Walcott off today for £20m+ FFS Somebody deserves a pay rise for negotiating that.
£12m for Coquelin.
The above are two players I would have given away for free (there are about 10 others).
Sanchez being brought out of his remaining 6 months for £35m. Thank fook we won't have to see that lofted pass into the penalty area 15 times a game anymore.
From the outside it looks like a catastrophe with how short our squad will be. Potentially however, we could be starting February with a lot of optimism. Both the above have peaked and will only decline now. The clubs hand has been forced to shift deadwood in Walcott and put an end to the Sanchez saga. Don't get me wrong Sanchez may well win United the title next season, but he'll be playing in Turkey (ala Van Persie) come 2019 with the rotation policy he'll see at United.
Due to this Wengers stance of nobody being available in January has become "we have to sign offensive reinforcements" in his own words. Mhiki & Auba would make us a better team in February than we are in January. With long term deals that sets us up for a new manager and a strong push at progression over the next 5 years. Malcom is an unknown to me so no comment there.
There is also a fairly optimistic feel around Wilshere and Ozil resolving there contract situations. All the while Chelsea are looking at signing Andy Carrol, Liverpool are losing there only decent CM and Spurs have dropped of the face of the earth.
The future looks positive at the Emirates.
Our best ever transfer window?..
posted on 16/1/18
Yet despite dropping out of the top 4 for the first time in donkeys and knowing that your two best players were running down their contracts and could be leaving you on a free, instead of splashing out heavily in the summer, you actually chose to cash in and ended up with the second biggest transfer profit in the league.
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None of those issues had anything to do with Kroenke. Until the appointment of Raul Sanllehi Wenger was pretty much the judge and jury on all transfer related issues.
Also the reasons Sanchez and Ozil are both running down their contracts has nothing to do with Kroenke either. It's all on-field related issues of which Wenger is solely responsible.
I don't much like Kroenke and would be very happy to see him moved away from this club, but to suggest the on-field issues stem from him is silly and short sighted.
posted on 16/1/18
Yet despite dropping out of the top 4 for the first time in donkeys and knowing that your two best players were running down their contracts and could be leaving you on a free, instead of splashing out heavily in the summer, you actually chose to cash in and ended up with the second biggest transfer profit in the league.
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I think it is slightly more complicated than that and it only started to emerge. Even if we wanted to buy players (big if), we wouldn't have been able to pay them.
The PL restrict total wage increase to £7m per year. So without selling players (therefore reducing/clearing the wage bill), it wouldn't have been possible to sign top players. Add to that the new contracts the club want/wanted to offer to both Sanchez and Ozil, I think they had little window to operate.
Having said that, the blame still on the club. First, they shouldn't have offered such big wages to deadwood and secondly, with higher commercial revenues, they would have had a bigger margin.
posted on 16/1/18
I don't know, I'm definitely short-sighted - and maybe I am silly too and I've misunderstood the basics here.
As majority shareholder of the club, does Kroenke not have a big say in how much of the profits are reinvested in the club and how much is pocketed by the owners?
posted on 16/1/18
@Wenger can
Yep, cheers for that. I'm aware wage bill has a big bearing, and also that Arsenal's is very high.
I fully understand and agree that that side of business is down to how the execs (incl. Wenger) run the club.
The outstanding question is as above - how the dividends paid out to shareholders are decided.
posted on 16/1/18
morons actually think the lack of spending is down to Wenger rather than Kronke
Have you seen the state of his other sports ventures?
posted on 16/1/18
Signing Mkhi makes it the worst ever transfer window even if Messi joined with him
posted on 16/1/18
Na you need another player who gets knocked off the ball easily and goes missing when the going gets tough.
posted on 16/1/18
comment by The Godfather (U10154)
posted 58 minutes ago
morons actually think the lack of spending is down to Wenger rather than Kronke
Have you seen the state of his other sports ventures?
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To be fair I think it’s a bit of both. For years it’s been clear that we’ve needed strengthening in key areas yet Wenger hasn’t done it. I don’t believe this has always been down to a lack of funds, but convienent excuse yes.
posted on 16/1/18
The only reason we didn't spend more in the summer was some silly PL wage rule, in the last 5 years we probably spent about 200m net. There's no lack of spending.
posted on 16/1/18
Money don’t buy happiness, but then are Arsenal fans ever happy?