Arsenal Thread

It wouldn't have to be a salary cap, you could introduce two things that would solve the problem (over time, not instantaneously):

1. Teams wage bills can only be X% of their revenue, say over a 3 year period (So wages for the 3 years/ revenue of the three years must be below 75%, for example)

2. Introduce incredibly distributive TV contracts - where teams that finish lowest in the league (17th and up) get the most money, and teams that finish top get the least.
 
I'll applaud this post :APPLAUD:
Completely agree with this...
...while just adding that part of City's strategy (a bit differently from Chelsea's) is buying from inside the Premier League no only from mid-table teams, but from teams that were above them - which is Arsenal's case. Before they became capable of truly challenging for the title it's no secret that they were targeting Arsenal to nick our players and our league position. Touré, Adebayor, Clichy, Nasri and others that they failed to sign. It's a clear strategy for reinforcing your own team while weakening your rivals.


beachryan said:
Wahey, my favourite topic. No point in rehashing everything for the umpteenth time, but this is the difference between a sugar daddy club, and teams that have built themselves organically:

Organic team:
• Leverages ‘natural’ advantage, be it fanbase, history, tv deal, local hero player whatever
• Is well run, has a healthy revenue/ wage ratio and if tomorrow their owner died, would continue to exist happily
• Brings young players into the team, and doesn’t grow wages significantly year on year
• Makes club record signing once every 3 years or so, to augment existing squad. Rarely signs more than 4 players a season

Sugar daddy team:
• Leverages ‘unlimited’ wealth to have ‘dart board’ approach to spending – often upwards of 10 players a season
• Often gobbles up all of the mid-level teams talent in the league, which de-stabilises the lower level European places (see Duff, Barry, Milner, Given etc
• Then writes off losses and causes massive transfer and wage inflation
• Posts record losses, digging club into an unsustainable position
• Is completely dependent on the sugar daddy for the clubs very survival

I believe we all want the same thing – a league where there aren’t just two teams that win it for a decade. It’s not a league, that’s absurd. Small periods of dominance are natural in any sport – 3 years or so – but the best part of 20 years means something is wrong.

But the answer to that can’t be to exacerbate the problem, rather than look to fix it. The answer isn’t for 1 club to suddenly be literally able to outspend the entire league for years on end. The answer to United’s dominance isn’t to let City spend until they overcome them. The answer is to introduce revenue sharing, salary caps and more distribution-minded tv deals so that everyone benefits.

I wish that we had a football league where Chelsea or City could win without completely destabilizing the sport, but we don’t. The FA should work on that rather than just waving in any rich prick with a prick complex.
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But this is something which is unlikely to ever happen:

beachryan said:
2. Introduce incredibly distributive TV contracts - where teams that finish lowest in the league (17th and up) get the most money, and teams that finish top get the least.
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Nevertheless, TV rights distribution is pretty fair in England IMO. It's not even, but I think is quite good, if you consider the team that finished bottom of the table amassed almost £40m.
Here are the earnings for all teams this last season:
http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/broadcast-payments-to-premier-league-clubs.html
 
Rentboy said:
I'll applaud this post :APPLAUD:
Completely agree with this...
...while just adding that part of City's strategy (a bit differently from Chelsea's) is buying from inside the Premier League no only from mid-table teams, but from teams that were above them - which is Arsenal's case. Before they became capable of truly challenging for the title it's no secret that they were targeting Arsenal to nick our players and our league position. Touré, Adebayor, Clichy, Nasri and others that they failed to sign. It's a clear strategy for reinforcing your own team while weakening your rivals.
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Good point. Some journalist had a quote from someone at City that said, with regards to the Rooney transfer, that City's strategy was to both strengthen themselves and weaken their opponents in one swoop.

Which when you're just throwing petro-dollars around, is almost offensive. Damn, that Rooney fellow is making our pursuit of the league quite tough - well just offer to treble his wages and that'll solve the problem.
 
And what is wrong with weakening your rivals?
Wouldn't Man Utd be delighted with Robin Van Persie?
Would Arsenal not welcome David Silva, Agüero or Kompany?

I also don't agree that traditional big clubs are well run. Read Ben's posts (lo zio). English clubs nowadays are run like Italian clubs in the nineties. Would anyone call Man Utd and their dependency upon the Glazers, reassuring and healthy?

Huge teams like Real Madrid and Barcelona have financial problems, yet they keep on buying big players. If the problems are too big, the city of Madrid buys Real's infradtructure and they can use it for free. Is this financial fair-play?

I agree with beachryan's proposals about the salaries and even more about the distribution of the TV-money, but i would add that this distribution should go all over Europe: all the TV-money in one big pot and then divided between the leagues, the lowest league gets the most money. This is exactly the same principle as what Beachryan proposed but then more globally. I don't think he will agree with this.
I also like the draft system in the NBA: the lowest club has the first choice among the fresh talents. That way a club like Bolton would have the first choice for young talents. It evens the competition out and that is a good thing.
The way English football was the last years, with the "big 4" is against the essence of sports. In a span of years every club of the EPL should have at least one season where they compete for the title...

