Tag Archives: She Wore

Arsenal’s Trolley Dash Transfers

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August 2011. Arsenal had just lost 8-2 to Manchester United. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain making his debut. It was a disastrous day. One of the most embarrassing defeats in recent memory – and there has been a few.

The defeat led Arsenal to carry out a supermarket sweep on the final days of the transfer window.

Having only signed youngsters Carl Jenkinson, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Joel Campbell (who would not get a work permit), alongside the African-Messi Gervinho, Arsenal were horribly short of players. What resulted from that day was a deadline day dash to boost the squad. 5 players in, 1 of which on loan.

But what happened to those 5 players?

Park Chu-Young – Monaco – £1.8m

The signing of South Korean Park Chu-Young will always be a mystery. He was on his way to a medical to sign for Lille when Arsene Wenger got a sniff that he is available. Rather than get on a train to his medical, he got the Eurostar to London. Lille declared him missing, Arsenal were hiding him in a hotel.

He made his league debut for Arsenal as a substitute, 82 minutes into a 2–1 home defeat by Manchester United, on 22 January 2012, 6 months after he signed. And he was never seen in a Premier League game again,.

Talk about him having to leave after 3 years to do national service was as exciting as it got.

He was then loaned to Celta Vigo and Watford, before making a permanent move to Al-Shabab in Saudi Arabia. After a year there, he returned to his native South Korea. Not to do military service, but to play for FC Seoul.

A regular for his country before he joined Arsenal, the transfer not only killed his international career, but his footballing career.

Andre Santos – Fenerbache – £6.2m

With Gaël Clichy, Arsenal expected 21 year old Keiran Gibbs to step up as the next great Arsenal left back, with Armand Traore providing cover. Gibbs started the 2011/12 season injured, meaning that Traore and Carl Jenkinson played left back. After the 8-2 defeat, in which Traore started and Jenkinson got sent off, Arsenal targeted a senior left back.

In came Brazilian international Andre Santos. A man known for his attacking exploits.

He ended up performing better in the Arsenal Fish Bar than on the pitch for Arsenal. Always carrying a bit too much timber, he was awful.

He was dumped back to Brazil, then went to India, Switzerland and Turkey. He is currently captain of Boluspor.

Per Mertesacker – Werder Breman – £8m

The Big F’ing German bought leadership and stability to the club after the 8-2 defeat. He soon found himself as first choice centre back at the club, playing alongside either Thomas Vermaelen or Laurent Koscielny – depending on who was fit.

He went on to become an important part of Arsenal defence, leading the side to 3 FA Cup victories, winning the World Cup with Germany, and winning his 100th international cap.

Still at the club, he is set to retire at the end of this season and take up an academy coaching role.

Mikel Arteta – Everton – £10m

There have been very few deadline day dramas like Mikel Arteta’s transfer to Arsenal.

Throughout deadline day, the transfer was on, then off, then on, then done, then off, and then suddenly, just before the window closed, it was confirmed, Mikel Arteta was an Arsenal player.

Most agreed that we had signed him 3 years earlier – the year we tried and failed to sign Xabi Alonso.

Rather than joining to partner Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri in the midfield, he was their replacement.

His first 3 years at Arsenal were excellent. But then he lost his legs.

The final two years at Arsenal were ruined through injury – has anyone every recovered from losing their legs?

I will always remember when he captained the club for most of 2014, including the FA Cup Final, only for Thomas Vermaelen to do a John Terry and lift the FA Cup despite not playing. Luckily he got to lift it as captain the year after.

He scored on his last game (cruelly changed to an own goal by the FA) and retired. Instead of joining Arsenal’s coaching staff, he took himself to Manchester City, where he is still part of Pep Guardiola’s coaching set up.

Keenos

5 players Arsenal should AVOID signing today

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Riyad Mahrez – I do not see the former PFA Player of the Year as Arsenal quality. If we sign him, it will be as a short term fix before we target better players last year (players who we perhaps missed out on this year). Mahrez will cost a big chunk of money, and command a high contract, yet he could be surplus in 12 months time and Arsenal will struggle to move him on.

