(Editorial note: I changed the title of this article at the last moment, and in so doing so mis-spelled the name of Flamini. I have now corrected it. Apologies).
By Tony Attwood
During my week off in Cornwall I spent a pleasant hour outside a pub on Porthleven harbour thinking about players who had left Arsenal because they wanted to move on to pastures new. Not players that Arsenal wanted to sell, but those who wanted to go.
I wondered: how did they do? And slowly it occured to me that Mr Usmanov and his allies in the Guardian newspaper (of whom more in a later article) may have missed something very profound – for his vision that it is awful that we are losing a top player, may in fact be the reverse of the truth. The historic facts of the Wenger reign reveal something utterly different – that Arsenal’s apparent inability to hold onto top players has actually strengthened Arsenal and damaged some of our rivals.
Here’s a list of the players I found who I think wanted to leave when seemingly (in some, although I admit not all) the club didn’t really want them to. Of course I have missed some out and made some mistakes – I am after all still technically on my holidays, so maybe we can fill in the gaps. Throughout Arsenal have huffed and puffed about losing these players – and sometimes quite rightly. I don’t think Arsenal wanted Cesc to leave – but I am starting to believe that quite often Arsenal were very happy to see the players move on.
Nic Anelka. Here is the prime example of what has happened over and over again. In 1997 he signed for £500,000. In 1999 we sold him for £23m. Within a year he was back with PSG, then Liverpool… By 2005 his value was put at £7m. His transfer fee paid for the new training facilities.
Cesc Fábregas. Fàbregas joined a team that had won three La Liga titles in a row and two Champions League titles in three years, and … came second in a two team league. The profit to Arsenal was virtually his total fee, and the club actually improved its league position without him (although I am sure they would have liked to have kept him). Barca (in order to end Real Mad’s endless laughter at them for failing to hold onto their children) were forced to buy back a player for £35m whom Arsenal had taken from them for 1% of that amount.
Samir Nasri. Was an obvious choice for every match when at Arsenal but managed only 31 for Man City. He did indeed get the medal he craved (on goal difference), was warned by the manager that he had to up his game if we wanted to play more often, and played in the Europa league and League Cup. Arsenal’s profit: £13m.
Emmanuel Adebayor left Arsenal to join Man City on a five year contract in July 2009 for around £25m. In under two years Roberto Mancini confirmed that Adebayor, (along with Craig Bellamy), were no longer part of his plans and could leave Manchester City. But knowing a free lunch when he sees one he went to Real Madrid for whom he played 14 times before they had seen enough. He refused to train with the reserves. He then went on to Tottenham and suffered the ignominy of Man City subsidising his wages while there. He is now back with Man City. Arsenal’s profit for a player who has made trouble everywhere he has been was around £12m. Man C are still paying his wages.
Mathieu Flamini after whom the Flamini Effect is named had one brilliant season for Arsenal playing alongside Cesc, but then decided to move. Unfortunately his move was a cock up from the start as having announced his move to Milan, he found that Milan failed to qualify for the Champs League while Arsenal, as always, did. (I remember him playing in the Europa League for Milan vs Portsmouth). In the four seasons with Arsenal as he found his feet and moved from being a reserve to a first teamer he played 102 games. In the four seasons since, as an established player with Milan he played 78 games, many of these as a last minute sub. In 2007/8 he played for France 3 times. Since then, zilch. On 20th June 2012, he left following the end of his contract but then reached a new agreement for a 1 year contract, at a much, much lower salary. Good one Mat.
Alexander Hleb. At least Alex has had the honesty to admit leaving Arsenal was his biggest ever mistake. After just 19 games for Barca (remember guys, they eat players alive, and don’t always pay the wages), he has been out on loan to Stuggart, Birmingham City, Wolfsburg (four games), and is now with Krylia Sovetov Samara. Ooops. Barca paid around £15m for him, which with wages makes his price just under £1m a game. Ooops again.
