Swiss Ramble: Arsenal's Transfer Budget: Page 6 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Swiss Ramble: Arsenal's Transfer Budget

Klaus

Ricky1985 wrote:
Mate, the reason the talks were postponed was because Nasri told Wenger he didn't want the distraction during the decisive period of the season. Wenger accepted his decision - well, actually, he didn't have a lot of choice.

Think you've got it backwards. It was Nasri and his agent that were talking about contract negotiations, but Wenger came out in january and announced that they were going to leave it until after the season had wrapped up. Your suggestion that Nasri has actively refused so sign an extension for the past year and a half is pure conjecture, mate. There's nothing to suggest that's been the case. Usually you'd hear about it if a player would stall on a new deal.

Captain

Klaus wrote:
Ricky1985 wrote:
Mate, the reason the talks were postponed was because Nasri told Wenger he didn't want the distraction during the decisive period of the season. Wenger accepted his decision - well, actually, he didn't have a lot of choice.

Think you've got it backwards. It was Nasri and his agent that were talking about contract negotiations, but Wenger came out in january and announced that they were going to leave it until after the season had wrapped up. Your suggestion that Nasri has actively refused so sign an extension for the past year and a half is pure conjecture, mate. There's nothing to suggest that's been the case. Usually you'd hear about it if a player would stall on a new deal.

Have to go with Ricky. Negotiations have been ongoing for a while and Nasri hasn't commited.

We then have to question exactly how strong our negotiations have been but we have definitely tried to seal a deal.

est

otfgoon wrote:
Why on earth would Wenger and the club want to postpone the decision for gods sake 😆

Fear of complacency? Distraction from what was important at the time(winning games)?

Klaus

Captain wrote:
Klaus wrote:
Think you've got it backwards. It was Nasri and his agent that were talking about contract negotiations, but Wenger came out in january and announced that they were going to leave it until after the season had wrapped up. Your suggestion that Nasri has actively refused so sign an extension for the past year and a half is pure conjecture, mate. There's nothing to suggest that's been the case. Usually you'd hear about it if a player would stall on a new deal.

Have to go with Ricky. Negotiations have been ongoing for a while and Nasri hasn't commited.

We then have to question exactly how strong our negotiations have been but we have definitely tried to seal a deal.

Yeah, maybe we have. I don't rightly know what has been said or done during the last twelve months. I think it should have been handled before the season started though, but there was no indication that we were negotiating with him last season.

goon

est wrote:
otfgoon wrote:
Why on earth would Wenger and the club want to postpone the decision for gods sake 😆

Fear of complacency? Distraction from what was important at the time(winning games)?

How is leaving your contract and future up in the air less of a distraction than sorting out your future and not having anything to worry about?

I find it a little hard to believe that we're willing to negotiate and sign contracts with almost every other player in the squad during the season, but with one of our biggest assets we decide not to, risk not only losing him but losing him on the cheap.

Our board my have their flaws but when it comes to financial planning and predence I'm pretty sure they're not that thick as to prevent a huge asset from tying his future to the club.

Captain

Klaus wrote:
Captain wrote:
Have to go with Ricky. Negotiations have been ongoing for a while and Nasri hasn't commited.

We then have to question exactly how strong our negotiations have been but we have definitely tried to seal a deal.

Yeah, maybe we have. I don't rightly know what has been said or done during the last twelve months. I think it should have been handled before the season started though, but there was no indication that we had even opened negotiations with him last season.

There's never really an indication is there? Just an announcement. Let's be honest, nasri wasn't exactly pulling up trees with his performances prior to this season so it would have been a non-story.

Klaus

Fair enough I suppose. I'm just a bit pissed off that we find ourselves in this situation again. I doubt it's something Nasri has actively been engineering for the past two years like Ricky suggests.

Timbob

It was Nasri and his agent that told Arsenal to wait until the end of the season. That was definitely how it was reported at the time.

And I'm pretty sure we've been talking to Nasri about extending since last summer at least.

est

otfgoon wrote:
How is leaving your contract and future up in the air less of a distraction than sorting out your future and not having anything to worry about?

Except that his future wasn't left up in the air. He still had nearly two years of contract left to run.

Giving him a new deal in the middle of the season could have worked both ways. It may well have given him a false sense of achievement and taken its toll on his performances, while being made one of the club's top earners(100+k) could well have caused unrest among other star players. Then again, being awarded with a lucrative deal could just as well have boosted his morale.

