So is Arsenal ever going to show some ambition?

A club that has been content with finishing at the minimal requirement for years, they keep losing some of their best players to their rivals, rarely ever match other clubs in spending, never fulfill their potential. They've been a stopgap club for players, no one ever goes to Arsenal with the thought of winning big trophies seriously. Its sad because i've seen this happen at my own club. You could point it at Wenger, or the board, or the players, or the fans or whoever. I've never seen a fanbase hyped up at hiring a scout before, reading more into him, seems like a personal concierge guy that drives players to airports, helps them visa and stuff like that. Furthermore, this pushing of youth from them/Wenger, when was the last time a talent turned out good/great? Wilshere? Walcott? these guys were touted as England's finest, how/why did they turn out like this?

There needs to be a massive reform internally, it is clear that the club is prioritizing financial efficiency over silverware. Otherwise, why does it matter that they have the best kit contract with Puma? Or that they just gifted Sanchez with a ribbon? Alexis escaped Barca because of how he was utilized, now he's going to the person who utilized him like that because he prefers that over Arsenal.

I think we are seeing a seismic shift in the PL right now, with Liverpool taking Arsenal's spot.

Wait Wenger is still alive, isn't he like 200 hundred years old alreay?

why is harmonica only 3 stars?

didn't they bid 70+m for Lemar over the summer, only to be turned down? Bought Lacazette for like 50m, Xhaka for 40 the summer before, Mustafi for 30m etc..they're spending nowadays. Just mostly on trash. But I don't think they're showing a lack of ambition in the transfer market nowadays. Not much they can do about losing their best players..it happens to pretty much everyone besides Utd, City and the Spanish giants nowadays.

You're right. Even we(United) sell our best players. Di Maria, Rooney, Evra etc. Barca lost Neymar. Real sold some key players as well. Happens to every club.

Just because they're about to lose Özil and Sanchez, that doesn't indicate a lack of ambition IMO. What they do following their departures is more important.

Your argument's really inconsistent here.

Because you're sitting there mocking fans for getting excited over the club signing a scout and director but those members of staff happen to be considered among the best in the business. Arsenal shelled out a hefty amount of compensation to get Mislintat at the club. They wanted to improve things off the pitch and got a couple of good guys to do it. That's ambition. By the way, this is part of the "massive reform" that you said needs to happen, which has actually been underway since the summer (two new coaches, two new guys heading up the academy, a new head of recruitment, a new negotiator, and so on).

Wanting to produce your own players and giving opportunities to youth is another form ambition. They don't always turn out good - that's the nature of youth development - but the club consistently makes opportunities for kids to play. More so than many other clubs in the division.

As for spending, Firenze mentioned it but look at the fees we've spent on players recently. £52m on Lacazette, £42.5m on Ozil, £35m on Sanchez, £35m on Mustafi, £34m on Xhaka. Spending wise Arsenal are up there with most teams in the division. IIRC only the two Manchester clubs have invested more in their squads than we have in the last five years. If their level of spending is what's "ambitious" then there are only four or five ambitious teams in world football.

You surely realised with your own team that spending a tonne on players does not always result in success, especially if you're overspending on players. But if Arsenal buy five players for £10m each they'll get panned for not showing ambition even if they all turn out to be good. Transfer fees are a really unreliable measure of ambition in the market.

You mention Liverpool taking over. The same Liverpool who have lost Sterling, Suarez and Coutinho to more successful clubs in the last three years. What makes them any more ambitious than us?

The club is being plenty ambitious. The problem is that's not translating to success on the pitch (even though its won more trophies than Liverpool and Tottenham have in the last four years), which is down to the incompetence of the manager and playing staff. There's a lot the club has to sort out so it's taking a while to come into effect, but changes are being made.

I will have a response for you at work tomorrow

shit man, hate it when jay writes the exact same post as i was going to. But yes, what he said.

