HomeSteak he then bagged that hattrick, then he went on a 15 game non scoring(only started 3 to be fair) until the end of the season.

With every contract there's the benefit of hindsight. Some come good (let's say Trossard who cost £27m and has 18 goals and 12 assists in 62 appearances). Some like Nketiah don't. All our renewals of proper starters have been excellent value for money compared to what we pay name signings like Jesus and Havertz.

It's generally good to punt on players we already have since there's no £27m fee. £27m is comparable to a fringe player's whole five year contract. We just need to better de-risk the scale and timing of contracts offered to fringe players.

In Nketiah's case we got the gamble about right. He's rarely played due to our other options, but it seems he'll move on at a fee.

In Ramsdale's case it was foolish to re-sign him on wages boosted from £60k per week to £85k per week in May 2023, just weeks before we signed Raya and benched him.

Ramsdale is making 50% more than Raya or Ederson without playing. The money we lay out to keep Ramsdale off the pitch heightens the impression he's a second tier talent, and puts us at the mercy of lowball approaches.

It appears that due to issues like Ramsdale's inertia we're now stuck holding out for sales. Likely because getting Merino in at a fair price isn't worth ending up snookered by PSR putting a €50m ceiling on our nett spend in summer 2025.

      HomeSteak Once Havertz made his move to striker.

      So what?!! Havertz has been striker for the last 6 months. What was your plan before that? you say play Trossard there, fine then you have to spend on a winger. Whatever way you slice it someone would have had to come in. You'd be letting him go for less than his worth, being stuck needing a replacement and ended up with someone else not quite a starter who poses the same issue. That people say we should have let Reiss go at the same team is even more myopic as we'd have been losing wing and striker cover. You need a squad.

      Most of all though there is zero financial argument for not giving Eddie that contract. We could have sold him last week for £25m. Thats loads of profit.

          Qwiss I assume the plan was Havertz at 8, that did not work. The plan in attack was to play Eddie, that did not work, as Eddie was dropped and never seen again, as he was not good enough.
          Yes, play Trossard there, he is better, why is that so hard to imagine lol? And yeah, I agree, we needed a winger last summer, not Eddie in the squad, we still need a winger this summer, and Eddie not in the squad.
          Again, not saying let him go for less then he is worth. We could not have sold him last week for 25, as you see..by you know, not selling him last week for 25 mil. We asked for 25-30, they said no.
          I agree also with what we did, the whole when there are 2 years left, sell or extend. But don't give them huge wages and then banish them to the bench, then you do not sell well. I think we will sell Eddie this summer, but it will be for around 15-20, what we would have gotten last year as well.

          And with Reiss is hard to make the argument, that you are trying to make since...well, we re-signed him, gave him 200 minutes in a full season, half of that on the left wing, and Arteta played both Jesus and Vieira before him on the right, and of course...played injured Saka more then him lol.

              HomeSteak Yes, play Trossard there, he is better, why is that so hard to imagine lol?

              I never said that was hard to imagine. We've seen it. I said selling players or letting them walk like you want requires new signings.

              HomeSteak Again, not saying let him go for less then he is worth.

              Its exactly what you are saying when you complain that we gave him a new deal. The only other options at that point are a cut price sale or let him walk.

              HomeSteak I agree also with what we did, the whole when there are 2 years left, sell or extend. But don't give them huge wages and then banish them to the bench, then you do not sell well.

              Eddie wasn't banished to the bench. He's played his fair share.

              HomeSteak And with Reiss is hard to make the argument, that you are trying to make since..

              I didn't make an argument for Reiss. Didn't rate him when we gave him that deal. He's worth a lot less than Eddie.

                      Qwiss

                      Honestly, there are some arguments that make absolutely sense, and one of those is questioning why we gave contracts to Nelson and Nketiah when they were about to walk on a free.

                          daredevil I assume there's a, rather key, "no" missing from that reply..? ;-)

                          Fwiw, I agree. It would have been daft to let Eddie go on a free when he was 22 years old and still potential. Hopefully, Arsenal will further prove that folly by getting a good fee for him in the next few weeks.

                            Even selling him for £15m would be better than letting him go on a free, not worried about that. Although we should be able to get 20m+.

                            It's more about practices than individuals. We need to cut back what we offer the fringe a bit. Take Smith Rowe: due to injury trouble he was only on about £70k. Given his immense talent, finding him a fair move wasn't hard.

                            Here's Fulham's current wage table, give or take (Palhinha's off):

                            https://salarysport.com/football/premier-league/fulham/

                            A year ago we handed Nelson a weekly wage of £100k per week, which is ahead of every Fulham player. Even at West Ham who've been sniffing round, Nelson would be about top five, on par with an effective specialist like Ward-Prowse. Nelson's on what Xhaka's on at Leverkusen.

                            We don't build the profile of an Arsenal fringe player after his early 20s, we bench him. So the smooth liquidation of any fringe player's paper "retained value" requires paying him wages in line with what he'd be offered by the type of club that would actually want to sign him right now, today.

                            daredevil one of those is questioning why we gave contracts to Nelson and Nketiah when they were about to walk on a free.

                            It's not about the contracts but the wages. By signing Nelson up at a wage that made future moves tricky, we instantly degraded his true "retained value" by millions and jacked up our overheads.

