Having spoken a number of times about the need to trim his squad, Arsene Wenger didn’t sound overly positive when asked about it at his first press conference of the new Premier League season this morning.
The manager met the press ahead of Friday night’s game against Leicester (team news update here), and was pressed on potential departures.
Players like Kieran Gibbs, Lucas Perez, Carl Jenkinson, Mathieu Debuchy and others are available for transfer, but Wenger says he’s not especially confident of any immediate moves having spoken with other Premier League managers.
Asked if there was anyone on the brink of leaving, he said, “No. Even yesterday I had a manager’s meeting talking with the other managers in the other clubs.
“It looks like there’s many, many players, and at the moment it looks like there’s congestion everywhere.”
It’s likely that there will be a flurry of activity late in the transfer window as clubs make decisions they might have come to earlier in the summer. As well as that, players who are faced with a season of not playing may find offers more attractive, assuming they’re not just as happy sitting there picking up wages.
For now, however, it seems there’s little stirring in the Arsenal departure lounge.
Perfect. The Manager, Owner and Board are incompetent. A trifecta for the paying fans.
It’s a shame those chest pains weren’t more serious!
This was really unnecessary and pretty disgusting imo.
love it
Exactly, chest. Could’ve offloaded them months ago. Crazy stuff.
Why stop there? We could never have signed them in the first place.
In fact, in fact, let’s never sign players ever again!!!1!
So if there is congestion everywhere does that mean all Prem clubs are “incompetent” too? Idiot.
So if there is congestion everywhere does that mean all Prem clubs are “incompetent” too? Idiot.
Wow i hope this doesnt affect the incoming (Arrival) department
Think we are done with the arrivals…
From what I’ve heard internally within the club, it does.
To the point is seems Arsenal will be loaning most of the 1-year contract players. Jack is expected to head out to Bournemouth on loan again, I’ve been told.
Arsene?
More like Myles Palmer!
Of course it does. The whole point of what Wenger is saying is that nobody in the PL is buying players because they pretty much have too many already. The wild spend of TV money last season caused that. All of the PL teams have limited numbers of squad places so all of them need to sell before they can buy, so none of them are able to buy from eachother. That means their main hope of freeing space in their squads is to sell players abroad, BUT we are now paying even average players more wages than European teams… Read more »
I just wish we’d hurry up and get rid of the deadwood and free up more space (and wage bills) for new arrivals. It’s frustrating to see some of these players still hanging about at this stage of the transfer window. The most frustrating case so far is this – We accepted £10m for Szczesny, a player we shouldn’t have sold, but wouldn’t accept the same amount for Gibbs, a player whose career has stalled for the last three seasons and is now third choice left back (and honestly, I’d rather give Cohen Bramall a chance in the League Cup… Read more »
If true that we’ve rejected 10m for Gibbs then that’s bad but I’m not sure I believe it. It was rumoured West Brom offered that but Pulis said he had no interest in Gibbs and Gibbs is definitely not a Tony Pulis player.
I’m pretty sure that was in response to us turning down their £10m bid. I think Newcastle also bid a similar amount.
Gibbs isn’t worth much more than that even in today’s market. Especially after we sold a very good goalkeeper for the same price.
We need to dress Gibbs in orc clothing and wheel him back outside their gate.
Isn’t it possible that both Arsenal and Pulis were happy with the move, but that Gibbs refused? Doesn’t that fit all the available facts?
It takes 3 parties to be satisfied for a transfer to happen…and you said something here that many people here just don’t get. You can’t just sell a player to the highest bidder…they are not goods or services. Two clubs can agree on a fee for a player but the player have to come to an agreement also for the deal to finalize.
Obviously Szczesny was willing to accept the contract terms offered to him. I doubt any of the others will take the drop in wages they would be offered
This is actually the point. Leaving aside the fact that we don’t know whether we really did receive a £10m bid for Gibbs, it’s pretty clear that the sticking point with him and the others is wages. If, and this is pure guesswork, we’re paying him £70k a week and all he has on offer is £50k then he’s going to be in no rush to move on. The other thing about writing players off cheap is that you do also have to pay off at least some of a remaining contract (unless there has been a formal transfer request).… Read more »
“The other thing about writing players off cheap is that you do also have to pay off at least some of a remaining contract” – is this a common practice? I would guess that both side agree on the termination of the contract under the provision that the player signs for the new club.
