Champions League 11/12: Page 81 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Champions League 11/12

Klaus

Chelsea didn't defend great against Barcelona. Fucking hell, they conceded two goals in a game where the Catalun cunts hit the post twice, fluffed a penalty, were denied another one and had a goal disallowed. Great defending is an art form, not a panic team tactic because you can't cope with the opposition in the other two thirds of the field.

Klaus

Yeah, fair enough. They played the same way in the first half before Terry got sent off though.

Tony Montana

Gurgen wrote:
Lagos wrote:
That's the problem isn't it the so called negative football, anti-football or any other label that is put on the type of football that isn't pleasing on the eye. Well guess what, there are 2 aspects to football, scoring and defending and while defending is not pleasing on the eye it is an essential part of the game. If a team chooses to concentrate on defense then so be it, it is a valid starategy! it's up to the opposition to break them down

I never said it's not a valid strategy. It just makes me want to turn off the tv, that's all.

It's just pathetic that these clubs have billions at their disposal and this is the best they can come up with. Goes for Jose too.

So why didn't you switch off the TV?

Chelsea could win the European Cup. That is the best cup trophy a club can win.

Serious question; how much was that Chelsea team worth?

And I can spin the argument round and say the best team in the world couldn't beat 10 men who are supposedly massively inferior. They let in two goals when Chelsea had ten players on the pitch!

Mirth

Tony Montana wrote:
Serious question; how much was that Chelsea team worth?

Just a quick glance at the line up, Barcelona only bought Mascherano, Fabregas, Sanchez, Alves and Keita. (although they spent around 100m on them)

Torres and Drogba alone cost Chelsea close to 75m.

Both teams have players on ridiculous wages.

I don't think there's a big difference in the amount of the two teams in terms of investment, obviously iscounting the sunk costs of running and developing La Masia

If we're doing a financial comparision, the Arsenal team that beat in the first leg Barcelona only cost 45m.

Mirth

Captain wrote:
General Mirth wrote:
On a side note, we need to sign more Germans!

Just not Gomez! 😆

To be fair, his general play was actually quite decent

Why don't you rate him again? (serious)

I haven't seen him play all that much this season, but I'm guessing his overall play is the same as it was a few years ago when he bombed in the Euros?

Biggus

Lagos wrote:
ok Kel just drop it!

😆 Yeah you win Kel we're all fucking clueless.

Happy now?

y va marquer

🙂

Tony Montana

General Mirth wrote:
Tony Montana wrote:
Serious question; how much was that Chelsea team worth?

Just a quick glance at the line up, Barcelona only bought Mascherano, Fabregas, Sanchez, Alves and Keita. (although they spent around 100m on them)

Torres and Drogba alone cost Chelsea close to 75m.

Both teams have players on ridiculous wages.

I don't think there's a big difference in the amount of the two teams in terms of investment, obviously iscounting the sunk costs of running and developing La Masia

If we're doing a financial comparision, the Arsenal team that beat in the first leg Barcelona only cost 45m.

Sanchez - At least 26 million euros (possibly rising another 11m)
Fabregas was 34 million euros
Mascherano was 26 million euros
Alves was reportedly at least £23m (possibly rising another £7m)
Keita was around 14 million euros

If we look at the players also bought or playing during Barca's dominance, we have Eto'o (24m euros), Ibrahimovic (46m euros + Eto'o or 20m euros), Chygrynskiy (25m euros) and Yaya Toure (9m euros) to name but a few.

Barcelona have had to spend a similar amount of money as Chelsea over the last few years to dominate as they have done. When it's failed, (Ibrahimovic and Chygrynskiy) it's cost the 80m euros.

That is insane.

Claudius

Bravo, Tony.
Seriously, I applaud Barca for having a core of players from La Masia, but anyone who pretends they don't buy success just like any other big club is mad.
And one of the key reasons they don't lose their homebred players - they pay some of the best wages in the game. Barca stars (save for Cesc) make about double what Arsenal stars make after tax.
Yes, they play beautiful football. Yes, 4 of their best 5 or 6 players are from the academy but NO they would not be as dominant as they are without their budget.

Mirth

I never claimed otherwise, Claud. It would be hard to when I said explicitly said that four players cost them around 100m.

My point was that Chelsea were not underdogs financially rather than the other way around.

And seriously, if you count Eto'o you might as well count Shevchenko and Ballack.

Claudius

Not interested in Eto'o. The current players are expensive. Just two or three of those guys cost as much as our entire squad. They are in a completely different league financially. Might as well be playing another sport.

When I see the types of budgets Real and Barca enjoy, I find it hard to hold anything against the largesse of upstarts like Chelsea and Manchester City, and would have no problem with a rich man putting us on equal footing to these clubs.

Mirth

We're talking about Chelsea though.

Practically every other big club, right from Liverpool to Barcelona, have spent more money on two or three players than Arsenal have on the entire squad. It's impressive and frustrating.

The Eto'o bit was directed at Tony.

