When Was The Damage Done?

[vantoure]

When did our decline as a top four began?

I'd say In 2016. That year we shelled out 100m (including add-ons) on three of our worst signings ever (Xhaka, Mustafi and Perez).

Since then we've never recovered.

When Özil was ostracised

 

[Atlas]

Who was their backup? We didn’t suddenly need Mustafi the following summer. If we couldn’t find the top quality Wenger wanted then we should have started looking to the future. Doing nothing was the worst possible option.

You listed all of our midfielders but who was there when Cazorla got injured? Flamini and Coq. Again begs the point, we couldn’t do our WC player business so why didn’t we look at making our squad deeper?

You can never defend the summer of only Cech. The only way to defend that would have been to win the league and we didn’t do it.

For all this talk of top quality Wenger turned down the opportunity to sign Xabi Alonso to rely on rubbish overrated players like a Diaby and Denilson. And he proceeded to buy more rubbish like Xhaka, Laca and Mustafi after 15/16.

Hoarded our cash reserves when players were still affordable and blew them on rubbish when player price inflation had kicked in.

 

[Rimaal]

The day we sold to Kroenke.

 

[Mo Britain]

August 2004.

We could have told Wenger thank you for the Invincibles and the memories, but there's this new hotshot manager at Chelsea

There was this new hotshot owner at Chelsea you mean.

 

[OSBK]

Recruitment wise we’ve been poor since the Nasri window in 2008.

Even though we had limited funds some of the purchases were very suspect. It’s the root of every problem for Wenger, Emery and now Arteta.

We’ve never got our house in order and been consistently good in the window.

100% on this, then the 2012 british core that signed the deals and aside from ramsey flopped massively. We went from the best young talent in europe to jenks.

 

[GoonerJeeves]

100% on this, then the 2012 british core that signed the deals and aside from ramsey flopped massively. We went from the best young talent in europe to jenks.

 

[OSBK]

For all this talk of top quality Wenger turned down the opportunity to sign Xabi Alonso to rely on rubbish overrated players like a Diaby and Denilson. And he proceeded to buy more rubbish like Xhaka, Laca and Mustafi after 15/16.

Hoarded our cash reserves when players were still affordable and blew them on rubbish when player price inflation had kicked in.

I do agree on most but i have doubts xhaka, mustafi, laca and maybe auba were actual wenger signings. Considering how long we were alledgly after laca and then we eventually get him for a big fee. With xhaka and mustafi they do seem like brainfart wenger signings on paper but when we signed xhaka, kante went to chelsea for 30mill.

All very suspect for me

 

[AberGooner]

Not getting klopp during his sabbatical after leaving Dortmund.

To be fair we'd just demolished United the day Rodgers got sacked and where in a good position to mount a challenge so it would never have lined up for us to get Klopp then. No way was Wenger getting sacked with us 2nd in the table.

 

[OSBK]

We paid that guy 40k a week

 

[albakos]

In 2016 when the fan campaign of boycotts, planes, protests and social media rants put intolerable pressure on the team and management causing us to decline. It was no coincidence that Wenger dropped out of the top 4 for the first time in 20 years when all that started.

I cannot stress the importance of this enough. This is so true ..

It is exactly this period when massive pressure campaign affects Wenger, the team and the owners start doubting Wenger.

If you read the book you will realize even from Wenger on hwo much that period unsettled him and the team.

 

[Makingtrax]

You could say about "any club" at "anytime" that they should have signed outfield players when they didn't? What are you on about? How many times can you honestly name in which a club did not sign a single outfield player during the summer transfer window? It's an extremely unique situation.

We signed 7 players the previous year and two players in 2015/16. There are plenty of clubs who do that over a rolling two years. And you saying not a single outfield player, is just trying to make it look bad. A player is a player whether is it's a keeper or a full back. Sp**s in 18/19 didn't even sign a single player of any sort.

It is far from unique, you're just trying to twist it to make Wenger look bad in Trumpesque way, just like the rest of your ridiculous post. But I'm not falling for it, not then when AFTV bleated about it and not now when you're repeating the same pathetic story.

 

[RunTheTrap]

I don't know the exact date but at one point of time we had two billionaires fight for sole ownership of this club and in the mean time we stood still and became complacent. Neither billionaire wanted to inject their own money into the club because they didn't want the other to benefit from it so it basically became a 10 year waiting game between the Kroenkes and Usmanov. In those 10 years, Chelsea and City got rich and both won the leagues, Leicester won the league with clever scouting, Liverpool ended their 30 year pain and we lost Wenger who tried his best to hold it all together. Now we are here. The game changed massively from the way football is played to the way we even watch it. Its far too much for me to write about. Literally we were behind on nearly everything, the one time innovators and now we're back with the dinosaurs.
Remember when we sold Anelka and bought a new training ground? Well now Sp**s have a better training ground.
Remember when we bought the biggest and best talent in France? Well now teams like Leicester have bought better than us in that area.
Remember when we got 30 million pound shirt deals with Puma. Well Chelsea got 60 million with Adidas the year following.
Remember when we bought StatDna and thought we could use statistics to buy better players? Well Liverpool used statistics properly and actually bought well.
We lag behind so many things in so many areas that its harder to write about the things we didn't f@ck up on.

