Author Archives: keenosafc

Dubai return, Injuries, Ivan Toney and more

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Dubai return

I am not a fan of the winter break. It feels pointless. But it also came at a good time for The Arsenal.

We felt like a club under pressure. Struggling for positive results with a missfiring forward line. Spending 10 days in Dubai has been an opportunity for players to unwind – both physically and mentally.

Tomorrow we need to get behind the lads. They would have shaken the negativity off, so it will be important that we the fans do not pile it straight back on.

A big enough win tomorrow (8 goals!) and we go second…

Injuries

With the team out in Dubai, we have not had the usual thursday pre-match Mikel Arteta press conference. That means we have no idea if any of our walking wounded will be back fit.

The lads out long-term – Jurrien Timber, Fabio Vieira and Thomas Partey – will almost certainly not be back.

Some were hopeful that Timber would return in February, but with the type of injury he had this was always optimistic. I would be surprised if we see him until April.

Fabio Vieira and Thomas Partey were both out in Dubai training, but the Crystal Palace game will come a little early whilst they continue to rebuild their fitness. With another 10-day break before our next game, expect both to be held back.

Olexsandr Zinchenko is currently 50/50 to start against Palace. The expectation earlier in the week was that he would be back, but the Evening Standard are now reporting that he might not be fit enough.

It is better news for Gabriel Jesus. The Brazilian has looked fit, sharp and ready in Dubai. Expect him to be straight back in the first XI tomorrow.

Ivan Toney

I have always been concerned about Ivan Toney’s attitude.

Those Snapchats from a couple of years ago where he abused Brentford never sat well to me. Then you had the gambling ban. And more recent the interview where he openly discussed leaving the West London club.

Btrentford recruited Toney from League One. They supported him during the gambling issues and his ban. He has shown them so little respect and clerarly believes he is destined for bigger things than them.

Compare Toney to Ollie Watkins (who Toney replaced at Brentford). Watkins gets his head down, scores goals, and is never in the press for the wrong reasons. There is a reason why Watkins has now become an England squad regular, whilst Gareth southgate was always reluctant to pick Toney.

I am not sure that I would want someone with Toney’s attitude at the club, despite the goals he might score.

Tottenham transfers

Spurs fans are all a little giddy right now after news broke that they will (potentially) be signing 18-year-old Norwegian forward Antonio Nusa.

“Ange has transformed us”
“Paratici doing bits”
“Levy backing Ange”
“So exciting to be a Spurs fan right now”
“We are back as a serious club”
“Ange success rewarded”

Let’s get a few things right.

They have signed a Romanian central defender that no-one had heard of 6 months ago.
They have signed (on loan) a past-it forward who was dumped by Chelsea, and has now been dumped by RB Leipzig
They are potentially going to sign an 18-year-old forward with 5 goals in 52 games that no one had heard of yesterday morning

This will not be the first transfer window Tottenham have “won”. Infact, by my math they have won more transfer windows than league titles.

As for Spurs being back and brilliant Ange, Tottenham are 5th, behind “found out Mikel Arteta” and “struggling Arsenal”.

Give it 18 months and the tactically inept Australian will be at Fulham.

Jordan Henderson

Joke of a man.

Went to Saudi Arabia for the money, pretended he was going to “achieve something special and build a club and build the league”, and then within 6-months he is out of there.

Everyone knew that the Saudi Pro League was a huge sports washing experiment, and all those players that took the money to promote the nation in a positive light are complicit in the Human Rights atrocities that are carried out at the demands of their pay masters.

One reason I chuckle when football wear rainbow laces or take the knee is because you know the majority of them can be bought. They will all go to Saudi Arabia for £500k a week, despite the “Kingdoms” stance on slavery and sexuality.

Henderson was one of the most prominent voices during the “we will promote any cause” era of the Premier League. He then showed his true self by going to Saudi for the money.

He should never play for England again.

Keenos

Arsenal unlikely to sign anyone in January

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This has probably been the quietest January transfer window in recent memory.

Just 7 teams have signed new players so far this window, with just 5 of those teams making a permanent signing.

Less than £30m has been spent by Premier League clubs this window, with 84% spent by Tottenham on just a single player that no-one had heard of.

No top club has yet to dip their foot into the market, and it is highly unlikely that anyone will.

So why is spending so low this winter?

Teams overspent in the summer

Last summer, more money was spent across the globe on football players than any in history. More than £6.5bn was spent on new recruits, with the Premier League and Saudi Pro League leading the way.

