THE WENGER THREAD

As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
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sk-gtfo
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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by sk-gtfo »

DB10GOONER wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:34 pm
The CL money is not worth what it used to be to us as a club. The TV deals far far outweigh the CL income. Also Wenger has unloaded players (particularly players like Walcott and Giroud who were on huge wages) so our spend on new players is next to nothing in the bigger scheme of things. Wenger is the perfect manager for Kroenke because he doesn't ask for the millions and millions that are required to build a league winning side.
Exactly, people seem to keep assuming Kroenke has some level of sporting ambition?, he sees ambition as risk, he can allow Arsenal to coast along on a limited budget and sure he'll take success if it somehow falls into his lap, but he isn't going to sanction spending which is likely required to get us back to our previous top 4 level, let alone competing with the likes of P$G, City, United, RM, Barca or Bayern.

At the moment we are struggling to compete with Spurs, Liverpool or Chelsea (they kinda fall somewhere in the middle of the two groups). Honestly some of our fans are so naive - see DT from AFTV, getting all excited because we spent £60M on Aubameyang, forgetting that we sold Ox for £40M, Walcott for £20M, Coquelin for £12M and Giroud for £18M, so basically after Ozil's new contract, Mickey mouse's wages and Aubameyang's fee and wages we are probably still about static in cost terms.

As you say Wenger is the perfect manager in this respect, yes he has wasted a 'bit' of money but over the longer term he has been very cost effective and that is why he is still manager, along with deflecting the blame away from wiggy himself of course.

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by General »

CL money may have been dwarfed by money from PL but it is still a key source of income for us as it helps keeps our net debt down and contributes towards cash for transfer business etc (working capital). We are still carrying over £200m worth of stadium debt and whiles repayment is fixed at circa £20m a year there are several caveats attached. We are not Man United who bring in serious revenue and can afford to forego CL money. We have spent a lot of money on transfers and owe millions in future repayments although some of this would be softened by recent fire sale. In any case we won't see some of the money from player sales for a numbers of years.

Xhaka +Mustafi +Perez, that's nearly £100m on patently average players (bar Perez) we are never going to get back. The only reason Mustafi didn't leave in the summer was because we couldn't find a club foolish enough to match the £35m we paid for him and Inter only wanted a loan deal.
Make no mistake about this - Wenger is presiding over a very expensive decline. There was even a subtle dig by Keswick last year that the squad has grown "very large and needed to be reduced".

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sk-gtfo
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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by sk-gtfo »

General wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 10:49 pm
CL money may have been dwarfed by money from PL but it is still a key source of income for us as it helps keeps our net debt down and contributes towards cash for transfer business etc (working capital). We are still carrying over £200m worth of stadium debt and whiles repayment is fixed at circa £20m a year there are several caveats attached. We are not Man United who bring in serious revenue and can afford to forego CL money. We have spent a lot of money on transfers and owe millions in future repayments although some of this would be softened by recent fire sale. In any case we won't see some of the money from player sales for a numbers of years.

Xhaka +Mustafi +Perez, that's nearly £100m on patently average players (bar Perez) we are never going to get back. The only reason Mustafi didn't leave in the summer was because we couldn't find a club foolish enough to match the £35m we paid for him and Inter only wanted a loan deal.
Make no mistake about this - Wenger is presiding over a very expensive decline. There was even a subtle dig by Keswick last year that the squad has grown "very large and needed to be reduced".
But those expensive flops were, in fairness, pretty much a one-off, I have been Wenger out since 2008 but even I acknowledge that over the years since we moved into the corporate bowl he has done a good job balancing the books considering the austerity model that has been forced upon us by the Kroenke regime, and to some extent before that as well.

He has gone off the rails in recent years a little as his judgement has clearly gone (to add to his other weaknesses) but who is going to come in and work on our tight budget?, I keep hearing fans shouting for Ancelotti, Allegri or Simeone but I don't think any of those would want to come to a club that has to sell to buy whilst working against 3 of the richest clubs in the World in the same league, as well as more ambitious clubs with similar resources.

Stan (through IG) wasn't lying when he said there wasn't anyone better available, what he failed to add to that was that he meant anyone who would work for a club that has very little ambition beyond being a profitable low risk investment for an American profiteer. Of course it has probably reached the stage now where even average managers would be better, but I really cba to give a toss one way or another if that is how we're going!.

Enouraged by the other appointments in fairness and I think IG may actually be a decent CEO but working against the backdrop of the Glazer's MK2 I doubt he can have much success in the long run, not in a league with the financial behemoth that is Merchandise United, the UAE state billions club and at least one oligarch, that is why we need our own..