Lassana Diarra. Diarra looked to be one of the exceptions to the rule, moving quickly from Arsenal (claiming that he had been promised a place in the starting line up) to Portsmouth (remember the management team of that club at the time as this story goes on) to a dream place at Real Madrid. Then the French financial police investigated that transfer from Portsmouth to Real Madrad, and Diara was investigated for tax evasion and money laundering. The transfer fee was being estimated at EUR 20 million at that time. Arsenal made a considerable profit from the sell-on clause.
He played 7 times for Arsenal, 25 times for Portsmouth and 85 times for Real Madrid over the last three seasons.
Thierry Henry. Terry Enry went to Barca and played 80 games. The transfer fee is quoted at around £22m. His salary was reported £4.6m per season. He was there for 3 years and the total cost to Barca was £35.8m. His goal account dropped to 0.43 per game from the 0.69 he had at Arsenal over a much higher number of games. The cost to Barca was thus £447,000 per game, and considering that a number of these games were as sub, it doesn’t look like a great deal for them. I doubt that it was that good for him either, although the bank balance would have looked good given Spain’s low level of tax for foreign players.
Ashley Cole. Horrible oik though he is, Cole is the one man who beyond doubt did well on leaving Arsenal. He went because an offer of £50k a week made him feel physically sick (yup, know the feeling). He played 156 times for Arsenal and 181 for Chelsea.
David Bentley. We could call this the Bentley Bollocks instead of the Flamini Fallacy. A player of reasonable talent he played 88 times for Blackburn, 42 for Tottenham, 13 for Birmingham, 5 for WHU. Tottenham paid £15m for him, and his salary was estimated at £2.5m a year. That is about £8m salary and £15m transfer for 42 games making his cost to Tottenham £547,000 a game. I last saw him playing in a reserve match against Arsenal reserves whose average age was 18. He scored an absolute stunner. I wonder what he thought.
Patrick Vieira. Patrick must have thought he had broken the jinx on ex-Arsenal players when he signed for Juventus and won the league. But then it was taken away from him, as Juventus were relegated in the “Bribesville” scandal. Last time I mentioned Juve some of their supporters wrote in and said I have got the scandal wrong and that most people now agreed that Juve’s relegation was fixed by Inter. Which makes Italian football even more crooked than I thought. Interesting also that Patrick went to Inter after Juve. In the six seasons after leaving he played 126 games – average 21 a season.
It is rare that I can say “a very high source in Arsenal told me” because a) I don’t get told that much by very high sources, and b) most of the time I pick up anything, I am told that this is not to be said ever to anyone, but is given by way of background explanation to me. But I was told, without any command not to repeat it, by an incredibly senior person at the club, that after Patrick left Juve he was endlessly back at Arsenal, looking to see if there was any way back. (Endlessly meaning, if he was playing on a sunday, he’d be at the Arsenal training ground on the monday). Makes you think.
Juve paid about £19m for Patrick, and a year later got £8m back for him.
So what do we conclude? First that players regularly want to leave Arsenal. And second, Arsenal often manage to move them on just before their form goes, for a price that would herald bankruptcy in most sane businesses.
In this regard we must note that the transfer of Van Persie, and the Nasri-Cesc affair last season are not unusual in the modern era. It is much harder to find such transfers before Mr Wenger took over – we think of Brady, Stapleton and Kennedy leaving against the club’s will, and flourishing. Not too many others left, supposedly against the club’s wishes, and then didn’t do that well.
As such the Flamini Fallacy does several things
a) It brings the club a profit on players who are just about to see their value drop. Of course some players are excellent when they leave – Cesc is an obvious example – but looking at most of these players two years after leaving Arsenal there is no doubt that they are really not producing it any more.
b) It costs some of our rivals sensational sums of money for players who really can’t be worth that much. I worship Thierry as much as the next season ticket holder, but watching him on TV at Barca was a deep disappointment, and when you come to see how much he cost them per game one wonders about their judgement, not Mr Wenger’s.
