Claudius wrote:
We spend way too much.
What we need to do as a club is reduce our weekly wage bill. Significantly. Going into next season, we should have as few players as possible who are excess. So that might be Willian, Mari, etc. But most of the rest should be going. And it doesn’t make sense to keep adding more of these high cost veterans. Look for more Gabriel type investments. Arteta needs a fresh start as much as possible where he doesn’t have to stick Lacazette somewhere into the lineup.
Agreed in principle but at the same time we need to be cognisant there is a difference in signing 32/33 year olds to a 28 year old who is/are only a year older than Partey and the same age as Leno for example.
If they fill a requirement and are starting quality we should not automatically dismiss them if they are not yet 30 and are likely to have re-sale value at the end of a 3 year deal. However if the price is not right or their personal terms re wages then we would be right to then walk away from any deal and move on.
In terms of our wages we are in line to reduce them by about 50+m next summer with the likely departures of Ozil, Mustafi, Sokratis, Luiz and Ceballos, let alone anyone we actually sell such as Xhaka and/or Laca. Apart from reducing wages it also means we are losing a shit tonne of experience which the youngsters cannot bridge the gap without another couple of seasons of playing time, let alone in terms of winning titles etc.
