So it looks like Rob Holding has joined Crystal Palace in a £4 million deal.
The Gunners have been able to offload the likes of Nuno Tavares, Alex Runnarson, Holding, and Kieran Tierney, while they also have sent Albert Sambi Lokonga leave on loan.
None of them had a future at Arsenal and the club has done well to find suitors for the players. But patting the backs of the club’s hierarchy would hardly be an appropriate thing to do.
We are a hilarious. Why are we always the one in this position? Can’t shift anyone. Told how this summer would be critical in terms of sales yet deadline and Cedric, Holding, Lokonga and Pepe are still here. Could only shift, KT, Tavares and Runnarsson on loan too. It’s poor https://t.co/dUPIvavaKb
— Super Eagle (@SVCarbaholic) September 1, 2023
While the departures of Tavares, Tierney, and Runnarson occurred through loan deals, the transfer of Rob Holding for a mere £4 million raises questions in today’s football market.
Not to mention Nicolas Pepe, who failed to find a club, and now will probably see his contract being terminated by the Gunners.
This sum pales in comparison to recent transfers, such as Cole Palmer, a peripheral figure at Manchester City, securing a move to Chelsea for more than ten times Holding’s fee. Similarly, Ian Maatsen’s transfer from Chelsea to Burnley amounted to eight times Holding’s deal, highlighting the stark difference.
Arsenal are close to completing all the outgoings they aimed to do at the start of the week.
It’s worth noting some other countries transfer windows remain open for another two weeks which is likely where Cedric and Nicolas Pepe will end up.
We’re getting there…⏳🔜 pic.twitter.com/Qt10AT1SUm
— now.arsenal (@now_arsenaI) September 1, 2023
Even Wataru Endo, older than Holding and without prior Premier League experience, moved to Liverpool for approximately five times the price Arsenal received for Holding.
You really need to question Edu on this, regardless of all the good things he has done in the transfer windows until now.
A proficient Sporting Director should shoulder the dual responsibility of acquiring top-tier talent for the club and orchestrating successful sales. This duality not only makes them an ideal candidate but also ensures the sustainability of the footballing business.
And Arsenal have failed to do it time and again.
Indeed, it’s undeniable that the Brazilian is relatively fresh in the world of club football. However, football is an unforgiving industry, and if you fail to excel in your role, you risk being replaced.
I’m not suggesting that it’s time for Edu to depart just yet. Quite the contrary!
Nevertheless, he must swiftly master the skill of effective player sales if he intends to maintain his current position for an extended period.
Writer – Yash Bisht
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
It’s been an Arsenal issue for close to 2 decades now. We always hold onto players too long because “we think we can’t live without them”.
Our biggest problem now is the lack of rotation means all of our fringe players, even the highly talented ones, completely lack match experience and fitness and therefore don’t always appear to be able to step up.
MA/Edu’s big issue now is they’ve just been given whatever they want for years without having to give back on their end. We’ve spent more than enough money now to the point where we can start selling good players now like City.
The problem is instead of dealing with a player that you don’t want MA rather just sweeps it under the rug by benching/loaning/ripping up contracts instead of just selling. He also does his best to devalue players for years and then wonders why clubs want to lowball us.
I completely disagree with everything above. Mostly all the players we are struggling to sell were not purchased by MA so he can hardly be held accountable for the lack of resale value can he?!
He will also rotate in the cup competitions like he does every year to give the fringe players game time so the notion that he doesn’t rotate is complete nonsense.
You actually think he deliberately devalues players?
What a complete load of nonsense
But Chelsea always have players from different managers and are always able to recoup most of their money back from their bad purchases. When we make a bad purchase it seems we are just stuck with them until the contract runs out.
Most of the money?? Which world are you?? See the sales of Lukaku, Kaulibali, Auba, Pulisic, Werner, Emerson, Jorghinho, Batshuyayi, Drinkwater, Barkley, Bakayoko, Morata, Kepa, Rudiger and countless others. Just imagine how much loss Chelsea had made in these players. Except for these Mudryk, Cucurella and so on are already looking waste of money. Dont even compare Chelsea to any other club in transfer market. There cant be any bigger chicken head and loser than them. Just imagine which kind of dumbhead will sell Salah, Debryune, Ake, Rice, and numerous others world class players for penny and then buys quite average players like Mudryk, Cucurella, etc etc for millions and millions.
RSH, Shame that you picked , as your example,the definite far worst club for losing money on sales and having let massive costs, when buying players, leave for peanuts.
Your”oh so wrong post” shows how little you actually know about CHELSEAS countless transfer disasters , which dwarf our own ,by comparison.
Don’t you really know which players Arteta purchased to make such a claim?
