Tag Archives: Arsenal

Danny Welbeck fails to score a new contract

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We have all seen the joke going round on twitter;

Leroy Sane not included in Germany’s World Cup squad.

Martial and Lacazette not included in France’s World Cup squad.

Icardi not included in Argentina’s World Cup squad.

Meanwhile, England are taking Danny Welbeck.

Whilst it is incredible that Sane, Martial and Icardi are not going to the World Cup – highlighting just how strong those nations are – it is an ignorant ending to the joke to dig out Welbeck.

The truth is, for England Welbeck is a very reliable goal scorer.

Last night against Costa Rica,

Welbeck scores his 16th goal in 39 appearances. Not a bad record what so ever.

When you compare that to the combined record of Sane, Icardi and Martial – 1 goal in 34 appearances between them, you can perhaps see why Welbeck is going to Russia and those 3 are not.

But what for Welbeck’s future at Arsenal?

He joined Arsenal 4 years ago from Manchester United. Fed up of being a reserve for his boyhood club, he hoped moving to London would reignite his career.

Throughout his Arsenal career, he has shown why he never broke through at Manchester United.

Physically he is brilliant. Tall, strong and quick. It is technically where he struggles. He simply does not score enough goals that his size and pace gives him the chances to score.

27 goals in 112 appearances in not a record to be proud of.

He turns 28 in November and has found himself once more in the fringes of the Arsenal squad, behind both Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

With all the talk about Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere’s contract situation, it has gone unnoticed that Welbeck is also entering the last year of his contract.

At his age, and if he has any ambition in him, he will be seeking first team football. Like with Jack Wilshere, he will probably have to find it lower down in the Premier League. Therefore I would be very surprised if he signs a new contract with Arsenal.

But I also do not think he will leave the club this summer.

With Arsenal having quite a large squad turnover this year, having already lost Per Mertesacker and Santi Cazorla, and with Jack Wilshere set to leave at the end of the month, Arsenal need to try and keep some players.

Welbeck comes across as a professional guy. Professional enough to play even if he knows he is leaving.

Arsenal would unlikely be able to command a large fee for the Englishman this summer, so would be happy enough to lose him on a free transfer next year – his transfer feee being fully amortised in the club accounts.

A new young attacking wide man will be signed this summer, who along with the lies of Alex Iwobi and Riess Nelson will compete to replace Danny Welbeck in the future. But with Welbeck you know what you are going to get already, so it will be important to keep him around for one more year just in case the new lad does not settle, or Iwobi and Nelson fail to kick on.

Next season, even if it is his last at Arsenal, Welbeck still has important role to play, being the link man between our past and our future.

Keenos

How can Arsenal afford Osumane Dembele?

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I am going to bring up that word again that I obsessed over recently. The word that got Big Dave Ornstein liking my previous blog before using what I wrote in a BBC interview. That word, of course, is amortisation.

Now why am I bringing it up in a blog about Osumane Dembele? Because it is relevant, that’s why.

In yesterday’s blog, I mentioned that Arsenal should target the Frenchman. Many responses were that we “can not afford him”. Yet we can. Easily.

Dembele joined Barcelona in the summer of 2017 for €105 million. He signed on a 5 year contract.

A year later, after a tough start to his career in Spain, they are reportedly looking to cut their losses and recoup as much of the transfer fee as they can. And a loan deal with an option to buy seems the way forward.

Big money loan deals with options to buy are not regular in England. Yet in Spain, Germany, France and Italy they are becoming big business. It allows a buying club to get a player on loan for a year or two without needing a big lump of cash to do it. If he works out, they can secure him permanently. If he doesn’t, well they just send him back to where they came from. This sort of deal was seen last year when James Rodriguez went to Bayern Munich from Real Madrid.

The advantage for the selling (or loaning) teams is that they get a player off their wage bill for a couple of years, get a chunk of cash before the loan deal, and a potential for another lump after.

So take Dembele. He originally cost Barcelona €105 million. But he has already been there a year, so his book value, or what Barcelona have left to declare in their accounts, is €84 million. Were Barcelona to accept this for him, they would be able to dispose of what they still have left to amortise and break even within their yearly accounts.

Now let’s say Arsenal do a deal with Barcelona to take the Frenchman on loan for 2 years. Say the deal was at €21 million loan fee. That would split the amortisation of his transfer fee in half.

In simple terms, Arsenal would be covering 1 year of his amortised transfer fee, Barcelona the other. The majority of Barcelona’s “portion” would be offset by the wages they save over the two years.

So fast forward to 2020. Dembele has had a brilliant two years at Arsenal, and we plan to make the deal permanent. The deal was in place 2 years previous. What will that deal be for?

Well at this stage, Barcelona only have €42 million on their books left to pay for Dembele. Could this be how low the agreed fee could be?

It would enable Barcelona to dispose of his transfer fee in the 2020 accounts and be free of him, breaking even on the accounts. Ensuring that they do not need to put additional funds not already set aside to offset a loss.

Arsenal would than be able to start the process again. Give Dembele a 5 year deal, amortising the €42 million over that period. €8.4 million a year.

Could Arsenal really sign Dembele on a 2 years deal for €21 million with an option to buy for €42 million? Yes.

“But where does he fit in” you cry.

