Can Arsenal Finish Fourth Next Season?

The summer is always a horrible time for an Arsenal fan because there’s all kinds of rumours flying around about who will come in and who will leave, and most of the time all of these “transfer targets” never actually happen and we bring in a former “Invincible” that doesn’t cost anything or a French player from Ligue 1, who will struggle to adapt to the Premier League.

On the plus side though they’re usually pretty cheap.

The transfer sagas over Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri seem like they will never end, and most Arsenal fans are no longer bothered if they stay or leave. If they stay then it will be the same old story (finishing fourth is a trophy) but if they leave then Arsene Wenger will be forced to rebuild this team.

Or so you would think.

If Fabregas and Nasri join Clichy on the way out then Wenger won’t bring in proven quality to replace them, you can trust me on that one.

Last summer we lost Eduardo and Gallas and brought in Koscielny, Squillaci and Chamakh. The season before we lost Adebayor and Toure and only signed Vermaelen. And before that we lost Lehmann, Flamini, Hleb, Gilberto and Senderos and replaced them with Ramsey and Nasri, as well as bringing in those two valuable additions Silvestre and Bischoff.

Arsenal have a track record of completely underwhelming summers, so expect exactly the same this year.

Arsenal will replace Clichy with either Gibbs, Traore or someone else from the reserves. Ramsey will be seen as the main candidate to replace Fabregas and Nasri’s departure can be compensated by other wide players in Walcott, Rosicky and Arshavin.

But this brings me onto my main point, can Arsenal finish fourth next season?

We are told that we are consistently “punching above our weight” but surely that has to end sometime? While all of our Premier League rivals are getting stronger, we are trying to compete on a shoe-string budget. Manchester United have spent big already, investing in Phil Jones, Ashley Young and David de Gea. Liverpool have bought Jordan Henderson after spending big on Suarez and Carroll in January, and you can be sure Manchester City’s spending won’t be restricted to just Gael Clichy.

Chelsea and Tottenham have yet to make big signings yet but you can be sure they’ll be spending big over the summer.

So where does that leave Arsenal?

Next season could potentially be the most competitive in a long time with Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City and Liverpool all having aspirations of challenging for the Premier League title.

Will Arsenal still be among those Champions League places?

 

12 thoughts on “Can Arsenal Finish Fourth Next Season?

  1. If AW doesn’t reinforce the areas which we all known are the weakest, the squad will struggle, especially taking into account what to expect injury wise. He’s really walking on thin ice right now, and I feel as though the club are purposefully alienating the fanbase.

     
  2. So, how are all the other clubs going to get this money, who are they selling? Only Manu AND Arsenal can spend within their means….
    Has nobody heard of Financial Fair Play brought in and supported by UEFA?
    If the likes of Citeh/Chelscum and Liverpool do not balance their books as requested, they are out of the Champions League… I have just read Theo Walcott has been bid on by Chelscum. Who are they selling then to get 26m? Its all BS, Arsenal and Manu are the only ones who have money they have earnt so will balance their books easily, the others, they will be watching Eastenders on a Tuesday… Its that simple. Citeh have just spunked their whole budget on Clichy, unless they sell..

     
  3. All Man shitty have to do is get a company owned by their owners to sponser the shirt. So Dubai oil can sponser the shirt for £100 million a year and this will be a legal way of financing the club.
    Another way would be to invite them for exhibition matches in the middle east and pay them £20 million a match.

    The lawyers wwill have been coming up with other ideas over the past two years better than mine for sure. But if I can come up with these two off the top of my head then they will be more invented.

    To parphrase the bible “men come and men go, but ARSENAL abides!” (Earth)

     
  4. I am so depressed, I cant think straight, I hope we can do something, I hope we can turn things around, I just dont see a path.

    prediction

    1. Man Utd
    2. Man city
    3. Liverpool
    4. Tottenham
    5. Arsenal

     
  5. I’m sure they will try to “finantially dope” and fix their incomes, but eventually these loopholes will be plugged. There are not a milion ways to get money into a club as you suggest, I am not sure of the ethics in setting up a company and sponsoring yourself.. This has been mentioned before