The fact is that the nutter clubs like Barca are funding Arsenal by buying players whose career is faltering. Compare much of Nasri’s work this season with last.
So to RVP who has played an average of 24 games a season and scored 0.49 goals a game. Last season, by any analysis was extraordinary. The question is can he do it again, or will he go back to being injured quite often? The chances are, the latter, and indeed before I knew he was going I assumed that the new forwards we were buying were coming in to help cover for his absences.
My point is that this tactic of buying, getting the best out of a player and selling on for crazy sums has been going on since 1997, and is a standard part of club policy – and a very effective part of club policy. No one complained about it during the double seasons and the unbeaten season, before Chelsea and Man City got their billions.
Of course it doesn’t work every time – but it has worked brilliantly much of the time. Watching Nasri at Man City was he worth what they paid? Or Anelka at Real Mad? Or Henry at Barca? No – their value had declined greatly – it was just that no one told the buyers.
I do believe that Mr Usmanov has mistaken the situation here for it is not the policy of Arsenal that is weak – that policy has served the club brilliantly for years. Rather it is the arrival of Man C and Chelsea that has changed matters. For Mr Usmanov not to realise this suggests a weakness in football knowledge that bodes ill for any club that he takes over.
The Van Persie files
Tony
July 9, 2012 at 12:49 pm
I think your spot on with regards to Arsenal selling players at a profit and how long its gone on for. Realistically this is what 99% of clubs aim to do.
If worked properly is can present huge opportunities to the selling club.
The most recent example of this is Newcastle selling Carroll, look how those funds were used to rejuvenate the side.
The issue comes when these funds aren’t used properly. Arsenal failed when using the toure and ade money. Much of the money was used on contract renewals for players who are no longer at the club. when going through the list of 17 players who were offered renewals between july 2009 and june 2010 when glazidis said that we spent the money on renewals some of the contract extensions offered by the manger and front office are huge busts.
We are yet to see a big improvement via the cesc and nasri money, but the club cant miss again. We need those funds to elevate us.
The manager must turn the sales of these players into significantly improving the side. This is why he is paid what he is. Tactically he is far form the best around but he makes up for that with his eye for talent. If we cant make the best out of players sales we will be in huge problems goign forward.
Shakabula Gooner,
Indeed, ManShitty can now be remembered as the winner of the Joey Barton Grant Trophy.
@stuart; It’s a hard one to quantify really. There were other changes to the team and we played against completely different opponents. The fact is though, we went to the final with Henry and went out in the first knockout stage after he left. Personally I think it could be something to do with the Crouch-effect/Vieria-effect dichotomy.
The Crouch-effect; When you have a player of outstanding ability or attribute it forces the opposing team to change the way they play. We see this all the time with Walcott. When he is played against teams that are not naturally defensive and play a high line, he forces their back line to play deeper, creating more space for the rest of the team.
The Vieira-effect; When you have a playmaker (usually club captain) who is heavily relied upon to instigate forward moves, or alternatively a top scorer that a team always looks to to score the goals, which creates a predictable system which is easier to negate than a more fluid system.
The interesting thing is that Henry produced both these effects. When he left, we no longer had a player that struck fear in opponents hearts, double making him and creating space for others to play in (the fact he’d often drift out to the wing made him more effective in this regard) However, in his last season, it was apparent to all that the rest of the team seemed to think that the only person allowed to shoot at goal was Henry. After he left the team looked more fluid, less one dimensional and everyone seemed to want to get on the score sheet (hence the better return in the league)
It certainly seemed last season that the Viera-effect was present when it came to RVP, so it’s possible we could actually play better without him!!!! (also this could explain Gervinho’s and Chamakh’s reticence to shoot, certainly Chamakh did a lot better before RVP came back into the team??????)
One of the best blogs I have ever read.
