We were fucked by the referees massively too anyway in 08 for both the league and UCL. If we had the fear factor of Fergie, we would have won the league and be in Moscow final at the very least.

I agree with the general sentiments, we fucked up massively once we have money and he refused to spend. But it's also easy to miss out on many fine details, we should have just pushed more for certain players during the period where we had no money. 1 or 2m more would have gotten us Xabi, Ribery etc.

Clrnc wrote:

We were fucked by the referees massively too anyway in 08 for both the league and UCL. If we had the fear factor of Fergie, we would have won the league and be in Moscow final at the very least.

I agree with the general sentiments, we fucked up massively once we have money and he refused to spend. But it's also easy to miss out on many fine details, we should have just pushed more for certain players during the period where we had no money. 1 or 2m more would have gotten us Xabi, Ribery etc.

He didnt refuse to spend money. The cash reserves were a condition of the loan to finaince the stadium. The Sun's "transfer warchest" didn't exist.

I think Clnnc is more annoyed by the refusal to push out by a couple of million pounds in the well-documted cases of men like Xabi. Xabi and Fabregas really wanted to play together and seemed a fantastic pairing on paper. We should’ve pushed harder for that transfer.

It's always just a few million more in these retellings though. Liverpool were never selling Alonso after getting turned down in their pursuit of Barry. We should have gone for Arteta instead that summer who was as good as Xabi and probably available for a lot less.

Even that would’ve worked. Arteta had been impressing for a while. It’s just that sense of being constantly imcomplete post Invincibles.

Come on, Xabi was a much better player than Arteta.

True, Xabi was much much better than Arteta. He was a star midfielder for Real Madrid. But Arteta would’ve given Fabregas the foil he needed. A much better version of alternative energy entrepreneur Flamini.

But on Barry, I think if we had intervened, we could’ve gotten the Xabi move. Newcastle were allegedly holding out for a higher price like 18m pounds. Liverpool refused to budge. Maybe if they had our money assured, they would’ve done it. Barry moved for only 12m a year later to City while Alonso went for around 30m to Real Madrid. We needed to strike. Just as we should’ve been more proactive with Auba the summer before we signed him

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Come on, Xabi was a much better player than Arteta.

Absolutely, but not back then. Xabi was a bit of a disappointment at that point in his Liverpool career.

My point was that the mistake was to not bring in anyone and then having to play Denilson for an entire year (although he did have a better season than most prople ever gave him credit for). There were never an additional million or two that would have secured Xabi after Villa refused to sell Gareth Barry to Liverpool.

Klaus wrote:

It's always just a few million more in these retellings though. Liverpool were never selling Alonso after getting turned down in their pursuit of Barry. We should have gone for Arteta instead that summer who was as good as Xabi and probably available for a lot less.

At the time Arteta was capable of playing right wing too which would have helped us a lot given Wengers tactics at the time too. Eventually we solved that issue with Arshavin but I always thought Arteta would have offered us tactical flexibility from wide but could also play CM depending on who was injured. I think people forget just how much Arteta and Cahill bossed it for Everton in those days.

Claudius wrote:

I think Clnnc is more annoyed by the refusal to push out by a couple of million pounds in the well-documted cases of men like Xabi. Xabi and Fabregas really wanted to play together and seemed a fantastic pairing on paper. We should’ve pushed harder for that transfer.

It almost like he needed a transfer guy full time rather than being charge of everything. It's worth noting that he did as for such a transfer person and the board said they couldn't fine one.

The board had a mule they could ride.
This is the same board that had been approached by Roman a decade earlier for a buyout. They should've taken the opportunity to sell a stake in the club to ease the burden of building the stadium. In exchange for a cash injection, they would've given an outside investor equity. They could've found a more palatable investor than Roman.

These guys did a lot (gave us stadium, etc.), but they made so many bad business decisions that held the club back with their 'custodian' mindset while Manchester United were stacking chips and Chelsea and City were doping.

speedy wrote:

Claudius wrote:

I think Clnnc is more annoyed by the refusal to push out by a couple of million pounds in the well-documted cases of men like Xabi. Xabi and Fabregas really wanted to play together and seemed a fantastic pairing on paper. We should’ve pushed harder for that transfer.

It almost like he needed a transfer guy full time rather than being charge of everything. It's worth noting that he did as for such a transfer person and the board said they couldn't fine one.

Once David Dein was forced out/left the club, that void was never filled.

speedy wrote:

Claudius wrote:

I think Clnnc is more annoyed by the refusal to push out by a couple of million pounds in the well-documted cases of men like Xabi. Xabi and Fabregas really wanted to play together and seemed a fantastic pairing on paper. We should’ve pushed harder for that transfer.

It almost like he needed a transfer guy full time rather than being charge of everything. It's worth noting that he did as for such a transfer person and the board said they couldn't fine one.

Yeah. We had a 13m bid agreed for Ribery but couldn't agree terms due to just a few thousands in wage before Madrid came in double our bid to piss Marseille off.

Xabi one was mentioned so many times by now. Cesc confirmed the story in Xabi's book, he claimed everything was agreed up to contract but Liverpool suddenly changed their mind and wanted 2 more million because they needed that cash to fit Villa's demands for Barry.

Those and many other transfers post highbury before we had money are the kind why we never won any trophies during that era. Very fine margins but I wished we just paid up the 1 or 2m more.

We wouldn’t have won any major trophies even if we signed those guys. We had a clear mental block and lack of ambition, that the club from top to bottom were happy with CL qualification. Anything above that was a privilege and bonus, and when you think like that, there’s always something that stops you from going all out for it, which is what was needed to become champions.

Ray wrote:

We wouldn’t have won any major trophies even if we signed those guys. We had a clear mental block and lack of ambition, that the club from top to bottom were happy with CL qualification. Anything above that was a privilege and bonus, and when you think like that, there’s always something that stops you from going all out for it, which is what was needed to become champions.

That mental block comes from failure. Which came from a long period of having to sell to survive. Wengers credibility was damaged with the players and the fans a lot of dim football fans thought wenger was sitting on piles of cash and just unwilling to spend it. 

We'd already seen the effects of wenger working with a top transfer guy. If we'd have got top players in then that mental block starts to go away.

Contracts were a huge issue winger didn't have time for them during the season so players could easily run them down. When the money came back in a transfer guy would have made a massive difference. Its such a simple request from wenger. 

Still have a huge mancrush on this guy, so intelligent in his analysis. Here's some interesting ones recently.

On Haaland

On new UCL proposal

On missed transfers

Vieira and Henry

Also singled out Grealish as his favourite English talent

Love the Bayern dig

Wenger is the only man in football I could listen to for hours. Have some of you here read his book? Was thinking about ordering it the other day, is it a good read?

Couldn't agree more. Just love to listen to him on all sort of topics.

Here's some more for you then: His admiration for Vardy. If only we got him...

Super League

Guy is a monster. The Invencibles is something that not even peak Klopp has matched