Ian Holloway – Arsene Has Done An Incredible Job but Arsenal Are Getting Left Behind
Blackpool manager Ian Holloway is well known for his off the cuff quotes and sayings, but he is actually very well respected in the footballing world despite his funny remarks. He now writes regularly for the Daily Mirror and his column this week makes for an interesting read.
He starts off by saying, “Now I don’t know enough about the machinations in the boardroom at the Emirates to say where the blame lies for the Gunners’ early-season woes. But I do know that if Arsenal don’t start competing with the other top clubs financially then they won’t be challenging for the top honours. Arsenal haven’t spent money like Man City, Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool or even Spurs. And as a consequence they are now calling on players who, with all due respect, aren’t yet ready or able to carry the mantle of a great football club.”
His article goes on to say, “I know how hard being a manager is when you’ve got limited resources at your disposal and I think that’s what Arsene is experiencing at the moment. The bottom line is that if you don’t pay your best players the going rate then you lose them. It happened to me at Blackpool in the summer and it has happened to Wenger at Arsenal. Arsene is one of the greatest managers there has been, but even someone like him will eventually lose the fight if his club doesn’t compete with transfer fees and salaries.”
Holloway finished off his piece by saying, “Two or three years ago would Samir Nasri have wanted to join Man City? Not a chance. Even though Cesc Fabregas was brought up at Barcelona, I don’t think he took a pay-cut when he joined them. The job Arsene has done is incredible. He has given Arsenal some fantastic times. Winning the Double, building the Invincibles, changing the culture of the club from ‘boring, boring Arsenal’. And he has also been responsible for building the infrastructure of the club. Look at the fantastic Emirates Stadium, look at the club’s wonderful training ground. They’ve been built in the name of Arsene Wenger. But money has always talked in football. It is talking louder than ever at the moment and Arsenal seem to have turned a deaf ear to it. Maybe they are taking a stand by not paying inflated fees and wages. But the truth is that either Arsenal change or they will get left behind. That’s the reality of football.”
A lot of what Holloway said has been echoed by many of you on here already, but it is refreshing to hear someone involved in the game actually stick up for Arsenal and Arsene Wenger for a change rather than criticising our club at every single opportunity.
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Right now it might seem like we are not competing with the Big three but there is a future coming where it is only Arsenal among the BIG four has prepared for. I don’t care what people think, this is a game and a business. I don’t think any business will exist for long the way the Big three conduct their business on auto borrowing which is the usual credit card spending in the UK.
The Glazer Family paid a total of £921 million to buy United. They borrowed at least £650 million* of that sum, some at 20% compound interest. The terms of the debt, which has now been shifted onto the club, means that if it is not paid off it increases to £938 million within 5 years. That means the debt is growing at more than £300,000 per day.* No. We’re not kidding. Reference: http://www.joinmust.org/thefacts/theirdebt.php
Arsenal Football Club has no property debts anymore and, from now on, any revenue raised from sales is “available for re-investment”. Reference: http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/gazidis-arsenal-have-no-property-debts-now
Some people will pay anything to WIN. My point is Arsenal are on a long term success agenda.
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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Halloway is right. Board have to spend money in order to keep the best player and bring the worldclass player to remain a top club. Wenger is a great manager,but he need better players to make another team like invincibles again. I hope arsenal will do some transfers in January. Otherwise, our best players will be leaving soon.
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@flavour,their brand success can make-up 4 it if am correct .hav u read in dailymail where it says they will sell a stake of d club 2 some singapore investors so dat debt is cleared by 2013 or something like dat.but personally i hope d debt stays cos arsenal hav worked so hard 2 achieve this position and deserves 2 shine among d lots……..thumbs up 2 financial fair play rules IF IT WOKS 2 ARSENALS ADVANTAGE AND WE WIN LOTS WHILE OTHERS STRUGGLE 2 GET THINGS GOING………..DAT WUD B A GR8 SIGHT!
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The financial balance of football is changing and `self sufficiency` will start to become the trend. However, strict rules ,that are adhered to, must be put in place to halt the mega rich to whom money has lost it`s value. Trying to keep up with these is self destructive.