Ricky1985

Klaus wrote:
Fair enough I suppose. I'm just a bit pissed off that we find ourselves in this situation again. I doubt it's something Nasri has actively been engineering for the past two years like Ricky suggests.

I'm not suggesting Nasri is doing anything wrong, he's looking out for himself. He knows he will have nearly every major club in Europe looking at him this summer, promising him big bucks, that means he sits at the table with Arsenal with a far better bargaining hand than he had in July of last year, when we were trying to get him to sign, foreseeing the situation that would develop if we didn't.

Very smart from Samir, but he's always come across as a smart cookie so I'm not surprised. He'll get his 100K a week and we'll all move on.

Ricky1985

est wrote:
otfgoon wrote:
How is leaving your contract and future up in the air less of a distraction than sorting out your future and not having anything to worry about?

Except that his future wasn't left up in the air. He still had nearly two years of contract left to run.

Giving him a new deal in the middle of the season could have worked both ways. It may well have given him a false sense of achievement and taken its toll on his performances, while being made one of the club's top earners(100+k) could well have caused unrest among other star players. Then again, being awarded with a lucrative deal could just as well have boosted his morale.

But he wouldn't sign, so what could we do?

Captain

The club has more or less been following a pattern of renewing every two seasons since the webster ruling so I can't imagine that it would have been overlooked.

The only problem I have with this situation is that we mustn't allow it to overshadow transfers which, in my opinion, are a more pertinent issue.

est

I did some digging on Arsenal.com and found this article. It certainly indicates that the club would have preferred him to sign the contract right away, I was wrong about that. However, from those quotes, it doesn't seem like the contract offer had been on the table for a long time.

After his mercurial start to the season, Nasri was probably advised by his agent to postpone the negotiations to get a better deal. Nothing wrong with trying to get the best deal, if it doesn't involve threatening the club with leaving or sulking. Every quote from Samir and his agent suggest that is not the case and that his intentions have always been to extend his contract.

goon

Tottenham get around their wage cap for players like VDV and Gallas by giving them massive bonuses, so they're not the best example. I think our crap players get too much, the likes of Bendtner being on 50k seems ridiculous.

Captain

Ji Sung Park signed for £60k per week, Wes Brown £50-60 depending on who you believe, O'shea 80k. Smalling is supposed to have signed on £30k with literally no CV before going to ManU

Mikel apparently signed for 50k in 2006 and got a massive increase on that a couple of years later having not impressed, Kalou the same.

The wages we pay can be slightly higher at times but by the time most players leave us, they have renewed at least once and have built some sort of CV.

Claudius

It's hard to blame the club for not tying him down more quickly. We were talking to him in the fall, but Nasri had a fast start. The longer the season went, until around February, it was probably in his best interests to hold off negotiations because he was doing so well and stood a chance to be player of the year.

If he is overly stubborn, we should sell him quickly so we can focus on improving the team(but only if we intend to replace him while also addressing our currently existing gaps).

Captain

Lagos wrote:
We know these clubs pay silly wages, let's pick this up when Manu, Chelsea, Real, Barca or even City show interest in any of those players I mention. Most of our players will not play champions league football again if they were to leave except they went to a fernabache or one of the lesser leagues.

Point is that when they leave us, having played champs league and premiership football, most clubs will pay their going rate.

Claudius

otfgoon wrote:
Tottenham get around their wage cap for players like VDV and Gallas by giving them massive bonuses, so they're not the best example. I think our crap players get too much, the likes of Bendtner being on 50k seems ridiculous.

Otfgoon, do you have any details on the massive bonuses that Spurs players get? If you look at that recent Guardian report on spending, it puts our wage bill at 110m pounds versus 67m pounds at Spurs. That is an enormous discrepancy.

You are right that someone like Bendnter is overpaid, but he is definitely not the only one. We're throwing away money on overpaid players. It's a hard counterbalance between overpaying players with frequent contract extensions/improvements vs losing them on a free when their deals run out; and I feel we are not winning either side of that struggle

Captain

They haven't stuck in champs league yet; it will be interesting to see what difference it makes to their reported wage next season.

Ricky1985

Also got to minus £15M from our total, as we found out a few weeks back, that's what our shiny new executive team costs us.

I also think the Champions League will have made a big difference to Spurs' total.

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