Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

Arsenal shouldn’t fear losing Aubameyang on a free

Leave a reply

Aubameyang is at the peak of his powers. If we sold him in the summer, is there a striker equal to him that we can sign?

Aubameyang is our best striker. Keeping him will allow the club to cash in on Alexandre Lacazette; generating funds to improve the team. Who would you rather upfront? Aubameyang or Lacazette?

Aubameyang signing new contract merely delays him leaving for a free. We would not offer him a big contract, only to sell him in a years time. He would likely sign a 2 year extension, meaning he would leave on a free in 3 years time

Aubameyang is 31 in a few days. Does it really make sense offering a 31-year old huge money to stay for another 3 years? Roll on 24 months, we could be in another Ozil situation where Aubameyang is on huge wages, but his talent is dwindling. Think how quickly Robin van Persie and Alexis Sanchez went downhill after leaving. He is at his peak and will probably fall off a cliff within 24 months.

Aubameyang leaving on a free transfer allows Arsenal to spend big on a replacement. The striker currently costs Arsenal £16m a year in amortised transfer fee (£56m across his 3.5 year deal). £16m across a 5 year means that Arsenal could spend £80m on his replacement without it increasing the clubs annual expenditure. Would you rather give Aubameyang £350k a week, or buy an £80m striker in 12 months time to replace him

Aubameyang and Ozil both leaving on a free in a single summer is good for Arsenal. Combined they reportedly earn £530k a week. That is £27.5m a year. Add in Aubameyang’s amortised transfer fee and the pair cost Arsenal around £43.5m a year. That is more than 10% of the total expenditure. To put that into perspective, 2 new £60m signings on £190k a week for 5 years would also cost Arsenal £43.7m a year.

Keenos

Financials show why Arsenal have fallen so far behind

Leave a reply

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.

Hector Bellerin should be made captain…not sold

1 Reply

Today’s player linked away from Arsenal is Hector Bellerin.

It has been reported that Inter Milan want to sign the 25-year-old right back for £27million.

What is baffling is that Arsenal fans seem to want him out.

This morning I have seen the transfer  been described as a “masterstroke” and “Raul’s best deal to date” if Bellerin was sold. I will not give these blogs the traffic by linking to them.

The justification behind this is that “Bellerin has a very questionable injury record and has missed 372 days through various problems since 2015”.

Recently we were reprimanded by NewsNow for our articles. They said we fell below their editorial quality. Will NewsNow do the same with these blogs? Or is that sort of statement OK?

Whilst the statement is true, it is also misleading.

Bellerin suffered a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee in in January 2019. It initially ruled him out for 9 months – but as we know with long injuries it can take a while for a player to return fully, playing twice a week.

Prior to his injury, Bellerin had a fairly clean record.

The 3 seasons before 2018/19, he had averaged 45 games a season.

You do not play 45 games a season if you have a “a very questionable injury record”

Of the 372 days missed injured since 2015, 90% of them came since 2019, since that horrible injury against Chelsea.

Before the suspension for Covid19, Bellerin had played 7 of 10 games. The 3 he missed were cup ties.

He was regaining his full fitness, regaining his form.

Some fans have it out for Bellerin.

Bellerin has previously called out “fans” who profit from defeats. He has a strongly held political opinion; actively supporting Jeremy Corbyn and Labour in the last general election. He likes his fashion and is often seen at shows during his down time.

We should be glad that Bellerin is an intelligent young man. That he has an opinion and can back it up. That he has interests outside of football beyond hitting a golf ball. These things should not be held against him.

In England especially, players tend to be a bit thick.

Their education is reduced as they go through school and concentrate more on football. They are not encouraged by parents to work hard at school and on the football pitch. Football takes over. This leads to many failed footballers struggling for a career if they are released at 18.

Bellerin should be praised for being an intelligent individual, with deep interests and opinions. Not criticisms.

It was apparently Bellerin who got the players together to take a wage reduction to help ease Arsenal’s financial worries.

Bellerin is also who was behind Arsenal’s show of support for the Black Lives Matter protest and helped launch Football United, raising funds for the NHS.

Not only should Bellerin not be sold, he should be made captain.

Keenos