Fact is that most big club fans are for the status quo once their club is among the biggest clubs, they don't like "new contenders". And to be fair, i understand them, but when they complain about other clubs i don't take them serious.

Isn't there any hope? Maybe a litle bit, last season provided a glimmer of hope with Norwich and Swansea and above all:

there might be a third way, i wonder what Newcastle will do next season. Here is a club with huge potential without a real sugar daddy, who made a giant leap with a sensible and fantastic transfer policy. Will they be able to make the next step up, next seaon? I seriously doubt it, but i hope it for football.

Don't misunderstand me: i agree that sugar daddies are a bad thing for football, but the people who complain only tell half of the story.
 
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Weakening rivals is nothing new...

Arsenal took Campbell off Spurs
Man Utd took Sheringham, Carrick, Berbatov off Spurs
Man Utd took Andy Cole off Newcastle, and they would have taken Nasri off Arsenal but for City's offer

People point to the Bundesliga as a paragon of fairness, and while it's better than the Premier League in some aspects, it's the same in this weakening rivals issue.

Bayern in the past 5 or so years have signed players in their prime Olic (HSV), Pizzaro (twice from Bremen), Klose (Bremen), Frings (Dortmund), Neuer (Schalke), Gomez (Stuttgart), Van Buyten (HSV). Dortmund themselves have signed Subotic (Mainz), Piszczek (Hertha), Gundogan (Nurnburg) and now Reus (Gladbach). Lyon did this "weaken rivals" transfer policy for a decade in France, it's not really anything new.
 
I don't think alot of those players were weakening rivals as it was an attempt to improve your team.

The ones that are weakening rivals are the ones that they pay for and hardly ever use, or buying a player that one of your rivals is interested in, just so they don't get them and then hardly play them.

The salary caps etc will only work if they are done globally like Gerd suggested. If you introduce salary caps just for your league, then all of the players will go to another league and make that the strongest league and the league you are in will lose lots of money and deteriorate in quality because of it.

I don't like Sugar Daddy teams for alot of reasons that Beachryan mentioned.

One of the biggest reasons for me was the emergence of Chelsea, Arsenal had worked hard to make a team that was ready to overtake Man Uniteds dominance, but just at that time Chelsea got all of the money in the world and the rest is history. I am sure (well obviously not that sure :PP) Some of the titles Chelsea won, would have been Arsenals at that time.

So Arsenal had been building a team for the last 6 years or so and a style of play to exceed Man United and we were better than them in alot of ways (I remember Man United kicking us around for a while, because they couldn't match our football), but a team instantly gets all of the money without doing anything and wins.

But as you say, it only annoys me because Arsenal have missed out because of it.

But it is like being at work and working your arse off for 10 years only for someone who has been there for 3months getting the promotion before you because they are the Boss's Nephew....so you are extremely pissed off with the Nephew (and the boss) it's natural.
 
BobbyBox said:
I don't think alot of those players were weakening rivals as it was an attempt to improve your team.

The ones that are weakening rivals are the ones that they pay for and hardly ever use, or buying a player that one of your rivals is interested in, just so they don't get them and then hardly play them.

The salary caps etc will only work if they are done globally like Gerd suggested. If you introduce salary caps just for your league, then all of the players will go to another league and make that the strongest league and the league you are in will lose lots of money and deteriorate in quality because of it.

I don't like Sugar Daddy teams for alot of reasons that Beachryan mentioned.

One of the biggest reasons for me was the emergence of Chelsea, Arsenal had worked hard to make a team that was ready to overtake Man Uniteds dominance, but just at that time Chelsea got all of the money in the world and the rest is history. I am sure (well obviously not that sure :PP) Some of the titles Chelsea won, would have been Arsenals at that time.

So Arsenal had been building a team for the last 6 years or so and a style of play to exceed Man United and we were better than them in alot of ways (I remember Man United kicking us around for a while, because they couldn't match our football), but a team instantly gets all of the money without doing anything and wins.

But as you say, it only annoys me because Arsenal have missed out because of it.

But it is like being at work and working your arse off for 10 years only for someone who has been there for 3months getting the promotion before you because they are the Boss's Nephew....so you are extremely pissed off with the Nephew (and the boss) it's natural.
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well said mate
 
BobbyBox said:
I don't think alot of those players were weakening rivals as it was an attempt to improve your team.