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by DB10GOONER »

The CL money is practically irrelevant to a business like our club. We get paid the following in prize money:

£11.4m group stage
£5.4 round 16
£5.8 quarter final

 https://www.express.co.uk/sport/footbal ... tgalleries

We seldom reach the quarter finals so we average £17m per season from it. The PL TV deal on the other hand paid us £39m last season.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... e-11285539

And that figure will only go up with the new TV deal. And also add in the likelihood that the Big 6 will force a redistribution of the money to benefit themselves more at some point in the next few years....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/201 ... ue-rivals/

Wenger not securing CL means nothing to Kroenke. The TV money and merchandising bring in far more particularly as we open up the Asian African and Chinese markets.

We are indeed in a footballing decline (at least to us purist football fans that place trophies over profits) but certainly not in decline as a business model. And won't be for the foreseeable future.

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by DB10GOONER »

Oh should add I think you get a win bonus of about £1m per win in the CL group stage but then how many of those games do we win....?

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by General »

We earned £200m approximately from broadcasting last season, £150m was attributable to PL money and £50m to CL. That Mirror article is a red herring as it's about international payments.

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augie
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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by augie »

DB10GOONER wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:50 am
The CL money is practically irrelevant to a business like our club. We get paid the following in prize money:

£11.4m group stage
£5.4 round 16
£5.8 quarter final

 https://www.express.co.uk/sport/footbal ... tgalleries

We seldom reach the quarter finals so we average £17m per season from it. The PL TV deal on the other hand paid us £39m last season.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... e-11285539

And that figure will only go up with the new TV deal. And also add in the likelihood that the Big 6 will force a redistribution of the money to benefit themselves more at some point in the next few years....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/201 ... ue-rivals/

Wenger not securing CL means nothing to Kroenke. The TV money and merchandising bring in far more particularly as we open up the Asian African and Chinese markets.

We are indeed in a footballing decline (at least to us purist football fans that place trophies over profits) but certainly not in decline as a business model. And won't be for the foreseeable future.




Again everything is conjecture here, but I would imagine that a few years of failing to qualify for the champs league plus a squad bereft of top quality high profile players, will have a serious knock on effect to our popularity in the asian and (to a lesser degree) african markets

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by General »

sk-gtfo wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:22 pm
General wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 10:49 pm
CL money may have been dwarfed by money from PL but it is still a key source of income for us as it helps keeps our net debt down and contributes towards cash for transfer business etc (working capital). We are still carrying over £200m worth of stadium debt and whiles repayment is fixed at circa £20m a year there are several caveats attached. We are not Man United who bring in serious revenue and can afford to forego CL money. We have spent a lot of money on transfers and owe millions in future repayments although some of this would be softened by recent fire sale. In any case we won't see some of the money from player sales for a numbers of years.

Xhaka +Mustafi +Perez, that's nearly £100m on patently average players (bar Perez) we are never going to get back. The only reason Mustafi didn't leave in the summer was because we couldn't find a club foolish enough to match the £35m we paid for him and Inter only wanted a loan deal.
Make no mistake about this - Wenger is presiding over a very expensive decline. There was even a subtle dig by Keswick last year that the squad has grown "very large and needed to be reduced".
But those expensive flops were, in fairness, pretty much a one-off, I have been Wenger out since 2008 but even I acknowledge that over the years since we moved into the corporate bowl he has done a good job balancing the books considering the austerity model that has been forced upon us by the Kroenke regime, and to some extent before that as well.

He has gone off the rails in recent years a little as his judgement has clearly gone (to add to his other weaknesses) but who is going to come in and work on our tight budget?, I keep hearing fans shouting for Ancelotti, Allegri or Simeone but I don't think any of those would want to come to a club that has to sell to buy whilst working against 3 of the richest clubs in the World in the same league, as well as more ambitious clubs with similar resources.

Stan (through IG) wasn't lying when he said there wasn't anyone better available, what he failed to add to that was that he meant anyone who would work for a club that has very little ambition beyond being a profitable low risk investment for an American profiteer. Of course it has probably reached the stage now where even average managers would be better, but I really cba to give a toss one way or another if that is how we're going!.

Enouraged by the other appointments in fairness and I think IG may actually be a decent CEO but working against the backdrop of the Glazer's MK2 I doubt he can have much success in the long run, not in a league with the financial behemoth that is Merchandise United, the UAE state billions club and at least one oligarch, that is why we need our own..
He did an adequate job balancing the books but he also hid behind the austerity and used it as a convenient excuse for his failures. There was no City back then, Tottenham were hit and miss, and Liverpool were inconsistent. They've all stabilised and we've found out true level. With a more competent coach, we arguably would've secured another major trophy in 08 and 16. Austerity was in full motion long before SK took over and if anyone benefitted from it, it's our greedy previous board members and Wenger himself as he's enriched himself in the process.

