Pepe LeFrits wrote:

Biggus wrote:

This wasn't always the case as you know, he has bought established players in the past, some worked some didn't but no one can deny this was the most successful part of his reign here.

Out of interest, who? The likes of Vieira, Henry, Petit, Pires, Lauren etc weren't anymore established than Vermaelen, Sagna, Arshavin, Rosicky, Chamakh and so on.

Well Peps, Pires was 27 when joined us and along with Henry was an international at the 98 world cup as were Petit Suker Overmars and Lauren also,
Wiltord was the star of Euro 2000 Campbell also was an experienced international and Gilberto another world cup winner.
Wenger did buy very experienced accomplished players before (and cheaply too) which makes this present bunch of naive kids particularly hard to stomach.

That doesn't oppose what Pepe said, even allowing for the exaggeration.

What exaggeration Capi?
Vermaelen & Chamakh are young and have limited international experience and no world cup etc and both have yet to prove everything to us, Rosicky is irrelevant as his contribution to us has been marginal due to injury.
Arshavin was an anomalous purchase rather than the rule of recent years, a panic buy when it looked like we might miss out on "the prize".
Sagna I'll grant is more like the type of player Wenger used to buy and it's no coincidence he's our most consistent.

I don't intend 'to oppose' anything as it's obvious that Wenger's present philosophy on buying players is very different to the one that he formally achieved success with.

There's also the notion that Wenger was far more familiar and knew more about Henry, Viera, Pires, etc because his time managing in France coincided with their early careers there?
(he "knew them of old" so to speak).

He does not have the same perspective on signings he's made in the past six years or so.

Biggus wrote:

Pepe LeFrits wrote:

Out of interest, who? The likes of Vieira, Henry, Petit, Pires, Lauren etc weren't anymore established than Vermaelen, Sagna, Arshavin, Rosicky, Chamakh and so on.

Well Peps, Pires was 27 when joined us and along with Henry was an international at the 98 world cup as were Petit Suker Overmars and Lauren also,
Wiltord was the star of Euro 2000 Campbell also was an experienced international and Gilberto another world cup winner.
Wenger did buy very experienced accomplished players before (and cheaply too) which makes this present bunch of naive kids particularly hard to stomach.

Arshavin was also 27, Silvestre 31, Squillaci 30. Henry was a 22 year old who wasn't getting his game, which isn't particularly different to Adebayor who we signed in 2006.

Lauren was a 23 year old playing for a midtable La Liga team who played a whopping 3 group games at a World Cup. Gilberto was WC winner sure, but he was also only playing in Brazil. Suker was a bargain bin signing that Wenger would be pilloried for if he repeated now.

Biggus wrote:

Vermaelen & Chamakh are young and have limited international experience and no world cup etc and both have yet to prove everything to us, Rosicky is irrelevant as his contribution to us has been marginal due to injury.
Arshavin was an anomalous purchase rather than the rule of recent years, a panic buy when it looked like we might miss out on "the prize".

Unless Arshavin was signed by someone else he can't be classified as 'anomalous' - he's part of whatever pattern of buying the manager pursues. Rosicky certainly isn't irrelevant to the discussion - when he signed him he was a major name who by the time he joined up with the squad had played at 3 international tournaments. He may not have worked out for us but you can't discount him as evidence of Wenger not going for established players because of that. Chamakh isn't young, he's a 27 year old international who played in the CL QFs, which is more experience than most players get at a World Cup.

Hleb, Baptista, Gallas, Eduardo - more examples

But surely Rosicky Eduardo and Hleb were signed 4-5 years ago in the old days?
Craptista was only on loan.
I've just eaten and I don't want to talk about Gallas.

I'm not coming down on the kids- on the contrary- some of them are very good, but they lack leadership and direction.
Everyone hopes that if Wenger signs experienced players this summer they'll all be established stars and not just journeymen.

Gallas was a good signing, but in retrospect we gave up too much that night. Cole would've been one our best players. And despite his nasty ways off the field, he seems okay on it and amongst other players.

Biggus wrote:

But surely Rosicky Eduardo and Hleb were signed 4-5 years ago in the old days?
Craptista was only on loan.
I've just eaten and I don't want to talk about Gallas.

I thought Wenger changed after the Invincibles season - is that pushed back to 2008 now? :p

Wenger has displayed a flexibility and a willingness to consider signing adults as well as kids throughout his career, up to the most recent summer window.

We've tightened our belt over the past couple of years certainly, but there simply hasn't been the sea-change in Wenger's pattern of buying that is claimed.

Gallas was a fucking disaster.

• Wiltord was not a star of euro 2000. He wasn't even a first choice player for France.

• Lauren played exactly one game for Cameroon before the 1998 world cup and featured for a grand total of 6mins in the tournament proper.

• Petit came to us before the 1998 world cup when he was 27. He played around 13 times for France in almost ten years of being a professional footballer before he came to us.

We have always shopped for basically the same bracket of player; guys who for one reason or another haven't yet fulfilled their potential or have been just outside of the limelight that we can mould into excellent professionals.

Even the Campbell signing which was quite leftfield is mirrored by the acquisition of Gallas.

Slow reply...

To the best of my recollection Ramsey was the last kid Wenger bought directly for the first team squad. Since then he has only bought adults, supposedly with greater experience.

Caligula wrote:

Gallas was a good signing, but in retrospect we gave up too much that night. Cole would've been one our best players. And despite his nasty ways off the field, he seems okay on it and amongst other players.

we got fucked on the Gallas deal!

My initial reaction to that deal was "that's good: we've given up a quality LB for a quality CD. that makes sense." However, when I look at the fact that Wenger doens't use wingers and we are very dependent on quality wingback play, it does look an enormous loss. Add to that the fact that Clichy is crap, then it gets depressing.

That day we got Gallas, Denilson and Baptista (and we'd signed Rosicky earlier). At the time it looked like one of the best transfer windows under Wenger.

:\

Fuck me. That did look good then. The Beast of Seville, the Brazilian youth captain, one of the men who made John Terry look good. What happened?

Overall, I believe, they didn't have the mental strength.

Lagos wrote:

Caligula wrote:

Gallas was a good signing, but in retrospect we gave up too much that night. Cole would've been one our best players. And despite his nasty ways off the field, he seems okay on it and amongst other players.

we got fucked on the Gallas deal!

We got a top player instead of an extra £5m. We weren't screwed at all.

No we could have named our price for Cashley, instead we got a rotten apple who plays for himself and disrupts every steam he's a member of, imo we got fucked good and proper.

This Gallas revisionism is starting to annoy me.