David Ornstein was on BBC 5 Live this evening discussing transfers of various top 6 clubs but we don’t care about them, we only care about Arsenal.
It feels like there’s a lot to do this summer, but based on what he said it might be a bit less busy than people think.
Here’s a full and exact transcript of what he had to say:
“I don’t think it will be the most spectacular summer for Arsenal but I do think they have some very important business to be done.
“It all depends on their budget. If they’re playing Europa League football next season it looks like it will be around £40m. If it’s Champions League it would be significantly higher. They also have revenue streams coming on board with the new Adidas kit deal.
“If it’s Europa League you’ve got to remember it’ll be their third year in that competition. They’ve also heavily invested in the last year or so, especuially in the striking department, and they are adamant they will not break Financial Fair Play.
“Despite still waiting to appoint a Technical Director/Sporting Director/Director of Football, they still have identified targets and conversations are underway. They are looking for experience and youth in their recruitment.
“Their priorities are a central defender, Jeremy Wilson of the Telegraph mentioned the Getafe and Togo centre-half, Djené, he’s under contract until 2023 with a reported value of £13.5m.
“The other priority is a box to box midfielder. Previously, in January, they came close to a deal for Christopher Nkunku from PSG – this is course is to replace Aaron Ramsey. Adrian Rabiot is a player they’ve tried to sign in the past, and they have a long-standing interest in him, however he is a complex individual and has had some issues off the pitch.
“As a sort of secondary brief they’d be looking for a wide forward and in January came close to a deal for Ivan Perisic, and had interest in Yannick Carrasco. Possibly a centre-forward with Danny Welbeck leaving, and Eddie Nketiah would go on loan if they did bring a centre-forward in.
“There is interest in bringing in a left back and possibly a right back, but again those are secondary to the centre-half and box to box midfielder.
“Not to forget they’d be looking to integrate young players too. Reiss Nelson coming back from his loan, Emile Smith Rowe, Joe Willock and Bukayo Saka who is said to be the most highly rated prospect – he’s a wide forward, but extremely young.”
So, there you go. Without Champions League football next season we’ll be shopping in the bargain basements, but of course we could raise funds through sales and free up more money by reducing the wage bill by a significant amount.
Yay KroenkeBall !
I don’t get it to be honest. Surely a smart businessman would see that if you invest some more (and do it wisely) you can greatly increase the value of your investment. Liverpool’s owners are not messing about for example.
I have a hard time understanding how doing the opposite – starving the club of funds so it goes downhill – is supposed to be a good idea, but that’s what they’ve been doing basically since they came in.
They literally spent nothing out of their own pocket.
Agreed, but Liverpool also had some pocket money after selling Coutinho for well over 100 million. Selling Alexis/Ozil/Rambo at the right time could have gotten us that kind of money
It would also help if we were more clever in how we do things.
It gave me some hope when we employed Sven but then we got rid of him …
Why are people so invested in making Sven the victim?
He chose to leave. This idea that we ‘pushed him out’ or ‘got rid of him’ is tabloid rubbish.
Banned from the training ground at Dortmund, rescued by Arsenal, abandoned our project after a year. Bayern and other big clubs passed him over, and if Stuttgart lose their last game next week he’ll be working in the German 2nd division next year.
Should’ve taken Wenger’s example and stuck with us during hard times.
Seven fell short of what Arsenal expected from him, he didn’t develop the network they hoped, that’s why he wasn’t in for the technical director job.
That’s not true.
Rubbish. Developing network isn’t even the prerequisite for the role as “Technical Director”. It’s also rubbish for the fact it isn’t true, don’t make things up for your own agenda, we’ve got the Daily Mail for that.
Ultimately @Anonymarse is right.. Until we step away from this ‘self-sustaining model,’ we will be forever treading water. Well saying that would suggest we’re staying in the same place. But the way the other clubs around us are spending. We will most definitely continue to slide down the table. We won’t be winning anything of genuine merit, like a Premier League title for example, bar nothing short of a footballing miracle (of course). I always remember an interview Gazidis gave shortly after Leicester City won the league. Where he cited Leicester’s achievement, this one extremely fortuitous season which saw them… Read more »
We have actually spent a fair amount of money though. We’ve just spent it badly and not sold well. It’s understandable now that after spending quite a bit over the last few seasons that we might not have as much to spend as people might hope for this season. I’m disappointed that there’s no mention of getting rid of some of the deadwood in the squad to free up funds for more purchases, but with Raiola banned we will struggle to move Mkhi and with Ozil adamant he wants to stay and on such high wages I think we are… Read more »
Self-Sustaining Model seems to have worked well for Spurs and Liverpool, the former have spent significantly less than us in puchases and wages.
The Selling is the key part. They sell players with high value at key times when they can. Getting 2-3 players out of 1, rather than running down either the value of the players or their contracts to practically no return. We did OK with Ox and one or two others, but there aren’t too many good examples over the last handful of years. We have sold poorly for some time now. When Alexis was first starting to turn into a PITA we should have flogged him off for his highest value when we had a chance to actually use… Read more »
it seems we are executing it poorly yes …
To be fair we’ve spent a fair wedge recently and signed some good players. I’m very happy with the strikers.
We have some good young players coming through too, there is hope.
The 70m we spent on Mustafi and Xhaka could better have been spent elsewhere.
40m though. That’s one decent player in the current market. It’s not like this is a new thing either, there was the season we only signed Cech, not to mention all the seasons before where we literally had almost nothing.
40m, and the way Ornstein says it makes it sound like the Adidas deal, and then player sales could be added to that. So that starts to get us somewhere. Not far, but something.
And if we win this Europa Cup that’s worth a solid player right there from UCL qualification monies.
Can Barcelona be foolish enough to give us Coutinho or Dembouze for Ozil + Bellerin ?
We’d be the foolish one to make such a trade!