The ones that are weakening rivals are the ones that they pay for and hardly ever use, or buying a player that one of your rivals is interested in, just so they don't get them and then hardly play them.
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Only Neuer and Gomez really improved Bayern dramatically, the rest have all either been sold on (Klose, Frings), will be sold on this summer (Olic after only 50 odd games since 2009), or are on the fringe of the squad (Van Buyten's only played more than 25 games twice in his 6 years at the club). When Man Utd signed Sheringham they already had Andy Cole and Solsjkar at the club, the next season they signed Dwighte York from Villa (a club record fee at the time and another example of this tryasfer polcy). The season before Campbell signed you had Adams and Keown each playing over 25 games (and both had been in the Euro 2000 squad for England), you had other defenders like Lauren (from Cameroon) and Ashley Cole and Kolo Toure in the youth team. Yes Campbell went on to have a great career at Highbury and to be a vital member of the team, but at the time you still had a very strong defence.
 
cfdh_edmundo said:
Only Neuer and Gomez really improved Bayern dramatically, the rest have all either been sold on (Klose, Frings), will be sold on this summer (Olic after only 50 odd games since 2009), or are on the fringe of the squad (Van Buyten's only played more than 25 games twice in his 6 years at the club). When Man Utd signed Sheringham they already had Andy Cole and Solsjkar at the club, the next season they signed Dwighte York from Villa (a club record fee at the time and another example of this tryasfer polcy). The season before Campbell signed you had Adams and Keown each playing over 25 games (and both had been in the Euro 2000 squad for England), you had other defenders like Lauren (from Cameroon) and Ashley Cole and Kolo Toure in the youth team. Yes Campbell went on to have a great career at Highbury and to be a vital member of the team, but at the time you still had a very strong defence.
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I really don't know about Bayern. But to say Man United bought Sheringham to weaken a rival, Spurs were hardly rivalling anybody for the league anyway. Sheringham was bought for the reason to help Man United win things. The Same with Cole and Dwight york, with those four strikers Man United dominated, they had strike partnerships for all occasions. most teams aspire to have 4 strikers to rotate and can do the job, but very few achieve it as palyers don't play enough and want to leave etc. So I don't think those players were to harm rivals, especially because Spurs and Villa were not exactly rivals? (Newcastle were the closest to a rival, but Cole was one of the best strikers in the league with a prolific scoring record).

Arsenal signed Campbell because he was one of the best defenders in the league and he was free. He was younger (and a central defender) and better than Keown, it was to improve the squad. I don't think we bought him to weaken Spurs? I think it was a nice secondary effect of buying him to improve our team.

I agree that teams do it, but I can't think of a time Arsenal did it to weaken a rival, mainly because we never had the money to play around like that. We have always had to buy players that would make a difference to our squad.

One of the main examples off the top of my head, I can thik of with Chelsea at the time was Shaun Wright-Phillips regarding Arsenal. We were widely tipped to get him, especially with his connection with Ian Wright, then Chelsea bought him and hardly ever played him. I think this was a transfer that was used to stop a rival getting stronger (I'm not saying that Wright-Phillips was that great but at the time he was playing very well and had great potential).

Arsenal could never spend 21 million just for a player not to go to their rival, not in 2005 and even not now.

Most teams can't play around with money that way....only the ones where money is no object can.
 
I can understand how you feel about Chelsea Bobby, i would feel the same. My argument is that Arsenal and other big clubs closed a door for "outsiders" and that the only way to open that door is the way Chelsea and City are doing it. My point is that the traditional big clubs have (at least partially) to blame themselves. But i guess i will not win many people over for that argument.

Now let's take the example of Shaun Wright Philips (and i realize that i will exagerate in what follows). Basicly what you are saying is that Arsenal was not aware that SWP would not be that good after all, but that Chelsea realized that and still bought him to weaken Arsenal. I'm sorry but this does not make sense at all.
What happened is that Chelsea took the same gamble Arsenal was prepared to take: buy a hot prospect from a lesser club in the hope he becomes a big player.

And this discussion started because somebody claimed that City bought players to weaken rival clubs. I honestly can't see any example at all.

Let's take a look at the players they bought in recent years:

Clichy and Nasri from Arsenal: both are playing very regularly.
Tevez from Man Utd: after all that happened it is pretty obvious that City bought Tevez to play for them. Mancini has eaten enough humble pie for Tevez.
Hargreaves from United: he never played for United and never plays for City. I don't understand why they bought him, but definitely not to weaken United.
Barry and Milner from Villa: Villa can't be considered rivals and both players are in the starting eleven quite regularly.

Unless i oversee somebody pretty obvious, i can't see a single transfer to weaken a rival club.
 
