Where did I say ManU did anything wrong? I just said Arsenal does things right. They spend within their means, which is how teams should operate. ManU is a much bigger club with a much bigger revenue stream. They can spend more than Arsenal. Chelsea and ManCity simply live in fantasy land. Clubs should operate on a tight budget like Arsenal does. That's how they do in most leagues in the world and that's how they have for most of history. It's only in the past 10 years we've gotten these crazy transfer fees and out of control spending. When Arsenal has paid for the Emirates then they can go out and spend a decent amount of money. But they're not there yet. They're not nearly as wealthy as you think they are, they need to get themselves out of debt first. Just because others aren't
Sure Arsenal could go out and spend 80 million but it will only put them into debt which they don't want to do. I agree they should have done better with Mata but Chelsea simply would have matched Arsenal's bid and then given him much higher wages. Hopefully Wenger will get some players but they might not be able to afford it because no clubs will sell cheaply to Arsenal right now.
Oh and Merson's analysis wasn't good. It was overly sensationalist, for starters, saying it was the worst performance he'd ever seen (less than half the team were first teamers and they didn't even have a DM this game, they didn't have a chance to begin with, and when the score got bad they just gave up and then the score got worse). He criticized Wenger for his tactics and talked about the need for a Plan B but he didn't even specify what that meant...it's really become a talking point that no one has to back up. He also talked at half time about Arsenal playing too high a line but none of the goals were for that reason. The first goal was simply **** defending. The second was a stroke of brilliance by Ashley Young after an embarassing clearance by Traore (and the defense was defending deep at that point). The final goal before the half was from a free kick. I mean they were playing down and tried to play offensively, it's not like they'd sit with 10 men behind the ball after being down by two goals (which is what many teams do and why lower teams don't lose as badly, a part of his argument).
The pundits are annoying really and they just love picking on Wenger. He isn't perfect tactically and his only real flaw is valuing the long-term health of the club over short-term results too much...how is that such a bad thing in today's world of football????
