Arsene Wenger says he’s still on the lookout for new players, but has called the prices Premier League clubs are paying for players ‘scary’.
Arsenal need a striker, and an experienced defender to replace the injured Per Mertesacker, and it was the forward area that the manager was quizzed about after the 2-1 win over the MLS All-Stars.
Goals from Joel Campbell and Chuba Akpom were enough to seal the victory, but Wenger is aware that he needs more up front as the new season approaches.
“At the moment, I do not have too many attacking options,” he said. “Let’s not forget that there are still a few players at home, and that a few players didn’t play today, like Cazorla.
“Then of course you have Ozil and Ramsey at home, even Giroud is not here. We have options, but we still look outside to find one more.”
Having spent close to £35m on Granit Xhaka, Wenger does seem prepared to pay what it takes in the current market, but he did reference the massive inflation as rivals and other Premier League clubs try and splash all that TV cash.
“when you look at the Premier League, every club is hugely ambitious,” he said. “You look at the cheques that everybody signs and it’s quite scary. That’s what the Premier League is about at the moment.”
If we’re being positive, we’d say that’s tacit acceptance that this is the way it is now, and even if you don’t like it, you have to deal with it.
Let’s see what happens.
I am very confused by both Wenger and Gazidis talking about scary market, inflated prices and the like. This has been going on a for a few years now and its very very annoying. That is the market condition, deal with it. Else hang up your boots for someone else to carry the guilt of having to spend silly sums of money on teenagers. This is a very strange club sometimes. As a fan all you want to see is ambition and recently I have begun to feel Arsenal is more about stagnation.
Prices have been scary for the last five years. However, what Wenger and Gazidis have been predicting is that in the next transfer window, everything will return to “normal”. Arsenal will be able to buy up a bunch of superstars for next to nothing with no competition from other clubs. We should hold back as we can get such great bargains by waiting 6 months.
I know this approach hasn’t worked for the last 5 years, but what’s stopping it working this time?
Alternate view which I haven’t seen around, may be way off here: If we take the Premier League TV money as a bubble which will at some point burst, perhaps spending as sparingly as possible when the market is at an all-time peak is a wise decision in the (possibly very) long term. What will happen to the payout after this unprecedented boom, and what will that mean for clubs depending on that cash cow to pay players’ wages? Perhaps Arsenal would then be perfectly poised with large cash reserves to snap up anyone wished on the cheap. When the… Read more »
You know, we were perfectly poised to take advantage when we built the new stadium, and then petrodollars poured in from Russia and the Middle East, and we were washed away. So I don’t believe in this perfectly poised scenario. We need to strengthen to compete, simple, or get left behind. We can’t and won’t pay Pogba money, but we are going to have to pay over the odds for whoever we get, not just Lacazette because a) The PL has stupid money and b) Everyone knows we need a striker I wish we were like Bayern, paying slightly over… Read more »
“paying slightly over the odds for a player and then signing him early, before bidding wars start and richer clubs swoop in for the players we want. They paid for Sanches, and he had a brilliant Euro”
You could swap the name Xhaka instead of Sanches there.
But in the case of Bayern you could also add Hummels and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg
I thought Hojbjerg had moved to Southampton???
.. what scares me more than the market prices of players is going into another season with a squad that is wildly under prepared and thin in key areas.
Starting to look like another year where another wasted transfer window will cost us a decent crack at a season before a ball has even been kicked.
No, prices haven’t been like this for the last 5 years. This is the first year where it’s gone THIS CRAZY.
The TV money has kicked on very hard.
Andy Carroll 35m was years ago
Try sign Sanchez now for 35 mil, or even Ozil. Lol both 90 mil players! Shame China can’t take theo for 50 mil
Andy Carroll’s transfer fee was benchmarked to Torres’.
The football market has gone mad. Many people outside football are jobless and/or struggling.
The bubble will burst for sure, it’s only a matter of time.
Let’s see where Man Utd finishes this season after spending all the crazy money, will be interesting if it’s outside the Top 4.
And you would probably get 35m for Carroll today, even given his age, injury record and realization that those Newcastle years were exceptions not the rule. The market is stupid.
If you don’t want to spend you have to go all in on the youth. And while Wenger has a good track record of giving youth chances, I don’t know if he’s capable of developing them consistently.