I totally agree
You actually have to have signed half decent players to get a half decent return
To blame Edu for the fact that Holding is worth not a lot is hardly his fault
Was the sale of Balogun not a reasonable fee?
Just suppose in a mythical world we were about to sell Saka or Martinelli. £4m or is the sky almost the limit? How about Odegaard? I don’t think £20m for Xhaka was giving him away.
It really wasnt check what strikers that scored less went for
I think that having no EPL experience his sale price was ok
Balogun sale? Atalanta sold their 21 years old CF,who scored 8 or 9 goals in Italy last season to UTD for 70M euros and that doesn’t include adds on.now you tell me.
*even Everton managed to sell Iwobi to Fulham for 22M£(~26M Euros).
Siamois, check how much Arsenal sold Iwobi to Everton for?
Rob Holding as an English CB with 8 seasons at Arsenal is a bargain at £4 million.
No surprise you haven’t received a reply.
Why is that @HH?
Of the six Arsenal players mentioned above, three were purchased by Arteta / Edu, two by Gazidis and his henchmen and Holding by Wenger… who we made a profit on.
The club, it is rumoured, are about to terminate another contract (Pepe) meanwhile we have paid the salaries of other players who we eventually let go for nothing.
As for the cup competitions, I suggest one looks at how far we have progressed in said competitions and ask what and when exactly, these “rotations” took place.
Of course MA doesn’t deliberately devalue players, but his technique of freezing out players and not playing them does devalue them and let’s not forget that the huge salaries are not only from the previous regimes, as Havertz reported contract clearly indicates.
To let Holding go to another PL club for just £4,000,000 is ridiculous – he needed to move on and the club have the back up needed to let him go – but Palace will be laughing all the way to the bank… in my opinion.
. If WHU were willing to offer a reported £30,000,000 for Harry Maquire, wasn’t Holding worth more than just over a seventh of that?
Reply to Ashley.
Regarding Holding, it could be a sort of thank you for your contributing, I can’t remember this guy complaining a single time.
I guess they could have got more from other leagues, but Holding do probably prefer to stay in London. We bought him for approximately £2 million and we are making a profit 😉
Thank you Holding you seem to be a great guy, and I’m impressed of your professionalism. Wish you all the best, will definitely miss you 🫶
ken, it would be ridiculous, if Nicholas Pepe is not retained to back up Saka. To let him go on a free by ripping up his contract, when Saka gets played into the ground, would demonstrate incompetence. When given the opportunity Pepe”s numbers have been sound.
Unlike Past year this has been very productive year for us in transfer market. In past we would have terminated contracts of Mari, Holding, Turner etc because of their wage bill. But this year other than getting rid of those wage bill we also have managed to get fees. Including Balogan we have sold players for almost 60-70mils which we havent done for years. Yes Liverpool are king of transfer market and this year they got more lucky to have attracted the interest from Saudi, otherwise its sure they would have quite difficulty in offloading henderson, fabinho, or anyother older players with huge contract. when no European club wanted Neymar, saudi came and fork 90mil. Thats absurd! Yes, its our failure and inefficiency not to be able to attract any interest from Saudi. But just considering european market we have dont a decent job this time.
@Vz:since Arteta joined Arsenal as manager,the club has spent 526M in buying players.the club also made a loss of 128M on players sales since December 2019.it doesn’t take into account graduates,youth players…who were released/let go by Arsenal and ended up signing for other clubs as free agents.
We are still struggling to get rid of the dead wood from the previous regime and it will take a few more years until the cycle has restarted. It was always going to be a long process and we are definitely well into the transitional period. There will come a time when we have to sell one of our stars for various reasons and I am confident moving forward we will receive top fees for these players. Saliba, Gabby, Saka, Martinelli, Odegaard, Jesus, if any of these players were sold today you would be looking at 80 million +. We cant get fees for dead wood like holding, cedric and pepe because they are not desirable footballers
What are you defending. Don’t you think Lokonga, Tavares, Cedric, Willian, Jorginho, new contract to Elney, New big contract to Auba. All these are Done at Arteta regim. So arteta is responsible for these losses.
Also he bought low confidence player Havertz for 65 million and made him highest earner (if Havertz was Arsenal player then he would have just freezed him and terminated his contract by paying him full salary) who is just a bench warmer quality as of now. Who created this mess. Other sensible mangers would have given some playing time to Pepe, Terney, Holding and will have sold them 30M, 30M, 20M (As Holding is Homegrown). Arteta has buought rubish playes on hagh wages like Cedric, Pablo Mari. etc.
Also Arteta does not trust academy players and do not give them chances even if the deserve. You can see only after disaster happened he was forced to give chances to (Saka, Martinelli, Smith rowe, Nelson, Saliba). Arteta is lucky they are performing without needed to buy so that he can balance his books.