It's a bit non-contextual to dismiss Villa as not being rivals. That Villa team in 1997-8 (the last year they had Yorke) qualified for Europe via their league position in the previous 3 seasons. In 1996 they finished 4th (actually just ahead of Arenal on goals scored), in 1997 5th (7pts off the CL which at the time was top 2 only) and in 1998 they again made the UEFA Cup, in there European matches they beat teams like Bilbao, Bordeaux and Atletico Madrid. In his last 3 seasons there he scored 50 odd goals. Villa were pushing top 4 with him, they had decent players like Collymore, Southgate, Ehiogu, Staunton and with young players like Barry and Hendrie coming through they might have been challengers - they were at a higher stage to Newcastle of this season just gone. In fact the Christmas after he left they were top of the league, but the attack was too thin and without Yorke's goals Villa collapsed. The whole point is signing Yorke set them back years and snuffed out any chance of them being rivals. Ditto Andy Cole from Newcastle (who had been runners up a few times with him), but you seem to think that's ok as he was a quality player

More recently when Ferdinand was signed from Leeds in 2002, they had been Champions League semi finalists in 2001, and had finished 4th in 99, 3rd in 2000 and 4th in 2001. When Spurs sold Carrick in 2006 they had finished 5th just 2 points behind the CL places, the year after they were 5th again but the gap had grown to 8 points, once they sold Berbatov they were finishing 8th and not even in the UEFA/Europa places.

As I said, these sorts of "weakening" transfers tend to happen very often in a lot of leagues.
 
gerd said:
I can understand how you feel about Chelsea Bobby, i would feel the same. My argument is that Arsenal and other big clubs closed a door for "outsiders" and that the only way to open that door is the way Chelsea and City are doing it. My point is that the traditional big clubs have (at least partially) to blame themselves. But i guess i will not win many people over for that argument.

Now let's take the example of Shaun Wright Philips (and i realize that i will exagerate in what follows). Basicly what you are saying is that Arsenal was not aware that SWP would not be that good after all, but that Chelsea realized that and still bought him to weaken Arsenal. I'm sorry but this does not make sense at all.
What happened is that Chelsea took the same gamble Arsenal was prepared to take: buy a hot prospect from a lesser club in the hope he becomes a big player.

And this discussion started because somebody claimed that City bought players to weaken rival clubs. I honestly can't see any example at all.

Let's take a look at the players they bought in recent years:

Clichy and Nasri from Arsenal: both are playing very regularly.
Tevez from Man Utd: after all that happened it is pretty obvious that City bought Tevez to play for them. Mancini has eaten enough humble pie for Tevez.
Hargreaves from United: he never played for United and never plays for City. I don't understand why they bought him, but definitely not to weaken United.
Barry and Milner from Villa: Villa can't be considered rivals and both players are in the starting eleven quite regularly.

Unless i oversee somebody pretty obvious, i can't see a single transfer to weaken a rival club.
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If you refuse to think that nasri to city did not weaken arsenal you are crazy mate.

Sorry but i still dont agree with u on how united and co shut the door to everyone else. they diddnt!

i keep telling u time and time again that united and co worked there ass's off then others to get to where they are and because of them. all they did was slowly increase and sustain the transfer market whilst city and chelsea and blown it out of proportion to a whole new level.

200k is average for city now. next year 300k for Naymar. 2-3 years, 400k for another hot player etc etc. when will it end.

how can u defend the likes of city and chelsea and call united and co, bitter that our respective clubs cant compete anymore.

Just because united have been dominating for 20 years doesnt mean they have shut the door to everyone else. infact, the reason why united have dominated for years is because of Fergie. he is argubably the best manager in the world. he did not spend 200m to create a succesful team. he has build many teams from the ground up with adding maybe 2-3 world class players. thats it!

The team this season for example is a fucking joke yet finished level with points with city and there 1billion pounds worth of squad.

Think for a second man. United have bene succesful because they have a brilliant manager. it is not because they buy the best talent in the world all the time. far from it.

the likes of scholes, giggs and people like dnany welbeck were not players fergie bought for 50m a pop.

he and his staff helped developed these players. What has city and chelsea done? they have fucking ruined football to the point that only sheik's can compete now.

You say u was pissed when the likes of Bolton could not compete against united and arsenal. Well tell me, how is the Shiek's money going to help Bolton now?

doesnt it make things ALOT worse?
 
cfdh_edmundo said:
It's a bit non-contextual to dismiss Villa as not being rivals. That Villa team in 1997-8 (the last year they had Yorke) qualified for Europe via their league position in the previous 3 seasons. In 1996 they finished 4th (actually just ahead of Arenal on goals scored), in 1997 5th (7pts off the CL which at the time was top 2 only) and in 1998 they again made the UEFA Cup, in there European matches they beat teams like Bilbao, Bordeaux and Atletico Madrid. In his last 3 seasons there he scored 50 odd goals. Villa were pushing top 4 with him, they had decent players like Collymore, Southgate, Ehiogu, Staunton and with young players like Barry and Hendrie coming through they might have been challengers - they were at a higher stage to Newcastle of this season just gone. In fact the Christmas after he left they were top of the league, but the attack was too thin and without Yorke's goals Villa collapsed. The whole point is signing Yorke set them back years and snuffed out any chance of them being rivals. Ditto Andy Cole from Newcastle (who had been runners up a few times with him), but you seem to think that's ok as he was a quality player

More recently when Ferdinand was signed from Leeds in 2002, they had been Champions League semi finalists in 2001, and had finished 4th in 99, 3rd in 2000 and 4th in 2001. When Spurs sold Carrick in 2006 they had finished 5th just 2 points behind the CL places, the year after they were 5th again but the gap had grown to 8 points, once they sold Berbatov they were finishing 8th and not even in the UEFA/Europa places.

