Summer 24: Page 18 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Summer 24

Burnwinter

I was very happy with last summer, even more so in retrospect. I've got a lot of faith in our recruitment at the moment, and I like that we keep our business under wraps. The concern is the other column: sales and PSR. We need to maximise on Smith Rowe, Nelson and Nketiah.

The story that we figured out Šeško wasn't on, but let the rumours go for as long as possible, sounds true to me.

samthegooner

I do have to say- dealing with transfer windows and silly season when you trust in the decision makers is a much more enjoyable experience than before Arteta/Edu really got their hands on things. In past summers, I would be very concerned about the lack of serious links but now I just have confidence that things are being done quietly behind the scenes.

MistaT

samthegooner — do you feel that way about sales though?

I’m still of the opinion Edu has fallen short there.

samthegooner

MistaT I think the blame for that isn't on Edu though- he was having to sell players with very little value or distressed value (Auba, Pepe, etc). The only times I have really been upset about our selling was when we were letting contracts go down and then selling star players for peanuts or losing them for free (RVP, Nasri, Ramsey, etc). The recent sales have certainly not been impressive in terms of what we got back but I didn't go into them expecting a lot regardless. I would say that holds true with our current deadwood/expendable assets as well.

Qwiss

samthegooner what would you do expect in that regard this summer? What constitutes good sales now that all the excuses are out the window. We are selling from a position of strength now.

DiabyKungFu

Qwiss We are selling from a position of strength now.

How so? Ramsdale has a horrendous contract. Tierney has a horrendous contract. Tavares was benched by a bad team. Sambi did fine but also had a bunch of injury issues. Smith-Rowe hasn't scored a goal in two years. Nelson has a horrendous contract. Partey has a horrendous contract. Eddie is probably the only really solid asset but I also don't think we're going to get some amazing haul for him. Probably just something decent.

We're beyond the point of having genuinely terrible players but we still have the problem of genuinely terrible contracts. For various reasons, there is less reporting/transparency on contracts in football than there are in American sports, so people talk about contract values less when it comes to transactions but I doubt it's much less important. Tobias Harris is a genuinely decent NBA player, but there's no confusion in NBA circles about why teams aren't desperate to trade for Tobias Harris. We have a number of Tobias Harris's. It's a big improvement on our typical problem of having a number of Pistons-era Blake Girffin's but it's still not really a "position of strength", really.

samthegooner

Qwiss I think others covered it far better than I would've been able to but I also agree that I don't think we are selling from a particular position of strength even if our team is much better. The players we need to sell either didn't play much over the last year or two, have had injuries or have contracts that are going to be prohibitive to some clubs that would be interested. Unfortunately, that may leave us with less resources to recycle back into the club but thankfully we are not hurting for revenue with Champs League back on the menu.

HomeSteak

DiabyKungFu Partey has a horrendous contract. 200k a week just the base salary.
Cedric also had one(by far the worst quality - wages ratio), Elneny had one but the rest I would not call them horrendous, Tierney is the worst because he is always injured, and you said Eddie is the best asset, but I don't know, he has a pretty bad deal. But none are Tobias Harris.

The PL average wage is 62.000 per week, with that in mind:

Tierney is on 100.000, above average, but he also is that...a good player...when fit.

Rasmdale is on 110.000 per week, that put him last year as the 6th best paid keeper in the league, he went down a little in the summer and will go down on the list again this year after a few transfers/new contracts. HG, young, I think it's decent, he is probably just that, the best 6-10th keeper in the league. We should be able to sell well.

Tavares as a contract is meh, 30.000 per week, we will be able to sell, thats a number any league can handle, but we won't make money on him, but it's not because of any "horrendous" contract.

Sambi 50.000 per week. Had a decent season....the problem here is not the contract, it was how much we spent on him(and why) from the start. But again, it's not a contract that won't allow us to sell like we had in the past.

ESR 40.000 per week well bellow the PL average, young, english, quality is there, he is out best asset.

Nelson - 60.000 per week. So the average wages, I think he is that, if you play him, an average PL player, probably better then that if given the chance, add the HG, english etc. Should be an easy sell, when you look at the numbers in the PL.