Not foolish comment, you free 350k with Ozil gone to buy a top top top defender. AMN with a little defensive focus will nail Bellerin to the bench anyways. Finally, these are Barcelona players worth 100k minimo.
AMN isn’t a defender and it shows.
Bellerin was having an great season until he was injured. No way he gets ‘nailed to the bench’ by AMN.
Coutinho is overrated. I presume by Dembouze you mean Dembele, who has been mentioned previously but has stated that he wants to stay at Barca. He might be a bit out of our price range, also, and by all accounts hasn’t played too well there either.
Ozil has made it clear that he doesn’t want to leave and no one will want to pay his wages on current form.
Bellerin? That’s loony talk. Him, Holding, Leno, Torreira, Guendouzi, and our Dynamic Duo Strikers are about the only real totally off-limits first team players I see at the moment.
You forgot Bellerin has had two bad seasons before this year.
So bad that Barca and City were wanting him.
You could individually say two bad seasons for about 98% of the players in the squad for the previous two years. For a young back with zero help on the right hand side for so long he’s done quite a job and his potential is obvious.
When did Barcelona or City make an offer for him?
What I don’t understand is how this comment gets 95 up votes and yet when I suggested we should sell Lacca if Barcelona make an amazing offer all I got was downvotes.
Which is it? Do we see the need of selling our big players sometimes or not?
Both. Or neither. I dunno really.
Everyone seems to think we can get enough money from the players we don’t like to be able to replace them and reinforce in that position. Not sure how that works.
@Aussie
Here’s the real issue with selling Lacazette. This team really would be sunk if it weren’t for Auba and Lacca pretty much single handily taking over games, particularly in Europe recently. We have creative players- Ozil and Mik however are contributing virtually nothing relative to their reputation/pay packets which has left Auba and Lacca to pretty much create for themselves and score. Whatever Barca gives up for him we aren’t going to be able to replace him especially as they are highly unlikely to give us stupid money given Greizman is available.
Presumably, if we sold Laca, we would use the funds to invest in a team that is less dependent on Laca.
I really don’t know the best course of action, but if Barca unsettle him with a 100M plus offer…. that could go a long way to rebuilding the squad
Barca are going to buy Greizmann for 100m+. I highly doubt they will also be in for Laca.
I really like laca but no one is paying 2x what we paid for him 2 years ago. So even if you sell him for 70m we prob have to pay 40m for a good striking prospect (Pepe type) and 30m on one other player. If we were able to replicate his production and guaranteed to hit on both transfers then yes you always sell your top players. But transfers don’t always work out so just as easily we could end up with 2 players who don’t come close to offsetting his production.
I suspect Laca was a backup / bargaining chip for the Greizmann bid. Playmaking forwards with the ability to dig in in deeper areas.
Pay no attention to thumbs, half the time people just downvote you for disagreeing with them in the past and they’re holding a childish grudge, often there are people who spam up thumbs on their own comments by logging on to the net via a different source/additonal accounts (I assume that has happened a lot on this particular thread), and if you’re flush enough you can even employ Russiabots to follow your online footprint (ever wonder why comments on Ozil have loads of thumbs up but very few using words to defend, well that Fortnite obsessed chap is mod con… Read more »
These contract issues were/are a collective fuck-up by the club. I don’t yet have faith that these mistakes will be avoided in the future.
Our season was defined by fine margins. I strongly believe if we dodn’t have 3 season ending injuries to key players…and at the cruelest of times to boot, we’d have been firmly in 3rd place with games to spare. Our target next season is top 4 if we are realistic in our expectations; we don’t have to break the bank to achieve that. One CB, adequate replacement for Ramsey, one wide player and a decent player willing to be 3rd choice striker while Nketiah goes out on loan should do. Holding and Bellerin will make significantly stronger; Nelson and EMS… Read more »
Difference with Chelsea is they have like a bazillion fairly talented players out on loan right now. But I agree with your assessment.
Tottenham lose Pochettino and they’ll likely return whence they came.
All he is to do is look at his NFL team for a model. He finally invested some big money in players and they made it to the super bowl
Except the NFL is an entirely different financial system. Salary caps that actually work in limiting teams. So the player fees and wages, even though they sound large, don’t inflate as ridiculously and in a fashion that is unfairly scaled to the point where only the top 6-8 clubs in the world can afford the top players. Any team in any season has an actual shot at a very top player or two, unless they are one of the few teams that just constantly poor, or just outright cheap. And those teams get top draft picks to work with. Teams… Read more »
a couple of years ago we would criticize clubs that are sustained with external funds, clubs with asian owners that came out of nowhere spending millions. but now we are asking for the same. what the heck man? the executives we’ve had have always said this is a self-sustaining project, that we try to spend only what we earn, and i think that’s something to be really proud of. even if you don’t like it, that’s arsenal. that’s who we’ve always been. if you’re asking for something different then do you really like arsenal or just support it because of… Read more »
I was supporting you right until you claimed Kroenke wanted to invest but the board wouldn’t let him.
Even before the 100% acquisition, he WAS the majority shareholder and had pretty much board control.
@djourou I too was always proud of our business model, most of us were, but times have drastically changed, unfortunately. Do you want to be be outspent by the likes of Everton, Wolves and Watford? They’re already nipping at our heels in the league. I have a friend that lives an almost equal distance from the Etihad as I do the Emirates, he’s a City fan, we both travel to watch roughly the same amount of games each season, except when I’ve watched Europa he’s had CL games, for the past three seasons I’ve literally spent 3-4times the amount he… Read more »
hey leno, i think we’ve got one of the biggest incomes in actual football in terms of matchday revenue and sponsor deals, so i’m pretty sure we would be able to outspend everton and wolves without external input, yes. i don’t like kroenke, yet i don’t know if he’s a money-hungry malomaniac or not, since he’s barely done or said anything since his arrival. i don’t think he deserves all the mocking for being american, it’s not his fault. he’s not responsible for the team’s performance. we’ve spent quite a lot for a few seasons now and we are still… Read more »
@djourou True, but we also have a huge outlay in infrastructure and wages that leaves our profit after breaking even much closer to mid-table teams than we’d like, plus the Watfords, Evertons and Wolves have owners willing to make investments, whereas ours are looking to skim money off the top (already proven and publicly known). To outspend the teams below us it is genuinely going to mean Kroenke investment or a number of player sales. Admittedly it isn’t about spending a lot, it’s more about spending wisely, but with no noteworthy name currently in charge of transfers, a lot of… Read more »
I’m not sure what you’ve based your assumption that Kroenke wanted to invest on. He’s never invested a penny in anything at the club other than shares and there is no evidence of him being stopped. And nobody would or could stop him now if that’s what he wanted to do.
