to cotinue with the wenger defence

[plastic james]

to people that argue wenger cant produce a world class defence, i disagree but lets say you're right.

does that make him a bad manager?

thats like arguin messi isnt a great header of the ball and therefore useless.

if barcelona removed messi from the striker position because he cant head the ball, despite him scoring so many goals, and signed the best header of the ball around, would he score more than messi? would the total goal production increase?

every manager has a weakness, just like every player has a weakness, you judge them both on their overall impact.

wenger can produce amazing attacking football, he manages his team superbly, there are never crisis at the club, he works with basically no funds, he improves most players and specially youngsters, and his teams are very consistent, always in the top 4.

we sold RVP, song, cesc, nasri, clichy, toure, adebayor, henry, hleb in few years but none of them were world class when he got them, he made them world class.

wenger has so many strengths that focusing on his weakness is like focusing on messis heading ability, ie you're missing the point

and if we got a manager that would produces a strong defence, would he produce a strong attack, would he work with no money, would he produce an attacking football, would he imrpove youngsters and attrack players who wants to work with him, would he be experience enough to deal with the semi criris some fans portay every month when we lose ground to chelsea, city and united.

most importantly wenger has 3 titles and 5 second positions, he got us to 8 finals and won 4 of them. most of it when he was able to keep a team together, now he has to sell every summer as we're economically weak, what other manager with that pedigree, knowdlege, experience and talent would you get for what we're offering, which is basically no transfer funds?

wenger needs money to buy and keep class players not the sack or even questioning.

focusing on wengers weaknesses is like focusing on messis heading ability, you miss the bigger picture and the amazing talent that he is.

[East Upper for Supper]

[Nicosia Gooner]

[Yesterday Once More]

At United, Old Red Nose has been given pretty much free rein to do things his way and without question,but at least he has continued to deliver REAL trophies.

[halfsharkalligatorhalfman]

[Nicosia Gooner]

[East Upper for Supper]

[halfsharkalligatorhalfman]

[East Upper for Supper]

[Nicosia Gooner]

[Red N White Army]

[Luis Anaconda]

if I was two feet shorter and less handsome

[Brentwood]

Name me just one club whose financial and managerial approach you'd like to adopt

[Nicosia Gooner]

I can't argue with the truth I guess http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/hehe.gif

[Yesterday Once More]

Since when have we won trophies by following anybody, right back to the days of the greatest of all managers =- we led, others followed.

[East Upper for Supper]

[Red N White Army]

And enable long term competition (and I'm talking the next 100 years, not just 15-20) isn't leading the way? Pretty much every club bar Utd want to copy our model.

[Red N White Army]

Who would you bring in, and what would the impact be on the club? Not just whether they might be better players, but also the financial impact throughout the squad? Because there always is one.

[Brentwood]

Numerous clubs around us have tried lots of different approaches to get success. Spurs are a good example. They've tried every different approach imaginable.

Overspending, young managers, experienced ones, foreign, english...all failed

It's taken them 16 years to find a solution and they haven't, yet you want us to sack wenger and find a solution immediately

Our blueprint is to be self sufficient and build foundations for a strong future. We have very nearly won the champions league doing so

[Luis Anaconda]

probably why he runs and hides normally rather than actually get involved in a debate

[Nicosia Gooner]

[plastic james]

[East Upper for Supper]

if thats not true could you please provide evidence as to where there are no funds?

[plastic james]

[Red N White Army]

But I am at least aware there may well be reasons for this. Whether that's Wenger thinking a player will come through, players not available at the right price/wages or the impact paying for 2-3 bigger name players would have on a) the wage bill and b) the rest of the team.

[Red N White Army]

And as ever, you're not answering any questions. How would you spend that £75m? And how else would it impact on the club?

[East Upper for Supper]

when we badly needed a goalkeeper for instance.


q-You talk about how ambitious we are. I believe fans and board have different ambitions. Estimates by outside bodies say our uncommitted cash reserves are at £70m. Is this money really available for Wenger to use?

IVAN: We don’t talk publicly about the money we have available despite being transparent. We certainly do make the money we have available for reinvestment into the team. That doesn’t mean that we spend every penny in each transfer window. We have forward commitments, debt and future operating costs. Within constraints, all money we make is available to make a competitive team. The nature of the transfer market is lumpy.

[redgunamo]

Cole is a traitor and Campbell is a traitor too and possibly gay and mad to boot.

[Red N White Army]

Wenger is far from perfect and I think he should have invested in a couple of areas as well, but I am also aware that there may be other reasons why that didn't happen.

[East Upper for Supper]

defunct. No one expects 20-30m £ players. People do expect weaknesses to be addressed and quality bought in instead of spunking wages on medocrity that cant be moved on because of their wage expectations. As well as basic defending, taking a decent corner, motivation and the abilty to game change once in a while which doesn't really come down to ye old lack of funds excuse.

[Yesterday Once More]

[Yesterday Once More]

Happy to find an independent referee to spend a day crawling back over the posts if you are up for it

[Monty91]

last year's appalling start to finish 3rd.

And his ability to change games is surely endorsed by our excellent record of winning games after being behind and scoring late goals?

[East Upper for Supper]

[East Upper for Supper]

Oh and the over reliance of a certain RVP.

[Brentwood]

[Monty91]

[Yesterday Once More]

[East Upper for Supper]

I seem to remember our neighbours often coming back from a goal down last season. Did their manager a lot of good.

[Yesterday Once More]

[Monty91]

[East Upper for Supper]

Different style of play to break teams down. Something we don't often do.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Monty91]

not have achieved such consistently high finishes over so many years, no?

So that's something to be pleased about, no? Could we at least offer Wenger some credit for that, even if he isn't perfect?

