A worrying trend for Arsenal’s bad asset management by dgr8xt
Hello all. I’ve been thinking for some time of what I consider to be poor asset management by The Arsenal football club. I feel there is no better time to do so than now, seeing that a particularly dangerous, alarming and sinister trend is beginning to take shape around our would-be outgoing transfers. Please consider carefully that:
1. Torreira had a fruitful season with Fiorentina but the club are unwilling to take up their €15m buyout option even though they are clearly aware that he’s worth more than, that going by his age, ability and form this past season. This is despite selling Dusan Vlahovic for €85m only four months ago. As at the time of writing, they are yet to take up the option which I believe they would find any means to do before the deadline if they were really serious
2. Bellerin had a very fruitful campaign with Real Betis but the club has also been adamant to even say anything along the usual lines of “wanting the player to remain with them and doing what they can” for the player to remain even though Bellerin publicly said he wants to stay there. His asking price is said to be about €10m maximum.
3. Benfica has been reported to be keen on Bernd Leno, who is also keen to join them. But is £8m too much fo them to pay? Apparently, they think so
4. Mourinho’s AS Roma refused to up their bid from £12m to £17m (difference of just £5m) for Granit Xhaka but agreed to sign Tammy Abraham for £34m. Is that too much for them too?
I’m not one given to much statistics. But if we consider the amounts for which Arsenal sold players over the years, the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri, Robin Van Persie, Alex Iwobi, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, etc, versus what it cost us to bring or develop them, it’s in stark contrast to how we’ve conducted our business since our technical director arrived. When clubs can see that:
1. The gift from heaven (how Aubameyang is regarded in the Camp Nou) left us for free with 18 months on his deal. We’re still paying most of his wages.
2. Mavropanos left us for next to nothing even when his talents and consistency were obvious.
3. Guendouzi left us for about one-sixth of his value.
4. Willian was handsomely rewarded with a £15m pay off.
5. Pepe has been left to completely lose his value despite being our most expensive signing.
6. £20m was rejected from Wolverhampton Wonderers for Ainsley Maitland Niles only for him to be subsequently left to rot and his value nosedive.
7. Mustafi and Kolasinac were paid off (we weren’t getting any pounds on these, were we?)
8. Özil was being paid over £300k p/w to play for Fenabahçe
9. Leno has obviously been devalued due to being perpetually benched.
10. Real Madrid just won the Champions League (there has to be a tenth point. It looks better than having only nine, hence this one)
Seeing the above points, I can deduce that clubs do not want to pay anything of substance for any of our players because they see the probability of us cancelling such players’ contracts or selling for ridiculously low fees. I fear this might be a theme for our already terrible player sales department in this window.
It was reported that Lampard had some issues with the Chelsea board when he was coach due to the perpetual benching of Kepa Arrizabalaga. The board argued that Arrizabalaga at least had some value which should be protected in case of a future transfer.
Where is our technical director in all this? Who gives away players for these diabolic and atrocious amounts. This is not the Manager’s doing and I do not blame him one bit because “someone” was supposed to complain about how Saliba’s treatment might impact his value and about the devaluation of other assets.
If someone had inserted a buyout option in Joe Willock’s loan to the barcodes last season, I’m very sure it would not have been any more than £5m. Someone was willing to loan Arthur Melo for two seasons with an obligation to buy for €40m, a transaction who’s termination has given Josh Kroenke about the only genuine praise he’s ever received from Arsenal fans.
If my inference above is correct, then we’re in a whole lot of trouble as regarding player sales this transfer window. Many have said that we could make as up to £90m or more from sales of players like Maitland Niles, Torreira, Guendouzi, Mari, Leno, Bellerin, Cedric, Pepe, Nelson and probably Xhaka. I honestly do not see us getting more than £35m for all those players combined, going by what we’re currently experiencing. Someone hasn’t been doing the club any justice in this department.
Someone has seen it as okay to have purchases far higher than sales. Liverpool spends but also sell well. It’s indeed a transfer window to look forward to, and I’m hoping for the best window we’ve had in ages.
But transfer window activities are basically divided into two – outgoings and incomings, and someone is making one of those two not to look particularly attractive.
dgr8xt
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This article is so true it makes me sad. And when I remember some are cheering for this and call it progress it makes me depressed.
I never cheer lost money but I cheer when bad attitude and mediocre players are binned. The issue with our players is that they rant too much on social media and that loses our bargaining power. From AMN refusing to play full back, Torrera crying about everything in England, to Auba being late or least bothered for training, Bellerin and Guendozi bad mouthing the club, we have the worst attitude of players on the roster. and all these were pre Arteta signings. Arteta is trying and has succeeded to a small extent kn revamping the dressing room attitude and environment. You don’t hear or read cheap talk from any of his signings
Bad attitude or not pre Arteta or not, the fact of the matter is protecting player’s value regardless of if the coach want him or not. He should not let the outside know.
You have completely missed the point unsurprisingly as most pro Arteta do religiously. Jumping out in defense without considering the facts.
The point is all clubs knows we have a lot of players that the coach doesn’t want, we have a tendency of giving our best players for free and pay them to win things with other clubs. In any negotiations now Arsenal is at a disadvantage.
And our players knows this too, if they want out they just have to scratch someone ego and they are going to be paid to play somewhere else.
