Has Arsenal’s January business caused more problems than solutions?

The first half of this season was overshadowed by the contract problems with Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil, but thankfully the Gunners refused to meet the exorbitant demands made by Alexis, but they did come to a compromise with Ozil which saw him re-sign on a massive wage of £350,000 a week.

They also brought in Mkhitaryan and Aubameyang in as replacements for Alexis and they were also awarded wages far and above what the previous top-earners were getting at Arsenal, and now it seems that this has now caused more problems as the other players lag far behind that trio’s level in wages, but not in current performance levels it would seem.

Ozil’s brilliant form seems to have disappeared again with his new contract, and Mkhi is far from settled, while Auba at least has scored two goals and was unlucky not to score a penalty in his four matches so far. But it would appear that the levels have dropped in the whole team and confidence is at an all-time low with four defeats in a row, and counting. In fact, since those three new contracts were signed, Arsenal have played 8 games and lost six of them. It would seem the slump could well be related to those contracts after all.

But how can Arsenal address these problems? Give everyone else a pay rise as well? Is it all getting a bit out of control?

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50 Comments

  1. Maybe their teammates are jealous with their huge salaries. Players that give little to no contribution can go away

    Replace those who are lazy and don’t want to put extra efforts. For a Makalele-Kante-like DM, there is Tanguy Ndombele:

    youtube.com/watch?v=VuDO6ir5n-8

  2. Aubameyang and Miki transfers were fine. Ozil wage increase, massive mistake. And predictably, he’s been worse since receiving more money. He’ll pop up with another good game this season though and we’ll rave about how good he is surely. Football isn’t bereft of talented CAM’s so I never understood why the club was so afraid to let him go and find a replacement.

    1. In my opinion, Ozil is the CAM’s version of Giroud, cannot play in other position and his movements/ skills are limited. At least Cazorla can play in as a deep-lying playmaker with excellent close ball control

      Arsenal need a more hardworking CAM like Isco, Thiago, Silva and De Bruyne

      1. Agree. Ozil really only excels in one position, which is fine, but he has to have high level of talent around him to see the best out of him (which also says something about him as well). He’s not worth the 300k per week, and I have always preferred CAMs that have more bite to them like the ones you mentioned and I think they’d work better in this team. Ozil is a pure playmaker more than any of them, but when you don’t have talent in every position he starts to look like a luxury player. His inconsistency isn’t completely down to him, but Ozil has never linked up with Sanchez to the degree we anticipated, and it’s not happening with Aubameyang either though there’s still time. Both Sanchez and Auba top class players that he should be having a field day playing along with.

        1. Will be fine as soon we change manager.
          Now we have what we missed for a long time – more great players in other positions upfront ,because you cant really expect one player to lift the whole avarage squad to another level.
          You two (you and idea) can talk and criticise Ozil as much as you want but with Ozils masterclass and now Auba Mhki Lacca with another rw (like Mahrez) we are close to have super attacking power….just need a new man in charge.
          Thats for the attack.
          As for defence…its another story.
          But remeber that good defence begins with good attack..and good attack depends on good defence.

          1. Single players lift squads quite frequently. Kane has lifted above average Spurs sqauds and now could become UCL regulars, Hazard has dragged Chelsea to titles, Suarez (and Sturridge) got Liverpool second and made Rodgers look like a god. Ozil hasn’t even dragged us to FA Cup’s. He’s contributed, but was never that good that you’d put our victories down to him. I just don’t see how he’s ever lived up to his hype. He can look world class at times, but is not consistent. When a player only looks world class when he’s surrounded by other world class players, how good is he actually?

            1. He dont need world class players around him, he just need proper strikers who can hit the target and score actually.When you have in your team three, four players who are real threat for rival defences its much easier to play.
              Spuds have that, Chelshit have that etc etc. and hopefully we will have that soon.Till than..
              Btw you cant compare Kane or Suarez with Ozil.
              Hazard vs. Ozil ok…but I cant see Hazard’s WC abilities this season…i wonder why!?
              And yes youve said it “Hes contributed” and thats all about it is-EVERY PLAYERS contribution needed.
              Football is team game.

        2. The reason his salary is now high because they compare the total to what a transfer PLUS salary would cost for a replacement.

