Arsene Wenger has defended Ivan Gazidis after the CEO’s ambition in the transfer market was questioned by supporters following his claim that Arsenal would struggle to outmuscle their rivals if drawn into bidding wars for new players.
While confirming earlier this week that the Gunners still have business to do, Gazidis preached financial parsimony and smart-thinking despite the big-money spending of the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea.
“I work every day with Ivan, believe me he is highly motivated to bring players in,” said Wenger ahead of tonight’s friendly with Chivas de Guadalajara.
“Sometimes I have to calm him down. I believe as well this is a period where everybody wants to dream, and transfers bring dreams.
“But we live in a realistic world and part of our job is as well to rate the players we have inside the club. One of the values of our club is to give chances to players who deserve it.”
Arsenal have signed Granit Xhaka, Takuma Asano and Rob Holding so far this summer but are still actively looking for new recruits both in attack in defence.
Last night the Gunners were linked with West Brom’s Jonny Evans…now, if this is the kind of zany, wacky, crazy stuff Gazidis is waving in the boss’ face than we’re more than happy for Arsene to calm him down.* Possibly with a baseball bat.
_
*We don’t for one moment believe Gazidis thinks signing a dud ex-Manchester United player is a good idea.
I remember how excited I got when arseblognews did that piece on Koulibaly and now I’m as wasted as Silvestre after a long night at the discotheque.
“But we live in a realistic world and part of our job is as well to rate the players we have inside the club. One of the values of our club is to give chances to players who deserve it.” Whilst I’m all for giving youngsters a chance and seeing Bellerin and Iwobi break into the team has been fantastic, what will ultimately happen is we’ll play Walcott or Sanogo because we are short on players. I know it’s a dream to be in for the Higuain’s of this world but if we signed three players who were better than… Read more »
Agree 100%, although I’m not sure it should be a “dream to be in for the Higuain’s”. I think that is just years and years of financial conservatism rubbing off on the fans.
At the end of the day we have €100m more in revenue than Juve every year, so even though they’re selling Pogba we still have a lot more cash than they do. The reason they got him, not us, was willingness, not affordability.
Higuain was not a dream. We could have had him 2 or 3 years ago, but Wenger changed targets to Suarez suddenly and bid for him 40mill + 1. During that time Napoli swooped in and got Suarez.
Had we got either Higuain or Suarez, we would not have bought Ozil. I can say that with practically 100% certainty. Would we then have bought Sanchez the year after?
This is wrong. You need to get the timeline correct. Google it.
I can guarantee you that the reason we won’t go for Mahrez is because Wenger rates Ox and/or Walcott better than the Algerian. This is the bizarre universe they live in.
Or maybe he’s more interested in a CF and a CB which is where we need reinforcing most of all.
As if that doesn’t mean we need strengthening in a third area. All three areas need to be addressed. The Ox and especially Walcott have proven they are not effective out wide for us. Will they be upgraded or replaced? Never.
As I said, maybe he’s prioritising.
Prioritizing is when two tasks are serial. Not parallel.
Do enlighten me how signing a wide player a defender and a striker are inter-dependent?
I can answer that for you. Delusion.
We’re living in denial of a changing market place. There is nothing absurd about the transfer market, its just market forces we failed to predict accurately. Unless we accept this new reality and react accordingly, we won’t sign. Our delusion would we be our downfall.
Delusion ; the favourite word of a cult!
Count me out of any dreams that entail signing $ 100 million 29-year-olds with a history of choking on the big stage.
If you were talking mahrez or jese or bellrabi or volland or draxler or plenty of others, fine. let’s not allow our eagerness to countenance foolishness.
Transfer dreams at Arsenal? Yup sure.
Please please please just stop talking. I can’t take anymore.
I don’t understand the stop talking comments. What’s the guy supposed to do? Cancel all his required interviews and press conferences? I want to see action, as much as anyone, but I think your frustration is a bit misdirected. Then again, it’s a comment board, and I guess that’s what it’s for.
Don’t read it. Problem solved.
Should the manager (of any football club) really have to calm down the CEO? I like Ivan, generally his public speaking comes across well and to give him his due, he is open to at least listening to the harder, more specific questions. But recently he’s come out with some statements that are only going to send the fans into a frenzy and given the volatility experienced on the pitch, in the stands and on social media throughout last season he’s making them at the worst possible time. I just hope that we have something to show for it come… Read more »
Unfortunately the transfer market is getting really stupid – Stones for 54m really!?!?
But that is the sad reality atm – other clubs know that Premier League clubs are flush with TV cash.
