- What do you do when you invest half a billion pounds in players and it goes wrong
- Why do Arsenal always do so badly away from home under this referee?
By Tony Attwood
This summer Arsenal spent £267m on transfers – at least that is according to Skysports. And yes, I do know different people quote different prices but in what follows, I am taking all numbers from the same source, and assuming they are more or less accurate.
Arsenal’s figure was the third highest (behind Liverpool and Chelsea, and above Newcastle, ManU and ManC in that order), and I thought it might be interesting to take the amount spent and add it to a league table before this weekend’s matches, while including not just where they are at the moment in the league, but also where they finished last season.
| Pos NOW | Team | Pos Last season | Net spend | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 2 | £267m | 22 |
| 2 | Bournemouth | 9 | £137m | 18 |
| 3 | Tottenham Hotspur | 17 | £171m | 17 |
| 4 | Sunderland | Champ | £183m | 17 |
| 5 | Manchester City | 3 | £186m | 16 |
| 6 | Manchester United | 15 | £232m | 16 |
| 7 | Liverpool | 1 | £446m | 15 |
| 8 | Aston Villa | 6 | £296m | 15 |
| 9 | Chelsea | 4 | £296m | 14 |
What I think comes across most strongly is that there is no pattern here. And most certainly, as we have been seeing through the various discussions, there is little pattern in this anywhere.
Of course, one of the key factors is just how good each club is at bringing through young players, and certainly at the moment, Arsenal appear very strong in that department.
Indeed, when a club brings through young players and actually gives them games at a young age, this must encourage more and more youngsters (and indeed their parents and agents) to approach that club, rather than go to a club that almost exclusively relies on costly imports or players who have reached their prime.
Indeed, overall, it is impossible to find a consistent relationship between how much a club has spent on new players and where it is now in the league. And this must be for at least two reasons. One is that there can never be certainty as to how well any new player will fit into the routine of the club, how fast he will develop, and indeed how well he might respond to the directives given by his manager, which of course, could be very different from the directives given him by his last manager or school coach.
There is a particular trouble here in that parents often think they know their son best, and so if a youth team manager perceives a particular change that is required in position or style of play, or even training regime, there can be resistance if not from the player then from the parents.
Hence, ideally, clubs like to mix players that have come up through their ranks with transfers and with new young players joining from elsewhere.
But most certainly, we can see from the table above that neither bringing in very young recruits nor spending lots on transfers is a guarantee of success in the next season. Nor indeed its success in the last season.
Indeed, if you look again at the table above, you’ll see that clubs such as Tottenham H and Manchester U have jumped significantly up the rankings, while Liverpool and Chelsea, given their recent activity in the transfer market, might have expected themselves to be higher in the league table
So what are the extra ingredients that stop a wonderful new signing from transforming the team and taking them on to even higher things?
Certainly, the overall gelling of the team and the personalities of the players will have a huge effect. It might be assumed that every player changing clubs for a huge fee will do his best to settle into the new environment and show how good he is, but this is not always the case, and some resent being bought for a big sum and then asked to play in a different way. Thus, the skill of the manager and the training department in getting the player to settle in can be crucial.
It is also often forgotten that transferring from one club to another can be very disruptive for players – they might be separated from their family, unhappy about the new training system, not fully welcomed by their own team mates, unhappy with their new country’s food, religious customs, culture etc, and not too happy with where they are asked to live. Moving can be difficult and traumatic, and yet players are expected to fit in quickly.
This is, of course, why the big clubs now have a full-scale psychology department that works on integrating new players rather than just leaving it to chance, and this seems to be where Arsenal score particularly well. Most players settle down quickly, and Arsenal have been very successful at bringing through youngsters.
This indeed gives Arsenal a further benefit: more and more young players make Arsenal their first choice when looking for a club, because of the reputation Arsenal has for giving youngsters a chance. In this regard, you only need to look at certain other clubs to see the benefit they have when it comes to signing young players.
