Category Archives: Arsenal

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang shines on positive pre-season tour

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The first block of pre-season games are over as Arsenal fly from Singapore to Dublin to continue their preparation in Europe.

For those of us not lucky enough to be in Singapore, the JW Diaries is a great read.

Whilst it is just pre-season, and therefore the usual disclaimer of not reading too much into it, there are some very clear positives to be had.

The first is the togetherness of the squad.

Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, getting on with each other, having a bit of fun. In the middle of it all is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

The Gabon strikers attitude has stuck two fingers up at the press who labelled him a flashy arrogant party boy when he signed. Clearly talented, and clearly humorous, he is bringing the squad together.

There will always be cliques in every squad. Arsenal have 3 big ones – the English lads, the French lads and the German / Bundesliga lads.

Aubameyang was born in France, lived in Italy for 4 years, and Germany for 5. He is multi-lingual, speaking English, French and Germany. He is able cross over all 3 groups, bringing them together with his personality and positive attitude. He is the centre of attention.

The players seem to be freer, and hopefully this continues when the players turn out in front of the home fans at the Emirates.

We also saw Mesut Ozil captain the side against PSG.

Whilst I do not expect him to be club captain this season, he is a senior professional, a leader, and making him captain against PSG was a masterstroke after everything he has been through.

Ozil is, and always will be, a player who needs an arm put round him. He needs to feel loved. Arsenal and Emery have gone on the charm offensive since the Germany fall-out, making it clear that Arsenal is his home, that the players are his family.

The idiots on social media slating him 24/7 need to take a look at themselves. They are the same people who slated Arsene Wenger 24/7 – and still do. They are the same people who complain about Aaron Ramsey, Alex Iwobi, Danny Welbeck, Granit Xhaka and now Mesut Ozil.

These people are not Arsenal fans. They never say anything positive about the players or the club. They are a minority, probably actually just a dozen or so idiots, but their energy is not wanted at the club these days. Any real Arsenal fan will be getting behind the club, getting behind Ozil.

The performances by some of our youngsters is also something to get a little bit excited about.

New boy Matteo Guendouzi put in a mature performance in central midfield against PSG, where he was Man of the Match.

He dominated the play, breaking it up and moving the ball on.

He only turned 19 in April and at 6ft 1in still has some filling out to do. It is way to early to be calling for him to start against Manchester City, but it is going to be exciting to watch his development in the Europa League and League Cup.

At £7million, Guendouzi could be one of the signings of the summer, and just shows the benefit of having Sven “diamond eye” Mislintat in change of recruitment.

With Lucas Torreira at 22 and Ainsley Maitland-Niles turning 21 in August, we have an abundance of talented young central midfielders – of all who bring something completely different to the side.

The progress of some of the young English players has also been enjoyable to watch.

Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah have both looked good pre-season. Reiss Nelson has also shown flashes of his talent, and the aforementioned Maitland-Niles has continued his progress.

These guys will be important for Arsenal’s future due to restrictions on home grown players.

Whilst it is perhaps 12 months to early to be talking about them taking over from Alex Iwobi and Danny Welbeck, Smith Rowe, Nketiah and Nelson will know that there are regular first team squad places up for grabs in 2019.

All in all, a good start to pre-season. It is Chelsea in Dublin on Wednesday before Lazio in Stockholm on Saturday.

I expect that we will have news about both Aaron Ramsey and Ivan Gazidis this week, as both the transfer deadline day and start of the season hurtle towards us.

The Championship starts this weekend!!!!

Keenos

JW Diaries: 5-1 to The Arsenal

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With no fan events today, I was able to catch up on some sleep. After spending most of the day around the pool, I headed to the stadium going to the usual bar near the ground meeting up with friends from the UK, America, Australia and most of Asia.

For regular games in England my familiar routine is to get into the ground close to kick-off; yesterday, following the usual bag checks, I got into the ground an hour before kick-off.

Once again the teamsheets were delivered to my seat close to the start as Arsenal arrived 35 minutes later than they should have done which annoyed the organisers of the tournament.

We played really well in the match coming away with a 5-1 Win; it could have been 7 or 8 with the chances we missed!

Even though there was the usual multiple substitutions made, I’m starting to see the fruits of the extra training; a couple of goals were scored at the end, with the players working for the full 90 plus minutes.

In my opinion, Mesut Özil was outstanding and Hector Bellerin is becoming the unsung hero who always seems to play the full 90 minutes. Once again all our young players covered themselves in glory; a perfect match all round.

