Category Archives: Arsenal

How do Arsenal compete with Manchester City long term?

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Morning Arsenal.

October and top of the league. It feels good. Although I don’t expect us to stay there as we haven’t really played a top team yet.

We might be above Man City right now but I think even the most optimistic of fan would still expect them to win the league.

They don’t even look like they are out of second gear yet and are brushing opponents aside with ease.

The WhatasApp chatter over night was “what do we need to do to beat them to the title?”

My answer was simple – increase our wage bill by 50%.

Long time followers of the blog will know that I am a big believer of that, on average, the more you spend on wages the higher you finish up the table.

Manchester City reportedly spend around £355m a year on wages. We spend “just” £244m

If you go through Manchester City’s starting XI, almost every player is “a level above” Arsenal’s:

  • Ederson > Ramsdale
  • Walker > Tomiyasu
  • Dias > Saliba
  • Laporte > Gabriel
  • Cancelo > KT
  • Partey = Rodri
  • Gundogan > Xhaka
  • KdB > Odergaard
  • Saka = Silva
  • Foden > Martinelli
  • Haaland > Jesus

And this is replicated in the key replacements:

  • Ortega = Turner
  • Stones > White
  • Ake > Holding
  • Phillips > Elneny
  • Grealish > ESR
  • Mahrez > Vieira
  • Alvarez = Nketiah

Now this blog isn’t a debate of who is better individually, but who is better as a whole. And no one can deny that Manchester City have a better starting XI and better squad then us.

To compete with them we need to improve our starting XI. And with that comes spending more wages.

Now improving the XI is not just about signing better players, but developing our players to be better.

Take William Saliba.

He could us quickly becoming one of the best central defenders in the league. He would not be out of place in Manchester City’s XI. He is reportedly on just £40k a week.

Compare that to John Stones (£250k) and Ruben Dias (£180k).

If we want to keep Saliba, eventually we will need to pay him those sort of wages.

Bukayo Saka is another example.

He is already one of Arsenal’s highest earners on £120k a week – Jack Grealish earns £300k and Bernardo Silva earns £150k.

Whilst I think Saka will sign a new deal, we will not keep him more than a couple of years longer if we do not pay him what he would command at Manchester City.

We also need to improve the XI by continuing to sign better players.

Martin Odergaard is brilliant, but is not Kevin de Bruyne. Gabriel Jesus is no Erling Haaland, Gabriel no Amyeric Laporte and Granit Xhaka that level below Ilkau Gundagon.

I am not saying they are bad players. They are just not as good as their City counterparts. And it is why City spend 50% more on wages than us.

And then this is represented through the “2nd XI” as well.

Stones, Nathan Ake, Kalvin Phillips, Jack Grealish and Riyad Mahrez are all better than Ben White, Rob Holding, Mo Elneny, Emile Smith Rowe and Fabio Vieira.

Now shit your eyes and imagine for a bit.

Imagine we bought a central defender better than Gabriel, and then White and Gabriel were our 2nd choice CB pairing. You’d argue they are on par to Stones and Ake.

Or imagine we went out and signed Rafael Leao – in turn relegating Martinelli to the bench. Martinelli v Grealish. That’s par.

Or we went and found a better attacking midfielder than Martin Odergaard. Someone who is as good as de Bruyne (easier said then done). We’d then be talking about Odergaard v Mahrez.

Now this isn’t to say Arsenal are a bad team. We are not.

This is all about how we compete longer term with Manchester City – and the only way we do that is by improving the players in the 1st XI, which in turn improves the squad. But that costs money.

On 2019 (pre-Covid) we generated around £340m. We made a £32.2m loss. So it is clear that if we want to match Manchester City’s wage bill (£355m) we need to begin increasing revenues.

A return to Champions League football and the new Adidas deal will be small steps towards that. But we have a long way to go.

We might compete with City this year. We might be “best of the rest”. But to be long term competitors, we need to be increase that wage bill.

Have a good Wednesday.

Keenos

ESR Future, Klopp the Flopp and Xhaka Redemption

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Emile Smith Rowe Future

It has now been confirmed that Emile Smith Rowe will be out untill Christmas with the same muscle injury that has plagued his young career.

I got heavily criticised a few weeks ago for daring to question his future at the club.

Whilst I get that he is a Hale End boy, one of our own, we have to get better at selling players at the right time. And next summer could be the right time to cash in on the Englishman.

He will still be just 23 and not yet have the “sicknote” label that will see his transfer value plummet.

