Bard
Those who pay attention to posts on here may remember my post about the massive impact the Pogba transfer had on Arsenal’s ambition (or lack of it). The Neymar transfer is another nail in the coffin, it is a catastrophe for the club. It has indirectly blown the club’s long-term strategy to pieces. The whole point of the move to the new stadium and the lean years that followed was that the pain was short term and that once we had got our costs under control we would be in a position to seriously challenge the bigger clubs. You could argue that the Ozil and Sanchez signings were evidence of that increased financial clout.
The Neymar transfer effectively buries the club as a competitive force for the foreseeable future. Arsenal have now been relegated from the second tier of clubs to the third. Make no mistake Arsenal are not the only club to be affected, it will force several other clubs like Chelsea and even Barca to rethink their project. How much more is Abramovich willing to plough into Chelsea to keep them competitive? While Arsenal are able and willing to pay in the region of £50m this is now the going rate for bang average players.
But there is a deeper more profound issue that should concern us as fans. The club make a big deal of its business model despite absurdly not involving one of the richest men in the world. Neymar’s transfer effectively renders this strategy dead in the water. It is obvious that in the current climate the self-sufficient model is now a model for death by a thousand cuts. Year on year, Arsenal will slip further and further behind the top clubs. You can debate the morality of the current situation or the position of the manager but the only way Arsenal can even remotely stay in the contest is for Stan to sell the club to an individual or organisation with deeper pockets. Premier level football is no longer a game for all comers. At the elite level it is only for those with the deepest pockets. Wealthy as Stan Kroenke is he has neither the financial clout nor the ambition to commit to such a project.
If and when Wegner goes it is possible that a new man will be able to get more from the squad in Simeone fashion, but the gap between what Arsenal can pay under the current model is miles away from that required for top players. It can only go one way and that’s down. We are sadly too used to the white flag being raised on the field but where do we go once the board effectively give up?