          That’s why Kolasinac is on 120.000 per week, because he was a free transfer. Otherwise his salary would be more like 80.000 or 90.000

    2. Why not get rid of Wenger and see if those players will be that bad under a decent manager?

  3. DM now please!!!
    Not improvised cm’s
    A Defensive Midfielder
    One who can actually outpower opponents
    Recover balls and deliver passes
    Why couldnt aw see that?
    He once got Patrick Vieira
    He then got Gilberto Silva
    But that was it
    What happened to aw?
    Why did he lose it?
    I dont remember ant other real dms at our squad

    1. We actually need at least 4 players in our first 11 for us to compete again i.e it is a must we sign a g.k,a central defender, a D.M,a R.W &a C.A.M.Or else we are confined to a football obituary as those players players playing in this positions now are all deadwood.

  4. The thing with Ozil, he’s a money making tool, not the way it sounds. He’s Muslim, allot of Muslims in the world. He’s a German world cup winner and an ex R Madrid player, that’s Germany and Spain he has admirers. Now he has Arsenal a big fan base in itself. He’s skillful and can do things out of the ordinary, a big creative force whoever he plays for. He’s a merchandising tool, he’ll probably be making up the cost of his own wages.

    1. I think Wilshere’s jersey was in demand as well? The cost of extending his contract can be covered easily by selling his shirts in England

      1. Clubs get 10-15% of the sale price of the shirt, shorts, socks etc, if they’re lucky.

        This whole, “we’ll make the money back on shirt sales” is complete BS.

        1. Advertising, promotional deals with signing people up, subscription services, as well as merchandise. You can bet your life on it that the bigger the player the more worth he has to a teams check balance. Look at Ronaldo, Beckham, you don’t think Arsenal can make money off of Mesut Ozil. And maybe Wilshere to a degree but not in same context as Ozil, if he plays for England this summer then he will hold some value esp if England go to latter stages.

          1. I was responding to gotanideas post re shirt sales.

            Of course the bigger the player the better the opportunities for marketing etc, but there are also two little words that come into play as well, and they are “image rights”. Certain things, which aren’t directly linked to the club, have no impact on the clubs earnings.

            1. Opportunities in marketing is a valid avenue of earning more money as a club and something which the CEO should be doing more of in my opinion.

              AFC are currently getting… £30 million a year from Puma?

              Compare that to UTD who had no UCL football, they are getting £75 million a year, more than double what we are getting and when AFC signed that deal we was a UCL club. That deal by UTD was signed in July 2014, about 2 months after the season had finished and UTD had come 7th!

              Player names can help along with a good CEO to capitalise on the opportunity.

              I know it isn’t as black and white as this but that extra £45 million a year could pay for Wilshere wages along with Ozil new deal and we would still have change left over, this is one of the reasons I have been moaning about our CEO for being weak and praising his recent changes.

  5. No one -or very few at least, other than me, keeps saying how VITAL will to win in an “over my dead body” manner actually is. In our glory day the squad was packed full with these types. They were called MEN! Now we employ timid, scared and pityful little male(presumably, not that you would know)children with hardly a backbone between the lot of them. Walcott for twelve ghastly years was the prime example of this but we have many others too who are just cowards and timid shirkers. You can play God Almighty in our team but if he has no guts it is pointless. We in fact now need to shift out the virtual whole club from top to bottom, starting with the manager. Seriously, were I manager I would have the mother of all clearouts and buy ONLY players with proven backbone. Other than Wilshere , who is also off form is there ANY player with backbone , as witnessed this past season or longer? I say NOT!

    1. They all need to grow a pair and man up.We live in a culture where it is always someone else fault when things go wrong.These players are nearly all internationals and they need to take responsibility for the crap they are displaying on the pitch,especially Mustafi who has to be one of the worse signings ever.As for Ozil he should be sold i the summer if anybody would take him,which is unlikely

  6. To the writer of this article, apart from those three others have been overpaid over the years compere their altitude, efforts and performance on the field of play. The likes of Dele Ali, Dembele, Erickson, Son, Wayanma, Emre Can, Adarson Matip. the list is endless. How much are this guys earning. Big players are always big players, those three if they are not in our team they will still earn as much as that anywhere.. I can’t find any player now at Arsenal whose salary worth increment aside those three. When we get a new coach 70% of them will be shown the exit door.

