Caligula wrote:
Fergie had Rooney, Tevez, Vidic, vd Saar, Ferdinand, Evra, Giggs and even Berbatov and others hanging around after he sold Ronaldo. He could afford to sit on the money. We needed to have sold Nasri 2 months ago, and brought in a replacement of equivalent quality in attack.
I do appreciate what Wenger did with Martesacker, but nothing else about the transfer window is a positive on the balance.
So we got a decent attacking left back. Is he better than Clichy in defense? Arteta, Gervinho and Benayoun as replacements for Fabregas and Nasri. More depth, but nowhere near equivalent quality. Park for Bendnter. At first blush, not an improvement. At least we got our obligatory Ligue 2 player in. People should not be fooled by the flurry of activity. Wenger has failed to move forward on the whole.
Tevez went as well. So they lost two brilliant players, on balance, better than Cesc and Nasri, and brought in no one of top quality.
The one thing that we have going for us in the young players, and what Wenger has done is surround them with solid, experienced pros - so now we have a base level we shouldn't drop below with the likes of Mertesacker, Santos, Arteta, Benayoun and Park in the squad, but the youngsters excelling could push us on to a higher level. Lets not forget how talented the likes of Gibbs, Frimpong, Ramsey, Chamberlain, Ryo and Afobe are - they're not run-of-the-mill youngsters.
I think it's the fact that we've guaranteed we're at least going to be solid this season by adding real experience that is the positive, though. I've always said that I felt Wenger underestimated the importance of journeymen pros over the last 5 years or so, players that can come in and do a job to at least a certain level guaranteed, consistently and reliably - it seems that's no longer the case.