     
  6. Oh come off it, do you really think that UEFA will be that stupid??My God man.
    There will be strick regulations about sponsorship and ticket pricing for just such a point.
    As for finishing fourth what the hell is wrong with people?? Can you not read an article and then decide for yourself?
    Just because Liverpool are stupid enough to pay £20M for a player who has still to prove anything and £35M for a striker who is yet to score more that 20 goals a season that means there right back in the top four??? OMG
    Here’s a fact for you, Selvey, Lucas, Johnson, Aurelio all utter sh*te and all start for Liverpool, their bench makes ours look like Brazil from ’77 and they are still a 1 man team why will they finish in the top four??
    Chelsea now have an average age of 109 but they are still up there?? WTF
    And United winning the league was down to us not them so adding the most over rated player on earth to their squad, a centre back who has played 6 months of football and a keeper of 20 makes then dangerous all of a sudden!! GOD PEOPLE GET A GRIP!!!
    3 weeks ago Cesc came out to say that he is happy and without a club agreement he’s not going, the club came out a rebuffed an offer, so how does that mean he’s being sold?
    Nasri may leave but here’s some names for you Hleb, Flamini, Adebayor, Reyes all players that had 6 good months then left, did it make a difference??

     
  7. Kevin – Well Said mate.. I am sure the loopholes have been plugged otherwise Usmanov could do the same with one of his companies and sponsor Arsenal..

     
  8. Kevin, I assume you’re part of the “Arsene Knows” brigade?

    United won the league because of us? Get a grip. So did United and Chelsea win the Premier League over the last 7 seasons because of us?

    You say Chelsea, United, Liverpool et al are all not good enough but what about us? We could be put in exactly the same boat. The bottom line is we’re not progressing. It’s the same old story season after season – we know where we need improvements but they never come. Most Arsenal fans are frustrated because of this very simple fact. Wenger has even admitted where Arsenal’s failings are but year upon year he doesn’t address them.

    Every team around us is improving, as they should be doing if they have any ambitions of winning anything.

     
  9. Thinking those loopholes will be plugged is incredibly naive. Money talks in all businesses and that includes football. Regulators are outwitted by companies all over the world all the time.

    Money also talks at Arsenal, where the strategy is to make a profit by selling and not spending, and charging the highest ticket prices in the world. The club is geared to make a profit in this way, not by challenging for trophies, which is less of a sure thing.

    The question is how much longer they’ll get away with it at AFC PLC before the fans realise and stop turning up.

     
  10. Questions and predications – over and over again. How can anyone know what the future will bring? The saga over Cesc and the protracted questions over Nasri have become boring. If they really want to leave then I say let them, and get maximum compensation.

    There will be two other players waaring their shirts next season and we will still have 11 players on the field. Maybe we will lose more games, maybe we wont, maybe we will be suprised.

    I will still support whoever is playing whether they cost £20m or 20p. Yes I prefer to win games and win trophies but that is not the reason I support Arsenal. If others feel differently then that is of course their right.

     
  11. Rasputin, yes, that is exactly how I feel. I support the club, unconditionally. It is my chosen club and we may be winning the league for ten years in a row or get relegated, it does not matter. Even more, I understand and share the ideals and principles of Arsene Wenger, I am deeply grateful for the ultimate dedication and commitment of Danny Fiszman, I admire the lifelong dedication of people like Ken Friar and Pat Rice. This is the Arsenal and we do things in our own way. We will still be there, strong and proud, in ten, tewenty or hundred years. Those who admire Chelsea or Man City can never understand this, but I do not want us to sell our for the sake of a few cups. The way Arsenal is set up at the moment, from the youth system to transfers and wage policy, it is as close to the ideal that I can realistically imagine. I don’t care about the other clubs. I even don’t care about trophies if we cannot win them with our approach. I care about the club that I can support without any hesitation, without any regret or doubt, without any shadow on my conscience. A stupid transfer window cannot change this. A few players coming or going cannot change this. So what if Gael, Cesc and Samir are not with us at the start of the season. We still have Jack, Aaron, Wojciech, Thomas, Robin, Johan and many others. It is not a disaster in no way whatsoever. If we can compete with the super rich financial doping clubs, then fine, but if we can not, I will proudly be supporting the only club that has some class, philosophy and principles.

     
  12. City fan in peace.

    Trust me, for those thinking we can “dope” ourselves to the eyelids, we’ve talked this to death on our own forums and the loopholes have been plugged. UEFA have rules saying that any sponsorship or other income source can’t be taken above “market value”, which means if UEFA thinks we’re getting more money than we are worth, they will simply get a red marker pen and cross out all the zeros they don’t want us to have on any inflated sum – this means we will probably be told that as we are not a bigger club than, say, yourselves, we are forced to claim a smaller sponsorship deal than you can make. Now, given time has passed since your own deals were signed this figure may now have inflated (after all, there are bigger shirt sponsorships on the market) but since the common consensus amongst City fans is that UEFA brought in these guidelines specifically to penalise us and only us, you can bet we won’t get much out of it…

     

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