Tam wrote:
Claudius wrote:

If we contract the money, then St. Etienne can plan around it. That’s probably part of why we agreed what feels a rich figure. It would be odd to pay a large amount up front before receiving a good or a service. There are very few markets where I’ve seen this done. You’d typically pay a small deposit to show you’re good for your contract. And then the seller can use the contract with financiers to raise capital. The big fee could effectively pay for any interest that St Etienne has to face. We stretch money for both clubs in the process

That sounds like a number of huge jumps you’re making there, applying standard business principles to a very much non-standard market.

In any case, no matter how much it is, the cash we have to put up will certainly impact what we have to spend elsewhere this summer.

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal/arsenal-to-complete-25m-william-saliba-transfer-and-keep-majority-of-40m-summer-budget-a4184681.html

See this link that Steak shared. What is so non-standard about this market? 

That's well done, Arsenal. Hopefully the kid has a monster season in France.

Claudius wrote:
Tam wrote:

That sounds like a number of huge jumps you’re making there, applying standard business principles to a very much non-standard market.

In any case, no matter how much it is, the cash we have to put up will certainly impact what we have to spend elsewhere this summer.

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal/arsenal-to-complete-25m-william-saliba-transfer-and-keep-majority-of-40m-summer-budget-a4184681.html

See this link that Steak shared. What is so non-standard about this market? 

I can't think of many markets where a company purchases an asset from company in a similar sector, then allows the competitor the benefit of the use of that asset

Excellent business if we can push the bulk of the payment to next season

I wonder if Olley is Mr X.

If this deal gets over the line and Saliba is loaned back, reckon Chambers will be retained for another season and that we will end up loaning out Mustafi to someone with an option to purchase.

Wonder if we can beat the record for edging closer to a deal the most times.

i still cannot wrap my brain around a £40m transfer budget

we should have stayed at highbury

mdgoonah41 wrote:

i still cannot wrap my brain around a £40m transfer budget

we should have stayed at highbury

It hurts because it's the truth.

We were making losses at Highbury because it was too small. We'd be absolutely nowhere today if we had stayed there.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert wrote:

Can't wait to sign a quality youngster we can't use.

This is a boss bit of business. It's frustrating that we don't get him immediately because of our present challenges, but we must never neglect the future. 

Nah, I know, just messing.

Hopefully keeping our budget intact allows us to sign another one for this season.

Make sense. Basically a first option for the lad. Good Business. This is the kind of proactive business we should always be doing.

Still don't believe the 40m budget. Impossible, definitely not true

Klaus wrote:

We were making losses at Highbury because it was too small. We'd be absolutely nowhere today if we had stayed there.

where are we today?

tv revenues have exploded since we moved to the emirates. i doubt we'd have still been making losses.

obviously im not entirely serious, but it just blows my mind that in 2019 we could potentially have less than £50m to spend.

mdgoonah41 wrote:
Klaus wrote:

We were making losses at Highbury because it was too small. We'd be absolutely nowhere today if we had stayed there.

where are we today?

In a stadium twice its size with a wage bill that is 400 percent larger, and aside from the league titles which would have dried up anyway we've largely cemented our status as one of the world's biggest clubs. You're kidding yourself if you think Highbury could have supported a modern top team. We were already starting to lose money before the move, and that was by the standards of 2004.

Yeah, I don't understand the desire to stay in Highbury. You just have to look at our stadium income.

We are constantly above 100m pounds with no ticket price increases for a decade. Chelsea are below 70m pounds, and the other rivals (outside United) are generally around 50-60m pounds. Spurs have had an uptick towards 70m pounds with the new Wembley/Deathstar money. We'd be deeper in the doo without the Emirates.

As Klaus alluded to, we spend £240m a season on wages on the last count, far higher than even Spurs. I think this is a fact that too many ignore. We don't pay Ozil with Smarties.

Our stadium move is absolutely the correct thing to do, but how we managed finances after that is pathetic. We basically sacrificed on pitch success for refinancing, which no other clubs who moved to new stadium does.

like i said i wasnt really serious, i know its not feasible. just leave me alone, this club is making me fucking miserable

goon wrote:

As Klaus alluded to, we spend £240m a season on wages on the last count, far higher than even Spurs. I think this is a fact that too many ignore. We don't pay Ozil with Smarties.

But we are also finally below Liverpool and continue to be below Chelsea, United, and UAE Dept of Sports. 
Our biggest issue isn't necessarily how much we pay but how we have allocated that amount. We've somehow ended up with a bunch of undesirable yet untradeable assets while some of our top youngster and best senior players remain at risk 

Being reported that we have reached agreement, he will be loaned back and 30m euros.

Claudius wrote:
goon wrote:

As Klaus alluded to, we spend £240m a season on wages on the last count, far higher than even Spurs. I think this is a fact that too many ignore. We don't pay Ozil with Smarties.

But we are also finally below Liverpool and continue to be below Chelsea, United, and UAE Dept of Sports. 
Our biggest issue isn't necessarily how much we pay but how we have allocated that amount. We've somehow ended up with a bunch of undesirable yet untradeable assets while some of our top youngster and best senior players remain at risk 

Main difference is also those clubs have had considerable revenue growth in that time whereas we have had a massive contraction due to not playing in the CL. Also our commercial revenues over that time have had little growth and we have lost big value players for little to nothing and despite that Gazidis seemed to leave with a fucking bonus. Absolute joke really....

Infuriating that he gets away with what he did. Safe and hidden away somewhere in Milan whilst the locals nosh spaghetti alle vongole off his bald head.

Wanker.


With the state of our defence, it's a shame we won't have him next season, but my lord he's a talent.

I guess this is good news, hard to be excited when he won't be here this season. Guess that means we probably won't get to move on Mustafi yet too.

i'm hoping - and i'd wager the club is hoping - we can shift mustafi and replace him with another experienced defender

we're probably going to be stuck with mustafi until his contract expires. hes a bad defender on non-trivial wages. who is lining up to bring that to their club?

it's unlikely, but if we're serious about cutting our losses we should offer him around at a cut price. it's not like anyone will buy him at our valuation of 20-30m

Even if he goes out on loan, that's a win in my book simply because it will force us to get in another starting centre-half.

BWoolley wrote:

Even if he goes out on loan, that's a win in my book simply because it will force us to get in another starting centre-half.

One would think so, that would be the normal reaction. But we are Arsenal, we don't do normal. I would not be surprised at all if we don't buy another CB this summer.

William Saliba will now travel to England to put pen to paper on a long-term contract at the Emirates. [@charles_watts]

Goal: Arsenal set to sign Saliba in £26.5m deal

https://www.goal.com/en/amp/news/arsenal-set-to-sign-saliba-in-265m-deal/lnyr47dvu69v198a3kkdhv7zx?__twitter_impression=true

Now reported by goal. I know the drill by now, next it will be Sky, The Guardian and The Telegraph...and then BBC and 2 weeks later arsenal.

26.5m pounds is 29.5m EUR. Great work by the negotiators to shave off a cool 500k off the fee, Dick Law himself couldn't have done any better

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert wrote:

Hopefully now we can finally sign Zaha and loan him to St. Etienne for the season.

you don't like this deal?

[Twitter]
The journalist that has been most up on the deal also says it's done.

Also great that we’re apparently paying only £8m this summer and the rest next.