A lot has been written over recent years about Arsenal having a larger net spend than its rivals. This always comes from a negative standpoint in an attempt to highlight that Arsenal are the “biggest spenders” and therefore should not have additional praise for beating Manchester City, Chelsea, et al to the Premier League title.

Now I concede that over the years, Arsenal have not been the best sellers.

Our club record sale still remains Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain at around £35m. That is clearly not great. And this is further compounded by us getting nothing for the likes of Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang, Mesut Ozil, Sead Kolasinac, Alexandre Lacazette, Hector Bellerin, Nicolas Pepe, Kieran Tierney and Ainsley Maitland-Niles in recent years.

One area where we certainly need to improve is in the selling of academy graduates.

Had we sold them earlier, the likes of Maitland-Niles, Reiss Nelson could have pocketed us in excess of £30m. Instead we held on, offered big new contracts and, if Nelson leaves for nothing this summer, got £0 for them. This is why I would not be upset to see Ethan Nwaneri depart this summer if Mikel Artera does think think he quite has it.

But there is another side to this “net spend” coin that is rarely talked about – having a high net spend would show that you have actually bought well.

From 2021 to 2026… this is Manchester City's transfer spend, transfer sales and net spend in comparison to Arsenal.

Mind blowing🤯🤯🤯 pic.twitter.com/KqwoE3b99p
— Luke🏆🏆🏆 (@Komps4) August 19, 2026

Now I do not know the accuracy of this image. The Manchester City figure does feel a very low. But on the face of it, the tweet shows that Arsenal have been poor in the transfer market, having a net spend nearly £700m more than Man City. Chelsea fans have also posted similar infographics in recent years.

The story these sort of graphics do not tell, however, is that many teams who have a high total sales do so because they have bought poorly, and those sales are them dumping players that did not work out.

Meanwhile, Arsenal have bought brilliantly since 2021, had very little turnover of players and therefore very little need to sell. The result is a settled squad which led to the first title in 22 years and has us as favourites this summer. And this is reflected through our high net spend.

Manchester City have already dumped Tijjani Reijnders and James Trafford – both signed last season. Whilst also set to be out of the door this summer are Nico Gonzales, Omar Marmoush and Savinho; all of whom have only been at the club for 18 months. That is over £200m worth of talent signed in the last 18-months deemed not good enough and sold.

If all 3 depart, that will be 6 of the 15 players Man City signed since January 2025 that they have sold. That is very poor. Meanwhile, Arsenal have sold just one player signed since 2023 – Christian Norgaard. And in that period we have finished above City 2 out of 3 times, with both clubs having a league title each.

So this is how it works.

Arsenal sign £500m worth of talent. That £500m worth of talent performs so the club does not need to sell. They then have a £500m net spend over the period.
Man City sign £500m worth of talent. £200m of that talent does not perform and is sold. Man City recoup much of the sale price. They have a net spend of £300m over the period.

Why would it be deemed a negative that one team buys well and wins the league, whilst another team buys poorly and dumps players within 18-months? It is only really seen bad to those who put weight on net spend tables.

Let me lay out another scenario.

Arsenal sign Declan Rice for £100m. He performs well and does not spend to be sold. He then shows as a £100m cost, with £0 sale value, on a net spend table.

Than you have Nico Gonzalez. He is signed for £50m. He performs poorly and is later sold for £50m. 6-months after Gonzalez joins, Man City sign Tijjani Reijnders for £55m. He performs poorly and is later sold for £55m. Then Man City spend £65m on Ayyoub Bouaddi

There net spend during that period across the 3 players is £65m. That is £35m less than what Arsenal spent on Declan Rice. Brilliant business by Man City on the net spend tables. But the reality is they are set to be on their 3rd attempt to buy a central midfielder since failing to sign Rice, whilst Declan Rice has been a huge success at Arsenal.

And when it comes to amortisation and book value, net spend means nothing. A player leaving for nothing after 7 or 8 successful years is not accounted for in net spend tables and is seen as a negative transfer move by those only considered with net spend. Meanwhile a player leaving after 12-18 months having been a poor signing is seen as a positive transfer move by the net spend obsessed.

Spending £2bn and receiving £1bn in transfer fees (Chelsea), is not the sign of a well run club. It is the sign of a team that churns through players.

Then you have Arsenal who spend £1bn, have received £200m and have a similar net spend to Chelsea during that period. All that means is we signed players who have been a success, and have not felt the need to continually buy and sell in an attempt to find a formula that works. Arteta has already found that formula. And we are Champions.

Ultimately, our high net spend over the last 5-years is a credit to our buying strategy. And winning the title shows it has been a success.

Keenos

PS: the real net spend table from 2021 is below:

Chelsea could “cease to exist” in less than 12 months

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No league title in 9 years.
No FA Cup in 8 years.
No League Cup in 11 years.
No Champions League title in 5 years.

In the last half a decade, Chelsea have gone from regular winners to celebrating picking up major honours which have merely papered over the cracks.

Since their Champions League title in 2021 (those less educated Chelsea fans will now just focus on Arsenal’s lack of European Cup than the state of their club), Chelsea’s only honours have been:

The glorified post-season friendly tournament of the Club World Cup that no-one really cared about.
Winning the Europa Conference which, for a club like Chelsea, should be seen as a failure as it meant they finished outside the top Premier League places in the previous years.

For all the Chelsea fans who celebrated “completing football”, the truth is their club has been on a downward spiral ever since Roman Abramovich was run out of town by the British Government over his friendship with Vladimir Putin.