Can’t wait for my comment to pass moderation so I can join the conversation tomorrow… yay ?
Ooo, just 6 hours! haha
Dude, he’s actually taken money out from the club. He’s poison
He’s using the Walmart model whereby he cuts cost to maximize profit. It has always been his modus operandi.
I suspect he thinks that with PL TV money and the right commercial deals, Arsenal will earn money regardless of how well we do on the pitch. I remember reading how he and other American businessmen see football as significantly commercially underdeveloped so he must believe the club will appreciate in value over the long run with no investment needed. What did he say a few years ago? “If you wanted to win things you’d never get involved.” In terms of genuine competitiveness, we’re fucked as long as he is owner. We moved stadium to fulfil a vision of competing… Read more »
Exactly, a stronger squad creates better performances and better value.
Over the last 5 years we’ve had the 3rd highest net spend in the Premier League, behind the Manchester clubs.
Since the Ozil era, there’s been no problem with levels of investment. It’s how we’ve invested, and in particular sold, that’s been the problem.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjtmpvWoZ7iAhWzAmMBHTTvDMwQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.givemesport.com%2F1453518-the-premier-league-table-based-on-net-spend-over-the-past-five-seasons&psig=AOvVaw2kfPtBRmXORqniLLW2ZGMG&ust=1558034696265451
clubs relegated from the prem get more than the winners of the other top leagues. arsenal have too much money to be relegated, so mid table earnings, but top 6 sponsorship deals, keeps a nice bit of cash flowing I to the club to pay KSG a nice annual dividend.
this is a healthy dividend investment for KSG with a beautiful piece of real estate thrown in. stop thinking of it as a sports team that needs to win things.
I call bullshit
You meant balls to kroneke
Excellent work
Read this on Twitter, and can’t get it out of my head.
“Everybody was Nkunku fighting”……….
Now I want him just because of the chant potential
Does anyone know much about this guy?
I thought he was just a kid. They’re not seriously considering him as a replacement for Ramsey?
They call him the French Mossi
Kroenke is using the Financial Fair Play rules as an excuse for his lack of investment in the club.
I don’t us going anywhere with that leech in charge.
Sad.
It is a clever way to do business and to stay alive though. More people should try and live within their mean. I blame the Tories
The trick is to take all the money off the people who don’t vote for you
There’s a difference between living within ones means and making profits every season. At Arsenal we make profits and put it in the cash reserves that keeps on increasing each year and will not try to use any of last season’s profit for the next. This way, the club’s net worth is increased and so is Kroenke’s assets.
But at the same time, what’s the point of that method? He owns enough teams that he is not just trying to stay alive, and he is worth quite a bit through all of his real estate. And if he is just using the club as an investment to make money, making your club less valuable by miring it in mediocrity is a very wrong headed way to go about it.
I hate the fact that he’s hasn’t invested into the club but until the club loses value why would he change course? The club has more than doubled in value since he’s bought the club I believe.
Quite. I think there’s a pretty decent argument that a bit of investment now could give the club a nudge towards greater self-sustenance. But it’s a very risky investment for any businessman. Which of us would genuinely put £100m of our own money into player purchases knowing that it comes with no guarantees of increasing the club’s value? I think the problem we have as fans is that we’re jealous of the minority of other owners who are pumping money into their clubs and we see it as the quickest way to success. But the vast majority of owners aren’t… Read more »
Do you know how Kroenke made his money? He married the Walmart heiress and then his development and construction companies started building shopping malls across the western US where Walmart was the anchor tenant. This doesn’t suggest he’s a great business man, he’s a lucky businessman. He got lucky marrying a billionairess. He hasn’t shown any acumen running any of his other teams, but sports franchises are a good investment buy because regardless of how bad they are doing they still gain in value, sports being the only thing keeping people subscribed to networks and hence the tv rights keep… Read more »
Not defending kroenke but was already a billionaire before marrying into the Walmart family
Sorry, but I think Kronke is only in us for the Real Estate value of the Emirates (Prime London location). Nothing else. Investing his own money goes against this principle. Sit tight for the “Long Night at Arsenal” fellow Gooners….
There’s also the possibility that Kroenke is a fun of the spuds and is sick of hearing his beloved club being called shit as well as witnessing the Saint toterinham day, and probably wants to change the status quo, which I think he is doing a good job in that regard. Who knows?
Hopefully we can sell some dead weight and make up the numbers.
We don’t have that much sellable deadweight in the club……….. if we want to sign a 70-100 million player we will need to sell non deadweights. One player I am looking at is Xhaka, we can probably trick some dumb club into paying 50 million for him.
Not even dumb clubs will spend 50m on Xhaka. We paid 35m and I can’t say he has increased his value during his stay at Arsenal…
We have nobody, I mean nobody, other than our front two strikers who any club in the world would pay more than $25m for.
We really have to stop kidding ourselves that we can sell ourselves out of this mess.
Does anyone really believe we have that kind of quality in our squad?
Our midfield is more likely to play for Aston Villa next season than any Champions League side.
Bellerin and gendousi other than them I get your point.
Erm,invested heavily in strikers.
