Burnwinter wrote:
Oddly enough, I think I agree with you both on most things.
Transfers and squad management:
I don't think Wenger does a bad job of managing the squad, and I don't think he (or he solely) sets transfer expenditure.
I reckon he operates within parameters set by the board and owners - a romantic might argue that he should press them for more spending, but that wouldn't be good governance overall.
We don't have deep pockets to spend on packages like Hazard's season after season. I think we all recognise that.
But all things being equal regarding expenditure, I think there is plenty of evidence to suggest that, as Asa says, the club as a whole has not been performing at a "league best" level signing and developing players. Our scouting network seems to consistently miss good prospects, we've signed more than a few damp squibs, and we've trained up a few as well.
Last summer was an unusually bad one in terms of how poorly organised we were. The management team (and especially Wenger) seemed to harbour many unrealistic views concerning the futures of Cesc and Nasri, and responded late and haphazardly to their departures.
We cost ourselves probably 5-10 points in the first few weeks of the season with that bullshit, and that to me is an unforgiveably poor summer transfer season.
We simply have to do better this time around, but the signs are worrying: there is a cloud of emotional bullshit over Van Persie, who we're trying to re-sign by relying on his loyalty, and we are just as paralysed waiting for our big-spending rivals to play their cards.
Our overall wealth and profile as a club, and what it means:
There's both correlation and the strictest separation between "growth in our revenue streams" and meeting or exceeding supporter expectations of "ambition" and "success". Us becoming a much bigger club would probably see both fulfilled for a while, but those expectations are ultimately only a temporarily attainable emotional goal, a splinter of the larger problem of personal happiness for each fan.
So how do we grow? Asa mentioned "risk and reward", which is an interesting point. "Reward" in football terms is a discontinuous phenomenon. We basically have two tiers of success at the moment:
- First tier: we consistently qualify for the CL and acquire the associated revenue and profile
- Second tier: we win major trophies and acquire the associated revenue and profile
Our good fortune has been that there are enough (3.5) CL places granted to the PL for us to consistently qualify despite the presence over time of City, Chelsea and United plus challengers in the PL. If there weren't, or if there were other clubs spending Chelsea/City level money, obviously we would have struggled.
But the status quo is that we are in that first tier.
I think it's fair to say that the commercial rewards for initially making it to the next level of success are slightly nebulous compared to those of our current level. There is no new competition to enter with guaranteed matches and revenue, and the prize money differentials are not game changers.
The spending required to reach that level is considerable in today's transfer market. Can't see any way we can win the PL at the moment without spending hugely on our squad. We would need equivalents of (for example) Mata, Aguero, and Alves and to keep all our current players for starters. We would be making a considerable loss if we spent what we needed to get there, and maintain over a few seasons.
The real reward of reaching that level would be to gradually close the large gap in commercial revenues between us and our established rivals (eg United, Madrid, Barcelona). This would require sustained success, but we have the platform to achieve it in terms of history, location, and basic profile. We're the best and most reputable club in the biggest city in the country that hosts the world's most popular football league: we ought to be massive. All the "intangibles" of our club really couldn't be that much better given our level of success.
What should we do?
Firstly, we should get our scouts, our commercial management and our manager on the mark and keep them there. I think Wenger should go to achieve this. He has stagnated in charge and we need change.
If hypothetically, we're 100m short of the squad we need to challenge convincingly for the PL, but our position is "sustainable" - we can make money while holding on to CL qualification - we could aim to save up that 100m (or 200m, or whatever) and then risk it over 2-3 seasons to get ahead and stay ahead of our current position. If there's an angel investor who's willing to take on the risk for us, so much the better.
Ideally this should happen with a timeliness that allows us to renegotiate our present, low return sponsorship deals from a position of strength.
We probably shouldn't spend more heavily than we need to to sustain CL qualification unless modelling suggests we will, in fact, win a league title. Money spent on players in a season we don't win is money wasted. A climb from 3rd/4th to 2nd is money wasted.
It's implausible to me that there is currently any "optimal" season by season spending level which is both sustainable (ie not greater than our current revenue) and enough to win us major trophies. We would basically be looking at over-spending as a loss leader to (hypothetically) establish ourselves in a different revenue bracket, alongside, say, United, who presently bring in 50-100m / season more than us in commercial revenues.
One could argue, cynically, that even a one-off climb from 3rd to 1st is money wasted. Apart, of course, from the transient emotional benefits to us as fans.
Are we vulnerable? Yes, very. If another big spending club shows up, we're fucked unless FFP can be enforced, which is doubtful. If that happens, it's quite possible our only reliable route back to the top would be to be bought out by a spendthrift tycoon. This means that we cannot afford unlimited patience.
