What is the biggest mistake the club made that has put us in our current situation?

[MD3 Gunner]

Wenger said he couldn't find any players better than the ones he already had.

That's when I lost patience with Arsène tbh, had never doubted him before

 

[MikelHadADream]

It's without a doubt the recruitment from 2014 onwards. From 2014-2018 every window was an absolute disaster. From spending huge amounts on absolute dross like Debuchy/Mustafi/Xhaka/Perez/Lacazette; to going whole summer windows with no outfield players signed...

This, coupled with the boards inability to get decent fees for Alexis/Özil/Rambo/Jack ect has left his with this sh*tshow of a squad we have now.

People moan about the Kroenkes apparent lack of investment, but their real mistake was keeping the Wenger/Gazidis combo around for that long.

 

[squallman]

Wenger said he couldn't find any players better than the ones he already had.

He must have said that to protect his transfer team because they were unable to buy any of the players he identified that were better than what we had.

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

Is this the same Dein whose son got half of our top players out of the club?

Biggest mistake? I hate to say it, but for things directly within our control?

Selling Cashley Cole. That has to be pound for pound the worst transfer ever made. Chelsea were never going to get a better a LB and Gallas was a trojan horse. Imagine Cole instead of Clichy in the 2007-08 team. We also would not have had half a dozen captains in ten years.

Other than that, if we leave out players, hiring Gazidis, that man's awful commercial deals set the club back years.

EDIT:
I want to know what the hell happened in the summer of 2015. If we had just won three league titles or Champions League back to back I could understand not strengthening. If we had finished within 4-5 points of the league winners the last year or the year before? Sure But the team we had? The amount of points we normally finished behind the leaders?

Barcelona and Real Madrid have the best players in the world, win trophies every year or every other year and they constantly bring in mega players. Yet a club that at that point had not won the league in 11 years? What the hell happened.

At least tell me that we tried to bring in players but our negotiating team **** the bed.

What happened is that Gazidis refused to sign players. People keep blaming Wenger for that window but it is obvious by then that Gazidis was in charge over the transfers.

Wenger said he couldn't find any players better than the ones he already had.

Of course, Wenger is gonna say stuff like that. Wenger was all about trying to build the confidence of his players in interviews and while he was probably fuming that Gazidis signed no players for him he holds his head high and tried the best with his squad telling them they were good enough!

 

[Macho]

Of course, Wenger is gonna say stuff like that. Wenger was all about trying to build the confidence of his players in interviews and while he was probably fuming that Gazidis signed no players for him he holds his head high and tried the best with his squad telling them they were good enough!

It insulted your intelligence when he said such things though.
At the time in the entire globe you could not tell me those were the best players Arsenal could muster at the time, it’s simply not true.

There were guys in my council estate who are miles better than some of the guys we’ve fielded over the years.

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

It insulted your intelligence when he said such things though.
At the time in the entire globe you could not tell me those were the best players Arsenal could muster at the time, it’s simply not true.

There were guys in my council estate who are miles better than some of the guys we’ve fielded over the years.

Yeah Wenger should have rather said they were all piece of **** that sucked at football.

 

[kash2]

not selling out to usmanov

 

[Brett]

selling to Kroenke.

 

[Macho]

Yeah Wenger should have rather said they were all piece of **** that sucked at football.

Lol he didn’t have to do that. Wenger is not the only manager to ever have a squad with some bum players.
No better players available in the entire would was b*llocks though.

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

Lol he didn’t have to do that. Wenger is not the only manager to ever have a squad with some bum players.
No better players available in the entire would was b*llocks though.

Its what he did after he was refused of getting new players in. He tried to get the confidence of his players high for next season. The comment wasnt meant for you and me but rather for the players themselves.

 

[MD3 Gunner]

Its what he did after he was refused of getting new players in. He tried to get the confidence of his players high for next season. The comment wasnt meant for you and me but rather for the players themselves.

Clearly backfired didn’t it..

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

Clearly backfired didn’t it..

I doubt Wenger thought we would win the league by saying his players were good enough. He was just trying to do his best in terrible situation because Gazidis refused to sign players.

 

[kash2]

i really wish Wenger had left sooner. We would have had more seasons with Emery.

