Is £190m realistic transfer revenue for The Arsenal?

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So I have seen a few people posting up what they think we could get for sales this summer. Some very realistic guestimates. Others far from it. The below is well worth a read to see how different some peoples expectations are (I think Adam is fairly accurate!).

Firstly, I always laugh when I see fans try and list the players they want to sell and buy. They almost always overestimate what they expect to receive for players, whilst underestimating what they expect us to pay for players.

You will get someone saying something like “sell Balogun for £60m, buy Osimhen for £80m).

In one response to the thread, someone has selling Tierney for £55m, Xhaka for £35 and Arsenal raising £275m from sales. “If it were any other club” indicates that the poster is setting unreasonable expectation so that he can follow it up with “Arsenal undersell players”.

Now players do not actually have a transfer value. It does not exist. The value is what one club is willing to pay for a player, and what anoher club is willing to accept. It is driven by ability, nationality, age and desperation (of both clubs).

There are also plenty of other influencers that can affect the transfer fee such as wages, agents fees, installments and add-ons.

Take Declan Rice.

If he had a year left on his contract, his transfer value would be a lot lower than it is now (with him having 2 years left and West Ham having the option to extend for an additional one).

Arsenal might also be willing to accept a lower amount for someone like Folarin Balogun if they get a huge sell on fee (say, £20m upfront with a 50% sell on fee), or a reasonable buy back clause (say £40m).

There are a few websites out there that actually try and estimate a players transfer fee through algorithm’s. Transfermarkt is one of them.

The maths takes out the personal bias that could lead you to inflate or deflate someones value based on whether you rate them or not.

They factor in age, nationality, contract length, as well as factoring how many other similar players there are in world football, and their contract lengths and values.

So again using Balogun as an example, they estimate he is the 33rd “best centre forward” in world football. That means there are 32 other strikers clubs might explore before getting to him, which could drive his transfer fee down.

But then if you were only looking at 21-year-old and under strikers, he is 6th. And 2nd for English. So these factors then push up their estimated fee.

I thought I would use Transfermarkt to estimate what Arsenal could realistically receive for players if they sold everyone on most peoples “lists”. Please note, I am fully aware that even when using an algorithm, it is still not fully accurate as it does not take into account the desperation for a club to sell or buy. Or a player pushing for a move.

Now straight off the bat, you can see flaws in the system with Xhaka’s valuation.

Transfermarkt value him at £24million. And I think this is fairly accurate if it was Arsenal’s decision to sell him. But Xhaka is pushing for a move and only really wants to join Leverkusen. That drives his price down.

You also look at those fees for Balogun and Tierney and can not help but feel they undervalue the players. Although I would say this is offset with Tavares’ market value.

These are estimations, and it will actually be interesting to see how close to the figures we actually get to. Transfers will also even themselves out. Xhaka will go for £10m less then his valuation, Balogun for £10m more.

What I think the above is good for is working out whether, across all transfers, we have undersold or oversole players.

If we sell all 14 of the above for more than a combined £190m, then we have beaten the system. We would have generated more than the algorithm predicted. Whilst some players might have gone for below the estimate, it will mean across the board we have done better than expected.

If we sell those 14 for less than the £190m, then the case could easily be made that we undersold players. That across the board we did not receive, on average, what they were worth.

I am not saying that if we do not receive £190m in transfers fees I will complain. This figure is based on selling all 14 of the above players.

Some players (Pepe, Cedric, Taveres, Lokonga) may well find themselves out in loan again. That would see a drop in £50m. So you have to compare our final transfer fees received players against the players estimated transfer fees that actually departed.

I am going to re-visit this as the summer goes on, tracking whether we are on courst for a good transfer window in terms of sales or bad.

Read into this however much you want. I do not really care. Just my Saturday musings.

Keenos

Rice with no Caicedo for Arsenal

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I am going to stick my neck on the line – Arsenal will sign Declan Rice this summer, but not Moises Caicedo.