We’ve also sold lots of players, Walcott, Gabriel,Coquelin,Gibbs,Perez and others I can’t remember, offsetting the Strikers.
Sounds like a load of old pony.
Problem is we sold them for peanuts but spent North of 100m on auba and laca. At least they are worth the value though!
We are actually quite close to the FFP limits but only because our outgoing business has been criminal. We have terribly managed our value and assets, and it’s biting us on the arse.
FFP is donkey balls because it does nothing to stop financial doping, it only penalises financial stupidity. Another great example of hasty and lazy legislation that actually makes problems worse.
“Problem is we sold them for peanuts but spent North of 100m on auba and laca. At least they are worth the value though!” Not by my calculation. £35 million on OC ; £20 million on Walcott ; £12 million on Giroud. Walcott was one of the bigger earners. What would really help is shifting either Miktaryan or Ozil. And frankly I’d ditch them both. We’d get more commitment from the likes of Bylik and Smith Rowe at a fraction of the cost and free up money for the necessary defensive signings. Both Burnley centre backs and both Brighton centre… Read more »
Also add Coquelin at £12.6 million to the tally. I guess, as you say, the issue is especially in the very large salaries, but even with Ozil and Mkhitaryan still on the books, how could that still be such an issue with both Ramsey and Cech departing? Seems like some funny math here by KSE–which is not at all surprising. On the topic of Ozil and Mkhi, as much as it might benefit the books to remove both salaries, I’d be reluctant to sell both simply because, for all the flaws of each, you’d be removing two creative players from… Read more »
I’m not sure we even recouped up to 50 million of all of those players…checking transfermarkt puts it just under 50 mill british, which is only about 45% of what we’d have spent on Auba and Laca (about 110 mill british) The other big one for us was the Ox we got 35 mill from so I dare say in all of our outgoing business we have made a pretty significant nett loss it’s not like Auba and Laca are the only players we’ve brought in. To be frank, I don’t even think the Aubameyang deal would have been sanctioned… Read more »
You looked at transfermarkt and didn’t see that our outgoings for 2017/18 were £137.57m and our incomings were £140.58m? I make that a profit, but maybe I’m mad.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-arsenal/alletransfers/verein/11
“You looked at transfermarkt and didn’t see that our outgoings for 2017/18 were £137.57m and our incomings were £140.58m?“
That doesn’t fit his agenda. He will like to have you believe the old management gave players away for free
Haha my agenda? What kind of paranoid garbage is that? I was just recalling what I can remember.
True, but 16/17 the transfer balance was -90M and 18/19 was about -65M, that’s a net spend of over 150M in the last three seasons
Crash Fistfight that’s awful cherry picking there, you should be ashamed of yourself.
But the thread was talking about the players that were sold to buy the two strikers. I don’t dispute your statement, but that is a different conversation. If you want to look at 2 other seasons, why not look at 5, or 10, or…?
Giroud…
Lol at Perez.
You mean the £14M loss Perez?
Which is insane considering we sold Giroud for less.
FYI; https://www.transferleague.co.uk/arsenal/english-football-teams/arsenal-transfers
Mortgage the club and pay Griezmann’s release clause! ??? We might be bankrupt by the end of next decade but things will be fun!
Griezman??
Arsenal need to get a top quality defender and an attacking wide player.
40m £ … this is unbelievable. We need to invest 200m £ at least. Hope we shift dead wood away and the new deal with Adidas will bring us a lot of money. It’s absolutely crucial to win Europa League now.
Completely agree. There will be a lot of top players available in transfer market this summer. Take Barcelona for example, they will definitely try to sign Griezmann and De Ligt. They are cash strapped and are paying to manage their wages bill. Why not take Umtiti and Coutinho off their hands for a combined 125M? This thing is not rocket science if you have the funds to spend.
Golden rule number 1 when it comes to understanding quoted ‘transfer pots’: the stated value isn’t all that the club can spend, it’s all that the club has to spend in total in that particular period. So we could sign 4 Lionel Messis if the selling clubs agreed that we only had to pay £10m for the first year. £40m doesn’t mean that we can only buy one player worth £40m.
Golden rule number 2: Clubs usually have an agenda for putting a particular figure out into the media.
It’s the age old issue that you don’t walk into a car showroom telling the salesman you have £30k to spend. You tell him you’ve 20-25k and hopefully end up with a deal on a 35k car for 28-30k and both parties feeling they got a result.
If they can nail the all action mid and youngish ready to start now central defender, i think could make a world of difference.
We need 2 CBs..Kos and Monreal are on last legs and Mustafi should be toast, plus who knows when/ how well Rob Holding will recover.
Also totally need at least 1 top quality wide man/winger, and probably a back up striker and a LB.
Fuck ton of work to be done on this squad
With Holding and Chambers back in contention, I doubt 2 CB’s will happen. We can have a first-choice pair of the new signing + Holding/Sokratis, with Kos and Chambers as backups. Kos only a backup because of fitness, not quality. If we don’t think Chambers is of the needed quality, then we would definitely be short though.
I think as far as CBs are concerned, it’s going to be one in, one out. With Chambers coming back we’re actually strong there in terms of numbers, it’s quality that we’re lacking. But yeah, alongside that a winger and a CM are priority. I could live with Nketiah as third choice striker, give him at least another half a season to see if he can handle himself at this level. Another LB makes a lot of sense as well.
Nketiah needs to play every week to develop properly. Doing a long term disservice to him and the club to have him sitting on the bench 75% of the available season minutes.
We’re talking 1 window tho. With chambers and holding coming back, plus mavro and papa we shoukdnt do more than 1 cb. Mustafi has to go. If Kolasinac cant realiably supplant Monreal on the left, sell and replace him. Same in the midfield, need ramsey replacement and competition. A lot of work to do but with limited budget and time cant all be done in one window.