Yes it is. Yes, normally it depends on how much the player wants to go as to how much the selling club pays. Obviously there may be exceptions written into some contracts but the basic idea is that there has to be a payment to terminate the club’s contract unless the player formally requests that the contract be ended (i.e. via a transfer request). This is why the Van Dijk situation swung a bit this week, the club can now make pure profit on his fee because he’s formalised his request.
succeeding Buffon at Juventus is a tad more inviting that playing for Pulis!
Most average PL footballers are way overpaid in comparison to the other European leagues. Players are given long, over lucrative contracts and refuse to take a pay cut. The fault is with the original, long & over-generous contract for an average player and no get-out clauses ie you have to play x% games this season or you won’t be paid as much, assuming you’re fit. But that clause would have to be agreed with all clubs as no agent would let his client sign it.
They’re not really deadwood, they’re cover. If you replace them with someone better, they will want to play. As cover goes I’d say they’re all pretty good.
you do understand how transfers work? Club can accept a transfer but so does the player. If either one rejects it then the transfer is off. So it could have been Gibbs who rejected the transfer and not the club.
if the players have any pride they would be off and wanting to play, though having a year training and getting paid, say, £80k a week (eg Debuchy) must be attractive.
You would prefer having pride in yourself over earning good pay?
Would your wife agree too?
Remember, you’ll be out of work because you’ve reached your thirties in a couple of years time, and you’ll have to find a new career. What careers are you ready for since you’ve been doing nothing but play football since you were 15?
33 first team players. Arsene warned the PL was in danger of strangling itself. Clubs know they’ve got us by the balls, either accept low offers? Or accept loans where we pay a percentage of the wages? Or have players sitting around doing nothing? Everything seems gridlocked. Our problem has been we’ve not been aggressive enough in what we do want, and now we’re left with a lot that we don’t want, and nobody else wants to pay them what we do. And the players we do want to keep, don’t want to stay because other clubs aggressively pursue what… Read more »
We’re not the only club in this situation. You only have to look at clubs like City, Liverpool and Man Utd to see a lot of deadwood eating up the wage bill, it’s the collateral damage of being a big club that can afford to take the odd gamble and gazump most other clubs when there’s an available player. I would suggest that it’s a mess that’s come about because we absolutely have moved with the times, it’s just a natural consequence of the wealth of the top clubs. And people have selective memories. Not so long ago people were… Read more »
No by more aggressive I mean: When Higuain was available and Madrid moved the goal posts not having a hissy fit and matching what Napoli put on the table. When Rodgers said originally that Cavani has just moved for £55-60mill and we rate Suarez in the same bracket, then immediately following it up with a £55million bid When clubs say players aren’t for sale, try offering them something they’ll find hard to refuse, instead of saying “sorry to bother you’ The amount of times we’ve heard Arsene say we missed out over top players over the odd million etc…. if… Read more »
So you want to avoid us being stuck with players that we originally wanted by buying more players for more money that also might become surplus to requirements? Hmm, i’m struggling to understand that business logic.
Get angry at not signing player X years ago if you want but that doesn’t explain how we now get rid of someone like Debuchy who 5 years ago was a very sensible signing in most people’s eyes.
Man city have moved on players this summer with no problems. So the fault is Wenger the man in total charge of Arsenal it seems.
Lots of the Man City players left because they were at the end of their contracts. They can’t move someone like Nasri, so it’s not as simple as you make out.
I don’t know where you’ve got Debuchy from?
But if we can’t get Debuchy to leave Newcastle for us, by only taking a moderate wage increase? then he’s probably not the player for us.
I quite like Debuchy, he’s just been extremely unlucky with the timing of his injuries and the emergence of Europes best young right back.
With regards to wages I’m suggesting we should pay our top talent more and squad players less.
Certainly not at least double what they’d be getting elsewhere
Debuchy is a prime example of the players we’re trying to shift. Nobody moaned when we signed him, it made perfect sense to pay him what we did. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s apparently a mess of Wenger’s making that we can’t flog him at the drop of a hat. The fact is that this is what happens at all big clubs, you pay a tax if you expect to outbid the smaller clubs for the young talent (otherwise why would they choose being back-up at Arsenal over playing every week at a smaller club?). I agree that… Read more »
Yes that’s why I said we haven’t moved with the times. 13years without a PL title. I’d rather have players like Perez who want out after one season because they’re not content with their playing time than the likes of Walcott and Gibbs who haven’t progressed, don’t play that much, but are content with their easy lives collecting their wages. If someone in the first team earns more than you? Then it’s up to you to take your chance when you get it and prove to the manager you deserve that spot and similar wages. We’ve got far too many… Read more »
Debuchy was 1st choice France RB when we signed him. I was at the game when he got his serious injury. He was a good signing who had Arsenal-injury bad luck. Gibbs is really ordinary, always has been and shouldn’t have been given a new contract (imho).
