Are Arsenal a selling club ? The true crack(s) of the great Arsenal way ! « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
Are Arsenal a selling club ? The true crack(s) of the great Arsenal way !
Ibrahima Fode NDIAYE
For the last couple weeks or months or even years, Arsenal FC its board and manager are under immense critics from all corners. The general consensus is that Arsenal are an unambitious selling club only interested in making financial profits.
In this article I would like to come back to the Arsenal way into becoming a giant club and the truth about the « selling club tag ».
Living the history side of Arsenal to Tony with his great book and blog (http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk), we all know how we have been earning and winning way less than Manchester United.. Arsene and the board having realised that there’s no way we can compete with Manchester without coming on par with them with our financial means.
Encouraged by the Wembley attendances during champions league home games, they decided it was possible to build a new stadium, develop further the Arsenal brand and make Arsenal a true English and European giant.
Of course that needed sacrifice, forward looking and a present standing in order to achieve. So the Emirates Stadium project was born. A lot of risks financially and sportively were taken but the project took off. By having having got great sponsorship deals at the time front loaded with the debt to build the stadium and to redevelop Highbury Arsenal took a huge financial gamble and an even bigger sportive risk.
The sportive risk became bigger with the genius that Wenger is, got some great results that helped the Arsenal brand reach very high levels very very soon. That made the expectations even bigger. From qualifying to the champions league at least once every four years as the initial plan was, we’ve gone to expecting to win every title at every start of a season, which in itself shows we did very very well in the football front. As for the way the financial risks came along there are so many reports and analysis thrown every where I believe every knows we did very well there too.
What I would love to bring here is the way we’ve been developing the football side along the financial involvement which I believe has become the Arsenal way.
What Wenger did during 2002 and 2004, was to build a very strong squad with over 36 million pounds net lost on transfer fees and with a the biggest wage bill in the country. That’s what gave him the best and most successful squad in England with two PL titles, two FA cups and an entire season unbeaten in the league to show for it.
So the Arsenal plan to keep the footballing result good enough to support the finances which are destined to make the football reach even greater highs was : THE YOUTH PROJECT ! It was very logical that Arsenal would not be able to pay the biggest wage bill and pay top fees for transfers but at the same time we clearly needed to stay strong. What the youth project gave us was relatively efficient replacements.
So the invincibles were leaving while youngsters were getting promotions. From the Vieira-Gilberto midfield we went to Flamini-Cesc, from Ljundberg-Pires we went to Rosicky-Hleb, from Bergkamp-Henry-Wiltord-Kanu we went to Van persie-Adebayor-Eduardo-Bendtner between to 2005 to 2008.
The 2008 team replaced the invincibles very well albeit without the titles to show for it – but I think Arsenal supporters were very excited. These younger, cheaper teams performed well beyond their talent but yet not at their true potential.
The cracks of the Arsenal appeared right at the end of the 2008 season. I believe the communication and the PR were the very first problems. Hleb and Flamini were gone, Adebayor lost his reputation, fans and mojo, Rosicky had a long term injury, Eduardo was broken to pieces.
We had the possibilities to come out and defend our ideals, to see check back our objectives and show our ambition and philosophy to specially the fans and probably the media. Wenger did his bit with « we don’t buy stars we make them » stance but I felt we were very week in the way defended ourselves.
Flamini ran out his contract and left. Flamini was having problems meeting his potential and only had limited opportunities in midfield prior to the 2008 season. He did not warrant a new deal and was about to get the boot before the start of the season. He begged for a last chance which Wenger gave him and asked him to prove he can warrant a new deal at Arsenal. After getting his last chance and rightly deserving a new contract he gave Arsenal the boot and flew to Milan only to fail to perform at the same level again never performed to his true potential.
Hleb’s case was different as he had a pretty solid contract. He did want to leave England according to reports right after the Birmingham game in which Eduardo got slaughtered; what an irony as he ultimately went to the Brimmies.
Where were the Arsenal communications surrounding these moves ? Reports were coming from everywhere but no one thought it useful to give real inside to fans about the way these guys left. A good PR could have united the fans with the players around and with the club a lot better than the way most of us depressed and cursed the summer and everything arsenal.
Something good was that we didn’t let the Flamini situation happen again at Arsenal at least not with his compatriot Samir.
Wenger has shown he can get the best of a group of players after around two years. Lately his biggest problem has been retaining a squad for over two years and keeping players fit.
I believe it’s very unfair to tag us a selling club as we only lose players that clearly don’t want to stay despite all we can offer. Without his Barcelona connections we would not sell Fabregas and without the intention of running out his contract Nari would still be an Arsenal player compared that to a big club like AC Milan selling KAKA to Real Madrid despite the player stating he would love to stay with the rossoneris or Drogba joining Chelsea despite his love for Marseille. You are a selling club when you’re ready to listen to any big offer to any player without the players willingness to stay or not. We haven’t been selling players for the good of the money but for circumstances where the player clearly wants to go or is not required at the club hardly a selling club then.
Now the way forward to regroup more players that will feel a strong bond with Arsenal. The likes of Scheszny, Gibbs, Frimpong, Wilshere, Afobe and other upcoming youngsters from the true YOUTH SYSTEM will feel more attached to the crest while long time supporters like Van Persie, Gervinho are brought in. With us not being a « selling club » we will maintain our good players.
As for the injuries, Wenger is building larger squad to face them but the amount we’re getting is just ridiculous and needs a real look-in.
But let’s first get going in the communication stuff as despite having the coolest official website, the Arsenal PR is not at the level of the brand. We need to manage better our reputation and our brand and not let the media manage them for us !