difficulties remembering, but Walcott is key to Arsenal. A bit of bad form does not change that at all, especially since he has shown promise at the start of the season. His final ball has improved, and had Arsenal been more clinical in front of goal, he would have had more assists to his name.

He has been performing badly, I'm not denying that, but bad form does not make him a bad player...far from it.

Samuelj29060 wrote:
* The cheap signings. Squillaci, Chamakh, Benayoun (loan), Park. Enough of things like this already!

Benayoun has scored the winning goal in two matches IIRC. He has not been a bad signing at all. Chamakh was fantastic when he first started out here. He had gotten plenty of goals, penalties and assists for the team, but then he lost it all. He was a very good signing that even you were looking forward to Sam.
The rest, I agree with, but as I said countless times before, Wenger is being cheap for the sake of the club.

Samuelj29060 wrote:
* And signings we didn't make last summer - Mata, Cazorla, Alvarez, Cahill - I don't know if it was the board or Wenger, but one must take the blame. Anybody who needs reminding of our failure to sign Mata needs to watch this > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a-cJT-afOk

We got Mertesacker instead of Cahill, and that is a much better acquisition and use of our money.
Alvarez went to Inter for € 11.75 million and he performed really badly at the start (Some of you would have slated him off and ruined his career by then)...Would you have spent 11.75 million on a largely unknown talent that wasn't exactly lighting up his league? Not to mention, he lacks a bit of pace and is inconsistent sometimes. He's doing great now, but there is no guarantee of that happening in the EPL.

I do not trust anything Ballague says because he has previously proven to be wrong, so that report is meaningless to me. I read other reports saying it was Tottenham who were closer to signing him than Arsenal, some reports saying his wage demands were too high for Arsenal and some saying AW thought the price was too much. Can we confirm any of these? No we can't

Cazorla cost 19 million, and had his wages double when he went to Malaga, regardless of the fact that he is now performing poorly as is Borja Valero. They were one season wonders, and we dodged a bullet by passing on signing them, if anything.

The only thing that really ticks me off is Wenger's lack of ruthlessness.

He's got too much faith into his players and even though this can be a good thing as it can lead to the players playing harder for the manager, the likes of Denilson, Almunia, Diaby, and Squillaci would not have survived had Ferguson or Mourinho been at the helm. He needs to send messages to his players if they're playing shit, even if it means taking them off at halftime, or even blaming his own players for a loss.

I expect Wenger to defend his players if they've done nothing wrong, but there's a time to put them to the sword if they're frakking up. Though this will most likely never happen, it could most certainly lead to better performances from players who might be wary of getting knocked in the press.

Don't want to keep bringing Red Nose up, but you can't help but admire his cold-bloodedness. He's not scared to take off his best midfielder if he's playing shit, or even criticize his star player in a win. Just look at his mesage to Rooney, even after the comprehensive win against Bolton.

And..as for Usmanov...are we still talking about him? I don't understand why in hell some of you guys would want him in, now that we're so close to achieving self sufficiency.

Iceman wrote:

Raptorgunner wrote:What is the point of buying a player in 2 weeks time when we dont need one.
If is podolski then now we talking, knowing Arsenal they will bid 10 million and another team will pick him for 20 million.

It has nothing to do with Arsenal or any other team. Podolski already said that he is staying at Cologne for his NT, not for anything else.

Raptorgunner wrote:
Wenger is stubborn and lies to fans and always plays with our heads. No one is bigger than Arsenal, if the day comes and Wenger is gone I am sure the next one will be up for the job and could do a better job. Just so you know I dont want him gone but if we dont make top 4, I dont think we will be able to hold on to RVP and it could be hard to attract quality players.

If we don't make the top 4, then it will be hard to attract quality players for sure; however, all managers lie to the media. There's a difference between lying to the media and lying to the fans. I realize that the media is the connection between us and Wenger, but they have done enough twisting and manipulating with Wenger's words to give him the right to be a bit precocious when speaking to them. He doesn't say the truth about transfers...but then again, how wise is it to say the truth? How wise is to inform other clubs that you have loads of money to spend or that you're trying to sign a certain player? It's not really wise at all

Raptorgunner wrote:
Stan Kroenke has done nothing since the day he joined us, the only thing he has enjoyed is his big profit Wenger has made for him. If he gave a shit he would have invested in the club and helped out with debt.