So either pay stupid money or get left behind…
Still looking at what Leicester did still shows that there are hidden gems if you look hard enough/get lucky.
Here’s to hoping that our kids all do a Bellerin.
Yeah, our lads must do a “Bellerin”, bringing in new face isn’t always a solution, good inking dude.
I’m sorry, but this is nonsense.
Who the hell looks at Leicster and thinks to himself – ‘This is the model we need to follow’? Look at Man United\City and Chelsea – They shared 11 out of the last 12 championships (since we last won the EPL) .
Not sure why the blog is blaming Gazidis for the signing or Silvestre, isn’t it well known that Wenger handles all aspects of football and also players coming in and out? It’s well known that Wenger chose Silvestre, for whatever reason. There does sometimes feel that there is a quickness to want to blame Gazidis as it means not blaming Wenger and also it means by blaming Gazidis we’re blaming Stan. There was even a conspiracy theory that Gazidis, being Stan’s man, that his recent PR blunders are messages from the top and is in contradiction with Wenger (even though… Read more »
I agree. That interview with aw has already been sliced into 2 here, a third later where he references crazy prices but they aren’t crazy prices if you can afford it! We can afford it
People reacting to the news of Evans coming: Remember that we still have Koscielny and Gabriel as the first choice pairing with Chambers and Holding as prospects. Evans could slot in as an experienced 3rd choice. He also has experience from a bgi club and biggames and has been stellar for the last year. Hardly the worst alternative and could do a job in the first games of the season as he knows the PL and would probably be okay with a squad player role. Mustafi seems to be the first choice but he wouldn’t be a guaranteed starter (rate… Read more »
Seriously I would rather us sign no-one than sign Evans. Is he better than Holding and Chambers (maybe even Beilik)? I don’t think so and if he is it is only because those guys need some experience. I would much rather us play Gabriel and Kozzer with Holding and Chambers as backups than bring in a rank average player that doesn’t improve the squad at all and blocks the development of the these quality young guys. Like Gazidis and Wenger have said we need players of “real” quality…Johnny Evans is not that. I give this 10poops and if it happens… Read more »
One injury and we are starting Holding or Chambers. They are good prospects but wouldn’t put my money on us winning the title with such unexperienced centre backs starting on a regular basis. Small mistakes can be costly as they will probably be even more this year as the league will be so even. Not to speak of going deep in the CL. Hope the club finds a better alternative than Evans but he would be better than nothing for sure.
I wouldn’t put money on us winning the title with Johnny Evans. Therefore I’d rather just give the young guys a chance if we aren’t signing an alternative
-there is no logic in the point of view that someone not good enough for Man U is good enough for Arsenal…..(Silvestre…)
Welbeck
To be fair it was stupid of United to sell Jonny Evans, much as it was stupid to sell Welbeck. They thought they weren’t good enough and ended up short. I remember Van Gaal saying that Falcao only needed one chance to score and then he turned out to be completely useless …
Not saying we would want Evans as a first choice but think he’d be a decent squad player.
“Sometimes I have to calm him down.” = Polite way of saying “Ffs Ivan, please just stfu.”
“One of the values of our club is to give chances to players who deserve it.” Like Walcott.
Or I’m too weak and hate confrontation so won’t tell players it’s time to go and that they have had enough chances
Ask Podolski, André Santos, Chamack etc… ?
Alumnia, denilson, bendtner?
Which brings us back to wenger’s favouritism notion. Aside poldi’s questionable work rate (which I don’t think Walcott is any better), what else was his shortfalls that warrants him to go and Theo gets to stay?
Potential. At that point in time, Walcott was still youngish, and about to enter his prime. He had shown moments of what he could be, and Wenger thought it was wiser to keep around a player that might become better than a player who was only gonna get worse. He was also a homegrown player, which was a plus. Even in hindsight, that was a good decision.
A decade with Theo. Bizarre. At what other club would this be acceptable?
if what you’re saying is true Explain to me why Campbel works his socks off for the team, younger than Theo, knows how to dribble, knows how to pick a pass, can finish better, yet finds himself on the bench? It’s like the required standard works on some and does the opposite on others. Or perhaps Campbell is not a Home grown?
Arsenal playing with fire. This could really be the season Wengers thriftiness catches up with him. The league has changed the competition is mounting, the club is is not matching its bold talk of two years ago and backing up its reason for moving to the Emirates. If the players required do not arrive then there will be a fan backlash if the results are poor. Remember, last season our home performances were mainly sub standard.
The Chuckle Brothers need to sort their act out, their conflicting statements give the club an even greater comedic image it already has.