Auba was our top performer and was star and pride of Arsenal till then. But unluckily turn of event happened so bad that we couldn’t get any buyers for him due to his wage bill. Elnheny is neither expensive nor on huge contract, but he has been one of Arsenal faithful and dependable players. He is ok when we keep him in 5th choice or 5 th choice, he still did decent job for us and helped the team. Do you expect a world class player to be happy with 5 th choice? And what do you expect ? To hit jackpot in our each buys! Mancity are king of scouts who have success with most of the players they bought. Even they had some failures. So in this era to be able to get 11 players who fit the system and make team better is extraordinary work. Do you expect tavares, lokonga who dont get playing time neither perform well in their loan and still be sold for 100mils. Look at manu and chelsea where expensive players come and go by without fitting in system and team remains the same. Please grow up, you got to have rational for your thoughts
The same Auba we gave to Barca who sold him to Chelsea for 13M few months later.Mavris was sold for 3M and Stutggart sold him to WH for 15M….can you see a pattern ?
I know Auba was scoring goals before that season. The the Manager should be able to judge his player. Every body could see that Auba can not do hard press or play the new desired system by Arteta at that time Auba so above 30 and it was eminent that was turning to Ozil 2.0 situation. At that time He could have easily sold Auba in 50M+. and bought some Younger player with that money. But instead he Made him highest earner and in new season start the difference of opinion formed. Instead of managing that internally Arteta damaged the Auba image then latter he had to pay Auba and end his contract. He has done to such things with few many see how he damaged Pepe, Kairan Terny, Smith Rowe value by not rotating and giving them some game time. Any Decent manager could have done better man management and got some value instead of paying to depart for these players. The problem is he is not learning quickly from Ozil situation and created the same mess with Auba, Willian and recently Havertz
Arsenal had money so they are spending. Why are we being bipolar. If club is not spending then also we panic and if club is spending then also we panic. What would have changed if we could have got 12 mil more for Auba or 10 mil more for maprovis or so on. If coach thinks a player can no longer play in his system then he only has two choices, 1st is to let him go second is continue playing him and jeopardize whole progress of the team. We all can see arsenal has never been such cohesive unit since Wenger earlier days. So to gain something we have to sacrifice something. World does not run in one direction where everything happens as our wish. Few millions we lose by releasing players have already been compensated by champions league football. And just imagine how much money we have made as our squad value has sky rocketed in last year, only behind mancity. We might have spent net 350 mil but in the same time we must have done some really good things to make the value of same squad over 1 bil. So as pure football fan let’s not get much into finances and evaluate coach and team based on the performances and results which is most important. I would be happy if club spend 1 bil and then win champions league.
Really I get it’s your choice to support the manager but acting ignorant at it?
Apart from the use of the term “dead wood” which I disagree with, what Ashley has written is otherwise substantially accurate.
In what way would you suggest Ashley has demonstrated ignorance.
How much have we got from the sales of Mari, Cedric, Tavares, Lokonga, Runarsson? How much will we get for Joginho, Ramsdale, Havertz?
Those are previous regime players?
Correct. What the poster fails to understand, and why the post was made is that blaming previous regimes for ‘dead wood’ doesn’t wash. It’s up to the current management to get the lowest price they can for incoming, and the highest for outgoing. Other clubs (bar the ever profligate Chelsea) manage this, yet we don’t. Indeed according to the stats only one season over the last few decades has seen a positive balance, and to be fair, that was a disaster as we lost key first team players for big fees – who were not replaced.
He hasn’t thought it through – either the players named – let alone those not) and also how many games we were able to “rotate” players during our, oh to brief cup runs he mentions.
Reply to David
Ashley, what “deadwood” from the last regime are we trying to get rid off, apart from Pepe?
Check on MA / Edu’s signings that we are currently letting go, either by loans or sales.
The cycle has already started under MA and, unlike the previous regime(s) it’s his signings!!
We pay our flops too high of wages I think, and at some point you just develop a reputation in the transfer market. Any buyer knows we sell cheap and to just wait until the end of the transfer window. We also need to stop ripping up contracts too if we want to change that rep. Luckily the Saudis seem to throw money easily and can hopefully get us out of some sticky situations in the future.
Holding’s low sale price might’ve been a token of appreciation from Arsenal for his service, as they did to Giroud several years ago. Holding’s contract was also expiring
Pepe blew his chance in France, his age isn’t conducive for improvement, his salary is high and he will be a free agent at the end of this season, so it’s difficult to sell him
Soares has a similar situation
Pepe blew his chance in France by scoring 8 goals but our coach drop 67m on who isn’t better and constantly Play at the detriment of better players.
How much do think other clubs will be willing to pay ua for ESR with the way Arteta has been managing him.
