See above post - I edited it.

I think you are in night mode.

Or an accessibility option has been enabled ?

There may be an "Inverted Rendering" or negative mode also.

SKY sports reporting that Gazidis wants Arteta as Arsenal's next manager. Enrique & Nagelsman on shortlist. Allegri, Rodgers, Tuchel & Benitez NOT on shortlist.

arteta ? How does that work. Has zero management experience. I think he would be the least inspiring possibility.

Something tells me that the appointment will be someone with little or less experience. Gazidis specifically used the words brave and bold when talking about them making a decision on who it should be. There might be something to draw into that (plus it would also be the cheaper option yunno keep the American happy)

Arsene.....
I have always fulfilled my contract obligations....

Now....they made me resign....

So....what to do next...?

The “almost” list will take up about 3 volumes of any future memoirs

But....yet...I just can't let go....

There were so many chances slipped by.

Arsenal missed out on signing Cristiano Ronaldo as a teenager due to financial constraints, according to former Gunners scout Damien Comolli.

"He came to the [Arsenal] training centre twice. Nobody knows that. He met Thierry, who was his idol. But when it came to making the transfer, there was no money."

Much more convenient to just blame Arsene though.

Hi Warrior
Thanks for your help!
It was on night mode.
Went through chrome which was fine then went back to internet explorer and clicked on the 3 dots which brought up turn off night mode.
Did that and gone back to normal.
Thank you so much.

The Arteta rumour seems to have started a few months ago; there are several threads about it on different sites around that time.

Whilst I obviously don't know if its true and perhaps it could be a leak to see the reaction of the fanbase but I'd be surprised if anyone at the Express has any clue who is in the minds of Gazidis etc.

Arteta
Really??????
With NO managerial experience.
Can't understand why we are not trying for elite in Simeone or Allegri.
With the money we were paying Wenger that would be a considerable pay rise for both.
Surely we are attractive enough?

The leak came from a sky reporter apparently, all over the press now. However your right how would they know I'm not sure. I just think that comment where he is saying the decision needs to be bold and brave just seems indicative that's all. Really tall order for a Novice coach with little experience to correct all of Wengers stuff.

This was funny in the Guardian.

“There have many tributes to Arsène Wenger from the whole of football since the announcement that he would be leaving but Spurs, their erstwhile rivals have really shown true class by dedicating a whole performance to his Arsenal team of recent years, playing well at first against a big club before collapsing, like a soufflé taken out of the oven too early, at the first sign of anything going against them and then losing in a predictable pit of mediocrity at the end” – Noble Francis.

I’m sure the money was there because Man U paid ‘only’ £12m. I suspect the problem was that whatever we offered Man U were just going to double it.

Excuse you paranoia Niall , whilst true, the noted vs by many is he was about to sign but fergie came in and blew us out the water , as it was 2003 , there was money enough for - an admittedly talented -17 year old , as spending a wedge on Reyes 6 months later proved

The point was in jest around the sheer number of times Wenger told us he nearly signed this player and that player whenever we played someone of note .

Anyway it’s over now the bloke is soon to be history , not a day too soon either

Sorry excuse you Pete, no paranoia on my part. The quote isn't from me - it's from a former scout who I would imagine knows a bit more than you, me or Zed on it. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier today, Auclair was on Talksport last night and he made a point in regard to Ronaldo as it came up on the programme. His information was at that time with Arsenal's financial constraints it was difficult for Wenger to convince the board to take a £12m gamble on a 17 year old. The risk was too much for Arsenal to take as unlike Utd we couldn't gamble that amount of money (which was a lot at the time) and just disregard it if the transfer wasn't a success. That of course didn't apply to Man Utd.

I've just checked Reyes and he was £10.5m at 21 years of age and I'm sure you know the stories about how long Wenger watched him which adds credence to the Auclair angle we couldn't really afford big signings to be misses. The fee with add ons was £17.5m but I'm sure we didn't pay most of that.