Claudius

Clearly we have the capacity to spend on quality. We'd just much rather
1) have a bunch of players who we hardly use on our squad, and then
2) have a bunch of other players who are out on loan who we could sell to raise money for players, and
3) prefer to spend on multiple mid-tier players rather than blow our load on superior talent

We will never be able to amass as much talent as Barca, but you have to admire their team building strategy. Promote players from La Masia and where there are gaps, fill them with super super quality players. It's the most sensible recruiting strategy in Europe (apart from their lack of center backs).

Klaus

It's an unrealistic strategy under the best of circumstances, as the evidence show. Barcelona haven't been this debt-ridden since Cruyff almost bankrupted the club during the early nineties. An enormous wage bill and insane transfer spendings haven't been covered by whatever money they bring in. Last season they started taking loans to be able to pay wages. They have this habit of living on other people's money because they think they're big enough to get away with it.

Then again it's hard to think of a reason why they should give a shit. The Spanish government will just cancel their debt anyway when it grows out of proportion. Looking at the unscrupulous way Barca and Real are run you wouldn't guess that they were operating in a country where 24.4% of the population is currently unemployed and the national debt ticks in at over 700 billion.

Claudius

Oh, I don't deny all that Klaus, and they annoy me because they act like they aren't' run in the manner you describe. I was thinking about them more in the context of the spending of United, Citeh, Chelsea, Inter (until recently) and Madrid. They all spend large amounts of money but their team building strategies are not as clear / coherent as Barca's.

We can try it on a small scale, but we can't make a 60 million pound mistake like Ibrahimovic/Chrgynski (sp).

Tony Montana

General Mirth wrote:
I never claimed otherwise, Claud. It would be hard to when I said explicitly said that four players cost them around 100m.

My point was that Chelsea were not underdogs financially rather than the other way around.

And seriously, if you count Eto'o you might as well count Shevchenko and Ballack.

Well why not?

Eto'o was a significant part of the 2008-09 Barca team which won 4 trophies at the start of the Pep era. He was arguably the best outright striker in the world ahead of Torres and Drogba.

Chelsea may have technically spent more, but Barca have been spending comparable amounts. After a certain amount of time and money it's neither here nor there. It just becomes a question of who spent wiser over the years as opposed to who spent that extra 50m quid more.

In the year Madrid spent 80m quid on Christiano Ronaldo, Barca spent 80m quid on Ibrahimovic.

Tony Montana

Klaus wrote:
It's an unrealistic strategy under the best of circumstances, as the evidence show. Barcelona haven't been this debt-ridden since Cruyff almost bankrupted the club during the early nineties. An enormous wage bill and insane transfer spendings haven't been covered by whatever money they bring in. Last season they started taking loans to be able to pay wages. They have this habit of living on other people's money because they think they're big enough to get away with it.

Then again it's hard to think of a reason why they should give a shit. The Spanish government will just cancel their debt anyway when it grows out of proportion. Looking at the unscrupulous way Barca and Real are run you wouldn't guess that they were operating in a country where 24.4% of the population is currently unemployed and the national debt ticks in at over 700 billion.

Would the Spanish govt do that to Barca? I thought it was only Real?

And I read about the unemployment rate of Spain the other day. Unreal. More than half the young population are unemployed.

Mirth

I agree with all that.

My point was that Chelsea were not underdogs financially rather than the other way around.

Klaus

Claudius wrote:
Oh, I don't deny all that Klaus, and they annoy me because they act like they aren't' run in the manner you describe. I was thinking about them more in the context of the spending of United, Citeh, Chelsea, Inter (until recently) and Madrid. They all spend large amounts of money but their team building strategies are not as clear / coherent as Barca's.

We can try it on a small scale, but we can't make a 60 million pound mistake like Ibrahimovic/Chrgynski (sp).

Gotcha. Yeah, that's essentially it. It's not a very encouraging thought, is it.

Klaus

Tony Montana wrote:
Would the Spanish govt do that to Barca? I thought it was only Real?

And I read about the unemployment rate of Spain the other day. Unreal. More than half the young population are unemployed.

They've already done it, I think. Uli Hoeness lost his marbles over it a few months back. I remember posting a link...

Edit: here it is: http://www.onemoreinthetolly.com/Thread-Uli-Hoeness-tears-Spanish-football-a-new-one

An angry Uli Hoeness, president of Bayern Munich and former player, has launched a blistering attack on Spanish football and it's relation to the Spanish economy.

He was commenting on news that clubs in La Liga owe hundreds of millions to the Spanish government in unpaid tax and that deals will have to be reached for it's repayment which will likely see a lot of it wiped off and never recouped.

Hoeness, quoted in Sport.es, said "It is unthinkable. We (Germany) paid hundreds of millions of Euros (to Spain) to break out of the s*** (econonic strife) and then the clubs are exempted from paying the debt to pay for stars like Cristiano or Messi. This cannot be."

Have to say he's got a point there. Bayern's win over Real Madrid in the semi-final the other night must've felt like a real moral victory for him.

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