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Holloway is absolutely right. Arsenal have to compete with its immediate rivals FINANCIALLY in order to survive, however distasteful a course of action that will be. I am by no means hopeful that the FFPR will drag all the big Clubs back to the sustainability of Arsenal and the time is at hand when we must invest in proven world-class players at market value, not OUR valuation. Otherwise we will be left behind in the progress stakes and once there it will be near impossible to regain ground.
Messrs Kroenke and Usmanov have been warned.
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I couldn’t say it better than Holloway did. We Arsenal fans have great respect for you, Ian. You really deserve to coach a big club one day.
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Holloway is right but to the fella who said he is right the board have to start spending you are way off. what you are saying is the board have to start getting in debt to try and win trophies. well that is a fans desire it is not a board member or shareholders.desire. sure they want to reach the no.1 spot but under current regimes that is virtually impossible. with the likes of city and chelsea able to bring in whoever they want we all have to wait and see who they dont want. imagine the scenario if arsenal went out and bought 5 £40m players on 4 year contracts worth 200k a week basically putting ourselves £360m in debt….and then still won f**k all what then? Well i am afraid there would no longer be an arsenal. for me that would be far worse than finishing in the top 4 every year for the last 15 and reaching 4 major finals in the last 7 sure we may have only won one of those and indeed it was 7 seasons ago but we could not have been closer in the other 3 which would have made everyone feel.so different.
Top Gooner!. Agree or not?:
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To be honest before God,for Arsenal to win trophies,it must do the following:
1.Fire Wenger and bring in a new coach who is serious, non-economical/non-economiser,skillful,non-mean, tactful, elegant etc to coach it e.g Frank Rijkaard,Guus Hiddink, Dunga,Frank De Boer,Harry Redknapp,Martin Keown,Tony Adams,Dennis Bergkamp,etc.
2.Fire the whole of its current board which is very mean, egocentric,selfish and economical/economisers with its money in terms of spending its money to buy elegant players so as to strengthen it so as to make it to be winning trophies and then replace it with a totally new board which is very serious,focused,committed, incorrigible/incorruptible,non-jokers,not mean,unselfish, non-economical/non-economiser etc with its money and also one that doesn’t have mercy with a coach who goes trophiless instead fires a coach who goes trophiless even just for only one season.
3.Sell all its current “potatoes/avocados”injury-prone and inexperienced youngsters players and replace them with new experienced elegant and non-injury prone players and also ensure the average age of all its squad’s players is between 25-29,not 24 and below because for God’s sake young squads whose players’ average age is 24 years and below CANNOT,DON’T,HAVE NEVER and WILL NEVER win trophies!
4.Plus many other necessary positive changes to its team.
Opinions divided. What do you think?
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it is funny, some arsenal fans live in cuckoo land while majority are realistic, and it is quite refreshing to see this article, we have lost 3 world class players only and no disrespect to them bought in average players, a tam can not thrive on success like that, the idiots on the board at arsenal, kroenke and gazidis who have no clue on football but only see pound signs, which to me they line their own pockets, we have all seen the start to the season we have had, and yer it was great we won sat against bolton, but if it was not for the sending off would we ave won? we will be in the bottom half of the table and i think we will be fighting relegation, the question remains, gazidis and wenger have both publicaly said we have quality in the team, yet interesting from holloways quotes, and lets be honest a manager who i admire fior what he has done for blackpool, again not on any money, but his comments really sum up the demise at arsenal and what kroenke and the board are doing to the club we have, also we must say can we really blame wenger? as it seems his hands are tied, with wages and transfers, see there was this saying my mum would always say to me when i was young, i would always buy the cheapest product then when it broke i would moan, she would say you pay for what you get, is that not right in football to? we wont qualify for champions league football and wenger i think knows this, this is lost revenue of 50 million plus, so what is important success at arsenal or ching ching lining their own pockets,interesting traroe who went to QPR, got sent off his performance was diabolical a sham, and this is what wenger and gazidis called quality, look at our squad we have numerous players who are not premiership quality and it proved to be by their perfomance, quality is proven week in and out and the committment and desire you have to win, van persie is exceptional, and if he decided to leave i would not blame him then comes the question what are the board going to do then, the reason why they believe in youth policy is not because of the skill or to give these kids a chance but because they pay them cheap wages, yet what do these kids need, experience world class players