Ivan Toney, Onana, Douglas Luiz, heck even triggering Osimhen’s release clause …. there are Gooners who hold hope that our squad will be strengthened this January. Yet actions speak a thousand words …….
Arsenal only brought David Raya this summer because Brentford agreed to a loan fee with an option to buy. Edu was able to take advantage of the keeper having 12 months left on his contract. We could negotiate a fee now with the threat of getting the goalie for nothing in August. The Bees compromised if their player extended his contract to protect his value in case the Gunners changed their mind (why haven’t we?). It will take that kind of creativity for any deals to transpire this month.
Of course, a lot of YouTubers won’t tell you that!
They are not going to risk their views by telling you transfer activity will be quiet on the red half of North London. In the next two weeks channels will try to increase their subscribers by spreading rumours.
In reality the speculation we should take seriously is that several clubs are dangerously close to breaching FFP rules. As I write this, Notts Forest have joined Everton in being charged for not following profit and sustainability regulations. Why I have zero sympathy for the Toffees 10-point deduction is the league constantly warned them they were in danger of losing over 105 million over a three-year period yet continued to spend, arrogantly thinking they could break the rules and just get a slap on the wrist. There is nothing in the policy which says being transparent makes it okay to do what you want! Some are suggesting the same warnings have been sent to the Emirates.
Arsenal are in this position for two reasons. In the last 8 windows they spent approx. 688 million. That includes paying over the odds for Lokonga, Tavarez, Havertz, Vieira, over 50 million on the keeper position. We won’t get money back on those purchases.
While doing that, we made little money with the action plan being to rip up contracts and/or loan out assets till they could leave on a free. Most of any money we have saved was due to slashing the wage bill although you could argue Ozil, Aubameyang, Willian, Bellerin, Pepe and others could have demanded a transfer fee.
At one-point serious money was on the table for Maitland Niles who left for nothing.
So, if Arteta has spent nearly 700 million and Joe Willock and Balogun are the only talent to have left for a profit ….do the maths.
I never thought I would be warning the Kroenke Family about not gambling with money but the short-term enjoyment of a striker this season isn’t worth any long-term headache. I’m not suggesting we are heading down the Leeds United route of the early 2000’s but I don’t want the club I love to use the business model of investing money they think is coming to them and not yet in the bank.
There’s an obvious temptation to gamble with Champions League revenue. Especially if you believe the hype surrounding our team. Yet I don’t want to see one failed attempt at making the top 4 resulting in financial trouble.
We did that before when building our stadium, Arsenal invested money owed to them from advertisers and sponsors, putting huge pressure for maximum revenue from UEFA.
It’s not a gamble we have to take.
As much as we don’t want to wait much longer then the two decades since we were last Champions, financially, we are in a good place which shouldn’t be jeopardised. Where we have learnt from the previous regime is all our best players are on long term contracts meaning the value of Arsenal is as high as any of our rivals.
That means our worst-case scenario if a player wants to leave, we can now demand a huge asking price.
It would be wrong to assume though that we won’t be tempted to spend what we don’t have, that we too assumed any sanctions would be light if rules were broken. Equally smart, educated people at Goodison and the City Ground made that error, openly admitting their mistakes because they thought they would benefit from their honestly.
So, for once I’m not pressuring our owners to spend.
We have to spend to have any chance of a trophy this campaign, but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
Dan
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No, because the punishment could send us to the relegation zone and the likes of Vlahovic/ Osimhen isn’t available
Some top CF are worth trying to break the rule but they are rarely available in January. However if we can do a loan if we have good tarlent hunt experts in Arsenal. Why not check out Epl championship? the likes of Watkins and Toney graduated from there and they could be cheaper.
