Hill-Wood: "Would be nice to finish in top 4, but not a disaster if we don't."

ARSENAL missing out on the Champions League would not be a disaster, chairman Peter Hill-Wood insisted last night.

In an honest assessment of the Gunners’ position – fifth, four points behind Chelsea – Hill-Wood said: “We are hanging on in there, no more.”

The north Londoners have made it into the Champions League in each of Arsene Wenger’s full seasons in charge.

Arsenal host champions Manchester United on Sunday knowing they cannot afford to lose any more ground on Chelsea.

Hill-Wood said: “From a financial point of view, not qualifying for the Champions League is quite a blow.

“We have been planning for not qualifying every year, so it is not a disaster, but it would be nice if we could.”

Arsenal slumped to their seventh league defeat at Swansea on Sunday and could drop to seventh if results don’t go their way.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/football/view/230807/Peter-Hill-Wood-Exit-won-t-hurt-Arsenal/

such ambition, words like these hurt the fans. Well at least now we know where our board is.

Wenger: "As long as you are second in the league, I am ready to sign for the next 20 years." April 2011.

Massive lack of ambition at the club.

It's situations like these that I feel sympaphy for a club chairman, because no matter what he says, he can't win.

I mean, what exactly do you want him to say?

Inevitably, fans are going to take what he says as a sign of no ambition and what have you, but all he's saying is the club is prepared for the worst. To not have a contingency plan when things don't go your way would be extremely foolhardy.

He's addressing the reality. How many fans now believe we can finish in the top four? Judging by the reactions of people in the last couple of days, it can't be many.

Maybe Hill-Wood doesn't need to say anything. Maybe he should have said "finishing out of the top four in unacceptable" - but then, this Hill-Wood, a man who has never criticised or put pressure on Wenger in public before, which is also something you very rarely see chairmen do. 99% of the time, a chairman will back his manager in public.

This just shows, they only care about profit and dont give a shit if we win anything.

Stan dont give a shit, if we dont make Cl, he will sell RVP and make his yearly profit.

I agree with Jay, would you rather him say the club would undergo a catastrophe if we don't finish well?

GoonerJay29 wrote:I mean, what exactly do you want him to say?

"We will make it our priority to finish in the top 4 and retain a champion's league spot. Anything less will be deemed a failure"

I'd rather he tell it how it is rather than try to lower our standards and make us accept mediocrity. What's next? "finishing in the top half of the table would be nice,but it won't be a catastrophe if we don't"? This is why players avoid us like the plague

He's talking from a financial perspective though, not sporting. He's basically saying "financially, we'll miss out if we don't qualify but we're prepared for it".

If he were alluding more to the sporting side of things I'd be more inclined to agree.

GoonerJay29 wrote:It's situations like these that I feel sympaphy for a club chairman, because no matter what he says, he can't win.

I mean, what exactly do you want him to say?

Inevitably, fans are going to take what he says as a sign of no ambition and what have you, but all he's saying is the club is prepared for the worst. To not have a contingency plan when things don't go your way would be extremely foolhardy.

He's addressing the reality. How many fans now believe we can finish in the top four? Judging by the reactions of people in the last couple of days, it can't be many.

Maybe Hill-Wood doesn't need to say anything. Maybe he should have said "finishing out of the top four in unacceptable" - but then, this Hill-Wood, a man who has never criticised or put pressure on Wenger in public before, which is also something you very rarely see chairmen do. 99% of the time, a chairman will back his manager in public.

The situation we are in atm is not what bugs me but this quote alone does, either he choose the words poorly or finally the board speaks out

“We have been planning for not qualifying every year, so it is not a disaster, but it would be nice if we could.”

I mean this should come from club like Spurs, Seville. I'd rather he admit it's disaster, because this means we're lowering our standard year by year.

Edit: post min too late, agree with Lex.

Lex wrote:

GoonerJay29 wrote:I mean, what exactly do you want him to say?

"We will make it our priority to finish in the top 4 and retain a champion's league spot. Anything less will be deemed a failure"

I'd rather he tell it how it is rather than try to lower our standards and make us accept mediocrity. What's next? "finishing in the top half of the table would be nice,but it won't be a catastrophe if we don't"? This is why players avoid us like the plague

If we miss out on CL football, the last few stars in our squad pack their bags and leave for greener pastures, we slide down the table, become a mid table team and Hill-Wood can kiss his financial insurance package goodbye

Of course there won't be a disaster for the board because they know they'll just sell a couple of players and make up the financial difference.

If we don't make the CL this year, its a £30million hit on a transfer kitty we weren't going to use anyways.