As I said, these sorts of "weakening" transfers tend to happen very often in a lot of leagues.
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I don't agree they bought them to weaken their rivals, I just feel they bought them because they were some of the best players around.

I don't think qualifying for Europe makes them a rival against Man United as a rival would be somebody challenging for the title with them imo. They were doing well granted, but I still think these players were bought with the main intention of improving Man United and not to weaken the teams that they were taken from.

Also just did a quick check and if it is correct? Cole joined Man United in January 1995 and Newcastle were runners up in 1996 and 1997? if that is right, they achieved there runners up positions without him?

Also the sale of Ferdinand was more to do with Leeds not qualifying for the champions league and it leaving them in severe financial difficulty and having to sell Ferdinand for 30million offer Man United paid for him. Did Man United really pay 30Million for a defender just to weaken Leeds? I don't think so, he was one of the best English defenders in the league and was young and they knew he could be at the centre of their defence for many years to come.

Anyway it doesn't really matter, Clubs do tend to buy players that weaken teams I just don't agree with your examples.


gerd said:
Now let's take the example of Shaun Wright Philips (and i realize that i will exagerate in what follows). Basicly what you are saying is that Arsenal was not aware that SWP would not be that good after all, but that Chelsea realized that and still bought him to weaken Arsenal. I'm sorry but this does not make sense at all.
What happened is that Chelsea took the same gamble Arsenal was prepared to take: buy a hot prospect from a lesser club in the hope he becomes a big player.
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Basically what I was saying is that Chelsea could buy much much better players than Wright-Phillips, which they did and they could afford to pay 21 million for Wright-Phillips to sit on the bench and if he did become great then brilliant, but he was hardly given any game time to prove it anyway. It isn't much of a gamble to a club where 21 million is probably equal to around 6million for another club.

But for Arsenal it would have been much more of a gamble and he would have got more playing time at Arsenal and maybe would have been a success. We couldn't afford much much better players than him, so we didn't have alot of options and with his potential he would have improved us. But Chelsea offered him the wages and paid the ridiculous fee for him and Arsenal could not compete.

It's hard to say which players are bought to weaken an opposition team and some of the ones you mentioned I don't think were for that purpose. It could all be paranoia anyway, but sometimes it looks so blatant.
 
I have that feeling with Lukaku.
He barely played, but Chelsea bought him to have before other clubs could buy him (also knowing that Lukaku is very young and a huge fan of both Chelsea and Drogba).

Jonney, sometimes i wonder if you bother to read my posts.
Man Utd became succesfull because of a fantastic manager, i never said otherwise. Those clubs became big clubs because of their own merits. I never disputed that.

The only thing i said is that they closed closed the doors for other clubs. I already gave you the example of the division of the television money in the CL (the example when Porto won it). You asked a link or a source. I can't provide you one, but i've read an extensive article about that in a Belgian paper at the time. And apparently i'm not the same who knows it (also look at the post of Iceman Bergkamp). It all started in the 90's with the G14 (who later became more clubs, as clubs like Chelsea, Lyon and others were admitted).
 
gerd said:
I have that feeling with Lukaku.
He barely played, but Chelsea bought him to have before other clubs could buy him (also knowing that Lukaku is very young and a huge fan of both Chelsea and Drogba).

Jonney, sometimes i wonder if you bother to read my posts.
Man Utd became succesfull because of a fantastic manager, i never said otherwise. Those clubs became big clubs because of their own merits. I never disputed that.

The only thing i said is that they closed closed the doors for other clubs. I already gave you the example of the division of the television money in the CL (the example when Porto won it). You asked a link or a source. I can't provide you one, but i've read an extensive article about that in a Belgian paper at the time. And apparently i'm not the same who knows it (also look at the post of Iceman Bergkamp). It all started in the 90's with the G14 (who later became more clubs, as clubs like Chelsea, Lyon and others were admitted).
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CL doesnt represent the whole world of football.

i have pointed u wrong by stating how in the PL all tv rights and media are evenly distrubuted so the likes of bolton still get same share of revenue for tv.

How has United and co closed teh doors for otehr clubs? did the owners of teh respective clubs said not to give money to porto and co? No thats FIFA/UEFA government bodies. not teh clubs owners.

How can u blame the clubs owners?
 
The fact that ex-Arsenal players like Nasri and Clichy are playing regularly (Nasri is not so regular, mind you) does not mean that City didn't buy them to weaken Arsenal too. Beachryan's post summed it up: they reinforce their team and weaken opponents in one swoop.
Nasri and Clichy are playing because they are good players. But a declining Touré and Adebayor aren't.

The truth is, most of their moves are a gamble - it's a hit and miss thing. But who cares when you miss when you've got limitless petrodollars?