                            If we can't negotiate any meaner, a decent compromise would be building appearance bonuses a bit deeper into fringe player contracts.

                                the mistake started when we allowed an academy player to be in the last year of his contract. they should have been sold the previous year. when they are basically free agents even if another club is offering them 60-70k a week with a sign on bonus, we have to compete on the total value of the deal if we don't want to lose an asset that gives us greater flexibility to massage the financial rules. so we end up paying them 100k a week.

                                Burnwinter the problem there was not offering the players contracts earlier. I think we need to separate the Nelson and Nketiah deals too. Eddies been used quite a bit and has done a lot more in his career than Nelson to date. It would have been insane to let Eddie walk out the door and when a player is in the position he was in sometimes you need to pay over the odds to retain him. At the time he was second choice striker too, we didn't have Havertz or Trossard when he signed that deal.

                                    I mean I think when we offered both of those players their deals it was not a great decision with the contracts. Eddie is a championship level striker for be but nowhere near good enough for Arsenal even when he had his purple patch. I think if we are offering those deals the wages should be lower and if they don't want to accept them then sell them. I don't think we would have lost anything by him not being there and he was barely used in the second part of the season so it's hard to feel he was required.

                                    To the point about Nelson and Eddie, if you make the case about Eddie I still question was that even what contributed to the thinking given the deal offered to Nelson because they happend at the same time and you would imagine had similar assesment applied to them so if it was this informed view in Eddie what happend with Nelson contract?

                                    Qwiss No issue with Nketiah's deal, we called it roughly right. And Ramsdale's problem situation is an anomalous fuckup rather than the outcome of coherent policy.

                                    However, it's dumb Nelson's on the same money as Palhinha or Ward-Prowse. It's bad business: you don't retain value in an asset you'll struggle to sell and can't use.

                                      i think the agent played a blinder, simple. he caught us delaying those kids' contracts at a time when we were doing a lot of squad turnover, and he took advantage.
                                      in the end though, re-signing was still the better path given FSR.

                                      Burnwinter In Ramsdale's case it was foolish to re-sign him on wages boosted from £60k per week to £85k per week in May 2023, just weeks before we signed Raya and benched him.

                                      Ramsdale is making 50% more than Raya or Ederson without playing.

                                      Wait, those numbers don't look right to me. Sure there isn't a 1 missing at the start of each number? How is Ramsdale being paid 85k being talked about as one of the highest in the league? Also how is Raya and even worse Ederson somehow getting paid even less?

                                          Big Willie I think that £85k might be net. Ramsdale is one of the best paid goalies in the league.
                                          Clearly what happened is they signed Ramsdale and then Raya became available. And they had to decide whether to stick with their earlier decision or go with the guy they always wanted.
                                          A lot of things come into play here. How long Ramsdale had the contract for, how suddenly Raya became available, and their calculus on how much he was a must have.

                                              Claudius I think that £85k might be net. Ramsdale is one of the best paid goalies in the league.

                                              Keepers get paid like shit. Relatively speaking obviously.

                                                Salaries are tricky. You can see how we went and resigned all our young and important players in a 12-18 month period. Obviously that process has an inflationary effect. The minute one person goes from £30-£100k, the others start benchmarking their own wages, and using the newly increased wages to position their own demands.

                                                We’ve been top 2 in league for two straight years, with 5th and then 3rd highest wages in the league. So our wage situation is definitely not a big problem. It’s only an issue because of the combination of 1) this internal benchmarking that happens amongst our players, and 2) the rich teams being so disastrously wealthier than even the mid tier teams. So you end up with people who are hard to sell.

                                                The alternative is to have a weird salary mix where a big star makes £300k a big week but someone like Nketiah who still plays 1400 minutes at a top team only make £40-50k because that’s what his best alternative is at Bournemouth. Which would again cause stress in the system. In any case, Bournemouth would probably take him on a free, and still make him whole on the arsenal wage with a signing bonus. So I don’t think it’s as simple as “we need to pay these guys less”

                                                  I find the habit of expressing salaries as weekly amounts incredibly frustrating. Makes it impossible to compare with fees to come up with a true cost, which is fundamentally yearly.

                                                  Claudius We’ve been top 2 in league for two straight years, with 5th and then 3rd highest wages in the league. So our wage situation is definitely not a big problem.

                                                  Sort of is, sort of isn't. There are two league changes to financial rules coming in which will back us into a corner a bit by depressing squad spending everywhere.

                                                  Firstly PSR is cutting the appetite of PL clubs to buy our players if they're on high wages that need to be matched. It's already being enforced in a straightforward and punitive manner (Everton, Forest etc).

                                                  Secondly, the incoming 70% (for clubs in Europe) or 85% (for clubs out of Europe) cap on "footballing costs" (player wages, amortised transfer fees and agent fees) in relation to revenue is a fresh constraint.

                                                  Our footballing costs are currently about 68% according to one analysis I saw. Close to the wind already. We're not the worst off but this rule will suppress wage and fee offers throughout our league.

                                                  Thirdly there's this "anchoring" proposal which looks likely to come in. I think it's a less restrictive guardrail than PSR or the 70% cap for now, but it's another factor.

                                                  The downward pressure this stuff creates on wages and fees is gonna make it more of a problem shifting guys like Ramsdale and Nelson out.