along side them to help them grow, no disrespect to arteta but he is not in the mould of world class a good player, but it is interesting everton are doing better than arsenal without him, if people dont want wenger to go then really next option is the removal of kroenke and gazidis and the board nd bring in someone who will build this club on success and to put in world class players to help this youth policy, because wengers philosophy has no purpose it does not work, eveident from the last six years of trying to buy cheap players out of obscurity, who have shown they are not to the grade, only a handful have succeeded, but if kroenke and gazidis call this quality, and if we get relgated what will be their excuse then, because i bet they will get a share of the money or profits that have been made, this club has gone backwards, and not in small steps but about 10 years everything wenger built when he came has gone and the team we have is mediocore, but only a small handful like van the man whose quality and desire is at the moment keeping arsenal going take him out of the equastion who do we put in the team? there is nobody, chamakah is not a prem striker and their is nobody to fill the boots of persie and no real quality world class striker will come to arsenal unless they sort out their wage structure and transfer policy, becuase what the board have clearly shown is they are trying to buy success on the cheap, they need to wake up to the real world and smell the coffee it does not happen, proven by our performances to date, and if we go down then i think kroenke and gazidis need to leave and especially if we dont finish top 4 or win anything, they have let wenger down, the team and the supporters, with their ideology of quality, when they dont have a clue what quality is, unless it is a trip down to poundland in the sale section, what you pay for is what you get and mr holloway thank you for such a good article and good view point unfourtunatelt gazidis and kroenke seem to have dillusional philosphy on success!!
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We have to accept that it is not a few k increase in salary for the players who left us, it is > 50k per week sometimes. I am not sure about you guys but in my country to find someone earn > 1k Pound per month also not that easy.
But if you take a look at Evra, I think he earn 20 million of work, now you tell me which one more expensive.
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give it a rest dudes!
liverpool spent more than 100 millions since dalglish took over and haven’t won anything for longtime. and i still dont see them finishing above us.
we lost 2 world class players and we replaced them. we have had bad results and we are working hard to fix the problem.
ian holloway just had his team relegated which team would you really say that is being left behind? i am sure arsene wouldnt waste his time talking about blackpool.
yes let sack arsene wenger and replace him with dunga, frank de boer, tony adams, martin keown, harry rednapp, maybe even my grandad and my grandma as his assistant coach. and we will all very very happy.
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Folks, the world around Arsenal changed. The teams that are excelling are due to the mega-rich sugar daddies that can artificially support a team’s expenses. Chelsea and Man City were never serious challengers for the title until Roman Abramovich and Sheik Monsour flooded their coffers. UEFA Fair Rules should level the playing field a little bit, but Arsene has done well to stay at the top for the past 7 years. Not sure who could replace him since he is integrated into all aspects Arsenal. I think that Arsene needs a better replacement for David Dein who can find, buy and lobby for Arsenal. The success died when those two stopped working together.
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@Sam
Well Holloway is in my opinion right. No matter what we at present cant compete with the likes of Chelski, Shitty or Manure simply because of an archaich wage policy. I am not saying we should put the club in dept to increase wages, but the fact is that AFC is using less than 60% of the yearly revenue on wages which is probably lower than any other club in PL. Thata simply means that we can be World Class in spotting good players, but will loose on most of them because of the wage we can offer.
This summer we didnt even re-invest the money we sold players for and thats simply not a recipee for succes. If AFC really wanna compete again, we have to loosen the chains abit on our salary policy. If we dont we will fade into the middle of the table for good.
I am sad to see ppl mention the financial fair play rules that are emplemented into the game, cause I dont think they will have the effect that some of u think they are gonna have. Farcelona, Manure and several other big clubs in europe has a terrible financial situation right now, yet the only club that has been excluded to play in CL or EL is mallorca. That tells me, with the words of Goerge Orwell, that all are equal, but some are more equal, meaning that if u are a big club u will get hammered less hard. Imagine CL without Manure and Farca……No I cant see it happen either, no matter what their financial situation are.
Give Wenger the possibility to compete by raising the “wage-cap” that we have put on ourselves and he will start produce results again. And for the clubs sake hire a coach that has some defensive expertise. I was astonished when I heard that no one in the current staff ios that.