They got nothing to lose actually. They can make a record breaking offer for Rooney and offer him 300k a week. If the deal happens, it's not a bluff, they have the cash to pay for it. But if the move is rejected by United, City at least succeeded in unsettling Rooney. You see it's a win-win situation for City.

Who knows what goes behind curtains? They might offer a ridiculous salary to Rooney, which will tempt him and make him want to go - while offering a not so attractive transfer fee. This would piss United off and put them under pressure to deal with their wantaway star. Such tactics would undermine United's relationship with Rooney.
Sounds familiar? It might as well have happened already during that summer of speculation.
City at the very least gave Ferguson a hell of a problem to deal with, while casually browsing the market for other moves with their blank cheques. So their rivals are too worried and busy trying to keep their own stars, while City acts untroubled in other fronts, bidding for the most exciting players.

Since we're talking about conspiratory things and being paranoid here, that's my view on this issue. May not be very far from the truth.

As for buying players from within the Premier League, it goes beyond the strategy of weakening opponents. It is to get the Premier League hardened players who have this sort of experience. It is to buy the guys that are as ready as possible. No periods of adaptation to a new country and league are needed. This is short-termism at its best, another strong feature of Sugar Daddy owned clubs.
 
Rentboy said:
As for buying players from within the Premier League, it goes beyond the strategy of weakening opponents. It is to get the Premier League hardened players who have this sort of experience. It is to buy the guys that are as ready as possible. No periods of adaptation to a new country and league are needed. This is short-termism at its best, another strong feature of Sugar Daddy owned clubs.
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I think most clubs would want to buy premierleague players that have already proved themselves in the league, but they come at a premium because of Teams like Chelsea and Man City.

If you have an English Player that plays well in the Premier League or is young and has a few good games in a row, then they are worth at least 15-20million. This has happened because of those clubs paying the ridiculous sums of money for them and raising their prices.
 
BobbyBox said:
I think most clubs would want to buy premierleague players that have already proved themselves in the league, but they come at a premium because of Teams like Chelsea and Man City.

If you have an English Player that plays well in the Premier League or is young and has a few good games in a row, then they are worth at least 15-20million. This has happened because of those clubs paying the ridiculous sums of money for them and raising their prices.
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In all fairness English players have been overpriced for a while now, even before they came along. But yes, they took it to the next level and inflated the market in such a ridiculous way. Nowadays, if you think about it, England's top, established players aren't really affordable for anyone but City, Chelsea and United.
Arsenal has had a careful approach in the transfer market in the past decade and those English players at prohibitive prices cannot really be considered by Arsenal - as a consequence, Arsenal received criticism by media for not having English players in the starting XI. The only English players Arsenal could afford are the young ones: Walcott, Ox... even so, Ox was an extraordinary case, given it was a club record fee.

If you look at Liverpool trying to keep up buying English players and paying what they have for Carroll and Henderson... when you look at that and what Newcastle spent to bring Ba and Cisse, it really makes you wonder if "proven" Premier League players are really worth the trouble.
 
Rentboy said:
In all fairness English players have been overpriced for a while now, even before they came along. But yes, they took it to the next level and inflated the market in such a ridiculous way. Nowadays, if you think about it, England's top, established players aren't really affordable for anyone but City, Chelsea and United.
Arsenal has had a careful approach in the transfer market in the past decade and those English players at prohibitive prices cannot really be considered by Arsenal - as a consequence, Arsenal received criticism by media for not having English players in the starting XI. The only English players Arsenal could afford are the young ones: Walcott, Ox... even so, Ox was an extraordinary case, given it was a club record fee.

If you look at Liverpool trying to keep up buying English players and paying what they have for Carroll and Henderson... when you look at that and what Newcastle spent to bring Ba and Cisse, it really makes you wonder if "proven" Premier League players are really worth the trouble.
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Carrol and Henderson were not even proven (as in being really good in there positions) premierleague players that is what is stupid, they both showed great potential and are English that is all.

The price we paid for the Ox was ridiculous for a player his age, not played in the premier league or for his country. But arguably his price has doubled now, considering the prices people paid for Henderson and Carroll. Which is stupid.

Prices are ridiculous these days, both transfer fees and wages it is really sickening.

The most expensive players were always those that were of a certain age, that had proved that they are one of the best consistantly in their positions and have played for their country, now it is based on a few games of playing well.
 
jonneymendoza said:
CL doesnt represent the whole world of football.
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And this from the person that wanted Wenger out if Arsenal didn't reach the CL.

The CL is everything in football jonney and you know this damn well.

The fact that Spurs missed out on the CL is a catastrophe. The fact that a player like Hazard wanted to go to Spurs, but now goes to Chelsea says it all. Is money the reason? No. The CL is the reason.

And that is only from the point of view of English clubs (the only point of view that interests you i suspect). From the point of view of the average Portugese, Danish or Dutch club, the CL (money) is everything. If a club like Ajax fails to qualify for the CL two years in a row, they loose big money (although insignificant to the amount of money the clubs from the big countries get) and loose their bestr players.

