There´s still a whole month and more yet to go To shuffle one´s pack into shape, Before they shut firm this transfer window After which there is no escape But it seems to me there are quite a few Who´ve yet to pull off a good deal, And the longer they wait to find someone new The harder it may be to seal And then there are three who have more on their mind That´s Spurs, Man U and Liverpool, All with a cut diamond so hard to find That admirers are starting to drool Eighty-one million, Madrid are supposed To have offered for Gareth Bale, Lunacy, if that was me I´d have closed The deal already, without fail Brilliant he may be, but 80+ mill Could buy you sixteen Hooper G´s, Or ten van Wolfswinkels which would more than fill Anyone´s plate, and more than please Surely at some point this all has to stop Before we reach that awful day, Where a one hundred million pound deal hits the shop Just because some nutter will pay So I´d say our dealings though modest indeed Compared to some prices these days, Do prove that not everyone´s governed by greed At the joining or parting of ways. OTBC - IHIT
Hi RBF, it does beggar belief doesn't it? If the rumours are true, he'll be off anyway, rumour has it he's asked to be allowed to go! Makes you appreciate CH and DM refusing to be held to ransome! Don't forget Rex's belly tickle and ear rub!
Dave - I would dare to suggest that Mr. Hughton and Mr. McNally could buy a whole starting eleven for 80+ million, and one that would easily hold its own in the PL. Crazy, crazy, crazy! (The King gets his ear tickle and belly rub, or ear rub and belly tickle each day without fail, he wouldn´t let me get away without it.)
Exactly my point Hairy, the last I heard they were preparing to come back with an £85 mill bid, so I think the lunacy is actually on both sides.
Please, while we are at it, can we give Arsenal due praise. They are rumoured to be in the market for Suarez, whose price is said to be £50M. If Arsenal pay that it will be the first deal of that size they have ever contemplated, and it will have been forced on them by a combination of disgruntled supporters, a trouble-making major shareholder and the constant sniping and contempt of the media rats beguiled by the biggest spending pipers.
Just sitting here Robbie, and wondering if that really is that praiseworthy, I know I tend to live a bit in the past but I can´t for the life of me see that any player can possibly justify a fee of £50 mill, or anything even close to it. May sound like chicken feed these days, but that only proves just how insanely inflated the whole transfer system has become. Naturally if clubs can afford astronomical fees then they´ll say the player is worth it, but they´re only kidding themselves I´m afraid.
bale is a fabulous player, really brilliant, but seriously, if spurs don't accept a bid of â¬100m then they are insane. they could improve their team with six great players with that money and be title challengers next season if spent wisely. as it stands they are too reliant on the welshman - this is their chance to take themselves to the next level
I didn't mean to suggest that spending £50M on Suarez would be praiseworthy rbf, rather that this would be the first time Arsenal had been drawn into even contemplating such a bid, and they deserve praise for having hitherto refused to pay these vastly inflated fees. It will be quite out of character for Wenger to agree to an outlay of £50M on a single player, or to accept that it is justified.
i think arsenal are barking mad, absolutely barking mad. suarez is a dog. granted he's a fantastic player but the baggage that comes with him means he should be well avoided by clubs in this country. £50m for a player who tends to spend a quarter of each season suspended is NOT good business and that's without even talking about the ethics. as usual, arsenal are acting in a bizarre fashion in the transfer market. they are without doubt the strangest football club in the premier league.
