Morning all.
It’s very quiet, so I’m not sure how much there is to round-up in a quick Saturday round-up. Let’s start with a story from Sam Dean who writes:
Arsenal are not in a position to throw around cash with reckless abandon, however much Arteta might want them to. Arsenal have less flexibility than clubs such as Chelsea and City because they have not sold players with the same consistency or efficiency.
I think there might be other reasons why Chelsea and Man City throw money around the way they do, and when you look at the amount of players who have arrived at Stamford Bridge in particular, it’s normal to raise an eyebrow when they splash out a record outlay on Morgan Rogers, and appear to be dropping another £50m+ on Crystal Palace defender Maxcence Lacroix, raising their total outlay this summer already to more than €250m.
But the point about our sales is a valid one. Last summer our expenditure came in at €294m, and we generated a measly €13.8m in sales and loan fees. Chelsea spent €339m, but with a collection of sales that included the €56m deal which saw Noni Madueke join Arsenal, they brought in €339m*. Some of those sales might raise eyebrows, the idea that this summer they can offset much of the Rogers fee by doing ‘separate’ deals with Aston Villa for Alejandro Garnacho and Nicholas Jackson might well make you suspicious, but you can see a huge difference there.
*[Figures via Transfermarkt]
The previous summer was better from our perspective, with a spend of €107m and incomings of €84m (just a €23m differential), but the summer before that saw us splash out €235m and bring in just €69m. It’s long been a discussion point about how traditionally we are bad sellers. Other clubs just seem to do it much better than we do, and with much greater consistency. You can argue that those tasked with selling have a difficult job, and that’s fair enough, but last summer we sold a player for €300,000. Regardless of the fact Albert Sambi Lokonga’s career has been punctuated by injury, and he didn’t have much left on his contract, that’s the kind of fee that exists in a 1985 market, not 2025.
It’s why I have a suspicion that this summer we might well see a sale we don’t like, and with a lot of focus on Ethan Nwaneri, if Arsenal want to bolster their spending via a departure, a player of his profile makes sense. He’s an Academy product, a sale would be #pure-profit on the books, and while it’s definitely not something I would like to see happen (I’d rather he went on loan for the upcoming season, allowing us to make a decision next summer), if there’s boardroom consideration of a deal like this, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. He’s young, English, really talented, and on a long contract. If we can’t sell Ethan Nwaneri well, then we really do have problems in that regard.
That said, I don’t think we can say Arsenal are without spending power. The prize money we earned from winning the league and getting to the Champions League final was considerable, commercial revenue has never been higher because of stature and popularity of the club these days, there’s a renewal of the stadium/shirt sponsorship incoming, and there’s no suggestion we’re playing poor mouth here. It’s just that we’re only really any good at one bit of the transfer market (buying), and quite bad indeed at the other part (selling), and that does eventually come into play.
Improvement of the latter would be a very useful development this summer, but leaving aside someone like Nwaneri, who has real market value, it will be a challenge for Andrea Berta to generate significant revenue from players like Fabio Vieira, Gabriel Jesus, Reiss Nelson, and Christian Norgaard who are probably the ones most likely to require a new home. I’ve seen reports that our interest in Julian Alvarez came with a willingness to use Viktor Gyokeres as part of the deal. It’s quite rare for that kind of deal to be done, but if Arsenal are trying to mind their financial Ps and Qs, it does make some sense. I can’t see that happening though.
What will be interesting is what we hear from Mikel Arteta when he first meets the press during pre-season and is inevitably asked about transfers. After the Champions League final he talked about the need to be ‘smart, fast, and ambitious’, and while there’s obviously still time to get stuff done, the manager has a bit of history when it comes to using the press to just apply a little pressure to those above to get him what he wants. With negotiations for a new contract ongoing, perhaps he has some leverage there too.
Which isn’t to suggest there’s any kind of issue between him and the ownership etc, but all these dynamics come into play, and we know that – in order to achieve success and raise/maintain the standards he feels necessary for Arsenal – Mikel Arteta is quite demanding of everyone. Not just his own players. So, let’s see what happens over the next few weeks, what kind of messaging we get from the manager about what he wants to see happen, and how much of that gets done.
In the end not that quick, and not very round-uppy, but hey. Have a great Saturday folks.