Afterwards, myself and a friend was invited to the stadium managers office and along with some of his colleagues, we stayed drinking to gone 3am!

My final full day sees me catching up with an Aussie mate and an earlyish night for tomorrow’s flight home. I get back about 4pm UK time and Tuesday I’m on a 8am to Dublin!

No more diary posts from me, I will give you my usual weekly updates starting once again after my visit to Stockholm.

JW

Tottenham face financial difficulty

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Yesterday it was announced that Tottenham had failed to secure naming rights for their new stadium.

Whilst calling their ground the Tottenham Stadium is more pure than the FedEx Arena, the lack of naming rights will push them into a financial melt down.

The stadium is already well over budget. It will cost nearly £1bn, with a couple of hundred million pounds worth of hotels and housing developments already cancelled to keep costs down.

The stadium is also set to be delivered at least 3 months late, the project has been a disaster. Were it a new hotel, supermarket or block of flats the investors would probably have ghosted the project a year ago and looked to sell out on to another party, such are the spiralling costs and delays.

The naming rights were key to the financing of the project.

When Arsenal signed their first deal with Emirates, a lot of the money was front loaded, to the extreme point that Arsenal got very little money from the airline in the last few years of the original deal.

The front loading of both the Emirates naming deal and Nike sponsorship allowed Arsenal to balance the books when loan repayments were at their highest.

Spurs had hoped for a 10 year £150m naming deal. Like the Arsenal deal, it would not be £15m a year over 10 years, but a heavily front loaded deal with Spurs receiving the majority of the money in the first 5 years.

That first 5 years is most important.

Tottenham took out loans with 3 separate banks. Each approved five-year loans worth a total of £400m. After five years the outstanding debt can be refinanced or put into longer-term bonds.

In the first 5 year repayments will be at their most aggressive until the club can refinance. As we saw with Arsenal, after 5 years (2011), we were able to renegotiate the terms of our loans – reducing payments dramatically.

In that first 5 years, Spurs are going to have to find in the region of £50m a year to repay the loan. They would have hoped that a naming deal front loaded for the first 5 years would have serviced a lot of the debt. No naming deal leaves them with £100m+ extra to find in the next 24 months.

Spurs are also yet to sell out their season long hospitality packages.

From memory, when Arsenal sold their hospitality boxes for the Emirates, you had to sign up to a 10 year deal. This freed up more money to pay off loans as it meant even more guaranteed income. Empty boxes will further push Spurs into financial difficulty.

You then have the NFL deal.

A lot of Spurs fans go on about the NFL deal like it is the golden egg.

The deal was reported as 10-year agreement between Tottenham and the NFL starting in 2018. Spurs to host 2 games a year.

To bring things into perspective, Wembley’s profit from the NFL games there is between £500,000 and £1 million per game. So without even considering that the Spurs stadium is 2/3’s of the size, Spurs will expect to bring in around £1-£2million for hosting the NFL.

It is understood that the Spurs deal with the NFL is not actually a straight 10-year deal. There have been mixed reports as to whether it is a 2-year deal with an option for a further 8, or a 4-year deal with a further 6-years.

Daniel Levy’s “end game” with the NFL was clearly for Spurs to host a London based franchise, so that from September – February, they could have football one weekend, NFL the next.

The entire NFL deal is in doubt with Wembley set to be sold to Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan.

It has been Khan’s long term dream to move the Jaguars to England – they have played at least one game at Wembley since 2013. If he does buy Wembley, a London franchise kill off any long-term deal for Spurs.

Spurs will also fail to attract future external income from concerts.

With Wembley, Twickenham, the Olympic Stadium, the 02, Emirates Stadium and Hyde Park, London is currently overly saturated for stadium arenas.

Arsenal have not hosted a concert since the Muse / Green Day double header in 2013 Muse. Since 2016, we have seen a huge rise in artists performing at the Olympic Stadium.

This summer along we have seen the Rolling Stones, Beyonce & Jay Z and the Foo Fighters host 6 nights at the London Stadium. Why would you perform elsewhere when iconic stadiums like Wembley, Twickenham and the London Stadium are available?

No artist will want to travel to Edmonton, with its lack of transport links and facilities for a gig.

Tottenham have bitten off more than they can chew with the new ground. Once they realise the fan base isn’t their to buy 62,000 tickets in the long-term, it will push the club further into obscurity.

Keenos