Edu: Sporting Director … or high-priced bagman?

Clrnc

I'm not putting everything on Edu, but Arsenal as a club since Wenger left have always either overpaid, or simply just paid up what the buying club wants for any players.

Then when we sell, bar some decent deals like Xhaka, most of the time we sell way below market.

By that metric, Edu really hasn't done anything special.

Re the youth thing, not quite willing to debate on it now but many have mentioned that for a long time. Arteta is a chequebook manager, nothing wrong with that but it's time people accept it.

Coombs

Clrnc Arteta is a chequebook manager...

There's no other kind of successful manager.

Burnwinter

Coombs There's no other kind of successful manager.

It's the need to spend money to succeed that motivates this whole thread—because it's the same reason we need to start caring about sales.

Either our revenue shoots through the roof or FFP catches up with us, whether it has teeth or not, it wouldn't be a surprise at all if Arsenal ended up the one club the FA and UEFA really f*cked over.

There are limits, but we would benefit both in football and financial terms from greater rotation and not marooning fringe players on the bench or on pointless loans.

Clrnc

Coombs That's hugely disrespectful to the person we just built a bust for. He competed with chequebook managers and beat them fair and square throughout his career.

Burnwinter

Clrnc @Coombs Thing is you're both right.

Times have changed, Wenger's encyclopaedic knowledge of football talent is now Tony Bloom's algorithm. Wenger could no longer reliably unearth talents when he left us. And players visibly as good as a 20 year old Patrick Vieira are now worth Lavia money …

To be "sustainable" in that Wenger way, a club now needs to be Brighton-like, engaged in this data and process-driven, whole-of-squad value optimisation activity. Relying on Arteta would be dumb, and relying on Edu's acumen seems dumb too.

Through diligently re-signing Saka, Saliba, Martinelli, Ødegaard et al we've done a good job of locking in value, but none of those players should be wiggling out of their current contracts for less than £50m.

mdgoonah41

selling holding for £4m while chelsea are selling no name players with one year left on their deals for £30m.

the club really needs to bring in someone new to handle our transfer business. edu might be a good PR person and maybe the staff and players like him, but hes costing us a ton of money in the market and at some point the bill is going to come due

Clrnc

mdgoonah41 It's not all his fault. We always make it obvious to the whole world who we don't want and it will take a few years to get rid of that reputation of paying off players.

naz

1M with 3M in add ons. That's so bad. Less than what we bought him for even

JazzG

Laughable how bad a deal that is.

Edu does a alot of things well but we aren't very good at selling. Part of that problem is the players we sell are usually not very good but also usually on high wages making them harder to shift. Clubs know this and that is why many dragged this out until the last day of the window. Our strategy clearly isn't working when it comes to selling players.

Claudius

A guy we bought for £2m who never plays, and when he does play sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of quality and fit.

If we want money, we will have to sell desirable items. Also need to take into account trends in terms of the types of players that teams want. There is no serious market for Holding, Tierney, Pepe. You can thank Pep, Arteta, de Zerbi etc for that.

Clrnc

Holding is on low wage. There's absolutely market for him.

daredevil

Clrnc

Yeah, they were all clearly fighting it out for his signature.

I don't think you understand how markets work. You can't generate interest if it's not there. It's the agents job to find suitors for his client. The club can offer the player to other clubs but that's even more likely to lead to a low fee offer.

Lot's of fans think Holding is shit and we should get rid. And then they turn around and cry that other clubs don't hold him dearly enough to pay good money. Make that make sense. If you think he's shit and doesn't deserve to be here, then the brain team at other clubs likely think the same.

goon

Clrnc

What’s your theory then? He was there for the taking for a supposed bargain. Where were these other clubs? Genuine question because honestly I don’t get it either at times, especially when it comes to someone like KT.

But the PL transfer window is a multi-billion dollar industry, the idea that these clubs with sophisticated scouting departments and highly connected agents won’t go for a player unless you get a door to door salesman to ship him around doesn’t work for me.

Claudius

daredevil Amen.
The logic doesn’t hold together.

Claudius

Xhaka played last season. Did well. We got a great price. Balogun lit up France. We got a great price. Good, desirable players fetch good fees.

HomeSteak

Claudius I mean...great ? It was decent, we got 15 mil man. We paid 65 for an inferior player in Havertz. Hell, not even going there, we paid 20 mil for Lokonga.

Burnwinter

We've obviously given Holding a move he wanted, that's good.

Clrnc

goon So you think 1m +2.5m add ons is what Holding is worth?

QuincyAbeyie

Clrnc Unlike Maguire, who's a 30m player.

Qwiss

Clrnc its such a ridiculously low offer I don't know how anyone can justify it. Holding played 98 games for Arsenal and is only 27. Thats a £20m player not matter how you look at it. The idea that there is nothing in between being good enough to play for Arsenal and being a £1m player just doesn't cut it.

Clrnc

Qwiss Maybe not 20m, but genuinely thought he was worth close to at least 10m. Certainly not be making a loss on what we bought him for a decade ago.

A quick look also finds that many random no mark CBs age 25-30 moved for around 5-10m pounds in the top 5 leagues, not including those higher profile players that costs 10-20m that I don't even think it's better than Holding.

The idea that we can't shift our players out for reasonable fees because there are no demands for them, but many other clubs could is just flawed. It's mainly due to the reputation we got ourselves into for the past 5 years, overpay for players we want, write off players we don't want.

Meatwad

so all the other teams just sat back and said "we'll do Palace a solid and not drive the price up?" the market determines his value and that's what the market says he's worth.

arsenal the fan base that loves to trash players for being absolute trash and then wonder why other teams can't see the immense value. xhaka got older and his value went up because he performed to a high standard on a top team.

and the market didn't think maguire was a 30m player. he's still at yanited.

QuincyAbeyie

Meatwad and the market didn't think maguire was a 30m player. he's still at yanited.

The Athletic: West Ham’s proposal for Maguire of around £30m — which is separate from the £30m bid for McTominay that was rejected — is getting close to the figure United would accept, but the outcome ultimately depends on his decision.