The lack of success is the least of Chelsea’s worries right now. The financial looming financial crisis they face within the next 12 months could genuinely lead them to cease to exist.

Chelsea’s issues are clear and obvious week in week out. For the 3rd season in a row they are likely to play without a kit sponsor. They basically entered a game of poker with potential sponsors and refusing to reduce what they believe the front of their shirt was valued for fear it could affect future deals.

Potential sponsors simply did not value Chelsea as a top club anymore, and the offers on the table reflected that. Now, moving on 3-years, the front of Chelsea’s shirt is very much seen as a poisoned chalice. No major organisation wants to be associated with the club (at what Chelsea are demanding), and the only offers on the table are likely from very niche organisations with questionable backgrounds.

It is estimated that Chelsea’s refusal to to a deal for their shirt sponsor has cost them close to £150m, and that is money that they can not afford to lose.

In a piece of fantastic financial investigative journalism by The Esk, Chelsea’s impending crisis, and that of its convoluted multi-layered ownership has been laid bare.

Chelsea ownership structure

To simplify things, Chelsea are owned by Blueco 22 Limited – the consortium the bought the club which is made up of Clearlake Capital Group L.P. (Behdad Eghbali and José E. Feliciano), Todd Boehly, Mark Walter, Hansjörg Wyss. RC Strasbourg is also owned by Blueco

Sitting above Blueco is 22 Holdco Limited. This is the parent company where all the debt of Chelsea and Blueco seems to have been absorbed into.

22 Holdco and Chelsea’s impending financial crisis

22 Holdco posted a pre-tax loss of £770m for the year to 30 June 2025. That is up from roughly £445m the year before. In that time, turnover only rose by 2.6% to £536.5m. Operating costs for the period was £1.16bn.

Chelsea themselves lost £262m during the reporting period, and hold around £440m in debt to servicing the likes of their ever increasing amortisation costs.

22 Holdco and Blueco have borrowed nearly £1.4bn combined since buying Chelsea in 2022.

Blueco is sitting on a £794m loan that needs to be either fully repaid or refinanced by 13 July 2027, whilst 22 Holdco have £794m in unpaid loans that is due to be paid in 2033 – with no requirement for early repayments, it is expected that the 22 Holdco loan could exceed £850m by 2033.

Putting the Holdco loans to one side right now, it is the £794m Blueco loan due to mature in 2027 that is most concerning. Taking into account their current financial predicament and on-pitch demise, it is unlikely that any export finance or credit agency would be willing to go near them.

That will leave Blueco needing to go out to the private market to secure loans which will have even bigger interest APR applied to them than they are currently paying (between 3.25% and 8%). That will basically make the Blueco financial hole deeper and deeper.

Interest already swallows up around 29% of the groups revenue. If favourable terms can not be found in the next 12 months, that figure is likely to sky rocket. And then you have the big “what if?”

What if no creditor comes out of the woodwork allowing Blueco to refinance in less than 12 months? Blueco would basically need to find alternative ways to pay that £794m. And those ways are not clear.

Now those less educated Chelsea fans will say “we always find a way around FFP/PSR/SCR”. But this is not a football finance issue. It is simply a finance issue.

Selling the women’s team, hotel, etc may have satisfied (at the time) Premier League and UEFA financial governance, but they were sold internally, to other organisations within the Blueco and 22 Holdco groups. They simply moved money about, but ultimately the underlying debt still existed.

It is like your dad being in £10k debt, so sells his car to you mum for £10k. He has wiped off the debt, but ultimately the family are still £10k worse off.

If Blueco do not find either a new financer or new investor, then they, and as a result Chelsea, could be done. They are no longer “too big to foul”. And having seen the post-Abramovich issues and what has gone on with Blueco, the club are not attractive to new investors.

Chelsea will more likely end up in the same scenario of when Ken Bates bought them for £1 – investors will let the club fail, knowing that the can then pick the club up for a bargain price and rebuild. Even if that rebuild needs to start initially from lower down in the pyramid.

There is already talk that Boehly and Walter’s are open to selling their shares. This is not to inject new cash into the club but more rats jumping a sinking ship. Their asking price reportedly values the club at £5bn, not too dissimilar to the Liverpool figure following their minority share buyout to a Jeff Bezos involved consortium.

In the last year, Clearlake put £450m of fresh equity in the group in an attempt to steady the ship. All this did is dig the hole deeper. And whilst some fans will say “Clearlake are a £90bn equity firm, they can afford it”, you have to remember their first obligation is to their shareholders. Not to Chelsea. And you also need to remember that Clearlake also borrowed money from its own credit fund to purchase Chelsea initially.

Chelsea’s financial crisis is beyond football. It is not just about selling academy products to meet PSR/FFP/SCR rules. It is not about selling assets to themselves and amortisation “loopholes”. Their holding company is in deep financial trouble, and the overall holding company could be in an even bigger mess come 2033.

In the late 00s, many Arsenal fan got frustrated with the landscape of football. Many of us held onto the thread of “what will happen if Roman leaves”, and we are now seeing it.

Chelsea are club with no major success in 5 years, no major sponsor, and are running out of cash fast. This summer could be their final Hail Mary before it all goes Pete Tong. In 12 months, the football landscape in West London could be very different…

My final thought is I notice those Chelsea fans who never stopped texting me since my University days (2003-06) have gone quite over the last 5 years. I hope they are OK…

Keenos