Arsenal have been boosted by the news that Smith Rowe has signed a contract extension.
I would say it ends Aston Villa’s hopes of buying him, but I never once believed that someone at our club since the age of 9 was going to trade that in to go to Villa Park!
In the last 12 months Saka, Balogun and Martinelli have also agreed new deals. It shows that the Gunners are finally learning, protecting the value of key talent.
Many gooners will want the four I just named to be the foundation of the squad for the next decade.
Yet if the worse were to happen and say if one felt they could win more trophies elsewhere, we now can demand a silly asking price.
One of the big reasons we have been left behind by the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool is they sold when the time was right, compared to us naively allowing contracts to run down.
The year Arsene Wenger first finished outside the top 4, the gap between us and Liverpool was just a point.
The following December, Liverpool were able to bring in VVD due to getting over 120 million for Coutinho. They used the rest of the cash to buy Alisson the next summer.
This was the same period where we had to accept a player swap for Sanchez, and felt obliged to pay over the odds to maintain the services of Ozil. Both happened because we had let respective contracts run down to a few months left.
We had done the same regarding Van Persie, Sagna and Nasri and others.
It’s crazy how two clubs on an even level could go in such opposite directions simply by one being more efficient at renewing contracts.
If a Sanchez had 3 years on his contract, we too could have demanded Coutinho money.
Mr Wenger claimed that players running down contracts would become the normality.
Once he left though, we were promised that after Ramsey’s free transfer (Wilshire, Welbeck and Cazorla would also become free agents) that Arsenal would become stricter.
They would implement that anyone with 24 months left on a deal either signs or gets sold.
Those in power either lied and thought fans would just forget, or realised how difficult that can be.
Aubameyang had a year left on his deal meaning he could demand a silly sum and as things stand both Lacazette, Kolasinac and Reiss Nelson will be entitled to chat with clubs abroad from January.
So in terms of sticking to their own principles it’s not perfect, but it’s an area we have improved in. If you include Holding and Tierney, we finally have assets worth something.
In an ideal world everyone stays and has lots of success together.
But if the worse were to happen and we had to sell, we now have the power to ask for decent compensation. We don’t have to be forced to sell or else a player leaves for free. Clubs can no longer get our best talent for a reduced fee.
We have safeguarded our future.
To be a big club you act like a big club. This is what big clubs do.
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Dan