Arsenal are kind of a reflection of Arsene in the sense that we’ve just become so risk-averse. We’d have never been able to afford a peak career Van Persie. Or even a peak Career Adebayor. We’ll watch Leroy Sane and Gabigol and Dembele and the various other expensive wonderkids move to rivals this summer, and covet them in several years time when some of them inevitably pay off. Look at what Dortmund are doing in the market- no way all those will develop, but they’re trying. If we “can’t compete” at the ready-made level, what are we doing you have… Read more »
Is there a realistic chance to get a work permit for Gabigol? I like what little I’ve seen.
I think the rules have changed so that any transfer fee of over £10 million automatically grants the player a work permit.
The reason the market is scary for Wenger is because he doesn’t participate or make the market work for him. How about selling some of our underachievers for scary prices to make you feel more comfortable with it? There are plenty of candidates, Gibbs has got to be worth £15m in the current climate, or Walcott to West Ham for £30m. Personally i’d try and offload Ramsey for £40-45m as i just don’t see where he fits in our team but there are plenty of others to choose from as well. The irony is, this approach was something he used… Read more »
Well Wenger and Gazidis are playing bad cop good cop. Works in the movies. May be in this crazy transfer window might be all we need
Gazidis:
2012: “We will compete with the likes of Bayern in 2 years”
Early 2016: The Rams $1.86billion move to LA gets approved
Summer 2016: “We don’t have enough money to compete”
We are being used to make a shiny new nest for the golden goose in the KSE portfolio… The Rams.
A fish rots from the head down.
Worrying
i think if we sign a forward, midfielder and defender for 30m – 40m apiece we can’t really complain. That should be enough to have a good shot at the title. More would be nice but 100m (plus wages) is a lot of money. We would have a very strong squad then.
A wide forward and a striker would certainly be on my wish list. We will probably be weaker than we would like to be in attack and / or one injury away from a problem until we either do that or until somebody we already have improves.
Does everyone agree that we need at least one striker, one wide forward and one centre back. Thumb up for yes, down for no.
Certainly.
Agree that this is what we need, but unfortunately I think if we get a Striker and CB we will have done well. We need them to be signed ASAP though. These are the two positions we are short of quality ahead of the first couple of games. With regards to the wide forward, Mahrez would be an outstanding signing, but with the Right-wing position stocked with Walcott, Ox, Campbell and even Ramsey and Wilshere (This is how Wenger would see it anyway) I think this is unlikely now.
Except Mahrez is far better than all of them. Campbell’s the only one you mentioned who can compete. Walcott is terrible. Ox has not developed and seems to lack the right mentality to express himself properly at a big club. Ramsey and Wilshere shouldn’t play there unless we hit our annual injury crisis.
Mr. G – I’m not saying I agree with Wenger. I agree with that Mahrez is streets ahead of all of them. If it was up to me, and I had the cash reserves at my disposal which the club has, I would go for Mahrez in a heartbeat. But if you look at our track record of not buying in a position unless we really have to – Mahrez isn’t coming. Again, I agree with you that Wilshere and Ramsey should not be near RW unless we have an injury crisis. But Wenger seems to like playing players out… Read more »
Go buy Mahrez. Go buy Mahrez. Go but Mahrez. At all costs. He is absolute quality.
Does everyone agree that you read what plenty of “news” outlets are linking us with and recycling that, thinking it is your own opinion?
The wide player is more of a want. We have plenty of wide options (Ox, Gnabry, Welbeck, Iwobi, Campbell, Willock, Jeff, Ramsey, Wilshere, Theo, Sanchez, Ozil, Cazorla, etc). What we’d like is a top level player to simply improve our options. Striker is number one priority, CB is less of a concern because we have four options after Mertesacker already.
Fully agree. If we get two out of those three I’ll be pleased. A CB and a wide forward who can more or less operate alongside Giroud or as a CF. Jese, Draxler, Mahrez, Llajic. And I’m not even paid as a scout. Hard to think the Arsenal can’t come up with options. But then again…
Bit worried about the “one more” part. In the context he was talking about attacking players in general, not just strikers. And a winger (like Mahrez) and a striker is more than one. But maybe we shouldn’t read too much into this, Arsene never gives too much away.