A creative box-to-box and a class winger are probably our minimum requirements to get back into the top 4, and a competent CB would help as well of course! But to catch the top 2, to win the damn thing, you do wonder how much we’d need in order to bridge that gap.
There ain’t a chance in hell we’re getting anywhere close to the title for the foreseeable future.
We will be lucky to come within 15 points next season and that assumes the recruitment is all that we hope. If not we will still be 25 points or more away.
As long as Stan’s in charge we’ll only watch the real winners, for ever
We well off City. Forget the title, clubs aim is 4th. Spuds, us, manu and Chelsea will fight for 3rd to 6th for the next 5 or so seasons. ManC will win the enxt 5 straight imho.
Yeah, well. Citeh are now staring at a Champions League ban as a result of their sugar daddy’s financial largesse.
I’m gonna hazard a guess and say they get off with a nice big fine to line all the pockets of the fine fellas at UEFA.
The way things are going it seems very unlikely doesn’t it. But it’s not just us that might struggle; Chelsea have a transfer ban and Hazard and Sarri’s future is far from certain, Sp*rs have a new stadium to deal with and potentially limited ambition, and United are just a total mess. We might even end up with a top 2 and an also-ran 7, with Wolves, Everton and Leicester contesting the CL places.
It is completely unbelievable that our hierarchy views RB and LB as secondary priority. Not only are we ridiculously weak in that area, Emery’s teams have had heavy impetus on the fullbacks. Not to mention Liverpool and Manchester City have used their fullbacks to devastating effects. I see the value for a wide forward, but surely it makes sense to get good fullbacks first? Also 40M budget? Why even bother at that point? Just play academy graduates and use that money to feed Stan’s pockets.
I agree in regards to the use of fullback but I think the issue is we don’t actually have ANY real wide options (I’m not convinced Iwobi is even a winger, and neither is Mkhi).
At least we have fullbacks, injured (Bellerin) or flawed (Kola) they may be.
Agreed.All a waste of time without investment.How will buying all these 10-15m bottom feeders help us long term? when we’ve put the money together 4 40-60m players what do we get for them? 5m? coupled with the fact that auba n laca will be thinking retirement by then, it will be striker time again.vicious cycle, only mickey mouse arsenal.Lets concentrate on what can actually work: #STANOUT
Agree Liverpool have epitomised the importance of fullbacks this season, Robertson and TAA have been phenomenal. But I’d argue we’re much weaker on the wing (Iwobi and Mkhi) than we are at fullback (Kolasinic and Bellerin), and that’s where we need to prioritise. We need more strength in depth in both positions tbf.
My only argument here would be that I think left back should be elevated in priority because I’d prefer to see four at the back more often next season, and I think Kolasinac basically prevents us from running that system with any confidence, and Nacho sadly isn’t getting any younger.
That’s a good point, if it came down to it I’d definitely bring in a left back over a right back (though ideally they could play both positions).
It seems the longer we are out of the Champions League the harder it will be to get back into it
It will be with an owner who has no plan and no actual interest in football. I fear the Aston Villa death spiral.
That was always going to be the case. Especially for a club with our fiscal policies.
That said, we finished 1 point away from getting back in, with a first year manager.
And if we show up in a couple weeks, we still may.
1 goal from third place!
Whats happening with Chambers?? I heard he was doing really well on loan although was playing a more DM role… Would he be someone we would use in central defense, or maybe keep him in DM and push Xhaka further forward??
Or is he one that we will look to move on even though he only recently signed an extension??
We could push Xhaka out of the team!
Chambers is NOT an improvement on Xhaka. Not yet, anyway.
Chambers is soooo slow over the first few metres…..
Hopefully we can get close to the £30 million in for him? And put it towards getting in a better player at centre half.
I don’t see many sellable assets within our squad apart from our strikers, and I’m not sure I’d consider that unless we received offers in the region of £100million
Considering the lack of depth we saw in the squad this year as they were stretched thin over the last month or two with such a hectic schedule, I would argue to keep Chambers in the fold especially for his versatility. Not sure he’d be an ideal DM for a club like Arsenal and the way we should be playing, but just having him as an option there and in defense (compared to Mavropanos, let alone Mustafi) would be reassuring. (And would he be any worse than Mustafi or even Lichsteiner or Jenkinson as an emergency right back? Maybe…but maybe… Read more »
Amazes me that people still discuss Bielik. If he was good enough we would’ve seen more of him already. He’ll never make it with us. Not good enough.
I’d keep him and push xhaka and mustafi out, and ozil and micky out, and get a solid CM
Chambers has been at Middlesbrough- Relegated
Now Fulham – Relegated
I don’t think he is the answer, he’s very slow even for a cb
We all know very well what chambers is capable of: Nothing, leave him be please
By all accounts, the defense was not the problem at Middlesbrogh – they simply could not score goals.
Admittedly, the same isn’t true at Fulham, but he’s been playing DM there, not CB.
Chambers is nothing special……. he is playing at his level in Fulham. Being an Djourou/Upson tier player is his ceiling. He would be a decent player to have on our bench, but being 4th/5th choice is the best he can hope for. Would he want to ride our bench?
He was at Fulham, so he should look good but they got relegated.
Always a better option than elneny
It’s hard to put into words how much I detest Kroenke and everything he stands for. At least John Henry at Liverpool seems to actually want to make Liverpool successful. Even the Glaziers at United invest massively in the team. This Kroenke f**ker though, he is the kind of heartless ghoul who will destroy this club if we’re not careful.