Arsenal should not think of keeping RVP as we have lost faith in him rather he should be sold to PSG or Juve and then bring in a world class talent (not just big name) as replacement. UP GUNNERS 4 LIFE
Very well worded article. However, what you fail to talk about, is how Arsenal have been strengthened by the loss of these players. Except for last season, no other season has improved subsequent to a player leaving. And even there, the improvement was only in league position. We still went out in the CL(earlier, in fact than previous seasons), exited the FA Cup fairly early, and didn’t repeat last year’s progress in the CC.
Further, Henry left the club and got exactly what he left for. The Champions League Trophy. And how many 30 year olds do you know who are still in demand at the highest level?
I agree that players leaving is ultimately a disaster for their careers so far(with the exception of Cashley and Nasri so far), but how exactly does it benefit Arsenal? We get money so we can buy more equipment, and pay off debts. But how does that investment translate on the football pitch?
The sad truth is, it doesn’t.
Agree with this Article. It’s the system that’s important. Coming from Norway this kind of reminds me of Rosenborg in the 90′s (early 00′s) when they sold: Iversen, Carew, Bergdølmo, Kvarme, Heggem, Soltvedt, Bjørneby (and AC Milan wanted Hoftun) abroad, but always managed to compete, and usually got better. When the manager (Nils Arne Eggen) left in 2001 that’s when the decline started.
Oh and Yeah, that guardian blog on Van Persie made me laugh…because it’s so WRONG. But good to see some sensible comments down the page.
Well structured Article!
glass half full!!!
Good spin on a dire situation, call it want you want but when we sold Vieira & Henry they were both past their best.
Anelka’s sale was too good an offer to turn down.
Nasri & Cesc were at their peak and we havent replaced Cesc adequately.
Your article shows we have made millions from buying and selling players and i dont think anyone can argue with the financial model, thanks to Wenger we’ve managed to consistently sell ou best players yet remain in the Champions league, its a miracle to be honest.
But as a footballing model its flawed and you know it, we are no different from Ajax(a football factory) we develop players and sell them on for profit.
I dont get any satisfaction from knowing we have a healthy bank balance, i want my team to compete and win trophies but unfortunately our business model means that selling our best players is not only a norm its a necessity.
The frustrating thing for me as a fan is i know that if we could just strengthen the squad a bit more we would be even more successful thus generating more money for the club.
TOP GUNS
I agree with you when you say with a couple of addition we would have won something.True but the coming couples wages and transfer fee according to the current budgeting seems impossible.The only one you can point the finger is the our great owner.But he is not Abramovich who breathes Chesea and he dont give a toss about loss.
The difference Stan is here to make profit.Period.
goonerjack: How exactly do you keep a player who does not want to be kept? Do you have it on good authority that all those players that you mentioned wanted to stay?
If you own a small retail shop; and a staff member says ‘I have got a bigger and better offer with Tesco.’ Will you break the bank just to keep the staff and run the risk of collapsing the whole business? To show what exactly? It is the problem of the staff if he fails to realise that with the bigger outlet comes a bigger risk of underperfomance and therefore a sack may result.
Before them, there were players. If they do not wish to stay, they will make ridiculous demands. If they did, it is best to just let them go. After them there will always be others.
If you get to a shop, and you find something extraordinary that you fancy very much, but it is very very expensive. You do a mental sum of your finaces and find that yes there is enough money to buy it, you might not be able to pay your mortgage or your rent for quite a few months though. What would you do? If you went ahead and bought it ‘at all cost’, but then loose your home as a result, where would you keep your treasure? Will it bring you joy that you sought or sorrow and untold hardship? What then will be the point?
I’d like to propose that our couple of additions be Mr Michael Riley’s left and right testicles, sadly I don’t think Sir Alex Ferguson is going to let them go for any reasonable transfer fee.
To LRV:
Your point is valid but didn’t we lend money to build the Emirates, using your analogy we took out a mortgage cos in the long run we would reap the benefits and it makes more sense than paying rent. Likewise you could decide to buy a car instead of using public transport, to make your life a lil bit easier and for better time management and as long as you can afford the repayments then it makes sense.
