Claudius wrote:

Club is criticized for not spending as much as we can afford, Marv. Also not spending early enough in transfer windows, and going into seasons throwing away points in United drubbings or Villa tragedies

I know what you mean, but its not that clear really how much we can afford or could afford in the past. There are cash reserves, but it was serving a purpose aswell, as some have explained.

Coombs wrote:

Biggus wrote:

He'll spend big when it suits him.

Unlike the rest of the world, who spend big just to shoot themselves in the foot on a regular basis...on purpose.

Good point Coombsy, we don't want to end up like Portsmouth.
Remember what happened to them when they won the cup!

marv3llous wrote:

Coombs wrote:

Unlike the rest of the world, who spend big just to shoot themselves in the foot on a regular basis...on purpose.

Such are the times. Club like ours is criticised or mocked for not spending more than we can afford.

Give me a break.

Before last summer we were making a profit in the transfer market.

And we were not yet a profitable operation outside of player/property sales.

we weren't losing money either. this isn't suppose to be a profit making enterprise. if it's all about profit making then the next step should be for the shareholders to get dividends so we can give up the pretense of being about winning things.

i'm going with 60m+ because that's what balo, vela, cesc, schneiderlin and aurier will cost (85m).

Meatwad wrote:

we weren't losing money either. this isn't suppose to be a profit making enterprise. if it's all about profit making then the next step should be for the shareholders to get dividends so we can give up the pretense of being about winning things.

Yes. Football's all about capital growth anyway, not operating profits. Which is why the likes of Kroenke don't take money out of their investments, and probably never will until they sell the whole kit and caboodle.

kamikaze wrote:

or maybe you're just brainwashed, either/or!

Fair enough! I guess I wouldn't know it if I were.

Coombs wrote:

kamikaze wrote:

or maybe you're just brainwashed, either/or!

Fair enough! I guess I wouldn't know it if I were.

Burnwinter™ wrote:

Meatwad wrote:

we weren't losing money either. this isn't suppose to be a profit making enterprise. if it's all about profit making then the next step should be for the shareholders to get dividends so we can give up the pretense of being about winning things.

Yes. Football's all about capital growth anyway, not operating profits. Which is why the likes of Kroenke don't take money out of their investments, and probably never will until they sell the whole kit and caboodle.

That's exactly right, Kroenke has no interest in our club or indeed football, it's just another commodity to him.
This is why I hoped he would have made a quick buck and then fucked off to leave us in the custody of a benevolent oligarch Plato's philosopher/king if you will.
But we're held in thrall to this bloody shopkeeper with no imagination who's content with a jumped up accountant running things.

One of the most basic concepts of capital growth is to reinvest income to grow further, not store it in the bank. Cash reserves do very little to increase value. The marketing and commercial aspect of the club is where most of the potential for growth lies, and the only way to grow that side of the 'business' in football is to become successful on the pitch.

So the theory that Stan won't sanction spending because he wants to build our cash reserves is about as flawed as they come.

Meatwad wrote:

we weren't losing money either. this isn't suppose to be a profit making enterprise. if it's all about profit making then the next step should be for the shareholders to get dividends so we can give up the pretense of being about winning things.

The idea was that we spend the profits we make once our operation is sustainable and generating extra money by itself - without selling our best players, selling Highbury property, or whatever other temporary sources of cash.

You might think that approach is frustratingly conservative, and I kind of agree, but that was the plan (and it's worth noting that a lot of cash reserves are capital requirements to service the debt - not our choice).

You might think that Wenger could have done more with the transfer resources he had during those years, buying better quality players and avoiding the backlog of useless players on high wages that we had from ₂₀₁₀-12, and I agree with that too.

But the bottom line is that we're in a great financial position now that we made it through that period, and if Wenger continues to add Özils to this team it will be a tremendous success. We'll find out whether that happens this summer. I personally think that Wenger desperately wants to win but just wanted to wait until we increased our commercial income - and we'll have £70m extra for next season. But if he's still overly conservative, I'll join others in being very frustrated.

it's not "a lot of it", only 30m needs to be in the bank as part of the bond agreement. arsenal have like 140m (or more) in the bank.

such a big cash balance does make our net debt look better though.

I read that it was a lot more than that but I could be wrong. I'll try to track down a link.

Gazidis

Transfers are obviously important and we are deep in conversations already. I am confident we will add what we need this summer," he said.

"The manager is not scared to spend, has the experience, but as always will have to juggle a set budget.

"We are all really pleased with securing Champions League qualification again. Last season was a great experience for players to win the FA Cup and now we want more."

I take that to mean we're definitely in the 20-39m bracket.

Gazidis is in the 20-39 bracket.

Wenger's in the Wenger bracket.

The Wenger and Gazidis brackets are one and the same.

Dunno Y va, I get the impression that Gazidis wants us to sign a well known marquee player, it would make his job of selling the club to sponsors easier.
But Wenger has the final say as regards football matters, so we'll probably get some ligue 1 guy.