Did you watch the Luton v Man City game last night? Erling Haaland is a sensation who is scoring 5 goals away from home IN A MATCH. Yes, he is supported by the best player on this planet currently in Kevin De Bruyne but you have to be at the right place at the right time to score some of those. His performance and the stats convinces me more that –
“The difference between Arsenal finishing 2nd and Man City winning a treble is Haaland.”
It was apparent after last season ending tragically for us when we topped the league for 200+ days and lost to Man City. You may say we had injuries and fatigue towards the end of the season but we had lost some very winnable games prior to that, just because no one was able to score. Eddie and Jesus are not as clinical in front as you would expect your CF to be. If you think I am exaggerating, answer me a simple question – would you prefer Trossard or Eddie/Jesus up top? And Trossard is mostly a left-winger.
So what did we do? We brought Declan Rice, Kai Havertz, David Raya and Jurrien Timber. Rice has proved his worth, Havertz is still trying to and Timber is out injured since the first game he played for us. And we are doing well defensively. Look, I was/am as excited as you to see Timber play for us, and I understand we need to pay 35m today to not spend 80m tomorrow, but after finishing 2nd, we need a CF who can score. We could have lose 5 points had Ramsdale been playing instead of Raya (lets just say), but that CF would have covered those losses.
I’m sure Edu and Arteta knows this, because of the rumours surrounding Ivan Toney and Arsenal. But Brentford rejected any claim of our inquiry and we are registering losses as a club.
The Club released 2022-23 financials, and here’s a summary if you are interested :
We had an increase in operating profit from football from 80m to 116m. We paid about 18m for players to leave, which club has determined exceptional costs (player impairment). We spent 139m (+12m) on players, made a profit of 12m down from 24m from last season in player’s sale.
There were increase in broadcasting revenue, largely because we played well and finished 2nd in last season. Commercially we did well as well, with a 30m increase in revenue – yes those tshirts you see every other two days are selling well.
We have a wage bill of 235million. We extended few players and put them on bigger wages – Eddie, Martinelli, Saka, Ben White, Ramsdale, and at this pace it’s going to only increase.
We paid 18m for players to leave. Our current wage bill is 235m GBP. Our players’ sale decreased from 24m to 12m. And we are out there loaning the likes of Tierney who could have fetched 30odd millions in a market. These 3 things need to change. The first one is almost done, we don’t have any dead rubber (as of now). Our wage bill is unsustainable if we don’t win things. Our current crop is going to stay and will likely earn even more in coming years, so that’s only going to increase. Paying 65m for Havertz and making him the highest earner at Arsenal when he wasn’t getting any favour at Chelsea just mean we said yes to whatever his agent asked for. We need to fix that mate.
Third, what’s all that hype of Mertsacker running academy well when we can’t generate any profit and non of them can break into the playing XI. We tried to emulate Chelsea’s academy structure of making profits from the sale of youngsters, but it has not worked yet (except may be Saka / Nelson) but they were playing well before Edu, Arteta and Mertsacker took over.
And stop increasing ticket prices and asking 75 pounds for a tshirt. There are 16/18 year olds out there supporting you who can’t afford that. Don’t cover your incompetence on the cost of fans. KSE are shrewd businessmen and I think they see this, hence the Vinai’s departure.
Right, so we are registered losses in the books. We only managed to remain within FFP because Brentford agreed to give us Raya and take payment a year later. We can’t sell anyone and the Centre Forwards are the costliest item in the market.
And we need one desperately. Tough time requires tough measures, if we win something this season, all’s well but if we don’t, we need to cut loose the likes of Eddie, Jesus, Nelson, Thomas Partey, ESR and a lot more of the deadwoods who can’t improve us any bit more. Tierney as well.
So here, we need a goal scorer and we can’t afford one. That’s me done for today.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I got some title-winning “feels” from that Pool ending, especially with Klopp fielding another “makeshift” 11, but I quickly reminded myself that it’s still early days…I can’t say that I”m overly confident about the possibility of United taking all 3 from City, but maybe they’ll luck into a draw with some late-game heroics from Mctominay…then come Monday we simply need to come out and dominate a substantially weaker side so we can rotate a handful of players into the mix shortly after the break…what are the chances of that being the narrative? coin toss at best…no matter, I’m far more convinced of a one-sided affair, in our favour of course, than us gifting away all 3…see you all Monday
New post.
Sensational goal by Rashford with thanks from Gooners globally🙏👀😂