 

[Makingtrax]

Who was their backup? We didn’t suddenly need Mustafi the following summer. If we couldn’t find the top quality Wenger wanted then we should have started looking to the future. Doing nothing was the worst possible option.

You listed all of our midfielders but who was there when Cazorla got injured? Flamini and Coq. Again begs the point, we couldn’t do our WC player business so why didn’t we look at making our squad deeper?

You can never defend the summer of only Cech. The only way to defend that would have been to win the league and we didn’t do it.

Getting an injury can happen anytime to any club. Nobody knew Wenger's best player would get a career ending injury so early. But his back up players were so good he still got 2nd place.

 

[Makingtrax]

I cannot stress the importance of this enough. This is so true ..

It is exactly this period when massive pressure campaign affects Wenger, the team and the owners start doubting Wenger.

If you read the book you will realize even from Wenger on hwo much that period unsettled him and the team.

What irritates me is those constant posts saying he would have declined anyway. Nobody knows that, it's just hot air. Fact: he beat Klopp and Poch in 2015/16 even with the with the worst injuries in the league
Fact : people in the work place struggle when they're being abused, bullied or criticised constantly.

There's no doubt Wenger struggled, but even under all that pressure the decline was a fraction of what we have now.

 

[Iceman10]

The damage was done when we fooled around with the Luis Suarez transfer where we shouldn’t have stopped at 40m+1 but instead went up to 50m. If we had done that we would have won the PL that season, definitely with Özil, borderline without. In other words once the first Adidas deal came online we had a moment of advantage over many clubs with our spending power, and we messed that window of opportunity up.

If I went back further though, would also say the new stadium financing went way too far on the conservative side unnecessarily.

 

[Mo Britain]

We paid that guy 40k a week

Now we pay Willian 220k a week. Bloody inflation.

 

[Sweet'n'Soulful]

We were neglecting areas of the team for years and had some absolute dossers on ridiculous contracts rendering them immovable. We got away with it and were still ‘over performing’ in the blind eyes of some for some time, but it came to a head. Boy, did it come to a head. The damage was extensive.

In truth, although we were getting CL football with a lot of dossers on big contracts, the damage was actually being done then. The culture was being created. What we see now is the fallout.

 

[Lakersgooner24]

Recruitment wise we’ve been poor since the Nasri window in 2008.

Even though we had limited funds some of the purchases were very suspect. It’s the root of every problem for Wenger, Emery and now Arteta.

We’ve never got our house in order and been consistently good in the window.

Pretty much. Our recruitment has been piss poor since our move to the Emirates aside from a few opportunistic buys.

Always feels like our transfer dealings are reactionary, rather than the result of being proactive. We can trace our gradual decline from title challengers to top 4 contenders to Europa League hopefuls to around that time.

Think someone mentioned it already, but iirc, we refused to buy a prime Xabi Alonso for ~18m around that period. Pretty much shows our ambition and approach to the transfer market during that time.

Cesc and Xabi Alonso in mid would have challenged any midfield in the world aside from probably Barca, but we stuck with the likes of Denilson. Talk about a missed opportunity .

We built the Emirates to future-proof and sustain our place among the elite, but seemingly weren't able foresee the exponential increase of money in the game. Now we'd have to shell out several times as much to get a similar quality of player, which we currently need for countless positions.

 

[squallman]

The day everyone's favourite Director, David Dein sold the club down the river to line his own pockets.

Wenger lost a trusted ally and transfer wheeler dealer.

Kroenke became involved with the club.

The rest is history. It can all be traced back to that moment. Wenger having to do everything himself. The appointment of Egghead as CEO. Kroenke's criminal lack of investment.

The most amazing part is that everyone still loves the man, when all of this is literally his fault.

I haven't even touched how his son orchestrated the exit of all of our best players from the club. The same son who would have not had those players as his clients if his dad wasn't David Dein.

 

[squallman]

Yeah, the club missed the boat on incremental improvements like Wijnaldum at Liverpool.

That's because we hardly if ever buy within the league. We pick up players from foreign clubs, some of whom might need a season or two to get acclimatised to English football. Instead of buying a player who has been at a Newcastle or West Ham for a few years and went through that settling period already.

Let's see: Willian, Cedric, Cech, Debuchy, Silvestre, Benayoun, Chambers and I might be forgetting one or two. Holding and Jenkinson came from the Championship I think.

All in all, a few kids and a bunch of over the hill wastes. I'm racking my brain to think of the last time we bought a player within the league who was 23-26, playing for a smaller club and ready to make the next step up.

Ferguson built his United teams off of the back of players who came into to United knowing the league already. Ferdinand, Dwight Yorke, Carrick, Andy Cole, Kanchelskis, Roy Keane, Tevez, Van Der Sar, Ashley Young, Valencia. He even tried to buy Tony Adams back in the day.