Eddie 120.000 per week. So I don't know if he is our best asset, thats a big contract, but he seems to have offers almost every transfer window...but even so, it is not horrendous.

For once we did not give the full squad bad deals, I think we should be able to make some decent money. We had 3 Tobias Harries, Partey - who nobody bar Saudi teams touches . Cedric who is not a PL lvl player, but just so we all get it was on 100.000 per week to keep fit, never got close to that ever in his life, never will(we gave him a 5 and a half year deal - this was a money making deal between Edu and Kia and nobody can convince me otherwise) and Elneny who made 60.000 per week, who again is not a PL lvl player, never was. He was just a less fun and cool gunnersaurus

Asterix

Not just the contracts either - Nelson, Smith Rowe, Vieira have hardly played for a season or two. Nelson might do a good job for a lower to mid Premier League side, but he's a player with one start in the last couple of seasons. Not exactly someone several clubs will fight over. We're doing better, but still not selling from a position of strength.

RowJimmy

Teams that "sell well" are teams not competing for honors.

Qwiss

RowJimmy City sold us Jesus and Zinchenko for good fees. Interesting to see if we can sell them for more.

Burnwinter

We can still get fees for Nelson, Smith Rowe, Nketiah etc, but if they're lower than they probably should be, no one could say we didn't all see it coming. Been discussing it for years.

Hope we can recoup £60m for the lads. Talk of £90m is jokeworthy. If we get £40m for Ramsdale I'll have to eat my hat all over again.

mdgoonah41

HomeSteak as a sixers fan, that tobias harris note really hit hard

Qwiss

The last few years I was hearing how it was Wengers signings that made it hard to sell. It was easier to sell for Liverpool because they were at the top of the league with City and no one wanted someone who couldn't get into an 8th place squad, etc, etc

Now people are trying to play down young English talent like Ramsdale, Nketiah, ESR. I'll give you Nelson because he's never done anything and is massively overrated by Arsenal fans but the other 3 all have England caps, Ramsdales going to the Euros. The majority of the players we are selling are young. They are not just decent 30-somethings. This was the policy, sign young players so you can grow their value even if they don't make it here. No ones expecting a big fee for the likes of Tierney even.

Wages aren't a good excuse either. A lot of those contracts were offered in order to retain the players value. They handed Ramsdale that big new deal just a couple of months before we got Raya. Managing contracts is a big part of managing player value. Its not an out.

Clrnc

Qwiss Yeah there's always some new excuses made when in fact the circumstances are largely the same for all big clubs.

Tam

Qwiss I doubt it. Who wants to buy a left back who can't defend and a striker who can't score?

I'm being flippant there. The truth is neither are standouts in their role playing it in a conventional way in a more conventional team. Both had a fair bit of success in coming here and making a mark, but Arteta was looking for very specific attributes from each to fit a very specific playing style. It worked for them in our system, though it very much narrows the market elsewhere.

Burnwinter

My theory's been that fringe players should sell better when our results are amazing. Therefore the benchmark is City for me. That means guys like these going for £20m and up. I don't think we'll quite get there, but £60m for the trio would be a good result in my book.

But the club's valuation of Ramsdale at £40m looks very unlikely despite his ability.

It's going to be a weird summer. Some of these outgoings won't happen till after the Euros and I reckon some of our recruitment can't happen till they do.

Burnwinter

Sell 'em to Maresca at Chelsea, he probably wants to play the footy we were playing two years ago.

Qwiss

Burnwinter yeah hoping he'll come in for Zinchenko. Don't think anyone with Nkunku is coming looking for Jesus.

flobaba

Clrnc it's all a moot point. The market determines value. Yes, naturally a quality first team player being prised away from their club (think Rice) is different from someone who is a sub or isn't deemed ready for first team duties (think Odegaard from Real Madrid, or any of Nketiah, ESR, Ramsdale), but we can and should still get good value for established premier league players who have been capped for England and have played champions League football. To suggest otherwise is basically looking at the hole rather than the doughnut. We have assets here, not liabilities.

lorddulaarsenal

Nico Williams makes so much sense for us.

Love his style on the left. Can provide cover for Saka. Recon Arteta can develop his game well too.

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