A few days ago, former Arsenal boss Bruce Rioch claimed Arsene Wenger has to get a bit tougher with his players, especially with regard to contract negotiations.
Rioch feels Wenger should take a leaf out of Sir Alex Ferguson’s books while dealing with the issue of player contracts. He said:
‘Their (Fabregas and Nasri) moves turned into long-running sagas when something should have been sorted out quickly.’
Rioch added:
‘This time last year Alex Ferguson had a contract problem with Wayne Rooney. He got it done and dusted in a week, even though it cost them financially, United sent out a message to the rest of the world- we are not a club which sells our best players. But when Cristiano Ronaldo wanted to go to Real Madrid, they made sure it cost them top dollar, around £80 million.’
I personally agree with Mr. Rioch that United acted decisively with Rooney and also did a great job in selling CR7 for £80 million, making him the most expensive player in the history of football.
Though we all would love to see Arsenal do the same and to retain their best players, many fans and Mr. Roich must understand that our club don’t have the same financial resources as that of Manchester United.
United has a worldwide marketing and financial model that only Real Madrid can rival. Arsenal is a self-sustaining club, but the reality is Arsenal cannot compete with Manchester United and other European superpowers in the sheer magnitude of their income and spending powers.
As for discontent players wanting better salaries, I don’t think Arsenal did anything wrong with regards to Samir Nasri. While some may say Nasri shouldn’t have been allowed to move into the last year of his contract, I personally feel the midfielder never showed any consistency before 2010 that would have guaranteed him a new contract. Then he had a brilliant run of 6 months. Immediately after this, he wanted to be paid as much as Cesc Fabregas, who has been playing at the top level for over 7 years. Arsenal offered him as much as £100,000-a-week, and I don’t think he deserved to earn more than that. Plus, Arsenal’s wage structure couldn’t have offered him anymore than that.
its
the beginning of the end for wenger
The beginning of the end was in summer 2010 when we failed to buy …
> An experienced EPL keeper
> A big central defender
> A strong defensive midfielder.
Early 2011 the players gave up on the Wenger master plan and since then Clichy, Nasri, Fabregas (plus also rans) have seen the writing on the wall and wanted out !
Mr Wenger needs a new assistant manager and defensive coach.
He has needed a defensive coach for a long time. Pat Rice asked to retire in the summer but was persuaded to stay on.
And what does Boro Primorac do ? He played for Yugoslavia in defence and is described as 1st team coach. He is also Wenger’s most trusted lieutenant but I can only think he is not allowed to coach the defence properly ?? He has been at Arsenal nearly as long as Wenger.
Wenger has showed him huge loyalty since he did so much to witness against Tapie, the head of Marseille FC, in the corruption scandal those years ago.
wenger lacks man-management thats why he buys soft frenchies that have no hard-man reputation.
What he needs is big leaders on the field but he just doesnt like those characters!
He says we have 11 captains on the pitch to deflect his own inadequacies in recruiting forceful characters….does he somehow have an inferiority complex and these big characters are too much for him?
Wenger is just a remote academic that exhibits reactive passion rather than the clenched fist pre-match pro-active passion. Players need geeing up before the game… and wont respond to the bottle-kicking arm-waving antics by him on the touchline. Useless, feeble manager!
This has been coming for some time. There is nobody at Arsenal who both :
> Knows how to coach defence and
> Is allowed to do so.
Take the quote from young Gibb’s – another good young footballer who has clearly NOT been coached to defend properly : ” Attack is the best form of defence.”
This is the rubbish he has been fed at Arsenal as part of Wenger’s philosophy. Gibbs like all Arsenal home grown defenders/players knows no better. It is not his fault.
Can Dhorou defend ? No. Could Senderos or Trarore or in my view .. Clichy ?
It’s a bit early to get tough with new players who have only just joined. I should think Mertesacker is astounded at how disorganised Arsenal defending is and by the looseness of the whole Arsenal (lack of) playing shape. I doubt if he has ever played for such a team.
All back fours fear the other team being free to run at them without protection from the others in front of them. While nobody knows if they are squeezing up or falling off or etc !!
i strongly agree with all the cooments very soon we shall carry our own cross?