Tierney IN, Kolasinac OUT: The mathematics behind the deal

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Arsenal are nearing the completion of a deal that will take Kieran Tierney from Celtic to London.
The reported deal is set to cost Arsenal £20m with a further £5m in add-ons (believed to be connected with Arsenal qualifying for the Champions League).
The deal is a fantastic one for Arsenal which will say them sign 22-year-old Tierney – who many believe to be the best British left back.
If Arsenal complete the deal for the reported price, it will be a feather in the cap for the negotiating team.
Following a first bid of £17.5m rejected, reports were that Celtic would be unwilling to do business for less than £30m. For Arsenal to get the deal done for £20m upfront is a bargain – especially in a market which has just seen Aaron Wan-Bissaka join Manchester United for £50m.
The deal begins to sound even better when you understand the mathematics behind it.
Tierney joining alongside Nacho Monreal signing a 1-year extension will surely mean the end of Saed Kolasinac. The Bosnian has interested Barcelona as back-up to Jordi Alba.
Kolasinac earns £115k a week. His yearly cost is £5.9m a year.
Tierney is expected to sign a 5-year £75k a week deal. With a £20m amortised transfer fee, he will cost £7.9m a year.
So Arsenal will be signing a better, younger full back than they currently have whilst only adding a little under £2m to our yearly expenditure.
When you take into account that Kolasinac would command a transfer fee northwards of £20m, it would leave Arsenal in a position where signing Tierney would not change how much we have to invest this summer. In fact doing a deal on both would likely raise funds for Arsenal, giving us more within our budget to be invested. 
Arsenal’s wage bill is the biggest problem at the moment
Selling Kolasinac and signing Tierney will save the club about £2m a year in wages alone. 
Add Kolasinac to the departing Petr Cech, Stephan Lichsteiner, Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck, that will be nearly £22m a year wiped off the wage bill.
When you add this lowering of the wage bill to the additional money from Emirates and Adidas, a clearer picture is starting materialise on Arsenal’s finances. One that shows that we have a lot more to spend than the £40m that was miss-reported by the main stream media.
Deals for Gabriel Martinelli, William Sabilla and Wilfried Zaha are being negotiated. If these deals go through it will take Arsenal close to £100m in expenditure.
Further transfer could then be financed dependant on yeh sales of Shkodrab Mustafi, Mohamed Elneny, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Mesut Ozil; all of whom the club are rumoured to be willing to listen to offers for.
Raul Sanllehi’s remit this summer was a simple one.
Get in control of an upwards spiralling wage bills whilst improving the quality of the squad.
Tierney for Kolasinac does just that.
Keenos
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How “frustrating” home grown rules impacting Arsenal’s transfer business

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A lot is made about buying home grown players, and the struggle teams face to recruit enough quality of “English” talent to fulfil the Premier League home grown criteria.

People often get the criteria the wrong way round, talking about how each club must register “8 home grown players”. This is not true. They could for all intents and purposes register none.

The rule is about how many “non home grown” players a team can register:

Each club is able to list up to 17 senior players that are not English or Welsh and did not spend a significant period in an English or Welsh academy.

Currently, to be classified as home grown one must be on an English (or Welsh) team for at least three years before the age of twenty-one. It does not matter if the player was born overseas, or what country they play for.

For this reason, the likes of Alex Iwobi (born in Nigeria, plays for Nigeria) and Wilfried Zaha (born in Ivory Coast, plays for Ivory Coast) are considered home grown. And rightly so.

Both came to England at 4 years old, and are very much British citizens as much as they are Nigerian or Ivorian. Both have representing England as youngsters before deciding to play for the country of their both at senior level. Regardless of what people say, I will always class both as British (interestingly when I do this on Twitter, it riles up mainly Nigerian fans who seem to not realise he can be both Nigerian and British).

You then have players such as Hector Bellerin and Cesc Fabregas.

Both signed for Arsenal from Barcelona as teenagers. Both spent 3 years in England before they were 21-years-old.

Both born in Spain, both capped by Spain, yet both are considered as home grown.

The home grown rule was bought in by Greg Dyke in an attempt to improve the English national team. In theory, to force sides to have more “English” players in the squad. But you could essentially have Zaha, Iwobi, Bellerin and Fabregas in the squad, all home grown, non of whom play for England.

You also have the Welsh criteria.

As Swansea, Cardiff and Wrexham play in England, the Premier League count you as home grown even if you were in a Welsh academy.

This means someone like Ben Davies of Tottenham is home grown, despite being born in Wales and playing for Wales.

This does not extend to Scotland, however.