Pepe scored six league goals from nineteen appearances, which wasn’t bad. But he was unavailable for too many games, so other clubs would likely be put off by his unavailability
As for Smith-Rowe, he’d likely get his chances in cup competitions, otherwise Arsenal would’ve sold him last month if he wasn’t fit into Arteta’s plan
Sporting Director not good enough. His knowledge in the European market, poor. Most players are here because of Arteta not recruitment genius of our SD.
Good at giving our players for free with free cash as well. Ozil, Auba,Mustafi, Kolasinac are all examples.
Care to name the clubs that were willing to pay a transfer fee for those players you mentioned ?
Arteta himself bought Cedric, Pablo Marri, Havertz by paying huge fee. How can clubs of these players nutmegged Edu and Arteta. With these 3 transfers i sense some commision in Arteta and Edu pocket
So your answer to my question is no ?
Cedric and Mari were hardly big transfers fees. KH fee is, but he’s still settling into a new club and system. Bergkamp, Henry, Pires all took time to settle.
Again, this is a non argument. Havertz has been at Chelsea for the last two seasons and knows the epl. None of those players had played in England before.
Then I’ll replace those players with one’s that had played in England. Jeffers, Chambers, Pennant, Richard Wright.
Also some players moving from one club to another, in the same country, take time to settle into a new system.
HD, but Barca sold Aubameyang to Chelsea for a reported £12,000,000, while we gave him away and still paid some of his salary at the same time.
Ozil on gardening leave, being paid his full salary.
Mustafi playing in the Bundesliga I believe and Kolasinac also continuing his professional career (can’t remember who with).
I agree completely with you regarding Havertz – we seem to be in a minority though
Ken, they were all players that no club were willing to pay a transfer fee for.
So you don’t think Barca, for example, saw what potential Aubameyang still had and proceeded to make a reported £12,000,000 profit?
Why couldn’t we see the same thing, instead of publicly crucifying the player, freezing him out, then give him away?
That’s the axe I have to grind with the method adopted to get rid of players not wanted by MA – not the fact that he didn’t rate the player, but the cavalier approach to burning money.
☝ken, it would be great if Arsenal could “recognize talent” more often.
I would say everyone knows the potential of PEA, but they probably also know about his problems when he wants a move, ie consistently breaking his clubs rules, as he did at St Etienne and Dortmund. Barcelona played it clever. They knew he wanted out, and they needed goals to get them into a CL place. They waited right up to the last minute of the January transfer window to agree to sign him for nothing, great bit of poker by them.
Am I happy that he went for zilch, no; but I’m happy that a persistent rule breaker has gone, and that the squad is a happy, united squad now.
And by the way they paid £2 million from Bolton,, so made a profit.
I agree but on a humorous note, what was £2m worth 8 years ago?
@SueP:2M in 2016 which we bought Holding for,is the equivalent of just under 2.8M(2.77…) in today’s money.also according to the Athletic/Ornstein CP paid us 2.5M plus 1M in adds on for Holding,not the 4M people are mentioning.
Siamois
Thanks
I checked and if the club has kept hold of that £2,000,000 it would be worth £2,618,100 rounded up in July of 2023.
I think this whole situation with regards to us being pants at selling players started at the end of Wenger tenure when his whole networking staff got dismantled and replaced by that crook Raul Sanllehi being a football director etc. That European style of football club management is something we as Arsenal FC are trying to catch up on and I think we missed a trick by getting rid of that whole entire network that took years n years to build relationships with and are now suffering tremondsly cause of that poor mismanagement. It is something that the club needs to rectify ASAP or fear we going to get left behind by the rest. People look at Brighton and sing them praises but the great Arsen Wenger did that throughout his tenure nd helped keep us competitive through our transison to our new home/stadium, something I reckon went unappreciated/noticed but will always be in our gratuited for that!!
COYG
Amen!
Really ? How much did he get for Wiltord, Pires, Mad Jens, Sol, Arsharvin, Santos…
Value is not only in selling. Their service for the club matters more. You have some of the invincibles there. What they gave is priceless.
So they were then worth a fee.
Yash you are cherry-picking your examples. Whilst they are valid there are numerous examples suggesting the opposite. Top 6 clubs are victims of the wages and fees they pay, which maybe only half a dozen foreign clubs can match. We are also still offloading residual players from pre-Arteta, when recruitment was verging on the corrupt. Arsenal have a history of selling some players too late and hoarding others although not playing them. We are too sentimental and overrate our own players – fans do this even more than the club.
Even lower level English clubs are spending the good money on young talent with a resale value. You think if we sold our first team players we wouldnt make a fortune? Check the increases in values in Transfermarket. But we have a team who want to stay so we have assets rather than cash in the bank. Finally, we had a an aging, poor team 5 years ago. Would any of us swap back?