But hey, it was Zed who mentioned it in the context that it "blew up in his face". That's fine if that's your bag but it is worthwhile to add the context around it. I'm sure a fair minded person like yourself agrees with that.

I think exactly the opposite , using an automotive analogy ....Arsenal's problems aren't like a misfire in an old car where you don't know whether the problem is points , coil , condensor , spark plugs or partial fuel blockage .

This is right out in the open [a] painfully slow build ups [ b] all at sea defence [c] aging goalkeeper [ d ] lack of size in midfield

A very easy fix ....if Arteta can see this and brings in a decent deputy , delegates responsibility , he could be great .

Perhaps better than a more accomplished coach with a track record from abroad but has no Premier League experience .

.... ever thought of a sideline in hostage negotiation .

50 million quid budget for transfers this summer


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... ssion=true

Wengers replacement will struggle to get the new keeper and 3 defenders we need with that unless we cash in on Ramsey or Bellerin.

Wenger didn't have enough money and didn't he just let us all know that, perhaps he should have let Stan Kroenke know?.

martyr?

Reality dawns - Wenger or no Wenger the club is FUBAR by Kroenke.

Time to get those planes out again and change the banners?.

lol, nah, I think in some circumstances I'd be urging him/her to pull the trigger.

Jaysus wept. Put those title dreams on hold a while yet.

It would be very underwhelming to let Wenger go and then appoint Arteta or someone with so little experience.

Not that I don't agree with your opinion on Arsenal's deficiencies.

However, if there's only £50m available you've got to wonder if that's going to be an attractive proposition for an Allegri, Luis Enrique or any of the other big names we are being linked. Making Arteta more of a possibility.

I would be surprised if his anger isn't rather more at the board in the fullness of time. After all, he's made the previous lot and the current lot a boatload of cash, and the second the fans started not turning up, it was cheerio time. One gets the impression that he wasn't set any ultimatums or told he was underachieving. Not that for a second I think its the wrong thing that they've handed him the revolver...

Funny reading the headlines of the papers and the transcripts of Wenger's press conference....not much in common there...but of course what else were they going to run with? Him saying that he didn't want to talk about it all now doesn't make for good copy, neither does us beating WHU at home like every other year.

Also the Alonso quote was more about Wenger covering up that we'd been priced out of a comparatively modest 'big' signing when Liverpool upped the price. He'd have absolutely loved to have Alonso...I have some sympathy though - at that point it looked like Diaby would fully recover and become a really top player rather than be injured for most of the next decade, Denilson had just had his best season in an Arsenal shirt by a distance (sadly the best season of his career) at 21 and Alex song had just become a viable option. Plus we still had Fabregas & had just seen Ramsey break into the team. Of course Alonso, Fabregas and one other would have been a quality midfield as long as the third party had strength and mobility.

But in a way its microcosmic of the biggest disappointment of Wenger's time. After losing the engine room of the 07-08 season due to injuries and ice creams in Milan, Wenger had a crop of really promising kids alongside the still v young Cesc, and fairly young Adebayor, RVP etc. Bendtner, Djourou, Diaby, Song, Vela, Walcott, Denilson, Gibbs, Traore, Merida, Szczesny and a few others, plus the FA youth cup winning side of dominant kids at that level, had just made a Champions League semi-finals despite injuries galore, and would finish 3rd in 2010. Half of those kids were internationals, and established ones by the age of 21, and were thought to be one of the best crops in European football outside of Barca & Ajax & Bayern. So it was a very seductive situation for someone who has always been obsessed with building a young team.

Sadly Szczesny apart, not one of those kids even got close to fulfilling their potential. Diaby was a tragic case, Theo just lacked the technique and Gibbs was too nice and Denilson peaked at 20. Others wasted their talent by being massive bell-ends like Bendtner who was a better player at 19 than he's been since, as was Traore. Song turned into a massive wazzock too. Djourou's had a good career, but at a level below Arsenal.

Here's hoping the current lot, led by AMN, can do better.