Arsenal on the other hand sell our best players and instead of using the profit to buy an equally as good or even better player we go for the cheaper option.
If we sell RVP and for instance bought Higuian, then who would complain, cos it shows our ambition.
Then we wonder why our team struggles to win trophies, its not rocket science.
Tony, good stuff. Of all the players you listed, I think the only departure that has hurt us was Cesc. In most of the other cases, a replacement had been identified: Henry for Anelka and then RVP for Henry, Song for Flamini, Cesc for Viera, Clichy for Cole etc.
In Cesc’s case, we modified our formation around his talents, going from a 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3 and I think we suffered the first part of this past season because Ramsey struggled to find his form and take over Cesc’s role. It was only when Rosicky found his form in the AM role that we began to consistently achieve results. I am not going to dump on Ramsey as I remain a big fan of his and am hoping he takes a step forward in his development this next season. If he does not make progress, I suspect the Ox will take his place (at which point we will then get a winger – Ryo perhaps? – to take the place of the Ox out wide).
Now that I have had time to cool off from the initial emotions re: a potential RVP departure, I am fine if we do sell him. As many have noted, it was quite a miracle that he managed to stay healthy for one season and debatable whether he can do so again. Secondly, we have already lined up replacements (Poldi / Giroud) who will have a full pre-season to integrate with the team. It is also important to note that these replacements are not youths with potential but players on the verge of stepping into their prime years (mid to late 20′s).
@top guns, I think many of us share with your frustrations about the lack of trophies because it seems we are always “so close, yet so far away”. When the team you support is committed to young players, one thing that is required though, is immense amount of patience. It’s like working in a garden, you plant a number of flowers/shrubs/trees but it takes an enormous amount of work to nurture them to full bloom. Along the way, some will need pruning, some will need to be pulled out. Unexpected (and uncontrollable weather conditions) may cause some to bloom earlier than expected and then fade, or others to bloom much later than expected. The gardener will make some mistakes as well. I cannot help but feel, regardless of whether RVP stays or not, we are on the verge of a window of success. We had one generation built around Cesc + RVP which has been cut short, but the next bunch, built around Szcznesy, Kos, TV5, Jack, Rambo, Ox and Poldi, is ready to bloom. Yes, some on that list remain unproven, but I think they are all talents any of the top clubs around the world would be glad to have. For the first time in several years, Wenger has shelled out money for players in their twenties (Poldi/Giroud) instead of youth. Contracts with sponsors are coming due in the next few years and should result in additional funds for acquiring players as required to reinforce the squad. We have (finally) started making pre-season tours to Asia which has vast marketing potential. This is not a spin to make the glass half-full but facts about where our club is at presently with respect to the future. It is more important than ever that we stay patient.
Tony,
A brilliant thesis on why we should let Van Persie have his way.
As soon as his decision was made public (by him) I felt this was a perfect opportunity for Arsenal to part company with someone who had, in part, repaid the faith but who now wanted out. We have seen the best of him and a fair transfer fee in order to obtain a replacement is too good to miss.
All I hope is we do not hear of a series of boring and wearying talks persuading him to stay. My advice to Arsene Wenger is to seize the nettle for the die has been cast.
Tony,
The way you portray those events you make AW out to be some sort of football managerial genius: such capability with bringing players on and melding a team; such vision with assessing when they have peaked; such market acumen, buying and selling at the right prices; doing so consistantly for many years…wait…oh yeah, that’s right, he is
Can see a lot of these very valid points, just a shame it has come to this losing our best players. It is unsettling for those who remain and the fans and gives out bashes so many sticks to beat us with. To me, player retention was one of the risks with the way we went into the youth policy, but from recent signings, it seems as though this policy has been at least partly tempered, as well as the likes of Ox and EIsfeld, we are bringing in players into their twenties.