Well, if you get in two (say Mahrez and Lukaku or Lacazette or …) you can let another one go (probably Walcott) and you´re there with ´one more´
Absolutely this is what SHOULD HAPPEN, but I fear it is way too optimistic to think it will happen. One more means one more. Walcott stays, either because Wenger can’t find anyone dumb enough to buy him for the price the club would want (personally I’d say if we can get anyone to offer anything north of 15 mill we should bite their hands off) and pay his ridiculous wages, or because Wenger has been deluded enough to believe in Theo for 10 years so is unlikely to change now. Either way, I think we’ll only go for a striker,… Read more »
Arsenal just need to get their DICK out and lay down the LAW
I know a guy…..
I know aswell.. Nastasic would do the job with class.. release clause €9.5m and at 23 getting to his prime time
Let’s rise above it. We want to do things the correct way after all. We can step back, tell them all they are being silly for spending the money they have, and wait until they realise we were right all along. Them we can laugh and how we will laugh
What the hell does “correct way” mean if it translates to “perennial also-rans”? The correct way to play a sport is to win it. Arsenal / Wenger needs to wake up. There are glaring deficiencies in the squad that need to be “corrected,” and the unwillingness to do so is truly baffling.
In it to win it?
This is not the English way. This “winning is everything” thing, and the awful “Second is first loser” are just passing fads brought to our shores by those crazy Americans.
“The play is the thing.” (Yeah, I know, screwing with Shakespeare)
“It’s not whether you win, but how you play the game.”
Cogitate awhile on these thoughts and you will all achieve the happy-go-lucky dream-state where finishing in second is cool (just like getting a Silver medal but without the medal). This is the mentaility of Proper “Happy, but not excessively so” Gooners
What the increasing prices mean is that our cash reserves are losing value. So spend as prices are only going up in the future. Look at what Higuain is worth now and we lost out on him due to Wenger’s fear.
No we bloody well didn’t. Higuain didn’t want to play for Arsenal. End of story.
I’d say he didn’t want to play in the PL. Chelsea and the Manchester clubs would have also been in for him at some point if he were open to it.
Maybe he likes winter break and not having broken legs.
I think Arsene and Ivan are actively trolling now. And I am enjoying it. I can’t be bothered getting my knickers into a twist over what business the club doesn’t do, I have too much other shit to worry about.
Amen. We will buy. It will happen. And it’s all a lottery anyway. The world is going mad. More things in life to get upset about than whether we buy this player or that player.
We will buy. It will happen.
===
That’s what we said last summer when we were desperate for both a DM and striker and Wenger bought precisely neither of those, despite strong links.
So it is very much within the realm of possibility, given this club’s history in the transfer market, that we end the summer with only one first-team signing (a la Cech in 2015).
Those strong links were stories made up by the English Press with the express purpose of fooling you into getting angry with your team. You swallowed it all like a hungry cod. You probably believe Ozil is lazy and bottles it in big matches too, don’t you?. Don’t be a Press Puppet all your life. They wind fans up because it’s easier than actually analysing football games and giving balanced reports on matches, and they make more money from angry desperate click-crazy football fans than they ever will from happy contented ones. It’s a fallacy that you can only win… Read more »
Higuain’s price was ‘scary’ when he was only valued at £32m.
Suarez’s price was ‘scary’ when Rodgers hinted that £55m would be enough to seal a deal.
Arsenal season ticket prices have been ‘scary’ for quite some time. He should match them with transfers.
you my friend are a dud.
if arsenal had bought higuain and/or Suarez, we would never had bough Ozil. How long do you think Suarez would have stayed before moving on. We all know Suarez wanted to move to Barcelona.
Arsenal season tkts are not the most expensive pound for pound, yet again another media shite you vomit out. Anyway, how much do you spend on Arsenal per season.
Support your club instead of spewing out vermin. Thank you
Are you trying to justify the club’s transfer business? Our transfer policy is atrocious to say the least and I don’t know how you can say that we wouldn’t have bought Ozil had we bought Higuain. We bought Chambo for £15 million, Chambers for £21 million, that’s £36 million that have done fuck all for the team so far. Sure, just like any other Arsenal fan I’m hoping that they will come good, but be realistic, we’d be much better off had we had Higuain instead of the two. We have been throwing money away for years (on speculative transfers… Read more »
Jags, your final sentence is poetically ironic. Hilarious.
