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Mikel Arteta: Top Of The Klopps

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
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Well done him for pointing out the "enormous" gap in the quality of our squad compared to Liverpool's. I like the way he praised the players for upping their effort but agree with Souness when he says that's a roundabout way of saying he's getting the max from this group. The ball is firmly at the feet of the board. Arteta knows what he wants but can they deliver? I doubt it.
Top post!
 

bingobob

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Squads take years to build mate. 3 years is only part of the squad. And £200m must be gross spend, even Wolves have spent more than that and the top clubs way more.
again that wasnt the question. the original poster said Emery was not backed. I said he has had 200m worth of players bought in 3 windows. is that or is that not backing the coach?

we have backed our managers/coaches. we can look at the other side and say well theyve spent a bit more. but in those 3 windows we spent more than Liverpool.
 

Hunta

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Not gonna lie those xG numbers are worrying. Every fanbase says that it’s ok and you’ll outrun it but you don’t.

Utd fans before they fell apart post PSG said it was down to De Gea, we looked the other way in that 22 game run and Leicester fans ignored it this year when they were almost title challengers by Christmas.

Eventually it balances itself out. Only silver lining is that we have three, possibly four games left of this season and with new players and a pre-season of Arteta’s methods then it’ll be a clean slate.
4 red cards massively effect those stats.
 

Oxeki

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Don't get me wrong, I am not for a second saying we didn't spend. I am saying which manager has been backed?

It is well known who Emery's targets are (Zaha, Magquire, Partey, Fabinho), how many players has he identified and we actually bought?

https://www.skysports.com/football/...d-to-sign-fabinho-before-he-went-to-liverpool

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/foo...ery-Harry-Maguire-Thomas-Partey-Wilfried-Zaha

Wenger, there are a lot less facts and more rumours but I am pretty sure he wasn't backed. Lets not forget how surprised he was to find out we had signed Welbeck on a permanent transfer. Raises questions about players we had signed and Wenger refused to play (Perez, Park)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/29161630

Does this sound like backing to you?
I am not sure what Arteta expected. I am pretty sure he was brought in to make whatever b*llshit they signed work and speak clearly to the media. He seems to have only realised this recently.

Seriously?

I think you're just coming up with names at this point to justify Emery's failure :lol:
 

GoonerJeeves

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Well done him for pointing out the "enormous" gap in the quality of our squad compared to Liverpool's. I like the way he praised the players for upping their effort but agree with Souness when he says that's a roundabout way of saying he's getting the max from this group. The ball is firmly at the feet of the board. Arteta knows what he wants but can they deliver? I doubt it.

I think this is a fair assessment. He has managed to get the minimum expectations out of the players, proper effort and work ethic.

For some of them, that is all they have to offer, which isn't good enough. We need better recruitment and spending. £72m on Pepe? It isn't fair on the lad, but good God, what were they thinking?!
 

Oxeki

Match Day Thread Merchant
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Anybody that thinks we're in this position because we haven't spent enough is not honest with themselves.

I don't have a problem with Kroenke TBH. FSG haven't invested more in Liverpool than what KSE has done in Arsenal in the past 3 years, but we've absolutely squandered hundreds of millions of pounds on dross.

That's not on the owners. It's on the board/football people at the club. Like I've often said, even if Kroenke threw a couple hundred millions more our way, we'd probably end up going for Willian, Coutinho and other expensive bums.

Wolves are where they are because they've spent well. They haven't spent more than us.

We have one of the highest net spend in the past 5 years in the PL but we're massively underperforming because we spent our money on guys like Xhaka, mustafi, Özil(contract renewal), Mkhi, Sokratis and others.

We need to be very smart. From now on, deals like Tierney, Martinelli, Leno, Saliba are what we should be doing
 

bingobob

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In comparison, and for simplicity like VAR this is to be fair to everyone, let's look at spend and money received for us, Liverpool, City, United and Sp**s. I'm not looking at Chelsea as they had a transfer ban. And to be fair I'm using one source transfr market. Since the start of 18/19 we have the second highest net spend and 3 highest total spend.

The figures
Us. We spent 216m and sold players for a total of 55m giving us a net spend of 161m.

United spent 266m and received 91m in fees giving them a net spend of 175m.

City spent 220m and received 110m giving them a net spend of 110m.

Liverpool spent 172m and received 74m giving a new spend of 98m.

Sp**s spent 133m and recieved 55m giving a net spend of 78m.