I get Gazidis points about careful spending (i.e. not splashing out on a Mangala disaster), but all the fans want is us to splash the cash for a proven signing who can bring quality to the team.
Also maybe Tony Adams can persuade his new club to buy Walcott?
What I don’t understand, is that whilst the prices may be crazy, that also applies to our own assets. Walcott could probably be shipped out for 20 million, Ox for a bit more, but we’re seemingly not even considering it.
And ozil and sanchez are probably in the 45-65 million price bracket, but won’t sign a new contract if we don’t show ambition this summer, meaning they could leave next year for around 15 million.
Still a few weeks left, so I will reserve judgment, but our strategy seems poor.
Where our strategy is poor is if we are 8 points behind three top teams before we bring in a striker on August 31, we will be practically out of the title race. Wenger saying we still have 35 games to go won’t change anything.
Ox shouldn’t be sold, I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that or not.
Combined with Walcott’ wages/injury record, £15-20 mil seems fair.
If his wages were lower then a higher price would be demanded for his sale.
How did you get to a 20million value for Theo?
He’s shit
A shit player in this market goes for 20mil 🙂
And I think he would do very well for a counter-attacking team that isn’t as reliant on tactical nous and technical ability
Nope just Wenger making you believe that average players are now worth 20million.
Gundogan was around 20million, so was gotze.
There’s always the odd anomaly in the the window such as Higuain in this one, Bale etc. But Higuain is expensive because there is a lack of world class strikers out there.
I laughed out loud at the picture my train seatmates didnt like it.
Spending some more money on a really good CB like Mustafi would be much more in line with a club of Arsenal’s ambition. He’s their captain, has been playing well and plays for Germany, who don’t play nobodies at their national team. and 25m would not be crazy.
Accepting to spend 15m for a west brom, ex man U reject would be accepting mediocrity again.
Don’t think he is any better than Koscielny or Gabriel. If he is that good why hasn’t any other top team gotten him already? Dortmund for example would have needed a quality CB. Gabriel was impressive too in la liga..
Oh how i wish they would all just shut up.
Being from Northern Ireland – I’d be fine with buying Johnny Evans – who was one of the best defenders at the Euros and he wasn’t even playing in his normal position. We can get a bit sniffy about these things. Is Mustrafi really better? Who is more likely to settle into the PL? Just sayin – we can end up being like magpies in the transfer window. A new player is always more interesting than what we have and and foreign player from a foreign league is always more interesting than one we already know from the PL. But… Read more »
Being from Northern Ireland i say you might be biased
A German international, captain at Valencia would be a MAJOR signing for our CB positions.
Our main competition to sign Evans is Bournemouth; with all respect, he didn’t make it at United for a reason. Arsenal deserve higher quality than him, probably a decent player, but not a top one like Mustafi.
Mustafi didn’t really impress at Everton did he? Evans didn’t impress at United but had some injury problems too and their management post SAF hasn’t gotten anything out of their players tbf
Everton had a sorry manager like Martinez; no wonder good players didn’t do that well under him.
Mustiafi IS a German international though, and you can’t be weak and play for them.
Let’s go for the better player for once and not save money and go for the Chamakhs of this world
So were Mertesacker and Podolski too. He could be good but not a guaranteed upgrade on Gabriel imho. Also Gabriel now has 1,5 seasons experience from PL
Mustafi is the captain at Valencia, he’s got more experience than Gabriel although not in the PL. To be honest, a German international who at 24 is the captain at his club gives me much more guarantee than Evans
Mustafi was only a youngster when he left Everton.
We may not know how good Mustafi might be, but we do know for certain Evans is shit.
I’d rather go for the uncertainty of potential succes, then the certainty of abject failure, thank you very much.
Ah the wonderful analysis that a player is “shit”. I take it that means he isn’t absolutely top class. Because we know there are only two adjectives to describe a player don’t we? Evans isn’t shit. Evans would have more value to our team than BFG. He’s got more pace and can read the game well. He also can play left back. He’s experienced. Not saying Mutafi isn’t a good player. He’s obviously a good player to he picked for his national side. He’s obviously also young and has his best years ahead. But if you are saying who would… Read more »
Can’t believe Evans getting stuck on here. Most united fans I know still rate him and wish they had not sold. Classic gooner snobbery. With a bit of ignorance thrown in stemming from not actually tracking his career and form. I think he would be a good signing for us.
Oh please Arsene. For how many years will you give Theo a chance?? This guy has played alongside Henry, Pires, Bergkamp, Alexis Ozil yet he hasn’t learnt a thing..