As George II said of General Wolfe when it was suggested to him that the latter was mad: "Mad, is he? Then I wish he would bite some other of my generals”! I agree that Arsenal appear the strangest club in the Premier League. That's because they don't play the same game as the rest -- to their credit IMO.
robbie, your logic is, well, non existent. i realise you have a 'soft spot' for the club but they are not the glowing example you make out. you appear to heaping praise on arsenal for not spending ludicrous amounts on transfer fees (which is fair enough to a degree - they don't spend as much as the other big boys but they continuously spend eight figure sums) when they are in the midst of breaking the british transfer record for a player who is frankly despised for being a cheat, biting a fellow professional and for a racial slur. they should be condemned for this, not praised. they have a truly astonishing wage bill. here's a brief rundown from last season: Lukas Podolski £107,000 pw Tomas Rosicky £80,000 Per Mertesacker £80,000 Andrey Arshavin £78,000 Santi Carzorla £70,000 Mikel Arteta £70,000 Thomas Vermaelen £70,000 Theo Walcott £60,000 Olivier Giroud £60,000 Gervinho £60,000 Bacary Sagna £60,000 Marouane Chamakh £60,000 Andre Santos £60,000 Jack Wilshere £60,000 Abou Diaby £60,000 Denilson £60,000 Laurent Koscielny £60,000 Johan Djourou £50,000 Kieran Gibbs £50,000 Nicklas Bendtner £50,000 Sebastien Squillaci £50,000 Aaron Ramsey £50,000 Wojciech Szczesny £50,000 Lukasz Fabianski £50,000 Ju Young Park £50,000 Vito Mannone £30,000 Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain £30,000 Carl Jenkinson £30,000 Emmanuel Frimpong £30,000 Francis Coquelin £30,000 Ryo Miyaichi £18,000 Ignasi Miquel £10,000 Joel Campbell £10,000 when you look at how poor some of those players are, the wages are frightening. it's long been a myth (in much the same way as 'everton don't spend money') that arsenal can't compete on wages but they could if they didn't pay very average players huge sums. they are run better than a lot of clubs but they make serious errors which could be easily amended.
To be fair, this looks a little better Luis Syarez [£120,000 pw] Lukas Podolski £107,000 pw Tomas Rosicky £80,000 Per Mertesacker £80,000 Santi Carzorla £70,000 Mikel Arteta £70,000 Thomas Vermaelen £70,000 Theo Walcott £60,000 Olivier Giroud £60,000 Gervinho £60,000 Bacary Sagna £60,000 Jack Wilshere £60,000 Abou Diaby £60,000 Laurent Koscielny £60,000 Nacho Monreal £55,000 Kieran Gibbs £50,000 Aaron Ramsey £50,000 Wojciech Szczesny £50,000 Lukasz Fabianski £50,000 Ju Young Park £50,000 Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain £30,000 Carl Jenkinson £30,000 Emmanuel Frimpong £30,000 Yaya Sanogo £28,000 Ryo Miyaichi £18,000 Ignasi Miquel £10,000 I appreciate they haven't quite achieved that and I am assuming those on loan have the majority of wages paid , but still...
With a turnover of around £250m, that would be by far the lowest percentage in the league, so that's not too bad. It's also about the quality of player you are paying. I'd happily have wilshere at Norwich on 60k per week... The embarrassing ones are, e.g., Bendtner on £50kpw. If they get him off the bill it definitely looks a lot healthier.
@Canary Rob Arsenal's wage bill is below that of Chelsea and the two Manchester clubs, and as a proportion of turnover it is among the lowest in the league (2011/12 fourth lowest). They have indeed operated rather unusually, in that they don't generally allow huge disparities between the wages paid to individual players. I believe some fans refer to this policy as the club's "Socialist" wage structure. You really need to give similar breakdowns of individual wages at other clubs to get a fair comparison. As for "average" players, yes there are one or two well-known flops in there, Squillaci, Park among them. They undoubtedly benefitted from the wage structure. But I myself wouldn't dismiss too many of the others as "average". PS Some clubs include ALL staff wages in the total wage bill. I think Arsenal are one of them. My figure of fourth lowest used the global total for the year, and the player wage total would indeed be much lower as Battersea points out.
Rob, your original post questioned my praising Arsenal over their transfer policy, and I read it as adding the further criticism that they also have "a truly astonishing wage bill". Apologies if that was not what you meant.
