In the post Leicester City presser, Arsene Wenger made some powerful statements in what appears to be a continuing counter-attack against the mainstream media and their ever faithful echo chamber on the interweb who continue to slander and malign him for not “spending” in the transfer window. Speaking of Rob Holding, his most recent signing (note the irony) Wenger remarked that the young man had an “outstanding performance” noting :
“He’s 20 years old, he’s English and it’s a great reason to be happy. As long as players don’t cost a huge amount of money, people don’t give them any qualities.
“We have to be stronger than that and just acknowledge how good he is. “
Yet according to the Sage of Dublin in his pre- and post-Liverpool vituperations, it was “criminal”, it was “unfair” to play Holding in a PL game, it was like throwing a baby into the deep-end and many more over-the-top metaphors. Instead, Wenger should have bought a more expensive defender, especially after Mertsacker’s injury and using the Sage’s logic, he too should have been thrown into the deep-end given that whoever was signed would have absolutely no PL experience, a necessary rite-of-passage for any defender coming from outside of England. I only quote the Sage, despite my past efforts to document his rampant fear-mongering and duplicitous attacks on our manager, because he is the Pied Piper of Arsenal blogs with thousands following like little lemmings repeating and magnifying his many inaccurate prognostications.
How does fear mongering gain such traction despite the consistent success of Arsenal Football Club in the twenty years under Wenger’s management?
• Invincible – unbeaten over a whole season.
• 3-time Premier League champions.
• 6-time FA Cup winner.
• Average league position of 3rd.
• Never fallen below 4th in any year.
• Never failed to qualify for the Champions League.
• Never fallen in league position below Tottenham Hotspur, North London rivals.
• Never outside top 7 in richest clubs worldwide since 2007, average 4th position.
As a part-time stock investor, taking care of my small retirement portfolio, Arsenal would be a perfect long-term investment. According to the Forbes’ list of the most valuable football clubs in nine years the value of the club has more than doubled and so has revenues. Wenger, who is supposedly badly out of touch with the market, has doubled the worth of the club while taking very low risks. Contrast this with the spectacular show of “ambition” by Manchester United who in the past three years spent over £300 million on transfers to achieve another failure to win the League, not only finishing behind Arsenal but for the second time in three years failing to qualify for the champions league.
I deliberately mentioned stock market because that is where I see so many parallels with the coverage of football clubs by the mainstream media and their fellow travelers, the big bloggers. As a student of Thomas Herzfeld and Robert Drach, who wrote an investment guide “High Return, Low-Risk Investment” I long concluded no true stock market professional would have any truck with the nonsense written by the commercial press and bloggers like the Sage. Professional investors recognize the media as having a commercial interest in exploiting the emotions of their readers rather than producing sober data-driven explanation of why stocks rise or fall.
A stock market professional would quickly assess that the football industry and the transfer market in particular is made up of several powerful actors, some of them acting corruptly under the cover of normal business practice, with the aim of extracting maximum profit from the competing clubs. No other market is ripe for profit extraction than the biggest market of all, the Premier League. Great fortunes have been made, (Stand up Mr. Mendes and Mr. Raiola) and great fortunes lost (United, Chelsea and City).
Like any market, the driving force is ultimately greed. In this context “greed” is stripped of all the emotional baggage, and must be seen in the sense of making a profit. All the rational parties would want to profit from the party on the other side of the deal. Unfortunately there are some parties whose “greed” is subsumed by some short term political or public relations objectives (City and Chelsea come to mind). Arsene Wenger is a master of greed, selling Adebayor, Nasri and Kolo Toure to Manchester City at handsome profits when AFC was desperate for the money. On the other hand, he waited in the weeds for a long time when trying to buy Ozil and Cazorla, pouncing when their price fell. Most famously he bought Nicolas Anelka from PSG in 1997 for £500M and sold him to Real Madrid for £22.3MM two years later.
Greed to win the title or to qualify for the champions league often lures clubs into the transfer market to pay inflated prices. To justify these prices the buyers, with cheerleading by the media (Sky Sports deadline day) who often equate price with quality as a way of justifying the deal. In that department Manchester United is the recent gift that never stops giving with the likes of DiMaria, Falcao and Martial failing to justify their astronomical transfer fees. Will Pogba be the exception?
