Arsenal should cash in on £40m top scorer

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In the last few months, Eddie Nketiah has shown that he is more than capable to be understudy to Gabriel Jesus.

With 9 goals this season, he is currently our top scorer.

The lad always had natural goal scoring talent, but in the last 18 months he has developed his game dramatically. He has also improved physically.

Nketiah has put the time in on the training ground and in the gym to become a better player, pushing himself and his body as he strived to make it at The Arsenal. And we should all commend that.

Meanwhile, over in France, another Arsenal striker is ripping up the league.

Leading the Ligue 1 scoring charts is Folarin Balogun (at the time of writing). The Arsenal youngster is on loan at Reims, recently scoring a hat trick agains FC Lorient.

Back in December, we wrote how Mikel Arteta had a double striker dilema. That in Balogun and Nketiah we had two players chomping at the bit to be long term 2nd choice to Jesus, but there probably was not space for both.

The form of Balogun and Nketiah since the return of the World Cup has only intensified the debate. But is there still a discussion to be had?

We are likely to qualify for the Champions League next season. And with that we need a bigger, deeper squad. Is there the space to accomodate Jesus, Nketiah and Balogun?

I am not sure.

Like almost every team in the Premier League, we play one up top. That means game time is limited for the 3rd striker. We have recently seen Newcastle loan out Chris Wood to Nottingham Forest as he could not get a sniff behind Callum Wilson and Alexander Isak.

But Newcastle do not have European football, so there are less games to go around. So what about those teams that are in Europe? Who are their strikers?

Manchester City: Erling Haaland, Julian Alvarez
Manchester United: Wout Weghorst, Anthony Martial
Tottenham: Harry Kane, Richarlison
Liverpool: Darwin Núñez, Roberto Firmino
Chelsea: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Armando Broja

Each team has two “proper” strikers. And this is replicated throughout most of Europe:

Barcelona: Robert Lewandowski
Real Madrid: Karim Benzema, Mariano
Bayern Munich: Thomas Muller, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting
Napoli: Victor Osimhen, Giovanni Simeone
AC Milan: Olivier Giroud, Divock Origi

The above highlights how every team that plays 1 up top only have 2 front line strikers. The only sides with more are the likes of PSG and Juventus who both play 2 up top.

When I talk about front line strikers, I am talking about lads that are primarly forwards. Not those that “can play up top”. I am also talking about central strikers, not wide forwards or those that play in behind the striker or “false 9”.

In Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah, we have 2 front line forwards.

Now many of you will be saying “what about Son?” or “what about Havertz?” or “what about Jota?”. The answer is simple.

They are players who are primarly in the squad to play a different role – either a winger, a wide forward, a 10 and so on. They are not front line strikers. And Arsenal have players that already play a similar role.

Both Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard have played up top in the Premier League. They are our de facto 3rd and 4th choice strikers, in the same way Son and Jota are Tottenham and Liverpool’s 3rd choice striking options. How Gakpo will be Liverpool’s 4th choice.

If both Jesus and Nketiah were out injured, we would see either Trossard or Martinelli down the middle with the other playing out wide.

So we have the 2 front line lads, and they are backed up by wideman who have played centrally in their career. Almost every team has a similar set up.

This then takes us back to the “Balogun or Nketiah” debate. If we only need 2 front men, we do not need Balogun and Nketiah. And for me it is “better the devil you know”.

Balogun has done bits in France. He has outscored Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Lionel Messi. It is easy to write the headlines.

But to put this into perspective, Alexandre Lacazette is 2nd in the Ligue 1 scoring charts. Balogun has one more goal than him.

Lacazette has 13 league goals this season. He got 4 in the Premier League last.

In his 5-years with Arsenal, he only scored more than 13 Premier League goals once – 14 in 2017/18. Does this show the gulf in class between England and France?

A player who looked off the pace in England is back scoring for fun again in France. And this brings some perspective as to what Balogun is doing.

Even Alexis Sanchez is scoring in Ligue 1.

The Chilean has 7 league goals this season. That is his highest league return since the 2017/18 season, when he got 7 for Arsenal before scoring 2 for Manchester United in the second half of the season.

One aspect of Nketiah’s game he has dramatically improved in the last 18 months is his work rate and build up play. This is shown in his improved 83.1% pass completion. Balogun’s is down at just 67.8%.

Nketiah is playing at a higher level than Balogun, and showing he has more to his game. Right now Flo is just a goal scorer.

So if we could only keep one in the summer, Nketiah would surely get the nod?

Balogun would also potentially raise a higher transfer fee.