Pre Arteta signings you say? Good luck selling Nketiah with that huge contract that he got for doing nothing.
Very good point about selling Nketiah with that huge contract he just got. When he becomes practically unsellable, Wenger and Emery will be blamed. Aubameyang also got his huge contract under Edu Gasper’s watch and yet Wenger was blamed for signing him. I wait on Nketiah’s story
Wengers leaving created a power vacuum same as fergie has at old Trafford, the players filled that vacuum in both cases and in both cases it had a detrimental effect on the squad. Arteta came in saw that and removed everyone as quickly as he could to take back that power. Yes it cost us financially in the short term but it gave us a lot in return, such as hope we all have a vision we all can see a positive direction. In the long term this will be extremely beneficial to Arsenal. Unfortunately Mr hindsight won’t be around for a while to tell you that himself though…
And I forgot to mention the Xhaka and Elneny contracts. More blames to be distributed between Wenger and Emery soon
Add Mari, Cedric, Runarsson, Lokonga and Tavares while we are it. Wenger and Emery left memos for their signings.
And Willian. Signing of the century. Arteta masterstroke.
@HH
How does one not let outside know? That’s so delusional thinking that in 2022 you can keep anything behind closed doors. This is an era of technology, internet, social media, Live News etc.
This is the information age.. This is not 1960 where you could keep secrets and be confident they will stay sealed away..
For example Auba, anyone could see it for themselves that he was out of form since 2020 when he renewed his contract. So how does a club hide Auba’s lack of form from potential suitors that are willing to pay a defent fee for him? On top of that he is in his 30’s on wages in the region of £300,000 a week. Do you know that Auba has his own team (Agent, PR, family and friends)? His people will leak information in the media of how he feels etc.. The club will do the same etc.. So there is no way one can keep things from the outside in 2022 where we have the internet / social media / live news 24/7..
Sure we could not have hidden Aubameyang’s form from other clubs who would not want to pay a decent fee cos of that. But:
1. An indecent fee for an out of form player is better than giving said player away freely while paying him huge sums of money weekly
2. I’m sure someone also did not consider the lack of form for a certain Brazilian midfielder playing for Juventus before agreeing to bring him to our club on a two season loan with a €40m buyout obligation. But we keep saying that our players are not good enough or out of form, and use that as the reason for the low bids from other clubs
Player out of form bench him not banishing him. What does that say to the outsiders?
Same case with Pepe. He is not different from being banished. How many opportunities were there for him to play to at least protect his value? Who is going to pay much for him when it is very clear to everyone that Arteta would rather have him out of the team?
@HH
So you bench Auba and all of a sudden his transfer fee shoots up?
Pep has been benched for most of the season, so his stock must be off the roof right now. Isn’t it?
It does not matter, Auba was on massive wages, he had downed tools since signing a new contract in 2020.
He was so out of form since 2020 but Arteta persisted with him until Late 2021 even if many fans were calling for him to be dropped for Martinelli, Laca or even Nketia..
People were saying how Arteta had some sort of grudge against Martinelli because he persisted with out of Auba instead of introducing Martinelli..
The primary need of a manager is results not player sales or what happens to their value if he benches them. Other interests are just for us to make noise in media.
Absolutely right,but now he needs to add players wants early in the window so e ery fan can see the process he wants to implement at the club. For now we don’t believe until we see
I am one of those that cheered and will keep cheering every time any poor attitude wage scrounger is pushed out of the club at any cost..
If they were any good then we would be getting offers for them from other Top clubs.. But even the ones we give away on loan end up being rejected by those same clubs they are loaned to.
For some we were even offering to subside their wages but still no serious top club was willing to take them..
Says it all, doesn’t it?
Talent is not an issue. Our players are talented enough based on their performance wherever they go which doesn’t paint dear Arteta in good picture.
The issue is our generous wages which most clubs can’t match and players are unwilling to reduce. Why would they?
Another issue is our public devaluation of our players something which is very obvious only an Arteta apologist would deny in a love is blind kind of way.
@HH
Can you list names of these many players of ours that show their talents everywhere they go?
And if so then how come those clubs are not willing to pay a decent amount for them? They are willing to pay so little or even nothing at all for them. They are willing to just give them back to us instead of paying anything.
Where are these bidding wars for them if they are as good as you want to suggest?
What does that say?
https://www.justarsenal.com/the-arsenal-loan-players-that-could-have-helped-us-to-get-a-top-four-place/311156
I post a link of a recent article that list players on loan who could’ve helped us get top 4 but it has been removed.
That link has all the players you want brother.
Very nice article…prepare to be called negative for sharing facts.
Totally agree with this article. You left out another point. Saliba, bought for 27m 3 seasons ago, french player of the year and Marseille want to pay less than what we bought him for.
We’ve dug ourselves into a hole and everyone can see it
@dgr That is a clear summary…
The problem is not just the club but the players in question. If these players are as good as you think they are, there would be more than one club interested in them, so the price will go up, and again, the pandemic has hit many clubs so hard that managing players contracts that were signed before the pandemic is a problem. Most of these Arsenal players are not good enough but are on hug wages that Most average clubs can’t afford. If you put up a Smith Rowe or Saka up for sale, there will be a bidding war, why? Because they’re top talents. The reason nobody wants to buy those players is an indictment on their abilities. So in summary, the issues here are;
1: poor management from the club. Signing and Giving huge contracts to average talent
2: Average players on high wages. When an average players gets a huge contract, he doesn’t want to go below that in negotiating a move, hence the reason we’re paying and letting them go for free.