The glazier have invested!!! They have loaded mu with massive debt.they lucky mu is a money printing machine even before they came
And at pool they are using the”money ball”system.buy relative cheap talented young player sale high price to fund the next few purchase.they arent using the owner money
t’s hard to put into words how much I detest Kroenke and everything he stands for. At least John Henry at Liverpool seems to actually want to make Liverpool successful. Even the Glaziers at United invest massively in the team. This Kroenke f**ker though, he is the kind of heartless ghoul who will destroy this club if we’re not careful
What I dont understand is how arsenal fans arent putting all their energies into getting him out first.Everything will be pointless until then. Assuming the fans want more than the europa semi or final every couple years
The Glazers? Invest? Massively? All of ManU´s debt is down to them as they paid the money for the club with … the money of the club and since then are taking massive chunks of money out of the club for themselves. All this ´investment´ is down to bringing out new shares every now and then, from which they profit as well. There is no own money of them in there. That club still lives off this tag as ´biggest club in the world´ and is still able to command big money for kit deals and the like. They live… Read more »
I see Mr. Ornsteins degree in stating the bleeding obvious is coming in handy on our clubs behalf once again.
I mean everything in the transcript is something anyone could have come up with having read a few papers or gone on a couple of websites during the last transfer window in January.
Plus he’s casting his (expert) net pretty wide when the only position he hasn’t mentioned that we’re in need of cover is in goal!
The Arsenal transfer Nostradamus
I don’t doubt that he seems to be an honest man. An oasis of truth in a sea of BS that is transfer news. But lines like “They are looking for experience and youth in their recruitment.” make me roll my eyes.
My crystal ball tells me Arsenal may or may not buy the players they need this transfer window…
I don’t believe in this reported £40 million, we’ll just wait and see.
Yeah they probably rounded it up…
£40,000,001?
Never gets old 🙂
Well if it’s 40 million out of club coffers on top of what we get from sales, plus the new Adidas deal, then that starts to add up to something and sounds about like a realistic assessment.
Is it enough to keep pace with our rival clubs? That’s the question.
Seems like the £40m is largely based on the Adidas deal, being that it’s about £35m more per season than the Puma one.
My opinion….Bring in the “priority” talent….box-to-box MF; and CB. Get rid of Ozil (if you can). I also think they need to recall Bielik – he’s turned into a beast, plus he’s got some leadership moxie. Calum-Chambers, I’m not so sure about – nice kid, but he’s kind of underwhelming, if you ask me. Then, bring in the Arsenal youth and let them blend in. Willock, Nkteiah, Smith-Rowe, esp Nelson. (Sako still year or so away physically I think?) Let ’em catch their “fit” into the mix (just like Maintland-Niles did), this way you don’t have to overspend, and I… Read more »
pretty demoralizing, especially when you consider the staggering amounts scousers/spuds will be given after the UCL final.
how much could we raise moving on Elneny, Mhiki, Jenks, Ospina, Chambers, Xhaka, Kolasinac, Mustafi? those sales + some adidas money + 40 million = an ok budget, no?
(assuming Monreal leaves for free like Welbs and Ramsey, yeah?)
Absolutely no surprise. If we win the Europa League and therefore qualify for the Champions’ League then it’s a case of “job done” as far as Stan is concerned. The Yank has no interest in challenging Citeh and Liverpool for the two major honours. He just wants the CL money. My guess is that we’ll see a repeat of last summer, with us shopping at Primark for basement bargain deals. What we really need are three quality defenders to replace Kos, Monreal and the hopeless Mustafi. We also need a box-to-box midfielder and a world-class playmaker to replace Ramsey and… Read more »
Fairness doesn’t matter any more. Money does. Welcome to the world.
I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but it might be true in upper league football.
“The Yank has no interest in challenging Citeh and Liverpool for the two major honours.”
Based on what evidence? A different strategy doesn’t mean a different goal. A few years ago our fans were bitching about teams that did exactly what you’re begging for. Chelsea have a transfer ban, there’s calls for City to be banned from CL next year, is that what you want?
Finally, a nugget of reason amongst all of this horseshit. Thank you.
What about Liverpool and Sp*rs? You know, the actual CL finalists *vomits in mouth a little*. Both have sustainable models as far as we can see, so why is our strategy so different from theirs?
Stripping them of the title does what really? The players and fans know they won on the field. You wouldnt award it to Liverpool after the fact because it would be a bit of a shambles.. although I am sure the fans would embrace it, I think players would see it as a shallow title. The real issue here imho is that any fine is not really a deterrent to the big clubs. They pay it, flaunt the rules again and continue to make way more then they lose. Starting a season with loss of points, and maybe transfer window… Read more »
And if they’re banned from the Champions League and stripped of the title, maybe the fourth CL place goes to the club who finished fifth – I can dream
Well, yes, that’s the point of the story suggesting they be banned from the CL.
I think we underestimate the importance of the leaving of Ramsey. He hardly played this season and still he is our 3rd most efficient player (not to mention his leadership qualities). I think expecting Gouendouzi, Smith Rowe and Nkunku to replace him in 1-2 years time is classic wishful-thinking. (Just imagine them against Henderson, Wanyama, Kante or Dyer) I like our youngsters (and our target Nkunku) but this set-up would be a classis boys vs. men screenplay… again. …and my biggest fear: if we trying to survive on the cheap and with the youngsters – the mistakes they will make… Read more »
Sales…must have sales. £40 million is not much especially since we need some major upgrades in several areas. Doesn’t Kroenke’s wife have some people from Wal-Mart that specialize in getting things out the door quickly? Make some calls, you gazillionaire, gaudy-suited, franchise-moving, club-draining ranch-hermit!
By all means get the players the defence needs. At the same time get a
defensive coach . When Wenger was manager he brushed aside the need for
one believing in his own hype.The result was a series of heavy losses to the top
teams. Who can ever forget 8-2 and the 4-4 draw with NU.Arsenal shd have sacked him there and then .
In the games against Spurs,Chelsea and MU no goals were conceded.Hopefully
Emery will relook at how Arsenal stifled the attacking threat of the 3 teams.
