FA: Arsenal vs Watford - 13 March 2016

None of your "comebacks" were legit. Try again.

Not legit? They are all massively in debt = fact.

It's like saying mine and bill gates' situation is the same if he both took out a 100,000 pound debt. Both in debt but one has wealth of 70 billion USD.

idk about that. seemed like you got completely owned.

Your "seemed like" means fuck all.

Your "seemed like" means fuck all.

your means fuck all means fuck all.

This board strives on genius and witty comebacks. I'd go even further and say that it's what fuels this board. We have to consider banning poodris for his, what I consider as a lame, rather feeble, attempt at a comeback.

You don't give me much to work with, and when dealing with a total lack of substance, why should you expect a substantive response?

Well if you possessed the skill necessary to follow a discussion, you'd learn that I am currently arguing with Ix. Your reply was "idk about that. seemed like you got completely owned." So who responded to whom with a lack of substance here?

It's like saying mine and bill gates' situation is the same if he both took out a 100,000 pound debt. Both in debt but one has wealth of 70 billion USD.

The difference between Arsenal's and Barcelona's wealth is not that big.

And now we return to my initial response which talked about the differences. And there are a lot. You're smart enough to know how wealth is measured, Barcelona had a 500 million pound player for quite sometime now. And now they have a front 3 which could potentially, with PSG and City around, bring them in a sum North of 500 million pounds. From 3 transfers ALONE. And I'm not even going to discuss their huge ass stadium, their sponsorship deals, support from Catalonia, clear support from UEFA over the years etc etc. Come on now if you want to discuss this, be real about it or else find a subject to argue with poodris he'll/she'll definitely entertain you.

Barcelona had a 500 million pound player for quite sometime now.

Right, and why don't we have a £500m player?

And now they have a front 3 which could potentially, with PSG and City around, bring them in a sum North of 500 million pounds.

Right, and why don't we have a front three that could bring in north of £500m?

And I'm not even going to discuss their huge ass stadium

...which they struggle to fill to 80% most of the time...

their sponsorship deals

...which we could also be getting if we were competing at the highest level. You seem to be missing the point: why aren't we competing at the highest level? The answer is simple: because the club has adapted a weird philosophy of self-sustainability in a competitive world where NO OTHER TEAM bothers with this approach, because it is not necessary. There is nothing wrong with debt, but somehow Arsenal Football Club think of it as the plague.

No. With Barca it was probably as simple as Henry bottling the 2006 final. They won and here's your result. Why don't we have those players? We could have bought Suarez but he'd be at Barca now for a maximum of 50 million pounds. And as if we could have ever kept Messi... We're not rich enough. A lot of factors one of which of course is the fact that La Liga is nowhere near as competitive as the Premiership which of course doesn't allow for a second of relaxation. Ask United.

You are completely missing the fact that you said barca wealth is like Bill Gates compared to an ordinary person. So they must have hundreds of thousands times a much resources as arsenal for your vapid proclamation to have any merit.

Basically, according to you, arsenal doesn't have Player worth more than 1,000 pounds.

Basically, according to my argument which of course you took as literally as possible (how surprising), Barca was never held back financially by their negligent debt. Negligent for them.

No. With Barca it was probably as simple as Henry bottling the 2006 final. They won and here's your result. Why don't we have those players? We could have bought Suarez but he'd be at Barca now for a maximum of 50 million pounds. And as if we could have ever kept Messi... We're not rich enough. A lot of factors one of which of course is the fact that La Liga is nowhere near as competitive as the Premiership which of course doesn't allow for a second of relaxation. Ask United.

So it now sounds as if you've changed your mind on the topic and finally agree with me that Arsenal are in this state because they were, and are, afraid of debt.

Hmm not sure where you're getting that...

Hmm not sure where you're getting that...

You are saying we don't have players like Messi or Suarez because we are not rich enough. Well the only way to become rich in football is by either a) over-achieving, or b) go into debt. Every single tier 1 club in the world has gone for option B. Arsenal clearly wanted to go for option A, but were unable to do so (unlike clubs like Atletico Madrid).

We could have had Suarez, for example. All it took was a serious bid, but Wenger - who you say has wanted to spend all along - refused to spend. We could have made a £60-70m bid, we had the money. Instead Wenger took the piss, and Suarez then ended up at Barca. It was never between us and Barca, our £50m + £1 bid came months before Barca were even in the picture. If Liverpool had accepted a serious bid from us, Suarez would be an Arsenal player today.

We should be spending big over 1-2 years to build a team that succeeds for the next 5. We actually have a strong recruitment policy of quality young players and underrated potential stars, we just need to brave up and invest in a few more high price purchases.

All this worry about City, Barca etc is irrelevant. If we go in to buy top players with conviction we will get at least some of them. Once we have a few e.g. Ozil, then we get more...Alexis, Cech...But we can't stop we need to keep building and the faster the better.

Success builds support and a strong sports brand so it makes no sense to be happy with what we have. Other clubs will dwarf us globally if we are not careful.

We actually have a strong recruitment policy of quality young players and underrated potential stars

I disagree with that assessment. I actually think our academy is awful and that even our brightest young prospects are actually not that good. Iwobi is the latest hyped youngster and people are talking about him as if he's a PA100 player in Football Manager...but compare him to other youngsters today like Kingsley Coman and he's not even close.

For some reason we've made Colney into this fantasy star machine when it hasn't actually produced a single world class player. Man Utd, Southampton, West Ham, etc...they have far better talent coming through. I'd even say Spurs are doing better in this area. I think the problem is that London is a saturated market, and Arsenal specifically resides in a pretty good area. We all know poor kids make better football players. Far more doctor and lawyer aspirations in the Highbury area than football dreams.

Success builds support and a strong sports brand so it makes no sense to be happy with what we have. Other clubs will dwarf us globally if we are not careful.

This has already happened.

Our youth academy has come into drastic changes since Jonker's come in. The players coming through Hale End aren't great at the minute which is why we've bought the likes of Jeff, Fortune, Malen, Dragomir, Crowley, Bielik etc in recent years.

It'll take a while to see the fruits of his labour as it got incredibly stale the longer Chippy's tenure went on. The only 'great' players to come through our academy naturally within the last decade or so is Ashley Cole & Wilshere

Our youth academy has come into drastic changes since Jonker's come in. The players coming through Hale End aren't great at the minute which is why we've bought the likes of Jeff, Fortune, Malen, Dragomir, Crowley, Bielik etc in recent years.It'll take a while to see the fruits of his labour as it got incredibly stale the longer Chippy's tenure went on.

Maybe, but the fact is that it will take at least ten years to see if it actually pans out or not. We have clearly been incompetent in this area for a long time, and seeing as we haven't changed any key personnel (except Jonker) I struggle to see why we suddenly become great at creating talent.

The only 'great' players to come through our academy naturally within the last decade or so is Ashley Cole & Wilshere

I love Wilslad but he is hardly world class. And let's face it...Ashley Cole was one in a million that became great because of the education he received from the likes of Tony Adams, Martin Keown, etc.