 

[GoonerJeeves]

Clubwise, I feel the biggest mistake we ever made was to leave Highbury. The Emirates will never be the same. Yes, we probably had no choice, but something has been broken that cannot be mended.

Financially, I guess we have not invested well enough in the playing squad, and we have arguably not spent our money wisely on contracts.

 

[blaze_of_glory]

Should have stuck with 442 imo

 

[Kav]

Yeah Wenger should have rather said they were all piece of **** that sucked at football.

Exactly, Wenger could not go around saying that they were ****.

Also what many are missing from his answer to the question was that he was saying that they couldn't attract better players than the ones they had, because we simply didn't have the money to offer them silly wages. The kind of money that Man city was offering to players when they were just bought out. That is the kind o money that players go, hmmm i can retire off of this, even if i don't win anything. To remind you they got a lot of good players because of this.

We didn't have that kind of money to tempt players to come here. That is the truth. Its either you have the money or you are giving players a chance to win things and we were not in a position to offer either of those to the players we wanted.

Its time that fans accept where we were for a very long time and where we are today is a direct result of that. We have been overachieving ON THE PITCH for years.

 

[Oxeki]

So he's supposed to say that all the players are ****!

You sir would not be very good at management. Managing people is not very easy, you have to get them on board so they can perform. If he said they were all ****, some would try to prove him wrong. Others would down tools and the results would surely go sour.

No one wants to play for a manager that doesn't rate him.

Also what many are missing from his answer to the question was that he was saying that they couldn't attract better players than the ones they had, because we simply didn't have the money to offer them silly wages. The kind of money that Man city was offering to players when they were just bought out. That is the kind o money that players go, hmmm i can retire off of this, even if i don't win anything. To remind you they got a lot of good players because of this.

We didn't have that kind of money to tempt players to come here. That is the truth. Its either you have the money or you are giving players a chance to win things and we were not in a position to offer either of those to the players we wanted.

Its time that fans accept where we were for a very long time and where we are today is a direct result of that. We have been overachieving ON THE PITCH for years.

He was being Sarcastic bro

 

[Kav]

I now see that. *Crawls into a shell*

Apologies to @hydrofluoric acid .

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

So he's supposed to say that all the players are ****!

You sir would not be very good at management. Managing people is not very easy, you have to get them on board so they can perform. If he said they were all ****, some would try to prove him wrong. Others would down tools and the results would surely go sour.

No one wants to play for a manager that doesn't rate him.

Also what many are missing from his answer to the question was that he was saying that they couldn't attract better players than the ones they had, because we simply didn't have the money to offer them silly wages. The kind of money that Man city was offering to players when they were just bought out. That is the kind o money that players go, hmmm i can retire off of this, even if i don't win anything. To remind you they got a lot of good players because of this.

We didn't have that kind of money to tempt players to come here. That is the truth. Its either you have the money or you are giving players a chance to win things and we were not in a position to offer either of those to the players we wanted.

Its time that fans accept where we were for a very long time and where we are today is a direct result of that. We have been overachieving ON THE PITCH for years.

No, my point is that if we really wanted to sign players that summer. Gazidis would have gone out and signed players. No manager in their right state of mind would refuse a player. Let's say if Gazidis went out and brought in striker and midfielder. Wenger wasn't gonna say "yeah but no thanks".

The big point here is that people like to believe Wenger was in control over transfers but my opinion and feeling are that Gazidis had a long time ago take over the transfers and oversaw them. Of course, Wenger had input but it's up to Gazidis to spend the money and make the big calls.

So what does the manager do when he gets no players in the transfer window? He works with that he has. Simple as that. And everybody knows how Wenger works, he talks well about his players. He never throws them under the bus. Vieira said it was Wenger's biggest strength and weakness at the same time trusting and having too much faith in his players. One way to try to install confidence in his players is going and saying publicly that they are the best he has ever worked with. And that is what Wenger did.

But imo he would never have refused to sign players that summer if Gazidis went out and got him some reinforcement.

 

[Riou]

Should have stuck with 442 imo

We always kind of played a 4-2-3-1 under Big Wengz, bar a 3 at the back formation here and there...even back to our glory days we rarely played two forwards who liked to stay up top, the likes of Bergkamp would always drop deep.

Our decline was pretty much due to having lesser players due to less money since the Emirates move really.