    1. I agree, if the club paid the other 70% according to talent, they would be earning around £20k a week. So if it’s true and they are complaining, they should just shut it, put a shift in or be shown the door. Ozil will shine if he has decent players around, ask Ronaldo at Real who was gutted when he left. He looks good for Germany because of the quality around him. If we allowed him to go we would have to pay £50 – £60m to replace him PLUS a salary of say £250k a week, instead it will cost us his salary of £15m pa for 3 years or a total of £45m. Good business I’d say!!

      1. As a business it might seem good, but that is not everything. Ozil does not contribute enough to deserve such a salary, and that creates problems within the team where players are making 3-5 times less than him, watching a guy play well 20-30% of the time.

        If Ozil needs top players around him to perform, then we would need to spend 100M + salaries to get him to perform which now doesnt seem like that good a business anymore.

        I dont believe that we need a player with Ozil’s qualities in Arsenal. We need fighters in midfield, I would rather take 3 fighters and no Ozil any day.

  7. There’s nothing like January signing unsettling the team. Wenger has always been stingy with money (not from his pocket though), so when these new recruitment guys come and starts doing real businesses, Wenger has no idea on how to handle real players with quality coz he’s used to his freebies and Welbeck type of players. With his diminishing managerial skills and his lack of tactics, this has become something like a luggage to him, a luggage he doesn’t know how to handle.

  8. During the winter window, I said it here that any serious changes to the Arsenal squad should be kept till the summer. I feared that any such changes would disrupt the balance of the team in playing terms. I received a lot of thumbs down. Some fans felt that the opportunity to bring in a ‘world class’ striker like Aubameyang was too good to miss. With the benefit of hindsight now, based on the results on the pitch and the stories off it, I think I will be vindicated, sadly!

    1. Good changes would disrupt the team? Feels like saying buying Auba will hinder development of Welbeck

    1. No, he should buy Nabil Fekir from lyon is gona dither on transfer as usual and when other teams grab him he will come out with bs like “we almost sign him”
      there is no questions wenger did great things for Arsenal but he needs to go after the end of this period simple as that is even coming out and say is not going to leave

      1. Dither as usual?
        You mean like how the CEO tried to penny pinch on the Auba deal and it took all window to get it done while the Manager was not part of it?

  9. That’s why Wenger gets paid plenty of millions for…………and so far he has not figured it out for over a decade……..he is no good as a coach at Arsenal …….and needs to go ASAP……….Wenger out……..

  10. So you are sugesting that now when Ozil got pay rise he should become twice as better as he was?Or im getting this article wrong?
    Ozil is what he is and we all know what he can offer..he just need better players around him, which we have now.
    Now just need time they gel together.
    As for wages…well of course the wages will go up..but not for everybody- Welb or Beler or Musti cant expect pay rise because they are avarage.
    With new new era manager and proper new era managment everythong will be sorted out….sooner or later but its inevitable.

  11. The big mistake in January was the same as in the last 5-6 years. Not sacking Wenger. It is as simple as that.

  12. We lost a lot by losing Oxlade, Theo and not replacing them. Instead Wenger got cheap and is using Iwobi and Welbeck instead.

    Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan are Giroud/ replacements. However, Aubameyang is really an upgrade to Lacazette.
    Mkhitaryan is another attacking midfielder BUT Neither is a replacement of Alexis. We still require an Alexis/Hazard/Alli/de brunye type player

    If i knew we were getting Aubameyang, i would have preferred Giroud to stay over Lacazette because Giroud has PL experience. Aubameyang may hurt Lacazette’s progress. Although I think Lacazette has been better signing than Morata.

    Mkhitaryan is okay. He can compete with Ozil for Attacking Midfielder role, but we need a player like Draxler, Lemar etc to replace Alexis.

    Wenger has always thought he was too clever for his own shoes.

    It took him years to replace Van Persie
    He still hasn’t replaced Viera
    He hasn’t signed a top defensive midfielder
    We don’t have a top centre back
    We lack a Top Box2Box player.
    We have a lot of average players
    I don’t see Wenger fixing this mess either

    Wenger OUT!