It’s ok to disagree with someone mate, just don’t let it ruin your day. ?
I love how people are accused of not being an arsenal fan because they have a different opinion!
We all to fall into line good dammit. Jags what’s for dinner?
More than that, I love how people are accused of not being an Arsenal fan when their intention is clearly to see the team improve its squad.
I know! Who would have thought they would want the team to be better. More fool us for thinking we would actually use the resources we have
You’d think a guy with a degree in economics would understand supply, demand and markets enough not to be scared. Look at the bank balance and be brave!
Yes but economics is full of booms and busts, bubbles bursting and bankruptcy. Who will bail us out? We don’t have the FA in our pocket like banks and big businesses have governments in theirs. Of course I want them to spend where and when necessary and now is one of those times, but this is not Football Manager.
To clarify, I respect and understand Wenger’s comments whereas Gazidis can go jump off a cliff – God I detest that weasel!
He is never in the lose when it comes to buying and selling players, but don’t need economic degree to realise that the Pogba auction, and bids for Stone and prices of Higuain defies all the market laws of demand and supply.
And let reiterate this one more time, there’s a big difference between being rich and being filthy rich in the world of football.
The market is scary, yes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use it to our advantage. How about selling a player or two? After two seasons with basically the same squad, we all know who’s irreplaceable and who isn’t. Gazidis and Wenger speak like we don’t have assets of our own that others might want. And Arsene wasn’t complaining when we pocketed Brazilian superstar transfer fees for a competent guys like Alex Song. We had financial obligations back then but we rarely turned cash from transfers into a high-quality purchase. Come on man, we’re not talking about bankrupting the club,… Read more »
A guy with a degree in economics can see that this sort of crazy income-driven-crazy-spending is a precarious balance that is not sustainable. He also understands the principle of diminishing returns. How much better is a 110 million pound player than a 90 million pound player when there is a finite number of players available? There is only ONE Lacazette, ONE Higuain, ONE Messi (and a criminal at that), ONE Suarez (and a bitey racist at that), etc etc., and we are being told we cannot win the PL without a TOP striker. So, how many TOP strikers exist in… Read more »
If Higuain isn’t a top striker, who is?? You?? Or let me guess- Giroud??
Just pay the money for Manolas, Draxler and Lukaku and I’ll stop my bitching until next summer
I doubt that.
Well that spent our 200 million cash reserves.
Now what are you going to pay these superstars with?
Hopefully they’re just trying to play down our willingness to spend money so we can get a deal. But really, their attitudes are ridiculous. If you want the best you have to pay the going rate. How many more seasons are we going to have to miss out because the club refuses to pay the 5, 10, or even 20 million extra that is needed to get the player? Higuain just went for about £75 million. A lot of money but not when you compare to what other players are going for/being valued at. It is unbelievably frustrating to be… Read more »
75 million for a 29 year-old striker is total madness. But it has been funded by Maureen’s insatiable madness in being willing to pay 100 million for Pogba. (All numbers subject to media hyperbole of course.)
Arsenal are trying to run a club on business principles, like Bayern do. Utd, City and Chelsea (and PSG) just pour more money in from dubious sources when they need it. It’s called whitewashing.
United don’t have outside money coming in, in fact their owners have made their financial situation worse not better. Just that they are showing some ambition to get back to the top unlike us. Happy with 4th and a massive bank balance.
We never have a balanced squad, we go from having no central defenders and lots of attackers to only having one centre forward but now we have 5 CBs, 3 RBs and 2 LBs and looking to add another defender.
When someone dislikes this comment, they reject reality.
United are trying to spend at a rate that can’t be sustained. They don’t have the income to keep on doing this, and you KNOW that next summer their fans will demand MORE TOP players, especially if they fail to win the League. Meanwhile their shareholders/owners will wonder what the fuck they spent their 150 million/200 million/300 million on. Whether you spend 100 million or 500 million in this window, only one team can win it. After all the guys who run the top teams saw little old Leicester win it last season with mediocre spending and a good team… Read more »
Can someone remind him that we are not asking him to spend his pocket money or his pension.All we are saying spend the club money that the fans contribute toward,and buy the players that will make the team stronger they money in the bank will not do that and that those not make him a successful manager or Arsenal a successful club.Well we are sick of the same old shit we have options well Wenger let me remind you if you brain is that old you been saying for the twelve years that we have options.Well they are either no… Read more »
About a million pounds per home game, Call it 25 million. About 5 million in shirt sales (hahahaha, like we make that much). That’s 30 million we can spend on top players this summer then.