3: effect of the pandemic on clubs spending powers. Most clubs are in financial crisis and are looking for free deals, even the almighty Madrid and berca are buying free player, so don’t expect any small club especially outside of England to splash out cash on average players unless they have a significant talent or resale value.
4: inflated player values. Most of the sums being quoted for this players should be their actual value going by their abilities in a normal world.
Yet somehow, other teams manage to get at least some good bucks for their players. Ours is very very very diabolic
@SirJoe
You put it better than I could..
@Sirjoe
I am hearing that we have awarded Nketia a new £100,000 a week contract.
No wonder we end up finding it difficult to shift these players when the time comes.
How the fck has Nketia gone from an average player a few months ago to now being worth £100,000 a week?
We never learn, do we?
I hope when Nketiah becomes practically unsellable in the future due to high wages, Emery won’t be blamed as usual
@Dgr8xt
You are such a fallacious arguer, aint you?
Making up fallacies in order to advance your agenda.
Strawman reasoning. You seem like a proper fallacy bot.
🤣
Why do you jinx or wish our players bad ending?Don’t you think he can become every more better
I agree with you
With the advent of Billionaire ownership and then huge TV rights the top 6 Premier league clubs have been spending high and selling low for 20 years. It’s not just Arsenal. All of the examples you have quoted are all pre Arteta and pre the process. This summer will be the last bad loss window. Lacazette 50m. Free.
Torreira 27mill. 7m?
Xhaka 30mill. 10mill ? Reasonable for a 30 year old.
Leno 27m. 9m? Reasonable for a 30 year old.
Pepe remains problematic but if we can get a tune out of him next season we could get 30-40m the following summer.
Partey was over priced and is over paid and injury prone and we would be wise to shift him ASAP
The rest are relatively low level losses.
Guendozie 11m. Sold for 9m.
Mari bought for 7mill. Sell for 2m?
Cedric. was free. Release free?
Runarsson. 3m. Free release?
Cedric was free.
Some will even yield a profit.
Bellerin free. Should yield. 5m?
I think Niles and Nelson will both come back as quota players but if we were to sell we would make 10mill on both as both were free.
All 6 of our new Process recruits plus Gabriel will hold their value for several years.
Martinelli 7m and especially ESR and Saka free are huge value assets. Nketia came free and has value because he will lower the price of any incoming striker by 20% at least and he is quota which guarantees a 15m selling prce.
So yes the past was terrible but the future looks far more positive regards player recruitment value.
You seriously think we will get £30-40m for Pepe. behave
Fair fan am absolutely a believer of what you are saying
Do you mean what he is smoking?
Pricing history could also affect the way other clubs would want to bid for our players. The worrying thing is we’re being linked with some mid players to continue the cycle. If we have to blow big cash on one player who would massively improve us then we have to than sign two mid players who would eventually be replaced in future.
At least we have been saving wages haha let’s give it all to nketiah. He is going to be on more than luiz diaz
Edu is clearly smoking something very strong
The value of a player is determined by his demand from various club and if the quoted players are soo good as being purported why aren’t other club giving offers. Is there any other club competing to sign Torreira, Ballerin, Maltida Niles, Pepe etc
In the end it seems to come down to inflated wages. Other leagues cannot match their salary and the players dont wanna take a paycut/ did not do well enough on loan to attract interest from anyone besides their loaned club. And from the latest news Arsenal has not learned to stop overpaying players. It’s the same stuff over and over with this club.
The Nketia talk. He had been offered £100,000 a week, the rumour mill says..
If it’s true then we have not learned anything. Isn’t it?
This is most likely the major issue. It is likely that many of those deals were made largely because of the high salaries. The alternative was that many players who were not performing to the required standard or did not fit into Arteta’s long term team plans would have been sat at Arsenal costing money and continuing to lose value anyway.
Truly depressing reading about how woeful we are in terms of outgoing player sales.
The club has devalued, ostracized, and permanently benched players to the detriment of the club.
The man management has been nothing short of atrocious and embarrassing, and there is plenty of blame to go around.
Arteta and Edu have shown their inexperience, upper management and ownership apparently are AWOL in this as well.
The mismanagement is from the field, to the boardroom, straight up to the owner’s box.
Where is the person supposed to ensure valuation and protect assets?
This blame goes from the top down in the club, it happens on every level.
@Durand
The sad part is, other clubs see these two inexperienced and incompetent muppets and laugh. They’re easy marks…IJS
A timely and excellent article.
The gross miss Management of resources is an indictment on our sporting director.
My take on the Management of Saliba and Mov is well documented,
A keep saying Marina Gvanovskaia of Chelsea will be available and could assist and save us millions.
I would virtually agree to pay her Nketiah’s wages if she was to come to us
Food for thought dgr.
We can certainly do better, maybe Edu could even remain at the club.
