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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