Morning all.

Todays blog comes from South West trains as I commute to my office for the first time since March.

I see a lot of moaning across social media this morning about Arsenal’s “lack of transfer activity”.

It seems that if you are not demanding the club spend £100m+ on new players, you get labelled as “unambitious” and “accepting mediocracy”. This is simply not the case.

The majority of fans realise the way of the world. That despite Stan Kroenke being worth $8.3b, it does not mean he has 100’s of millions in cash that he can pump into Arsenal.

Let’s remember, Kroenke has had to take out loans to complete the LA Rams stadium, KSE had to take out a loan to buy out Alisher Usmanov and further loans to then loan Arsenal money to pay off the stadium debt.

Most billionaires are not “cash rich”. Their wealth is held in property, investments, businesses, etc.

Fans also realise that we run a self-sufficient model, and that is the best way to ensure Arsenal have a short, medium and long term future. We want our kids, our grand kids, to have an Arsenal to support.

Ultimately, who actually has done a lot of business this summer?

Chelsea have spent big, but they were always going to having come off a transfer ban.

Leeds have done similar business to what the likes of Aston Villa and Fulham have done in previous years.

They have spent over a decade outside of the Premier League and have a Championship budget. Even with a lack of fans in grounds, they will see their revenue increase for 2020/21, so have money to spend.

Then comes Tottenham, who have spent £65m. But £32m of that was on Giovani Lo Celso, a deal agreed back in January. That deal was financed by the January sale of Cristian Ericksen.

Without that transfer, they would have spent just £32.4m, or just £20.1m net.

People have moaned that “Wovles have spent £40m on a teenager”.

Firstly, it is not what you spend but who you buy (I would not want Arsenal spending £40m on a player with a dozen first team games under his belt – also I imagine it is only £40m if he goes on the win the Ballon D’or).

Secondly, Wolves have received £34.5m in transfer fees this summer. So it is not a case of “their owners are investing”. They are in the same situation as almost every other club – having to sell to buy.

Every Premier League club will be looking to balance the books this summer.

Arsenal have 32 senior players. Only an idiot would think that we could bring in another 2 or 3 players without firstly having sold the likes of Lucas Torreira, Rob Holding or Matteo Guendouzi.

It is easy to sit there are say “look how much they have spent” or “why are Arsenal not more active” whilst sitting in a position of ignorance because you do not actually understand how things work.

It is also easy for fans to forget that Arsenal have signed 4 players this summer: Gabriel, Willian, Pablo Mari & Cedric Soares, whilst William Saliba has also finally joined the club for last summers transfer.

Arsenal are also being linked with less players than normal.

This probably indicates that:

1. We know who are targets are
2. Our targets are already public knowledge
3. The media know linking us to other players is pointless

I imagine those getting frustrated by a perceived lack of transfer action, and very little speculation are only annoyed because they can not profit from regurgitating the same news.

Releasing your 20th blog on Thomas Partey no longer generates the hits!

Kind of linking in to transfers, there is an interesting article on the BBC about what Premier League teams have done with season tickets for 2020/21.

It is interesting to see those clubs who have already charged their fans full price for a season ticket (Burnley, Everton, Southampton, West Ham), whilst other clubs are also not giving fans the option to opt out for the season.

Those telling fans “renew or lose it” include Burnley, Crystal Palace, Everton, Leicester City, Southampton, Tottenham and West Ham.

Last bit of news if you have not already seen it, we got drawn away to Leicester in the League Cup. The winners will be whoever takes it the most serious.

Have a good Monday

Keenos

So in the last week I have been playing about with the Arsenal squad.

We are going to see some popular players leave the club, from Hector Bellerin to Rob Holding, Lucas Torreira to Matteo Guendouzi.

Sales will be used to sign players that improve the squad, albeit not like for like – ie the sale of Bellerin will not necessarily finance a new right back.

Mikel Arteta, Edu and the transfer team can see the bigger picture. They know what money we need to raise to make the signings we need, and what the squad will look like.

Somewhere in London Colney will be a white board with names written on it.

That white board will have Arsenal’s current squad listed, and beside each player will have an “ideal replacement”. This what Arsenal are targeting when building the 2020/21 squad.

I imagine the white board will look something like this:

All this leads to a fairly basic question. Which squad is stronger?

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1301068572639334401

Keenos

Follow @KeenosAFC