Category Archives: Arsenal

Tottenham apply to remain at Wembley until end of season

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The latest news in the shambles the is the New Tottenham Stadium Saga, is permission has been sought from Brent Council and local residents for an additional 17 Tottenham games to be played at Wembley Stadium.

This additional 17 games will take the club up until the end of the season.

This is the latest delay to the new stadium, which was supposed to open at the beginning of this season.

Back in March we were aware (through our 9-5 work) that the stadium would not be open before the start of the season. The Tottenham hierarchy would have also been aware of this.

Despite this delay, the club still sold season tickets based on the stadium being open on time.

In June, it was announced that costs were beginning to spiral towards the £1bn mark. The dramatically increased costs explained why Tottenham were hiding the delays and selling season tickets.

They have used the season ticket money – around £80million – as an interest free loan to help finance the stadium. They have only been refunding this money on a game by game basis; at the same time they receive money from selling tickets at Wembley.

By July it was our understanding that the stadium would open 3 months late. October at the earliest we were told.

At this point, the club announced that they had failed to secure stadium naming rights and were giving full refunds to those companies who had purchased an executive box. The writing was on the wall but still Spurs management denied any issues.

By the end of July, trade Unions were urging the Government to investigate the poor working conditions and breaches of both Health & Safety and Working Time Regulations.

Spurs had begun announcing – slowly – that there were delays. The first game had already been moved to Wembley. Having requested that 3 of their first 4 away games were to be at home, it was announced to great fanfare that the first game of the season would be against Liverpool in the middle of September. We knew different.

Middle of August and it was announced by the club that the stadium would not be ready until early October; with games up to and including Cardiff on 6th October to be played at the national stadium. This announcement was a full month after we revealed the news of “October at the earliest”.

A day after the October delay was announced, we discovered that builders had actually had their contracts extended until the end of November. That it was highly likely that Tottenham would not play at their new ground until early 2019. Why would Tottenham announce mid-October when we knew it would be 2019?

Had they announced Early 2019, they would have had to have given huge refunds in August to fans who bought season tickets. Instead they lied and kept the money to assist with cash flow.

It was then announced that Tottenham were due to play all of their Champions League group games at Wembley. Their poor performance in the competition led to an investigation by the Advertising Standards Agency.

October confirmed what we knew in September. That the stadium would not be ready in 2018

Despite this being confirmed by many industry sources, Tottenham did not announce this decision until late-October. Another delayed announcement meaning that they kept that season ticket money for another month. This announcement also revealed that Tottenham had increased their loan facility to £637m.

It was at this time speculation circulated that the ground would not be open this season. With 3 test events, a January opening was highly unlikely.

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1042424952610283520

And now we have the news that Tottenham have applied to Brent Council to remain at the stadium until the end of the season. This will probably be announced by the club mid-December; based on previous experience of news being known a month before the club announce it.

The way Tottenham have treated their fans is an utter disgrace.

They have delayed announcements and hidden behind Health & Safety to retain season ticket money.

Whilst there have been issues with the fire safety installation, the project timescale was optimistic. It was based on their being no delays, no issues.

As someone within the construction industry, projects like these always have issues, always have delays. Crossrail has been delayed until August 2018 (it was scheduled to open December 2018. The completion of the Shard was also delayed. And both of these major projects did not have the aggressively short timescale of the Tottenham stadium.

When the Olympic stadium was being built, the aim was for an early 2012 completion. This gave LOCOG 8 months breathing space. It opened in March 2012; 6 months before the Olympics started.

The Tottenham Stadium was always an ambitious difficult project. Some UK construction firsts when building. When Tottenham announced that the ground was to be completed in 1 season – 15 months between the end of the 2016/17 season and beginning of the 2018/19, most industry insiders thought this was impossible.

Most felt it was at least a 2 year project. 24 months. That 15 months was impossible.

It is now a case of waiting and watching to see when Spurs announce that they will not be playing at their new ground this season.

Keenos

Arsenal to make 3 key signings in 2019

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Yesterday I touched a little bit on how targeting Ousmane Dembele would impact on Arsenal’s summer 2019 budget. It is well worth discussing this further.

The starting point on any discussion around who we want to buy, and how we can afford them, is to firstly look at the state of the squad to truly establish what we need to buy, and what is a priority and what is not.

