And now … we play the waiting game: Page 3 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

And now … we play the waiting game

Jed

I don't think this bunch of players and even the manager will recover from this. A culling is needed.

tazmania

A culling would be nice, that's too drastic tho. It's not the arsenal way too. We will just stubbornly and annoyingly keep with the current group and make very tiny changes. We might as well have kept wenger around for a few more years until he managed to get us back into cl.

Claudius

If you watched the Vinai/Raul interviews, they were either confident about winning the Europa or didn’t want to consider the alternative.
I suspect that this defeat will move them to take real action. They’ll have to move to do the previously unthinkable now. It will be harder now to justify another season of 18m pound Mesut Ozil when you have confirmed your status as a Europa-level club. I’m sure there will be a lot of tough calls with KSE about capital calls or raising money through sales. I doubt these two will be able to just plod along like Gazidis given their stance in the interview

Anzac

Asterix wrote:
So it's all David Dein's fault really.

Nope, not really at all.

Kroenke already had a 9.9% shareholding as a result of buying up ITV's broadcasting interest before Dein got involved. A key part to KSE's business is the property and broadcasting involved with their sports clubs.

It was PHW who invited Kroenke to join the BoD after Dein sold to Usmanov, engineered the lock-out/freeze to prevent any further share sales for 12 months, and got the BoD shareholders to agree to give other board members 1st option to buy. He then engineered for Kroenke to gain the 30% then required to launch a buy out / take over, which gave him a clear run to become majority shareholder even though Usmanov was offering more.
If anything it was PHW who sold out the club, not Dein.

Anzac

naz wrote:
A culling would be nice, that's too drastic tho. It's not the arsenal way too. We will just stubbornly and annoyingly keep with the current group and make very tiny changes. We might as well have kept wenger around for a few more years until he managed to get us back into cl.

I think we would have done so had it not been for the match day attendances dropping = not a good advertisement for the product, particularly when our financial strategy since about 1997 (& the decision to build a new stadium), has been geared around match day revenues almost to the exclusion of all others.

Anzac

Claudius wrote:
If you watched the Vinai/Raul interviews, they were either confident about winning the Europa or didn’t want to consider the alternative.
I suspect that this defeat will move them to take real action. They’ll have to move to do the previously unthinkable now. It will be harder now to justify another season of 18m pound Mesut Ozil when you have confirmed your status as a Europa-level club. I’m sure there will be a lot of tough calls with KSE about capital calls or raising money through sales. I doubt these two will be able to just plod along like Gazidis given their stance in the interview

The key to this is that we have also been told that there will be wage restrictions put in place if we failed to regain CL for next season.

It's not just about the need to reduce the wage bill to make signings, the wages are being reduced full stop. We may be losing about 300k+/week in wages (re the departures of Rambo, Welbeck, Lichtsteiner & Cech), and whilst it may be enough under the FFP criteria to allow us to make more signings, it may not be enough for us to do so under our own internal financial restrictions.

I think the respective stances from KSE are already known, as were our requirement / likely actions with/without CL next season. It just remains to be seen if they can get them over the line and how deep they look to cut.

Burnwinter

Think I might start supporting Arsenal WFC.

Anzac

I was confident going into last season that we would still be able to keep much the same squad & stood a good chance to regain top4/CL if we wee able to close the gap between our Home and Away performances. Now that we failed to do so we will need to slash and burn the playing squad so as to keep within our self imposed financial restrictions.

Accordingly I think the next 2 seasons are going to be a struggle, and that winning the Europa will become our more likely means to regain CL, and that only after doing so will we be able to look to then build a genuine top4 squad capable of regaining that position. I'd not be surprised if we also followed both LFC and MU by failing to qualify for the Europa within the next 1-3 seasons

What sh*ts me more than anything is the wasted time of the initial decade of the stadium build when we were operating under self imposed restricted finances - all for nothing. And when we reached the promised land when we were able to renew our commercial deals, we spent the money like a drunk at the pub - again for nothing.

