World's End Stella - football talent evaluator extraordinaire - has spotted two Juve

[World's End Stella]

Seriously - stop now. I know even you don't believe that. So you think he would have chosen Leicester above City then as they finished top of the league. The wages thing is a joke - we could "afford" to pay him more, we could have made an unproven 20-year-old our highest paid player if we wanted. It would be a bit retarded though, which I'm sure you realise but will just continue to troll rather than admit

Oh, and according to MEN his initial contract paid him the salary structure destroying sum of 60K a week. That would be 5K a week more than Wenger paid Bendtner for 5 years.

Anything else you want me to shoot down?

[Sir C]

Oh, and according to MEN his initial contract paid him the salary structure destroying sum of 60K a week. That would be 5K a week more than Wenger paid Bendtner for 5 years.

Anything else you want me to shoot down?

It's good that these players negotiate a contract and them immediately telephone the local newspaper to tell them how much they earn. I often think that. Handy, like.

[Luis Anaconda]

Oh, and according to MEN his initial contract paid him the salary structure destroying sum of 60K a week. That would be 5K a week more than Wenger paid Bendtner for 5 years.

Anything else you want me to shoot down?

And signing on fee - other inducements, agent's fee?

[World's End Stella]

And signing on fee - other inducements, agent's fee?

Stop being silly. I made the perfectly valid point that we should have attempted to sign him and as far as I can tell we didn't.

Now, a perfectly valid point would have been 'how do you know we didn't try and came up just short and maybe Guardiola was the difference?'. To which I would have replied, that's a fair point however it is surprising that we were never rumoured to be after him and Wenger had a consistent track record of not spending larger sums on younger players at that time. In fact, I would argue that Wenger was still in 'let's find a bargain' mode in the transfer market and for that reason it seems likely to me that we never attempted.

And that period, when he was still trying to find bargains despite having enough money that he didn't need to, played a significant factor in the struggles we are now experiencing.

[Luis Anaconda]

Stop being silly. I made the perfectly valid point that we should have attempted to sign him and as far as I can tell we didn't.

Now, a perfectly valid point would have been 'how do you know we didn't try and came up just short and maybe Guardiola was the difference?'. To which I would have replied, that's a fair point however it is surprising that we were never rumoured to be after him and Wenger had a consistent track record of not spending larger sums on younger players at that time. In fact, I would argue that Wenger was still in 'let's find a bargain' mode in the transfer market and for that reason it seems likely to me that we never attempted.

And that period, when he was still trying to find bargains despite having enough money that he didn't need to, played a significant factor in the struggles we are now experiencing.

We were constantly linked with him but it was clear for some time that he was heading to City. I don't think a wide player was particularly a priority and lavishing close on 40 million on an unproven youngster would have been seen as a particularly wise move

[Peter]

We were constantly linked with him but it was clear for some time that he was heading to City. I don't think a wide player was particularly a priority and lavishing close on 40 million on an unproven youngster would have been seen as a particularly wise move

That is a key point- what if he wasnt what we needed at the time? He arguably still isn't, great though he may be.

If WES spots a midfielder that runs and tackles like Vieira, passes like Cesc and is both affordable and available I will go and shoot Wenger myself if he doesn't sign him.