According to Herzfield and Drach, next to greed the most important emotion in professional market positioning is despair. Just as greed can lure clubs into the transfer market at inflated prices despair can compel people to sell at low prices. Wenger is a past master at exploiting this human failing, waiting until the very last day of the transfer window to close a deal as the selling club is desperate for the deal to go over the line (Gabriel and Welbeck come to mind). very often many clubs are desperate to sell to not merely balance the books but more importantly to not default on their bank loans. It leads one to wonder whether AFC have Valencia over the barrel in the Mustafi deal with Arsene Wenger biding his time.
The media has a role in exacerbating these two primary emotions. In the last 10-15 years they were up front and center inciting regular investors to buy internet and housing stocks when the professionals knew full well they were overpriced and already bailing out. I recommend The Big Short on Netflix for a dramatization of how the pros made millions by shorting housing stocks which the media were cheerleading during the recent bubble.
It’s no different at Arsenal. The mainstream media all summer and now John Cross and the Sage of Dublin are whipping up greed in the fanbase with delusions that we can buy high priced players to compete with United, City and Chelsea for the title. If that doesn’t work they resort to fear mongering after every defeat. Sell Walcott, sell Chambers, just to mention the two scapegoats du jour. It is complete drivel when you consider 20-years of absolute consistency by Wenger and the 95% likelihood we will be in the top-four and the admittedly somewhat lower probability of competing for the title.
To be fair the psychological pressure is intense. Club football is a very charged subject and fans want (not need) the emotional satisfaction of winning the title. But whether they like it or not, professional football is a business run by rules that cannot be driven by emotion. It is vital to take advantage of the emotions of other clubs not the other way around. We certainly cannot be driven by the emotive caterwauling of the lame stream media and the likes of our Arsenal bloggers and tweeters.
Positively Arsenal 
It’s not like the good old days
I recall with a tear in my eye the day Andy Sinton snubbed us for Sheffield Wednesday
He wasn’t all that good admittedly
But Sheffield f******** Wednesday ?
LikeLike
Abandoned hope y’all,
Abandon the good ship!
Plundits and bloggers first and remember this time like those veterans from Newcastle, Blackburn and ‘nam don’t cut your own veins when crossing shark infested waters in a desperate bid to signal Roman’s yacht which appears to be now turning and speeding away in the opposite direction…
LikeLike
The best snub ever has to have been Tony Cottee the new fantastic striker that everyone wanted. Of course all summer the papers claimed they knew this and that and whether he was going to ARSENAL or Everton, we were favourites although Everton had won the league more recently. In the end Cottee went to Everton stating they were the bigger club and were more likely to win something again. History tells us what a huge mistake he made as we then went on to win leagues and cups and as for poor Tony well he became a sky sports sub for the illiterate Paul Merson, funny how things turn out.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Nice work Shotta, very nice.
Andy N’s comments also v interesting; the inward looking nature of (un)social media appears to be giving rise to a generation – an era, perhaps – of over-amplified, under-researched and generally ill-considered and anonymous but irritatingly vocal key-boarders with little better to do than fantasize that their followers-in-arms and their bilious attacks on a grand old club have any kind of meaning in the real world.
Sad, really.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Finsbury, he may well be a nice person. Did read his blog a fair amount, and thought it was ok…..until last year and he called for Wengers head…..which is his prerogative of course…..but we did end up finishing second. But as I say, thought he made some sense this morning.
Were we really snubbed by Andy Sinton? My memory has selectively deleted that, and I am glad it has. Think Paul Goddard once snubbed us as well….oh what could have been
LikeLiked by 2 people
yes mandy, and Terry Fenwick, Mo Johnson, Frank McAvennie, all turned us down, and we failed to sign Kerry Dixon or Geoff Thomas, despite our best efforts
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dan Crowley scored for oxford tonight
LikeLike
That’s quite a list….and add to that, the likes of Trevor Ross and Steve Williams chose to leave us. Not easy being an Arsenal fan,
At least we captured Peter Nicholas
LikeLike
AHD @lilbithappy 14h14 hours ago
Too many arsenal fans have turned into the very thing they laughed at and mocked other fans for years. Self entitled needy protesting cunts.
LikeLiked by 3 people
That TR7 video had me beaming with smiles. In my humble opinion, lil mozart is an arsenal legend. Oh, and haven’t we signed everybody yet? Vengargh out!
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, no, no Santi – It is Wednesday, surely you know that is #KroenkeOut day !
