"The journey continues" - Mikel signs extension until 2025: Page 75 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

"The journey continues" - Mikel signs extension until 2025

RocktheCasbah

Meatwad My question to you - and I agree with some of what you've said - were any of those decisions made really likely to have different outcomes with Arteta having head coach on his office door instead of manager?

Meatwad

RocktheCasbah
yes. it signaled an expansion of duties. we went down that route after wenger with emry (and in that first year with arteta) because our new way of operating was the director of football handled player personnel decisions and the head coach handled training and match day. when arteta's head coach title was replaced with manager it said to everyone that he will be making player personnel decisions as well. i'm reminded of the old NFL coach bill parcells: "If I'm going to be asked to cook the meal, I'd like to be able to pick the groceries."

Don Pacifico

Claudius

For clarity, the Liverpool data is 5 years from the start of the Klopp era so it's comparable from a rebuild perspective.

Agree that COVID made things tougher, the market has moved on, rebuilding our squad was a bigger task (etc.) but our net spend is still 5x greater than theirs, which is quite dramatic. So whilst there may be externalities that have impacted our own spending, I struggle to see that as the only reason we're so much in the red.

Agree that our squad value is a plus (the positive lining of our transfer strategy) but I'm still not sure it completely offsets how much we've sunk (certainly not until we're able to sell more effectively).

Coombs

Looking at gross spend for the first 5 seasons of Klopp/Arteta is interesting too. Struggling to share the numbers but it's remarkably similar each year with the exception of this season where we spent €200m more. Total difference across 5 seasons is €269m.

I'd take that to mean (a) investment in players is similar but we've not yet assembled a team of comparable quality to the Liverpool title winning side (so maybe not as good value for money?) whilst (b) the more serious issue constraining improvement is our failings in selling players.

Claudius

Don Pacifico agree with a lot of what you say, ie, we need to prove we can sell better.
But I do think the comparison is not a good one given a) Covid and b) rising costs c) rising inequality amongst European clubs

A better comparison is to look at other teams undertaking large squad investments at the same time as us, eg Chelsea, United, and more recently Spurs. They’ve had to dispose off players under the same conditions as us.

What you will see is basically it is easy to sell or buy highly desirable players at a big fee. But then you end up with a lot of challenging deals, and all these clubs are dealing with post-Covid realities of burning cash.

Don Pacifico

Claudius A better comparison is to look at other teams undertaking large squad investments at the same time as us, eg Chelsea, United

Maybe although both those clubs are poster children for institutional disarray so not sure they're who we should be benchmarking ourselves against.

Burnwinter

Claudius 5 years ago, Liverpool had their core squad already and was potentially the best team in all of Europe at that point. Those assets included VVD, Salah, Mane, Trent, Allison etc, many bought at great expense

It should still give us pause if we imagine that today, or this summer, we are more or less where Liverpool were 5 years ago.

The inference is our nett transfer spending needs to decrease to a much lower level over the coming seasons—we'll need to start selling and replacing players efficiently in other words. We also need to fatten up our revenues as much as possible.

Finally, we should also be "the best team in all of Europe" or approaching that mark. For what it's worth I think we're not that far off, but we're certainly not there yet.

Claudius

Burnwinter squad is stable and full of valuable players. Good sales for me will come from amongst the following: Ramsdale, Kiwior, Martinelli, Jesus, ESR, Nketiah, Patino. That is players we can get more than we paid and could l be replaced with good scouting

Burnwinter

The Athletic has this review breaking down a £1.13bm Arsenal squad valuation: https://archive.md/2LOHJ

Would be good to ship out Kiwior, one of Ramsdale and Raya, Nketiah and Partey this summer. In their valuations that might be bring in about £80m. Note that they predict losing money on Kiwior and the keepers. Jesus would be tempting to shift as well, but I think their estimate of his value is nonsense.

The vast majority of the estimated value in our squad is players we won't be selling this summer.

Qwiss

Burnwinter those valuations look completely made up, there is almost no logic involved.

Don Pacifico

Burnwinter every time I've seen people estimate our outgoings, the valuation has always ended up being greater than the cash we've actually generated. 😢

Burnwinter

Qwiss Yes they are very dubious. I think I could've made up more plausible numbers. On the other hand if you're gonna claim sales will fund signings you've gotta start somewhere.

Clrnc

Yeah absolutely nonsense. It will only make sense the day we start to sell well and stop making losses in transfer window buy high sell low.

If we end up making a loss on Kiwior (if we are retarded enough to sell him) then value destroyers confirmed

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

Clrnc making a loss on Kiwior

We will for sure.

Meatwad

funny how that works. the majority of our squad value is in players we want to keep and the players we want gone aren't so valued.

Claudius

Those valuations are iffy. And here is why - very important. They only matter if someone on the other end is willing to pay the price. Take another big club like United. In the last 2 years, they seen Sancho, pogba, Matic, Cavani, Mata, Lingard, Cristiano, etc., out the door for nothing either with contracts run down, bought out or free loans.

The market for clubs that can afford these valuations is extremely thin. So if we want to sell Saka this summer, we will fetch £120m - because he is a gamechanger. If we want to sell Nelson, good luck getting more than £10m.

The big buyers are down to big 6 in England, Bayern, Real and PSG. The next tranche are buying value - so might go for a Patino. But that middle market of moving around veterans is busted.

invisibleman18

HomeSteak If only there was something that could possibly be done about a thin squad. It's almost like you need some window in the season where you're allowed to add to it or something.

Claudius

invisibleman18 nobody’s buying

invisibleman18

Sounds like that might mean less competition for anyone you might be interested then.

Burnwinter

Interesting stat I saw today: with that thrashing, we've scored more goals after 24 played than we had last season.

daredevil

Burnwinter

Surely, conceded fewer too.

banduan

Clrnc We are not broke, but because of bad sales we can't buy and not for foul of the rules.

yeah but that's nothing to do with how well we spend. That's why Pool's net spend figure being used as a yardstick is spurious.

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