The recruitment and loaning process need Streamlining and she’s the perfect person to it out
We just need to do a lot better than Edu Gasper. He’s being praised for good signings (if they are actually that good) but not being held accountable for outrageously giving away our players for pennies. Now with Xhaka, Elneny and Nketiah’s wages, who would buy them later? Wenger and Emery should get prepared to receive more blames when it starts to show
The handling of Saliba is beyond me, the kid has raw talent, but it’s obvious we weren’t expecting him to develop so nicely.
We didn’t even allow him to go to another premier league club initially to gain experience.
How Mustafi was allowed to play ahead of him I will never understand.
Now it appears we may be heading to make another mistake in forcing him to represent us next season.
Why can’t us give Saliba a three year extension and allow him to remain in France knowing his value will go through the roof in a year time.
It’s a no brainer to send Pepe on a season long loan, he may well comes alive with a consistent run in a newly promoted team.
Imagine us offering Nicolas Pepe to a team and inserting a clause that he should start in every game unless injury, failure to do so the loan team will have to pay Arsenal a fee of say £50,000 for every game he misses and not injured.
Marina from Chelsea am told did such a lause with a defender
Or may be some people will start to acknowledge what some of us acknowledged long time ago. Most of these players got wenger sacked. They got Emery sacked and would have gotten Arteta sacked hadn’t the board clocked where the problem was.. They couldn’t make it past 8th place..
The board used its logic for once and decided to clear out these dead players at any cost..
And isn’t it telling that no one is willing to pay a decent price for most them? Even the clubs that take them on season long loans end up saying “No Thank You” at the end of the loan deal.. What does that say about these players individually?
You are not going to force or dupe any club into paying a decent amount for these some of these players. They all can see it with their own eyes how overrated, overhyped, overpaid and overpriced..
That’s like owning a business, for example a restaurant where customers have a look at your menu and not impressed, or try they your food but then are not willing to pay the full price.. You don’t then start complaining about how your food is given away at embarrassing discounts.. All you have to do is look deeper into your own business and the product you are offering to your potential customers.. May be the Chef is not good enough, may be he uses poor ingredients that are a recipe for disaster?
How come no serious / Top clubs are willing to take our players even if sometimes we are willing to even go as far as subsiding the wages of these players?
But we have many success stories for loan players like Mavropanos, Guendouzi, Nelson, Torreira, Saliba and Bellerin. I therefore do not think that those players are as bad as you seem to view them. They flourish under other managers. Why not ours?
besides for Guendouzi I dont see how any of those players have “flourished”. Improved from being woeful here, yes, but not good enough to start/ even be on the bench. Trying to make Bellerin happen is beating a dead horse
The point is that we should be getting some pretty pennies for them, especially when their loans have gone well. But the clubs are not willing to pay for some reason
@dgr8xt
Then why are those clubs not willing to pay a decent fee for these successful loanees of ours?
Or how come we are not havint bidding wars for these successful loanees?
But they would rather pay the minimum they can or just pull out of the deals completely. This does not show that they actually rate these players highly. Isn’t it?
Somehow, we were able to get £25m for Willock who had a productive loan. Why are others so far off?
think the answer is right in front of us. get these players on loan to other EPL clubs if possible. EPL teams can pay wages much easier. than a team like Betis or Fiorentina.
Because, my friend, fans like Loose Cannon and Goonster would then have to admit that Mikel couldn’t coach /train them!!!
Check what these players have been doing this season… Saliba, Guendouzi, Bellerin, Mavs, AMN.
See what they have achieved by being COACHED properly, rather than being sent out because they don’t fit into the team.
I had to smile when fairfan listed Saka and ESR as proof we had big money transfer players – ask Loose Cannon and Goonster who signed them, who coached them and who gave them their opportunity – it goes something like this :
Wenger – Per and Freddie – Emery…. perhaps the person responsible for selling players off cheaply, will do the same with them? That’s how crazy a situation it is.
Edu Gasper will not mind selling Saka and Smith Rowe for a combined £20m. It’s his way
After some intelligent comments from a lot of posters on here and some of your own, you let yourself down with this utterly ridiculous comment.
@Ken
Answer the question. You lot keep playing mental gymnastics instead of answering the question.
I will ask you yourself @ Ken. All these successful loanees you mentioned, apart from Saliba.
Where are these Top clubs fighting to sign them? Who is willing to pay a decent fee for them?
Mav team was relegated, wasn’t it? He did so well that these many clubs were fighting to get his signature.
Bellerin’s loan club are threatening to send him ba because of the money we are asking for. And it’s not even that much. Tells you all you need to know.
Guendouzi, how many clubs are lining up to snap us such a bargain?
AMN, lol. The guy was a squad player at Roma and they are sending him back after his loan. Must have been such a successful loan. Why ain’t Roma willing to keep him then instead of saying “Thank You but No Thank You, Bye Bye”.
Might aswell include Torreira, Ozil, Mustafi, Kolasinac, etc..
And your cultish obsession with Wenger is worrying. Can’t go 2 days without mentioning wenger in a comment.
If most of these are what you deem as successful loans then wow..
Clutching at straws much??
Goonster, I only mention Wenger, when others have…
Your post at 3.45 for instance?
Obsession can fit you as well!!
The article is about how our players are being undersold because of the way we have conducted our business previously.
Bellerin has just won a winners cup medal – his club want him and are playing hardball because of our previous business deals.
Torreria has the fans at his club demanding they buy him, such was the performance of this player – another hardball example.