What do you expect him to do? As I said above, investing in the club will not help us at all. He could have taken on the debt, but why would he do that if the club is already on its course to removing it all together? Seems a bit pointless. As I said, Kroenke, the board and Wenger are all in agreement over the courses of action that need to be taken with regards to the club, so this isn't just Stan, it's everyone. As I said, we're close to finishing this debt thing off once and for all....why do you want to ruin it all by being impatient? I understand that the club doesn't seem very ambitious at the moment, and it bugs me too, but we all need to be patient and understand that this is all for the better of the club.

Raptorgunner wrote:
How embarrassing its when other teams are after big name players and we are after some Omani guy who plays in Oman second division and Wayne *bleep* Bridge.

What other teams are after big name players? There has only been 11 million pounds spent in this transfer window, and that's including all the transfer activity in Europe IIRC....so who is after the big name players? Because I don't see anyone. If we're going by rumors, Arsenal are after Hazard, Cissokho, Podolski, Vertonghen and a whole host of other class players. Don't limit it down to the one or two rumors with players that you don't like.

Raptorgunner wrote:
face it we are a selling club and teams like Man city will take any player they want with their money and Stan Kroenke will sit there and say nothing and take the money to the *bleep* bank.

How many times do I need to explain this debt thing before it sinks in? We cannot afford the wages that players are demanding, we were challenging for everything last year before everything blew up in our faces with these "WC" players that left us, we are trying to be conservative with our money so that we can get past these last couple of years. The club will be ambitious and will return back to our days of glory, but we need patience. It's not too much to ask for, is it?

Raptorgunner wrote:
We are one man team and what happens if RVP was not playing out of this world and what would have happened if we only lost to Man united 5-2 do you think we would have had, Arteta, Mert, Santos? No.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry merry Christmas.

Raptorgunner wrote:
We dont want no sugardaddie, all we want is a reasonable owner who would invest and buys players that can compete.

As I said, it's all about the principle, not about how much the owner spends on the club. We don't need an owner to spend for us, because we already have money. Having the owner become the one who is in debt instead of the club makes very little difference.

Raptorgunner wrote:
How do players like diaby get a 4 year contract when there are players dying to play for Arsenal?
What is Arshivan still doing at Arsenal? the whole says he suck and what Wenger says he still quality.

So just you all know I dont really agree with Sacking any coach.

Lets not blame Diaby for his injuries here. I really doubt that he wants to be injured this often, don't you?
And Wenger has never criticized his players in public. Ask him about any player, even Squillaci (Who he reluctantly plays), and he'll say that he is quality. Criticizing your players in public isn't something we should be asking our manager to do.

I agree with what you saying, but the I still don't trust Stan, how many football owners make crazy profit in their first year at the club.

Most owner will invest in to the club and try to pay off the debt, he has the money but does he have the heart for Arsenal?

What hurts us all is that we have been on player away from winning the major trophies. Look what Arshivan did for us in his first year, if we had signed another quality player like him I am sure we would have won the EPL or the CL.

I am sure Chamberlain will be one of the best player in the world, but I still would have rather have Mata and buy Chamberlain in the summer time.

What I want from Wenger is to stop being nice and a father to these players and be the Boss.

Wenger said: “It was simple: I wanted Thierry to stay and he said ‘you have a young team, they will be good in three or four years but I don’t have time to wait because I am 30 and I have to go somewhere that I have a chance to win.’

“So he went to Barcelona, which was completely logical.”

So it sounds like Wenger will be just as understanding when Robin Van Persie leaves next summer in his quest to win something before he retires. The Dutchman has made no secret of his admiration for Barcelona, so maybe he will follow in Henry’s footsteps……


http://justarsenal.com/wenger-admits-that-thierry-henry-left-arsenal-to-win-trophies-like-van-persie-will/12236

I'm no expert in finance and business, so this may sound naive: if an owner comes in and wipes off our debt, wouldn't he want to be paid back? And the most likey method of paying him back would through the money the club generates.