Anzac

I've had a good venting session on here post game.
Before I depart I just want to say that despite all the negativity I'm not prepared to write us off completely even for the summer transfer window, let alone next season.
This in now the perfect opportunity for the new structures to show us what they are both made of re the decisions that will need to be made, and also what they are capable of in terms of providing a team that is fit for purpose - if not in terms of immediately looking to regain top4/CL, then at least to not finish outside top6 & too far away from top4 whilst still looking to have another go to win the Europa.

invisibleman18

What was the point of the stadium again? "Compete with the best in Europe" they said.

Gazza M

Burnwinter wrote:
Think I might start supporting Arsenal WFC.

they'd be more deserving of your attention than the overpaid twunts in the mens division

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

invisibleman18 wrote:
What was the point of the stadium again? "Compete with the best in Europe" they said.

It was a huge mistake. This club is ruined.

Gazza M

didn't have to be. when we actually had some net cash to spend in 2013 and 2014, we wiffed it on the wrong buys and have paid the price ever since. the mancs have done the same, only 10 times worse

Gunner89

Ray wrote:
Out of the team that started today, the only guys who hadn’t played under Wenger were Sokratis, Torreira and arguably Auba. Rest have all been involved with Wenger especially in his latter years when Europa league qualification became normal at Arsenal.

Out of the team that started-

Sokratis, Torreira, Auba, Laca and Kolanisac have all had at most a max year under Wenger.

That's a player away from more than half the playing 11.

Clrnc

invisibleman18 wrote:
What was the point of the stadium again? "Compete with the best in Europe" they said.

We have been sold a dummy for years. Spurs built a stadium 3 times more expensive and bid 52m for Lo Celso.

arsedocmd

Clrnc wrote:
invisibleman18 wrote:
What was the point of the stadium again? "Compete with the best in Europe" they said.

We have been sold a dummy for years. Spurs built a stadium 3 times more expensive and bid 52m for Lo Celso.

while finishing higher and doing better in the CL

Kel Varnsen

A culling is needed, but there is no guarantee we've reached our lowest point, or even that we'll improve in any meaningful way for years to come. The whole club is rotten. From the owner to the players. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get cl football for another 5 years.

Bold Tone

Claudius wrote:
If you watched the Vinai/Raul interviews, they were either confident about winning the Europa or didn’t want to consider the alternative.
I suspect that this defeat will move them to take real action. They’ll have to move to do the previously unthinkable now. It will be harder now to justify another season of 18m pound Mesut Ozil when you have confirmed your status as a Europa-level club. I’m sure there will be a lot of tough calls with KSE about capital calls or raising money through sales. I doubt these two will be able to just plod along like Gazidis given their stance in the interview

I can't be the only one who thought, at the time, Vinai & Raul stressing how much Unai is a Europa specialist sounded ridiculous as winning with a functioning Sevilla team bore little relation to our rabble.
I, however, cut them slack as the interview was more a justification of the appointment than anything else plus they had to project positivity before the match.
As for Ozil, nobody can justify his wages but unfortunately his lacklustre displays are not going to attract suitors.
Same goes for our other scrubs Mustafi, Elneny, Jenkinson, Xhaka and Kolasinac.
Money for rebuilding the squad is going to have to come from elsewhere.

Shady

Relying on a cup competition is an absurd strategy. Sack off the Europa, and treat all league games properly.

Ricky1985

Clrnc wrote:
invisibleman18 wrote:
What was the point of the stadium again? "Compete with the best in Europe" they said.

We have been sold a dummy for years. Spurs built a stadium 3 times more expensive and bid 52m for Lo Celso.

Why would you ignore the fact that the revenues Spurs receive in TV money from the Champions League and Premier League is orders of magnitude higher than we were receiving in the initial years after building the Emirates?

There's plenty to legitimately criticise Arsenal for: I have done a lot of it myself recently, but oversimplified analysis of various aspects of the club to suit various agenda is not helpful.

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