Arjan de Jong
I had to write in response to what I view as the consistent misrepresentation of the club by many who blog and comment on this site when they scream that they ‘want their club back’ and how Arsenal ‘has become’ a selling club.
Arsenal has not recently become a selling club it always has been. Frank Stapleton & Viv Anderson both went to Manure during the 80s and some may even remember a chap called Liam Brady who left for Juve! In fact there are only two non selling clubs in world football – Real Madrid and Barcelona and even Barca lost Figo to Real Madrid. Arsenal never has been and never will be the biggest club in the world which means that there will always be teams willing to pay bigger fees & salaries for players – why do people find this concept so hard to understand!?
Moving onto the ‘I want my club back’ brigade. Season after season the final standings reflect the cost in wages and salaries afforded by the clubs with the odd overachiever; the Spuds a few years back, the Geordies last season, Everton year after year and yes Arsenal 2002 & 2004! The clubs that overreach Leeds, Pompey, Rangers et al should need no further explanation. Arsenal has decided not to indebt the club (other than the stadium) with the tainted bi$$ions of Usmanov and has instead decided to go down the path of self sustainability and I am pleased that they have made this decision.
There is enormous criticism that many of the directors have made themselves rich from selling shares etc which is due to a number of factors; football’s meteoric financial rise, a brand new stadium in an expensive part of town (which took an enormous amount of expertise and financial savvy) and Wenger’s ability to get the team qualifying for the Champions League year after year. I can’t begrudge the directors their fortune, nor can I demand that they spend it (speculate) on buying players and I can only imagine that the majority of those who feel that they should would quite happily keep hold of the money for themselves were they in the same position. Arsenal is a very well run business which makes money year after year so if you were a director why would you jeopardise that in an effort to reach the ‘holy grail’? Especially when you see how fine the margins are as Man City demonstrated last season in only winning the title with the last kick despite spending zillions. In this respect I agree with the editor’s assessment (which is rare) that the club’s hierarchy is content with Champions League qualification and will not overstretch for more.
Whilst I can understand this stance and I can understand them not ploughing their personal profits into the club, after all even £100million will only buy you one Sergio Aguero on a 5 year contract, I do think that they have made a huge blunder in consistently raising prices, and especially that of the red and silver membership, as it comes across as pure greed and taking the hard core fans for granted. On this issue the board deserves maximum criticism.
Which brings me to the team. We do not have unlimited funds but we do have more money than we spend which is not due to the board but the manager. ‘Project youth’ was born of necessity but has been kept alive through obstinacy. Given the power of players, even young players (Daniel Sturridge is a good example), it is understandable that they are put on decent contracts (another criticism of Wenger) and we have to accept that it will not always work out. Unfortunately, we currently have a clutch of players whose wages far outstrip their talent which has given the ‘Wenger out’ posse plenty of ammunition - Bendtner, Denilson, Diaby (it makes you weep just listing them) - but there has also been Fabregas, Clichy, Kolo all on long contracts which benefitted the club as we received substantial transfer fees. However, frustratingly over each of the past 4 seasons it has been clear that had we bought just a maximum of three established players we could easily have won something and maybe even the title as the league winners in 2009, 2010 and 2011 were not of a particularly high standard.
As for this season I veer towards the pessimistic as yes we’ll have a good chance of finishing in the top four and yes we’ll probably qualify for the Champions League knock out stages but with just a few well placed additions we could actually achieve a trophy. Due to good management we have got this far but without breaking the bank we could hit the jackpot. With Song we’ll finish top 6 but with a player like M’vila maybe champions, Santos/Gibbs are top 6 players Baines is top 2. More crucially, and this is the main drawback of the project, you cannot keep hold of the class players you already have forever as they will lose patience and want to move on if you do not invest in some proven players as has happened with Percy & Nasri (and Jack?) which means you are forever rebuilding the foundations.
Cazorla would be a great signing, and would mean that we’ve replaced RvP, Park and Shakatak for Giroud, Cazorla and Poldi which when settled is a clear improvement but for me to really believe we need M’vila, a decent left back and a back up keeper. So close yet so far.