So like i said: the CL is everything in football. To get big results in the league, clubs need the CL. Don't tell me you don't realize that.
 
So Wenger has supposedly given up signing M'Vila and is looking towards Nigel De Jong? Where would he play with the Song/Arteta combination working so well already?
 
gerd said:
And this from the person that wanted Wenger out if Arsenal didn't reach the CL.

The CL is everything in football jonney and you know this damn well.

The fact that Spurs missed out on the CL is a catastrophe. The fact that a player like Hazard wanted to go to Spurs, but now goes to Chelsea says it all. Is money the reason? No. The CL is the reason.

And that is only from the point of view of English clubs (the only point of view that interests you i suspect). From the point of view of the average Portugese, Danish or Dutch club, the CL (money) is everything. If a club like Ajax fails to qualify for the CL two years in a row, they loose big money (although insignificant to the amount of money the clubs from the big countries get) and loose their best players.

So like i said: the CL is everything in football. To get big results in the league, clubs need the CL. Don't tell me you don't realize that.
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Like i said, the CL is run by uefa, not run by Peter Hill-Wood so you cant blame the clubs AT ALL. blame UEFA. it has nothing to do with arsenal and co and yes i wanted wenger out if we dont reach CL because if u dont reach CL u are not a big club anymore and we are suppose to be
 
The clubs are definitely to blame jonney. They constantly are hijacking UEFA, threatening to begin their own European Super League if they don't get their way.

That is what happened at the end of the 90's. European big clubs united themselves to defend their interests. UEFA choose to ignore them, but when they threatened with their own Super League, UEFA capitulated. That is when they started to act like a kartel and created the glass ceiling.
If you think UEFA is that powerfull, you are pretty naïve.

Arsenal need the CL because it attracts players (or better: if you don't play CL, good players simply won't come) and because they loose a very significant amount of money (which will go to an English rival). So if a club doesn't play CL, they are also weakened in the domestic league.
When clubs like Arsenal, Chelsea, but also Anderlecht, Ajax, Porto, Benfica, Lyon, Copenhagen, make their annual budget they take CL money for granted. If they miss out on the CL, that is a financial catastrophe.
 
Got off work only to see Szczęsny red carded. Absolutely gutted for him. Pretty much ruined my day.
 
Arsenal4Life said:
Got off work only to see Szczęsny red carded. Absolutely gutted for him. Pretty much ruined my day.
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The lad has lots of mental strength and confidence, so he will get over it :)

Watching the Russia vs Czech Republic game, I remembered what a creative threat Arshavin is. I know it's early to say this, it's only the first day of the Euros, but I have no doubt in my mind that Arshavin still got it and has much more to offer when he's played as a free roaming playmaker, classic no.10 player. He fed that Russian attack brilliantly and if Kerzhakov wasn't so wasteful, it could have been 6 or 7-1.

In terms of rolling up the sleeves, busting a gut and helping the defense, don't count on Arshavin. He was the same yesterday. But the sheer talent is still there.

It's unlikely he will return to Arsenal, and maybe that's better for both parties involved. If AW is to insist sticking him to a wing in that rigid and predictable 4-3-3 of his, than it's better to sell Arshavin for a good fee and see the man happier somewhere else.

In England people criticise him because it's all about defensive work rate, running the length of the pitch and throwing yourself all over the place. The English love a mediocre player with lots of heart and no talent. In other words, they love a Scott Parker :)
But hey, don't complain when, despite the Premier League being the richest in the world, you have to cheer on a team that's average at best.
 
Rentboy said:
The lad has lots of mental strength and confidence, so he will get over it :)

Watching the Russia vs Czech Republic game, I remembered what a creative threat Arshavin is. I know it's early to say this, it's only the first day of the Euros, but I have no doubt in my mind that Arshavin still got it and has much more to offer when he's played as a free roaming playmaker, classic no.10 player. He fed that Russian attack brilliantly and if Kerzhakov wasn't so wasteful, it could have been 6 or 7-1.

In terms of rolling up the sleeves, busting a gut and helping the defense, don't count on Arshavin. He was the same yesterday. But the sheer talent is still there.

It's unlikely he will return to Arsenal, and maybe that's better for both parties involved. If AW is to insist sticking him to a wing in that rigid and predictable 4-3-3 of his, than it's better to sell Arshavin for a good fee and see the man happier somewhere else.

