In a week where Arsenal’s top four credentials have come under severe criticism after two away defeats on the bounce, both Arsene Wenger and Chairman Peter Hill-Wood have given their views on what missing out on the Champions League, not to mention the money that goes with it, would mean for the club. On Wednesday morning comments from Hill-Wood appeared in the papers. He said:
“From a financial point of view, not qualifying for the Champions League is quite a blow. We have been planning for not qualifying every year, so it is not a disaster, but it would be nice if we could.”
credit to skysports
This was met with outrage by many fans who took it as him saying he didn’t care how well the team is doing even lead to a petition on Twitter to remove him from his post. Hill-Wood was merely talking from a financial point of view and trying to make the point that if we were to miss out on Champions League football, whilst the money would undoubtedly be a big loss, the club have the financial structure to cope without it.This attempt to reassure fans that we would not collapse in the way that Leeds did a few years ago has been interpreted as a complete lack of ambition (which it possibly is) – that said, despite his intentions this was a totally delusional comment as the implications of not playing Champions League football for Arsenal would be absolutely huge in terms of attracting players to come (and stay).
On Friday, Wenger was then asked his view on finishing outside the top four and declared that it would be a disaster, seemingly contradicting his Chairman. He went on to say:
“For me it would be [a disaster] because I want to play with the best. We want to be in there, in the top four, and to play in the Champions League. Anything else would not be good enough.”
And he is right. From a footballing perspective not qualifying for the Champions League would devastate our chances of signing the top quality that we need to push for trophies over the coming seasons. Liverpool is a prime example of this. Despite Dalglish spending tens of millions in the past twelve months, they don’t look anywhere near good enough to get into Europe’s elite competition. The likes of Downing, Henderson and Carroll are all good players but not from the top drawer; the sum of £70 million that was spent on these three could get you a couple of David Villas or three Alexis Sanchez’s with the prospect of European football.
Other teams, such as Manchester City were able to attract some of this top class through ridiculous wages. Chelsea could likely do the same if they were to miss out on fourth place this season. But Arsenal, while financially stable, can’t afford to pay a player £250, 000 a week. We would have to scrabble around with the leftovers, bringing in who we can rather than who we truly want. It is also likely that players such as van Persie and Vermaelen would want to leave to win trophies and play with the best while still in the prime of their careers. That is how important a top four place is.
As to whether we’ll achieve this or not is anyone’s guess. At the time of writing we are five points behind Chelsea with a game in hand and a huge ten points behind Spurs in third. However, come the end of the season I expect these gaps to be much smaller. Chelsea are constantly dropping points where they shouldn’t; draws at Norwich and Wigan and the defeat at QPR are all games they should be winning. This gives us hope. Tottenham, on the other hand, have been very consistent, losing only to the Manchester clubs and Chris Foy at Stoke. The run of games they have coming up will be crucia – in their next nine League games they play away at Manchester City, Liverpool, our place and at Chelsea and also host Newcastle and Manchester United. Even after this they face teams who will be at the heart of the relegation battle and scrapping for every point. Nearly all of our ‘big’ clashes are at home, giving us a slight bit of help.
In essence, it could go any way and I fully expect it to go down to the wire, with the head to head clashes being crucial. Some have suggested it may be better to come fifth and win the FA Cup – even we at clockendview are divided. While personally I believe that whilst a long overdue trophy would be fantastic, finishing top four is of far more importance for the future of our club, our other writer thinks that we could consolidate after a cup victory and play without pressure and midweek congestion. But whose to say we can’t do both?
