Over the last decade, Arsenal FC have been on a gradual decline. If you ask who to blame; Kroenke, the toxic fans and atmosphere and our bad transfer policy comes to mind. The truth is a little bit of everything aforementioned are parts of the problem. And we are not going to fix this in one year.
But if we can’t change management soon, since it’s something we can’t control, at least we can change something we can.
1. Fan’s attitude towards our own club (come on, if we want this club to win, we better start acting like it!)
2. Our transfer policies
Remember when we left Highbury and we couldn’t afford the superstars, Arsenal developed a transfer policy when we bought young players with potential, used them until they became superstars and sold them off. Players like Fabregas and Nasri went this path. And it worked! Arsenal was flying! We were in the top four every single year! But something was missing. We struggled against top teams (Cringe Bayern Munich!) and couldn’t win trophies (9 years drought). Evra even called us babies!
So Arsenal changed strategies finally and bought Ozil and like magic our drought snapped. Along the years we have changed from Wenger’s later years transfers and splashed the cash on some stars (Pepe 72m, Auba 68m, Ben White?) and Arsenal are in a worse state than before.
What should be done in my opinion is to have a balance between buying youth and experience. A lot of teams copied Arsenal’s transfer policy in the turn of the century, it’s time we copied theirs too. We don’t have the funds of Chelsea and Man City. A good club to model is Leicester City. The Blues have won the PL more recently than us, are FA cup champs and have narrowly missed on CL twice now. Leicester buys relatively unknown players, make them PL mainstays and sell them for top dollar!
Maguire 80m
Chilwell 60m
Kante 32m
Mahrez 60m
Maddison 60-70m to whoever wants him.
Compare that to us. Why do we always buy so high and sell for peanuts. Willock, despite all his heroics at Newcastle is worth only 20m! Even Solanke was sold at such a price? If it were Foden that went on such form, he will be worth 60-70m already! And Villa want to take Smith Rowe for 30M. Arsenal should buy players, improve them and if they want out sell for big money so that we can re invest. Dortmond are masters at that. 18m Haaland will be sold for over a 100m.
We can even steal Leicester City targets. We will be better if we had Soyuncu, Maddison and Ndidi. Let’s face it, Arsenal is still a big prospect with a large fellowship. Players still want to play for the red and white.
What do you think, peep me in the comments.
Kobin.
It’s not a question of copying but of employing high calibre recruitment personelle.Leicester are the best example of a successful recruitment team,and unfortunately our recruitment team would be languishing at the bottom end of the table.On a brighter note there have been very good signings in Tierney and Martinelli and the emergence of ESR and Saka from our Academy is something to be proud of.If we were to sell any of these four we would make a substantial profit but I am not advocating we contemplate such action.
Grandad, I agree with you regarding recruitment; however in the past Arsenal’s scouting and recruitment into the Academy has been excellent. Not only ESR and Saka, but Gnabry, Reis Adelaide, Malen, AMN, Willock etc. The problem is now that scouting regime has been dismantled with personnel like Steve Morrow shown the door.
correct we should emulate that, I buy your idea
Every club is different in terms of strategy, planning, playing style, history, tradition, the owners and Board philosophy, fan base attitude and expectations, etc. Arsenal is a bigger brand, has more global appeal, a larger fan base than Leicester City, so the 2 clubs cannot be compared and one cannot copy the other. Certain points can be modelled upon but the entire model cannot be copied. We should have our own way of planning that suits Arsenal football club the best and we should have a independent identity like a top club has. Another point is that Leicester has BR at the helm while we have MA. Nothing against MA, but BR has got proven experience at Celtic and Liverpool so his thinking and views about a certain line of action will be different from MA’s, whereas MA will like to have a different opinion as to how signings should be done and which players to sign based on his own strategy and planning. He is ambitious no doubt and hopefully he will do what is best for the club success.
IMO, Mikel has done very well, except for the Willian fiasco (he was decent at CFC till the very end, so it was no brainer to sign him). Sambi, Tavares are the signings in the pipeline. Ben White is a very good ball playing defender, but BHA have set an unrealistic transfer fee. Considering that Bertrand, Ramsey, Isco, Couthinho were linked to us, Mikel is taking the club forward with some very astute signings, not just copying Arsene’s failed policy of hiring mediocre players at exorbitant fees in his latter years. Surely ESR and Saka will have a very good value, so will Balogun, Martenelli, Tierney. Mikel has turnrd the page, the gory past will soon be history once this window closes and we rid ourselves of the underperformers.
You didn’t mention Leno and how wenger wasted 20 million on him
Dan Kit, why worry?when you know that he can’t make a comment without mentioning Wenger…that’s his way and you can’t change him
Dunchirado, I’m still waiting for you to note my response to your spurious claim that I want Arteta to fail and to reinstate Emery. 😁
Dan Kit and folks, I appolozise for that error, nevertheless the truth is that Arsene did waste millions on several players in return for nothing or next to nothing for which he and Unai paid the price with the sack and Mikel narrowly missed one due to his bold and brave decisions. Welcome Tavares! And hope to see Sambi and Locatelli in Lndon soon
Lol always finding ways to undermine Arsene
you said he signed Leno you must be the biggest f××l of MA supporters
Weren’t Arsenal have supposed to have stolen one of Leicester’s scouts a few years ago only to find they had snatched the wrong one? Poor guy was probably a victim of our downsizing last year anyway. Regardless someone at Leicester must be doing something right. Their scouts have a sharp eye and the training facilities are highly regarded. Just ask Robbie on aft. In terms of results and transfer dividends their hit, miss ratio is much better than Arsenal:s. I guess that in terms of current realities they are a better role model for Arsenal than say Chelsea or the Manchester clubs. However Arsenal should never stoop to being a selling club.