Transfers and salaries in the Prem are completely nuts and totally disconnected from the real world. I think anyone should be entitled to comment on that fact without being criticised for it, including Arsene. It doesn’t mean he’s not prepared to enter the fray and buy the players he needs…well, hopefully not anyway…
Then he’s a hypocrite as he’s quite happy to take a salary that’s completely unconnected to the real world himself, but the fact is his objection to paying the going rate only goes to make a billionaire even richer, which presumably he has no problem with.
If he was a man of such moral fiber and principal in regards to financial equality he’d quite freely be spending wouldn’t he?
Well said
Totally agree. People are moaning that this summers transfer fees are ‘crazy’. But the problem is, the money in football IS crazy! Players wages are crazy, managers wages are crazy, ticket prices are crazy, the cost of replica kits is crazy. If you don’t agree with it, stop going and stop being a part of it. I came to the conclusion a few years ago that I don’t agree with the salaries footballers were being paid and I therefore gave up my season ticket. Simple. Like others have said, todays market is just a reflection of the game in general… Read more »
But the money in the PL is disproportionately crazy compared to the rest of the footballing world, so all those foreign clubs with a player to sell are going to hold out for the biggest slice of the PL money as they can get. All of them. For any player.
What happens if Pogba goes for 110 million? How much will Lacazette cost after that? 50 million? Hahaha, like f**k.
Every point you make is incorrect.
JC that is
Why is it Wenger is always so much concerned and cautious about spending the money as if it’s straight out of his pocket?It’s not like if we spend a little bit higher than our so called (model way of doing transfers) the club will go bankrupt. We’re the only one whining about inflated transfer fees while others do business. It’s the reality football transfers nowdays, just deal with it Arsene or shut the F*#$ up for God’s Sake.
Rant over!
Exactly! I don’t see other managers complaining.
Klopp just complained about prices recently I believe
Most of them have ‘moaned’ about the prices but they don’t get quite the same media exposure as AW when he says something like this.
Don’t you just love the British gutter press!
The British gutter press love a bunch of angry Gooners. Funnier than baiting United fans, and loses you less customers than baiting Liverpool fans.
Mahrez, Ben Yedder and Mustafi and I will be a happy gooner!
i wouldn’t mind a cheeky bid for James Rodrigueez
Remember clubs like Leeds, coventry city, Chelsea (in the 1980s), Portsmouth, Glasgow Rangers, Parma and many many clubs, even our darling Southampton….
Arsene Wenger is after the long term health of the club.
It took Sir ALex 7 years to win the league and he didnt have to face what Arsene Wenger had to endure.
If only Arsenal fans start acting like real fans, stop their whinging, moaning and support the players.
Where are the fans when the team need them most?, on twitter trolling and moaning as always.
You’re the best jags. No one here is suggesting financial mismanagement. All that is being suggested is utilising the vast resources that we have. What’s so wrong with doing that?
Spend our cash reserves you mean? That is the absolute definition of financial mismanagement.
Season ticket prices and ticket prices generally are scary as well, doesn’t seem to bother the board charging the most expensive prices in the league though.
There are no empty seats. This is actual proof that all 61,000 that have paid for seats are willing to pay the price they paid, because nobody HAS to pay for a seat if they don’t want to. Your argument falls down when confronted by the reality. For all the whingeing over the past 5 years or more the seats have always remained full and paid for. The 61.000 people who pay for the seats are making you look silly. Year after year they prove that your argument is BS. If you bought one or more of this season’s season… Read more »
Plus a waiting list for season tickets!
They are scary transfer prices aren’t they? Just like the scary ticket prices at Arsenal and scary merchandise they sell, and the scary salaries Wenger and Gazidis earn.