If you want to be all doom and gloom, then fine. I'm not going argue.

I mean this should come from club like Spurs, Seville. I'd rather he admit it's disaster, because this means we're lowering our standard year by year.

I admit, the "it'd be nice if we could" part is a poor choice of words. But preparing for the worst case scenario isn't a lowering of standards. It's sound, long-term thinking.

GoonerJay29 wrote:He's talking from a financial perspective though, not sporting. He's basically saying "financially, we'll miss out if we don't qualify but we're prepared for it".

If he were alluding more to the sporting side of things I'd be more inclined to agree.

For me, it's domino effect. Not like we're gonna sign star players but CL spot is one of the reasons we could sign some of the players we did. Could you imagine Gervinho sign for us if we are not playing CL this year. We all see how hard it was for Spurs & Juventus last summer. Not to mention financial loss.

If we're prepared for lack of CL football, why are we not prepared for decent transfer fees for quality players? :lucas:

Juventus managed to sign in the summer Andrea Pirlo and Arturo Vidal - the former was on a free and could've signed for a CL club, and Vidal was already at a club in the Champions League.

There are other examples, too. Bryan Ruiz went to Fulham, Luis Suarez to Liverpool, Pappis Cisse to Newcastle just recently, Falcao and Arda Turan to Atletico Madrid. All players who could've easily been good enough for Champions League clubs, but didn't have problems playing for clubs who weren't in the competition.

Champions League football is an important factor in signing players but not the be all and end all. History and prestige of the club in question counts for a lot, too, hence how Juventus can sign good players still and Spurs struggle. Money, too, is important.

Sushi Master wrote:If we're prepared for lack of CL football, why are we not prepared for decent transfer fees for quality players? :lucas:

Agree Sushi, get someone decent this winter to guarantee CL spot, we're not far off. That's long term thinking imo.

That's my thinking. Missing out on CL football is the worse thing that could happen here, not just because of the financial side, which we're decent off, but the prestige factor. Already having our reputation shunned by selling all our stars, I can't imagine most top quality guys wanting to come here. We'd go back to the youth academy days.

I agree with Jay's points, but remember Juventus have billionarie owners, Fiat connections and the like. Also, a huge difference nowadays: they pay top wages.

Not really Sushi..There arent many players who are on a big paycheck.And our total wages are 50-60m less than what Inter and Milan pay to their players.

Amauri is our second highest earner.

And remember we arent a selling club.We've still managed to keep our best players despite finishing seventh for two years in a row. Even though we havent signed "top" WC players as people expected we are atleast pretending to show the ambition like a big club.And its not like WC players have snubbed us.

But when you sell your best players season after season it describes a lack of intent and ambition and that is why maybe players like Hazard for example who is a young WC prospect would have second thoughts over joining Arsenal if you dont make the CL.Just providing an example you know.

But still its PL..Still the best league in the world and quality players would be
willing to join Arsenal if you dont make CL that is..

They're way higher than substandard Arsenal wages, Surag.

And exactly, you aren't a selling club. Chiellini, Del Piero, Buffon etc. have all managed to stay even without CL football.

Yeah I get your point, but no CL football and poor wages will make it even harder to sign talent than before. I can also see Wenger pulling the "we didn't hit CL, so we don't have as much to spend" excuse.

I just viewed an article on Arsenal's wage bill and it says it has rose 12% more than last year and the total amounts to around 125m pounds.

We on the other hand have a wage bill of 100 odd m euros.So there is a substantial difference there.

PL teams are always known to have huge wage bills.You know the fact that fellow PL teams paying insane wages to their players may be reason why your star players feel unsettled.Its relative you know since PL has high standards as far as wages are concerned.

But you'd still be able to attract quality players provided there is sufficient money available for transfers.

I really dont think wages are the problem.Its when you have to offer an improved contract with higher wages to ward of interest from fellow PL teams like City and other top clubs seems to be the problem..

Like Van Persie for example.You have to simply offer him a bigger lucrative contract if you dont make CL otherwise he might be on his way out as well..Cant really guarantee loyalty can you !

Didn't know we had such a massive wage bill and Juve's was so small

Although I guess that's what 200kpw in Diaby, Bendtner, Denilson, Almunia, Squillaci and Chamakh get you.

If we dont qualify for Champions League:

Keeping RVP and Walcott, even Song will be the hardest task.

Signing players like Podolski will be impossible.

etc etc

Why speak about Europa League in Jan?

Why not focus on trying to get CL?

Samuelj29060 wrote:Why speak about Europa League in Jan?

Why not focus on trying to get CL?

Its the Chairman of the club who raises this discussion.