Well said Guy.
He may be cherry picking few but recently more problems are created by Arteta and Edu alone.
Lokonga, Tavares, Cedric, Willian, Jorginho, new contract to Elney, New big contract to Auba. All these are Done at Arteta regim. Arteta bought low confidence player Havertz for 65 million and made him highest earner (Obviouly based on his last 2 years performance nobody will pay any fee for him on these wages) who is just a bench warmer quality as of now. Who created this mess. Other sensible mangers would have given some playing time to Pepe, Terney, Holding and will have sold them 30M, 30M, 20M (As Holding is Homegrown). Arteta has buought rubish playes on hagh wages like Cedric, Pablo Mari. etc.
Also Arteta does not trust academy players and do not give them chances even if the deserve. You can see only after disaster happened he was forced to give chances to (Saka, Martinelli, Smith rowe, Nelson, Saliba). Arteta is lucky they are performing without needed to buy and this has saved Arteta’s ass.
Too early to decide whether Havertz will prove a bad buy or not. My concern is that he is starting, whereas Vieira had a season to acclimatise. Jorginho was not a bad buy.
We will recoup what we paid for Tavares.
Don’t even mention Elneny – just Google why he got a relatively cheap 1 season extension.
Pepe (not an Arteta purchase) WAS playing in France but got a big injury.
Auba and Willian WERE mistakes earlier in Arteta’s career. Name me one manager who always gets it right?
Tierney HAS played and is rated but an old style FB that nowadays nobody uses. Not playing in a system that makes him look bad is not the reason nobody wants him.
You are on another planet if you think Holding is worth £20 mil.
Bear in mind one year’s wages is upward of £5m-£15m for most of these guys and so even giving them away saves us a fortune.
Most young footballers get their first team debut when a regular gets injured – strange that if theyre rubbish it’s Arteta’s fault but if they are good then Arteta got lucky! I’d be surprised if you could name me another top club with more academy players in their squad than us eg Nketiah, Saka, ESR and Nelson, ignoring the two bought as kids – Martinelli and Saliba. Of all of your comments that is your furthest from reality.
You are wrong while commenting about young players bro. The players Nketiah, Saka, ESR, Niles and Nelson are in the team because previous managers like Wenger/Emery etc played them in European competition, Carabao cup, FA cup initial rounds so those players had experience and they were ready now to be part of EPL team. You see Martinelli and Saliba also were bought during Emery. Its a fact that Arteta is too reluctant to give chances to Academy players. You can how much player Arteta has promoted in last 2 years i.e. big 0. Do you think our academy has suddenly become so bad that we even can not promote backup players for left back and right back positions. Going by history every year at least decent player is promoted from academy. But I bet with Arteta’s approach now we will see few 1 or 2 players in next 10 players from academy
You ever heard of Charlie Patino ? Made his debut under Arteta in the League Cup at the age of 18.
Then there is Miguel Azeez, who made his debut under Arteta in the EL.
Guy, how many are we still activally trying to sell pre Arteta and how many are we trying to sell since he took over?
Hi Ken – there is probably zero correllation between those two groups. But as you upgrade and become more successful players who were acceptable before no longer make the (higher) grade, don’t fit a new playing style or simply lose form with age. Holding is one example.
Arteta can and does make mistakes, that’s not my point, but every manager does and nobody has a crystal ball – Havertz is a worry and may well flop, but 4 games should not be the yardstick. If it was, Bergkamp and Henry would have had very short Arsenal careers! Vieira got a season to adapt, and coming from that Chelsea mess Kai needs time too.
Selling of any but the elite younger players is an issue for all of the major clubs now. Nobody wants older players, sometimes with injury issues or a style that is no longer fashionable (Holding or Tierney) who will not change or improve and with no future sell-on value. An average wage at Arsenal makes them the top earner at most other clubs, often a lot more than that club’s star player. So any players who value income over playing time will see out their contract and tbh we can’t blame them.
Put Martinelli up for sale and it’s a different story, but short of a fallout big clubs are not in the habit of selling players approaching their prime. We do not depend on transfer income to survive.
guy, is correct in nominating high wages being a major issue
It’s a combination of our recruitment practices and not useing the loan market properly, which has resulted in our poor sales in the market.
There has been a slight improvement in the recruitment of players, the young and talented with high ceilings.
@Yash, Does it really matter to us?
Well said GB!
We didn’t do so bad on the sale of Balogun to Monaco & and Xhaka back to Germany.In the last few years we did OK selling Willock & Iwobi. But apart from Iwobi I don’t think we’ve made a killing on the transfer market. Other big sales have been mostly players we’d rather have kept, like Sanches, Van Persie, Fabregas & all those players to City.