Well we could return to playing 4231. Mkhitaryan on one side of Ozil, Dembele the other. But I still think we will play 4321 next season.

This will leave Mkhitaryan, Ozil, Dembele and Iwobi competing for the two behind Aubameyang.

We often moan we lack squad depth, I bet if it happened people would moan we can’t fit them all in.

Remember last season Ozil only started 24 league games. In all competitions he started 33 of the 59 games. That is 26 games he did not play.

Mkhitaryan is also a little bit fragile. He certainly will not start every game next year.

If we play ~60 games again next year, it would not be a major surprise to see Ozil start 35, Mkhitaryan start 35 and Dembele to start 35. Iwobi to start the remaining 16.

This is all just pie in the sky, and Barcelona have recently ruled the deal out. But stranger things have happened in football.

Keenos

Experience or Youth – It does not matter

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Out of Emmanuel Petit’s comments last week about Arsenal “needing experience over youth” there is actually a debate to be had.

As I outlined in a blog over the weekend, Petit’s viewpoint on how Arsenal operate in the transfer market is living in the past.

Since 2012, Arsenal have moved away from mainly buying young players. The list of incoming transfers speaks for itself:

Podolski
Giroud
Cazorla
Monreal
Ozil
Flamini
Debuchy
Sánchez
Ospina
Welbeck
Gabriel
Cech
Elneny
Xhaka
Perez
Mustafi
Kolasinac
Lacazette
Mkhitaryan
Aubameyang

Obviously during that time we have signed some youngsters – the likes of Calum Chambers, Rob Holding and Konstantinos Mavropanos – but on the whole, we have mainly been signing senior professionals. Players with experience. The majority with many caps for their country.

In yesterday’s blog, I mentioned that it is not youth v experience that Petit should be question, but the overall quality of the players that have come in.

Where you can be highly critical of the club is the quality of those that have been bought in.

The likes of Shkdoran mustafi and Granit Xhaka. I am a fan of the latter, but I can see why both have been heavily criticised. Also the likes of Flamini, Debuchy, Welbeck, Gabriel and Ospina. We have bought the experience, but those who have come in are perhaps not the required quality.

As Aaliyah once sang; Age ain’t nothing but a number.

Dele Alli, Raheem Sterling, Ousmane Dembélé, Kylian Mbappé, Gabriel Jesus were already amongst the best players in the world when still teenagers. For them it is nothing to do with age, they had the quality.

Should Arsenal really not target Ryan Sessegnon, Christian Pulisic or justin Kluivert because they are teens?

Ok, we might not want to sign anymore young centre backs as we already have 3 in the squad. But then again, Caglar Soyuncu is barely 22 and we are heavily linked with him.

Soyuncu is probably the type of player Petit does not want us to sign. A 22 year old centre back. But then he has nearly 100 top level games, is capped by Turkey and has been first choice in the Bundesliga for 2 years.

The scouts at Arsenal do not care about the age of a player if they think that player is good enough.

By 21, Lionel Messi had been named the best player in the world. He had already been performing at the highest level for Barcelona for 3 years. Whilst he is an incredible player, we should not avoid signing youngsters because they are young.

Should Arsenal not be looking to sign the next Cristiano Ronaldo, Cesc Fabregas or Neymar for fear of ending up with the next Nani, Anderson or Yaya Sanogo?

It is the talent of the player we should look at, not their age.

What is more important is the squad also needs balance.

There is no point having a squad made up of entirely 28+year olds. This was perhaps the downfall of the invincible’s. All the players reached their peak together. And over a 2 or 3 years period, all of their top level careers came to an end.

What we did not have during that period was the youngsters in the squad backing them up. The likes of Ray Parlour and Edu were the cover in midfield, but they were the same age as Giberto Silva and Patrick Vieira.

Up top was Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Sylvain Wiltord and Nwankwo Kanu. A great crop of strikers, but not too much age difference.

Manchester United struggled post Sir Alex Ferguson. Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Ryan Giggs, Michael Carrick, Robin van Persie. All the wrong side of 30. All their careers as top level performers came to an end at a similar time as when Ferguson left.

Likewise, you can have a squad with too many youngsters.

Arsenal’s downfall in 2008 was having too many inexperienced players.

When the going got tough after the Eduardo injury against Birmingham, the players did not have the mental maturity and experience to battle through and go on to win the league.

They were not helped out by William Gallas, the experienced captain, throwing a strop during that game. Or Tomas Rosicky, another experienced midfielder, being continually inured.

It is important to have the diversity in signings. The experiences pro’s mixed in with the youngsters.

What you want is a Thierry Henry upfront, and the next Thierry Henry coming through pushing him for his place. It is obviously easier said that done.

If we signed someone like Ousmane Dembélé, just 21 years old, he would be there not to just cover Henrik Mkhitaryan and Mesut Ozil but to compete with them. You could easily see a situation where by the end of the season, he is a first team regular, one of the best players in the world, despite being so young.

Football is all about balance, both on the pitch and off it. You want a balanced squad, a mixture of senior pros and young talents.

Arguably, in our current squad, we have too many players over the age of 25. We do not have enough top young players coming through who are of sufficient quality.

The opportunity to sign Dembélé, or Pulisic,or Yacine Adli should not be refused because of their young age.

Experience or youth, it does not matter. It is the quality that matters.

Keenos