Nothing to do with football, imo. Money for players was always ring-fenced, remember.
I remember your mum was always ring-fenced :-(
Anyway, what about Wenger being a genius and a' that? The best international scouting network, modern training methods and so on. Have you lost a little bit the belief :-( :-(
I've always said it was the bare minimum requirement
and until this season he has achieved it.
Finishing in he top four is essential to the club's progress and to not do so would represent a huge failing that would make his position untenable, if not with the board then with the fans, who are already on a very short fuse with the boke.
Apart from the years we were selling 25m+ of players year on year
OK - well let's just enjoy Him and His ways until such time as He decides to call it a day.
He is paid, along with the board, to worry about His replacement. Let's trust Him in that task and see what He comes up with, as and when it's time.
I didn't make up the term. Are you saying they lied?
Perhaps "selling 25m+ of players year on year" is what ring-fenced means?
It is pretty much what they thought of the players every summer tbf
That's just an article of faith for you though. Everyone would
have gleefully accepted half-a-dozen fifth/sixth place finishes and a European Cup or league title, whichever side of the debate they were on. In fact, that record would've practically ensured that there *was* no such debate.
It would take an astonishing turnaround to win the league this season, and a dramatic slump from the
current leaders, even though they have 'no right' to be top of the league in terms of their resources.
I would dearly love the old man to get another league title before he leaves, but I think that the two criticisms this year are his inability to find players that could strengthen the squad sufficiently to compensate for the inevitable injuries*, but more importantly, the inability to get the best out of a pretty decent group of players when faced with a gaping wide open goal of a league, and we've basically Gervinho'd it since January.
Starting with the feeble and inevitable end to the Liverpool game, and reaching the proverbial nadir with the two awful, awful games against Man Utd and Swansea, it has been a wretched run which leaves the distinct possibility of not only finishing below Spurs and Leicester (with the former quite possibly winning the damned thing), but, on recent form, out of the top four altogether, in a year when Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd have all imploded and given Arsenal their easiest chance for a decade.
Because I always carry a tiny flame of optimism deep within my grumpy, pessimistic, hardened shell, I do hope that the comeback against Spurs sparks the amazing run that we had before when we climbed out of a trough against Spurs. My head laughs at that though.
* I don't necessarily agree with this. Other clubs have spent a king's ransom on players and not benefitted much from it. Leicester's best players have been shrood buys, not big tents.
And, of course, it wasn't us who began banging on about having the money for marquee players.