Dead right. He deserves to be given a chance, but my guess is that Emery is not the answer for Arsenal Football Club. His defensive coaching is clearly not good enough. His teams ship 50 league goals a season. We need a manager who can drill a back four,
has any one Seen Bould recently… not seen him in the dug out at any matches for over a month
I see arsenal transfer like the last season of GoT; go into it with high expectations due to constant speculations as to what will happen, then you’ll feel disappointed.
I’m a minimalist. I’m excited to see the youth play; I want Saka and Nelson in those wing positions, Willock and ESR in our midfield, and Beilik in there somewhere. I can live with that and enjoy it.
That’s way better than watching players who earn millions/yr put up the kind of performances they do
I would like to see them integrated as well, but not at the expense of leaving us duking it out with Wolves and Everton for ‘best of the rest’.
We are very close to restoring St. Totteringham’s Unequilibrium.
I’d love to see the young guys you mentioned given regular game time. Not just sporadic sub appearances.
And Eddie too. So glad he got his first Prem goal. Deserves more opportunities.
And lots of tits involved?
More than anything I want an identity and a style of play.
Does that make Ozil like Daenerys Targaryen? Started out as a hero but then…
More like the Night King;
Massive hype but then cant seem to handle it away from home in a cold snowy place up north.
I don’t get it??
How much money do premier league teams get for being in the Premier League?
I heard that Chris Hughton earned Brighton 100 million for keeping them in the Premier League this season.
How much do Arsenal get for finishing 5th?
Whatever money they get for finishing 5th should automatically be reinvested into the team.
I think we made something like £39 million in premier league tv money, but I could be grossly wrong.
A quick google will tell you what the PL clubs earnt last season.
Most of it appears to go on salaries.
The Brighton 100m mentioned would have been over a few years including the ‘parachute’ payments if they drop back to the championship, rather than 100m per year.
Based on that transcript, it won’t be spectacular. Just a central defender, box to box midfielder, wide striker, left back and right back ?
We will never win the League again under Kroenke’s era…
arseblog, David Ornstein has not said anything new here and as per normal it has disinformation right at the nucleus of what interests the reader; (i.e.) 2019 Summer transfer budget. To quote; “It all depends on their budget. If they’re playing Europa League football next season it looks like it will be around £40m. If it’s Champions League it would be significantly higher. They also have revenue streams coming on board with the new Adidas kit deal……” This is damningly and mischievously incorrect , the character of Ornstein surfaces again. In January2019, Vinai Venkatesham(Managing Director of AFC) stated the true… Read more »
Hi Omar.
Your figures are completely wrong. The MAX we can earn from winning from the Europa League is around £35m – https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/1127837215860625408
Venkatesham never said anything about our transfer budget, but did say that being in the Europa League was costing us ‘tens of millions’ of pounds each season – https://arseblog.news/2018/11/venkatesham-we-can-survive-europa-league-stint-for-now/
Arsenal are set to post a £60m loss based on transfer outlay, and the lack of Champions League revenue for the last two years. And your insinuations about David’s character are wide of the mark, and pretty ironic considering the levels of misinformation in your comment.
Consider yourself smote, sir.
I hear there is a chap called Santi Cazorla out of contract this summer. Don’t know if you have heard of him?
He can kick a ball apparently and would not cost the earth to bring to the Emirates!
Like it or not that CL extra 20m won’t make as much difference as selling Ozil & Miki whose wages total 550K per week and let’s be honest, their return on the pitch is far far less than 550k.
Just a quick question… What would you say is Rauls top 3 achievements so far in this club since he got here? If the summer should have the slightest chance of real success I think our hopes are pinned on him. So what has he done since joining us that can get my hopes up?
1. Pushing out our Head of Recruitment
2. Failing to secure his 2 candidates to replace him
3. Deciding to get involved in transfer selection and deciding along with Emery Denis Suarez is a good loan option.
Sad. I sometimes wonder how much his succes at Barca had to do with the fact that it was…. Barca…
That’s true of anyone in any role that came from a club like Barca…
I mean, he presided over the Neymar scandal, and he was the primary catalyst for buying our Vermalaen, Song and Hleb.
This summer is clearly vital to Raul Sanllehi.
He must push bunch of smart deals in order to get Arsenal back on track. Or else, we are gonna slip deeper into mid table.
Everton with Usmanov money is catching up with us. Top six is gonna be very tight.
Judge Raul at the end of next season.
This equates to Kroenke not investing his own money. The supporters are being mugged. Please show your disdain for this “nightmare” owner. He is a shame and disgrace to Arsenal’s history and name.
He’s not saying anything that’s not really in the public sphere. I think Ornstein has lost his source since the change of manager/staff. This is just guess work imo
Looking forward to the Saka-Nkunku-Nketiah triumvirate next season.
£40 million ain’t much. Our buying business will need to be as good as last summer.
Any news on who’s going? Investment in CB and CM is important but this club cannot continue to carry players who are unable to meet the needs of the team. How can the board justify keeping guileless attackers and clumsy defenders? Everyone knows what needs to be done, selling them might remove barriers to our progress and free up funds for more suitable players Would we have finished higher in the table without ozil, miki, mustafi et al? Probably not. get them out, ship them off, or turn the lights out in the club house when they show up to… Read more »
What’s happening with Emile SR?
Currently out on loan, is that being extended for another year do we know?
Emery clearly thought highly of him last summer and beginning of this season. He was injured for a while when he went on loan I know… what’s the rumoured plan for him?
Djené – I wasn’t familiar with him. Looked him up – seems a bit short for a CB (5’10).
Agree. No thanks.
Like Cannavaro and Maldini.
Or in the case of Arsenal, more like Gallas, Vermalaen, Gabriel and Mustafi.
Maybe we should stop hoping on another Cannavaro or Maldini, but look towards modern successes, like VVD?
Haha, true. I think it’s a perfectly great height, it’s pretty much my height, but you know what I meant.
Of his choice of words such as “spectacular” and “important” I deduce his source is perhaps a member of the Spanish contingent?
Griezmann !!! He is Laca’s best friend!