The way I see it, the below will be the basis of the squad going into 2019/20:

Leno
Cech
Macey

Bellerin Sokratis CB LB
Lichtsteiner Koscielny Holding Monreal
Mavropanos

Xhaka Torreira
Guendouzi AMN
Elneny

Nelson Ozil LW
Iwobi Mkhitaryan SmithRowe

Lacazette
Aubameyang
Nketiah

With debating the decisions I made too much, I will quickly touch on a couple of the players that a few people bought up on Twitter when I posted the above up.

Firstly on Petr Cech.

His contract runs out at the end of the season and I think he is well worth another one.

When you are second choice goal keeper, you have to be good enough to play a 38 game Premier League season if the first choice picks up an injury. I am not sure if Damian Martinez, Dyan Iliev or Matt Macey currently have that ability.

Keeping Cech around will be good on the training ground and also allow us to give Matt Macey (who I expect to step up to 3rd choice keeper next year) some cup games allowing the club to truly assess whether he is a long term 2nd choice.

Buying a new keeper is also not a priority. Keep Cech for a year and if no one else steps up; buy a new number 2 in 2020.

There is a debate to be had over Nacho Monreal and Saed Kolasinac. Originally I had Kolasinac in the squad, but after discussions, was encouraged to change my mind.

Like Cech, Monreal’s contract runs out at the end of this year.

Despite being 33 (soon) he is still our best left back. Give him another year, cash in on Kolasinac, and buy a youngster with potential. Keeping Monreal around will ensure we have someone reliable and who we know competing with the new man.

The last one people mentioned was Mo Elneny.

Whilst I am not his biggest fan, we need 5 central midfielders, and with Ramsey off that leaves Elneny.

It would be a pointless exercise selling Elneny to then buy someone of similar standard to be 5th choice. The other option would be to promote someone from the youth team – but in my opinion there is currently not a central midfielder knocking on the first team squad door.

Keep Elneny for a year and see if any of the kids are able to step up in 18 months time to become a first team squad member.

So ultimately, we need a left winger, a left back and a centre back.

Due to increased sponsorship revenue, and some amortised transfer fees set to full off the books, we have around £50m available to us next summer. As I have explained before, this does not mean we have £50m available for transfers. It means that we can increase club costs by £50m. This then covers amortised transfer fees, yearly wages, agents fees, signing on fees, bonuses and any increase in contracts of current players.

I would expect us to also sell Calum Chambers (who has struggled at Fulham) and Shkodran Mustafi. The transfer fees for these players can go into the pot, but it must be remembered this is a one time increase in revenue, and not something you can rely on next year to cover costs.

With Aaron Ramsey, Danny Welbeck and David Ospina set to leave on a free transfer, we would free up around £20m in annual salary over the 5 players. That can be added to the £50m we already have free giving us a total of £70million to play with, prior to income from sales.

So what can we get for £70million?

Well first up is my man Osumane Dembele.

If we secured him for £85m on a 5 year deal, his transfer fee be have have an amortised value of £17m a year. Add in a salary that would cost around £11m in a year, it would cost the club £28m over the next 5 years – that will be about 40% of our budget spent.

We could then sign a left back for £30million over 5 years. I think you could secure someone like Ben Chillwell or Ferland Mendy for this. If you assume you would pay either about £100k a week, that comes out to £6m in annual wages (by the time you add NI, pension, etc). That is then £12m spent.

Finally replicate the above on a centre back. This is where Svan Mislintat would earn his money.

Sign a powerful centre back for £30m, I back there is someone out there who could be uncovered. A similar wage structure as above would also cost us £12m over the year.

So that would be around £52million added to our annual expenditure.

By the time you add other costs (agent fees, signing on fees, other bonuses, etc) that’ll be pretty much the transfer budget done

Any fees from selling Mustafi / Chambers is then a Brucie Bonus. Money that you could spend on youngsters, or leave in the bank for another day.

It will take a few transfer windows to get the squad into a fully competitive state. Last summer we added Lucas Torreira and Bernd Leno as long term first teamers.

If next summer we add a new CB, LB and LW to the squad, it would be another huge step forward.

Looking forward to 2020, we will then need another centre back and perhaps a Mesut Ozil replacement. We might also look at upgrading on Granit Xhaka.

A top squad is not built overnight, in one transfer window. Manchester City owners have been at the club for 10 years and spent £2.7bn. Anyone who expects Arsenal to suddenly become champions after 1 or 2 windows is being unrealistic.

3 top signings next summer and we are good to go.