Stop it man you’re scaring me
If he finds transfer fees scary, he must shit himself every time he looks at the club’s bank balance
I give up on ppl saying Arsenal season tickets are the most expensive. Dudes and dudettes please do your research…
We’re living in times of total decadence, which is mirrored in the world of football in particular.
There is something fin de siècle about the world at the moment. The few are taking more and more from the many. It’s all going to come crashing down around our ears at some point. Hopefully, I will be out of here by then – I am definitely fin de siècle.
“How do you decide what is the right level of ticket prices? First of all your attendance. I don’t think we are on the same level ground as foreign clubs. For example, Bayern Munich paid one Euro for their ground whereas we paid £128million for our ground. We pay absolutely everything ourselves so we have to generate more revenue. “You want the ticket prices to be as comfortable as possible for our fans. Our cheapest prices are cheaper than anywhere in London. Our most expensive price is a fraction higher than the other clubs in London. Our most common ticket… Read more »
Do you work for the club?
Arsenal’s regular season tickets are by far the most expensive by about 10% and thats without including the 6000 club level seats which range from £2425 to £4800 a season without hospitality so stop speaking bollocks. If you were to add hospitality it can go up to over £10000 a season.
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make but the simple fact is that our total gate receipts are the highest in World football.
You get all your numbers wrong and just spewing out media drivel. Support yourself with facts. Pound for pound Arsenal season tkts and General tkts are not the most expensive. Only 10% of fans are affected by the high price. Yes huge gate receipt, but loans has to be paid. The stadium unfortunately wasn’t free.
No, my numbers come from the official Arsenal literature regarding Club level tickets, here’s the link;
http://www.arsenal.com/assets/_files/documents/apr_14/gun__1396881536_2014-15_Club_Level_Brochure.pdf
Pound for pound Arsenal’s “general admission” season tickets are also the most expensive both at its starting point £1035 and it’s most expensive £2035 with also the highest individual ticket price in the league at £95.50
So stop speaking shit
Haha! You got schooled son!
Hats dipped john
In comparison to who. Come on man give me fact. Since you claim to be knowledgeable
It’s a bullshit argument. All the seats are sold every season. Hence the seats are not too expensive. Some people may find them too expensive, but unless they’re as thick as shit they haven’t actually bought any this season. If they have they only have themselves to blame for being so stupid with their money. The price of the tickets is what the market will bear. The market (which is the fans with bums on seats, or at least with seats paid for, bum or no bum) has always been a sellout since we moved to Ashburton Groove. Hence the… Read more »
I’d happily pay double to watch winning football, and i never said they were too expensive.
I said they were the MOST expensive, which they are.
So before you start trying to tell me how market forces work i suggest you learn to read!
To quote the BBC survey “Arsenal have the most expensive season ticket in the Premier League at £2,013. Their cheapest season ticket remains £1,014, and is still the most costly in the Premier League – £249 more than the next highest. However, both Arsenal season tickets include seven matches in cup competitions which averages notably less per game.”
The longer this debate goes on post-Highbury, the more suspicious Gazidis & Kroenke are revealed to be. Wenger doesn’t own Arsenal. He is paid top dollar to take heat for his players… and his cowardly boardroom. He would beat us all at Football Manager if he lived an average life. He knows exactly why the prices go crazy. I know why the prices are crazy. We all know that the prices will not plummet. Business people know that inflated currency isn’t an excuse not to invest. So what are you waiting for? You might tell your Mum you are scared… Read more »
I know it’s not easy to just go out and buy players. Sometimes they just aren’t for sale but a lot of the players we are “linked with” end up moving anyway. Why can we not go out and buy mustafi, Mahrez, Lacazette?? They makes us serious title challengers. We are always “1 or 2 players” short. Let’s get these players in early then add quality to the squad as and when players are available. If we added the above players then when players in other areas become available we can build and strengthen rather than always playing catch up… Read more »
And at what cost to Chelsea.
Watch him destroy Man Utd. The premier league has moved on and his tactics and antics are all Sussed out.