The Premier League alone account for £2.36bn of this spending, and it was not just driven by the big boys – 10 clubs spent more than £100m, including the likes of Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and West Ham.

Clubs maximised their spending last summer. Very few (if any) kept their powder dry to make a transfer or 2 in January. Most do not have a pot to piss in until TV and sponsorship money comes in at the end of this season.

Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR)

In recent days, PSR has become the most used word in football following Nottingham Forest and Everton’s charges for breaching the rules.

These rules are in place to protect clubs from overspending to get out of trouble (or gain success), and then hitting financial issues if they can not spend their way out of trouble.

Whilst fans of some clubs are claiming that PSR is stopping their club spending, it is actually the way their club has been run for the last 3 or 4 years that is restricting them.

I have read West Ham United fans saying PSR is the reason they have not spent this winter – the same fans who blame their owners every window. Which is it? Likewise, Everton have lost nearly half a billion pounds in recent years, but apparently it is PSR stopping them buy.

Whilst I do understand that PSR is having an impact, the main reason clubs are not signing anyone (yet) is because they spent all their money in the summer. What PSR is doing is stopping them spend money they do not have.

Foreign clubs are broke

Nearly half of the total global spend in 2023 was spent by the Premier League and Saudi Pro League. Whilst the global total was up, spending in the top 5 leagues excluding the Premier League was down from the previous record year (2019).

The above graphic highlights why teams in Spain and Italy are pushing for a European Super League. Due to their own leagues being run in such a poor (and corrupt) manner, they no longer generate anywhere near close to what they did back 5 or 6 years ago. As a result, their clubs recieve less income and they have less to spend on transfer.

Bottle neck of transfers

Transfers are often like a line of dominoes; when one piece topples, a myriad follow in a ripple effect. The issue is right now, with money so tight, no pieces are falling.

Lets say Arsenal spend £80m on Ivan Toney. That then gives £80 to Brentford to spend on maybe 4 or 5 players, which in turn gives those clubs £15-20m to spend on players.

A couple of those clubs then spend that £20m on some Manchester United fringe players, which gives them a funds boost and they can then make a single big purchase, which triggers the next load of dominoes to fall.

The problem is the big clubs do not have the big funds to make the dominoes fall.

Lower clubs can also start the chain by purchasing players from bigger clubs.

So lets use Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah as an example. You might get Everton spend £40m on Smith Rowe and West Ham spend £30m on Nketiah. That then gives Arsenal £70m in incoming funds, which we can then use on Toney, and it triggers the scenario above.

But clubs like West Ham, Everton, Wolves, Brentford and more do not have the funds (this window) to buy the fringe players which could trigger the domino effect.

And there is also little income coming in from abroad that could kick start deals – Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and more are broke. They are not looking to buy players from the Premier League, they are only looking to sell.

There is a standstill in the market right now, and whilst it might only take one transfer to pump life into it, I just can not see where that transfer is coming from.

Lack of available quality players

From Arsenal’s point of view, I feel there is a lack of available players that we would actually want to buy.

Before Christmas, there was speculation that we would be in the market for a new left back. But that player would need to be better than Olexsandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Jurrien Timber. That sort of of player is often not available in January.

That would leave Arsenal buying someone who is not as good as those mentioned. We would be recruiting someone for the sake of getting an additional body in.

As for a striker, Ivan Toney has spoken recently on potentially leaving Brentford, but I imagine most clubs will want to see how he returns to top flight football following 8 months off.

The likes of Dusan Vlahovic and Victor Osimhen are also on our radar, but these are probably summer targets – Osimhen specifically would not be available to play until mid-February, and players notoriously return from the African Cup of Nations unfit.

The reality is, January transfers very rarely win you the league, so we would be better off not taking money out of our summer budget unless a primary target does come onto the market.

I see a lot of chatter amongst Arsenal fans stating that by not making moves we are throwing away the league title. I am not sure that is true.

The truth is no team is making moves in January, and this is due to a combination of a lack of funds, being unable to sell players to generate funds, and a lack of available quality players.

Personally, I would rather wait for the summer and sign a top striker, rather than overpay now for someone who is mid.

Stay warm.

Keenos

Yet another own goal for Juliet Slot with Porto tickets costing up to nearly £132

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Hope you are nice and warm reading this! I certainly am not missing my old 5am commute from Loughton into London. That Central Line would be freezing until it hit Leytonstone and went underground.

Realisation is hitting for season tickets holders as to the cost of the Porto game which has been given A category by the club.

Season ticket holders have been somewhat “protected” from the different categories the club charges over the years.