He is younger and on lower wages than Nketiah. A team would not have to factor in huge wages when signing him.

Anyone that signed Nketiah would have to match his £115,000 salary. That would push down his transfer fee. Balogun meanwhile reportedly earns just £32,000 per week.

A side could double Balogun’s wages, offer him a 5-year deal, and the total paid would be over £13m less than signing Nketiah to his current wages onto a 5 year deal. Some of that saving would likely find its way into Arsenal’s coffers.

At the moment, Transfrmarkt value Nketiah at €18m and Balogun at €14m. So you can see how a club saving £13m on wages could boost Balogun’s fee beyond what we would get for Nketiah.

What could Arsenal realistically get for Balogun? That is the question.

I am seeing some say “£40m”. Considering what Chelsea have spent on players with a similar level of experience, it could reach that high.

He is the French top scorer, and if he finishes high in their charts his value will sore.

In Europe’s top 5 leagues (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France), the only men to outscore him are Erling Haaland, Harry Kane, Victor Osimhen and Robert Lewandowski.

If the first 3 of those were available for transfer this summer, we would be talking about fees in excess of £100m.

Two other players that make a good comparison are Ivan Toney and Christopher Nkunku.

Chelsea have reportedly paid £62m for Nkunku, whilst you could see the likes of Manchester United pay £50m for Toney (if his betting charges go away).

If Toney left Brentford, then someone like Balogun would become a target. I could also see him joining the likes of West Ham, Brighton, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Everton, Leicester City and more (depending on who stays up).

All these sides are crying out for a goal scorer. Balgoun is young and Homegrown, and with what he has done in France, will be top of many of those club transfer lists. All of them will not hestitate in paying £40m.

That £40m could then be put towards further strengthening our squad.

The right hand side behind Saka still lacks depth. We shold be looking to repeat what we did on the left hand side and buy someone to cover and compete with Saka. And that player could potentially become a further option down the middle.

In and around the £40m mark (or less), we are talking about Yeremy Pino, Nico Williams, Marco Asensio, Bryan Mbeumo and many more.

We would be strengthening our squad, whilst breaking even on transfers, using Hale End products to finance more suitable players.

Every goal Balogun scores just increasing what we sell him for in the summer.

Keenos

Imagine if Twitter was around in 2002…

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It is going to be a long old run in if everytime we drop points fans and the media act like we are a club in crisis.

We lost to Everton. They played brilliantly. We did not.

There is a reason why only one top flight English side has gone unbeaten in over 130 years, and that is because it is bloody hard.

Two years before we went unbeaten, we won the league and cup double. And some would argue the 2001/02 team was better than the Invincible side.

In both seasons, we won 26 games. In 2002 we scored 6 more, but conceded 10 more. The 2004 side got just 3 more points despite going the season unbeaten.

We won the league in 2001/02 with 87 points. That will probably be enough to win it this season.

That side lost its second game of the season – at home to Leeds United who finished 5th. It drew away to Chelsea (finished 6th) and home to Bolton (16th). We are only 6 games in!

The team also drew at home to Blackburn (10th), away to Sunderland (17th), before losing at home to Charlton (14th).

Two home defeats in the first 11 games of the season. And 6 out of 11 games we dropped points in.

That would become 7 from 12 as we would draw away to Tottenham.

Imagine it Twitter was around then. It would all be #WengerOut and “Henry is not a striker” and “that is why no one else wanted Sol Campbell” and “who is that Kolo Toure?”.

The defeat against Everton was the 4th game this season we dropped points. 4 in 20.

We would then also draw away to West Ham (7th) before losing our 3rd home game of the season to Newcastle (4th).

Three home defeats in our opening eight league games.

Blackburn Rovers would knock us out of the League Cup, dicking us 4-nil. Whilst we would also fail to make the Champions League stages (this was when we had two-group stages).

We would start 2002 slowly – drawing at home to Liverpool (2nd) and away to Leeds. 25 games in and we drew at home to Southampton (11th) – and that would be the final points we would drop all season.

Inspired by Freddie Ljungberg , we would win our last 13 league games and finish 7 points above Liverpool in 2nd place. It was a fantastic run and one which I would be surprised if we replicated.

But the point is that season we dropped a lot of points against a lot of lower teams. 3 defeats at home. Lots of silly draws. And we will got 87 points and romped the league.

We have 18 games left this season, and we will not win all 18.

87 points is now many I think we need. That is 12 more wins and 1 draw.

So even if we get 87 points and win the league, we will drop points in 5 more games. Are we really going to overreact 5 more times this season?

The important thing after a game like Everton is we dust ourselves down and go again.