Smith Rowe will still command a huge transfer fee, and that money can go into funding a replacement who does not have his questionable injury record.

Klopp the Flop

When do the Liverpool owners begin to get itchy feet with Jurgen Klopp?

Yes, he has worked wonders with Liverpool in his 7 seasons at the club – winning 4 trophies in that time – but with 10 points from the opening 7 games, surely the axe can not be far away?

12 months ago, after losing our first 3 games, we also had 10 points from the opening 7. All the press were on Mikel Arteta’s back. He was favourite to “wein” the sack race.

The “Klopp-era” will be talked about by the Scouse loving Liverpool as one of the greatest era’s in Premier League history. But ultimatley they have won 1 more trophy than Chelsea and Manchester United, 2 more than Arsenal and Leicester City and 6 less than Manchester City.

Is Klopp becoming more well known for finishing second (to Bayern & Man City) than being a winner?

Granit Xhaka Redemption

For the second game in a row the Arsenal faithful were cheering Granit Xhaka’s name at the final whistle.

Tomorrow I will write something a little deeper on his redemption, but as someone who has always backed him I feel vindicated.

Xhaka was never the bad player some made him out to be. He just became the punching bag for an unhappy fanbase.

It is easy to forget sometimes that footballers are still human and young men. At 30-years-old, Xhaka is younger than most of those that hurled abuse at him.

I am glad he is now in a better head space, and playing with a smile on his face.

His partnership with Thomas Partey and Martin Odergaard is probably the second best midfield trio in the league behind Rodri, Gundagon and de Buryne.

He is the leader of this team. The managers voice on the pitch.

Xhaka is already taking his coaching badges and working with our youth teams. Future Arsenal manager?

Keenos

Partey time for Arsenal in the North London Derby

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Over the last few months, there has been plenty of chatter online that we should be looking to replace Thomas Partey due to his injury issues.

Since joining the club in 2020, the 29-year-old has missed 28 games through injury – exactly 25% of the games.

His 10 game absence during the run in last season cost us top 4, and he has already missed 5 games this season.

But the performance against Tottenham showed exactly why we can not afford to get rid.

Whilst one of the cotenders to replace Partey sat warming Tottenham’s bench, Partey put in a MOTM performance, scoring the opener and being a dominating force in the middle of the park.

As predicted, the Kane v Partey duel was key to the outcome of the game. And Partey dominated the England captain – Kane had just 2 touches in the box; one of which was the penalty.

It is easy to say you want Partey to be replaced, but he really is irreplaceable.

Who else in world football right now is a one man destructive force in midfield. Whilst also has the ability to get his foot on the ball and create?

The trend in recent years has been to play 2 defensive minded midfielders. Pretty much every team in the Premier League have a pair marshalling in-front of the defence.

Manchester City are the only ones who consistently go away from this model. And now Arsenal.

Both play just one in-front of the defence – Partey and Rodri. Then have someone further forward that can drop deeper if needed – Grant Xhaka and İlkay Gündoğan.

Having just one deeper midfielder means that they can overload the opponents in attacking areas.

Realistically, we are not going to be able to replace Partey with someone of similar quality. The likes of Douglas Luiz are just not on his level.

So naturally, whenever Partey is not on the pitch the quality in the Arsenal team will drop.

Whilst it is a negative, it is not something that is easy to resolve. Partey is that good!

On Saturday we had plenty of Ghanaians crying into their cornflakes that Partey had pulled out of their 2 friendlies injured, only to start against Tottenham.

Maybe they should give a little more respect to their starman who had played just one of the last seven games for Arsenal.

Anyone with a brain would have agreed that Partey not playing in a couple of international friendlies would give him more time to come back from injury. And mean that he is fitter come the World Cup when it really matters.

The fact he only played 73 minutes on Saturday showed that he is still not full fit. and Arsenal will have to continue managing his game-time to ensure he does not have a recurrance of his thigh problems.

I still maintain Arsenal’s best option will be to go for a younger option. the likes of Danilo of Palmeries or Brighton’s Moises Caicedo.

Sign one of these been then do not cast Partey aside.

That would then give us 2 – 2.5 years (depending on if Danilo joins in January or Caicedo next summer) to have Partey as first choice and an understudy learning from him.

By the time Partey’s contract expires in 2025, we would hopefully have his replacement ready to go! We could then afford to lose him for a free knowing that our succession planing means we will not need to buy to replace.

Enjoy your day. Stay on the cloud 9. UTA.

Keenos