Imo its a case of how far you are prepared to let the club you support slide in order to maintain the moral ground. The truth of the matter is we are being left behind by the likes of Chelsea and Man City. My hope is that UEFA actually enforce FFP so that being a well run club will count for something and may even mean that we can be genuinely competitive again.
http://www.talksport.co.uk/magazine...lub-revealed-2006-when-arsenal-moved-s-194227 Hey just found this graph Intersting. Not just regarding arsenal but some of the lesser known clubs especially villa.
Not too sure how to respond to this. My natural instinctive side says I agree, we are a club run on a morally acceptable basis and we have shown that its possible to remain competitive when run on profit and not being subsidised by a sugar daddy. This is how I want the world to be. But then theres the cynical more realistic side which says in this day and age it doesn't work like that. We have been left behind by those who are prepared to prostitute themselves to get success at any cost and the only way we can compete is to do the same. Its the sad truth of the world today.
Thank you for this link. I don't really follow the finances of the game but I was shocked to see that Tottenham had spent £100m more than Arsenal. What is very surprising is that Tottenham are supposed to be a well run football club, so how can they be able to spend £100m more than Arsenal?
Spurs fans will tell you that net spend is what counts as they got good deals for the players they have sold, but it doesn't hide the fact that they have spent big trying to claw their way up the table. When you think about the deals for Darren Bent (£16.5m) David Bentley (15m) you can see what I mean. Also, some of those great deals they got for players they sold, included buying back Robbie Keane from Liverpool for 11m
Transfer fees are proportionally small when it comes to the outgoings. Wages are the biggest expenses for football clubs. Using net spend when comparing progress against investment is a bit pointless as it makes up only a small proportion of investment. If you're not using total investment then you should use total spent on wages in the period. From the latest figures seen arsenal spend 50m wages more than spurs in a year. Over 7 years, which is the period being assessed, this difference would be 350m but of course the difference may not have been this big every year. A key point here is wages are much more difficult to reduce whereas transfer spending is easily within your control and players can also be sold if there is demand. Obviously arsenal make more revenue and have much more resources so they are capable of paying these higher wages but this is the figure that should be used to compare performance against not transfers or 'net' spend. Assuming those figures in the link were all correct obviously.
Actually, net spend is probably the best way to assess a club's finances. Arsenal may pay more in wages than Spurs but we have a greater revenue so it's appropriate. It's relative, we earn more, so can spend more. But in terms of actual purchasing in real terms, Spurs have outspent us by £100m and achieved less. Where do you get all this money from anyway? How much does Joe Lewis and ENIC pump into the club, over and above what Spurs generate as a stand alone business ?
Hill-Wood once had the nerve to say on camera that he would stay as AFC Chairman untill he is completely senile. And since he is close already, I believe he will. I think it is indicative of the arrogance of these old Etonians who still think that it is their own toy. To appoint his 80+ y.o. buddy to the Board - what was that ??? Look at German clubs - ex top footballers are promoted to the boards. And we have guys who have never kicked the ball and probably never even used public transport. On the surface we are the modern club, but in reality we are years behind ManU in marketing, sales, commecial etc.
Of course it isn't. What a ludicrous, self-serving statement. Net spend's entirely irrelevant as a standalone figure. A club spending £100m on transfers and £50m on wages has still spent the same amount as one spending £50m on transfers and £100m on wages, it's just that the latter club's outlay will be higher over time. Signing a big name player on a Bosman and paying him a massive salary wouldn't be factored in at all, via your method.
Im not sure how you reason this, because you simply keep stating your opinion rather than giving your reasons. I agree with your basic maths, but the argument on wages is a little more complex. With wages you pretty much have to pay the player what he is worth. Bale would earn much the same salary if he played for Arsenal, as he does for Spurs. In this regard, the club has little choice. Therefore the club that has the highest wage bill either has the better players, or has a deeper squad, or is taking a gamble on players that are developing. In Arsenal's case the higher wage bill reflects a slightly deeper squad (arguable for Spurs fans maybe) and (I don't think very arguable) a much larger gamble on developing players. The wage bill for your first team squad, is almost a meter for success. The higher your wages the more success you have as a club, and the more success you have as a club, the more the players want to be paid. Net transfer fees on the other hand are more discretionay. If you overpay for poor players your wage bill would be lower, so I don't think net transfer spend has much to do with success. It has more to do with how rich your club is, and how much risk you want to take with your finances. It also depends on the relative strength of your squad. If your wage bill is low, then you can afford to spend more on transfers, but if it continues to be low, then all that means is that you aren't buying the right players who should be making it to stardom and higher wages. In Arsenal's case, the problem has been that we have made stars that can command such high salaries that we can't afford to pay them ourselves. Now I don't know if this is because Arsenal are (stupidly some people would say) keeping the wage structure flat at Arsenal, or if they have no choice because this is the culture of the business and the other players would not stand RVP being played 200K/week and other top internationals in the team, like Cazorla and Monreal, being paid about half that.
Is your squad 50% better, TT? Your wage bill's roughly 50% higher. It's higher than Spurs and Everton combined. Not sure how you've come to the conclusion about taking a gamble on developing players, either. Could you expand on that point, please? I'd suggest that there's actually quite a bit of waste at the club. How many players can you think of that have no future there, yet are still picking up big wages? There are a few at Spurs, with Bentley being the most obvious example, but there are a large number on your books, in my opinion. Diaby and Rosicky have been unlucky with injuries, so I'll discount them, but the likes of Squillaci, Arshavin, Santos, Djourou, Chamakh, Park, Bendtner and Denilson must be a drain. A number of your squad players must be picking up inflated salaries too, as your top players don't seem to be on a high enough wage to prevent them wanting to leave. Experienced players at the top of their games get a bigger chunk of the wage bill at other clubs, from what I've seen. I'm not sure why that appears to be different at the Emirates.
Id say Spurs are 50% weaker easily. The numbers I have say Arsenals first team is worth about 20% more collectively than the Spurs squad, that includes Adebayor who isn't being paid his full worth by Spurs. Add in the depth of the Arsenal youth teams and the success in things like Next Gen, and the down-side of the players Arsenal didn't succeed on, then 50% doesn't seem a stretch to me.
I really don't know how you've come to either of those conclusions. The objective facts would suggest that you're incorrect. I'm not sure that you've paid much attention to the Spurs youth system recently, either. You advanced one round further in the Nextgen, but the U21 side is miles clear at the top of the division, with over twice as many points as their Arsenal counterparts. They've also scored 72 goals in 21 games, which is outstanding. http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/...mier-league-tables.html?paramYouthStage=ELITE