AMN returns with a european winners medal, while MA turned down a reported £20, 000,000 (?) bid from wolves for the player, who cost us nothing.
He was promised more game time by MA, didn’t get it and you think his confidence wasn’t shattered?
Guendouzi and Saliba, I believe, would play CL football next season, if they stayed where they are now.
Both have been receiving rave reviews and the latter YPOTY.
Mavs? Now that’s a different scenario – his club have just been relegated, but they immediately invoked the ridiculous buy out clause… WHY do you think they did that?
My view is they know they can make a hefty profit on the player and my prediction is that they will sell him on, while rubbing their hands at the profit they will make.
All these players have made their current clubs stronger (except AMN it seems) and yet, if they are sold, Arsenal will make approximately £30,000,000….
meanwhile we are still giving players away, while still paying their salaries, cancelling contracts and letting players walk away… because they are all “dross”?
Why can’t we coach / train / develop and sell our players who, no matter what you think about them, all played in the PL and for a club that finished 8th at the worst?
We have never, as far as I am aware, let players leave for nothing and still pay their salaries.
What we are doing, is devaluing our own players, by shunning them and casting them out, or putting in ludicrous buy out clauses.
Other clubs see how nieve we are and are taking us to the cleaners.
The Bosman ruling shouldn’t be forgotten, it has moved the power from clubs to players. Man.United paid big bucks for Pogba, now he’s leaving for 0. I wonder how many Pogba shirts they have been selling? I don’t defend our policy and we have definitely potential to do better, and I’m sure we will.
First of all Mavros Stuttgart didn’t get relegated and have taken up the option to buy him for 3M.the reason why clubs where our players had good loans refuse to pay the fees asked is simple. they’ve seen us giving away players/paid to get rid of them.they know the club are desperate so they are playing hard ball knowing the longer it’s going on,the closer we will get to the end of the transfer window,the more desperate Arsenal will be and end up lowering the fees they’ve been asking for.it’s either that or be stuck with unwanted players,paying them to be on the bench and lose them in the summer for nothing.i cannot see it happening.this has nothing to do with the quality of the players.
Goonster
I’m afraid you are unlikely to get balanced perspectives on this site. There is a steadfast refusal to accept that most of these players are not of the highest standard and probably have a limited ceiling (that is unlikely to benefit Arsenal in the long run).
According to many people on this site this is either untrue or it’s all the coaches/manager’s or Edu’s fault. None of it has anything to do with the player(s) in question.
David, you are assuming that those who argue against giving players away, want those players to stay because of their skill levels.
Wrong – I wanted Aubameyang out because of his performances, but never dreamt that the club would let a previous Golden Boot winner leave for nothing and still continue to pay him!!!
Perhaps you would like to give me a balanced response as to why that happened and why we are the only club in the PL doing this?
As for the other named players, they have achieved more at the end of the season (apart from Mav) than any of our players – CL football, Cup winner medals etc etc… so give me a balanced reason why they have achieved this, yet are only deemed to be worth £30,000,000 for the lot of them, except Saliba who cost a reported £27,000,000 and still hasn’t played one senior game for us.
I await your balanced reply with interest
I wonder why you are mentioning Saliba he has been playing regularly and have become a better player. Whether he become a part of our squad or we are selling him, I’m sure we will make a nice profit.
Aubameyang along with Leno had been carrying the club on their shoulders from Wenger’s to Artetas time. He single handedly won the FA Cup for us and saved us from worse even though credit is given to someone undeserving.
Shouldn’t we ask ourselves why his attitude changed?
Reply to goonster.
Also why their performances took an all mighty nosedive .
How many of Artetas signings will be deadwood players as you put it goonster in the next few seasons ?
Cause from what I’ve seen the cycle will continue .
Agreed. I’ve repeatedly said that Leno is not as bad as we make him out to be. He may not be first choice anymore but he’s by no means a bad goalkeeper. He singlehandedly kept us in matches for an entire season, loosing the club’s player of the season award to Aubameyang, a goal scorer. He should have been brought in when Ramsdale was not performing well towards the end of the season.
I don’t agree that Leno is rated any lower than he should be. His problem is that he has been displaced and we have had only the league games to play in towards the end of the season.
Suggesting that he should have been brought in towards the end of the season may be your personal opinion, but most managers would not do this unless a goalkeeper suffers a catastrophic fall in performance. Whilst Ramsdale had his wobbles this was not necessarily a reason to immediately bench him and bring in Leno.
How does a player single handly carry an entire team on their shoulder? How did Auba single handly win us the FA CUP?
Did he play in goal, defence, midfield, wing and striker while all the other players stayed at home in their mansions, in the stand or in the dugout watching superman Auba take on an entire Chelsea 11 on his own. Right?
Auba contributed and was more influential because of the goals he scored, but his teammates also put in a grinding effort to protect the goals Auba scored. Isn’t it?
And it happens, some players will strive under a new manager / system, or they might struggle. Or they might just down toold because they don’t like the new managers tactics. Or it might be that it was time for him to find greener pastures elsewhere, need a change of scenery and environment. Or may be the new managers demands became too taxing on him physically and mentally due to his age.. Or may be he just went into his primadonna mode like most of these celebrity footballers always do? etc..
So many possible reasons.. Aren’t there?
