Coombs wrote:
The point in the end is that we can't spend down our bank balance, and its not reasonable to suggest that we should do so. Spending what "we have" is a risk. The reason why we buy players like Squillaci is because we use them to fill needed positions in the squad and hope we don't have to use them. We can't operate like city and buy a starting quality player so that if our actual starters are out or lose form we just put in another player of the same level.
That we should spend our entire 'bank balance'? Whose point is that? It's not my point, and I don't recall anyone else saying otherwise.
The point is that we first spend according to our actual means, not well within them, which is where I firmly believe we are now, and what I believe the actual evidence we do have suggests. I understand the concept of 'self sufficiency' (or at least what I believe it means, not what the club do), I also understand the concept of having squad depth, and I understand that we aren't going to be in a position to have a 25 man that costs £250m+. I understand that we're going to have to take a punt on youngsters every now and then, and I understand that buying a super talented kid for £5-10m is realistically the only way we're going to be able to get the sort of talent that usually costs £35-40m when they're 23-24, albeit 5 years down the line (notwithstanding the point I made previously about hype).
None of these concepts are foreign to me, or indeed to most Arsenal fans. I understand that the owners at Manchester City, Chelsea, Utd, and to a certain extent Liverpool have made the sorts of funds available to their managers to spend that, realistically, we are unlikely to see here for some time.
No, the issue I have with your central theme is that it seems to be a conflation of two similar but distinct arguments - one of which is valid, and one of which is not. On one hand, you argue that no matter how much we spend, we aren't going to be able to compete financially with the Citys & Chelseas of our league. I agree with this, and at no point do I believe that I've disagreed with that.
On the other, you make a suggestion that we are currently spending at the optimal level, the only level we could spend at to guarantee financial security. I'm going to start using the word 'optimal' in this conversation, I think, because it gives a clearer meaning than the word 'maximal' that I've been using before, and seems to have been somewhat misinterpreted. This latter point I think is entirely unsupported in the extent to which you use it, and runs contrary to pretty much all the evidence we actually do have.
Your point about last season's window is well-taken. It is a much better strategy to sign the likes of Mert, Art, Santos, etc. to keep replenishing our squad with good to better-than-good players. The thing is, we were able to do so because of what we lost. I've said so many times that buying a player is not simply paying a one-time sum. Each of Art, Mert, and Santos are probably worth 20-25 MILLION pounds in terms of the total deal. We have to rely on continuing to generate cash at the same exact rate in order to spend everything (or close to it) on players each transfer window. No sane business would do this, and no sane business does (this includes the vast majority of football teams in the world). We only commit to what we can reasonably and safely assume we can afford over the course of a contract. Anything beyond this is a risk. We often take risks on players, but they are usually young ones, which offsets the potential loss with the potential resale value of the player.
Fundamentally disagree here. A 'sane' business is one that understands the core drivers behind it's revenue streams, and invests at the heart of the business to ensure that the revenue streams can grow in future. Maintaining operating costs, of course, is a key function of any business, but take a look at the FTSE100 right now. It's hardly an opportune time, but look at the businesses in there - are these companies who have are marked by a solid track record of cost control over the last 25 years, but are selling broadly the same shit they were in the 80s? Or do you see companies that have invested, adapted, poured millions upon millions into their core business, into R&D, into finding new ways to get ahead of the game?
I don't even really like the concept of Arsenal as a business. 'Business' is what I do 9-5 (or more usually 8-8!), football and Arsenal are not in that category from a fan's perspective. The reality is, to peel one layer away from that metaphor, Arsenal are in the business of entertainment, and to peel away another, they're simply a tribal badge that men wear. I don't care, throughout the season, quite how much profit or loss Arsenal make. I care about Arsenal competing on the field, and, insofar as it affects that primary aim, I care about them competing off it. If what Arsenal are doing is preventing them from competing, they need to look into new ways of getting that done. Arsenal are not there to announce profits as far as I'm concerned, and every penny of profit we make is, as far as I'm concerned (and yes, I know this is simplistic), money that SHOULD have been invested back into the playing squad. Because if our finances aren't helping the playing squad, I couldn't give two fucks about profit. I'm investing my emotions into the team, not my money (at least insofar as I don't expect a return in kind on the latter).
But we can't really spend any MORE than we already are without taking on risks that our board and our manager are not willing to take.
I honestly don't see any evidence to suggest that the board and manager are correct in their decisions. To me, it looks like the policy of hyper-conservatism that they adopted 7 years ago, and has since become the MO is now a comfortable ground for all involved in the financial decisions at the club, particularly while we are still clinging onto our Champions League status.
We have a mid-high failure rate in the current spending bracket that we inhabit. If we moved up a bracket, the losses would be absolutely huge, and we'd probably/maybe win one trophy. We probably couldn't maintain it, however.
