Tag Archives: She Wore

Analysis: The state of Arsenal’s squad

1 Reply

This part of the year is silly season when it comes to media and click bait transfer stories.

With no football, blogs and newspapers need to keep the traffic coming to their sites to ensure that they maintain their advertising revenue. The easiest way to do this is link X player with Y club, knowing that thousands of fans of that club will click the link.

The main stream media – the likes of The Sun and Daily Mirror have been doing it for years. You then have the football websites, the likes of the Metro, Goal and Football.London. They will literally print anything. Blogs and Vlogs also jump all over it. I will not name them, but we all know the sites that just reproduce the transfer speculation for hits.

On  Wednesday someone circulated a message of someone pretending to be Granit Xhaka’s cousin on Twitter. No one checked the validity, but all the click baits and RT whores on Twitter reproduced as if it was there. Suddenly “Xhaka’s cousin reveals Inter Milan agreement” became main stream news. It became the truth. Even though it was fake.

We are barely in June  and if you believed everything that was written or said, we are selling every member of the squad and buying about 50 players. This week alone with have seen David Ospina, Shkodran Mustafi, Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal, Granit Xhaka, Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang linked with moves away from the club.

This is on top of Petr Cech, Stephan Lichtsteiner, Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck already having left following the expiration of their contracts.

We are not going to see a dozen of our senior players leave in a single summer. It will not happen.

Before even discussing who is “In” or “Out” this summer, we need to look at the make up of the current squad, as this influences what we can both buy and sell.

Premier League rules dictate that you can only register 25 players, although players born after 1st January 1998 do not need to be registered.

That means that the likes of Matteo Guendouzi, Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nketiah do not need to be declared as 1 of the 25, even though they will be part of 1st team action.

You also have the home grown player rule.

People often get it the wrong way round and state that “you have to have 8 home- grown players”. This is incorrect. You do not need any home-grown players.

The rule is that within your squad of 25 registered players, only 17 can be non-home-grown. For all intents and purposes, you could have a squad of 17, all of whom are non-home-grown; and have no home grown players at all. Of course, this is unrealistic as it will be hard to get through a campaign with just 17 players.

So how does Arsenal’s squad look at the moment?

Before we sell anyone, we have 26 players that I would expect to be with the senior squad next season; I have included Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nketiah but excluded Joe Willock and Emile Smith Rowe. My feeling is we will send the later 2 out on loan for the season.

Of those 26 players, 23 need to be registered. That leaves Arsenal with 2 available slots to buy players prior to selling anyone.

We currently have 15 non-home-grown players, meaning that we have 2 available non-home-grown slots.

So this summer we can buy 2 senior players without having to worry about whether they are, or are not, home grown.

Once we have signed those 2 players, we are in a situation where we need to buy to sell, and it will be very much a case of “like for like”.

If the 1st 2 signings of the summer are both non-home grown, we would have reached the limit. This would mean that if we wanted to buy another central defender from Italy, we would firstly have to sell either Shkodran Mustafi or Laurent Koscielny.

Were we to want to buy a goal keeper from Spain, or a Central Midfielder from France, it would be David Ospina or Mohamed Elneny out of the door, not Calum Chambers.

Right back highlights what Arsenal are facing.

Carl Jenkinson is our only other specialist right back behind Hector Bellerin. We need someone better. Unless we shuffle the pack elsewhere (IE buy a home grown central midfielder to replace Elneny), Jenkinson would have to be replaced with someone home grown.

The home grown situation is one reason why Calum Chambers may well end up staying at Arsenal next season.

Chambers covers centre back, right back and midfield and is home grown. He gives us flexibility as to what we need to buy and from where.

there is also a quirk in the laws that counts players from Scotland as non-home grown.

A “Home-Grown Player” means a player who, irrespective of nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to The Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons, or 36 months, before his 21st birthday

So that means Ryan Fraser, who did not come to England until he was 19-years-old, is not home grown. in Europe, UEFA excludes Wales as home grown – this results in Ben Davies being left out of Tottenham’s European squad a couple of seasons back.

So there is a lot to think about when it comes to building a squad.

In summary:

  • Arsenal have 26 players in the 1st team squad
  • 23 of which need to be registered
  • This leave 2 available slots
  • We have 15 non-home grown players
  • This leave 2 available slots
  • Once the two available slots are taken, we have to buy and sell “like for like”

I will let those who rely on speculation for clicks to now continue…

Keenos

5 reasons why selling Aubameyang makes perfect sense for Arsenal

3 Replies

The stories doing the rounds about various Chinese clubs lining up a big money move for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are likely to be no more than click bait at the moment.

Aubameyang was reportedly in talks with Arsenal to add an extra year to his contract – taking it from 2 years left to 3 – and at the same time increasing his £180,000 a week salary closer to £250,000. The stories may well also be getting leaked by his agent, who is trying to force Arsenal’s hand in negotiations.

Chinese clubs have attempted to sign Aubameyang in the past.

Whilst at Dortmund, a £62million move to Guangzhou Evergrande fell through; and Tianjin Quanjian had agreed to pay Dortmund £71m for Aubameyang six months prior to his eventual move to Arsenal.

