Arsenal fans are ‘more obsessed’ with Chelsea than winning the title. Can Graham Potter even do this?

Editor F365
Graham Potter looks frustrated watching Chelsea vs Arsenal

The Mailbox claims Arsenal fans are becoming ‘more obsessed’ with Chelsea’s spending than winning the title. Plus, is Graham Potter the man for the job at Stamford Bridge?

Keep your views coming to theeditor@football365.com

 

Arsenal fans hypocrisy
My God, what is it with Arsenal fans?  They are top of the league but seem more obsessed with what Chelsea are doing than with their own success.

For them to constantly moan about Chelsea’s spending while being the third biggest net spenders in the last 5 years is a little rich – they’re not exactly paupers, are they?

But then they like to claim like Vish that Chelsea and City ruined the game since Abramovich came and ‘cheated’ in the words of Tim Sutton.  Well, to be clear, FFP was only created to stop owners such as Abramovich coming in and leveling the playing fields by spending huge amounts of money.  Before that, was there really any issue with rich owners using their own money to fund clubs spending?  No.  It was just Roman turbo-charged this to such an extent that forced FFP to come in.  Before that, there was no need to see loans forgiven as ‘cheating’.

There was a really interesting documentary on the BBC last year about the start of the Premier League, and in it, David Dein of Arsenal, said that they wanted to create the Premier League to ensure that the big clubs made more money than the others clubs.  Well, sorry Arsenal fans, but this is what that led too.

It also makes me laugh that a club known as the ‘Bank of England’ in the 30s because of their huge spending, moan about other clubs spending (given their recent net spend), and then accuse Chelsea of cheating – err, George Graham bungs anyone?  Their hyprocrisy is astounding.

I speak to Liverpool, Man U, Spurs fans who moan about Chelsea spending, query it, but never do they do it with quite the same moral outrage of Arsenal fans.  But I guess this is to be expected from supporters of a club who conveniently forget they moved across a city for financial reasons – maybe the moral outrage stems for the deep trauma of the fact that they are in reality a south London club.   The MK Dons of London.

As to Chelsea, yes, Abramovich spending was huge, but it did help break the duopoly that had been going on in the Premier League for years.  I’m not one of these Chelsea supporters looking back in rose-tinted spectacles at the Roman days, and yes, it would be nice if Chelsea, City’s, PSG money came from better sources, but trying to grow normally without the CL money nearly bankrupted us and Leeds.   It was this first influx of money that really embedded the unfairness in the PL (how many times did Man Utd win the title in the 90s and early 2000s?).  Otherwise, without this, we would have a big 2 or 3 now, instead of a big 6 or 7.  You might not like this, but it is a direct consequence of Dein and the other club chairman setting up the PL to make more money.  It’s also strange how one of those duopoly seem the most outraged by it… hmmm.

For Boehly, well, I hope he knows what he is doing.  It is a huge amount of money, and we have overspent, but it is a lot closer to the US model he is familiar with so hopefully it will work out.  One thing that is being somewhat overlooked is that Mudryk etc. are on much lower wages than others at Chelsea.  For example, Mudryk is on £90k per week, Hudson-Odoi is well £150K, as is Loftus-Cheek.  Moving on these players in the summer will be key to balancing the books.  Is it a gamble?  Yes.  But let’s hope it is a calculated gamble.

So, maybe those other Arsenal fans should stop calling other fans ‘shitbags’ and just concentrate on their own successes and leave Chelsea to their own fans or reasoned debates.  They have been great to watch and Arteta’s doing a great job – why spend so much time getting worked up on other teams?
JDC (Chelsea)

 

Can Graham Potter even do this anyway?
Honestly, not that I don’t care about the efficacy of FFP but I’m not gonna lose my mind over the fact that – in a capitalist society  – some billionaire utilized a loophole in the rules of a rampantly corrupt governing body full of old people and archaic ways. Shocking. The real point of discussion is whether or not Graham Potter can even do anything with this group of players anyways.

Is there not a single Chelsea fan that is worried that Brighton already replaced him with a seemingly noticeably better manager? Is there not a single Chelsea fan that maybe is wondering how much input Potter and his head of recruitment had in these signings? Does anyone actually think literally telling every club “I’m willing to offer more than the other guy.” is somehow supposed to be lauded because you now have a bunch of players 1. I guarantee most Chelsea fans have never seen play and 2. exactly what formation is Potter going to use all these players in?

Seriously, I could give a sh*t that Chelsea is continuing to run rampant over regulations that are designed to mitigate inequality (yup, not at all a general worldwide problem) and their fans can back this policy all they want and taunt us with how much money they spent and how we thought their days were over. Honestly, I’m still convinced those days of you spending exorbitant money to win trophies is never coming back. Chelsea – despite all their money – does not have nearly the financial advantage they had over the rest of the league they used to have. Has anyone seen the PL spending figures lately? They will need to be efficient in their signings and their recruitment is reliant on literally having their co-owner personally outbid other clubs for players. Doesn’t sound like a great strategy – but I will say we definitely do not know how they will shape up in time. It’s been less than a year.

I’m not exactly saying this won’t work for Chelsea. Full disclosure I have a feeling Mudryk will be at least a very good player, Enzo is probably good (but in all honestly likely a 40-50 million player who happened to win the world cup), and, given the sheer amount of signings, they will hit on some of them. However, give me a Chelsea fan who can name their best XI right now and I’ll show you a liar. What if many of these signings miss and they have to replace players they just bought to replace the players they just bought? They have no idea how this is going to work and I promise you – deep down – they are just as sceptical as the rest of us.