Now of course squads are built over time. But weve been building now for a decade. Weve shelled out 100m on centre forwards, weve spent 100m on centre backs and spent more than that again in midfield. the simple question is at what point can we expect a return on that investment? an investment that puts us second top net spenders and 4m in 3rd place of total spend behind financially doped up City?

At what point do we just say we constantly screw up? and there is not one player City or Liverpool or United have signed in the last 5 years that we could not have competed with them for.
 

Rex Stone

Long live the fighters
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4 red cards massively effect those stats.

Not to the extent where an 18 game sample is that distorted though surely?

Fwiw I think it’s largely due to us not having creative players who can unlock the wide players.

If we can get control of the midfield battle then we can start dominating more games and the xG will swing back round.
 

Macho

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Seriously?

I think you're just coming up with names at this point to justify Emery's failure :lol:
Why would I do that? I’m not interested in Emery his targets in hindsight wouldn’t have helped us,

Macquire expensive
Zaha for his numbers expensive
Fabinho been injured

They wouldn’t have helped us anyways and you’ve completely missed my point.

I’m showing that we’ve never signed players requested or wanted by our managers and I’m not sure why Arteta thinks he would be different. This isn’t about Emery failing, I included Wenger too.
 

Jae

Well-Known Member
In comparison, and for simplicity like VAR this is to be fair to everyone, let's look at spend and money received for us, Liverpool, City, United and Sp**s. I'm not looking at Chelsea as they had a transfer ban. And to be fair I'm using one source transfr market. Since the start of 18/19 we have the second highest net spend and 3 highest total spend.

The figures
Us. We spent 216m and sold players for a total of 55m giving us a net spend of 161m.

United spent 266m and received 91m in fees giving them a net spend of 175m.

City spent 220m and received 110m giving them a net spend of 110m.

Liverpool spent 172m and received 74m giving a new spend of 98m.

Sp**s spent 133m and recieved 55m giving a net spend of 78m.

Now of course squads are built over time. But weve been building now for a decade. Weve shelled out 100m on centre forwards, weve spent 100m on centre backs and spent more than that again in midfield. the simple question is at what point can we expect a return on that investment? an investment that puts us second top net spenders and 4m in 3rd place of total spend behind financially doped up City?

At what point do we just say we constantly screw up? and there is not one player City or Liverpool or United have signed in the last 5 years that we could not have competed with them for.

Gazidis.

Nuff said.
 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
That's the thing though. With Wenger there was always hope, no matter how little he had to spend, no matter how **** the players like Squillaci, Silvestre etc. You were pretty sure he'd make top 4 and you just never knew if he'd pull off something else.

And the football was nearly always exciting. Even if he threw everything at the money teams and got a drubbing. No sitting back ****.

That was before TV money meant almost every EPL club regardless of size can have £10-20m players on the bench, and before we turned over £300m of talent for the price of a Mustafi and Mikhi on the dying days of Wenger / Gazidis.
 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
Don't get me wrong, I am not for a second saying we didn't spend. I am saying which manager has been backed?

It is well known who Emery's targets are (Zaha, Magquire, Partey, Fabinho), how many players has he identified and we actually bought?

https://www.skysports.com/football/...d-to-sign-fabinho-before-he-went-to-liverpool

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/foo...ery-Harry-Maguire-Thomas-Partey-Wilfried-Zaha

Wenger, there are a lot less facts and more rumours but I am pretty sure he wasn't backed. Lets not forget how surprised he was to find out we had signed Welbeck on a permanent transfer. Raises questions about players we had signed and Wenger refused to play (Perez, Park)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/29161630

Does this sound like backing to you?
I am not sure what Arteta expected. I am pretty sure he was brought in to make whatever b*llshit they signed work and speak clearly to the media. He seems to have only realised this recently.

Emery's targets simply weren't achievable though. Palace wanted £80m all at once for Zaha. Maguire was already lined up for Utd for a year. Fabinho deal to liverpool was just waiting a rubber stamp by the time Emery joined us. Partey at that time wanted to stay in Madrid.

We can all talk about what players someone wants, but as Wenger found out with Messi, Ronaldo, Zlatan, Pique and many more, sometimes you can find amazing players and try to sign them, but it just isn't possible
 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Pepe was a poor signing at £72m, and he will never make it at The Arsenal.
When he's in the PL team of the season I'll eat my words.
I can't remember anyone being happy we'd bought Luiz, the ****ing chav ****!