NO
I like the idea because Watkins came from that competition, but I doubt the EFL Championship clubs would let their main CFs go in the middle of the season
umm, no!
for so many reasons
sacrifice the future for one shot at glory
one shot that may not even result in glory
FFP is their to stop cheats
knowingly breaking the rules, is knowingly cheating
i don’t want my club known as a cheat for any amount of trophies
Your figures are way off. Arsenal have spent a NET £130 million from a FFP ruling of £248 million NET allowed due to their being a remaining club profit after that amount has been spent. The only other club to have a higher ceiling NET is Man united at £263 million. Arsenal having already spent a NET £130 million (players sold are included and add-ons are not) on players from a budget of £248 million, means they have a remaining NET spend of £118 million. This would increase if further players are sold. Arsenal have £118 million available and pending further sales this amount could increase. You forget that Arsenal are in the Top 6 financial clubs in world football and only second to Man United in the UK.
There is nothing like net spent in football, doesn’t work like that my dear, player sale/ players bought
Player wages occupy the biggest space in a football club’s expense side of profit and loss statement. High wages easily dwarf the transfer fees paid by clubs thus it makes more sense putting a higher weight on them. The adjoining charts of European football clubs in recent seasons show the wide disparity in amounts between net spend and player wages.
That is all completely incorrect from beginning to end. FFP is based on amortization losses for a start. How are Arsenal only second to Utd in the UK when City have the highest turnover in World football? Next biggest earners are LFC then Utd, Chelsea and then Spurs, Arsenal are behind these team in turnover for the last financial year! where you are getting this from I don’t know
https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-business-group/articles/deloitte-football-money-league.html
When rebuilding our squad it was inevitable to make mistakes, from any manager making those decisions.
Josh, Arteta, and Edu got so much right, but also made big money mistakes that were questionable.
Why Havertz when we needed a legit B2B midfielder or striker?
Not a single fullback in the squad; but makeshift defenders lacking in key areas.
Still no competition on RW or reliable sub to rotate with Saka. Instead money and time wasted on Raya, an unnecessary transfer.
Point being there remain obvious holes in the squad that still need to be resolved, even after a couple years. Backup RW, B2B midfielder, striker or backup striker, an actual fullback not makeshift.
Spot on Durand.
If both Timber and Partey come back on time in good form,we will have a better team than in the first leg,hoping Arteta doesn’t go back to the Partey at R.b shenanigans.
My concern is still at C.F.We surely must get someone who knows where the goal post is,even if its on loan.
“could argue Ozil, Aubameyang, Willian, Bellerin, Pepe and others could have demanded a transfer fee”
I think we tried with all of them except willian – their wages exceeded their values, so no-one was going to match what we were paying them AND pay a transfer fee.
To even contemplate it, would be professional suicide.
I recently gave a list of the top ten clubs in Europe regarding reported players contracts.
Barca-Madrid-PSG-Bayern-Mancity -Man utd-Liverpool-Juventus and The Arsenal being those named.
As far as I’m aware, only Bayern, Liverpool and The Arsenal have not attracted the attention of the authorities regarding anything illegal, but I’m certain those three clubs are being monitored very closely, simply because of the size of the clubs and said wage bills.
In fact it’s called cheating and I happen to believe that our club will not do that. Period!!
We are not going to win the League.
Even if we bought a couple of £100m player right now they may not bed in in time.
City have just welcomed back a player who will have far more impact than any signing
I think along with you Nabillo.
If we were points ahead of City and others, one could argue that new signings could help take us over the finishing line. But now we are doing catch-up. So not worth the risk.
We’d do best to be in the CL spots at season-end
Maybe we can ask the real specialist in failure since he’s been sacked by Roma. After his latest failure, he professed that “For two and a half years I haven’t done anything wrong, not even a couple of weeks ago when everyone was sick”. What delusional arrogance. No doubt he could enlighten us peons on risking FFP sanctions in his own lovable manner.
Hell No, one signing we should make is a good managing director and everything will falls in line by default.
Gunsmoke
You seem to have a ‘bit of a thing’ about the former Chelsea managing director- I wonder if she is still in your thinking?
Marina’s in a lot of guy’s thoughts, lol. Would she be better in place of Edu? – quite possible, imo.
BB, I have a 10×8 glossy of Marina on my wall.
