The AOB team of the century

Serial WUManiser spoiling this article with his grievances

Fair enough, KPPR, but even just looking at one or two signings, I think the mentality can still be a little simplistic.

Regarding the potential/yet failed signings you mention in that XI:
Cesar - Honestly, I don't think he'd improve us much. Fabianski was excellent when he came in last season, and Szczesny has been even better since he returned from injury. I don't really see that the goalkeeping position is an area that needs to be strengthened.

Richards - The rumours regarding us signing him have really built up over the last 2-3 years, which also coincides with him having huge fitness issues and being usurped by Zabaleta. Again, I really don't think he's an improvement on what we have (Sagna).

Vertonghen - By the player's own admission, we tried to sign him, but it was with a view to playing him more as a defensive midfielder. Given our defensive record over the last year or two, I don't think it could really be said that he would have been an improvement on Mertesacker or Koscielny (and I doubt he'd have wanted to be a back-up).

Cahill - Similar to the above. We tried to sign him, with a £7m offer laughed off (despite only have a year left on his deal). For a fee similar to the amount that drew derision from Gartside, we signed Mertesacker, so again, I don't think there can be too many complaints.

Kompany - Funnily enough, one of my first articles on the old 606 was me demanding Wenger sign him. He would definitely have improved us, but in retrospect, I think every team in Europe is kicking themselves for not picking him up at the price he was going for.

Bender - We tried to sign him in the Summer, but they turned down our circa £20m offer according to the BBC. Leverkusen have also stated that he is 'not for sale at any price'.

Alvarez - We wanted him, but Inter Milan came in with a much bigger offer. Given how much criticism he has received at Inter, I don't think Wenger can receive too much flack for this one.

Hazard and Gotze - Both of these players have been tracked by Wenger for years according to most reports, but these are two of the hottest properties in football. Both ended up going to two of the wealthiest clubs in the world for fees of over £30m (not to mention huge wages, and reportedly big agent and signing on-fees). Obviously, these two would have improved us, but given the austerity measures the club has been working under, and the amount of competition to sign them, I just don't see how Wenger could have been expected to pull this off.

Mata - Very famously, we tried to sign Mata, but negotiations - dealt with by Gazidis - were protracted, and Chelsea came in with a much higher offer.

Suarez - No doubt he would have improved us, but again, we tried to sign him, only to be told that £55m - a British transfer record in a league with multiple billionaire owners and one of the most valuable sports clubs in the world, Man Utd - was the asking price.

"Wenger missed out on Ibrahimovic in 2000 after offending him by offering him a trial - instead of giving him the contract his talent deserved. Of course he had no problem giving lucrative contracts to Jeremie Aliadiere & Denilson. "

Anybody in the world had the option of signing Ibrahimovic at that time - why does only Wenger get harangued. Aliadiere and Denilson were both signed as youths for very small fees, and you have absolutely no idea as to whether they had trials beforehand.

"In 2001, he failed to sign Ronaldinho citing work permit issues. Of course, PSG had no such problems and got a future superstar for their efforts."

PSG aren't based in England - they face completely different work permit rulings.

"Two years later, Arsenal refused to match the £12.24m offer tabled by MUFC for Cristiano Ronaldo, despite tracking the player for months and agreeing personal terms. But don't worry, that money came into use when he spent over £13m on Jose Antonio Reyes 6 months later."

In 'Making of a Modern Super Club', Dein explains that there wasn't the money to push through deals for the likes of Reyes or Ronaldo because they hadn't secured proper financing for the stadium. When that money came through later, they were able to sign Reyes - at which point, Ronaldo had already gone to United.

Either way, this cherry-picking of examples is absolutely ridiculous. By the same logic, you could harangue Ferguson for not signing Messi, Ronaldinho, Ibrahimovic, Drogba, Nesta etc when they were kids, whilst pointing to the transfers of Eric Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson, and Bellion to try and suggest he has no clue what he's doing in the transfer market.

DaStuDogg

Thankyou

Ferguson was pretty clueless in the transfer market, to be fair.

If you look at his best players throughout the years, it was hardly diamond in the rough esque signings.

I think it's true that, particularly towards the end of his tenure at United, he tended to spend more on established players, but even still, he had did have some absolute gems.

Either way, I'm sure you get the point I was making!

Fair enough, KPPR, but even just looking at one or two signings, I think the mentality can still be a little simplistic.

Regarding the potential/yet failed signings you mention in that XI:
===========
I think you may have missed the point that I was trying to get across - I'm not suggesting we should have signed all of those players and that they were definitely better than what we have/had at the time - it's just that the OP was being a little... selective, shall we say, in the players he was mentioning, in order to express his disdain for those who wanted them signed (this is not a pop at you, OP, by the way). I was simply pointing out that there were better players who fell into that category.

Yep, sorry, I did appreciate that, but even still I wanted to use the examples to exemplify my point that it's not always as simple as some people suggest.

I agree that the OP was pretty biased itself.

Ok so signing mata,Gazidis gets credit but signing ozil Wenger does?

Who's that question aimed at?