While I do not doubt that the club has to pay back the money that it owes, I find the comments about buying less expensive players and selling every year to be detached from logic. Arseblogger has already said the same."The strategy of the club is to sell every year and to buy less expensive players. We manage at Arsenal to maintain all our football ambitions — national and European —while having to free up - for 17 more years - an annual surplus of £24m to pay for our stadium. The club’s strategy is to favour the policy of youngsters ahead of stars and to count on the collective quality of our game."
Given that the club's operating profit was over 50 million pounds last year I find it absurd to suggest that we will have to make more money from selling players than we can spend on new arrivals. The maths are not complicated, I do not deny that we are no Chelsea, however our increased revenues mean that we can afford to spend a few million on new signings without being forced to sell players that we do not want to sell.
The same old voices will jump on the bandwagon criticising Arsene Wenger without even considering that these quotes are a little economical with the truth to say the least. I think it is rather more likely that the Screws are making up some rubbish to sell papers. Our transfer policy over the last few years has been generally spot on, very few players have left the club and gone on to do much of significance, while the space created from selling some of our big names has left the way clear for some great young talent to emerge. After all the likes of Aaron Ramsey would not have joined if they thought their path to the first team would be blocked indefinitely.
4 comments:
"The strategy of the club is to sell every year and to buy less expensive players," he said.
"We manage at Arsenal to maintain all our football ambitions - national and European - while having to free up - for 17 more years - an annual surplus of £24million to pay for our stadium.
"The club's strategy is to favour the policy of youngsters ahead of stars and to count on the collective quality of our game."
ps
nowhere does Arsene say we will sell our best players, he just says we will sell every year and that we will not buy the stupid money signings
again maybe the media have exaggerated things somewhat
Commenting on your own posts 1979?
Wenger's comments make sense - what we have always done is sell players for more than they are worth (Anelka, Overmars are the obvious) and sign people for less (Vieira, Henry, Petit, Fabregas & even Adebayor). This is not news.
But to make the comments known, as Arseblogger points out, during the negotitating stages of the pre-season seems naive and stupid. Wenger is neither of these (though I think he may in fact be naive in his commendable attempts to not succumb to Chavski style spending and boring football). SO why did he say it?
If he is managing expectations of the fans, then I think it may back fire if, as Doomers are perversely hoping, next season again ends trophyless.
I subscribe to the theory that the quote is either bollocks or is taken grossly out of context.
However, it is very strange.
maybe he's making Arsenal out to be poorer to make a few fees that little bit smaller?
obsinho, it was a post scriptum moment, plus we need to appear like someone actually reads us!
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