The Rice deal is one that is very easy to make.

Declan Rice wants to join Arsenal, Arsenal want Declan Rice, and West Ham will not stand in his way if the right offer comes in.

West Ham would have been hoping that Rice would be subject of a bidding war. They would have hoped that Arsenal, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and both Manchester clubs would have all been chasing his signature. But Rice has indicated that he wants to stay in London.

With Chelsea seemingly ruling themselves out of the running (or Rice potentially making it clear he does not want to re-join his boyhood club who are currently in turmoil), that leaves Arsenal as his only logical destination.

All that is really left is for Arsenal and West Ham to agree on the price.

West Ham are reportedly demanding around £120m, Arsenal are at £80. Expect a deal to be done for around £100m, with around £80m upfront and £20m in add-ons.

To make it clear, I am not ITK, nor do I pretend to be. This is just where I think we are at.

That then brings me on to Caicedo.

Whilst Rice is driving the move to Arsenal, Caicedo seems a lot more flexible on his destination. And that means he will go to whoever pays the most – both in transfer fee and wages.

Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal are all in the running to sign the Brighton player. And if Arsenal secure Rice, the desperation of Man U and Chelsea to complete the Caicedo deal will increase.

Both Man U and Chelsea will need Caicedo more than what Arsenal will, and that will lead them to be willing to pay more – both to Brighton, the player, and his agents.

A valuation of around £100m has recently been floated about. My feeling is this figure has been floated out by Brighton to see if they get any bites. And with the way Chelsea have behaved around transfers in recent years who can blame them?

After nearly joining Arsenal in January, Caicedo signed a new deal. That deal came without a release clause. But reports are that there was a gentleman’s agreement between Caicedo and the club that he could leave if an offer for between £70-80m came in.

If Brighton reject an offer of this size, they will have a very unhappy player on their books. One who would feel he has been lied too. Promises broken will lead to a lack of motivation.

I have felt (and again, this is based on nothing but intuition) that Arsenal will look to spend £150m on two central midfielders. We have other positions (right back, attacking) to also improve and anything over that £150m will mean less spent elsewhere.

With Rice our number one target, what we have left for the second midfielder will be the very simple equation of: £150m – Rice fee.

If we can get Rice for £80m (we will not), that would have left £70m t try and attract Caicedo. A deal for both could have been done.

The £80+20m deal mentioned above will leave around £50m in the pot for Caicedo. And with Chelsea and Man U also chasing the Ecuadorian, it will be near impossible for Arsenal to drive that asking price down.

So where does this leave Arsenal?

Well we will still be buying two central midfielders. We will simply just “move on to the next one”. And as we discussed earlier in the week, there are a few options out there.

Leading the way as an alternative to Caicedo is probably Romeo Lavia.

Caicedo and Lavia do not have too dissimilar attributes – both are high energy, have great tactical awareness and a good range of passing.

When you look at the work load Caicedo, Lavia and Thomas Partey get through n 90 minutes, it is clear that the Arsenal man is the best of the 3. Lavia is the worst and Caicedo in the middle.

This should not be surprise as Partey is the oldest, and played for the best team, Lavia the youngest, and played for the worst, and Caicedo in the middle of both.

Their completion %age tells a similar story, but also different.

Again, the order is the same – Partey, Caicedo then Lavia. But Lavia is a lot closer to the paid than he was in the per 90 minutes comparison.

This shows that Lavia is not too far from the others, he just did “less of the good things”. Not a surprise when he played for Southampton who finished bottom.

These two graphs together highlight that Lavia, Caicedo and Partey share a lot of similar attributes. The feeling will be that playing in a better team, Caicedo would be closer to Partey’s output, and Lavia closer Caicedo’s.

Lavia was the only bright spark in Southampton’s failed relegation battle and it would be a surprise if he does not return to the Premier League.

Manchester City have a buy-back clause for £40m, but this does not come into play until 2024. Southampton will see any offer above £45m-50m as a good deal.

