Carling cup semis (scores)

To be honest, I wouldn't have cared if Wenger himself took to the pitch last night. What matters is a) the result and b) the performance. Now, the result wasn't ideal as Spurs deserved more, but the performance was good, and the scoreline doesn't do the performance justice. Spurs dominated for the vast majority of the game and only some wasteful finishing from Defoe and Malbranque, and a lucky Walcott goal kept Arsenal in the tie.

If Spurs can play like that in two weeks time a win would be more likely, though there is still the curse of the Arsenal, and Spurs have to overcome 8 years of not being able to beat them to get through to the next round.

On a side note, round of applause to the ref who I thought was excellent. He kept the flow of the game going, didn't hand out any yellow cards (both teams can take a bow for this too), and was only noticeable when necessary. A proper referring performance and hopefully he'll be chosen for the return leg.

Galvasean wrote: »

Arsenal starting XI:
Fabianski (undisclosed, possibly as much as 2 million)
Traore (<£1million)
Senderos (£2.5m)
Djouru (<£1m)
Hoyte (youth academy)
Gilberto (£4.5m)
Denilson (£3.4m)
Diaby (£2m)
Walcott (£12m)
(a very unfit I might add) van Persie (£3m)
Bendtner (<£1m)

So, the starting XI tallies up to about 30 million (damn Walcott being WAY overpriced...), divide it by 11 and you have a price of just under 3million each, not exactly expensive by top flight standards.

Another interesting stat might be how much they spent on youth that didn't make it. After all, it's not hard to sign a young player at a cheap price, but it's hard to sign the right young player.

Well, on the subject of Darren Bent, he will most likely get what they paid for when they sell him on, or close to it, if he propels Spurs up the table, he'll earn back his transfer fee and then some (providing they give him a first team berth, maybe when berbatov moves on...).

So, for example, Rooney cost United about £24m, he has at least earned that back and his wages by the success on the field and through merchandising in the last few years. Were united to sell him on at the same cost, they would probably make a loss due to lost earnings (like happened with Beckham, who single handedly propelled Real's income to the top).

Signing 10 youngsters that fail at £2m each will never earn anything back, their wages didn't contribute to any success at the club, and at most their benefit will be that they might have taught some skills to other players (very intangible benefit).

It's all well and good to list all the successes, but to get the true cost of that "second string" team, you need to add the cost of all the players that were bought at the same time and didn't make it (as Arsenal tend to buy them at 15/16 for increased cost when they're just about established rather than at 8 and 9, when the cost is lower).

So far it's worked well for Wenger however, but this is the first season in 4 that Arsenal have been challenging in the league, and they've had some trophyless years in the mean time.

I'm not disagreeing that Wenger is good in the transfer market, just that a comment like "the whole team cost less than X" is not exactly the whole truth. Tottenham have been relatively bad in the transfer market (though Carrick and Berbatov were good catches).

Besides, all Arsenal transfer fee's are undisclosed, so only one or two people will know the real truth.