£300,000 a week is reportedly on the table from Shanghai SIPG, a figure would be very tempting for Aubameyang.

Cashing in may well also interest Arsenal, especially if a bid north of £70million comes in for last seasons Premier League Golden Boot winner.

There are 5 good reasons why Arsenal should cash in on Aubameyang if the right offer comes in

  1. Aubameyang is reaching 30. With 2 years left on his contract this summer is the last opportunity where we can sell for big money and reinvest.

 

  1. In Alexandre Lacazette, Arsenal have a world class striker ready to step up. This means the money raised from Aubameyang can be re-invested elsewhere in the starting XI, rebalancing a top heavy squad.

 

  1. £70m would be more than enough to buy someone like Nicolas Pepe; and have enough change to sign a striker to sit between Lacazette and Nketiah.

 

  1. Liverpool have shown in recent years how important it is to sell at the right time, for the right price, and reinvest. Even if that means selling your best player. You strengthen the team by selling an individual.

 

  1. Too often we have kept hold of ageing players 1 season too long, selling them a year after for a lot less money – Vieira, Sanchez, Henry and RVP could have generated £200m in sales. We kept them one year extra and they raised less than £50m – missing out on the likes of Torres, Saurez and Salah in the process.

At the moment Arsenal have 2 top class strikers but do not have the creativity to get the ball to him (sorry Ozil fans!).

It makes a lot of sense to sell one of Aubameyang or Lacazette and reinvest that into a top class wide man like Pepe.

Some will put an argument of Aubameyang being kept and Lacazette being sold, but the key is age.

Lacazette is 2-years younger than Aubameyang. He has more years left in the tank. If the Frenchman was sold, in 2 years time you would be in a situation where you need to spend £50million to replace Aubameyang (the argument that Nketiah might be ready to step up then is too much of a risk).

By keeping Lacazette, it keeps time on our side. We can continue investing elsewhere in the team knowing that he will be around for another 4 years.

Reinvestment is a risk.

As much as you might end up with Sadio Mane, Firmino and Mo Salah, you could also end up with Divock Origi, Lazar Marković and Adam Lallana.

I think selling Aubameyang and reinvesting the money is worth the risk…

Keenos

Why are sponsors deserting Arsenal?

Leave a reply

In December 2018, Britain’s biggest gambling companies voluntarily agreed to a “whistle-to-whistle” television advertising ban.

The Remote Gambling Association (RGA) struck a deal to stop adverts during live sports broadcasts from the 2019/20 season.

Whilst this agreement did not include shirt and league sponsorship and digital advertising around a pitch, it seems like many of the smaller gambling firms have decided to reduce what they spend on team sponsorship.

This would explain why the 6 betting companies to sponsor Arsenal are no longer renewing their deal.

Also no longer an Arsenal sponsor mining into the 2019/20 season is Chinese carmaker BYD.

The deal with BYD was always a questionable one.

A couple of days after Arsenal announced the agreement, it transpired that the person doing the deal on before of BYD has was neither an employee, nor been given authorisation to conduct business in its name.

It was then confusing when BYD appeared on the substitutes bench seats throughout the season, seemingly indicating that Arsenal had agreed a deal.

The feeling is that after the fraudulent deal was exposed, both Arsenal and BYD agreed a one year contract, likely at a lot lower than what the fake deal was signed for. This would have benefited both sides.

BYD would get exposure to the British market at a low price and without having to do much work. It was too late for Arsenal to start negotiations with partner before the start of the season and, having already paid for those seats and other advertising materials, it was better to agree a deal for less money than have no money at all – and actually make a loss.

The 1-year agreement over and Arsenal will announce a new official car partner shortly.

The Gatorade deal was never a really “pay for advertising” type sponsorship deal. It was more of a partnership.

Gatorade were announced as Arsenal’s Sports Drink and Sports Nutrition partner in 2013 in a joint announcement alongside Liverpool. Liverpool also no longer count the drinks brand a sponsor or partner.

The deal saw Arsenal’s first team, under-21 and under-18 teams use Gatorade’s elite portfolio of sports fuel products and equipment  during training sessions and on match days. In return of free, unlimited products, Gatorade had a presence on LED boards and branding within the Emirates stadium.

Gatorade have a track record of becoming sponsors / partners of sports teams and instead of paying for the privileged, offering free product.

A team like Arsenal will not struggle to find another “sports drink and sports nutrition partner”.

Star Lager are the 8th brand to have ended their association with Arsenal.

The Nigerian beer company became Arsenal’s official beer partner in Nigeria back in 2016, signing a reported 5-year deal. It is not clear why this deal has ended 2 years early.

Star Lager also announced a similar partnership with Manchester City back in 2016. A quick look at Manchester City’s partners indicates that their agreement with the Premier League champions has also ended.

As always, you can either read the headline that makes you think that companies are running away from Arsenal, or you can take the time to look into who has left, and why.

There is not anything sinister going on, and Arsenal have recently agreed a big money deal with Adidas to become a key partner. The deal with the German kit manufacture is reported to be the 3rd biggest in history.

With Visit Rwanda and a new Emirates deal set to kick in from this summer, Arsenal will see their commercial income increase by £50million from what was shown in the 2017/18 accounts.

Keenos