Our wage bill is nearly twice Tottenham's and as is our transfer budget. There are many top coaches out there who would relish the opportunity to manage us with these resources and for a £10m a year salary.

Good to see that you're giving IG some credit. He has his flaws but he's operating under a very difficult and outdated organisational model. He could quite easily walk into another top job and earn more money. You couldn't say the same about the fraud.

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by General »

It's astonishing the amount of inferiority complex Wenger has sowed in the minds of our fans. We are a major club in one of the most desirable Cities in the world. Yes we are competing against richer clubs but we are far from paupers. Given the choice between us and City, Gaurdiola would've chosen us if you believe the reports. The notion that top managers would be apprehensive about managing us has absolutely no basis whatsoever.

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by augie »

General wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 8:58 am
sk-gtfo wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:22 pm
General wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 10:49 pm
CL money may have been dwarfed by money from PL but it is still a key source of income for us as it helps keeps our net debt down and contributes towards cash for transfer business etc (working capital). We are still carrying over £200m worth of stadium debt and whiles repayment is fixed at circa £20m a year there are several caveats attached. We are not Man United who bring in serious revenue and can afford to forego CL money. We have spent a lot of money on transfers and owe millions in future repayments although some of this would be softened by recent fire sale. In any case we won't see some of the money from player sales for a numbers of years.

Xhaka +Mustafi +Perez, that's nearly £100m on patently average players (bar Perez) we are never going to get back. The only reason Mustafi didn't leave in the summer was because we couldn't find a club foolish enough to match the £35m we paid for him and Inter only wanted a loan deal.
Make no mistake about this - Wenger is presiding over a very expensive decline. There was even a subtle dig by Keswick last year that the squad has grown "very large and needed to be reduced".
But those expensive flops were, in fairness, pretty much a one-off, I have been Wenger out since 2008 but even I acknowledge that over the years since we moved into the corporate bowl he has done a good job balancing the books considering the austerity model that has been forced upon us by the Kroenke regime, and to some extent before that as well.

He has gone off the rails in recent years a little as his judgement has clearly gone (to add to his other weaknesses) but who is going to come in and work on our tight budget?, I keep hearing fans shouting for Ancelotti, Allegri or Simeone but I don't think any of those would want to come to a club that has to sell to buy whilst working against 3 of the richest clubs in the World in the same league, as well as more ambitious clubs with similar resources.

Stan (through IG) wasn't lying when he said there wasn't anyone better available, what he failed to add to that was that he meant anyone who would work for a club that has very little ambition beyond being a profitable low risk investment for an American profiteer. Of course it has probably reached the stage now where even average managers would be better, but I really cba to give a toss one way or another if that is how we're going!.

Enouraged by the other appointments in fairness and I think IG may actually be a decent CEO but working against the backdrop of the Glazer's MK2 I doubt he can have much success in the long run, not in a league with the financial behemoth that is Merchandise United, the UAE state billions club and at least one oligarch, that is why we need our own..
He did an adequate job balancing the books but he also hid behind the austerity and used it as a convenient excuse for his failures. There was no City back then, Tottenham were hit and miss, and Liverpool were inconsistent. They've all stabilised and we've found out true level. With a more competent coach, we arguably would've secured another major trophy in 08 and 16. Austerity was in full motion long before SK took over and if anyone benefitted from it, it's our greedy previous board members and Wenger himself as he's enriched himself in the process.

Our wage bill is nearly twice Tottenham's and as is our transfer budget. There are many top coaches out there who would relish the opportunity to manage us with these resources and for a £10m a year salary.

Good to see that you're giving IG some credit. He has his flaws but he's operating under a very difficult and outdated organisational model. He could quite easily walk into another top job and earn more money. You couldn't say the same about the fraud.



I have a real issue with that comment - what is our real level ? Is 6th place really our level in a wealth driven football world ? We are a massive club and in stature and wealth we make the scum look like a sunday league club by comparison, and whilst historically the victims are a bigger club than us, we are a wealthier club and have a much more promising future than them going forward - if things stay the way they are (with current ownerships for example), the victims are on their wat to becoming a bigger version of villa - in other words a club that used to be at the top, but has now been passed out and left behind.
I will also add that the chavs have most certainly wound back on their expenditure, and if that doesnt change, they too will be overtaken by us cos we are a FAR bigger club than them.

