Thanks for putting my thoughts back in proper perspective. There is no doubt that Wenger is a genius! A modern day prophet amongst the tribe of football managers! The Nostradamus of football! While Managers who’ve built their success on the back of short-term excesses get lauded as ‘the special one’ and ‘our own ‘arry’; Wenger’s legacy will prevail long after he has left in the form of a hugely successful and self-sustaining football club and business model! Truly, Wenger man ahead of his times! Thanks for reminding me that!

Walter, I completely agree. AW’s plan all along has been to keep a young core of spectacular footballers together, and he has signalled his intent with all those contract renewals in the past year. Sorry Barca and you shitty British media, Cesc is not leaving. Young Theo will blossom. The sky’s the limit for Diaby, Rosicky oh my…the list goes on.

Even with a few injuries next year, we will still dominate. All the players are improving and maturing, and there’s confidence brewing. The toughest part of AW’s job is deciding what eleven to play at any given time!

I certainly dont think expecting AW to produce great football sides again is being “disresectful” of the man. I think he expects nothing less of himself. If he isnt able to do that anymore, then he should be thanked for the wonderful things he has done for our club and we should look for someone that can do it. Arsenal are bigger than any one man, and AW would be the FIRST person to agree with that. I think that if this current team doesnt mature fully and remain competitive then AW will not wait to be sacked, he will resign gracefully himself. I dont think it is “disrespectful” to say that if we dont remain competitive for the next five years that AW might be asked to move aside. Would you honestly accept just barely finishing in 4th and being out of the Championship race before December every season now that we no longer have to worry about finances? I personally think we should now aim higher and I personally think AW would agree with me on that, and not want to be given “special” treatment just because he did such amazing work during a tough financial period in our history.

Moneyball is certainly fascinating and “What sport tells us about life”, whilst not as involved, is similar territory but more a further set of analyses and conclusions. Each chapter is basically a short essay posing a few seemingly simple questions. The book gave me new perspectives on key areas which sports throws up – many of which are fascinating and are directly applicable to The Arsenal (or any other team and sport for that matter).

It is pretty much essential thought provoking material to elucidate why we care about sport so much, what that says about us as people and why.

:0)

The book references Moneyball repeatedly.

I’d suggest anyone who is interested in sport and life should read them both.

In the last few years we saw so many team going in to administration just because their fans and owner want leave the premiership dream (Leeds,crystal palace ,portsmouth soon,Southampton and few other), that i don’t mind Wenger not spending the money,it s just two finger to all this team who continue to spend spend and still looking at us on the top of the league.

You really have to be a platinum idiot not to appreciate the constraints that Arsenal has worked with over the last 4 to 5 years.

I’m sure – in fact I’m bloody sure that there were mistakes made tactically on the pitch in periods during the last 4 years that could have been avoided. But honestly, which team hasn’t made those mistakes.

I think people also need to manage their own expectations about what this team can deliver and when they can.

I personally feel this season we can actually challenge (well, the league table suggests we are challenging) for the title and actually win it. And if we don’t, I’m not going to lose the plot – we dust ourselves down and start again.

For some reason, I’m under the impression this is what being a supporter is about. The team needs us most when they have to fight and scrap for a draw or an elusive win. When the team is playing champagne football, it’s for us to enjoy. But when they’re going through a difficult patch, we get behind them and help them cross that patch.

I seem to have missed the point at which supporting your team during hard times became ‘moaning and groaning’ about not spending big money for over-hyped and over-rated players.

How the hell is Lescott a better player than Vermaelen, or Berbatov better than Arshavin to warrant the obscene difference in the price tags?

That period is now over however. We are one of the richest clubs in Europe (and therefore the world) now. Easily. With the exception of Real Madrid we can compete with anyone financially now. We can now pay comparable wages to anyone (I do not believe profits should be spent on transfers, but on wages. I believe a manager should generate his own transfer money through his wheeling and dealing, as AW does). Now it is quite right that fans expect AW to continue to build a side that can consistently compete for major honours season after season.

I simply dont think people should say “we havent won anything for 5 years” in a bad way, because we havent been playing on a level playing field for the past five years. Now we are. Moving forward AW should be judged as any other manager should be judged.

About the young players delivering: just take Cesc. He still is only 22 and this is the age other players in other teams get to start regurlary. He has an enormous amount of games already.
Last year he had due to injuries (sigh) and the EC with Spain a more difficult season but he has stepped up and made almost the last step in his learning process.
If he keeps that up and keeps fit then next year we will have a combination of Kaka (the vision and playmaker), Ronaldinho (the skill and dead balls) and Ronaldo (scoring midfielder) in our team. Just the thought of it makes the water pour out of my mouth….

Thanks also Walter for explaining the language situation in Belgium a few weeks back! I didn’t get a chance to comment then and say thanks, it has always confused me somewhat!

Tim and Paul C: I neglected to mention in the article that, the Oakland A’s lived within their means and as a small club couldn’t take that final step. Arsenal, on the other hand (as Tim mentioned) play the transfer market efficiently while having high revenues. So really, we’ll still be spending less than other clubs, but will get far greater return on our investment.

IN Moneyball, there is reference to a “wins-dollars” ratio, ie the amount of runs a player will bring per dollar spent. For us, I imagine a similar measure would be “points per pound” ie the number of points gained per pound spent.

What you get, however is what economists call diminshing returns. For a bottom half team, £5million may bring in 3 extra points over a season, whereas for Arsenal, it may only bring in 0.1 points a season. (Naturally, you don’t get decimal points in a season, so consider it as an extra point every ten seasons instead) So in order to take that “final step”, a team must spend significant amounts.

Look at City. For a £200million outlay, they’ve gone from bottom half to top four hopefuls. But what will it take for them to make that final step and win the league? In football terms: stars. A Bellamy must be replaced by a Torres, a Barry with a Fabregas, a Lescott with a Puyol (I use these names figuratively, to illustrate the gulf in class). But to buy only 2 or 3 of these calibre of players would probably require a similar £200million investment. The same money is spent, but perhaps only 8-10 points are gained as a result, compared to maybe 25 for the initial spending.

Paul, you raise some interesting points in your last comment too. There surely must be a point when Wenger can take that final step, and spend a greater amount (but still within our means, as our means will be increasing over time with the debt being paid down etc). Once that happens, and he is on an equal financial footing, I agree that the same yardsticks must also be applied to him as other managers. That said, no manager in the world could do the job he has done over the last four or five years.

We will be unbeatable IF we don’t lose half our team with injuries in the World Cup.

Ooh I hate it already….

I don’t now if we will win it this year, hope so, but I really think from next season on we will be almost unbeatable.

And like J.C. (Johan Cruijf) said every bad thing has a good thing: again some youngsters have gained more experience thanks to this terrible injury crisis we face.

We will be unbeatable next year.

Having said that, with the resolution of our financial worries, AW is now (or should be) under the same pressures that all managers at top clubs should be to deliver success. I think he gets a free pass this year as I think this side is still very much in the rebuilding phase. Next year is a big one.

I love AW but do not think he should get a free pass indefinately. However when people say “we havent won anything for 5 years” I want to smack them, since ensuring top-4 status has been our League Championship Trophy for the past few seasons, given the financial constraints we were under. Now those constraints are gone. Now we start counting. Now we start judging AW by traditional methods of success and trophies.