You are assuming all those players would even consider playing for Arsenal. Sorry, but we aren’t that big a club.
Arsenal is an upgrade to Newcastle.
Up until this season we played 20 consecutive years in the CL.
Spot on Rich. The speed in which Arsenal adapt to new ways of working in football is worrying.
He couldn’t prevent this situation. Its market forces at work. We didn’t have the reputation for success / oil money to allow him to aggressively compete with the Clubs that did for the best players. Part of this is because players have a say about where they are willing to go, and the very best have a choice of only about five teams they really want to play for.
Lots of things were promised by Arsene and Ivan when Wenger extended his contract. Save Lacazette, they really ain’t done that much yet.
Lacazette, kolasinac, lehmann, aussie chap, tried/trying for lemar and mbappe, ozil and sanchez probably staying (the thing everyone said MUST happen) Sshhhhh.
who wants Costa?
He’s a loon. Somebody will take him.
Occasional coffees are ok ?
Celebrating Alexis, Ozil and Ox staying at this point in the window is a bit like dancing around on Fri night if we beat Leicester? Claiming to have won the league because we’re top.
Our track record of doing what we say, or putting sporting aspirations about financial ones in these situations is not very good.
Definitely been a better than average summer.
Ben, you shhhh… That is not much although it is something. Not enough for sure.
Sanchez off then.2 wk tummy strain.my arse!8 players out for Friday.next to no deadwood shifted & most importantly sod all signings.i reckon “the ditherer”has prob got till end of sept.till it all goes tits up.a lot earlier this year hey arsene?an early Xmas present for those who want him gone.because the s**t is really going to hit the fan this time.
No signings apart from all the signings we’ve done?
No signings except for a record transfer, a tank, and keeping our two best players…
Yeh, keeping the best players who cannot wait to leave on a free!
That’s the LAW mate. It’s their RIGHT.
We just seem incompetent at getting rid of deadwood quickly
It’s b/c as much as AW hates to overpay, he’s entirely hypocritical when teams come to him looking for a bargain. We’ve GOT to get these guys out of here! And please add Walcott to that list too.
Walcott is the new Ramsey, eh?
It’s kinda cool to say “I want you out of my club” in every comment. Regardless the fact that he scored 19 goals last season, from the wing, without starting regularly. How many other players in the PL or even Europe can say that? Exactly.
I bet 95% of the people who want him out are the same that said “sign dat ting” a few years ago and that the club would be mad to let him go.
I can’t take you guys seriously.
The problem I think we have with some of those departures, salary costs aside, is bar Perez those guys are made of glass, it’s like we are trying to sell our broken china in John Lewis. Wilshere, Gibbs are highly breakable, Debuchy (MD) and Jenkinson (less so with Jenks) are coming of the back of big injuries, MD has returned but not to regular action, so no one’s seen him over a course of a few games and had their fears allayed. I honestly don’t believe AW wants to sell Gabriel and or Chambers, not with a gruelling Europa league… Read more »
Think we might have to take the hit on the transfer fee for Debuchy and possibly Gibbs, or watch them see out their contracts.
I think he’d happily sell Gabriel back to Spain. He thinks Mert has 1 year left in him, Holding has come through, Monreal can play CB now that The Tank is at LB (Have my reservations about him but he’s fun to watch), Mustafi and Koscielny.
This is becoming a league wide problem, with it impossible to sell on unwanted players due to the massive wages and transfer fees that premier league clubs are paying… Other clubs simply can’t and won’t pay for them. No wonder there’s been a huge increase in loans for players clearly without a future at their parent club.
This is the consequence of putting too much mediocrity on high wages. Who is going to pay Jenks & Gibbs 50-60K a week? For an economist Wenger doesn’t have waste some money. You would have thought the spell of the ‘socialist wage structure was over’ with dross like Diaby & Denilson getting ridiculous salaries, but no, here we are again. If you are Jenks, would you swap another year being at Arsenal, comfortable, playing the odd Carling Cup game, doing a few fan days on 48K a week for playing for Palace in the rain against Stoke? Thought not. Arsenal… Read more »
It’s pretty clear there are a number who are happy to train and collect the dosh.