Also Alexis didn't get sold because Pep utilized him wrongly or anything. Alexis stayed 2 more season at Barca, under Tito and Martino. Then he got sold because he was a shit winger and we got Suarez.

Yea he is a shit team player. As football giants, he doesn't belong at Barca or Arsenal IMO.

We'll sign a superior player in Lemar or Malcom or Hulk.

RealGunner wrote:Yea he is a shit team player. As football giants, he doesn't belong at Barca or Arsenal IMO.

We'll sign a superior player in Lemar or Malcom or Hulk.

Let's be realistic here. That superior player will be someone more prodigious, like Bertrand Traore, Dabney Dos Santos, Oussama Idrissi or Ahmed Musa or Eden's nephew's cousin

What you all need to understand is that these temporary solutions are only a means of stalling things while Wenger's scouts work tirelessly on finding and copyrighting the fountain of youth.

http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/09/arsene-wenger-speaks-25m-jonny-evans-deal-amid-manchester-city-battle-7215087/

Jay29 wrote:Your argument's really inconsistent here.

Because you're sitting there mocking fans for getting excited over the club signing a scout and director but those members of staff happen to be considered among the best in the business. Arsenal shelled out a hefty amount of compensation to get Mislintat at the club. They wanted to improve things off the pitch and got a couple of good guys to do it. That's ambition. By the way, this is part of the "massive reform" that you said needs to happen, which has actually been underway since the summer (two new coaches, two new guys heading up the academy, a new head of recruitment, a new negotiator, and so on).

Wanting to produce your own players and giving opportunities to youth is another form ambition. They don't always turn out good - that's the nature of youth development - but the club consistently makes opportunities for kids to play. More so than many other clubs in the division.

As for spending, Firenze mentioned it but look at the fees we've spent on players recently. £52m on Lacazette, £42.5m on Ozil, £35m on Sanchez, £35m on Mustafi, £34m on Xhaka. Spending wise Arsenal are up there with most teams in the division. IIRC only the two Manchester clubs have invested more in their squads than we have in the last five years. If their level of spending is what's "ambitious" then there are only four or five ambitious teams in world football.

You surely realised with your own team that spending a tonne on players does not always result in success, especially if you're overspending on players. But if Arsenal buy five players for £10m each they'll get panned for not showing ambition even if they all turn out to be good. Transfer fees are a really unreliable measure of ambition in the market.

You mention Liverpool taking over. The same Liverpool who have lost Sterling, Suarez and Coutinho to more successful clubs in the last three years. What makes them any more ambitious than us?

The club is being plenty ambitious. The problem is that's not translating to success on the pitch (even though its won more trophies than Liverpool and Tottenham have in the last four years), which is down to the incompetence of the manager and playing staff. There's a lot the club has to sort out so it's taking a while to come into effect, but changes are being made.

I'm not sitting there mocking fans, i just find it appalling that fans find this as some sort of beacon for change. I dont know who else you hired, but i fail to see how this will change much with Wenger having final say on things. Thats the crux here, there can be no reform under Arsene's iron fist.

Having an academy and playing youth is all well and fine, but does that supersede the first team's performance, is a loss more palatable if some youth players got a few minutes? And also, opportunit yfor kids doesn't really mean anything, how many of Arsenal youth actually turned to be good? Cesc only?

On spending, you spent a summer with only Cech coming in when you had glaring issues, you could've capitalized on other team's bad year, fast forward and LCFC wins the league. Ozil and Sanchez fine, but the rest are players everyone avoided like the plague except for Arsenal, Xhaka is a Bundesliga product, Mustafi got sold to Valencia from Sampdoria lol. I am not saying more spending=more quality, i am saying bang for buck, i'm sure there's a lot of quality players you could've gotten for less, heck Serie A was infested with them, Allan, Zielinski, Jorginho all whom went for under 15m, Napoli has done sharp business. In a way, they are what Arsenal should be, they've had an unreal decade.