No matter what, gunner for life
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If Arsenal have no debts and have just made a fortune selling certain players I’m tired of mentioning…WTF can we not buy 2 or 3 world class players? It’s not like our shareholders do not have money, in actual fact they have more money than Abromovich. What about all the money we spent on no name players who have ended up a total waste? Why not accumulate all that money and instead of buying 4 crap players, buy one world class player who we KNOW will make a difference. It’s not rocket science. I’m all in for economic sustainability, but seriously we have money coming in and nothing going out. You have to be a complete ass if you end up buying ‘world class’ players and they do not end up making a difference in the club. That is why they are titled ‘World Class.’ They wouldn’t if they couldn’t.
So the board and fans need to stop justifying as to why money is not being spent. we have the finances. I’m not saying be like City and buy every person they see kicking a football…be wise and shrewd, buy 3 or 4 QUALITY players. After the small sum we made off Nasri, Clichy, Fab, Bendtner etc etc we CAN afford them. Players like Cahill, Samba, Hazard, M’villa, Gotze will turn things around for Arsenal NOW. AFC needs rescuing now. We cannot wait another four seasons for the likes of Oxe, Miyachi etc to mature.
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Arsenal of nowadays[as from 2005 to present] is just a money and profit making business club,that’s why it doesn’t win trophies because all its shareholders and stakeholders plus its coach are very mean and economical/ economisers with their money i.e they have alot of money but they don’t like spending their money to buy experienced elegant players who can make it be winning trophies.That is how God rewards people who are very mean and economical/economisers with their money.For sure before God:the more Arsenal continues being mean and economical /economisers with their money,the more they will keep on going trophiless year in year out,season in season out!
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@Moses Okechukwu how are all the arsenal board economical, mean etc… i think kroenke is and absolute d*** and is another example of americans f****** up everthing there involved in but uzmanov is the guy that offered how much to the club to go and buy some world class talent. secondly fire wenger? the only person who could come remotely close too wenger is pep g in terms of footy style but self sustaining no way no one can pull off what arsene has done. i personally dont think he has any cash from the board whatsoever and the £££ arsenal have is all a result of arsene’s work. i think hes an absolute saint for this club who has been working on a shoestring budget from day 1 and hes just in the firing line and puts up with all the crap and takes it on his chin. i also think pat rice needs to strangle him and give him a wake up call coz hes lost the plot in defending tactics.
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Arsenal is setting itself up for the Future. What we are doing is ensuring that we can be a big club for many more years to come. When Fifa Financial Fair Play rules come in, we will be benefitting from our self sufficiency business model, while others will be struggling to do well and stay within the rules…
We certainly don’t need to get rid of Wenger, and I don’t think we need to get rid of Gazidis. Instead, we should bring back David Dein, and allow him to take control of Transfers etc. so he can make sure we are also catering for the present rather than only the future. Wenger is great at managing the team, he can focus on that, and Gazidis is great for controlling the marketing of Arsenal, and making decisions that will help ensure our competitiveness in the future.
I don’t care who is the shareholder, as long as they are rich, and they don’t try to take control, but instead just let Wenger, Dein and Gazidis do their work.
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We are already making profits. If we sell players we should be left with no less than 5m of that cash generated from them. It should be invested into buying new squad members. This year we made 70m from players and bought 50m worth of players. What happened to the leftover 20m? Why wasn’t it invested in strengthening the team? I am WELL behind the idea of self sustaining ourselves, especially with FFFPR coming up, but it’s never gonna work when we are getting a weaker and weaker side every time because we are not rebuilding after our losses…
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Stick up for Arsene and Arsenal? I thought IH goes on say that Arsenal are now history. Since they can’t compete in the transfer market ( admittedly the Man Citys and Chelskis have inflated that a bit too much ), they can’t get top players. And sadly, their top players are leaving, clearly for more money. So, Arsene Wenger isn’t able to anything anymore. Actually, may be he’s a bit too long in the tooth himself in this job and should leave with whatever honour he has left. Excuses and more excuses aside, no trophy in six yeras and counting..That’s an eternity in modern football. AW is so lucky to be at Arsenal, can milk the “success” achieved a long time ago!
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flavour y dont you just support the likes of fulham, blackburn, norwich and which other middle table team because arsenal needs fans that speak the truth when things are going wrong
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