A few pundits have said “that is the blue print to beat Arsenal”. But the way Everton played is the blueprint to beat any time side.

We are not the first team to lose a game to a lower team that turn up motivated, defend well, stick to a game plan for 90 minutes and score from a set piece. It happened to us plenty in 2001/02.

Manchester City showed on Sunday that they are also not invincible. And they will continue to drop points.

And if City do go on a run similar to us in 2002, and end up with 90+ points, then fair play. I will have no complaints about finishing 2nd.

So let’s stop crying everytime we drop a point or 3. Back Arteta. Back The Arsenal.

Keenos

Arsenal season ticket announcement: The Good, The Bad, The Indifferent

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Yesterday the club announced some season ticket changes that will be implemented from the 2023/24 season.

As always was these sort of things, they give with one hand, take with the other. A bit like when a Government announcing a new budget. So what has been announced?

The Good

For next season, a General Admission season ticket will include all 19 Premier League and three European group-stage matches, subject to qualification. Previously, the 26-match season ticket covered all home Premier League matches, five European matches and two home Emirates FA Cup fixtures. 

Since their formation, Arsenal fans group the Black Scarf Movement have been calling for a “season ticket lite”. After over a decade of campaigning on this, the club seem to have finally agreed with them.

For as long as I can remember, an Arsenal season ticket was always your 19 league games, plus the first 7 FA Cup or European games. 26 in total.

It was why thise “cost of a season ticket” comparisons the media do yearly could be ignored. They were comparing our 26 games to another teams 19. It was like comparing apples to bananas.

Dropping from 26 to 22 games is a 15% decrease. Although the club have not yet announced how they will spread their category costing over that 22 games, so we may well not see the full 15% deducted from what we need to pay.

This will not only help fans when it comes to paying for their tickets, but will also reduce some of the clubs administrative burden.

If we played less than 7 cup games, the club had to refund fans at the end of the season; most of the time this was in the form of a reduction to the same value off their new season ticket.

Now, we will only be paying upfront for the games we are gauranteed to play (19 Premier League, 3 European group stages), and the rest will be bought as individual tickets.

There is talk that the club will allow fans to set up a direct debit, allowing them to automatically buy their seat when they come on sale. And there will also be the option to opt out of this and buy on a game by game basis – a bit like the League Cup.

Season ticket holders will hold “Priority 1” booking status meaning they will be able to book their own seat prior to tickets going on sale to Silver Members.

The other good news is the club did not decide to go down the route that Manchester United and Spurs go down.

Those clubs only have the direct debit option, and force season ticket holders to buy the additional cup tickets for every round regardless of if you can or can not go.

Finally, there will also be a hope that this will lead to less empty seats, and more tickets available for other members.

The club predict that this could “make up to 150,000 additional match tickets available for members to purchase next season“. Whilst this is a mistruth, it is still good news.

The 150,000 figure comes from the total number of season ticket holders across the 4 games. “150,000 additional match tickets available for members” would require every single season holder to not purchase a ticket for any game. The majority will.

Whilst the club will argue that “150,000 tickets are now available on sale”, it is misleading as the majority will be snapped up by those fans with season tickets. So there is not really 150k additional tickets available to all members.

Still though, I expect plenty more cup tickets to be available next season to other members beyond season ticket holders. Will be interesting to see if the club are transparent in 12 months time and let us know how many additional cup tickets were bought by non-gold members.

It will also be interesting to see if the priority for cup tickets is then linked to how many of the rounds you went to, rather than based on away credits.

The announcement of the new reduced season ticket is not the full “lite” version the BSM wanted – they wanted an “only Premier League” option. But it is a step in the right direction.

The Ugly

We will be implementing an average 5 per cent increase on General Admission season tickets for next season. Prices in the lower tier will go up by 6 per cent and 4 per cent in the upper tier.

We are in a cost of living crisis, everything is going up. Whether it is your electricity, your petrol, your food or your kebab, so it is no real surprise that the club are raising ticket prices. But that does not mean we have to like it.

Firstly, those that say “can not believe the club are rising prices during a cost of living crisis” clearly show a lack of understanding on how businesses work. Have they said similar about their favourite hotel? Their favourite car manufacturer? Their favourite takeaway?

People are very selective on what they accept going up, pay and get on with, and what they say “why is that going up during the cost of living crisis”.

All these companies would have seen their outgoings dramatically increased over the last 18 months, so prices have to go up to compensate this.

We also can not demand the club “keeps spending money” and then not accept that they might come to us to pay a little bit more to help fund it.

