Why Arsenal Shouldn't Go For a Big Name This Summer

A little while ago, I was reading a comment from an Arsenal fan; he was saying that he would like Arsene Wenger to try to buy Kaka, Puyol or possibly even revive the faltering career of the once great Ronaldinho. This comment was by no means unique, indeed, it seemed to be that of the archetypal Gunners fan.

Whilst the afore mentioned superstars are certainly great players, past experience has shown us that buying a couple of big names has seldom worked, occasionally causing an implosion for the club involved. 

We will begin on the continent, with Johan Cruyff's Barcelona "dream team" of the early-mid nineties. The former European footballer of the year arrived with a boom on the Spanish coast. Barcelona obliterated Real Madrid in Spain, winning four consecutive La Liga titles, the Champions League in 1992 and getting to a final in 1994.

That team went on to boast the talents of Romario, Koeman, Figo and Guardiola, yet eventually began to falter. This was partly because of the family-sized egos of Cruyff, Koeman and Romario. It was also because, of course, of the age of the players.

You see, for a player to be established, he has to be fairly old in football terms. It was also because these were all attacking players, bar perhaps Koeman and Guardiola, leaving their defence exposed because much of the club's wages were exhausted from paying for these stars.

After the end of Barcelona's "dream team," the powerhouse of Spanish football was Real Madrid. Being led by the then young Raul, they won La Liga in 1995, 1997, 2001 and 2003 as well as the Champions League in 1998, 2000 and 2002.

They did manage this via buying world-class talent like Figo, Zidane, Roberto Carlos as well as already having Raul. However, this involved a complete overdrive of funds, splashing out over 150m on building just one 20-man squad.

However, these fans nowadays are asking for "just a couple of world-class players to beef up the team," but history has shown us that this does not work unless you bring in an amazing player for basically every position, like "Los Blancos" did.

Indeed, even the Galactico era caused a near-disaster at the Bernebau, with Valencia winning La Liga in 2002 and 2004, and Barcelona doing the same in 2005 and 2006. Barcelona even won the Champions League in 2006 whilst Real Madrid watched on despite still having Roberto Carlos, Zidane and Beckham.

This Barcelona team of 2005 and 2006 made a similar mistake. Ever since the European triumph they have decided to bring the giants of football to the Camp Nou they have failed to win a single trophy. Rather than sticking with Ronaldinho, Deco and Eto'o, they decided to bring in Gianluca Zambrotta, Yaya Toure, Eric Abidal and Thierry Henry and their silverware has become silverWHERE (pardon the pun).

This was because these were all players who thrived in their own environments but could not necessarily do the same at Barca. Whilst Henry's pace and power were designed for the Premier League, Zambrotta had a supporting defence of Cannavarro and Thuram, and one can safely say that the French Ligue 1 and the Greek League are both less competitive than La Liga, so Toure and Abidal would inevitably have found it hard to adjust.      

We now move onto the teams that have succeeded here in England. We'll start in 1999 with Manchester United's "treble" winning team. The great players on that team were brought into the club as youths and nurtured by Alex Ferguson into world-class talent. Scholes, Keane, Giggs and Beckham were not bought as established players yet United still won three trophies that season (as well as two subsequent titles and an Intercontinental cup, I might add).

After United's dominance, Arsenal became the prominent team in the UK, going unbeaten in 2004. The unbeaten team was as follows: Lehmann, Campbell, Toure, Lauren, Cole, Vieira, Gilberto, Pires, Ljungberg, Henry and Bergkamap.

With the exceptions of Campbell and Bergkamap, this group of players were brought in as relatively obscure names and were made into great players by Wenger. Arsenal were arguably only able to overtake Manchester United because the Red Devils bought ready-made stars like Juan Sebastian Veron (an instant flop) and Ruud Van Nistelrooy (who was good at first but went onto cause problems in the dressing room). 

Then we got to Chelsea, who were so good that the only thing weighing them down was their wallet (and a poor refereeing decision against Liverpool in 2005). Many criticized them for splashing out hundreds of millions on players-which is true. However, which of their good players were brought in as fully established players?

Was it Lampard from West Ham—no. Robben from PSV—no. Carvalho from FC Porto—no. Essien from Lyon—I think not. Whilst the talent was surely always there for these players, the fact that they were not so hyped by the media meant that they did not have large egos.

In fact, it was only when they fell into the trap of buying big names (like Shevchenko and Ballack) that Manchester United began to dominate once again.

After Chelsea's dominance, Manchester United once more became the best team in English (and perhaps, world) football. They did this by nurturing young players that had been at the club since they were teenagers and were moulded into stars, such as Wayne Rooney, Darren Fletcher and Cristiano Ronaldo.

They also bought unknown players and transformed them into world-beaters, like Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra. Ferguson did not fall into the same trap as his coequals, signing Hargreaves, Nani and Anderson after winning the League in 2007-and going onto retain it as well as winning the Champions League in 2008.

I do not know what the future has in store for the world game, but if history has taught us anything it is that going for the preeminent players is a ruse that many have fallen into-but hopefully Wenger will not.

Considering that Arsenal already have the youth of Diaby, Adebayor, Fabregas, Denilson, Clichy and Van Persie as well as the impending arrival of Samir Nasri, I don't think that Wenger needs to go for a big name this summer—maybe just a defender to keep Senderos out of the team!