The point is that Leno was actually very good. Certainly much better than many have given him credit for. I believe it’s due to recency bias
@dgr8xt
But but Auba single handedly won was the FA CUP.
Leno single handedly kept us in matches blah blah.
So and so single handedly carried us on their shoulders blah blah.
There is nothing more lazy than people who use such catchphrases. They are devoid of any substance.
Leno was/is a very good shot stopper, but not much more. The difference when martinez took over was stark (even mustafi looked decent for a bit!), and its similar with ramsdale.
Far from the worst keeper we’ve had, but a far cry from anything special either.
I agree, but he don’t want to be our second option and want to leave, which is understandable. We have a young #1 with great potential and he should remain our #1.
Couldn’t make it past 8th place you say? They got 5th and 6th with Wenger, 5th with Emery, and didn’t get 8th until Arteta took over.
Those same players also help lift the FA Cup with Arteta, and the Community Shield (if you count that).
Some leave that out, and only mention the poor locker room; not too poor though to win the cup and the shield
Emery 5th to Arteta 8th is a shortcut.
In between you forgot Emery not winning in 7 games and Ljungberg’s interim.
When Arteta joined Arsenal the club were 11th half way through the season, not 5th….
Just as “Arteta 20th” after 3 games is not valid but only his final position “Arteta 5th”, it’s correct to say “Emery 5th”. It was his league position after the final match day of the season
I’m not denying that Arsenals league performance during Arteta’s first 12 months in charge was very poor.
I’m just asking you to be fair and remember that the day Arteta signed for Arsenal we were 11th in the league.
You also forgot knocked out in the 4th and 3rd rounds of the fa cup after getting rid of the “deadwood” that actually won it.
Yet we see these loanees, win cups, achieve CL football and win Player of the Year awards.
By the way, when Emery left we were 11th and finished 8th…. Still with all the deadwood in place 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
They were 9th when Emery was sacked, according to the table. Arteta took them to the heights of 8th 2 seasons in a row. His half year was a recovery year, last year was all on Arteta, getting knocked out of Europa too, and it was Emery who did it by the way.
When Arteta signed we were 11th.
Again, I agree his first 12 month in charge we performed poorly in the league.
I wonder where we would have been if he had stayed another two months. We definitely went from bad to worse that season and we had a negative trend.
We cannot attract the type of players that are required to make Arsenal a force again that is never going to happen where we are challenging for prem league just have to except we are a mediocre team who will be nothing more than a top 6 club fans need to get use to it instead of living in a dream world!
My fear right now is Newcastle United. They will almost certainly finish above us next season.
They also said that before Everton was almost relegated
The article is correct as many of us have been pointing out. To stupidly blame players bad attitudes is just wrong. It is a management issue that has blighted Artetas reign. It is his problem, these players are down valued by the way we treat them. It is an Arsenal problem and many players we have “released” this past few seasons for whatever reason have gone on to perform very well, earn trophies and many CL football, when deemed not good enough for us who failed. There is a massive problem with our asset management and it is and will catch up with us.
I do agree with some points of yours. Mistakes were made, 100%. I’m also not that crazy about Edu so far, but I’m also not saying we should fire him. The best thing he did so far was bringing us Martinelli.
Mavro and Guend were sold for way too less, I agree. If there wasn’t an option in their contracts, they would’ve gotten us more. The rest, I dont agree.
If you look at other leagues, there aren’t much leagues where they spend a lot of money. Most money is spent in the PL, apart from the topclubs. But Torreira, Bellerin aren’t good enough for the topclubs. The clubs just below the topclubs (Sevilla, Roma, Villarreal, etc) only spend big on players that are young and have the potential to make a profit on. Not players like Bellerin, Torreira, Leno, etc.
With all the other players like Auba, Mustafi, etc. They were very high earners and we wanted to get rid of them. Some of them were 30+. Who’s gonna spend big on a 32 year old Auba who’s obviously not the same player anymore. I still think his goals cover up for how bad he really is, but that is a different discussion.
I do get your concern, because it seems we are not learning from our mistakes. We should have sold AMN to Wolves, we are handing Nketiah a contract which makes him unsellable, etc. But at least we are letting Laca leave and we are buying/targeting younger players that have resale value. Lets try focussing on the positives instead of focussing on the negative
It is difficult to get any kind of balance in the comments on this site. However, I largely agree with your points. One of the issues with regards to Mavro and Guend is whether it was possible to get the loan deals made without those options. Many players were being cleared out at the same time and there were likely to be few suitors for each of them.
As for most of the other players it is really difficult to understand why so many on this site seem to be up in arms and complaining. Most of these players have gone to lower level leagues or teams. Some of them have done OK elsewhere but most have hardly proven to be top class players.
In order to improve the squad a lot of players had to be moved on. Unfortunately, especially when considering other prevailing circumstances it was always going to be difficult to get high transfer fees.
I fully agree the author, we so fund of devaluing our players while buying at exorbitant rates , and it’s been made worst since Arteta arrived , he totally lacks man management skill with players on the bench , he quickly resorts to my way or the highway with our talents , wtout finding a middle point to use them and retain boost their value,.
Just u look at the army players he has deemed unplayable but are still playing well. Guiendozie , an excellent midfielder, with long yrs of playing career ahead lost , just like that for what reason ? Throwing tauntrum,, Josh K needs to learn about football fast, Man City have an army of player not playing regularly and they satisfied training and warming the bench whenever called upon
I not only agree withthe thrust of this article but cannot see how any Gooner can deny its essential truth!