Johnny Evans – £30m for 29 year old Johnny Evans? He might be Premier League experienced, but he certainly is not top class. Like Mahrez, you feel he is someone who would clog up the wage bill for years to come.

Thomas Vermaelen – It would just be a Wenger thing to do to let Shkodran Mustafi leave, to then sign the former Arsenal captain on loan from Barcelona.

Ross Barkley – We have just got rid of one overweight English “midfielder” who has flattered to deceive throughout his career. Why then spend big money on another?

William Carvalho – Long linked with Arsenal, he is now 25. Why have we not signed him in the 5 years we have been linked with him? Concerns of fitness and technique, that’s why. Nothing has changed. He is not good enough. Do not be tempted.

Keenos

Arsenal have over £100m to spend

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The latest narrative peddled out to the club to favoured journalists, bloggers and large twitter accounts is that Arsenal have no money to spend. It’s lies. All lies.

The claim is that the signings of Alexandre Lacazette and Sead Kolasanic have taken up all our wage increase allocation. That there is no more in the pot. That (as one journo put it) there is no bread for our jam. It’s lies. All lies.

Let’s break it down.

Even after signing the above two players, Arsenal were in negotiation with Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil. Both had double your money contracts on the table worth at least £125k week more than their current deals.

This equates to more than £13m.

The deals have not been signed. So where has this £13m gone?

The justification could be (and this is justified) that it has been ring fenced. Put aside. The contracts for both players is still on the table, so the club has made sure the money is still there for it. But it is still £13m.

Then you have the Thomas Lemar deal. It is widely reported that we bid £50m-ish for the Frenchman, and that us targeting him had nothing to do with the futures of Mesut Ozil and Thomas Lemar. The deal is dead, what has happened to that £50m?

You the. Have the Thomas Lemar wages. You have to assume that he would have been on at least £100k a week if he had joined. That’s another £5m.

Combine all 3, we seem to have had £65m available in the summer for transfers and salaries – on top of the £45m and £10m in wages it cost for Lacazette and Kolasinac. So where has that £65m gone?

The answer is it has not gone anywhere. We have not signed anyone else. We have not offered any big new contracts out. The money is still there.

Then you add the outgoings.

Arsenal have sold Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (£40m), Szczesny (£10m), Gabriel (£10m), Gibbs (£7m), Toral (£3m) and Hinds (£2m). That is £65m in transfer fees that have come in.

There salaries (according to totalsportek.com) cone to around the £200k mark or £10m a year.

So where has his money gone? Again, no where.

So we have spent £45m and £200k a week in wages. We have bought in £65m and saved £200k a week in wages. The salaries of what has come in and what has gone out even themselves out.

So we have raised £20m more in players out over players in (I’m trying hard not to say the words “net spend”). Now I know a lot of this cash has only just come in, but to go full circle, we must return to the beginning of this blog.

What has happened to the money for Ozil and Sanchez? What has happened with the money and salaries for Thomas Lemar? We clearly do have money there.

Now before the window opened, it was widely reported by many that we would have around £100m in the bank for transfers and salaries. This is an approximate figure from the Arsenal Supporters Trust based on analysis of accounts.

So £55m of that has been taken up by Lacazette and Kolasinac. £13m of it set aside for Ozil and Sanchez.

The equals £68m. My simple months show we still had £32m of the original pot left. I can kind of see why we then struggled a bit with Lemar as we needed to sell a little to buy him at the continually increasing figure quoted by Lemar. But we had £32m there.

Add the £65m from player sales, and £10m in saved salaries, our pot to buy players and for salaries (excluding rises for Sanchez and Ozil) now stands at £107m.

So where has this money gone?

To repeat, it has gone?

This brings me to two logical thoughts:

  1. We do have money, Wenger is just choosing not to spend it
  2. We do have money, Kroenke is choosing not to spend it

Either way, we have the money, don’t believe the lies. The way we as fans are being treated by the clubs is muggy.

Arsenal have at least £100m to spend.

 

Ps: Ignore the rubbish about us being limited to just £7m in wage increases a year. This can be disregarded if the club can show that the increases have come from its own revenues. Which Arsenal can.

Keenos