Is it too early to grab a beer yet?

It has been 102 days since Arsenal played and tonight football is finally back, and we all need it.

The original fixture against Manchester City was scheduled for Wednesday March 11 but was postponed following a number of the Arsenal squad making “close contact” with Olympiakos owner Evangelos Marinakis two previous.

The Greek owner tested positive for Covid19 13 days after his side put Arsenal out of the Europa League.

This led to numerous Arsenal players having to self-isolate, and a decision was made to postpone the fixture.

A few days later, Mikel Arteta tested positive for the virus which prompted English football’s shutdown.

Prior to the lockdown, Arsenal were one of the form teams in the Premier League – only Liverpool had gained more points in the previous 6 games.

Arsenal’s last league defeat was Arteta’s first home game as manager, which came way back on the 29th December against Chelsea. Arsenal are unbeaten in the league this decade.

The only defeat during that run was the disappointing result at home to Olympiakos, which saw Arsenal knocked out of the Europa League.

Tonight against Man City is a tough start. Arsenal have not beaten Man City in the league since 2015, but these are going to be some strange old times.

A look at the Bundesliga suggests home advantage a thing of the past in empty stadiums.

Home teams won 43% of the 223 games played before the Bundesliga closed down. But in 56 games in empty stadiums, home wins have plummeted to 21%, with away sides winning 50% of games.

There will also be a question mark above Man City players motivation.

25 points behind league leaders Liverpool, 12 points ahead of 5th placed Manchester United, they have very little to play for.

They are pretty much guaranteed a top 4 finish, and will not win the title. Will their players be physically and mentally sharp following the break in comparison to sides that have something to play for.

In the last week, lawyers have also been arguing in front of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, trying to overturn the sanctions given to them by UEFA for ‘serious breaches’ of the Financial Fair Play regulations.

If the appeal fails, they will be banned from the Champions League for two seasons.

With everything going on, Arsenal have a real chance tonight.

A win could move Arsenal up to 6th. Back in the Europa League places and 5 points off Chelsea in 4th. Just 2 points behind Man U in what could become the “new 4th” if Man City fail in their appeal.

So plenty happening. With a couple of almost every day for the next month, football will provide a distraction to everything going on in the world. Something else to watch, to talk about to moan about.

I look forward to tomorrow when everyone is discussing our win rather than politics.

Keenos

Follow @KeenosAFC

This morning the brilliant Swiss Ramble on Twitter has published his year summary of Premier League Clubs financials

The financials highlight just why Arsenal have fallen so much.

Arsenal’s revenue for 2018/19 was the 6th highest in the Premier League. The worst of all top 6 teams.

The bottom two are Arsenal and Chelsea, who were both in the Europa League. However the revenue drop is not just because of European broadcasting revenue.

Arsenal are bottom of the table when it comes to commercial revenue. Nearly £80million behind league leaders Liverpool.

Poor sponsorship deals is the key reason why we have fallen behind.

Whilst Ivan Gazidis often boasted about “record breaking” deals, the reality was often different.

For 2018/19, Arsenal had the 5th worst sponsorship revenue.

In 2018/19 Arsenal were coming to the end of their deals with Emirates and Puma.

For 2019/10, the new Adidas is set to increase revenue by £30million. The new Emirates by £20million. However when projected against new deals for other clubs, Arsenal still only have the 5th highest sponsorship deal.

And the big difference is that Arsenal’s £40million from Emirates includes stadium naming rights – whilst Manchester City receive £20million on top of kit sponsorship for this and no other club has taken advantage of the lucrative market.

We are still missing out on £10-15million training ground naming rights. Although in a post-Covid19 world, these sort of deals will not be as lucrative as once was.

Another concern is Arsenal also lag behind on non-sponsorship commercial revenue.

In 2018/19, we generated around £41m outside of sponsorship.

Manchester United made £111million elsewhere, With Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham all being above £60million

Arsenal are not generating enough from naming rights for either the stadium or training ground and “other commercial deals” are the lowest in the top 6.

Arsenal have also been poor when it comes to selling players in recent years – bringing in just £12million in player sales for 2018/19.

Once again, we are outside the top 4.

All this reduced revenue leads to Arsenal having less money to spend

Arsenal have the 5th highest wage bill in the Premier League, spending around £80million less on wages than Liverpool and Manchester City.

Remember earlier in the blog when we spoke about commercial revenue? We were also £80million behind Manchester City and Liverpool.

There is a direct link between commercial revenue and wages.

With player contracts being signed for 4 or 5 years, and commercial deals similar, clubs know they will receive the commercial revenue each year – unlike broadcasting and player sales which fluctuate.

Commercial deals is guaranteed money over a period, meaning clubs know they can pay that money out on wages without having to be concerned by a drop in revenue.

How can Arsenal expect to compete for the title when they are paying so much less in wages?

It is actually ironic that many fans complain we pay too much in wages to players, when the actual truth is very different. We need to pay more.

The £80million we pay less than Liverpool is the equivalent of £1.5million a week.

Arsenal could sign an additional 7 players on £200,000 a week for that.

That would be an additional 7 1st XI players, improving 2 thirds of the team.

In turn that pushes 7 players currently starting for us onto the bench, and you lose 7 players at the bottom end of the squad.

Imagine 7 new first team players. We would be challenging again.

And when it comes to buying players, we are also 5th when it comes to spending.

So we spend less on transfer fees, we spend less on wages. It should not then be a surprise that we have a worse squad of players than those above us.

On the pitch, Arsenal and Mikel Arteta have a lot of catching up to do, but we are being hampered by our off-pitch activities.

It is a simple equation.

The more money you make, the more you can spend. The more you can spend, the better the players you have. Better players leads to success.

It is unreasonable to expect us to compete on the pitch when we are so far behind off the pitch.

Follow @KeenosAFC