She sure has SueP, can’t believe she hasn’t been grabbed up already, that’s a man job’s she was in and did extremely well if you ask me.
BB, yes she’s in our thoughts for all the right reasons 🙂
I hope the article was thought provoking and not serious. Because it is a stupid idea. End of.
Don’t worry, there is no money available.
I would be shocked (thanks Merse)if most clubs haven’t ‘bent’ the rules at some stage only to be covered up by creative accountants and lawyers. FFP fiddling is a different kettle of fish, ask Everton and possibly Man City when their inquiry presents it’s findings. The monetary and reputational cost is too high. Anyway, as Ken rightly says, it’s cheating!!
After having misused nearly 700M GBP, not a penny needs to be given to Mikel or else he will misuse it. All his signings except Ramsdale and Rice are nothing but disaster. His take on Eddie, Nelson, Elneny is worse. He cannot win the EL or league Cup Or FA Cup. Pathetic!.If he needs money, let him pay from what he earns. We need to fix accountability.
Was Partey a disaster before his injuries?
Was our captain a bad signing?
Please try not to be so blinded
Willian, Auba, Nketiah,Nelson, Raya, Tomi, Jorginho, Havertz, Jesus all bad or mediocre.
Odeg, Ramsdale, Rice, white good.
Partey on fence due to injuries.
How would you rate his signings?
He has more flops than hits for the money spent.
In fairness
There was hardly a dissenting voice when Auba signed that bloody thing
My understanding is that by renewing the EN and RN contracts protects the club financially on resale (however, I’m with you on their over inflated income – potty!)
Jorginho has been a short term fix but I personally think Tomi and Jesus are better than your mediocre at best view. Havertz hasn’t been at the club long enough to cast a negative. If you had mentioned Tavares and Lokonga then we would have found some common ground
SueP – The voice of reason once again. imo, It was because of Jesus that we were virtually unbeatable before the world cup last season. I hope his physical and mental abilities return to full force after his devastating injury but it doesn’t look good at this point especially with the knee acting up again.
Aye!
Ode – he is not the same Ode of last year, a one season wonder. That is the reason RM gave up on him. Those guys know a thing or two about football as they are serial winners.
Rice was a CB, turned into a RB, I don’t care less as he is not a RB quality. Why was he hired and not a proper RB? Why was Cedric hired?
Partey & Tomiyasu – never available when needed, so what is the use of having them on the roster?
Ramsdale and Rice are the only perfect signings. The rest are all a miss or one season wonders.
So lets write down Mikel’s own team
Raya/Runar,
Tomi, Cedric, White, Kiwor, Zinny, Tavares
Elneny, Lokonga, TP
Jorginho, Viera
Nelson, Gab J, Eddie, Marquinos
That is a group of 17 misfits/injury prone players in 24, now you know the reason why there is no rotation and why we fell short last season and imploded this season.
And when facts are discussed, some call us “trolls”
How did I miss out on Kai? Thats 18/24
Let’s face it, we are where we are because Arteta spent bucket loads of cash on mediocre players.
It starts and stops with Arteta, the Kroeknes have spent a fortune and Arteta needs to deliver better with what he has available.
Do not give this wannabe manager more money.
I agree with you Dan. I also want to say that our team does not really need any reinforcement this winter window if our coach knows the dynamics of his job. This is no rocket science. Try and study your opponent before any match. Feature your players according to the strength of your opponent. Shuffle positions and rotate players to give them match confidence. I strongly believe that we have a good team if properly managed, can withstand any team. But when you continue to prove to other teams that you are not ready to change then, they will capitalism on it and punish you.
Capitalise
Breaching FFP and the resulting penalties depend on whether you are Everton and Nottingham Forest or you are Manchester City. The first two are sanctioned, while Manchester City seem to be fireproof, with expensive lawyers to avoid sanctions. I doubt if Arsenal would avoid ending with the former two clubs, so stick to the rules.
No way, that would put us in the same bracket as Man City and Chelsea. Why on earth would we take such a risk, football is meant to be a level playing film and the article suggests we throw away all our morals and values to land the title