LikeLiked by 1 person
On the topic of football, a topic rarely deemed worthy of mention as Gooner grips Gooner by the throat, metaphorically and digitally, in the civil war I see our weekend opponents Watford lost last night, at home to Gillingham, 2-1 with the game being taken into extra time.
As Watford’s best chance of a trophy in any season, or a decent Cup run at least, is the League Cup that is a bit of a set back.
Looking at the starting line up the Hornets started with a weakened line up but brought on their bigger names as they realised that the tie would not be an easy night.
I trust that will leave them just a little more jaded as we march on Vicarage Road on Saturday afternoon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Borrowing a phrase from KIDNAPPING OF THE [RESIDENT that the VP told his wife
ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT I AM GLAD THEY ARE NOT THE ONES MAKING THESE DECISIONS…
The woman wanted the president left for dead so she could become first lady as her husband was sworn in as president! Seeking bragging rights just like these so called arsenal lovers that are actually not that!
LikeLike
One day they are saving the careers of young footballers. The next they are advising billionaires, and the day after tomorrow they’ll be telling us that mafioso like Usmanov hold the keys to our greater enlightenment and enjoyment, fuck me these Blaggers are wasting their talents.
LikeLike
When the Blaggers see the the celebrity fans and those exploiting them do they see their own reflections?
LikeLike
Great piece Shotta…
This is nothing but another red or blue pill moment in the life of professional football.
Seems little ever really changes in life. The majority are born to be hoodwinked.
The criminals, agents and incompetent dependents have just 7 days to tone down the nonsense. The young & foolish will keep up the braying to no avail.
Thank the heavens for Arsenal Football Club…and AW.
On with the footie…
LikeLike
Essentially these unhappy clique are in the same circumstance as GG.
They want the same things as all their mates have, el tel Venebles and Bunga Bunga Barcelona etc. but unfortunately for him the Arsenal don’t play that game.
So he got the fired. And what drives them into cognitive discontent is the understanding that AW will never be fired but leave on his own terms whether that was in 2014, this sesson, or in the future.
The notable thing is that for those of us here, and this is the bit that really wound up the Experts as evidenced by their own counter factual accusations against those that support the club, it doesn’t actually matter to supporters of the club what AW does, they’ll continue to support etc same as you/we all do no matter who is the manager.
I think the best thing is to just sit back and laugh at these people beating themselves up using one meme or the next “only five defenders” *chuckles* I guess this is what it was like when people went to gawp at a Victorian freak show?
LikeLike
Certainly there have been reflections of Freak Shows in modern celebrity obsessed social mediums.
I guess it’s all just some kind of natural evolution?n
Piers Hacking Morgan > Sunsan Boyle > AFTV
Nevermind the Football.
LikeLike
SSS….
I reckon…Islam Slimani’s incoming with JC’s loan as softener. (27m max)
I’m hoping for… Moussa Sissoko (30m max) & Fabian Schar (10m max) to complete squad.
and expect….Sanogo & Debuchy to be sold and Serge & Chuba to exit on loan (+ Gedion). Adelaide too might be loaned out.
Chambers stays as 2nd RB/CB4 for entire season or till Jan.’17 if Gabriel & Per return fully jigged.
Theo, Ox, Gibbs & Jack have a lot to prove this season. I do believe they will all do well.
Sissoko raises the steeliness bar just like Alexis did for energy. Granit, Neny & LeCoq will feed off this warrior for sure. He’d also bring a different option to our counterattack while smacking the likes of Kante, Fellaini & Wanyama around. And he really does love the Arse!
Schar was really impressive at the Euros. Size, drive, confidence, true defender, responsible, quick,scores goals and would give Giroud competition in the pretty boy department. One for now and the future once Per & Kos move on. Seals our CB unit for the next 5 years at least (along with Bielik).
Slimani’s the wild card for me. Not our 1st option but really aggressive. Fighter…could become the most-feared CF in Europe… a Diego Costa-type. Everyone with an assist in their armoury would love this guy. Crosses will be met ferociously. Similar to Welbeck but with way greater hunger.
Just my 2 cents…expires in a week.
LikeLike
An interesting piece in today’s Guardian on the myths of the transfer window;
https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-set-pieces-blog/2016/aug/24/transfer-window-market-myths
As if we suspected nothing ??
LikeLike
The Manchester Grunt grunts as the rest of football starts to laugh at the power of agents in the English game. We note that they’ve been accused of taking comission from various sporting agencies for years and years now,
LikeLike
reports today suggest that Arsenal have made Callum Chambers available for loan, but will not include an option to buy. Several BPL, Championship and overseas clubs are said to be interested in the England international.
