All Change?

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    Al The Gooner
    Al The Gooner
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    In the aftermath of what I think was a good window, it’s time to analyse not just who’s come in and who’s left, but the obvious changes in our transfer policy and how the club goes about business.

    There have been many disagreements over the years over who was to blame for our spending policy, not just amongst us Gooners but among neutral observers as well. Some have blamed the board, some have blamed Wenger and some have blamed both.

    My feeling has always been that Wenger was given complete autonomy after Dein left. He decided who we bought, who we sold, how much we paid, how much we received and how much we paid in wages. Wenger himself has admitted as much when it came to wages. That, for me, was the only thing the board were doing wrong – that they allowed Wenger to have so much control, did nothing to rein him in and failed to show him the door when he kept cocking up.

    One thing that stood out was Wenger playing Giroud 12 hours before he moved to Chelski. That smacked of a manager who had had no say in the player being sold and was giving the finger to the transfer team that arranged the sale. Reports have since surfaced suggesting that it very much wasn’t his decision.

    The other thing that’s stood out is the change in our spending policy. We’ve now broken our transfer record twice in little over 6 months. Auba would have been our highest paid player, by some distance, on £180k pw but then Ozil was handed £300k pw, making him the 2nd highest paid player in the PL (behind Sanchez, funnily enough).

    Many of us understandably started to suspect that the whole Auba transfer was just for show and would all fall apart at the last minute – after all, we’ve seen it many times before – but Gazidis and co came through in the end. Also interesting to note that, in general, the media are specifically crediting the new transfer team with this deal and not putting it down to Wenger, as they always did in the past.

    There was also talk about how losing out on £60m for Sanchez in the summer would scupper any purchases, or how some of the players sold this window were sold far too cheaply. I was never too sure why anyone cared or why they thought it would make any difference, when we have the largest bank balance in the PL. We’ve still probably only spent half of it.

    Ultimately, there is no denying that changes are afoot behind the scenes and about f***ing time! Anyone with an ego as big as Wenger’s will not be happy and this is probably wishful thinking, but I’m hoping it will go one of two ways. Either he’ll storm off in a huff this summer or it’s the kick up the Arsenal that he’s needed for a very, very long time. Failing that, it appears the board have finally woken up that the way things were, Wenger was only ever going to take us in one direction and that was backwards.

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