This is exactly it.
Squad players like Walcott don’t care if their playing every week, they’re just comfortable about where they are in life.
You say that about Walcott, yet you’d be the same one saying we have no strength in depth. There’s a difference between someone that won’t play because they’re not good enough and someone we need to do a job.
We have a SQUAD. We cannot play every one of them every week. To have a squad you HAVE TO HAVE players who are OK with not playing every week. How do you not understand this basic fact about SQUADS?
So if Alexis signs it, and then gets a broken leg in the next game, how long will you wait before calling him deadwood and taking the piss out of Wenger for giving him a payrise?
Blogs, off topic but important. Right now I’m on a bus heading into Barcelona. Phil Collins is playing on the driver’s radio. I need an appropriate Spanish phrase to rescue me. Any suggestions?
“Mi pero está taponado”
“Oi, carajo face! Turn that shite off and let’s have some Julio Iglesias instead.
But considering Julio is Real scum and this is Catalonia it may be better to ask for something else. Baccara might be the ticket.
Mátame
Where’s that cockney feller singing rebell songs while doing the Nazi salute when you need him, eh?
I lived and, much to my chagrin, got Dire Straits next.
Oh, do stop complaining. The Arsenal players in question are paid monumentally above the going rate for their ability, therefore no club is offer them the same contract terms – that is why they are still on the Arsenal payroll. Would you, with your average talent and zero chance of being an outstanding success at your job, take a 40% pay cut and a crash in your image rights income (you do not receive much IR income when you play for WBA!)? And please do not prattle on about “if they are real footballers in love with the game they… Read more »
If I was in something purely for the money I think I’d make hay with ten grand a week as happily as I would with one hundred. Maybe that’s just me.
Point is that even if earning ten percent of what they did at a previous club no PL footballer retires poor. Unless they are stupidly irresponsible in which case fuck them. I have no sympathy for people who are cavalier with money.
How old are you? Ten grand a week until you are too old to play and then you have to find a proper job with a high possibility that your only skill is playing football. So your ten grand a week may have to be put in the bank and lived on from retirement from football until you are old enough to qualify for a pension, say 30 years minimum. Either that or become a dole bludger.
so what professional athlete is your neighbor? lol smh
I’m sure it’s only congested with respect to playing position with comparable salaries.
Here is the inherent double standards of her average Arsenal fan who thinks the club does every thing wrong When we are in for a player – as soon as it is reported in the news that we are interested, Arsenal fans clamour to get it done. You will read quotes like “Dick Law is a ditherer” “why do we waste time haggling” “pay whatever it takes to get him”. And if it seems like it is personal terms that is holding up the deal the fans say “pay him what he wants” Then 3 years later when for whatever… Read more »
Somewhere up above, one of the comments pointed out that all the Prem top teams have the same problem. And almost everyone completely ignores that fact, and says it’s Arsenal’s stupidity.
All crap lies, he cannot get rid of the deadwood and will keep them to play efl and fa cup. This is mediocre at its best. Penny pinching to seal deals and primark style when it comes to sell. We’re as usual two weeks away from deadlines date and I’m not expecting anyone else to come. Unless we starts season as the previous three then a panic buy. Utter mess this football club.
I keep seeing references to Chambers being a “fringe” player………..
Man for the future id say…….great prospect.
I think transfer market has moved towards summer window for ‘superstars’ and January window for ‘squad players’. A club like Newcastle, for example do not want to take the risk of buying a player like Lucas Perez for 12 million in the summer but, there is a high chance they will take that risk if in January they find themselves in a potential relegation battle. It’s the same with Gibbs and Jenkinson. No top flight club would want them in summer unless they need a player because their first choice is out with an injury for a long time (like… Read more »
They won’t want to buy them in January if they can’t get rid of some of their “deadwood” first. If they won’t buy them we can’t sell them. All of the PL clubs are in the same boat. Very few PL players being transferred this summer because nobody who needs them is willing to pay their wages. There is no downward movement of PL players who got bought for excessive sums and then proved to be Championship quality because no Championship team can bloody afford to buy them AND pay them the sort of wages they are on. There are… Read more »
The best solution from a club’s POV IMO is to terminate the contract early. The terms of termination should be inserted at the time of signing the player.
A fixed termination fee will enable the club to cut their losses and move on to other targets.
