Right. But the more money than players problem has only recently become acute; now everybody is desperately hunting about for players to spend 50+million pounds apiece on. When we sold RvP, suitable replacements were readily available to us, hence our consistency over that period.Originally Posted by Burney
But now .. Well, imagine both you and your neighbour, whom you suspect has been eyeing up your missus, winning the pools on the same weekend
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Are you sure? You could argue RVP has never been replaced. Santi replaced Nasri from the previous summer. Ozil then replaced Cesc. You could argue that Sanchez replaced Pires and the brief beauty of JAR on the left we'd been lacking for a decade - with decent attempts such as playing TR7 there and then AA23, and less decent ones like Gervinho and to a lesser extent Poldi.
But since RvP left, AW hasn't had a decent striker for the first time in his career and it's showing.
He was able to bodge defences when players like Kos came up trumps. But if you have a striker who doesn't have the pace to get a 1-on-1 or the skill to finish it, then all the creativity in MF is wasted.
And as you say, there are now so many teams with big money chasing fewer and fewer strikers, esp since the change to 4-3-3 meant that the old days of all teams having 2 up front so 3 good ones on the books has gone.
Given Sanchez and Ozil, don't you think last season would have been fine had we had a Wrighty or Titi or RVP up front?
We came 4th after selling Nasri and Cesc and getting Arteta. Because we had RVP. The next season, Santi, Olly and Poldi shared his goals between them.
But RvP hasn't been replaced and this is what half the problem stems from. The creativity is wasted without a top no.9.
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