Last but not least – can people stop writing into the mailbox telling Gooners to “enjoy the moment”? It’s been almost 20 years – f** off.
MAW, LA Gooner

 

Lazy argument…
Sorry but that is such a lazy argument that you mention Pep has spent £300m less than Klopp. Do you realise how big a gap that is? Now factor in this, Pep already had Aguero, Kompany, Silva, Sterling, KdB, Fernandinho amongst a few other top players at his disposal. Klopp has overachieved at Liverpool. That’s just the simple fact of it. He’s spent much less than teams like City, Chelsea, United and even my own team Arsenal and has managed to win everything. He shouldn’t have been expected to win all of that with the budget he was working on.

“Sure, he’s also one each cup once too, which is very nice, but if that’s the level of expectation at Liverpool, my how standards have fallen.”

Of course it is how much standards have fallen. They were shite for years. If you said that Ten Haag would win everything available in the next 6 years, you’d label him a success, no questions asked. This is despite the fact that we know he’ll be given a massive budget like United always get but still see themselves as plucky underdogs.

No matter which way you phrase it, Klopp has done amazingly. He’s won everything starting with a team who were brutal and improving it year by year. He’s done this despite the fact that the teams around him can outspend him.
Dion, Arsenal. 

 

The game went decades ago
Lots of press and emails about how obscene the money being spent (mostly by my club Chelsea) and how the “game has gone” and “it’s not like the game I grew up loving”.

I hate to be the one to point this out but the game I grew up loving in the 70’s and 80’s was not the elysium fields you all seem to think was.

The reality was a lot of fat old white men exploiting something working class people love. I don’t think Ken Bates, Ron Noades, The Mears family, the Moores family, David Dein etc were the altruistic champions of the working class everyone seems to remember. I am sure almost every club has their equivalent. They were fat old white men who were worth millions. Add to that a TV system that operated as a cartel that for years kept football off of our screens and colluded to keep the price they paid low. This paved the way for people like Rupert Murdoch to monopolise football on British TV for decades.

I somewhat agree with Strevs. It has been more than 20 years since I had a season ticket. I gave it up as I started a family and other things became more important. I try to spend nothing directly on premier league football and it is something I enjoy at a distance these days. I go and support my local non-league club Woking and I have the satisfaction of knowing that the owner is not fat , has a rather garish tan, too much jewellery, drives an SUV by Porsche or Aston Martin and probably makes his money online by exploiting something or other. (I made this up for comedy purposes and can’t be bothered to fact check myself). I do know he is only in it for the property and is currently in a fight with the local council to use a lot of the clubs facilities to build flats in some the most expensive real estate in the south east.

See progress.
Simon, Woking

Boehly butted heads with Tuchel

Half a billion Chelsea
Chelsea have spent half a billion in a calendar year and I have no idea where the goals are coming from.

But hey, enjoy spending money!

Absolutely clueless.
From Mr A Neutral xx

 

And now we wait – or do we
Thinking about Robert’s thoughts in the mailbox this morning (“And now we wait”). The main thing that strikes me about all this isn’t that the owners are “trailblazers” and showing an alternative financial approach to football – it’s that these are clubs which in all reality will not be allowed to suffer from their folly. In no reality will Barcelona be forced to deal with their financial woes – there will always be someone there to bail them out (be it the state or private individuals). They’ll never have to suffer the problem of folding or a mass exodus of players causing the club to plummet in performance. They will always be able to act with impunity and carry on. The same could be said for Chelsea – in the height of a cost of living crisis , somebody felt there was still value in taking on an expensive and bloated squad and then adding more to it! At the top of the table, the financial rules don’t seem to matter as there will always be some way round them that some clever accountant can realise. This is even the case for my own team, Manchester United – how the valuations of these clubs and players comes about is beyond my comprehension. In reality they may be trailblazers for the whole implosion of football finances – however there will always be rich people with more money than sense that want some form of vanity project.

(What actual looks like on re-reading a minor) rant over.
Andrew

 

Right of reply to Badwolf
I’ll try not to get dragged into a tit for tat with Badwolf as that is precisely what he wants, but in super simple terms (for the simpleton that he clearly is) – I think every single club in the country would be pleased with Liverpool’s PL points tallies during Klopp’s time in charge, with the sole exception of City who successful devised and implemented the model to get away with financial doping, which other nouveau riche clubs are now dutifully following. Fair play to them – UEFA are the problem for letting them get away with it.

I get it – lots of points but fewer trophies. Oh well, in life you don’t always get what you deserve. No point crying about it.

As for the cups – thanks for recognising Klopp’s success, cups are very nice aren’t they? If you can remember what winning one feels like? There are only a few major trophies that a club can win each season, so actually yes one Prem title and one Champs League, plus the other cups during Klopp’s tenure is hardly expectations falling – it’s actually being very successful indeed – if you expect more than that then aren’t you being, well, a bit of a spoilt baby?

Finally, Badwolf appears to be a United fan, in terms of spend vs. trophies, isn’t he shattering his glass house with the invective he is throwing? Tbf its good to see them on the rise again, hopefully Liverpool can sort it out and fight them for the Title next season!

Oops – did I just say next year could be our year?
Gofezo (avoiding the tit for tat went well)