Whilst the cost of our season ticket was made up of the individual Cat A, B & C ticket costs many, like me, would have just divided their ticket cost by 26 (the amount of games we used to get).

For me, that resulted in my season ticket being around £37 a game. I did not care if we were playing Burnley or Tottenham, I was paying £37 a game (even though the club were charging about £24 for Burnley and then £64 for Tottenham to fans on general sale). When I sold to a mate, they would pay my “season ticket average” regardless of the category.

At the beginning of this, the club cut the games in the season ticket to 22 – just the 3 guaranteed cup games. They then reduced the cost of the season ticket pro-rata as we were now paying for 22 games rather than 26. Individual ticket prices then went up, so the cost of the pro-rata’d reduced season ticket also saw the saw percentage increase.

At the time, this was seen as a positive.

For a long time, the Black Scarf Movement had been campaigning for a “season ticket lite”, where fans could chose to just pay for the 19 league games and then purchase cup games on a game-by-game basis.

Fans were being asked to pay upfront for 26 games, despite their being no guarantee of 26 games. If we got knocked out of the FA Cup or Europe early, or had a run of away ties, we would not reach the 26 and would geta refund at the end of the season.

The change to 22 ensured that fans were only paying upfront for the guaranteed games, and seemed to be a happy medium between the previous policy and the BSM “no cup games included” proposal.

Alongside the change, the club also introduced a “Cup Scheme” similar to the old Away Scheme.

If you opted into the cup scheme, the club would automatically buy you your seat on your behalf prior to the sale of cup games, thus ensuring that you did not miss out on the purchasing period. I failed to sign up for the cup scheme and then forgot to Liverpool tickets went on sale, resulting in me missing the game.

They reopened the cup scheme prior to the Liverpool game and I opted in to ensure that I would not miss another game.

The Cup Scheme again is brilliant. It ensures you still get your season ticket seat without having to worry or stress about remembering to purchase it. It also meant you only paid for the games we played, and you were not paying in advance for games we might not play.

If you did not sign up for the Cup Scheme, you still had priority over Silver’s to buy your seat in the same way season ticket holders have had priority for the League Cup for decades.

But then we come to Porto.

In the old system, the club were limited as to how many Cat A games they could include due to the season ticket. It would usually be split 7 Cat A, 12 Cat B and 7 Cat C. The first knockout stage of the Champions League was almost always a Cat B game.

But with the club now only having 22 games at a fixed price, they have more flexibility as to what to categorise those 4 other cup games, and for Port have they have picked Cat A. The result is ticket prices ranging from £67.78 to an eye watering £131.74.

It is just greed.

Now season ticket holders previously had to pay for cup tickets once the 26 games are used up. This would often be at the Champions League quarter final stage if we got 2 out of 4 home ties in the FA Cup (the schedule goes: FA Cup (3), FA Cup (4), CL (KO), FA Cup (5)).

Those 4 games alongside the 3 for the group stages would take us to our 26 tickets.

By the time we hit the QF of the Champions League, we were usually facing a Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester United, etc, so fans had no issue paying the premium Cat A cost.

Liverpool in the FA Cup was given Cat B. I was surprised by this as in the league it is a Cat A. And if we we were drawn against them later i nthe competition, it would certainly have been Cat A.

The decision to make Porto Cat A only came after the Liverpool defeat. Had we qualified for the next round of the FA Cup, I am sure Porto would have been Cat B.

What the club are now doing is trying to claw back some of the lost revenue from early cup exits by making Porto Cat A. It is just greed.

On top of this, season ticket holders also need to pay a transaction cost further increasing the ticket price, this despite our tickets being bought automatically, and uploaded to our digital pass. There is no additional cost to the club or its ticketing partners (Away Scheme members used to be exempt from the transaction fee).

Those who have opted in are unable to cancel their ticket. They are forced to buy it, but can then sell on the Ticket Exchange – where the club takes their percentage ass well as charges yet another transaction fee.

I feel for Mikel Arteta and others who have worked hard bridging the gap between the club, players and fans. Last season was brilliant (helped by our good form), but tensions are rising this season.

The good work is being undone by Chief Execs and Directors who only can about “maximising income”. They are disconnected from the fanbase and are going out of their way to create a hostile relationship with regular match going fans.

I am a fan of just having only the guaranteed tickets included in the season ticket price, and think the Cup Scheme is perfect for fans who want to go every game and are concerned they might miss out on their narrow purchase window.

But having a knockout Champions League game against Porto as a Cat A feels like an own goal.

Keenos