All we do is fill up our squad with average deadwood and then after realizing how shit they are, try unsuccessfully to shift them out.
I don’t even think we’re trying to shift them out, let alone ‘unsuccessfully’. Wenger loves Walcott. We’ll be stuck with his mediocrity for a few more years, I’m afraid.
I don’t see why we need all this negativity. I don’t see Bayern Munich spending 80m+ on players and I don’t hear them complaining in the press either. Or Dortmund for that matter. We probably can than compete with them financially now. Whether we can attract the same standard of players is perhaps another matter. There are a handful of clubs we can’t compete with, that’s obvious. We can’t afford to spend 60m+ on one player. We do have lots of money though. Don’t really understand why stuff like this needs to be said. Doesn’t seem like a great idea… Read more »
I don’t see Bayern Munich going more than a decade without winning their league, so that’s why thier fans may not be complaining much
I wasn’t talking about the fans complaining in the press, I was talking about the manager and chief executive …
On the one hand we’re basically saying ‘we’re weaker than our competitors’, repeatedly, and we are obviously short in a few key areas. But then we expect top players to want to join us. You don’t always have to pay crazy prices for top players, the players ultimately decide where they go. Gundongan went to City for 20m for example. You might have to pay through the nose if the selling club doesn’t want to sell and the player has more than 2 years left on his contract. Better to say more positive things surely … the fans would be… Read more »
Pretty sure Bayern Munich is that little German team that buys up EVERY talented player in the Bundesliga only to stop their rivals having them and half of them rot on the bench.
IG: Arsene, where are we on Mahrez and Lacazette? You told me last week you were going to pull the trigger on them.
AW: You don’t understand – we have to play poker a bit. I will save the club at least 5 million and we will get them … probably.
IG: That’s what you always say! That’s what you said last summer! Can’t we just get them in?
AW: Calm down Ivan. I know.
No one is expecting us to poach Pogba from United for 150M. As I see it, the problem is the manager’s refusal to pay the extra required to move from his valuation to the actual market price. For example, imagine we paid the extra 5 or 10M it would have taken to sign Higuain a few years back. Would Arsenal’s coffers really miss that much? Now conservatively assume the player, in a less defensive league and with Ozil as provider, scores only 75% as many goals as he got in Italy. We surely win the league last year, and maybe… Read more »
It does seem a lot like this strategy is just going to prove more costly in the long run, particularly if we start losing our best players for peanuts as we did before …
At the time a few years back we couldn’t afford to buy Higuaín and Ozil.
Wouldn’t we actually have been better off borrowing to buy both? I know we don’t do that sort of thing, but there are times when it might actually make sense financially in the long run.
I know its easy to say that with the benefit of hindsight but if we had bought both we would likely have won the league at least once, maybe twice. Would think this would benefit us financially.
Also Napoli just doubled their money selling him to Juve.
Possibly (probably!), but that’s not the way the club works.
It’s not for no reason that Arsenal need to spend big on a couple of positions in the squad. United, City and Chelsea are going to be powerhouses in the league this year with their new managers and pro-active approaches to the market. As things stand it’s more likely that we’ll be battling it out with some very strong teams for the final fourth place. Obviously Wenger should never be underestimated when it comes to securing CL football, but surely everyone knows the scale of the task this year is going to be greater than it’s ever been. For me… Read more »
I disagree a bit…Chelsea will not be good this year again. As long as Matic, Terry and Ivanovic are in their starting 11 they will fail. As far as ManU goes, remains to be seen how well they cope under the little short angry man for the long term and I’m not convinced they will play cohesive football. Same with Man City. Pep has credentials but their team has been the poster child for what happens when you spend ridiculous amounts for players that aren’t worth it (Sterling, Bony, etc.) and try to make them all fit in a team… Read more »
yes tranfers money is in abundance and its pushing the market high wengers saviour is the fact the same mighty expensive players at Chelski’s league winners look were they finnished and the almighty minnow spending of Leicester who won it ! were has the logic and common sense gone. its like wanting a ferrari (30 goal a season striker) when you have loads of money but they have sold out and no one is selling there’s said before dont see a top fledged striker coming in but Mahrez would deffo improve the balance and quality of the squad here’s hoping
The only time Gazedis gets ‘excited’ about anything is when Kronke mentions his bonus.
Wish they would all just shut the fuck up and sign what we need. This is boring now. Really tiresome.
Wenger is a busted flush,arsenal are in a state of mind numbing stagnation.it’s not going to be an enjoyable season
No but if we haven’t got at least two quality signings in – excluding Evans ! – it will be entirely predictable. Once again !