Liverpool lost Coutinho, Sterling and SUAREZ and look at where they are now? They have KLOPP not a senile, beaten, old veteran at the end of his career. They've come out arguably stronger than ever. With smart purchases. Unlike Arsenal they seem to have learned from their mistakes and are now reaping the benefits.

Im still appalled that youthink the club is ambitious. The club is content, not ambitious. If they were ambitious, Arsene wouldn't have been offered a 2 year contract. They are eith passing minimum requirements to achieve modicum success. Those Carabao cups, FA trophies and whatnot are fine and dandy. Are you genuinely happy looking back at the past five years? Do you think that has been a great period for the club? Leave Liverpool and Spurs aside.

On spending, you spent a summer with only Cech coming in when you had glaring issues, you could've capitalized on other team's bad year, fast forward and LCFC wins the league. Ozil and Sanchez fine, but the rest are players everyone avoided like the plague except for Arsenal, Xhaka is a Bundesliga product, Mustafi got sold to Valencia from Sampdoria lol. I am not saying more spending=more quality, i am saying bang for buck, i'm sure there's a lot of quality players you could've gotten for less, heck Serie A was infested with them, Allan, Zielinski, Jorginho all whom went for under 15m, Napoli has done sharp business. In a way, they are what Arsenal should be, they've had an unreal decade.

I don't disagree with this at all. I certainly think our business could have been a lot better. But I want to highlight the double standard that goes on here, not from you in particular, but the press and wider fandom.

A decade ago, we used to scour the market for bargains and good young players. People thought we didn't have ambition because we weren't paying out big fees to get established stars.

Nowadays, we spend big fees to get established players. People still think we lack ambition because we aren't winning things.

I just prefer to keep the word "ambition" out of transfers altogether now. For me, it comes down good v bad. Have we signed a good player or not. Doesn't matter where he comes from or how much he cost.

I'm not sitting there mocking fans, i just find it appalling that fans find this as some sort of beacon for change. I dont know who else you hired, but i fail to see how this will change much with Wenger having final say on things. Thats the crux here, there can be no reform under Arsene's iron fist.
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Im still appalled that youthink the club is ambitious. The club is content, not ambitious. If they were ambitious, Arsene wouldn't have been offered a 2 year contract. They are eith passing minimum requirements to achieve modicum success.

I'll address these together because they're related.

I wasn't happy that Wenger got a new contract. However, given what the club has done since then I can see some logic to it.

The problem we had was that there was no structure within the club. Wenger was the structure, essentially. So if you took him out, the whole place would have collapsed and the rebuild job would have taken far longer. Even with a good coach in charge, he'd have had no DoF, no negotiator for transfers or contracts and a under performing scout team for his first summer.

What's happening now is that structure is being put into place. The club's made seven new backroom appointments in the summer which was was unprecedented in Wenger's era, and two of those changes relate directly with the club's recruitment. We just signed a guy from Greece who Wenger admitted wasn't even his signing.

I think - or hope, really - that a lot of the groundwork is being laid this season for a new coach to come in and work in a good environment straight away. I don't believe the club is content with fifth place and stockpiling cash. For one thing, our owner doesn't directly profit from the club, and has clearly said he isn't going to sell, so he's not fattening us up for a big juicy sale, either. And there's been a lot of investment on players and facilities, something a supposedly unambitious club doesn't do

Those Carabao cups, FA trophies and whatnot are fine and dandy. Are you genuinely happy looking back at the past five years? Do you think that has been a great period for the club? Leave Liverpool and Spurs aside.

Yes and no. Am I happy we finish fifth and haven't gotten close to the league? No, of course not. Nor am I happy with the football that's being played. But I am happy to have seen the team win three trophies and make great memories. I have more fond memories of last season, even though we finished fifth, than I do of the 2015/16, when we finished second to bloody Leicester and won nothing.

It's a case of: this could be so much better, but it hasn't been that bad. We're in a dodgy cycle, but I've seen enough football to know that teams enter in and out of cycles all the time, no matter how much ambition they show.