Arsenal chairman: Someone said to me, ‘spend some f*****g money’ !!
Today Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood spoke about how fans these days are very lucky, and how he has been asked to spend money in a less than polite fashion.
He cites Arsenal’s split ownership through shares as a big positive because “If some bloody Russian wants to buy the place and everyone else wants to sell, then, okay, I will go and grow tomatoes in Kent, but if you have a benefactor and he gets run over by a bus, you are gone.
“We have got to have 50,000 people run over by a bus before we have a problem.”
I have to say that is very true. Arsenal still are in theory an English owned club despite having a lot of overseas shareholders. There has been a lot of fryustration about the lack on money invested in the first team, Hill-Wood has his own view on this, as you may well imagine:
“I remember a year ago, standing in the front of the directors’ box, there was a woman shouting, ‘Spend some f*****g money’. I said, ‘Don’t worry, darling. Leave it to us – we’ll sort it out’, or some similar patronising statement, which probably p****d her off even more.
“This season we are still in all competitions and second in the league, so we’re not that bloody bad!”
Again very valid points there, he also points to the youth project and the satisfaction you get from developing your own stars rather than buying someone elses:
“I don’t believe in the way Chelsea and Manchester City have achieved whatever they have achieved,” he said.
“It is so much more satisfying to build something – to get boys of 15 to 18 and see them develop sufficiently well to win the Premier League or other trophies – rather than sitting there and saying, ‘I want to buy the best striker in the world and I don’t care what it costs’.
“A, it is not something we could possibly do and B, even if we could, I wouldn’t want to do it.”
Arsenal are in good times, compared to some of the spells they have faced in their history. It is just a matter of time, hopefully glory is only a month away.
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LOL, our chairman is so right on all of those things!
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even though i agree with what hill wood is saying i think if we had a proven world class central defender or even just a proven premier league defender (chris samba, roger johnson or scoot dann)rather than squallici and koscelny and i know kos is getting better by every game he plays but what about sqallici what a waste of £6m and why we let campbell go i don’t know
Mr wenger has only a few days left hope he can buy or loan any proven central defender by then otherwise we may collapse by the end of march simply put down to fatigue.
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mr hill wood i av been commin over to the arsenal as a boy of 5 years till now aged 68 i came with my uncle and my dad the hill woods were chairman your dad i fink i av seen them all from jack kelsey comton brothers joe mercer alan armstrong , pat rice david oleary and so on i cant get there now i av had a bit of a stroke but watch every match on tv and listern to them on the radio i will get to the point now no swearin please buy a good center back and a good established goal stopper thanks for yer time don sweetnan
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tight bus tard, hope the woman can bring a banner in the matches with the middle finga raised. All in well yeah its good to play youths through,erm then why buy squilla, cos you know sometimes you have to buy. piss take is that we can throw all away, just cos of being tight over some petty money in footballing terms.
and chief ……………………………….
yeah, go grow some tomatoes and suck em for a living…….all you care for is money and hope for the best.
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Very lame reasons,so I guess mr.Hill and the board don’t go into competitions to win,they just want the. money,bulls***!!!
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Anyone who thinks that what Wenger and Hill-Wood have accomplished is anything less than amazing, are narrow-minded idiots who are only content by watching Arsenal throw money at over-valued players.
Seriously all these fans moan about us not signing anyone, well why the hell should we? We’re going to win the CC, we’re second in the Prem, 4th round of the FAC and in the last 16 of the CL for christ’s sake! What on earth have you got to moan about!? Our club is so succesful and is poised to be increasingly succesful for the next 20 years, that’s a fact.
Haven’t seen that pessimistic prat Adam Kemp in a while… He’s probably renewing his membership to the Spurs fan club judging by his views on the team he’s supposed to support.
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They kind of have a point. I mean now in light of the Fifa fair play rules Arsenal are set up near perfectly. We are english owned, have a new stadium, amazing youth system and little debt.
I think we will need a right back as Sagna is getting older but otherwise I see so much potential in djouro, Vermaelen and Koscielny.
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I think Francis Coquelin will reaplace Sagna his is right back as well and is on loan at the moment 20 year old fench .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6wMBwf797c&feature=related
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ARsenal will be debt free in 2 years, along with bayern , the only major clubs in europe to do so… thats what arsenal built for the last 10 years, 10 years , 5 suffering, then you guys can buy all you want, your taking in 3.2 mill per home game ffs. you must be patient.
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Ok, ive fot an itch to scratch right here and now…
I appreciate that football is about results, but I also appreciate that results don’t always go your way. You can’t just turn on your team when they don’t perform well- you pathetic fools (you know who you are).
Support for what the club do off the pitch is so important. That’s where the heart and souls of every club is and I atrongly think that that is ultimately what a ‘fan’ should have belief in.
