Originally Posted by
phonics
Somehow about Arsenal.
But if you'd like to get into it, I'd say Arsenal did have a very sensible long term transfer policy. In 2000 they decided to built a new stadium.
Before they built the stadium they heavily invested in a young team which got them to a Champions League Final without conceding a goal. Henry wanted to leave and was known to have back problems so was moved on to bring in Robin Van Persie who would go on to multiple 30+ goal scoring seasons. This team was an inch away from winning the league in 2008. The failure broke the team apart with half the team wanting to leave after the disappointment.
At which point they did panic but still brought in Mertesacker (captained 2 FA Cup wins, now is head of the academy), Arteta (Captain for Arsenals first trophy in 9 years) and Giroud (5th all time Arsenal top scorer). Middle tier purchases that were worth far more than the fee paid for them (between 8-16 million)
The summer after that was Santi Cazorla who's one of the best purely technical footballers I've ever seen, robbed of the last 2 years of his career by an infection that threatened him with amputation. Would make David Silva lose his hair a second time over if he had to compete with him.
Then once the stadium payments lessened brought in one undoubtable world class player per season (Ozil, Sanchez, Cech). After that it's a mess as it's a series of fights between Wenger and the stats nerds.