Luiz was determined by an urgent need for an experienced centre back after Lolo decided he didn;t want to play for Emery ever again. Not a great signing, not an awful one. Pretty much as expected. Not as good as the man he replaced was, but better than some of our other options...
 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
I still don't know what Arteta's ideas are, but I don't think he's a disciple of Pep.
For a start he wasn't that kind of player, and there seems to be no signs that he wants that out of our squad ( and if he does then he needs his head examined, for the reasons you so eloquently made ).
Next couple of seasons will show what Arteta's style will be. Fingers crossed it will be his own unique way, and it will knock all our collective socks off!

He's definitely got diverse influences. Van Gaal, Luis Fernandez, Walter Smith, David Moyes, Wenger & Pep, as well as no doubt all kinds of others he has attempted to learn about.
Some pro youth, some v defensive, some v attacking, some v structured, some v freeform.

All we can conclude about what wants to achieve with his teams is on the more character and approach side of things, bar pressing from the front.
 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
Stats are ruining football in a way, people seem to just form opinions based on them alone...stats should only be used to back up what you see on the pitch.

"Why is Henry the best? (2004 version)" ... "His combination of skill and speed, just takes my breath away...and his style he plays with, he is just the coolest player on the planet"

"Why is Henry the best? (2020 version)" ..."Don't know actually, his expected goals say he should have 40 goals instead of just 30, maybe he isn't that great afterall..."

We have looked better in the 6 months or so under Arteta, than the previous 18 months under Emery...our current team will always have it's issues, that's what having so many average players will do...but the little thing we do are better now, obviously Arteta can still improve, but something is definitely there...Christ, Palace and Southampton were having 20+ against us AT HOME ffs, of course we have improved since the first half of the season :lol:

Yeah. Emery's football became terrifying and incomprehensible. It ended up being pure reliance on talent and trying very hard.
 

lomekian

Essays are my thing
In comparison, and for simplicity like VAR this is to be fair to everyone, let's look at spend and money received for us, Liverpool, City, United and Sp**s. I'm not looking at Chelsea as they had a transfer ban. And to be fair I'm using one source transfr market. Since the start of 18/19 we have the second highest net spend and 3 highest total spend.

The figures
Us. We spent 216m and sold players for a total of 55m giving us a net spend of 161m.

United spent 266m and received 91m in fees giving them a net spend of 175m.

City spent 220m and received 110m giving them a net spend of 110m.

Liverpool spent 172m and received 74m giving a new spend of 98m.

Sp**s spent 133m and recieved 55m giving a net spend of 78m.

Now of course squads are built over time. But weve been building now for a decade. Weve shelled out 100m on centre forwards, weve spent 100m on centre backs and spent more than that again in midfield. the simple question is at what point can we expect a return on that investment? an investment that puts us second top net spenders and 4m in 3rd place of total spend behind financially doped up City?

At what point do we just say we constantly screw up? and there is not one player City or Liverpool or United have signed in the last 5 years that we could not have competed with them for.

Firstly there's no point cherry picking the last 3 transfer windows vs teams who were better than us prior to those transfer windows, all except one of whom had MASSIVELY outspent us in the building of their squads at the start of that period. City had spent almost a billion poounds more than us on transfers prior to that point to build their squad. United about 6-700m more than us. Even Liverpool almost 200m more than us.

Your argument is without context and like economic theory only works 'all other things being equal', and for the same reasons as prevailing economic theory doesn't mean all that much, because other things are far from equal.

Also your final suggestion that "there is not one player City or Liverpool or United have signed in the last 5 years that we could not have competed with them for" is utterly laughable, unless you again remove it from the context of the actual real life situation. Wage levels alone dictate that, let alone fees.

And the point is it isn't any ONE player - it requires multiple to make a team. Which is why Mustafi has a world cup winners medal and Messi and Ronaldo don't.
 

bingobob

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Firstly there's no point cherry picking the last 3 transfer windows vs teams who were better than us prior to those transfer windows, all except one of whom had MASSIVELY outspent us in the building of their squads at the start of that period. City had spent almost a billion poounds more than us on transfers prior to that point to build their squad. United about 6-700m more than us. Even Liverpool almost 200m more than us.

Your argument is without context and like economic theory only works 'all other things being equal', and for the same reasons as prevailing economic theory doesn't mean all that much, because other things are far from equal.

Also your final suggestion that "there is not one player City or Liverpool or United have signed in the last 5 years that we could not have competed with them for" is utterly laughable, unless you again remove it from the context of the actual real life situation. Wage levels alone dictate that, let alone fees.