We can’t stop looking like this. We must know how to value our players and set them on high level. Coping others isn’t the problem we facing. The problem we facing now is, that we don’t have faith in those academy students. I believe Arsenal have a good academy graduates. Arsenal are a good club. Stop loosing hope on the academy graduates.
👍 And if Arsenal sells Joe Willock for £20 million they are crazy.
Buying high and selling low is indicative of total mismanagement of financial and player assets. To sell Willock cheap would be a total waste of an Arsenal player with years of service to offer, who would cost much more to replace.
For every Saka and ESR, the academy also churns out some AMNs, Willocks, Nelsons, Nketiahs and a few others. The people at the club don’t know how to better utilize or monetize those by-products yet. Until that happens, the club won’t get into the top four again for the foreseeable future.
I concur with gunnerforlife. While a great model, is always an attractive option for following upon a like for like replication is seldom possible. So at the moment it would be better to strive for improvement in the recruitment and player retention policies, contract policies etc. While I also am not comfortable with the traditional idea of a selling club, selling and buying are important in any kind of business. If we had improved our HR policies earlier, we could have sold players better like Musti and recently, if he leaves, Xhaka. One thing I like about Chelsea is that they sell as well as they buy. So that is something which I would like Arsenal to do- first sell better then naturally you will buy better.
👍 Well stated.
A team in gradual decline doesn’t win 4 FA CUPS. Not sure what’s so good about Leicester & their transfer policy. Their paying fair amount for players.
And they almost recoup the amount they are spending and some more through their player sales.
To get better value for players, the players must prove themselves to be the best in their respective roles and make themselves indispensable to the team.
What have Arsenal, Edu, Mikel Arteta and company done with the young fringe players with some traces of potential?
For some unknown reasons, they are not given a fair chance to play regularly at the club or shunted out on loan to other clubs and created the unwanted impression that those players are very much in the “REJECT” or “DISPENSABLE” basket.
More importantly, neither the manager nor the club have publicly come out and denied those allegations. Even if they desperately wish to move out some players, they must make it appear that those players are still important and integral part of the team. What goes behind closed doors must not be made public.
This reflects in the fringe players’ attitude in the public too. Their comments on their future at Arsenal only weaken the club’s hand during the negotiations.
No club will entertain the thought of paying huge sums, when they know that given some time playing hardball, Arsenal will be desperate enough to get those players off their books at any cost when the end of transfer window looms.
👍
Halland was bought for 18£ and have over three years contract remaining, if he was to be an arsenal player, other clubs will know that we will not be entertaining any offer for him at this point so they will wait until he has one year left in his contract before they bid, by then his market value must have dropped, end point is arsenal is a big club and good players are kept while clubs like Leicester are selling clubs
Kobin, you mention Leicester have “narrowly missed out on CL twice now” and then go on to say that they sold 4 top players in their prime to teams that then went on to keep Leicester out of the CL twice, but because they sold them for a lot of money it was considered a good thing, I’m a bit confused on that one
I like Leicester, they are a good Club but different to us in many ways that we can’t change, the expectation level of media and fans that brings far more pressure for a start, but cherry picking areas where we can change no problem and as has been said we are rebuilding our recruitment team, but unfortunately buying and selling prices will always be a factor because we are Arsenal
Leicester are also a little bit ahead of us in their rebuild under Rogers who had been there for just under a year before Arteta joined us, Mikel won the FA Cup before Brendan and we had a better run than them in the Europa League last season, however as has been said they finished above us in the League
I’m not sure they are in any better shape than us right now, with or without a better recruitment team to be honest
FF, Leicester City now have owners, who invest money in growing the Club. The future looks positive, in that they may be able to keep the players they develop, instead of selling.
It is true it feels like we are jokers. When Guendouzie first came on the scene we talked about him being worth 50 million. Now we can barely get 20 for him. We bought Xhaka for a massive (at the time) 35 million and despite him being heralded as one of the best players of the euro tournament, we won’t even get 20 for him despite him being at his prime and perfectly sited for Series A.
We have no problem buy players for high risk prices like Pepe most recently or paying players high risk salaries (Ozil-Auba – Willian and many more), but we can not sell any of these players for top dollar.
Our player management seems worse than mid table.
We have one last chance to crawl out from under the rock that we are under on the back of some exceptional youngsters (Saka, Thierny, ESR, Martinelli) with some decent support in Partey and Pepe. But if we don’t move up the table this season we will surely start losing these youngsters and likely for below market value given how we manage the selling of our players.
We need the Arteta project to work, and to work this season, whether we like him or not. In fact it is more important that Arteta moves us up the table than that those of us who don’t believe in him are proven right.
JanV, the cases you cite, are indicative of poor financial and player asset management evident at Arsenal for some years.
This feels like the best time for arsenal to break ffp since we dont have champions league anyway..