Keenos

Aaron Ramsey, Ousmane Dembele and future Arsenal wingers

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After the joy of watching England over the summer, the national team has reverted to type since.

Gareth Southgate has lost almost all of the good will gained due to the decision to pick Wayne Rooney for a goodbye cap, make Fabian Delph captain, and select some horrendously average players – the likes of Delph, Michael Keane, Lewis Dunk and Harry Winks.

I did not watch last night games. I could not care less for it. Mainly due to the Rooney fiasco, but also due to what Southgate is doing to the national team at the moment.

Anyway, it has been the dullest of dull interlulls, but yesterday we had a bit of breaking news as Aaron Ramsey was close to agreeing a deal to join Bayern Munich next summer on a free transfer.

These things do have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Ramsey is not actually allowed to discuss anything with a foreign club until January 1st. Although I am not naive enough to think that his people have not spoken to top clubs around Europe.

Moving to Munich would (and would not) make sense for him. I would be very surprised if he moves abroad with such a young family – his wife gave birth to twins a month ago.

However Munich seems like a good fit, and I can see him doing very well in Germany.

They are one of the few clubs that would pay him what he wants, and with James Rodriguez likely to leave and Thomas Muller seemingly shot, you can see Ramsey starting in the advanced midfield position he thrives in.

There are a couple of bellends at games who seem to laugh at booing him. Whilst he wears an Arsenal shirt, we should be backing him. And remember it is Arsenal’s decision to let him go, not his decision to leave.

I wish him luck if he joins Munich.

Other news surrounds Ousmane Dembele.

A few days ago he was heavily linked with Liverpool. I posed the question on Twitter as to whether Arsenal should be in for him at a similar price in January.

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1062690099429814273

The result was close, but ultimately the British people voted to leave Europe the majority would take him.

At £85m, he would take up almost all of our summer 2019 transfer funds, especially when you take into account that he is rumoured to be on £220k a week at Barcelona.

Despite this, I would still move for him.

Next season we need two wingers, a left back and a centre back. If we assume Reiss Nelson is going to continue his fine form and development in Germany, we can assume that between him and Alex Iwobi we have the right hand side locked down. Nelson will save us £30+.

What that means is we could double up on the left hand side. use the funds we would have assigned to signing a right winger and put them towards the left winger.

attempted to do some back of the fag packet maths yesterday to show how we can sign Dembele and still have enough in the pot to secure the centre back and left back we need:

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1063043679420628993

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1063043703697276933

Before people get hung up on the left back, I have since changed my opinion, that we should offer Nacho Monreal one more year, cash in on Kolasinac, and buy a left back who has the potential to be long term first choice. But that is a debate for another day.

I might attempt to expand on what Arsenal can and can not buy another day.

Whilst we are talking about wingers, I encourage you to read this excellent blog by Jorge Bird detailing the talented young wingers in Arsenal’s youth teams.

I have seen our youth play a few times recently, certainly not as much as Jorge (or JW who blogs here), and we do seem to have a lot of the same type of players coming through.

We have an abundance of rapid wide men throughout our youth system, but they are also technically excellent.

Nelson aside, the two I am most excited by Xavier Amaechi and Bukayo Saka.

Amaechi is a left winger and some have claimed that he is the quickest player at the club. Currently injured, he has a big future and next year would be knocking on the door of the first team squad for the summer tour and League Cup games.

Still just 17, he has a bright future. Will we follow the same route as Nelson with him? Send him abroad a year where his sort of talent does not get kicked out of him (unlike in the Championship), before he returns to Arsenal for 2020/21 to compete for a place on Arsenal’s left hand side.

Coming up behind Amaechi is Saka, who has only just turned 16. The youngster has taken advantage of his older team mates injury to cement a a place in Arsenal’s U23s. He has also appeared for England U19s.

Saka is perhaps a year behind Amaechi in terms of development. Despite both being born in 2001 (how old does that make you feel?), they fall into different English school years. That does have an affect on development and when they could start playing more competitive football.

I expect Saka to continue his development and we will see more of him in the summer of 2020, before he pushes into the first team in 2021.

That might seem a long time away, but Saka will still just be 19 when the 2021/22 season starts!

What is exciting is underneath Alex Iwobi, we have 3 very talented wingers in Nelson, Amaechi and Saka, all of whom will be given time to develop and make an impact over the next 2 or 3 years.

That’s all from me today, the cricket is on and I have some cleaning to do. Enjoy your day!

Keenos