[East Upper for Supper]

Shows any clue how to change it. I would have thought any top manager has the old plan b up his sleeve. No?

[Nicosia Gooner]

[Nicosia Gooner]

[Monty91]

the country has their own complaints about their own teams, and all but a few of them are asking themselves how they manage to consistently finish below a team with such an arrogant stubborn manager as Arsene Wenger.

What's your explanation?

[East Upper for Supper]

Over a season having a bigger squad an all. However wengers inability to game change proved ever costly against Birmingham in a one off. That's the obvious example.

[plastic james]

are you insane?

you dont even have to like wenger, but i'm sure you can read. just look at our last 4 financial report.

WE MADE NO MONEY BEFORE PLAYER SALES.

this means wenger has about zero nill zilch pound ahead of every summer to spend, which means we must sell before we can buy.

the star players know this, they have agents and lawyers which is why they see no quality players coming in and thus they them self wan a transfer.

i would understand if you blamed the owner for this economic model but what can a manager do about it?

and dont say gazidis said there are money, if you can read you can see for your self we made no money before we sold our players. so what can wenger do? do you want wenger to barrow money from sheikh mansour ...what can a manager who is an employe of the club do about the lack of money....give me an answer dammit

[Monty91]

Presumably being outspent by Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs over the past decade, and constantly finishing above at least two of them, is a mere anomoly.

[Luis Anaconda]

supremely talented athletes that is deeper than all but two squads in the league http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/rubchin.gif

[Monty91]

but only because we've got more money than those clubs (or because they're ****, like liverpool, spurs and last season chelsea)

Possibly the only person in the world who thinks Wenger has bought our "success" (which he normally describes as failure)

I've literally never seen someone argue something less coherently.

[East Upper for Supper]

Have said a large proportion is available to Wenger. Yes, possibly but as I explain below don't think it does, it includes wages however there is money for quality buys and re enforcements to obvious weak area. As I said the season we sole bayor and toure for 40m we badly needed to kick alumina out. However not one penny of that 40m was reinvested. I think you'll find players sales far outweigh buys. You can also talk wages. However wages are taken out of opex which accounts partly to the reasons as to why income and expenses roughly are equal. Those wages include wengers 7m.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Monty91]

since you talk about our resources being the reason for our consistently high finishes.

Is that fair to say? Just some small tweaks?

[East Upper for Supper]

[East Upper for Supper]

[Monty91]

[East Upper for Supper]

Better than no trophies in 8 years. Is it because Wenger lacks the insight to apply fine tweaks like a decent keeper or apply better defensive tactics or is it just that he can't motivate a squad to achieve anything beyond what he and his fans consider the par.

[plastic james]

the only point you just made is we could have a smaller wage balance.

our wages are 40 million less than the 3 teams above us so you think decreasing that by say few million will make us more competative against teams who have 40 million more in wages and 50 million more in transfer fees?

again i dont want to have a go at you, but you provide no answer, you mention buzz words like healty and reinvestment and quality players....you sound like ivan gazidiz

you fail to explain to us how we can provide money to wenger who at every summer has zero pound to spend before he sells players.

and when we sell players, we're basically trying to replace rather than improve what we got, which means no improvement.

in my world 2+2=4...just tell me how we can compete with the 3 above us who has 40 million more in wages, 50 million more in transfers every year....thats almost 100 million short

[East Upper for Supper]

Accountable for. He's ambition to finish top 4. If that's the clubs ambition then fine. No one expects a league title. Infact even if we had the resources of a city i doubt he would be capable of spending wisely if at all or winning a title.However in 8 years he has failed miserably in other competitions through bad tactics and inability to motivate his team.

[East Upper for Supper]

[redgunamo]

Just like going unbeaten for a season or something like that.

I'm struggling to think of any other club we'd consider our equals that has gone the last eight years without any kind of silverware.

[East Upper for Supper]

To me that's achieving what any Tom dick or Harry manager could achieve with the money Wenger has at his disposal. Difference is Tom or dick or Harry would probably go further in other competitions. Wenger is an under performing myth kept in his job by Blinkered people such as yourself and your friends who stood on the east bank. http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/shrug.gif

[East Upper for Supper]

[redgunamo]

when everyone is so obsessed with finances and money. It always ends up hijacking the conversation, I'm afraid.

[Monty91]

so that leaves the champions league, in which we've reached the knock out stage more often than we haven't, and in the last three years come up against Barcelona twice.

Certainly you would be fair to criticise the Milan away performance, but on balance i don't think you can really say we've under achieved in the CL. Indeed, we very nearly won it one year.

[East Upper for Supper]

[East Upper for Supper]

Your liking. Wenger will never win that competition because of his tactical failings when coming up against managers of a higher calibre than himself. Often he get out thought and its so predictable and boring.

[plastic james]

and buy a goalkeeper and left back here and there during these years. and have abit sharper tactics to maximise our potential.

fair enough, but ask your self is our potential more than 3rd/4rd which we constantly have achieved during these years when we cannot buy the best players out there or even keep those we have developed because they get higher wages and get the chance to play for teams assebmeled for millions?

if we cant demand more in the league can we demand a CL trophy?

the other cups while would have been nice to win do in reality not change much, liverpool won the cup last year and their fans are more misserable than ever, the only player they could attract was borini

wenger is doing as well as anyone in his position can, we have 2 choices, we either accept our position and hope our rivals run out of money, or the club is sold to usmanov who will spend money, wenger cannot do more.

[East Upper for Supper]

[Monty91]

our otherwise 8 trophyless years?

[East Upper for Supper]

[Monty91]

[redgunamo]

It's still only a cup though, I suppose.

[East Upper for Supper]

Wenger the nearly won it once manager.

[redgunamo]

[East Upper for Supper]

[redgunamo]