In England people criticise him because it's all about defensive work rate, running the length of the pitch and throwing yourself all over the place. The English love a mediocre player with lots of heart and no talent. In other words, they love a Scott Parker :)
But hey, don't complain when, despite the Premier League being the richest in the world, you have to cheer on a team that's average at best.
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What you say about Defensive Work Rate where do you get that view? English people, along with pretty much any other country, love a player who can defend because it's required in football to be able to defend, so saying Parker is all heart and no talent is IMO wrong because being able to last a full game making decent blocks and tackles is a talent in itself wouldn't you say? To suggest that it isn't is in effect questioning if any other the worlds best defenders have any talent whatsoever. But in the Premier League I'd say people also value the attacking players just as much if not more, players like Rooney at United, Silva at City, Mata at Chelsea and Modric at Tottenham as well as the Out and Out strikers such as Van Persie of Arsenal are important because they create and score goals which again is needed in football.
The reason many don't rate Arshavin (IMO) in England is because after the impressive start he made he faded out fast and then struggled physically to keep up with the EPL, he couldn't influence the game (yeah that possibly the 433 restriction) and the fact the system didn't work for him and so he stopped trying to work for the system. The way he played yesterday showed a glimpse of hope for him, and I'd low to see him in that form in the prem (coming from a United fan) because I love any player who can run a game, or score goals.
Arshavin has bags of quality that's undeniable, but as I sai he began to struggle and he didn't help himsel by coming in and scoring 4 as Liverpool settin the bar so high! :L
 
Taylor_94 said:
What you say about Defensive Work Rate where do you get that view? English people, along with pretty much any other country, love a player who can defend because it's required in football to be able to defend, so saying Parker is all heart and no talent is IMO wrong because being able to last a full game making decent blocks and tackles is a talent in itself wouldn't you say? To suggest that it isn't is in effect questioning if any other the worlds best defenders have any talent whatsoever. But in the Premier League I'd say people also value the attacking players just as much if not more, players like Rooney at United, Silva at City, Mata at Chelsea and Modric at Tottenham as well as the Out and Out strikers such as Van Persie of Arsenal are important because they create and score goals which again is needed in football.
The reason many don't rate Arshavin (IMO) in England is because after the impressive start he made he faded out fast and then struggled physically to keep up with the EPL, he couldn't influence the game (yeah that possibly the 433 restriction) and the fact the system didn't work for him and so he stopped trying to work for the system. The way he played yesterday showed a glimpse of hope for him, and I'd low to see him in that form in the prem (coming from a United fan) because I love any player who can run a game, or score goals.
Arshavin has bags of quality that's undeniable, but as I sai he began to struggle and he didn't help himsel by coming in and scoring 4 as Liverpool settin the bar so high! :L
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Defending is of course crucial and as important as attacking flare (although the attacking side of the game steals the headlines). And in that England has a solid unit, players like Lescott, Cahill (now he's out sadly) and Cashley Cole are top defenders. But if you look upfront, this team will always struggle to score. Rooney is the only one who's truly gifted and ready for the big stage (Ox and Welbeck are very promising but they're still lightweight).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that your attacking players are burdened with this culture of defensive duties. England loves industry, and this is expected from all 11 players even the centre forward. I mean, you cannot have the best of both worlds, this is very difficult to find.
My example of Scott Parker is how I illustrate this culture of praising the effort (which is only fair) but to overlook another quite important element in the game: what else does that player bring to the team?
Stamina and blocks and tackles alone are not enough I think. In modern football if you're a holding midfielder you have to check all these boxes and offer more.
To be honest, I don't even think Parker is that great at what he does. Many will point out to the fact that the diving tackles and blocks he does are due to poor positioning in the first place. I started noticing this and found myself agreeing. He finishes the match all covered in mud from sliding on the ground :LOL: but you see other players that are at least equally effective who don't need to dive in front of the ball all the time, because they got their positioning sorted.
Modern football demands players in that position to bring something else to the game, look at Yaya Toure's offensive contributions, look at Alex Song's assists.
To me that's ok, he's ok, I don't have anything personal against Parker. But I just can't understand the hype around him. And there lies the contrast that puzzles me: an average at best player gets lots of praise and a talented foreign attacker who's been played out of position gets all that stick from media pundits and fans. His own fans!

But going back to the English players: the hype and attention they get, the price tags on them (and salaries) has got them in a comfort zone. Some guys in this England squad think they're untouchable, but they wouldn't make the cut on many European 23-men selections.
Talent is out there, I think England can improve a lot in the future, but the mentality being so focused on defense makes it difficult for the emerging talents to turn into strikers full of offensive flair. The attacking talent has not been nurtured in the right way IMO.
The booing of players like Arshavin by his own fans comes to show that the average fan cannot acknowledge that in football there must be space for specialists, guys who are extremely good in one thing (creating) and very poor in another (defending). Arshavin as a no.10 playmaker receives top marks IMO. Special talent requires a bit of freedom.
So under these circumstances and the way the game is played in England, culturally, English players are developed to be all round players, but most end up being flat, not excelling in anything in particular. That's the way I see this England team for years now. It's flat. Look at that midfield, there's not enough creativity and guys who are only suited to play a straight line of 4.
With more foreign stars in the Prem, one would think this approach would change, they would be more influenced by continental style, but this is not happening. This right now is one of England's most boring sides ever :(
 
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