JW Diaries: Open training session and kit launch

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Thursday started off with an early morning trip to the Singapore Supporters Club HQ ‘Five Square’ where the Arsenal media team organised a Q and A session with Ray Parlour.

There was 7 fans representing various supporters clubs from around the world; I was invited to attend on behalf of the UK Gooners. This will be shown on the Arsenal web site at some stage.

Arsenal are very good at these events as well as the other fan activities; they always ensure that any UK fan that makes the long trip get invites and tickets if they request them.

A few more beers were consumed and it gave us the opportunity to meet some old friends from various countries around the world as well as making new ones.

After a afternoon nap, still trying to shake off the jet lag, we made our way to the stadium. Before a few beers at a local bar, we went to the Arsenal merchandise stall and a tour tee shirt was purchased.


I meet up with a friend who runs the stadium and was told that ticket sales for this match was slow but Saturday’s is going well with a near full house expected.

Before I left the bar, I was informed that teamsheets were delivered to my seat; a massive thanks as always to Damian!

I thought that we played well and was unlucky not to win. Like last year in Shanghai, we were unaware that there was to be a penalty shootout; it appeared that the player were also unprepared as the pens were awful.

Some good individual performances though with high praise to debutant Emile Smith-Rowe who capped off a fantastic display with a signature long range goal. I’ve seen Emile play at an early age at the academy, he really is the real deal.

Beers and karaoke was the way we saw out the night with Friday being another packed day.

There’s a Fan Zone at the Promenade Park which concludes with the 3rd Kit Launch followed by a dash to the stadium to watch an open training session and rest assured, plenty of alcohol in between!

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

Premier League Top 6: Signings so far

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The Transfer window shuts in less than 2 weeks time on Thursday 9th August.

This year, Premier League clubs have voted to shut the window for incoming players before the season starts, however players can still leave to Spain, France, Italy, Germany, etc.

With a little under 2 weeks to go, on a boring Saturday morning, shall we have a little look at the transfer dealings of the top 6:

Arsenal have done the most business, which should be expected considering they finished at the bottom of the pile last season.

Whilst Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City & Manchester United have all spent big on singular players, Arsenal have spread their spending across 5 players, bringing in a mixture of youth and experience.

The biggest spenders of the summer have been Liverpool with over £160million spent. It should kill off all the defending of Liverpool that they do not spend as much as those above them.

The majority of their cash has come from the sale of Coutinho in January. Keita and Fabinho coming in has to be offset by Oxlade-Chamberlain being out for 12 months and Emre Can leaving on a free.

For me, their best signing is Shaqiri. He is a brilliant back up player and game changing substitute. A steal at just £13m.

I do not really understand Manchester City‘s transfer dealings. It probably shows that they have more money than sense.

They already have Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling, Bernado Silva, Kevin de Bruyne and Davild Silva who can play play in the 3 attacking positions behind Sergio Aguero or Gabriel Jesus. Spending £60m on Riyad Mahrez just seems excessive.

I guess the thing with Manchester City is having won the league by 19 points, losing just two games, any big money signing could have been deemed “excessive.”

It feels a bit like Chelsea ~2007 when their squad was so strong that they ended up buying players just to stop rivals signing them.

Fred could turn out to be the player that Manchester United need to get the best out of Paul Pogba. Pairing him with Nemanja Matic and the Frenchman looks like a solid central midfield.

£19million for a left back who has played not much more first team football than me seems silly, but the proof will be in the pudding.

Chelsea‘s business could be about who leaves rather than who comes in. The money seems to have dried up for the club, and they seemed to wasted a lot of time and money on removing Antonio Conte and getting in Maurizio Sarri.

Taking into account that they finished 5th, just 7 points above Arsenal, you would expect them to have bought a lot more than a central midfielder. How much money have they wasted on central midfielders since signing N’Golo Kante and letting Matic leave (Drinkwater, Bakayoko, Barkley, Jorginho)?

With the futures of Eden Hazard, Willian and Thibaut Courtois in the air, it feels like they are waiting to see who leaves before bringing anyone in. It could be a deadline day dash for them.

As for Tottenham, they have bought no one. In this game, you stand still you actually go backwards. With Arsenal and Liverpool bringing in a lot of quality players, they could quickly find themselves struggling next season.

Clearly the £1bn stadium is impacting their transfer dealings. They have signed their key players to new contracts, but their over reliance on Harry Kane, Cristian Erickson and Dele Alli remains.

I would not be surprised if they do not actually sign anyone.

What I will find interesting next year is the progress of the 4 defensive midfielders Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool signed.

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1022429711832625152

Keenos