Rvps comments may have made him untenable in many ways, but I guess one thing worth remembering, we will want 25 to 30 million for a player asking, reportedly 220k plus pw, for a four year deal, that adds up to around 70 million for an injury prone 29 year old in the last year of his contract. As good as he was last season, and to my mind, over played, taking away the spin and paper talk, is anyone really going to pay that if we stick to our guns, and the player sticks to his? City do not need him, for some reason, they seem intent on destroying us, but that is a hell of a price to pay. Despite initial certainty he was off, I really am starting to wonder. Seventy million for two seasons……at the very most. Are even citeh that insane?
Interesting perspective Tony. The important thing is when 11 players put on the Arsenal shirt they are fully focussed, committed and united to give their all for the team. Last year I thought this was largely the case, but towards the end of the previous season it was fairly obvious that some players were not fully committed.
Despite the RVP antics we still have a good squad – but they must be focussed and not distracted come the 18 August.
Your analysis is fair, profit, plan and profess with the professor. Not many pLayers go onto having sterling careers after life with the Gunners. Why is that? I was hoping Van Persie will stay after his true break out season without injuries, a first, however if he wants to go please let him go pure profit. On the other end with the youth system they do invest heavily, and with certainty, 50% of the lads don’t cut it. Lost investment in planning, this is the nature of the business. The FairPlay rule when enforced will certainly help Teams like Arsenal, because our Economics professor never was convinced that a player is worth anything in the 22 million stratosphere, except when HE sells them.
Key point that I can’t see anyone else has made explicitly (although the sub title of the website is a clue!).
Being a football manager requires a variety of skills including coaching, tactics, motivation, scouting, negotiating, financial management, strategic planning etc.
While Wenger may be a little flawed with some of these, I don’t think anyone can argue he is an absolutely outstanding coach. Perhaps one of the best ever. I do not believe it is any coincidence that most players who leave Arsenal fall from the level of form they achieved under Arsene. Similarly, relatively unrecognised transfers in go on to develop and excel (not in all cases, but… probably a higher hit rate for the money spent than anyone else) – e.g Koscielny.
I find it extraordinary that players agitating for a move away don’t recognise this (although it is clear why their agents couldn’t care less). Why doesn’t RVP speak to the likes of Hleb, Flamini, Adebayor (er…) etc. The grass is not only not greener, it is generally rather a musty shade of brown.
This article would have made sense if it was talking about barclays or hsbc or anything other bank.
You are comparing Arsenal, a club to individual players? That’s like comparing apple to oranges.
Would you have been happy to make the move to the emirates if Danny Fizman had said “wé are moving to the emirates so we can sell our better players”?
Tony would you be happy if your bank marketing line was “winner of the bankers rugby league”?
Hi Tony
Not sure if you read the article by Martin Samuel at the Daily Mail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-2170609/Arsene-Wengers-taste-medicine–Martin-Samuel.html
But he says what is happening at Arsenal is similar to what is happening to Southampton where their best young talent go to bigger clubs.
I also feel someone ( i feel it is someone from the inside) is unsettling the players at Arsenal on purpose and making them leave. Like Walcott is meant to be next.
Has anyone said anything about the Trend in these transfers. If you look closely the trend is for players leaving more towards the middle of their careers not the tail end of their careers.
Hey Tony,
I just want to say I love the site and really enjoyed this article in particular. One request, to all fans out there, please stop saying things like “I worship Thierry as much as the next season ticket holder”. I know you meant nothing by it but it makes me think of a yank on tv answering a question about terrorism “as a mother”, just because not everyone can say it doesn’t mean your opinion is somehow more valid. I don’t want to go through labour (nor can I) and I don’t want to have to eat used Arsenal tickets for my dinner on a Sunday because I can’t afford food.
I apologise for the rant, if not thought provoking I hope it was at least entertaining..