So you'll be getting rid of the stadium debt owed to the banks, but in its place will be a debt to the owner, whcih is arguably worse.

I'm probably mistaken here, but I don't think an owner would willingly part with £200mil and not want some of that back.

Also, we've spent nearly a decade trying to make this club self-sufficient. Wouldn't having that super-rich owner now just defeat the purpose of all those years of hard work?

This is why Kroenke didn't invest anything when he took over. He believes in self-suffiency, and suddenly pumping x amount goes against his and the clubs principles.

I've said it before. Sugar-daddy owners are not sustainable. You get three or four years of major investment, some success to come with it, but it won't last. The most successful clubs you can find - the ones who have decades of success, not just a couple of years - are self-sufficient clubs. It's a good model to work towards.

Funds can be provided in exchange for additional shares of the stock or additional equity.

It would only makes sense if the removal of debt would increase the revenue and the profit of the club to offset the dilution (meaning more shares for the same worth which reduces the per-share value) of equity.

In this case, it could be useful if the club uses the money that is freed up due to no more interest payments to actually buy quality players and improve the wage structure as this will allow the club to win more and hence increase the overall brand value of the club.

The question is, will these funds used to revise the wage structure and buy better players?

Mata > Gervinho

Cazorla > Benayoun

Cahill > Mertesacker (debatable)

I see. Thanks for clearing that up.

One would think if we didn't have to pay back any debts that the extra funds would be used for the playing staff. We've already got top training facilities, top medical facilities, top youth facilities and would completely own our 60,000 stadium. Other than the odd community and restoration projects we may be involved in, there's not much else to spend the funds on.

I suppose Kroenke thinks that since we're on course to pay off the debt anyway, he doesn't need to pay them off with his own money.

Yeah, in this case, patience is definitely a virtue!

Samuelj29060 wrote:Mata > Gervinho

Cazorla > Benayoun

Cahill > Mertesacker (debatable)

Sam I like Mata but I have always been a Gervinho fan, I really believe he will be a monster in the EPL.

We could have had both Gervinho and Mata.

GoonerJay29 wrote:I see. Thanks for clearing that up.

One would think if we didn't have to pay back any debts that the extra funds would be used for the playing staff. We've already got top training facilities, top medical facilities, top youth facilities and would completely own our 60,000 stadium. Other than the odd community and restoration projects we may be involved in, there's not much else to spend the funds on.

I suppose Kroenke thinks that since we're on course to pay off the debt anyway, he doesn't need to pay them off with his own money.

Its must be nice being Kroenke, he has Wenger and Man city.

Samuelj29060 wrote:Mata > Gervinho

Cazorla > Benayoun

Cahill > Mertesacker (debatable)

you have not watched cahill mate, overrated he is

Krul; Santon Coloccini Williamson Cissokho ;Ben Arfa Cabaye Tiote Gutierrez; Cisse Ba . Well done Mike Ashley.

aleumdance wrote:

Samuelj29060 wrote:Mata > Gervinho

Cazorla > Benayoun

Cahill > Mertesacker (debatable)

you have not watched cahill mate, overrated he is

Metesacker has done better than I thought he would, the only problem is he is too weak, goes down too easy.

I still take Metesacker over Cahill though.

Cahill is another ball player like Kos or Vemaelen. He doesn't exactly fit the "big assed CB" description we needed. Mertesacker I love just because we don't conceed from set pieces anymore, and he has adapted pretty damn quick considering our past CB transfers. He also came dirt cheap. 20m for Cahill

Does his lack of pace expose him? No shit, he relies on positional sence and he has no decent fullback cover whatsoever.

Cissokho deal aint done Sam.......

But it does please me seeing that team

Our subs bench aint nothing to shout about even so......

There's still a long way to go for us to be where we want to be.

Sorry for the OT, just wanted to address that.

I see people saying that wenger has or hasent had money. Im going to do a thread based on arsenal finances which might sound boring but at least then everyone will be able to understand how much money we actaully have or dont have hopefully.

Nehpets wrote:I see people saying that wenger has or hasent had money. Im going to do a thread based on arsenal finances which might sound boring but at least then everyone will be able to understand how much money we actaully have or dont have hopefully.

Sounds good.