From Alex Marc : Right on the money! Scary and plain simple.
Myles,
This is the best summary I have read on the horrible situation at Arsenal.
In transit from ski training to family reunion in the South of France…near Sète, home of Georges Brassens and the Muscat.
So, after a quick Arsenal round-up, it is striking that:
1) after the meltdown of last season, with the entire media waiting for further desintegration, Arsene, Ivan & co. find the time to make a ludicrous bid for Jagielka.
Everybody knows that an established born and bred English centre-half of international caliber is in the 15 to 20 range…why bother and feed the tabloid with another “Arsenal transfer blow”?
2) Arsenal management keep referring that they will conduct business (a lot of business according to them!!!), but it has all to remain within our means.
Well, these same means have allowed for very generous long-term contracts to be dispatched left right and center to a bunch of players who are now considered dead wood.
The Denilson case says it all!!! Nobody comes in for such a mediocre bunch, so all we can do is loan them out and in all likelihood pay for most of the wages (outrageously high for such a lack of quality).
3) in accounting terms, the likes of Bendtner, Almunia, Eboue, Traore, Fabianski, etc…should be assets on Arsenal books.
Well, reality tells us that we might as well write off most of these “virtual assets”. How much money has been wasted in “creche” investments? When you add all the too generous long-term contracts which will wind down with no takers, how many real players could we have bought? An interesting calculation.
4) what have all these spoiled teenage boys contributed to the Arsenal family?
Are they going to do full time charity/community works while their contracts run down and nobody wants them on their team? At least it would do some good!
5) how many other clubs has Wenger insulted in recent years which has made transfer dealings more difficult? Remember how long the Nasri, Arshavin, Chamakh, and now Gervinho tranfers have taken? Why can’t we do the David Dein, ManU type routine? As discussed above we have waisted enough on little boys, why not pay the price and move on.
6) Arsenal is not above the rest in “moral” terms.
We are under siege from many questionable Spanish sources trying to force and lower the transfer of Cesc, but we have been cynically taking advantage of foreign laws to raid academies across the continent, starting with the Anelka situation. How has Wenger endeared himself over the years with the club managements he ripped off because of a favorable legal framework?
7) Everybody knows what we need, and everybody knows roughly how much it would cost (remember how the quotes for Phil Jones, Ashley Young, Stuart Downing etc were precise ahead of time), and our management keep claiming activity yet nothing happens, beside insulting Everton and Moyes, who by the way deserve a lot of respect for hanging in there with limited means.
Bottom line: wheels have come off the train, and we are heading towards some serious aggravations, yet nobody has the guts to pull the handbrakes and save the party! It really seems we can only raise again from the ashes of a desaster waiting to happen with more and more clarity every day.
What is more likely to happen until the end of the transfer window?
a) we will insult another batch of established European clubs
or b) we will sign 3 world-class players who will radically chage the profile of our team of spoiled kids?