Which would you rather?

As a young fan with years of support ahead, and having seen what's happened to the likes of Liverpool, I would take the 2nd option. But I still think we MUST win a trophy if not next season then the season after that, we cannot let it become 10 years trophiless.

Option two obviously. But our reality is quite different, it seems we're being leached by Americans and a greedy board at the mo while Wenger performs miracles season on season. After he leaves will we really be able to compete on the pitch as well as financially? Seems doubtful.

For a successful self sustaining model (almost impossible in modern football and would be a huge achievement should it lead to trophies) we'd need a board room shake up, more sensible wage structure and far better sponsorship deals. I just hope that happens while Arsene is still at the club.

Neither as both are fundamentally flawed.

By bringing in “promising young players and developing them” the club have been giving them ludicrous wages, and therefore cannot sell if things do not work out.

Is it right that “a promising young player” should be earning around 70/80% of our top player’s wages?

AFC have created a wage structure were 90% of the first team squad are on very similar wages, and due to the burden of paying many average squad players massive salaries, cannot afford to pay our top players the going market rate. Hence the problems the club has seen year after year in trying to keep our best players.

Arsenal are now in a situation were we cannot sell Bendtner, Vela, Denilson, Lansbury, etc etc because no other club has (to date) been willing to match their massive Arsenal salaries.

I agree with the points regarding the wage structure, hopefully that is being resolved now as the board have stated how much of an issue it is. I also agree that Wenger has been a bit of a hero and we would be struggling without his tactical nous.

The sad fact of football is that money DOES buy you success, and given the fact that Arsenal are getting richer as every season goes by, and most other clubs are getting into more debt, we are only going to be more successful with our current strategy (providing Wenger keeps getting us 4th spot or better)

V for Van Persie

Agree but we make profits year after year (after the stadium debt repayment) and are in a very healthy financial position.

We are never going to compete financially with City and Chelsea but we have been treading water for a number of years now and AW seems to be rebuilding year in year out.

IMO the club rather than issuing statements in response to RvP and R&W should illustrate their ambition by making actions not words.

They can do this by signing the players that we desperately need for next season.

Well it seems that a lot of our fans want us to start spending large amounts of money on wages and transfer fees so that we are treading water financially too (or even start losing money each year) - even that won't be enough investment to buy the league.

So it seems there isn't really an option except to remain sensible, keep organically growing the club's financial muscle and wait for the time that City and Chelsea's sugar daddies lose interest...