If we have to spend north of £100m to get Rice over the line, than Lavia is a realistic cheaper alternative than Caicedo.

Lavia certainly the rougher diamond of the two, but that has to be expected as he is two-years younger.

With Partey going no-where this summer, the drop in quality from Caicedo to Lavia should not be an issue. And you would expect with better coaching at Arsenal, that gap will close.

If it is Rice and no Caicedo, rice and Lavia could work out just as well.

Keenos

William Saliba contract risks delaying Arsenal defensive signings

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The future of William Saliba will dictate what defensive reinforcements Arsenal bring in this summer.

We are looking at recruiting either a right back or central defender this summer.

The focus seems to be on a new right back – Ivan Fresneda and Sacha Boey the two most regularly linked.

I do not expect either of these two come straight into our first XI. But what both do is reinforce that right hand side.

We stumbled towards the end of this season because of both Saliba and Tomiyasu being out injured. The plan would have been to have White drop inside if Saliba was unavailable, and Tomiyasu playing right back. No-one had planned for both Saliba and Tomiyasu to be injured.

Signing either Fresneda or Boey gives us that extra right back. This free’s up Ben White to play centre back if Saliba is out injured – with Takehiro Tomiyasu replacing Kieran Tierney as the back up left back.

The squad would then look something like this:

Right backs: White, Tomiyasu, Fresneda/Boey, Walters
Centre backs: Saliba, Gabriel, White, Kiwior, Tomiyasu
Left backs: Zinchenko, Tomiyasu, Kiwior, Sousa

Plenty of cover, with versatile players filling in where needed – not too unsimilar to Manchester City who have played John Stones at right back and Nathan ake at left back at times during this season (or is it now last season?)

Saliba’s contract is the issue…

If the Frenchman fails to agree a new deal, he will surely be sold this summer. His contract runs out in 2025.

And if Saliba leaves, this could completely change Arsenal’s defensive transfer plans.

Rather than buy a right back, a centre back becomes more essential. We will need to go out into the market and buy a like for like replacement for Saliba.

It would be very surprising if Rob Holding does not depart this summer. That leaves us with 3 specialist centre backs – Saliba, Gabriel and Kiwior – with White as 4th choice and Tomiyasu 5th.

If Saliba goes, we only have 2 specialist central defenders – Gabriel and Kiwior.

It is clear and obvious that someone will need to replace Saliba. And that someone will cost us a lot of money. Money which would hopefully come from the sale of Saliba.

But if the Saliba fee does not cover the recruitment of his replacement, money will have to be taken out of another pot – likely that put aside for a new right back.

This leaves us in a situation where we can not recruit a new right back until the Saliba situation is sorted.

Once Saliba signs on, we can go ahead and sign the extra full-back knowing that we do not need to spend any more money on the defence.

Likewise, if Saliba is sold, we can move on with our plans to sign a replacement.

There is the option of White being the like for like replacement for Saliba, and then a new right back comes in to cover & compete with Tomiyasu.

This could be the “easy option” for the club as it will allow them to continue with their current recruitment process (signing Fresneda or Boey), and White becoming a central defender who can play right back, rather than a right back that can play centre back.

The issue with this is Fresneda is still unexperienced, and Boey will be facing a huge step up from the Turkish League to the Premier League.

If White is to replace Saliba, we might be forced to look at a more experienced right back – Joao Cancelo for example.

White replacing Saliba also puts us back in the situation of only having 3 front line central defenders (assuming Rob Holding also leaves).

We would be going from White being 4th choice and Tomiyasu 5th choice, to White being 1st choice and Tomiyasu being 4th choice. That lack of depth would worry.

So even if White replaces Saliba, we would still need to go out and buy a new central defender. And this could impact what we spend on a new right back.

The hope is the Saliba contract will be signed before the end of this month, and we can then go ahead with our original plans of reinforcing the defence.

If the stand-off rolls into July, it risks delaying the addition of defensive reinforcements.

Keenos