If we’re can’t sell them and we’re not going to play them then we have to loan them to clubs interested in signing them full time so long as they pay 100% of their wages to save costs. They won’t be paying a transfer fee so they can afford their current wages and at the end of the season we cut them loose and they can sign wherever. Kind of like letting them go on a free now. I suspect we’ll take whatever offer comes in at the end of the window though. I think other clubs know that but… Read more »
Best comment for common sense. Like.? Transfer to Arsène or Gazidis.
Having said that we as fans should not be concerned about “deadwood”, i.e. money this costs since it is a structural situation we have no control over. We should go for Arsenal being the most ruthless buyers of top players and equally of sellers as suggested by Rick. Do a PSG for a change. Just go out there and win us the league or buy us the league, no matter what the cost. We can afford it too.
So can Chelsea, Man City, Man United, Liverpool, and Spurs afford it. So it’s going to be a six-way battle just like last year. That is assuming that Bayern Munich, PSG, Barca and Real Madrid agree to sell all of their best players to the top 6 PL clubs. If they decide to keep them we can’t buy diddlysquat ruthlessly.
I really want Wenger and Arsenal to succeed. However, for the second year in a row we seem to be entering the season unprepared. Losing to Liverpool on the first day of last season was a massive blow! (kept us out of UCL) It was avoidable if we had prepared better. Obviously, injuries were not anticpated but Ozil, Ramsey, Sanchez all out with small niggles already is worrying. The amount of deadwood in the squad is just unacceptable as well. The likes of Gibbs, Debuchy, Jenkinson & Perez should not be around for ANY of pre-season if they are leaving.… Read more »
How do transfers happen in American sports. Is it a financial free for all with first come first served for any player from any country in the world? I don’t think so. I’m sure I heard words like “draft” and “picks”. No team is really prepared for the start of the PL season, so anything can happen in the first few games. Complaining about Arsenal being unprepared at the start of the season is like complaining that a duck sticks its arse in the water.
you mean American sports like the NFL where contracts aren’t guaranteed? players can get cut at any point and the team doesn’t need to pay off the rest of the contract?
This is not an Arsenal problem. It’s a Premier League problem. With all the cash flowing in, clubs have been overpaying average players.
Exactly. Man City had FOUR fullbacks on their books they did not want anymore: Sagna, Clichy, Zabaleta, and Kolarov. They got €5m from Roma for Kolarov. The others left on a free. Imagine the screaming among our supporters if Arsenal had done the equivalent.
I reckon if a newly promoted team bought debuchy with jenks as back up, gibbs as left back n gabriel in the cb, elneny/ ox in middle and perez up top they will stay in the epl quite comfortably. 100m will do tyvm.
Might actually be worth watching the Deadline Day coverage this window. Seems like we could be very busy!
…or nobody will be.
It has to trickle down.
The big names have to be moved on first and then the clubs further down will make their moves when the big fish have fed.
Its basic.
Which is why there is ALWAYS a scramble at the end of the market.
AND many of our “wantaways/surplus” are more “bargain basement” so we will be reliant on purchasing teams exhausting other options before making moves on them.
If I had a year to run on my contract I wouldn’t sign for a Championship club now for less money just to save you some money. I might be surplus but I still have to feed my kids until they leave home. You wanted me for 4 years and you signed a legal document promising to pay me for 4 years so you can f***ing well keep your side of the bargain. I’m signed with you for my benefit, not yours.
Players in the past would take a wage cut to move to another club and play football but that won’t be happening that much anymore…not with all the money owners agents coaches etc making. I think Wenger is right when he said that players running down their contracts will eventually become the norm. Can you imaging a player making far more money when there is no transfer fee involved.
Players used to be transferred from one club to another and THEN told they were “changing clubs today so pack your bags you’re going to live in Leeds from now on”, and yes, this happened to Arsenal players.
There never was a Golden Age when players played every week for the pure joy of playing. They only ate well if they played regularly. Most players today are on wages very much in line with the average man in the street.
This unwillingness for players to leave the comfort of AFC just sums up everything that’s wrong with the club. These sportsmen would rather sit in the reserves on big wages than take a pay cut to actually play football. Their mentality stinks and shows why they’ve never achieved anything at Arsenal. I’m a Wenger in man but his comments today about only bringing in possibly one more player of exceptional talent because we already have lots of good players is baffling. I’m sorry Arsene but we finished 5th last year for a reason and teams like City, Utd & Chelsea… Read more »