Ivan Gazidis

Yet expectancy is now weighing heavier on them to deliver now though. Both have improved a lot, but both have missed chances of silverware.
Double edged sword nowadays. Cant measure everything in trophies, but you cant not win them either.

I don’t see why we can’t do it if Liverpool can, the ownership shouldn’t be a huge barrier if they are willing to appoint football experts and let them handle the day to day (which our owner seems willing to do).

All Liverpool (and to an extent Spurs) have done is employ a quality manager and make smart purchases, surely that should be something we can replicate given our equal/better finances?!

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Umberto Gandini is flying today with Roma to the US as a club director but he is getting prepared to return to Milan. He will be Milan’s Chief Executive Officer, in charge of re-establishing relations with UEFA
[Il Tempo]

So no Gazidis?

Do you not think that’s a bit dramatic :rofl::rofl::rofl:

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If he does leave, assume we get some sort of fee too, no?

I think the way their business has gone is a bit too much to attribute to the Suarez, Sterling and Coutinho sales, but is part of actual strategic planning from top down. Or they are really lucky.

@BergkampsLoveChild it’s well documented at this point, but I’m a bit sceptical about this Emery experiment and the direction the club has chosen.

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I do agree the business they’ve done is far beyond the players they’ve sold and they are at City levels of spending. If they don’t do will this season they definitely will in the coming ones.

In the end the ownership has to appoint good football people, who will then appoint good managers and make good signings and make good decisions re: the academy and constant modernisation of the club. They haven’t done that, and Liverpool’s ownership group has.

You must have forgotten about the various failures before Klopp

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Yes but SD was intimating that that wasn’t possible for us. Opinion is clearly somewhat divided as to whether or not we have done similar, but even if we haven’t, it’s possible that we could do that in coming years I think.

Edit: seva’s post feeds into what I’m saying.

True, but you also have to take into account the state of the competition. The ownership group had its growing pains in the context of 1) declining Arsenal 2) declining United (to be precise: pre-declining United, but just) 3) pre-blind squirrel Levy finding a hell of a nut in Pochettino 4) City not nearly peak operation with best manager in the world as it is now

The picture is not so rosy for us…that’s four competitors (because United will only be so long with Mourinho and it continues to be a super club financially) that were not remotely as powerful as they are now when those growing pains occurred. Which is something people really are missing in this whole discussion, and part of the reason I thought it so vital we get this appointment right, or at the very least make a positive appointment with someone who could be our “nut” (like Pochettino) and give us a competitive advantage where we don’t otherwise have one.

There’s just no way to make gains in such a picture if you are not making astute decisions, the more likely is the opposite, which @SDGooner alludes to-- a new reality sets in.

Also, every single year we have retained Wenger for the last 5 or so has been a failure. It’s really not any different than the various failures of Liverpool, from 2010-12 when the Fenway Group had just taken over, just we have a longer track record, honestly.

So they got the managerial appointments right just as the league was getting super competitive? How is that an indication of strategic or good ownership rather than just chance/coincidence.

There’s nothing particularly special about Liverpool or Spurs ownership at all tbh. The impetus which has seen an upturn in their fortunes is due to the manager alone, and the fact that they hired them after years of consistent misses doesn’t validate their past failures and mismanagemt .

It’s certainly not curtains for Arsenal at all, our ownership is fine because we delegate to football experts.

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Pretty sure we spent the best part of 20 years laughing at Daniel Levy’s antics.

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When did I say the state of competition wasn’t an indication of chance/coincidence? I think you’ve missed the point entirely. My point was their growing pains/errors occurred in a time where they could afford them, and in their window of opportunity they took advantage of it. The picture is not the same for us, not remotely so, which was the whole point of my post, and a point that people continue to completely overlook for some reason.

What is an indication of good ownership, is the way Liverpool has functioned basically since 2012. I will quote SDGooner because he’s spot on.

You’d have to think there’s an extreme amount of luck/coincidence to think it isn’t down to strategic planning from top down.

I didn’t say there was anything special about Spurs ownership. I indicated exactly the opposite.

What an overstatement. Like I said, our track record of past failure in each year of retaining Wenger and not evolving nearly enough is far more tragic and flagrant than their 2 years of poor hires in the middle of a shift in ownership. This is pure statement for effect with no basis really.

That does not say anything/do anything to argue against about what I’ve said above, which is that it doesn’t matter if you delegate if you can’t hire the right “experts” in the first place.

Exactly. The fear is that we’re now Daniel Levy, and who knows when we’ll find our blind nut in Pochettino, and even then it’s a massive uphill battle.

Arsenal are trying to build a contender on a ‘budget’ in a highly competitive environment of three financial juggernauts. I’m not sure if this is just because of no Champions League football and they are holding a buffer or ownership, who I think are responsible for financial strategy on a broader scale, can’t release more funds because they aren’t any with or without Champions League football. Liverpool made somewhat of a change from Salah/Chamberlain and van Dijk on in my opinion. I don’t see us getting ‘lucky’ and get 100 million for a one of our players, if people think Liverpool got lucky. Emery isn’t really an ‘asset-developer’ either.

I really believe he was brought in for damage control. His remit is to install more modern training methods (which is funny considering Arsene pioneered modern training methods in England) and increased preparation. Yes, I’m a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist who believes that Arsene did not prepare the players properly for big games. Don’t @ me.

Beyond installing new training methods I think Ivan and co. told Emery that his only job is to get the club back into the Champions League and that he’s not going to get a blank check to attempt a rebuild via the transfer market. He’s been given two very good & expensive strikers, a mismatched collection of midfielders and an asset in Mesut Ozil who probably needs a little bit of ego massaging at the moment. Based on the overall age of the squad especially with the transfers in I think Ivan and Sven are gearing up to make a big push at getting into the UCL via the Europa League.

It’s a huge risk. If we get the job done we’ll be back in the Champions League with the increased money and pulling power. We can start to think about turning the squad over. If we blow it, we’re left with another season of Europa League competition and suddenly that Sokratis contract is looking mighty stupid.

I have no idea if he’ll be able to get the job done. I still think we end up selling Ramsey this summer rather than try to build a midfield around him only to have him leave for Chelsea or Dubai or Save the Rhinos FC or wherever he winds up going. It’s a shame, but hopefully he’s the last player we let run the club into a negotiating blind alley like this.

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Oi. Credit where it’s due. It was also Alan Sugars antics.

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Unfortunately we waited far to long to get rid of Wenger and delegate to people who know what they are doing.

To undo the mess he made through under investment isn’t going to be easy.

Unfortunately, it would be hard to put forth a convincing argument that we’ve actually done this.

We have delegated to people, though, yes.

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