Some of you might still be thinking ”Wenger’s lost it, he thinks he’s running a bank instead of a football club! The tight arse!” …Well hear this… He’s running a bank of very talented footballers & steadily creating the ‘Oxford’ or ‘Harvard’ of footballing academies. Take that priceless shit to the stock exchange you cynical fother muckers. I want to know that we will still be at the top in years to come, and thanks to Hill-Wood and co. I can rest damn well assured!
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We are going to win the carling cup but will for sure be out of the CL, and for sure we won’t win the league. We have so much potential, just need a few players and we will take eveything (actually 2will do) but wenger is not only cheap but ilogical. Campbel is better than squi and cos but he let’s him go and buys squi for 6 million and cos for ten. Kos: unknown player who has only 1years experience in top flight (chanpionat). I think he is doing pretty well for someone of his experience and dealing well for having been thrown in like that. I question the money spent on him as someone of maybe sambas experiece and ability can be bought for the same amount. If bought as a back up good but why is the back up one that probably needs as much time to grow ad the academies. Squi is not deserving of playing for arsenal especially if he cannot cut it at villarral, I don’t know whhy wenger buys these shit players when he says he will only buy people that add something to the team. I would be much happier if we gave the spot to miquel instead of wasting money on that old shit. Wenger is a lier that has lost it. Can’t say he is totally money driven if he wastes money on players like silvestre. He is running out of excuses though and will finally have to win something because our stars are no longer children, rvp is near late twenties and the likes of fab are near perfect age. Guess he can always cling on to injuries by buying old players and as long as slackers like arshavin be denilson are around fans will blame them and not wenger who blames the pitch and the ball and the refs and the always annoying luck and the fitness of his babies(that’s not their fault) and sharpness for sure
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Too much time and opportunities have been wasted since 2005. Had we had decent defenders these last two years and a couple of decent strikers, then we wouldn’t have suffered such humiliation to Chelsea and man utd these recent years. The champions league trophy could have been at high bury. Why why do arsenal give the same lame excuses. Please. Buy a goalkeeper, two center backs, a midfield general and a couple of decent strikers. Bentdner, vela and a few a others I don’t need to name, are inadequate and at times are so wasteful that one wonders what they are doing on the pitch. Have a clear out mr wenger and things will improve.
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People who are calling out for buying a midfield are..****** up! Our midfield is an extremely competitive position with the choices we have – Nasri, Song, Wilshere, Fabregas, Ramsey….). We don’t need to buy anyone other than a defender. Perhaps a bid for Eden Hazard in the summer would be great incase Fabregas leave, and thats it!
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@ chris g…
do you really know what club your talking about or do you just tune into the match highlights?
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@ chris g…
do you really know what club your talking about or do you just tune into the match highlights?
i will agree w/u that with the added strength of a couple of world class CB and ST most likely we wud have had a couple of big trophies in the cabinet since 05′. however…Arsenal arn’t Chelski or Manciteh and a couple of world class CB’s and a ST would have busted Arsenal. in the nxt 2-3 years Arsenal can compete and outbid their toughest opponents in the transfer market (you know half the premiership and europe feed off of arsene’s scouts and usually outbid him). all in due time…
gooner4lyf
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Hill-Wood is again at his deceptive best, or worst. Who in the world is asking the Arsenal board to break the bank and spend irresponsibly. The fans are responsible too. We’re simply asking the board to spend some money (max 30M) to fix the defence leaks. That’s about it. So stop bringing Chelsea and Man City into the story because 30M is not a great deal in the football world by any accounts.
The problem with Arsenal FC is it’s in the hands of a bunch of bean counters like Hill-Wood. The board’s ambition is miles different from the Arsenal fans. How unfortunate.
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Jim i totally agree with you.
Mr chairman & co is too much worried about their pockets.
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Some fans/people are so hard to impress.@jrl, imagine if u could manage ur private business the way u talk then i guess u would be a billionaire already. world class defenders? come on!!! Namely? i think we may not have the best of the best but come on we have got some real quality. Besides the invincibles were not PERFECT. We need peeople who do the ordinary things in an extraordinary way and guys who play with their Hearts. i bet that the same guys who are clamouring that Arshavin be sold once called him world class….. I rest my case.
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Our chairman is funny
Not to mention right.
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mr cherman
if you didn’t have wenger u would had spend that”f***ing money”
BRING IN REDNAPP AND U WILL START SPENDING..
WE NEED A BIG CENTRE HALF DEAR GREEDY MAN
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@ Don sweetman very good post, good to see loyal fans like yourself, hope you get well enough to go to the matches again.
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Totally agree with you Jimbo. The club should have been run like like Liverpool. Or maybe followed the Leeds blueprint of a few years ago.