Exactly. Over the last decade we’ve only occasionally been in the black, and when that happened we lost Fabregas, Sanchez, Clichy and at the time, disastrously, Nasri. Among others we’d rather not lose. It’s not just that we have a poor buy v sell record, it’s also that the deficit is so often a gulf. In particular in recent seasons.
Personally, I was just happy to see Holding sold off full stop.
The players mentioned by others above – Palmer etc. all have tremendous talent and potential. Rob Holding was a great professional with a good attitude but to be honest he was content just to turn up for training, play the odd game here and there and pick up his wages.
That was fine for Rob but for Arsenal it should be unacceptable – if you want to challenge you should want better than that.
Rob was worth £4 million and no more. The more important is that he is off the wage bill. Just need to remove Pepe and as soon as possible..
It’s not a concern for Edu and Arteta because they continue their massive spending sprees every Summer.
Freeze players out, rip up contracts, doesn’t matter when they are checkbook managing.
This will end soon, and incoming spending will have to be balanced by sales.
New striker? Then Jesus or Nketiah must go to offset cost. Edu must get better sale fees or Arteta needs to promote youth to complete his squad.
Pepe wasn’t a good fit, but far from worthless and not useful. Subs, cup games, his numbers were better than Havertz for example.
Deadwood excuse has run dry, who is left that wasn’t chosen by Arteta? He resigned Elneny, Tierney on loan, Pepe off.
Any “deadwood” is now Arteta’s doing, can’t blame anyone else anymore.
Yes Arteta’s ego and stubbornness is degrading value of our players and creating deadwood. For every position and backups also he want to buy 65M player which is not sustainable. I mean from Hale end academy every year he should try 2-3 players and I bet at lease 1 from them will be senior team next year. Unless he gives academy players chance how they will know the depth.
So GBH, in which games would you play those 2-3 players in ?
The previous managers were playing more academy players in Champions/Europa league starting rounds. Carabao cup, FA cup still progressing to further rounds and won many FA cups. Arteta even not play them in these cup competitions and still does not progress in further rounds. Check Last 2 years cup competition history. Europa league was winnable for a club of Arsenal capacity. and we merely progressed further in FA cup
The facts are right Durand but I have to disagree about implying that we could do this any other way.
I get annoyed with Arteta too but if we want to compete give me an alternative way to deal with it and be successful?
Agree Havertz is a dodgy one but the guy has had 4 league games since Chelsea so we just dont know yet.
Do you remember the squad he inherited? He needed to replace virtually every player. Should we have bought more bargain basement players like Cedric and Willian to balance the budget?
We now have the second most valuable first team squad in world football. To appease those worried about the Kroenke’s bank balance perhaps we should sell Saka and Martinelli.
We KNOW we cant spend this big next season. We have the youngest squad in the EPL on long term contracts, so we really don’t need to.
Promote youth instead? We already have 4 youth players – how many more can any team aspiring to win the league support, when in most top clubs you struggle to find one?
I don’t see Arteta complaining – just stating the obvious fact that we need to clear out players before we buy more.
A footballer is like anything that is for sale, he’s only worth what someone is willing to pay. Would people rather we kept players that wanted to leave/aren’t in the managers plans ? If we did that would mean no new signings, as you can only have a squad of 25 players.
yup! Some fans want to have their cake and eat it. If you want to be a big club you have to buy good players, meaning large fees and wages or they won’t sign. Not many big clubs around so resale is difficult, especially of older players on salaries that for most clubs are impossible. Most players will not accept a pay cut just to get a game and who can blame them. So they sit in the stands and get £5m – £15m a year. We are not unique although Arsenal fans think it is purely incompetance on our part.
The article writer and many posts on here- thankfully not the sensible ones- ignore that our so called deadwood players,in the main, not Lokonga, Tavares though, were brought in by previous regimes and were not MA s own personal choice
If you do not want to credit our excellent manager with being a close last season to th worlds best team and having a current squad of TOP PLAYERS, of those he himself brought in, than fine go ahead.
But you will get little agreement from the sensible rational thinkers on here , like Ashley, Herr Drier, David and myself.
To be quote clear, all managers make some bad buys and then have to cut their losses. If you honestly think MA is alone in this, then you dont keep up with other top clubs, all of whom aslso make mistakes in buying.
But what matters MOST is the great squad MA has put together now and one that also has 10 points from 12, even this last month.
The remainmg unwanted players will leave as soon as it can be arranged.
Unlike the “thinking” of SOME of you, you cannot sell unwanted players like unwanted furniture or cars.
Some of you “think” we can. Sigh!
