Great find. A quick browse: Spurs - £167m net spend total since PL began (i know thats not quite the same as the original post but it was easy to find) Chelsea - £592m Arsenal - £30m!! (Nicely done, although doesn't include wages) Everton - £38m City - £481m Utd - £231m Pool - £267m
Here's another one: http://potentialability.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cost-of-premier-league-squads_17.html please log in to view this image although this is for the 2011/12 season
Oh you're just trying to resurrect an old argument In all seriousness though, it looks likely that our wage bill will go up as Gazidis has just announced that we are going to dispense with the 'flat' wage structure and pay top players a wage on a par with the top clubs we want to compete with. That said, we are shifting a load of deadwood and our commercial revenue streams have just been given a massive shot in the arm. We're still spending what we can afford from what we earn, so if that means we can pay top wages and still live within our means
It's reported that Arsenal's turnover will reach £300m next year (improved stadium naming rights deal, new kit deal, several other commercial deals) So a wage bill of £150m will be well within our means
Well done, so when we're talking amongst ourselves in the future, talking about our limitations in this respect, and the advantages of the teams around us, don't come jumping in with your tales of woe trying to compare as some of your ilk do. Remember what you've wrote here, because we've never said you haven't had money to spend.
No need to get defensive you provided a link to a story about Arsenal's wage bill and I explained to you why that is happening and how we are able to service it. It's no secret that due to our stadium build, we were restricted financially from competing with Utd, Chelsea and City, but it looks as though the club have successfully steered their way through the lean times to a position where we can now begin to get back to the level we are used to.
http://www.transferleague.co.uk/ lists these Lukas Podolski £11,000,000 Olivier Giroud £13,000,000 Santi Cazorla £20,000,000 Nacho Monreal £8,300,000 Gervinho £10,600,000 Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain £12,000,000 Joel Campbell £950,000 Park Chu-Young £3,000,000 André Santos £6,200,000 Mikel Arteta £10,000,000 Per Mertesacker £10,000,000 Thomas Eisfeld £400,000 Kyle Ebecillo £500,000 Laurent Koscielny £10,000,000 Sebastien Squillaci £4,000,000 Thomas Vermaelen £10,000,000 Aaron Ramsey £5,000,000 Bakari Sagna £6,000,000 Lukasz Fabianski £2,000,000 Tomas Rosicky £6,800,000 Theo Walcott £9,100,000 Vassiriki Diaby £2,000,000 Vito Mannone £350,000 Nicklas Bendtner £200,000 Which totals to £161,400,000 (I think all these are still there). So Arsenal's squad cost 30% more than Spurs to get 1 more point! Not a good return. Also I can't see a single player in this list who could be sold at a decent profit. I'd say our signings have been much better than Arsenal's.
That one extra point could earn us up to £50m more in Champions League revenue so it puts the 30% into perspective. If you're only talking about your signings being better in terms of resale value then I'd agree, Bale is the most marketable player at the moment, but if you had sold him last season then rest of your squad would have finished 7th behind Liverpool and 23 points behind Arsenal. Also last season you spent £60m on transfers, the 3rd highest behind Utd and Chelsea, but overall those additions have not helped to improve your squad or league position.
I do agree it's hypothetical to a point, if Bale wasn't there then you would have had another player in his position, but it's unlikely he would have made such a big impact - and quite likely that you would have finished some way down the table behind Arsenal. It terms of value for your squad, Bale has masked a multitude of sins.
Good logic If we'd sold Bale last season we would of course have fielded a ten man team, with no replacement contributing even a single point
Nevertheless, its still a slightly ludicrous way to go about a calculation. The games you mention involving bale would not necessarily have had a different outcome had he not played at all. Our record with no Bale is not as grim as you think. To suggest the outcome of a game thats already been played minus one player is....impossible!
I find the whole "individual points contribution" a totally ridiculous statistic in the first place. Football is a team game which is not only about goalscorers, but also assists, build up play, defensive awareness and thousands of other elements - My point is that often the player who has made the assist, or made a crucial interception/pass, has made a greater and more significant contribution than the person who put the ball in the back of the net. We don't talk about Sandro's points contribution because he only scored one goal, but I don't think anyone could argue that without his crucial interceptions and ball winning in midfield we would have finished with significantly fewer points.
Ok, so lets assume that "£80m" (not my figure) Bale got us 22 points on his own last season. What we then need to do is take £80m worth of talent out of each Arsenal game and work out what you would have dropped. I would put money on the fact that if we played without Bale and with 10 men we would accrue more points than Arsenal playing every game with 5-6 players. See how silly this is?
Nobody is saying you would have fielded a ten man team. What I'm asserting is that the replacement would not have had as big an impact on your season, points total and final league standing as Bale had. Which in turn gives a better indication of the relative value of your squad's overall value.
See my point. If we are going on a hypothetical situation where we are minus £80m of talent then its only fair that all other teams should be. You saying "Spurs would have 22 points less without Bale" is the same as me saying "Arsenal would have X points less without Cazorla, Walcott, Wilshere etc"