Okay. We haven’t won a won a domestic trophy for five years and seem to get a fair load of stick for it.
So who has won all the 15 trophies up for grabs? Well they are spread across five teams.
Liverpool and Portsmouth, both who won the FA Cup once and the Spuds, winning a solitary Carling Cup. The other 12 have been cleaned up by Chelski and Manure.
So in effect there are 24 other Premier League clubs who also have not won anything over the last five years. Most have not won any of the big three for a far longer time.
So why do most pundits highlight Arsenals plight rather than other clubs. It’s not like we spend a fortune and are expected to win trophies. Wenger doesn’t overstate his case anymore than his manergerial rivals. We are not a team stacked with stars but perform as a balanced team, mostly. So why all the crap thrown our way?
Arsenal play a brand of football that should be admired not bemoaned and the English game is littered with so many ex Arsenal players who in many teams are stars. Wenger has introduced many ideas that are now commonplace in most clubs such as dietary control, specialised training and the youth academy.
We are not in any great financial trouble and we have a state of the art stadium and training ground to be proud of.
So why all the aggravation?
I’m not sure I know, xenophobia? jealousy? history? or just bloody mindedness?
Whatever the reason let’s hope we can give it right back to them this season. If not this year, I think we all know we are not far away.
We don’t know how lucky we are!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYvMeT2GC14
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@RJL … Nice to know that you think we already have two world-class defenders in Vermaelen and Djourou. As for Koscielny, bearing in mind this is his first season, and judging by the way he’s been performing recently, it’s obvious he’s a pretty quick learner. Remember, he and Djourou have had 5 clean sheets in January and we haven’t conceded a Premiership goal in our last four matches. He even got us our all-important second against Ipswich. It’s a little difficult to see how Samba or anyone else could have done better. Squillaci is more difficult to assess. He last played in the 1-1 home draw against Leeds where Denilson’s penalty was the only goal we conceded. It’s entirely possible his problem is that he’s all-too-often been partnered with Koscielny and not Djourou, and that unlike Koscielny, he hasn’t been quick to learn. Squillaci was always going to be our 4th choice centreback. Getting in a proven world-class replacement to Squillaci for anything from £10M to £20M is just going to throw all the progress we’ve made out-of-kilter. With everyone fit, our fourth choice is going to have to get in line behind Vermaelen, Djourou, and Koscielny. And who’s going to want that? But however Squillaci turns out, he’s not Silvestre. By the way Samba isn’t world class – Alex, Carvalho, Vidic … they are – they’re the benchmark.
@chris g … we are where we are. A new stadium. Decent finances. An academy with real prospects and some of them you’ve not even heard of yet. We’re playing the best football in the Premiership. We’ve real depth in our squad – unlike Chelsea and Man U. We fill the ground every match. We’re in the first final of the year. Second in the Premier League with a decent fixture list ahead of us – while Man U have to play us at the Ems, Chelsea twice, Man City and have a terrible away record and a rubbish in-depth squad. Morale is high. There are no off-field distractions. We have probably the best manager in the world, certainly the best Arsenal have ever had. And you want us to buy “a goalkeeper, two centrebacks, a midfield general, and a couple of decent strikers”? What version of EA FIFA are you playing? You really think you can better Nasri, RVP, Theo, Cesc, Song, Wilshere, and a back five that has scored 16 and conceded just 3 in our last 8 matches?
@Sam … Being paired up with B*rca in the Champions’ League is a problem we could have done without. But there are silver linings. The first is that the CL would always be a difficult competition to win in any season we’re in contention to win the Premiership. So, if we go out at this stage it might actually enhance our chances elsewhere. The second is that we have a real chance of beating them provided we can field a first choice side. Last season when we played them we had appalling injury problems – hell, we even had Eboue replacing Sagna replacing Sivestre at the Camp Nou, No Cesc, no RVP, no Song. Nasri wasn’t in the form of his life, Wilshere was still at Bolton, and Theo hadn’t yet found his favourite pair of boots. Plus no-one had yet worked out how to beat them. This year they’ve struggled against Rubin Kazan, Mallorca, and Real Betis and really aren’t all that comfortable away from home. Yes, they tonked Mourinho at the Camp Nou, but they still only had six shots on target. The point is they are beatable and beatable with Arsenal’s style of play. So, instead of being fearful, I rather like the idea of an alternative narrative to seeing us lose again. We also play the away leg a week-or-so after we lift the Carling Cup, or if we don’t, a week-or-so after we’re smarting from losing the Carling Cup.