Making him available for loan suggests that Arsenal fully expect to bring in another CB by the close of the transfer window this day week.
LikeLike
corr. above;
< rest of the world save Portugal/Brazil start to laugh at England re:agents
LikeLike
Anicoll5 – That Guardian piece 1st appeared somewhere else a month ago. I have it saved on my hard drive (pdf). Strikes me that some in the media and the various blogs are trying to step back from their doom-mongering given Wenger’s counter-attack last weekend. I don’t give in to coincidences.
LikeLike
“fucking Kroenke running Arsenal like a business and not a football club”
“spend some fucking money”
“where will Stan get the money from”
“the business end of the club”
LikeLike
shotta its not only Wenger who had a go at the journos over their obsession with transfers, Klopp and Conte both spoke out over the last few days.
LikeLike
“Wenger has 100% control of all things at Arsenal”
“The board refused to approve the purchase of Griezmann against Arsene’s wishes. Kroenke out”
“Fucking tight cunt Wenger won’t spend the money, its Arsenal FC not Arsene FC, Wenger out”
LikeLike
CHAMBERS SHOULD STAY AND ARSENE SHOULD IGNORE THEM….
He has more to learn staying back at arsenal…. we do not want a Gnabry in west Brom style situation
LikeLike
Arsène Wenger @ArseneWengered Aug 21
The “Wenger Out Brigade” are the Donald Trump of the Arsenal fanbase. They say what the ignorant believe, thus validating their stupidity.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Amazing how:
“Greedy Kroenke must go”
“Stingy Wenger must go”
always turns into
” Loads of Money must go so that any player will come.”
I think the sloganeering is logical reversal of how some people think.
They build up their own assumptions and their own non footballing games but never realize how far removed from football it’s become . The lust of seeing other clubs play with money that they rationalize into the magical cure all for Arsenal.
With Arsenal not satisfying that lust the desperation is getting to them – saying stuff like mediocre players are ‘better than nothing.’ (I cant help but think some actually think this is a virtue as in Liverpool’s record) Let these people pretend to be genuine about paying 2-3 times actual value too. It’s amazing that those who moan about ‘deadwood’ and ‘wages’ the loudest would admit to wanting someone else’s cast off at this stage. Even as they mock the class of Ozil and Alexis for being ‘convenient’ signings. Even mocking Asano and Holding by not even counting them as signings. All this because they didn’t get their early breakfast of record breaking or ‘statement’ spending. It can’t be about silverware, not with the money related rhetoric they spout, so many other things over the course of a season go into a trophy challenge,. What I don’t get is how are they self aware enough to indulge in the placebo effect of big paychecks but not enough to accept signings must serve a practical purpose. Too much of what is said handwaves their desire to spend big and requires no real effort after. It’s their magic bullet because it’s become all they’ve been interested in, nothing to do with ‘effort’, ‘interest’ or ‘ambition’.
LikeLiked by 4 people
It is the work back of the malicious depressive CT
Where am I now ?
And who can I find to explain my unvarying sense of self disappointment ?
LikeLike
I shall do the standard joke though;
” If the club left a 500g gold bar on every seat as a present for every fan before the game most would complain it was the wrong shape”
LikeLike
well I do think a lot of the wob who say just buy anyone, at market rate of course, really want AW to do so, not cos they think anyone is better than no one, but cos they want us to over pay for an average player, as it will be another soundbite to beat AW with, “oh the great AW, wasted £30M on a shit player, he has lots it(that is if he ever had it), get in a modern manager who would spend the £30M on quality, not some shit player from – whoever “
LikeLike
well lets take a quick look at what the malcontents think about AFC
shit majority shareholder
shit second largest shareholder
shit chairman
shit board
shit CEO
shit manager
shit coaching staff
shit medical staff
shit first team – full of deadwood, and I hope our best players leave
shit reserves
shit academy
shit stadium
shit kits
shit sponsorship deals
shit ticket prices – but don’t want to go to Cat C games
shit fans – only local fans(wasps) are proper fans, foreign fans are wenger loving cunts
one would wonder what it is about the Arsenal that they do like(love), after all everyone of them are “Arsenal till I die”
LikeLike
nope.. the Wenger out are the Hilary crowd… lie without blinking
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tolaji Bola, Marcus McGuane, Reiss Nelson have been called up to the latest England U18 squad, Chris Willock has been called up the England U19’s
LikeLike
Arsenal have been drawn away to Nottingham Forrest in the EFL cup, game to be played 21st or 22nd of Sept
LikeLiked by 1 person
This time next week the summer transfer window will be shut and with Wenger saying he was looking for a defender and an attacker, the latest rumors have us linked with Spanish stikre Lucas Pérez of Deportivo La Coruña at £20M-£25M and turkish CB Omer Toprak of Bayer Leverkusen at £15M-£20M
LikeLike
the EFL cup game will be one of 6 games AFC play in September, 3 BP, 2 CL and 1 EFLC
LikeLike
Ahmed Khan @AhmedKhanNews 4h4 hours ago
Tonight Manchester City have failed to fill 43% of the available seats. That’s a record low attendance for an English club in Europe. #MCFC
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did you guys see this?