Indeed. My first introduction to real football heartbreak. Still, next year made up for it 100 times over.

Fell out with Messi over team selection and had one season of not being better than Real Madrid.

Won the treble in his first season (La Liga, Spanish Cup & Champions League). Domestic double in his second season. Third season came 2nd with 90 points, knocked out of Europe by Juve, won the Spanish Cup.

Obviously Barca have massive advantages, but that's not a bad 3 year resume!

Not sure I believe that, but it would certainly make picking up Jonny Evans for £3m seem more attractive!

Er, excuse me. Don’t sully my well garnered decades old reputation, show some unity will you!

I haven’t been venting my spleen!

Until now...



I’m probably somewhere in the middle, which probably means something like I want the intellectually questionable luxury of holding all the different opinions at once.

I don’t dislike the man, it seems to me he’s more intelligent than most other people involved in English football, but crucially not as much as he thinks, and you don’t need to be intelligent to win at football. Being a deep thinker doesn’t necessarily make you intelligent anyway. He’s so French.

A problem he seems to have is he likes the side quests. “Develop 5 youngsters into first teamers”, “revolutionise your training centre and overhaul club nutrition”, “turn an obscure turnip farmer with spades for feet into a marauding left back” and so forth. Winning was never enough for him. Or never the only thing.

The problem being that these things aren’t the same thing as “produce a team to win titles and trophies” which is really what he is paid to do first and foremost.

I’ll miss him, he’s clearly unique and all, but I’m glad he’s going and slightly worried, like someone else said, of the potential harm he could yet cause to the club before he goes.

If it's true the next manager has only 50m to spend, that should allow us to secure a couple of solid pros - similar to Wenger signing Arteta and Mertesacker. Both were very good signings for reasonable price and provided leadership for the team.

Ahh yes but you've dropped back ten years in your thinking ; then following Wenger would have taken a collossus to fill his boots ...... today Tom Thumb could manage it .

Top of the list in my book is a guy who comes in with an open mind , a good game plan , ready to give advice AND MORE IMPORTANTLY TAKE ADVICE .

If Arsene had that last asset he'd still be in the job

....and I'm sure one fine sunny day in the not too distant future a really maxi intelligent guy like yourself will come to realise this .

The trick is Ash ........ grab a couple of names who support your own opinion and pluck out a few others at random to add a bit of weight and hope the guy you're 'argueing ' with can't be arsed checking . You were one of the 'plucked '

I'm not a fan of people staying on either .

Any time I've ever had the "you can finish up next week " routine .

I've said ..... "No problem I'll go right now ' and been out the door , ten seconds after I'd collected my tools together .

Maybe it is a real Oz/NZ thing - march them out immediately. Indeed when I left a long term position I took leave until my resignation date (I had to give a certain amount of notice) and never got involved in the office at all. And I was going because I wanted to - I had run out of reinventing the wheel and the next real project would take at least three years and I didn't want to buy into it because I could not give 100%.

As an example I know of a capital city law firm who sacked 50 lawyers one Friday morning and not one of them was even allowed to return to their office/desk. There goods were gathered by security and they were marched with redundancy payments in their hand.

I have seen so many people snipe, even up scores, blatantly lie and destablise the office by seeing out a couple of weeks of notice.

So this book states the board told us the money was not available or was it simply I understand the money was not available. Or did the person who made all transfer decisions at the club say the money was not available. See three possibilites out of the simple words that you quote.

That same person has a long history of working out a value for a player and then not paying beyond that - you know like Suarez, Alonso. Perhaps he did not have an understanding of the true market and Dein was no longer there to convince him to pay the extra.

Still all those in the 'I am feeling guilty now' group are scrambling to blame everyone else. I simply don't know in this instance but you cannot exonerate Wenger. I do not know if it was Wenger, the board or a combination.

The next couple of years will not solve the fan divide. There will be the pro Wenger, the revisionist and the anti Wenger/pro new manager groups. Seeing signs of it on the forum already.

Nice one ;-)