Again, disagree. Winning a trophy will directly and indirectly impact our revenue streams. Make absolutely no mistake about it - every single penny that comes into the club, comes in because of what happens on the pitch. Our playing staff may be our short-term biggest cost-base, but long term they are the ones that will determine how much money we get from gate receipts, how much money we win in prize-money, how much we get from our sponsors, how much we sell them for when Barcelona and Manchester City come calling. It's a question of risk-reward. You may be happy watching an ultra-conservative business with a fairly flimsy model (more on that in a minute) maintain economic sensibility. I, on the other hand, see a team that is not investing in it's core purpose, not showing the ambition I'd like to see as a fan, and taking enormous risks with it's long-term position.
Why do I call our model flimsy? Back in 2005, if Spurs had stuck to the salad bar, Arsenal might have been out of the Champions League. Every single penny Wenger saved the club by refusing to invest that summer when he'd just received a tidy chunk for Patrick Vieira would have gone up in smoke in about 90 minutes. Likewise this season, a Ben Foster injury would have more than eliminated the profits we were left with the summer before following the sale of two of our crown jewels.
Is this really our long-term strategy? To sit around aiming for 4th, and hoping nobody overtakes us? Because unless falling out of the Champions League initiated some kind of strategic paradigm shift, it's very hard to see us getting back for a long, long time. If we are to refuse to compete, in the long term, we're dead anyway. I'd much rather see us go for it now and get it over with - either it works, or it doesn't, and if it doesn't we work out what to do about it at that point.
But again, I digress. Whilst I'd be happier to see the club go all-in than continue to sit on their arses and market 2nd best as a success (whilst happily asking the fans to cough up for the privilege), their failure to do so isn't what gets me riled up, or really what my broader argument is for. It gets back to the original point you're trying to make, a point which is still, as far as I can see is still not really supported by the evidence.
The place where you are wrong is in assuming that because we bought Santos, Mert, Art, et al. last window is that we could have somehow done the same thing in every window leading up to it. We are growing in strength, not losing it (financially speaking) and we have been relying on the "youth project" to get us through a time when spending power would be extremely low. We are now past that period of low spending power, hence we spend more.
The signings of Mertesacker, Santos, Arteta, Park, Gervinho and Oxlade were not funded by 'the club getting stronger'. They were more than funded by the sales of Fabregas, Nasri, Clichy, and whatever pittances we picked up for the likes of Eboue, Traore, Emmanuel-Thomas etc, with, almost certainly another hefty chunk left on the side that we declined to re-invest into the squad. I agree - we are getting stronger. We have been for some time, and that's reflected in the balance sheet position, as well as the profits we regularly make. We are well capable of making 'Arteta-level' signings, and have been throughout for the 7 year period I've been criticising Arsenal for failing to actually make that spending. We were making bids for high-profile players back then too. We know this, because our bids were confirmed by the clubs that received them. We missed out, the players went elsewhere, and we decided (with disastrous consequences) to try to muddle through. It's a philosophy Wenger adopted around about 2005, and it's a philosophy that's continuing today.
It's not mystery or mythology, or revisionism or even hindsight. What is imaginary is the idea that Wenger is sitting on a giant pile of cash he refuses to use.
Ok - where did the rest of the Nasri, Clichy, and Fabregas money go? We took in around £70m in receipts last summer. Arteta, Mertesacker, Santos, Gervinho, Park and Oxlade cost around £50m between them. Where did the phantom £20m end up? Fag packet calculations, as they are (the 'Player Trading' number in the interim accounts that represents likely represents the up-front recognition of transfer fees, as well as the amortisation of future contingent clauses, suggests a far higher profit from this item alone). Let's figure out where all that cash disappeared to, then we'll work backwards from there. Pretty soon, we'll understand what happened to the Robinho and Craptista money, I'm sure.
What's more, what do you think would have happened if Nasri and Cesc had decided at the last minute to stay? We'd have been missing a large chunk of money we'd have otherwise have made - would that have put us in financial peril? Would we have spent the last few days of the transfer window peddling van Persie to anyone that'd wave £25m in our faces, just to stave off the danger of financial ruin?
Football is not about winning trophies, its about entertainment, which is a business, and businesses make money. Arsenal are in the frustrating position of having fans who expect to be entertained not simply by watching and supporting their team, but by watching and supporting their team winning things. Most clubs don't have that problem.
Football is a lot of things to a lot of people, but I can tell you one thing for sure, a LOT of clubs do have that problem (I can't believe you'd even choose those terms, but still) - namely, almost all of those we play against every year in the so-called 'Champions League'. If that's the table we want to dine at, those are our peers - not the Swanseas, the Norwichs, or indeed the Leeds Utds that we so often get compared to in fear.
The result is a fan base that is not entertained with a relatively successful business model. When entertainment comes at the cost of the business model, then you're basically fucked.
I'm not entertained by the business model? To bloody right I'm not.
If I were them, I'd stick to my guns just like they are. Sure, to us fans it seems righteous, arrogant, idealistic, and downright off-pissing, but any one of us would probably do the same bloody thing.
Wrong. Most fans would not do the same thing. That's why most clubs are not run like Arsenal.