Former Gunner turned Arsenal scout Gilles Grimandi has leapt to the defence of the clubs transfer policy and told Gooners worldwide what he thinks on those calling for top quality signings:
‘The fans want us to bring in star names, but they don’t all grasp our economic limitations, there are no proven big stars currently on the market. Besides we are not competing on a level playing field with Manchester City and Chelsea. Our means are limited by comparison and our pay structure prevents us going crazy when we sign players.’
Personally, I see this as a bit of a cop out. We had the money following Nasri and Fabregas’ sales. We also had some cash recouped from Clichy leaving, but we opted to wait and not spend it, not the whole amount. We chose to sit and wait rather than act swiftly and obtain the likes of Juan Mata on the cheap.
In my mind, the board are solely responsible for this, as I think given the opportunity Arsene Wenger would’ve spent the money. As it stands, the Arsenal board are too greedy and cautious over everything. They only want to make money. We have been taken over by an American billionaire, yet we still have no cash to spend – what’s going on!?
Grimandi also mentioned the current state of the Arsenal squad, claiming they are too injury-prone:
‘We have so many injuries because we keep hold of the ball more than other teams and this exposes the team to more knocks from opponents It is also because we have a lot of small-sized players, and the fact we take part in so many competitions increases risk of injury.’
Arsenal have always had injury problems and I hate to say it, but currently it seems the players who are injury-prone are the ones we heavily rely. This was always going to cause us a problem. We need something done about this and quickly.
What do you guys make of Grimandi’s comments?
Give us your thoughts
Like what you read? Then follow me on Twitter – http://twitter.com/UKVampire
Visit and Join our Facebook page, click HERE to do so.
Gunnersphere is currently looking for new writers to join the squad. Contact via twitter or at Gunnersphere@snack-media.com for further details.
Afc should look for players that feature regularly for their clubs & we should sell off non-performers 2 create room for more dedicated ones.We don’t ask for messi or ronaldo,but for committed players whose presence on the pitch is felt regardless of the situation.Surely,the likes of hazard,gourcuff,m’villa,banega,vertoghen,podolski will not drain Afc pockets.Sell off inconsistent players & create room for more.
he has a point, but as we all know, we pay too many mediocre players high wages, that’s why we can’t shift them. there have been some very poor decisions made and we are paying, literally, very heavily for that
why now he is given us this information all of them are just decieving us,let us just enjoy good football.
Dis man didnt understand what we want, where is our scout when ozil, kadehra, sarin sign 4 other clubs with small money but dis people sit down taken our money. He should sit down and study what we need and give us
what the hell does he know about the finances and management of the club. We have the 35th richest person in the world almost ready to take 30percent of the shares and qualify for a place on the board…No money??????….what a joke.
Arsenals board and manager want profit above all else…we are the only club to show a profit on transfer deals…this season we banked over 30 milion!!!
Of course he will defend wenger……he may want a job at arsenal one day and hes half way there alreay being french..(not a xenophobic comment…just an observation on wengers preferred nationality)
All this crap about the self sustaining model!..bolox!…..why havent the successful clubs copied it????so many people duped by this excuse to bank money!!!
Find players that can handle the ‘keep the ball game’ then and that aren’t too small. That’s what a scout does.
this must be a joke is grimandi taking anti anti depressants or something we were listed as the 3rd richest football club in the world based on revenue in the last 5 years we have announced over 300 million in profit not including the sales of ade toure fabregas nasri clichy those sales alone come to 100 million+ im not being funny but arsenal fans are pissed because wenger lied about nasri and fab leaving and failed to replace them with what you would call adequate players arteta is the only player people were happy to see fair enough chamberlain is having a patch of good form but wtf as fans we pay enough money supporting our club 60,000 people paying 40 pounds minimum everyone says we are in a bad patch but to be honest we are in a patch where filled pockets are more important than success 6% increase in ticket prices to watch us lose 8-2 to uniteds weakest fielded team against us in the last decade bollocks to be honest