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.

                          Houseboat, Football london do get things right, but they are quoting football transfer, who I no know nothing about. I for one think he gets one more year and then we sell him.

                            Claudius I still think that whole deal was a big mess. And its still very messy because I don't think we'll be able to move Ramsdale this summer and I don't think he'll stay here as number 2. We'll end up loaning him that will not be good business for us. For the level of improvement I don't think it is worth the hit.

                                HomeSteak Wouldn't be surprised if it were true in concept—what kind of offer? He's rated at €35m on Transfermarkt. I reckon we'd take that if another club offered it. It's just a scenario that won't happen.

                                  https://www.arsenalinsider.com/news/arsenal-player-wages/

                                  Here's a list of our wages, not sure if its 100% accurate but it seems to be mostly in line with what I've seen elsewhere. Seems to me we do have issues on wages but Nketiah is far from the problem. Jesus as a back up on a quarter of a million per week. Partey on 200k per week. Tierney on £100k. Those are serious issues. Especially given their inability to stay fit and their fading status in the first team. You could add Zinchenko on £150k too. Nelson on £100k is too much too, I agree on that.

                                  There is a reason Nketiah has suitors even at £100k and a reason no one want to buy the others I listed here. If you are giving out wages to retain value then the player has to remain a saleable asset on that wage.