Spending on Griezmann will clearly blow out all of our budget.
Some fans need to know that Pepe, Grizemann, Umtiti rumours are just fake!!!
They need to understand the club better.
Sheesh!
I don’t know about rumours, I just think he would fit right in. I wonder how much we could get for Ozil? PSG piling up names, he could compensate for Rabiot departure.
You are forgetting Auba.
It is what it is at the end of the day, we know the people running the club are tossers, but there are plenty of cheaper transfer options out there that just need ‘that chance’. It just means a likely increased adaptation time if we’re asking them to make the step up to a higher level & obviously the risk that they can’t step up, but we’ve spent big on plenty of players that couldn’t adapt or just got complacent so I’m kind of excited about what bargains we can find under the new gaffer. The expectation will be lower… Read more »
Funny thing is I used to love the days of Arsenal buying smart and everyone saying “who?” to the players we got. From Van Persie, to Eduardo and Kos being our last of that ilk.
Felt as soon as we started trying to buy established names is when we lost our way. It’s frustrating as Spurs and Liverpool are merely doing what we used to and used to be good at.
Not sure Djene is the answer to our defence – his passing stats are terrible, 71%. For comparison, that’s worse than all of our outfield players, and our centre backs are generally around 88-91%.
https://www.whoscored.com/Players/332990/Show/Djen%C3%A9-Dakonam
Is there really such a huge financial difference between Champions League and Europa League? In the podcast Andrew compares finalists from both competitions and the prize money, but surely Arsenal would maybe just get out of the groups stages at best with the current squad in the top competition.
Swiss Ramble has the breakdown on his twitter. It’s a huge difference. We would have got €26.6m purely on our UEFA coefficient, regardless of any prize money for winning games, guaranteed participation money, or TV money. We’ve earned €36m so far for getting to the final of the Europa and will max get €40m. Utd and City earned €93m for losing in the quarters of the UCL. None of these figures include ticket sales or increased sponsorship. From experience you would expect 3 Cat B games and and 1 Cat A games if we made it out of the group.… Read more »
But according to the wiki page it is a lot less if you don’t get past the group stages. I just think the Champions League money wouldn’t even make much of a dent on the wage bill unless you make it further into the competition.
I would love to get back into the CL, but we will not suddenly be awash with transfer funds.
Same old story. One of the richest clubs in the world saying it has no money to spend and us fans hoping to make champs league so instead of a 20 million center back we’ll buy a 25 million center back.
Kronke has no interest in spending which is why they developed the branding that our club has values and will do things the arsenal way, in other words buy one big name every so often to keep fans happy but then buy cheap players who are average.
Something honestly tells me this guy knows NOTHING, and is clutching at Arsenals uncertainty to keep himself relevant and gather a living. Honestly he’s just regurgitated the same lines from anyone and everyone. How can our club have only 40mil to spend? Stop it.
It’s not what we *have* to spend it’s what we’re willing to/ realistically gonna spend without champions league (but even with it I doubt we’ll splash that much more)
This sounds right to me. People expecting Özil, Mkhi, Elneny, Mustafi to all be moved on will definitely be disappointed.
Ozil 20M, Elneny 12M, Mustafi 15M. Mkhi is an important player and should stay.
47M for all three players + the huge wage bill release should allow us a happy transfer window. COYG
Would be nice but we’re losing 3 players whose contracts are expiring. I don’t see us bringing in more than 3 or 4. So 1 of Jenkinson/Elneny/Mustafi will go but that’s about it I think
I would blow whatever we have on a central defender to enable us to trust a back four again. That would strengthen the midfield by allowing an extra player in there.
We scored plenty of goals outside of the top two, but let in way too many. If this can’t solve something, then it has to be bad coaching.
Sounds about right. I could tell you the same (which I have) I doubt we even go past 50m even with CL footy (watch City and UEFA issue too) BUT if we don’t make it, we are going to have a difficult summer. As mentioned I think our priorities are : 1)Cback. As I mentioned before we don’t have to get a top drawer name (cost will be prohibitive) but someone diligent. There have beena number of teams that have done well defensively this season I think Lille has also been quiet parsimonious in defense, Inter Milan. I think we… Read more »
BUT the area I would like to see our club spend and have the MOST ambition this summer is frankly for the Technical Director.
Sadly I don’t think those above Raul have the cojones or clout.
Personally I would like to see us spend and get Luis Campos in
http://breakingthelines.com/manager-analysis/luis-campos-the-rise-of-footballs-most-underrated-sporting-director/
If it means kicking Raul upstairs, I would.
We simply need someone like Campos to operate in conjunction with Unai.
BUT the problem at Arsenal is we show no ambition in this area and go for quick fixes (Mslintat)
Too many are emotional when it comes to who should leave and lack levity in judgement. Those who think it will be easy to offload Ozil, Mustafi etc are having a wank. We can’t even sell Elneny and Jenkinson who are way more useless to the squad. We have Cech, Welbeck, Ramsey, Lichstiner out. Koscielny should be allowed to step down too. Plus those two mentioned and that is a lot of players out. Any more players will depend on offers but ask yourself exactly who will want to pay for Ozil? IMO who goes out beyond those i mentioned… Read more »
Worth noting even the normally hysteric Arsenal Fan TV have calmed their criticism on Mustafi and have a more lucid nuance judgement on the player. He is no where as bad as some prefer to see him. Too many amplify any fault they can find on the player whilst conveniently ignoring the positives he does. And there are plenty. 1)He has good strength in the air, wins a lot of aerial challenges for us over the season. This is an area we can struggle on (have in the past) particularly against teams like Stoke back in the day that like… Read more »
Hopefully, the transfer ban at Chelsea, potential CL Disqualification for City, potential Liverpool spending halt and Spurs stadium repayment will play to our favour this summer.
Sorry to join late. Is it £40M plus player sales or is David including expected player sales in that figure?