Song

We are better with Song obviously.

He wanted to renegotiate his contract (didn't want to wait two years for a pay rise) which he should be entitled to after a great season, and we told him to eff off.

As you said, we shot ourselves in the foot again.

For me it's the disappointment of not following through an exciting start of the transfer window.
Podolski, Giroud then Cazorla got my hopes up. Finally for the first time in years Wenger seemed to indicate even he was a bit fed up with being also rans.
We had been linked with M'Villa, Sahin and Hazard. All strong in areas we need to improve, but yet again we seem toothless when closing the deal. Winger said yesterday that he tried to get Hazard 2 years ago but was told no then Chelsea get him because the fly higher in the sky.
While that goes on we sell Toure, Adebayor, Nasri, Clichy, Fabregas, Van Persie and now Song all in the space of 3 or 4 seasons. Most say it's because the club don't win things. Now I am a firm believer in these guys played week in week out and should take full responsibility for that but on the other hand why would a world class player like RVP or Fabregas want to finish a career with no trophies? Of course they won't.
We have too many average players to mount a serious title or champions league challenge and couple this with our inability to keep players fit for longer than 3 games in a row it's a major worry. The situation with Wilshire is laughable, from a seemingly short term injury he is still unavailable 14 months later.
You're right we should have an amazing team by now but we seem to be happy to strengthen Man City, Barcelona and now Man Utd.
I ask myself are we going to buy again before Friday in an attempt to replace Song? I hope so otherwise it seems like a major brain dead moment from our Manager, will it be someone we all want who we think will make all the difference? I really doubt it, we will settle for below average.

a theo - i guess they were waiting for him to be on the last year of his contract before negotiating a new contract, wouldnt surprise me. to keep the low wages for as long as possible, hell they may have even done that with all our other players that had their contract run down.

fennel - i don't belive that the reason we haven't won anything is because of those players that had left. its because wengers blind faith in players like
>denilson, who played a full season in (an incredible 37 games) as a replaxcent for the great gilberto.
>almunia as a replacement for lehmann
ramsy as a replacement for cesc (although he did clock on after 3/4 of the season had gone by.
>insistance in players like squilacci, senderos, eboue ect.
whether its hope that these players turnout good one day or not its these players and that mentality that he put his faith in to play amongst the truly decent players in our team is what cost us.

Selling Song has to rank as one of Wenger's most stupid decisions, and to sell him for peanuts is absolutely ridiculous, he is easily worth twice that. And to Barca of all clubs!

Wojcesc - I wasn't suggesting we didn't win anything just because we sold those players. In fact the last sentence bemoaned our continual use of below average players.
I too am frustrated with the dross who get picked regularly purely because Wenger "saw something in them" when they were 3.
My point was that the top players are leaving because IMO they are frustrated with the same things as the fans. If we won things every season there would be no reason to leave and be replaced with mediocrity.
It's a shame how things have gone the last couple of weeks because we had a really strong start with transfers.

I said it before that it's a mistake to sell Song with no replacement already bought...

We relied on Diaby who just came back from a long-term injury....

We hoped that Jack will offer great services once he's back....but with the way we are playing, we will be lucky not to be at the bottom of EPL table before Jack's awaiting miraculous contributions.

Arsene needs to add at least 2 or 3 players to the team before the window shut to give us a real chance of mounting a challenge with our rivals.

I said it before that it's a mistake to sell Song with no replacement already bought...

We relied on Diaby who just came back from a long-term injury....

We hoped that Jack will offer great services once he's back....but with the way we are playing, we will be lucky not to be at the bottom of EPL table before Jack's awaiting miraculous contributions.

Arsene needs to add at least 2 or 3 players to the team before the window shut to give us a real chance of mounting a challenge with our rivals.