That’s odd? Chelsea are adept at selling their deadwood, recently for silly money – to Arsenal. Oh, and as ‘unthinking’ posters have pointed out, Arteta has already gathered plenty of deadwood himself. Yes, it’s not a managers fault if he gets left with inadequate players, however it ‘is’ his job to ensure we get as much from them as possible. Our sales v buy record, has gone from typically a deficit to a hefty one. We won’t be the first club to get ourselves in trouble if that continues.
I think we’ll be okay IMO, don’t forget we got a really young team and I read a few articles couple ah months ago stating that our teams value/worth has shot up to being the most valuable in the whole world and has gone up £200M+
Think we definitely need to get someone in with experience/contacts for player sales.
Trust me once we win a big trophy like the EPL or CL selling our players for top dollar will be a given!!!
COYG
2 billion mate +
You only mentioned that to upset me pat. £2 billion?!. What a waste of money.
Try keeping up son, our squad is worth 2 billion because of their total transfer value not the amount spent to assemble it.
Good debate and comments on selling players and spend
Don’t believe we are any better or worse then most clubs in and around us
In the past 5 seasons we sit 3rd in spend
We sit behind chelski and united
Just below us are the spuds and Newcastle
Manchester City
Pool sit 7th
If you look at the goings on at not just afc but all clubs o
It is apparent that all the clubs are writing down and off bad debt over a period of time
High fees are written off just like a depreciation of a new car within a period of time
At the end of the term if the player is sold even for a £1 . The club is in profit
Pepe going is a small loss to us and not the 72m loss we all think he cost us
City lost there captain for zero
Chelski are selling on the cheap
Manure have unsellable assets
Hate to say but only a few clubs have it right and we are not one of them in terms . Brighton are a stand out club in terms of business but there owner who has a bob or two can’t touch the mega rich billionaires owners who see the clubs as a small cog for brand rights and something to play around with.
For far too long AFC suffered at the hands of not being proactive in the market and for far too long we sat on the outside looking in
It got us no where but staring enviously at others wishing if only.
Morally we done everything correct. Self sufficient pride that we could generate cash to spend on transfers but little chance of challenging for the big one.
I don’t agree how football is being conducted now but as I said, rather be on the inside looking out rather the outside looking in
Onwards and upwards my fellow gooners
AB, why do you think Pepe will only be a “small loss?”
Hi Ken
To us it is big money if 72m but spread over 4 or 5 years it represents approx 16m per year write down
What are we now 4 years in to a 5 year or 3 years in to a 4 year term
Either way we are nearing the end of the term of the deal
We might pick up 8 m if they don’t rip up his contact which constitutes a small loss
As I said before Ken
It’s like a car
Depreciated over a period of time
Paid the Full amount off but still the car is worth something at the end of the term to sell on or dispose off
Creative accounting
A loss is a loss but in time turned back in to profit
FFP will be happy as another of the wage bill
The thing is AB, with a car, you use it, get mileage out of it and THEN sell it.
We still have to pay the reported £72,000,000 and his wages to date… and going by previous deals, we’ll continue paying his wages or give him a golden handshake!!
I don’t see all that as a small loss myself.
Every nabafer has the right to choose his players, but there has to be some kind of check on the amount of money we are losing in the transfer market – Mavs and Aubemeyang being prime examples.
Those of us who think it through in an educated way, clearly see that :
1. Mr Kronkie has bankrolled MA with, to date, a massive outlay and no return.
2. The argument that so called “deadwood” has to be sold from previous regimes, is a red herring (apart from Pepe) as the squad features 100% MA’s signings or re-signed players.
3. The “deadwood” being mentioned is all MA’s doing.
4. The alarming amount of these players ((past and present under MA / Edu) is high in just three and a half years.
.
Those of us who bring these points to the floor, such as HH, Durand, JohnSmith, GBH and Siamois are the REAL thinkers, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still support the manager and acknowledge his achievements to date… and support his signings (such as Havertz) while the boss tries to integrate him into a new system.
Ken
I think you are missing the point
Pepe cost approx 72m
Approx 18m down payment followed by 18m per year in 3 installments
Pepe cost to us is reducing season by season
Same as a car on hp or lease purchase and a balloon at the end of it
I couldn’t tell you why the kronkies are bankrolling MA and not AW or UE at the time
Maybe josh likes him alot
They see him as there man and are backing him. It’s there money!
I agree 1 FA cup is a small return on the kronkies outlay but maybe they see the long game rather then the short
The so called deadwood or players who don’t seem to fit into MA plans and being moved on at all cost.
He has the luxury of being of moving them on at the cost of reduced fees.
MA is no different then any other manger past or present in the game
And personally he will live or die by his action of He doesn’t deliver..a bit extreme but you know what I mean
Don’t think anyone on here has questioned you guys commitment in supporting the team but do take offence that you mention a group of people who are the only real thinkers.
Believe many on here my self included questions MA decisions, tactics transfers, team formation, subs ect on many occasions so you are not alone.