Bournemouth have to register Ryan Fraser (born in Scotland, plays for Scotland) as non home grown. This has probably impacted some top teams signing him this summer.

Arsenal target Kieran Tiernay is the same.

Tiernay was born on the Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea. He moved to Scotland at a young age and came up through Celtic’s academy. Like Fraser, were he to move to England he will not be considered as home grown.

I am sure these rules impact English teams signing Scottish players. Why go for a player from North of the border  when their are better French / German / Spanish players available?

The oddest rule of them all can be seen with Eric Dier.

Dier was born in Cheltenham, England. He plays for the English national team. At the age of 7, he moved with his family to Portugal as his mother got a job with UEFA working on Euro 2004. He is not considered as home grown.

So we have Zaha, Iwobi, Fabregas, Bellerin and Dier. 1 born in England, 4 born abroad. 1 plays for England, 4 play for foreign nations. Yet it is the English born, England international who is not considered as home grown. It all feels a little backwards.

When teams play in Europe, UEFA confuse matters further.

The “Welsh Rule” which means the Premier League considers players who have come up through an academy in Wales does not apply for UEFA competitions.

So back to the aforementioned Ban Davies.

Davies spent all his time in the Swansea academy (bar a brief spell in Denmark as a pre-teen).

Since 12 years old, he has played within the English football pyramid, working his way through the Swansea junior teams before becoming a 1st team regular. The issue is that whilst Swansea play in England, they still come under the Football Association of Wales rather than the English FA. UEFA do not consider him as home grown.

This led Tottenham having to leave him out of their European squad a few years back, something which baffled Mauricio Pochettino.

The fact the UEFA do not consider players to have come through the Welsh system is confusing, as every top Welsh player would have likely have come through the Swansea or Cardiff youth system (unless they moved to England at a very young age).

It also works the other way round. If Swansea or Cardiff were to play in European competition, any English players would be considered as non home grown.

This could create a situation where Swansea are Champions of England, with a squad containing 25 English-born players, but in Europe could only register 17 of them.

Like with Scotland, I wonder how much this impacts English clubs from buying Welsh players? And how many parents would consider moving their child from Wales to an English academy at 15 to ensure that they are eligible for both countries as home grown?

In summary, it is all a bit of a mess.

When an English born, English international is not considered home grown, whilst a Nigerian born, Nigerian international is home grown, something is broken.

Would Arsenal have signed Ryan Fraser if he was home grown? And is that a key reason we are targeting Zaha?

Keenos

Zaha a no-go for Arsenal

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Wilfried Zaha is reportedly Arsenal’s number one attacking target this summer. That worries me.

The Ivory Coast international is one of the most overrated players in the Premier League. One of those players who makes Soccer Am’s highlights reel week in, week out, but actually has very poor output.

Zaha turns 27 next season, and last year was the first time he had ever scored 10 league goals in a single campaign. Crystal Palace’s reported £70million asking price for is too much for a player with his ability and age.

Were Zaha 22 or 23, you would be entitled to think “fantastic young talent” but he is not. In November he turns 27. That means he is not going to get much better. He is at his peak. And any transfer fee spent on him is unlikely to be recouped.

Last season he had a decent season. But it was not an exceptional one.

Yes, he scored 10 goals, but he averaged nearly 300 minutes per goal. The much maligned Theo Walcott Only averaged as high as this twice in his Arsenal career, the last being when he was 22.

In Walcott’s last full season with Arsenal, he scored 19 goals. He was deemed by many as dead wood. Not good enough.

Comparing Walcott to Zaha is one of those ones where Zaha looks a lot better, he beats a man more often, has more tricks. Yet Walcott gets more goals and more assists. Throughout his Arsenal career, Walcott was ugly yet efficient. Zaha is the opposite.

Zaha’s 10 goals this season have come at a very high minutes per goal ratio. Out of all the wingers to score 10 Premier League goals, he had by far the worst ratio.

I understand that on the list, he played for the worst club. But this also means he got the most game time.

Whilst Sterling had to share the limelight with Sane, Silva x2, De Bruyne, everything that Palace did went through Zaha.

Zaha is a good mid-table player. Inconsistent but can win you games. He is the type of player that will put in 5 match winning performances a season, and those 5 performances will be enough to take a team from a relegation battle to mid-table safety.

He would do a job as an impact substitute at a top club, but certainly not at the price Palace are demanding.

There is an argument that he is “better than what Arsenal already have” which whilst true, does not mean we should buy him. Being better than what we have does not necessarily make him the best option.

Even if he was on the market at £40million, I would still feel that as overpriced. There are younger, cheaper, more exciting players in world football.

Keenos