For many years, going well back into Wengers time, our selling and overpaying in wages has been a harmful and sick joke and we have been and continue to be taken advantage of by far shrewder clubs than ours.
Like the writer, I put this failure down to the director of football and past ones too not only the present one.
AND ABOVE ALL, THE GREENHORN OWNER who neither knows, nor cares for anything to do with football. Something is radically amiss with how this club is financially being misrun.
We therefore carry a huge and ongoing handicap when compared to our main rivals, as they, esp Liverpool , are the polar opposite to us in how their clubs are financially managed. Sigh!
good on you dgr8xt for fighting the good fight…don’t be deterred by the word salad offerings of the Apologists who will constantly attempt to defend the seemingly indefensible…facts matter not to these individuals, as they seem impervious to any commonsensical argument that might chip away at the perceived infallibility of our manager-in-training, which is a very worrying trend, especially considering our cult of personality misadventures of our more recent past
ultimately, if we don’t get this window right, which means selling some of the above players and acquiring at least two seminal players, this house of cards could collapse sooner rather than later…of course, those within the Kool-Aid crew will somehow, someway blame those of us whom have spoken our truths, from both an asset mismanagement and eye test standpoint, but that would only once again highlight one of our biggest stumbling blocks, our largely complacent and overtly complicit fanbase…Cheers
Did somebody say word salad?
ADMIN COMMENT – DELETED for abuse
that doesn’t seem like something I would say, but I kind of like what you did there Admin
What about the Doomers that will keep manufacturing negative stories in order to keep themselves outraged at the current management? Most have been doomers since end of 2020..
Anything they can get their hands on as long as it gives them an opportunity to whinge, whine and stay negative then they will jump on it..
I have never seen you calling them out, but love to point at the other side.
Hypocrisy / personal agenda?
😉
“manufacturing” lol
Goonster, when we achieve something maybe we may have something to crow about. Unlike you, we have higher expectations, you may have lowered yours but we haven’t. Plus we always back up our opinions, unlike you who just bleats. Instead of having a shallow pop, actually try having an opinion to back up what you are saying and have some respect.
@TRVL4e
Spot on…You should have put this in All CAPS, for those in the cheap seats. As well as the ones suffering from “cognitive dissonance”…IJS 👍🏾
Cheers NYG
Think you put it perfectly. The house of cards that is arteta’s managerial time here is going to come crashing down if this is a bad window, which it seems like it is heading in that direction unless they course-correct quickly. Spurs, United, Newcastle are our rivals now and they will be better than they were this season. Spurs espescially and that is 100% on us.
👍👍
@RSH
IF, a very big IF
You can’t predict Arsenal having a bad transfer window when it hasn’t even opened yet!
This is just another example of a negative comment built on anti-Arteta sentiments with ZERO basis in truth
Nice saying, I wonder if these people want Arsenal to be successful, or if they feel certain kind of joy when we aren’t?
Oh PAT, You CAN indeed predict a bad transfer summer, PROVIDED THAT YOU ARE EITHER A TROLL OR A PERMANENTLY NEGATIVELY INFECTED SO CALLED ARSENAL FAN.
Whichever of those alternatives you are, the comments are practically the same! Odd that !?
I’m really looking forward to the next season and to read your apology in May next year, or will you vanish if Arteta make us successful 😉
Visa Versa Didrik – but you don’t give any criteria for Arteta being successful, so perhaps we should use the same criteria that UE and AW had?
1. Higher than 4th in PL.
2. Win a european trophy.
3. Win the fa cup.
Seem fair enough to you?
Sorry, in my opinion PL has become a better and much more demanding league than in 2016. In addition are we still rebuilding our team.
I have never been supporting Wenger out, but we needed a change. I have very much respect for Wenger and his legacy, much more respect for him than our pathetic fan base.
First step Ken is to recreate or get better than this season, which I expect, but not take for granted.
We can only focus on ourselves and have no influence on what our opponents are doing. If we are maximising our capacity and it’s not enough we have to admit that others are better / more successful than us.
There are probably a lot we can do better than today, but even if we do everything right it’s not a guarantee for success. Therefore do I not demand unrealistic objectives, but I have a hope about silverware every season 🔴⚪️
In my opinion, Arteta has done a decent job, including sorting out the mess and making a much better performing culture. People close to the club are talking very positively about Arteta. I’m not happy about everything, but I’m behind our manager and players. From negativity, I don’t believe there comes anything worthy at all.
There’s been some pretty bad deals for Arsenal in recent years, Guendouzi and Mavros sold for a total of £11m is an absolute joke.
Fiorentina are trying to rip us off on Torreira, I hope we stick to our guns and tell them the magic word: no.
Edu Gasper should read this your particular comment. The man is a joke
Everyone makes mistakes.
He’s done some good deals too like Martinelli, Tomi or Gabriel for instance.
Is he? Perhaps that was one of the criteria to get the job?
Iv always said it, Arsenal dont value their players , simply put. we might not get upto 50m for those players mentioned when we sell them..some one definately wants to ruin the club from within. That is for sure.