At the end of the day Ken the money spent on ayers
The money wasted on players and wages
The money lost on out going players weather it be so called deadwood or face doesn’t fit, MAs signings or not
Is it MAs total fault of the loss or not or is it a collective share the blame kronkies included. I am not sure
They rubber stamp the deals, write the cheques
.
A bit old fashion..
Push the button for the transfer
We all want the best for the club and by that we want honours as success and there Nothing wrong with anyone scrutinising and questioning the goings on of our club as a lot on here do but I would rather have 1 man and for now MA is in the hot seat spending the money rather then multiple managers who come and go, have there own ideas, philosophy and players they want to carry it out for them
Then we would be in a mess
These so-called “thinkers” are looking at things from certain narrow perspectives and seem to be demonstrating a lack of understanding of the vision for Arsenal.
The current Arsenal squad is second only to MC in value and has emerged as one of the most credible challengers for the PL and other major titles. We are in the CL for the first time in years.
Arteta has clearly had to replace players from the Wenger/Emery eras over time. There are also players he has brought in who have not been successes and he has moved them on or loaned them out.
The overall strategy has strengthened Arsenal’s squad like few other PL teams in just a few years. The relative youth of the squad also means we will likely be competitive for years to come.
My *thinkers” terminology was made in order to combat the post made by our only, seemingly, educated fan on JA.
I wonder why the two of you didn’t object to that?
Could it be that you agreed with his tainted view of other fans?
Football players can i no way be compared to a car or lease hire. There isnt a car in the world where you can buy for 2 million pounds and next year sell it for 100 mil pounds. Bellingham and many others can not be compared to a car. Cars do not have image rights or sponsors and don’t get paid.
Maybe we should have a word with Liverpool, they dont have much problem making money. Coutino 145 mil and they are being offered 215 mil for Salah. Among other less prominent sales.
Reggie
That was then and not great now
They have lost a lot on frees
Not sold at the right time
Held on to long
Soent a lot on players as well
If it wasn’t for Klop who I rate as a excellent manager. POOL would be lingering mid table
Liverpool have a net spend under klopp of about 400mil. Arsenal in the same time practically double that. Liverpool have won a league and a CL in that time.
Truth is freezing players out and not playing them, makes their value plummet. Thats why we get no money for our players. Plus we give them rediculous wages, that they haven’t earned. SIMPLES.
Your a real thinker as well Reggie 👍👍
Why defend the indefensible, though. Edu’s record is poor. The players brought in as part of the process two years ago have mostly been flops or simply ok.with the exception of Odegaard. I’ll take White with a grain of salt. Edu and Arteta have since stepped up but as we can see with the Harvetz saga, there is too much hit and miss. In his first two years Klopp brought in Robertson, Sahla, Mane, Allison, Van Dyck etc. No comparison.
Liverpool’s biggest flop was probably our own Ox,. It was a shrewd piece of business getting what we did for a player who wanted out and was already labelled as ” damaged goods” regarding his history with injuries.
We buy more “flops” than Liverpool. Recently.
Now it’s not the time for selling. It is time to winning trophies and play beautiful football. After winning the league and hopefully champion league, for sure other club will bid 200m for our Saka
There are only 2 teams in my view that have wasted more money on players. Chelsea and Man utd.
We have a large fan base stretching to all continents. So we recoup our money mostly on shirt and merchandise sale. You could also add endorsements and TV rights. Those figures are not disclosd to anyone but are discussed by greedy & corrupt boardroom members baying for a share of what is there to take and give the owner the rest. We don’t really value player sale simply and we also seem un interested in getting reasonable fees while offloading a players.
In another of my opinions why do we need to sell player for 100m+ who will the money benefit? Is it not our stinking rich owner who cannot give a dying dog a pint of milk!? So I think it’s perfectly fine to get our peanuts and move forward.
Great debate – this should be re-posted as a new topic and kept alive. So many threads here.
So why are the Kroeke’s bankrolling Arteta?
– Perhaps because until recently they didn’t have full control and didn’t want to risk putting in the money without being confident they would decide where it was spent
– Perhaps because suddenly they are for the first time succeeding at their other franchises and are realising the benefits of winning far outweigh those of simply surviving, as do the rewards. The book value of the club is now exponientially higher than when Arteta came (even before we win anything).
– Perhaps because Arsenal have always been the jewel in KSE’s crown and are becoming hugely popular in the USA
– Josh has always been supportive of Arsenal. Perhaps he is becoming more influential at KSE, or perhaps Stan is becoming a soccer convert…
– Arteta is known to be a convincing talker and KSE have literally bought into him and his ideas even more than many fans. The Profit and Loss Account may be dodgy, but the Balance Sheet and Goodwill are sky high