Don’t apologise James H, I think it is a fair point.
the actual point is completely missed here. the playes whom we are refering to left for 2 reasons only, they wanted to win cups and get more money…..how much contribution they gave is debatalble. all these playes got what they wanted….! if you want to compare how foolish the clubs are when they purchase players at inflated prices, which most of the clubs are, then yes, this is a brilliant article.
Great write up, Tony.
Not sure if you intended leave out Kolo Toure from that list either, but thought I’d mention him. City reportedly paid Arsenal £16m for him, when he was roughly the same age as RvP is now. Also, letting go of Gallas (even though we didn’t get a tranfser fee) freed up funds to invest elsewhere.
With the four players we’ve sold to City so far (totaling around £65-70 million), Clichy seems to be the only one playing like he did when with us.
Also regarding the sales to City, so far it’s hurt our other rivals more than it has us. Chelsea, United and everyone else are now finding it all the more harder to compete with them.
Tony (et al):
EDU.
interesting article, not read all 77 replies but id add that i always thought we loaned van bronkhorst to barca and then let them keep him after that 1 year loan in exchange for cesc to keep them quite.
another player pre wenger who wanted to leave was steffan schwarz & i vaguely remember reading that petrovic wanted to go too but both for personal reasons rather than the bright lights of some giant club (although fiorentina are giants and florence is a beautiful place)
i think most of the ones you mentioned that went abroad did so because foreign clubs owners are like small children, they always want what the other children have so stamp their feet and waive their euros until they get what they want then like most things in life want another new toy 12 months later and no longer want the most recent new player and offload them for half the money elsewhere
i am very harsh on players who demand to leave ala henry, paddy, cesc et al and refuse to call them legends, legends do not want to leave arsenal, legends want to stay at the club they love for as long as possible ala adams, bergkamp, wrighty, seaman, dicko, nutty, keown, bould & others, harsh maybe but for me loyalty is more important than anything else
i was only sad to see henry, paddy & cesc go, the rest can kiss my fat arse as we got a wheelbarrow full of euros for players who will show them as much loyalty and a lot less for than they did for us
as for rvp, i honestly dont care, we get £25m, we have 3 players who can play upfront with great effect and he cost us £2.25m, he wont do it again and is almost 30, cash in, fill ya boots, i wont dislike him unless he signs for manc utd as they are a historical rival for many moons and i hate them almost as much as i hate spurzzz, other than them 2 clubs i dont care where a player goes
only problem is the massive sums of cash we have brought into the club, the massive wages we have saved but the money is going into some ones pocket & prices keep going up (or games get re rated to double A or what ever they have just done)
its no coincidence that as soon as mug owners are buying average players for over inflated prices and we are then not re-investing it all that we have failed to win anything
we dont have to spend like they do to win stuff but we have to spend early before people like hazard show they are worth £30m at another club
Nice article.
There is one small flaw though.
It is a fact that the performance of many players drop a level or more after their move away from Arsenal but you have not taken into account that if they remain at the team, it would be better for both sides.
I think it happens because of two reasons:
1) arsenal has a more unique tactic, play or atmosphere that players find it hard to adapt to in other teams.
2) Wenger cash out at the time that leaves players very little time for them to adapt. It is harder do change when players get old and learn the trade in a team like Arsenal.
If these players stay in a team they developed and familiar with, they would have done far better. That includes every one of the names. The older guys can have 1 or 2 years at their prime and the younger ones would be the centre of Arsenal rather than fighting for the starting 11.
Only the $$ side do not work out. Arsenal would not pay more, which I agree is wise for the long term but it also mean they loss the service of well settled man in at least coming 1 or 2 years.
And for the players, they get more money for the short term while their career just stop to develop at best or crash for quite many.
In the long run, this is very good for the team because either they keep producing financial burden for other teams or they too realise that its no use getting man from Arsenal. Those Arsenal guys cannot perform away from that team. There is only one risk, which is Arsene failing to supply good replacements.