https://www.css-investments.com/stock-analysis/arsenal-report/
Analyst is projecting the club may only have £54M available for transfers and may make negligible profits by year-end 2016. Remember all summer the good and great on Arsenal twitter, blogs and podcasts, led by the Sage of Dublin, calling the boss criminal, negligent, dithering for not spending all that gargantuan £200m warchest on the players need to improve their squad. Of course they hung unto the words of Mr Swiss Ramble whose rosy forecasts I once questioned on this blog.
LikeLike
i seen swiss ramble tweet last week that the club only had £50M-£60M left to spend this summer
LikeLike
Capitain canister @double_canister 18m18 minutes ago
The best thing about the Lucas Perez rumour is that it is driving the ‘loads of Wonga’ people mad.
LikeLike
WHO IS LUCAS PEREZ?
LikeLike
Was thinking about Gnabry yesterday and his current situation reminded me of some big ole arguments I fought about Diaby in the past.
What do you do with a very promising young player who has had a rotten time with injuries and missed a lot of football, is now fit and firing, and only has a year left on his contract?
For me, there’s no choice, you offer a competitive long-term contract (the player wouldn’t sign anything else).
That, I’m pretty sure, is exactly how it went with Diaby. I’m also pretty sure you wouldn’t have found any fans who said ‘no, don’t offer Diaby a long-term deal; let him leave to a rival; he’s had injuries, this guy’
Yet, after it went as it unfortunately went : what fool’s the club are; how stupid to give a crock, someone who was bound to always be a crock, a long-term deal.
Gnabry has power right now, but he has very little senior football under his belt; he’s (presumably) been on good money for a few years; how high would you, hotshot, go on wages, for how many years?
Anyway, just a little thing that neatly encapsulates the difference between real-world, real-time management and shoddy after-the-action analysis.
My dream is an app* which all football fans must sign up to if they want credibility, in which you must very concisely make predictions, answer questions about what should be done in certain situations, with no delete option.
Could retain your internet anonymity if you want but all your accounts would be linked to it. Would let you always have an idea of who you are interacting with. Would make hypocrisy and stupidity a lot more obvious.
Best of all, if you- cough- love humanity like me, it would let people face up to the stark reality of how much they get wrong and therefore provide them with a chance to amend their views and better themselves.
* Ok, I don’t exactly know what an app is.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I have to say Rich my impression of Gnabry is that while he has had periods out of action through injury the situation is very different to Diaby. With the Frenchman and the horrendous origin of his injury problems, the Dan Smith tackle, the club were under a moral obligation to retain him, deeply unfashionable though that position might be in the cartoon world of modern football supporting.
I think the key issue on Gnabry for both the club and the player is whether he had the talent and the chance to regular first team football in the next 12-24 months (assuming he maintains his fitness).
If it is less than 50/50 then it is in his interest and AFC to allow him a move.
As for the ‘app’ idea and the creation of an indelible record of every lunatic prediction and demand made on social media it would be dangerous ju-ju, and perhaps unleash forces of which we have little understanding – integrity and consistency being two (banned terrified face)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good comment Rich.
I would certainly give him a long-term contract and listening to AW that is what is on the table. Whether Gnabry signs is something else because he is behind the Ox, Theo and to a certain extent Iwobi for his position (assuming AW plays him on the right).
With Alexis and Ozil coming into their final years of contract AFC have to prioritise splashing the cash on the current players before making big money signings
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Dan Smith tackle” ?
Did I really say that !
LikeLike
Diaby would have been one of our greatest ever players
LikeLiked by 3 people