Anzac wrote:
With all due respect if that was/is true then it shows how narrow our recruiting focus was based upon the French Academy system, and/or how incompetent our scouts that they couldn't find similar types of players elsewhere.
It also shows how narrow AW's capability as coach/manager that he would change his style within the same intuitive framework, and then fail to succeed for almost a decade.
AW said at the time that we needed to change the way we played because it was not working in the CL where teams looked to stand off and let us run ourselves into the ground and then score late in the game to take the points. He also said that he wanted a core of players who had been developed together so as to have those connections and familiarity.
The other side to this focus in internal player development is finances, meaning we spend less.
Another aspect to the extra domestic competition in the same recruitment market, is that clubs no longer needed to accept AW's player valuations and lowballing as we were no longer the only game in town, but again this approach lasted throughout most of his tenure.
Football and recruitment is very simple. You buy the best players that you can get and the rest will take care of itself. Barcelona have 2 decades worth of continued success predicated on buying the best Brazilian players of the generation. Romario, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, and Neymar. That's as narrow a focus as can be, and do you think if they lost this advantage, that they would be able to find similar types of players elsewhere? I don't think so. Every big club has a narrow recruitment process. Real Madrid's policy is to buy the best players the EPL has to offer. Bayern's success is built on hoovering up all of the German talent, Juventus do likewise in their country. As long as these clubs are able to maintain this advantage, their reign will continue. The moment their equivalent of a Chelsea or Man City disrupts their leagues and copies their methods with a larger bankroll, they will lose the advantage and become also rans. No amount of analysis will change the fact that success is almost completely built on buying better players than your rivals.
How are we going to find a type of player which is almost exclusive to France? Wenger identified archetypes of players which he built his early teams on. As soon as other clubs witnessed our success, they copied us and we lost that advantage. In 1997-98, when we faced Liverpool in the league, they arrived with McAteer and Ince in central midfield. Fast forward to 2002, they returned with guys like Bruno Cheyrou and Salif Diao. Real Madrid took Anelka off us, then they tried to take Henry off us, so what do you think they did when the next great French CF was born? They bought him straight from France. Chelsea then came into the league and bought the likes of Drogba, Essien, Makelele amongst other French players. Players like Mbappe, Martial, Pogba and Kante would have been playing for us back in 2001. Credit to Wenger to adapt and go down the possession style route with which we overachieved, considering that we were amongst the lowest net spenders in the entire league and were hamstrung by the stadium costs. I would have hoped by 2019, the ridiculous narrative that Wenger hid money under his bed and chose not to spend it was surely put to bed. Then again football fans aren't the smartest bunch. I was talking to a few Spuds last season who were having a go at Pochettino for not spending money. Guess our neighbours aren't all that different to our lot.
You write a lot about how Wenger single handedly led to the downfall of the club, when the more relevant factors can be summed up in three words, Chelsea, Man City and Gazidis. Wenger kept us competitive in the face of seismic shifts in the PL climate on a shoe-string budget. How he doesn't receive more credit for this is beyond me? Ferguson spent over 100 million after 3 title-less seasons to keep Man Utd relevant and fend off the Chelsea threat for a few more years. Wenger had to make do with youth signings and having to experience the ignominy of the club refusing to pay more than 3 million for Mark Schwarzer.
AW player valuation and lowballing? Have you been even following the club's transfer pursuits this summer? We have been haggling over Tierney and Saliba, whilst bringing in a pointless loan signing in January because we couldn't afford any transfers. Remember when people attacked Wenger for bringing in Kallstrom in January? LOL. Wenger is long gone and we have new management in place, yet we still continue to behave in our traditional miserly ways.
We aren't the only ones who have stumbled as a result of Chelsea and Man City rising to power. Have you had a look at Man Utd? They like us have lost the advantage which they had over the competition, and have also faltered as a result.
