Juan mata=no money?

Yes but except for Wenger the whole world knew that both of them were off this summer, there was no way Cesc was going to stay and Nasri had made it very clear that he wasn't going to sign a contract extension with us so it made all the sense in the world to sign Mata. Only Arsene Wenger could mess up such a move.

Even if we had kept them we should have still be signing Mata! No excuses!

*been

i think the way Wenger conducted himself with respect to both Fabregas and Nasri, was that he really thought he stood a chance of retaining them, I think he sees himself as a father figure with that much influence.

Chelsea are only paying him 65k/week so I doubt he joined for money

Considering how he's our best player, he probably could have easily got 100k+

i think the way Wenger conducted himself with respect to both Fabregas and Nasri, was that he really thought he stood a chance of retaining them, I think he sees himself as a father figure with that much influence.
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i think that's why we took so long to sell nasri, to be honest.

a lot is said of wenger's powers of persuasion, and i think he himself sets a lot of store by those powers as well. the view from the outside was that the board had interfered and sold a player against his wishes; but i think it's more likely that wenger had assured them that he could talk nasri round. he might have said. 'look, give me some time to talk to him and i'll persuade him to stay. if i haven't talked him into re-signing by the last week of august, you can sell him.'

Apparently Wenger was willing to keep Nasri and let him leave on a free, the decision to sell him came from the board. And Barca got Cesc for peanuts anyway, before that they were offering even less. Nobody knows 100% what happened anyway, but anti Wenger brigade will obviously find a way to blame it all on him.

And the pro Wenger brigade will always find a way to defend even his most idiotic moves.

"Nobody knows 100% what happened anyway"