I guess 2nd place last season was entirely predictable for you as well.
You must make a fortune from the bookies.
Every penny the club has earned is due to the fans. Every merchandice sold, every sponsor deal agreed and every obnoxiously large paycheck collected was made possible by the fans.
Some appreciation would be nice, At the very least they owe it to us to be honest and transparent in how the club is run.
Lies the like Gazidis have dished out recently about how poor we are and how we can’t compete in the market and can’t afford to make mistakes only serve to drive a wedge into the divide that already exist between management and fans.
Arsenal Ladies on BT Sport, nice to have a break from all of this transfer inactivity!
It baffles me as to why two people would thumb that down?
haha god knows
With all of the clickbait going on right now I am adding a few names to our list of attackers we may bring in.
Geoff Thunderfoot
Chris Thwackitin
Ron Placement
Arthur Topcorner
Feel free to add some more…:-)
I’m sick of this transfer window. In terms of a CB I’m happy with Kos and Gabriel to be honest. There’s a good defender in Gabby which we should see after an extended run. Even with Per in they’d be my preferred partnership. Anyone we sign would be a 3rd choice player, and frankly we paid some good cash for Chambers who I also think is a solid defender. Holding as well looks a decent signing. Someone above said that if K or G get injured we’re playing kids, but we can’t have “WC” players as 3rd choice players. No… Read more »
Not that it makes any difference, but what history is there between Wenger and Ibrahimović? The whole “Zlatan doesn’t do auditions” thing is not true according to Zlatan’s autiobiography, if that’swhat you’re referring to.
He offered him a trial when he was younger. Zlatan doesn’t do trials.
Geoff Thunderfoot is on a par with Danny, lets get it done!
When it comes to the market Wenger is a canny fox. Whether he wants to spend is another thing. Recent big buys on Ozil (not bad for a panic buy) Alexis and Granit have proven him as masterful as ever in transfer dealings. I think what Gazidis is saying is that we are up against 7 clubs who can spend more than us and many of these clubs have similar reqiurements to some of the positions we are seeking to reinforce (Think United, Chelsea, City, Bayern, PSG, Real, Barca, Juve) That Wenger could slip in Ozil and Alexis (now Granit)… Read more »
All this just sounds like Wenger playing politics knowing the current atmosphere.
All I know and accepted is that given our resources: 5th riches club in the world and #1 club in cash reserves (nobody is even halfway close) we’re an incredible mediocre club in terms of achievement.
5th richest club and 0 champions league in 20yrs? 5th richest club 0 domestic title champions in 13? years????
For f¥€$ sake! We have been ‘rating’ the players we’ve got for the last 12 years and it’s brought us sod all EPL titles.
just sign the players and get on with it!
Not sure any defender at United looked good under moyes or lvg who constantly rotated. Personally think Evans is underrated and fergie rated him so wouldn’t be the worst signing as long as the money is spent up top where we really need it
5th richest and 1st in cash means sod all when shitty and chelski can go out and “borrow” 500 million for players
The rumour industry is cranked up to fever pitch at the moment – new names every day, sometimes several within one day from the same sources. If you look closely though, they are largely quoting one another – eg. Le Buteur seems to be the originator the “Mahrez signing immanent” story, everywhere else is quoting that. What is obvious is that Arsène is calling the shots at Arsenal and it seems very likely he’s going to take it down to the deadline day wire in search of “value.” It’s tough but I think it best to chill out ourselves until… Read more »
What’s the problem with Johnny Evans?
I h8 United don’t get me wrong, but he was under-appreciated there simply because he wasn’t as good as Ferdinand and Vidic were in their heyday.
But I think the most important thing about this signing would be the professionalism and dedication a player like this would bring to the role.
Ferguson had a knack for either picking or training a ruthlessness into players in his teams. This is something we need, quite clearly.
Just waiting for our transfer linked players come in the arsenal.com
2 weeks to go and we are kicking again.
COYG
Here we go again guys. Let’s take a chill pill and trust who are in the know to deal with that.
Signings or no signings we will support the club. Turn your negatives into positives. Let’s push the players we have into superman feat. It’s amazing what abit of support can do.
that is spirit! trying to bring ex-united while they after Bonucci
I just hope that Wenger is playing his cards right and waiting for right player to become avialable. Like Varane from RM. on the other hand we have young defenders like Bielik, Chambers and Holding and it would kill them. On the other hand we can sell Gabriel, don’t think he is intelligent enough to be a top class anyway.