@Jim … see above. I think you’ve got a perception problem. £30M is a great deal when there isn’t a world class defender out there to purchase this transfer window. Four points. One, like it or not Wenger has a strategy of having four centrebacks with Miquel and Song comprising plans C and D – and we have four centrebacks. It’s a policy that’s not going to change anytime soon. Two, last season’s four of TV5, Gallas, Campbell, and Sivestre were three-quarters injury-prone, if not past it. Our current four are immeasurably better. Three, Squillaci may well be the weakest link, but he hasn’t had the fortune Koscielny has. It’s barely been a month since Koscielny was deemed to be a dreadful purchase and now look. Yes, a lot of that has been down to how Djourou has performed, but it’s also been down to how the rest of the team has dealt with the defending side of playing 90 minutes. You can’t look at Squillaci in isolation. And four, buying a world class centreback isn’t as easy as you seem to think it is. Chelsea can’t even get David Luiz from Benfica unless they stump up 25M … and Luiz is no Vidic. And even if they get him do you really think he’s going to simply slot into the pace of the Premiership just like that? Wenger and Arsenal FC have spent man-years studying centrebacks and they have their list. It’s obvious that no one on that list is available right now. Ignoring that will only have us end up with a problem potentially worse than Squillaci. It’d be pointless.
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soo we need 50,000 buses
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Amazing all these Arsenal would be managers amongst the fans who really have no idea how to run a business,as that,s excatly what Arsenal Football Club is, a viable business that shouldn,t get into to much debt at all,yet these wannabe managers will happily spend money on overrated
players who get paid way to much to clown around,Andriy Arshavin a prime Arsenal example ?
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@ rigs but mo to avath u b hatch don’t know much about football but chatting nonse bout fans who understand.
When arsenal are doing dismally i don’t hear u’s, but come few good matches than we are flawless. Punks take ur head out ur arse and look and b real for once.
And i don’t need to explain to diffs like u’s cos u just ain’t gonna get it.
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@D.Bergkamp … What? Wot? Whu? Wh? W? or ? … take your pick.
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eleanor I want to marry you. Your attention to detail, and passion, has charmed my soul.
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The woman is right! Spend some f**king money for christs sake! It hurts when teams like Liverpool are buying players like Suarez, who has scored a massive number of goals for Ajax; for a fee of up to €26.5 million and we spend €0. And Liverpool were supposed to be in crisis? Guess they care more about the values of football in comparison of Arsenal who runs it like a business. The fans are just contributing to the profitability of the shareholders. Such a shame.
@ Samuel
You must be anti-russian. All you ever complain about is Arshavin.
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@wilo
We cannot be compared to the rest of the epl, we are at chelsy and man u’s level so I compare us to them. That’s part of the problem, too many fans and the board hold arsenal at teams like evertons level, which means champions league is amazing. Third and fourth place we settle for now. How about if we are not aiming for what top teams like barca and chelsea aim for( 1st in league) then we give up on CL and aim more for carling cup and fa. If arsene said we can’t afford to compete at the highest level so we will try for CL and get that money and then focus on fa and carling I believe many of us will understand. What pisses me off is him always trying to decieve us with his I tried but no one wants to let go of their players. Or we this is the best quality team I have ever had then an afternoon later o we are still not mature crap. Or injury, it’s the coach job to anticipate these things. Let me state before I’m am called a traitor or spurs fan. 30 mil I don’t believe is too much to spend if you sell your top players and have more then fifty in the bank from sales. Most of us know that crazy spending leads to bankruptcy but we can’t live by this fear. Like many things wenger says but never does. A team has to spend only what it makes. Arsenal not spending to improve the team means the money just goes to the owners and fans are taken advantaged of. And no one here can say here that there is nobody out there who has the quality to improve arsenal for the right price. Squi and cos cost almost as much as khedira and ozil.
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elaenor knows best, yes of course you do, must be wengs lover nah?. think your Clever with ur essay, post it to the prof pu C. take your pric
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our squad is ok,if theris no injury worries.lets keep wit this theme(team ofcus)
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Wenger and Arsenal will need more squad strength to win the Champion league and should start finding their after match speech words to apologize for failure in the EPL too.
Chairman and coach should rather work as partners in an Arsenal Bank.
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Has anyone watched our match against Hudds today ? U wud get yr answer about how good our reserves are namely – Bendtner, Denilson, Eboue, Squi, Chamakh, Gibbs are – they made us look like a laughing stock..
and some nuts here have compared us with teams which have not won anytjing & are very happy we have played for the last 5 yrs not winning any trphies in the process…well why don’t u people just shut yr crap & become a little more ambitious ???
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Pls mr chairman,how long do we continue 2 av high blood presure,d game is 2 bring a happines 2 fans and not sorrow,infact we arsenal fans are d most patient of all football club fans,pls stop taking advantage of us,4 the love of God buy a good goal keeper and som gud defenders
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