    1. Theo and Chamberlain are way overrated they not even good footballers in Carzola calibre wenger has been the main problem at Arsenal in my opinion just keep clinging to average players who are loyal to him but not for Arsenal now it starts to backfire

    2. All we lost by “losing” Weed Walcott is twelve long frustrating years and he is the worst player to have ever worn our shirt, CERTAINLY THE MOST COWARDLY AND IDLE.

    3. It took Arsenal years to replace RvP.
      The manager wanted Laca before we got him, we had been watching him for a couple years and failed the year before we did get him while the board then panic bought Perez who has never had the trust off the manager and TBH is doing NOTHING on loan to prove he is good enough for AFC.

      It bugs me about not having a top DM and I would like to see that happen, with Sven making the signings now then what has the manager got to do with a DM signing?

      The manager did say he wanted def signings in the Jan but the CEO didn’t leave enough time after trying to penny pinch on the Auba deal.

  13. The moment Arsenal increased Ozil’s contract I knew we’re a joke and an excuse for a club. What justification did we have giving Ozil that kind of money? And we couldn’t give Sanchez that to keep him? It’s like d club is managed by school kids with all due respect to school kids cos I think some might even do better, as usual d board is hoping Wenger wins d Europa league so they can extend his contract so Pathetic

  14. greetings my fellow guns……ofcoarse all is not well but tbh it hasn’t bn well for a decade plus,jus wanna wake up to wenger is gone news sacked or whatever.ozil great player as advatised but alil over rated i think.his frst season he created alot of chances was on top of the assist charts and……………that was it!!!!he had giroud wasting his assists them days okay fair enough lacca came along auba is here now Where the hell is the assist king????? mmmmmm

  15. The way forward for Arsenal is to concentrate on resolving the glaring weaknesses in the team namely in Goal ,Centre Back and DM.Paying a fortune to a luxury player is not the solution nor is signing Auba when we have paid over £50m for Lacazzette.The swapping of Sanchez for Mik was justified for 2 reasons_1 Sanchez is a busted flush as Man Utd Directors have found out and 2_He was a disruptive influence in the dressing room.I suspect any new Arsenal Manager will quickly address our defensive problems and endeavour to offload a number of players including Mustafi, Xhaka and if possible Ozil to raise cash to buy suitable defensive players such as Maguire,Jiminez,Leno ,Decoure.This is not rocket science, but is a logical way to go about restoring the fortunes of our Club.

    1. Fine comments for sure but any new manager will, certainly, need to replace EVERY defender, including both keepers at the club. We don’t actually have a functioning defence at all nor have we for some long time now.

  16. I think we was going to be having difficulties no matter what happened in the Jan window as we was losing an influential AM and at the same time needed Def signings.

    Seeing Gazidis in Dortmund for near the whole window made me lol, he was showing his incompetence yet again and I was reading comments about The manager being at fault for penny pinching.

    I do think we are making the right steps with hiring Sven, Huss and Raul. I do think it needs to continue on so the manager role becomes more of a head coach than a manager, aim to get in many top coaches for specialized roles.

    For me, that is the way forward.

  17. The penny pinching will continue in the future whoever is the boss. It may even get worse without the revenue provided by the Champions League. The self sustaining financial strategy will continue.

  18. Iwonbi’s shooting is as weak as Walcott’s dueling. His efforts are so limp it is unreal, not that his targeting is any good either. How can a grown man in an athlete’s build just limp the ball forwards like that. He must not ever practice his shooting, for me that is a lad that is not in love with the sport he plays. I and my friends used to finish training, or finish a match, go home, get something to eat, and then went straight to our local park for a kick about which would last til it got dark. Every single day that was it, a football at our feet. I’m just sick that when we were younger we didn’t realize that anybody can become a footballer, instead of believing that the people on the telly are special people born for it. That was the worst phrase a commentator came out with, they’re born to play ball, kicking in the womb. Iwobi is a disgrace to the sport if he’s not spending hours after training trying to put things right, or better would be just because he likes playing a bit of ball.

    1. Break-on-through, Welbeck should join the goal shooting practice session as well. As my dear late father used to say; “the harder you work, the luckier you get”.

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