And our predictability isn’t? In game mgt dreadful, substitutions at the same time every time and never got a big player playing shit
Yeah, the rest of the league sussed as all the way to second place last season. Fucking well done everybody. You really sussed us out last season. When we won our last title (You’ll have heard about that from older fans), we made ALL of our substitutions on 67 minutes. While doing such a ridiculous thing we managed by pure luck, and despite Wenger’s best efforts, to go unbeaten for an entire season and more in the PL. Stupid stupid man doing all of your substitutions at the same time every match. Predictability in substitutions never won anything, you foolish… Read more »
I do not think Wenger has an issue with paying 36 pounds 50 pence above value…
I think the fact that we all take for granted that this is millions of pounds speaks volumes about how things have changed…
Both Wenger and Gazidis (Gazidis especially) need to shut the f*** up and accept that you need to pay 10-15 over market value.
Everyone knows the market is ridiculous but you get on with it.
The fee for Higuain was ridiculous though.
Hopefully Dumb and Dumber learn to keep their mouths shut and only say the relevant things
How much is market value?
Was Higuain’s fee 10-15% over market value?
Stop complaining and pay the price they are asking for.. for once!
We all know the market’s been going crazy for sometime now..
Stop talking for once and do something..
350 million for Lacazette please Arsene.
“OK, Indian Gooner says that’s fine.”
He does have a point. I.d rather have 45M in the bank than lacazette on the bench…and i i.d sooner have a tenner in my pocket than Walcott anywhere near the Club
Why would Lacazette be on the bench?????? Please do not seriously suggest he wouldn’t get in the team ahead of Giroud, because that’s ridiculous. Giroud has his virtues, he’s a good plan B, etc, but he is not a prolific goalscorer, he needs too many chances to score, he’s INCREDIBLY slow, he’s one-footed, he can’t dribble, he can’t pick his head up and pass accurately while moving towards the goal, he’s basically useless for us when we want to counterattack, and at his age he’s only going to get worse not better. Lacazette is basically an improvement in every one… Read more »
Lacazette will be on the bench because there’s no way he can play every minute of 54 games in a typical Arsenal season. He won’t be on the bench all the time, but if he doesn’t get time on the bench he will burn out at least as fast as Giroud does when he is constantly played… and remember that it’s when Giroud has been overplayed that his scoring rate plummets. Lacazette is not going to perform better than Giroud if you treat him the way we treated Giroud last season. I’d bet good money that an English winter schedule… Read more »
It’s scary that it’s not impossible that Xhaka will be our only first team signing this summer.
And what’s wrong with that.
do u think that is enough to compete with our rivals?
No it won’t be. He’ll get at least one more but it probably won’t be a big name player.
Embrace yourselves should We sign Balotelli.
I actually thought about Balotelli, but it’s not clear that Balotelli wants to be a successful footballer. Either he or Newcastle’s Ayoz Perez (preferably Perez) maybe????
either *him* or…
I actually think Wenger is the right man to sort him out. He himself seems trying to get his career back on track. If cost less than 15mil pound, i think it is worth the risk.
I wish I could agree with you but he’s a child in a mans body and although he may have good intentions, he’ll get distracted by some shiny object and it’ll all go to shit again.
One goal in 20 league appearances last season. In Italy. His home country. Where he must feel the most comfortable and relaxed.
Trying to get his career back on track my arse. He’s coasting to retirement.
I embraced myself.
It felt nice.
I would be more than happy if we brought in 6 or 7 well scouted players between 18 and 24 who either had potential or had issues ( temperament, personal life etc) that Arsene worked his magic on if the case is that we are baulking at the prices because at least then we would appear to be doing something and at least trying to move forward. Not all of them come good but we have seen already with many players who cost large amounts who have never really hit the level they should ( Walcott, Ox, Chambers etc) whereas… Read more »
Please stop talking about doing business and just do the business. Whatever anyone from the club says will just get a negative reaction so what’s the use in dampening their relationship with the fans even further.
He’s just answering Journalists questions.
I’m sure he’d prefer never to speak to them but he has to.
That ‘one more’ scares me. I hope he means one more striker, but the fact that he’s referring to Ramsey, Ozil and Cazorla as “forward options” worries me. Does that mean if he signs Mahrez he’ll consider his forward business done? If so, that’s ridiculous, we need both a striker and a wide man.