And the point is it isn't any ONE player - it requires multiple to make a team. Which is why Mustafi has a world cup winners medal and Messi and Ronaldo don't.
Firstly there's no point cherry picking the last 3 transfer windows vs teams who were better than us prior to those transfer windows, all except one of whom had MASSIVELY outspent us in the building of their squads at the start of that period. City had spent almost a billion poounds more than us on transfers prior to that point to build their squad. United about 6-700m more than us. Even Liverpool almost 200m more than us.

Your argument is without context and like economic theory only works 'all other things being equal', and for the same reasons as prevailing economic theory doesn't mean all that much, because other things are far from equal.

Also your final suggestion that "there is not one player City or Liverpool or United have signed in the last 5 years that we could not have competed with them for" is utterly laughable, unless you again remove it from the context of the actual real life situation. Wage levels alone dictate that, let alone fees.

And the point is it isn't any ONE player - it requires multiple to make a team. Which is why Mustafi has a world cup winners medal and Messi and Ronaldo don't.
I didnt cherry pick them. I picked them on the basis @Macho said we never backed Emery. for convenience I looked at seasons in which Emery was in charge rather than taking out the January 2020 window. I imagine if I done that there would be a drastic shift as thats when United signed Fernandes. Take that out it moves us up further.

As for the wages argument, please. Context. I assumed people knew of our situation. Naive of me. We have the 5th highest wage bill in the league 40m below Liverpool in second place, sandwiched between us are Chelsea and City. Those clubs have also paid out CL bonuses. So yes I stand over that statement we could compete with any club over an individual signing. We pay 350 per week to Özil for nothing, paid Mkhitaryan 250k pw and pay Aubameyang and Lacazette 200k pw. If we wanted them we can afford to pay the going rate. The fact that we are now dealing with agents and paying agents more than we done in the past is another indicator we can do the business if we want.

I'll go back and address some of your points later. But your context argument about other clubs buying more is amiss. Simple points. We went another way of developing rather than buying. And we developed players worth the 50m other clubs were spending on players. We then failed to sell players to give us more to buy (a simple look at the figures I provided shows we were joint bottom for selling) and even then we still spent hundreds of millions.

I'll look at the figures to see if what I'm saying is correct. I believe it is just by general knowledge of the situation but of course the figures will provide the answer.
 

EinmalImmerEwig

Bent on his knees by asking to get banned !
Luiz was determined by an urgent need for an experienced centre back after Lolo decided he didn;t want to play for Emery ever again. Not a great signing, not an awful one. Pretty much as expected. Not as good as the man he replaced was, but better than some of our other options...
Morning Lom,
Hope all's well with you and yours.
Major reason why I signed up here, a joy to read your posts.

Luiz is a decent footballer, I was just replying to HairSprayGooners claim that "at the time the majority of people were very happy with our business"
No-one ( in their right mind ) was happy that we signed that chav **** at the time, and the bile does rise every time I see that turd in an Arsenal shirt.
Prove me wrong and get the winner today* and I'll get Luiz on my next shirt.
Lots of love
Babu


*and in the Final, I don't want to make it too easy for him
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
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That was before TV money meant almost every EPL club regardless of size can have £10-20m players on the bench, and before we turned over £300m of talent for the price of a Mustafi and Mikhi on the dying days of Wenger / Gazidis.
TV money has been going since 1992 and whilst it has increased in leaps and bounds, so has the price of players. In the last decade the average cost of EPL transfers have risen from £3.7m to £14m, increasing nearly x4. TV money has increased from £1.7bn to £5.1bn, about x3.

By far the biggest change has been the unstoppable rise of billionaire foreign owners sinking their own money into clubs through loans and share deals. Not just Chelsea and City but teams like Wolves, Everton, Leicester etc. Even the Brighton owner has sunk £200m of his own money into the club. To my knowledge Kroenke hasn't invested 1 cent of his own personal money into the club since he becaming the major shareholder.

The usual net/gross spend quotes on here, don't interest me. A squad takes years to build. And there is only one figure which tells you the true investment in the team and that's the cost of the 25 man squad, published by CIES every year. Currently we are 5th in the league behind City, United, Liverpool, Chelsea. Slightly above Everton and Sp**s. To get into the top 4 we will have to out perform our squad investment as Wenger did for years.

And as for the dying days of Wenger, from 2015/16 to the day he left, the club was under enormous pressure from the fans. Boycotts, protests, social media rants, planes overhead etc and basically it became alarmed and over reacted with panic buys, and Wenger even trying crazy defensive tactics, which were a joke for him. The whole club was paralysed and dropped like a stone. Wholesale personnel changes since, ridiculous transfer windows . . . it's still in freefall.
 

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