You have the contracts of Bukayo Saka and William Saliba to pay for. £100m on a new defensive midfielder to buy in the summer. All staff getting the London Living Wage. The club subsidising pre and post match beers.

The money for all of this increase in spending has to come from somewhere, and around £6million of it will come from us fans.

It is a bit like when people demand that the Government or Local Authority “reduce tax and increase public spending”. You can not demand your roads be as smooth as bowling greens and then complain when your Council Tax goes up to pay for it!

This news has also been misreported by the media, with many running with “Arsenal increase prices of season tickets even though fans will get to see FEWER games”. This just is not true.

What they have done is combine the two statements.

Yes, we are increasing the base cost of the season ticket, and we are reducing the games. But we are not going to be paying more overall for less games.

What the media are insinuating is that the 5% average increase goes on the end cost of the season ticket. So if you ticket is currently £1,000, it will increase to £1,050. This is not true.

The club are increasing what they charge per game which is then mutipled by the games to get the season ticket cost.

Using some crude maths, if you paid £1,000 for your ST, that was an average of £38.46 a game (£1,000/26). The average cost of a ticket is going up 5% to £40.38 a ticket. And then we get 22 games.

So now we do 22 x £40.38 which comes out to £888.46. We are “not paying more for less”, we are paying lessfor less.

The journalists that write these sort of articles know they are misrepresenting the truth. But we now live in a world where it is about hits and clicks rather than journalistic integrity. Better to get 1m hits and be wrong than 1k hits and be right.

These are the same journalists who continually put out the tripe of Arsenal being the most expensive season tickets, whilst never mentioning that we got 26 games.

Our lowest price per game will now be around the £40 mark. This is not too disimlar to what Chelsea and Tottenham pay for their cheapest normal tickets.

This year will see the second consecutive increase.

In 2022/23 we saw the first increase in 7 years. The worry is we might now see a 5% increase every single year. And that will soon get out of control.

You do also have to wonder whether the club really need that extra £6million.

We have the Adidas deal going up by £10million, we have the return of Champions League football. That is worth around £60million. And we have the increase in other commercial deals that our return as a top team will generate.

Our 2023/24 revenue could be £100m higher than 2022/23 even without that ticket price increase.

Anytime a price goes up it is hard to swallow. My kebab has gone up from £13.50 in 2020 to £19.87 last night. I struggle to get my head round it but still buy it.

The indifferent

The 25 per cent discount on season tickets and match-by-match tickets purchased outside the Family Enclosure, currently provided to Young Adult Members up to the age of 21, is being extended to the age of 24.

I am not really sure how a 24-year-old is any different to a 30-year-old?

Maybe it just shows I am getting old, but that 24-year-old could have been in full time work for 8 years. Could have been in the army for 8 years. And so on.

I do not get the “good to see we are helping Uni students” that some have put out.

If you are 24 and still at Uni in the UK, then you should have a word with yourself. If you have decided to “remain in education” rather than get into the real world and work, then you have no real right to demand a reduction in things like football tickets.

It seems odd that I am saying this as a reduction in ticket prices should be a positive. But I would prefer that reduction went to an OAP season ticket for those over 67.

You work 50 years of your life, and then retirement age comes and you are on a state pension. You can no longer afford to go down The Arsenal, which you have been doing for most of your life.

These are often the vunerable of our society. Those that 3pm on a Saturday is the most important day. And as retirement lingers, they become lonely, isolated. Football might become their only outlet. If they can no longer afford to go to games, then they ,might have very little else to live for.

I think the club should have looked to do more to help these guys, rather than the spoilt generation of 21-24 year olds who think the world owe them a living despite them not yet contributing anything. Those that still live at home rent free and will continue to do so until their 30s.

Those that have no desire to push themselves in the work place to earn more, but still demand to be paid more. Those that leave Uni having taken a pointless degree, then complain that they are being rejected for graduate jobs and having to work their way up the ladder. Those that think they should be on £50k a week in their first job with no experience.

Also, the match-by-match ticket discounts for younger fans will continue to be capped at 1,000 per match. So all all they have done is increase the demand for the same amount of tickets.

This means that those aged 18-21 now have less of a chance of getting cheaper tickets!

It does not really make sense to me.

So we have all this news flying about over the season tickets.

You will get some online showing faux outrage, fueled by the poor media reporting. Hopefully we have explained to you exactly what has happened and given a reasonable viewpoint.

Remember you can join the discussion on our Facebook page – nearly 60k Arsenal who just enjoy talking about the club. None of that transfer speculation BS. No OTT reactions. Just common folk, many who go week in week out, having a chat.

Keenos