Even if smith rowe or saka were to be sold to liverpool or anywhere we wont get upto 40 or 50 for those english YOUNG ENGLISH internationals..but we can gladly buy a non-loving-football, cant jump, untested defender from a mid table team at 50m.
Iwobi £35m, Willock £25m, Martinez £20m, Chamberlain £35m, Walcott £20m, Bielik £9m.
Then look at other teams lists of players leaving for free this summer and the last few summers.
Mavropanos we actually made money
Kolasinac arrived on a free and left on a free, but we saved about £2.5m on wages.
Guendozi we made money out of this troublesome player.
Aubameyang also became problematic so him leaving when he did saved us around £25m in salaries.
Personally I see no problem with many of the deals, sure some we have lost out on, but don’t tell me all of you have made money on all your purchases?
In any case, tell me exactly why all of a sudden so many Arsenal fans are concerned about Stan Kroenkes finances? I will stack his investing, tax saving and money making skills with anyone on here.
To all you would be accountants, stop bothering yourselves and focus on supporting the team, that is your job.
We have a history of being unwise with money as this article illustrates
It no coincidence that all the club’s interested in our players are playing hard ball and you can’t blame them for it.they know what they’re doing, they’ve been following our transfer dealings and have realised that time is their ally,the closer we’ll get to the closure of the transfer window,the more desperate we will be to get rid of our unwanted players and will lower our demands.i mean Benfica not willing to pay 8.5M for Leno is taking the Mick, I’d go as far as saying insulting no?
On the whole a very good article with excellent theories and facts and good counter arguments from some but when both sides start using the “what are you smoking?” comment and getting personal then it rather ruins all the good debate on here. Keep up with the proper debating and stop the personal attacks everyone.
That’s not a personal attack?
No…. If I mentioned anyone else or replied specifically to someone then it would be, but as I didn’t, it isn’t. 😊
The only point I really disagree with is aubamayeng, sort of.
He should have been sold a year ago, but even then, who’d have paid for him? He’d already been off form for a full season at that point and was on huge wages, so who’d have wanted to pay a transfer fee for him?
Then again, who’s fault is it he was on such massive wages? It’s more understandable because he was one of the best strikers in the league when he signed it, but we clearly didn’t learn from the Ozil situation…
Yet, surely, Ozil was also a top player when HE signed his new contract?
Just like Aubameyang, fans were pleading for the player to sign the new contract, especially as Sanchez had just renaged on his verbal agreement to re-sign.
Your correct, we never seem to learn from our mistakes and that goes back to Bertie Mee and the sale of Ray Kennedy to liverpool.
Ozil signe his new contract during 17/18 season. If we’re not talking about 15/16 season then we are always talking about Ozil being underwhelming. He only got that contract because Sanchez had left.
No, he was discussing his contract at the same time as Sanchez.
Because Sanchez was abroad, negotiations were done by phone and he agreed verbally to sign the contract, only to let the club down and moving to manure.
That put Ozil’s signature as a must – remember fans saying “If we let Ozil go as well, we are no longer a big club”?
Of course his agent played hardball but in the end, it was Arsenal (kronkie) who offered him that contract…just as they did with Aubemeyang…. and the fans were, again, out in force, pleading with him to “sign dat thing”!!
Now, it seems, every fan never wanted either player to sign the contracts, knew what would happen and blame every Tom, Dick and Harry except themselves.
Another example of not learning from our mistakes.
Horrible! I’m disturbed you demand more than Arsenal can offer. I would write volumes to catalogue the misdeeds at Arsenal. It has a history to it. Will they ever do anything right!? Time will tell.
Whilst I share a lot of your concern, I do not agree with your assessment of the deals for the Ox and Iwobi. We got very much the best end of both of those deals
Edu and Arteta are not improving what is a deplorable record for some time under the “stewardship” of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, of poor financial and player assets at Arsenal FC.
How many clubs are selling players for big money now? How man players at Man utd are off for free? Pobga, lingard, mata, and a host of others they will practically let go next to nothing. The problem is having average players on big money, you can’t sell them. The only teams that can sell with reasonable amount now is man City or Liverpool because it’s presumed that most of their players will improve any team. Most of The players Arsenal let go can’t make it at any other top 10 teams in England. You people seems to blast our management too much. Every club make mistakes, Chelsea once had players on loan all over Europe, they sold Lukaku and few years bought him back at almost 100m and they areaboutto lose him for less thanhalfthat amount, they sold coutoir the Madrid keeper for how much? Bought Kepa for huge amount and still has to buy Monday, they sold Debrune and salah for how much? Do they have any player of that calibre in their squad now?At least we have not sold a player that has gone on to be a world star to my knowledge. If it was arsenal that made those deals, our fans will be talking about it till today. If Arsenal is losing money, they have weighed up the cost and certainly knows what they are driving at. They are not fools, you can’t be a billionaire by mistake, so I don’t think any of us here knows better than the Kronkes and arsenal management in general. To get this club out of this rot will be very costly, some of you don’t know how deeply rotten the club has been. You can keep an eye on Manchester United to see what it will cost them to come out of the similar mess they are in.
I don’t think the players noticed Arsenal horrible business sense it’s just the middle men AKA agents that have noticed Arsenal trend of buying high and selling low and have advised their clients on how to deal with Arsenal during transactions ☹️
late, never, too little too late..
lather, rinse, repeat!