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by NickF »

General wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 8:58 am
sk-gtfo wrote:
Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:22 pm
Enouraged by the other appointments in fairness and I think IG may actually be a decent CEO but working against the backdrop of the Glazer's MK2 I doubt he can have much success in the long run, not in a league with the financial behemoth that is Merchandise United, the UAE state billions club and at least one oligarch, that is why we need our own..

Good to see that you're giving IG some credit. He has his flaws but he's operating under a very difficult and outdated organisational model. He could quite easily walk into another top job and earn more money. You couldn't say the same about the fraud.
I would like to see how this works out before giving Gazidis any credit. Far as I am concerned, the man is a snake and would suck anyones c*ck just to keep his job.

Yes, we have made some appointments and yes we have signed Aubameyang but we have bought big players such as Ozil and Sanchez in the past. The amount of time and hassle it took to get the Aubameyang deal through make me sceptical as to whether anything really has changed.

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sk-gtfo
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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by sk-gtfo »

General wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 9:52 am
It's astonishing the amount of inferiority complex Wenger has sowed in the minds of our fans. We are a major club in one of the most desirable Cities in the world. Yes we are competing against richer clubs but we are far from paupers. Given the choice between us and City, Gaurdiola would've chosen us if you believe the reports. The notion that top managers would be apprehensive about managing us has absolutely no basis whatsoever.
Apart from the fact that we don't have any of today's top managers at the club, we have Wenger.

I don't get all this blame Wenger for staying stuff?, if someone offered you £10M a year would you leave?, none of the dozen or so manager's that Chelski have gone through in Wenger's time decided to leave (?), they were sacked due to under performing, it should not be up to the manager to decide when is right.

So it either has to be one of two things; SK using Wenger as a shield or actually thinks he is still a top manager, not sure which of those is worse?, or the top managers don't want to join us because - yes you guessed it - they don't want to work under an austerity model.

Either way it comes back to the wiggy b*stard, Wenger should be history by now but for one or more of the reasons above the wiggy b*stard wants him there.

:censored:

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by General »

We've found our true level because of the incompetence of the French fraud. Give this team to a top coach and bring in a couple of smart additions and the picture would be markedly different.

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sk-gtfo
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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by sk-gtfo »

augie wrote:
Wed Feb 21, 2018 10:42 am
I have a real issue with that comment - what is our real level ? Is 6th place really our level in a wealth driven football world ? We are a massive club and in stature and wealth we make the scum look like a sunday league club by comparison, and whilst historically the victims are a bigger club than us, we are a wealthier club and have a much more promising future than them going forward - if things stay the way they are (with current ownerships for example), the victims are on their wat to becoming a bigger version of villa - in other words a club that used to be at the top, but has now been passed out and left behind.
I will also add that the chavs have most certainly wound back on their expenditure, and if that doesnt change, they too will be overtaken by us cos we are a FAR bigger club than them.
Err I don't see how we're much different than Liverpool?, both clubs have American owners who wont invest much if any of their own cash, Spurs have never won the league in colour but they are building a stadium that is equal or better than the bowl and if they can get the finance right, much easier now than when we did it, then they will match us or even overtake us.

I think you are basing a lot of this on being hopeful rather than realistic, the league is likely to be sewn up by City, United or maybe Chavski and the best we can hope for is trying to get back to competing for 4th place with Spuds and Liverpool, of course the trouble is we've had over a decade of "4th place trophies" so few can be arsed to care anymore, inc myself.

:banghead:

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Re: THE WENGER THREAD

Post by supergeorgegraham »

General wrote:
Mon Feb 19, 2018 3:07 pm
Nos89 wrote:
Mon Feb 19, 2018 3:01 pm
supergeorgegraham wrote:
Mon Feb 19, 2018 10:33 am
Seeing how well the English teams in this years Champions League are doing also raises some questions. All those years we got past the group stage to be then beaten and in a few cases thrashed. I guess that means the foreign teams are missing us this season and are seen in Europe as an easy touch.
But look who kept beating us. Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Last year's 10-2 drubbing was the most embarrassing result in our history. When you think that two seasons earlier they knocked us out on goal difference. Tottenham haven't thrashed anyone, and it will be interesting to see how Chelsea fare against a strong Barcelona. It's staggering to think only 7 years ago we were beating probably the best Barcelona team.
Don't forget botched jobs against Monaco and AC Milan. Comprehensively beaten by both teams in the first leg.

Tactically, the English teams remaining in the competition are streets ahead of us and I doubt any of them would get embarrassed like the way we often have. We don't come back from 2-0 down at Juventus.
Totally agree we have been a waste of space in that competition since the final of 2006. Seeing how well the other English teams have done this year proves to me we don't deserve a place in the CL.

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