I was preparing myself for Wenger to announce that we’d start the season with Walcott and Akpom as the striking options up top. But after last night against a pretty shite MLS all-star defense, I cannot believe in my heart of hearts that Wenger thinks Walcott is workable anymore. He has no clue what to do in tight situations, can’t turn with his back to the net, is unable to bully CB’s and trips on the ball when he has space. Willock, The Jeff, Akpom and Iwobi were an entertaining front 4. They pressed and harried defenders, played with directness,… Read more »
“trips on the ball when he has space.” …like Pato, you mean?
As I mentioned. 100m + for Pogba reported. 47m concluded by China for Hulk.75m for Higuain. All corresponding prices for players in between or lesser quality are going to be hiked up correspondingly. We can’t over spend because we need at least 3 players reinforcing CF and cback. We already have the DM added in early which IMO was a coup at 30m bc so many other teams could have and would have spent that amount for one of the most promising young DMs (not an MVilla or Melo or Capoue or Wanyama as championed otherwise by the press) The… Read more »
Doesn’t he realise that every other club has to deal with this market? And that we are globally one of the top 10 clubs in being equipped to deal with it? Also, doesn’t he realise that once you spend a large amount on a player, you gain an asset worth roughly the amount you spent (unless they’re old or disastrous)?
I don’t know whether it’s cowardice, laziness or arrogance. I’m totally envious of clubs that just do what they can do with what they’ve got.
The figure that puts us up the top of the rich list is Club value, I believe. We can’t go selling bits of the Club to finance player acquisitions, and we can’t spend all of our cash reserves buying players as we actually have to pay them wages commensurate with their own self-valuation on top of the money spent to buy them. If you pay big money for a player he will demand big wages. Wages are going to go silly as well. I’d estimate that the total cost (price and wage) of any given PL player will have at… Read more »
Here is a list of the 10 clubs by turnover in 2014/15 (before the new tv deal): http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10137543/real-madrid-top-deloitte-money-league-list-featuring-17-premier-league-clubs-in-top-30 We are seventh (and 3rd in the pl), therefore we can afford, more or less, the equivalent in expenditure. What bits of the club would we have to ‘sell off’? We would just decrease our bank balance a bit. Why does our bank account have to be tens of millions higher than any other club in the world, what good does it do? And I’m not saying we have to spunk £60-£80+m on Higuain, Aubamayeng or Benzema etc. There is always a… Read more »
We didn’t ‘baulk’ at paying a reasonable fee for Suarez. He decided he didn’t want to join us because he wanted his dream move to Spain where his Spanish wife wanted to live. We met the release clause requirement and that’s all anyone needs to do.
It’s not scary. Trench warfare is scary. Great white sharks are scary. This is money we’re talking about. You make a mistake and lose some money nobody dies. Money’s for spending.
the striker option i think now is a fantasy he wont pay the money even tho him and gazidis say they will the market is the market who wants to pay more for a house than they have no one they just wont go with the flow of prices and thats not even for players that City, chelski,man u,Barca or madrid are interested in, BUT as always if we just got mahrez i think we can cope with the squad we have
Mahrez Girioud Sanchez would get us enough goals imo
The scary thing is that even if they mortgaged the universe to bring in Messi, Ronaldo, the Juventus back 5, etc Arsenal would still end up in the scrap for the 2 – 4 spots because Arsene Wenger is either unable or unwilling to effectively coach / manage a winning side in the game as it exists in 2016.
This flawed philosophy of Wenger and Gazidis has prevented us winning a major title for years. If our Club had been sold to Usmanov, we would have won a lot more over the years and been buying some of the best players out there like we used too.
Why does this seem like groundhog day. Fool me once shame on you wenger, fool me twice and three times, Well still shame on you. You can’t boast the highest ticket prices in the epl and cash reserves at an all time high and in the same breathe cry poor us we can’t afford to compete in today’s market. I’m not saying spend 100 mill on a player but we should be able to plug a few glaring deficiency s in the lineup.
If prices are so scary we should sell some of our players (like Walcott) while there is a market for them and make some money that we can then reinvest in other players. That’s what most teams do. We have either been a selling club (those years not far back when we were selling all of our top players) or a club that holds on to players that should be sold with little reinvestment in their replacements.
Arsene …. Its not your fucking money ! you get millions out of the club ! just spend the fucking going rate for players ! .. sell the deadwood ( We all know who they are ) and for once actually try to buy us a prem league title !
And Wenger sees no issues with his own huge salaries