I was talking to a neighbour who has a season ticket at the Emirates the other day and he said that the volume of complaining was on the increase. My first thought was that if my team was secure in the Premier League and regularly in the Champions League, I would be very happy. But expectations are understandably higher at the Emirates.
I was talking to a neighbour who has a season ticket at the Emirates the other day and he said that the volume of complaining was on the increase. My first thought was that if my team was secure in the Premier League and regularly in the Champions League, I would be very happy. But expectations are understandably higher at the Emirates.
Arsenal Supporters’ Trust say that £30m lurks unspent in Arsenal’s transfer account. In a question and answer session with them last month, chief executive Ivan Gazidis admitted, ‘Did we spend all the money we had available [last season]? The answer is we haven’t. We spend when we feel we have a need to spend with the manager’s judgment.’ But Wenger’s strategy remains one of finding young, promising players (most recently Carl Jenkinson from Charlton) and none priced above £20m.
Arsenal pay a top wage of £90,000 a week and second string players at the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea can get more. Pay is at the root of Nasri’s rootlessness. Arsenal have a laudable aim of meeting the recommended target of keeping wages at about 50 per cent of turnover. Hemce, whereas in 2005-6 Arsenal’s wage bill was £2.4m less than that of Manchester United, now it is £21m less.
Are they paying a price for prudence and the self-sustaining model favoured by majority shareholder Stan Kroenke? Of course, there are constraints elsewhere. Liverpool’s new owners want to follow financial fair play principles and this is restricting their transfer budget. In the longer run, of course, clubs like Manchester City may pay the price for being unable to comply with financial fair play rules. But football fans want results now, not in the future.
AST spokesman Tim Payton told the Sunday Times, ‘The reality of the “self-sustaining model” is that we can no longer compete with the very top clubs in Europe in transfer fees or wages paid.’ Arsenal season tickets have just gone up by 6.5 per cent, but my neighbour (who shares his ticket) still thinks it’s worth it. But Payton pointed out, ‘It doesn’t seem right that fans are asked to dig even deeper when we have two billionaires owning 95% of the club.’ But neither of them favours the benefactor model and that has its downsides.
The Arsenal Stadium Mystery was a pre-war film that included extensive footage of Arsenal playing Brentford. One of the reasons that Arsenal have been financially constrained is the cost of replacing Highbury with the Emirates but that was surely a move worth making and one that will pay off in the long run. But the sights of Arsenal fans are fixed on next season. Hence banners saying ‘In Arsene we rust.’