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By Tony Attwood
The Athletic has undertaken a review of what it calls the “Top 50 players in the Premier League.” Arsenal have a complete team of 11 players in that selection
- 44. Eberechi Eze
- 43. Kai Havertz
- 38. Riccardo Calafiori
- 24. Ezri Konsa
- 15. Martin Odegaard
- 9. David Raya
- 8. William Saliba
- 7. Bukayo Saka
- 6. Bruno Guimaraes
- 3. Declan Rice
- 2. Gabriel
That is 11 Arsenal players – the highest number for any club. ManC who come second only have ten. Tottenham Hots, since you ask, have none. Liverpool have eight. Chelsea has six.
And as we look at this chart what is interesting is just how many top players are crammed into a few clubs. Brighton who did us over last time, just has two. Tottenham have none. (Oh sorry I think I’ve already mentioned that).
Thus once again we have the view expressed that more and more the very best players are being attracted to, and bought by, the teams that are challenging at the top. And we can see just how much this means by noting that Manchester United only have three such players.
Now of course that is not too surprising since these top players also want to play in the Champions League so they are not going to be attracted simply by a big stadium and a 17th place finish. Aston Villa, who finished fourth, like Tottenham, have none.
Of course this is not to say that the list is utterly accurate or that a club without a lot of top players from that list is not going anywhere – but it gives us a clue as to what is going on.
And perhaps I may make this clear that the original chart doesn’t analyse the players by club, so the totalling up was done by me. If I made a mistake somewhere first apologies, and second please do write in, but without calling me too many names. I’m getting old and do make mistakes. The original article is here. Here’s the club list showing the number of players…
- Arsenal – 11
- MancC – 10
- Liverpool – 8
- Chelsea – 6
- Manchester United – 3
- Bournemouth – 2
- Brighton and Hove Albion – 2
- Crystal Palace – 2
- Nottingham Forest – 1
- Sunderland – 1
- Leeds United – 1
Anyway, mistakes or not, the numbers are if not 100% right, fairly accurate, and they are of course based on subjective analyses. And I am pretty sure that the Tottenham total is zero, which is something given the amount of money they have been throwing around. In fact we only have 11 of the 20 Premier League clubs listed with even just the one player. In other words, nine PL clubs don’t have a single player in the list.
Obviously such a review doesn’t mean that Arsenal are going to charge forward and win the league again this season, but it does show that in the eyes of a newspaper not known for giving its support to Arsenal, there is a recognition that we have one hell of a squad of players at the moment. Plus the gap between us and Manchester United and other clubs thereafter, is pretty big.
Now of course matters might be influenced by the fact that Brighton, Brentford and Leeds are sitting alongside Arsenal and ManC in the Champions League places and you may have a feeling that by the end of the season they might be replaced by some of the more regular attendees of that competition.
At present Liverpool are sixth, Chelsea 10th, ManU 12th, and Tottenham seem somehow to have thought that they could improve on their recent 17th place finishes. But they appear to have been holding the table upside down as they are now bottom.
But I am sure they can find another £250m in January to spend on players again and maybe get themselves back to 17th. Incidentally their main story on the website is “Driven by Belief” which is rather interesting – especially as on closer inspection it turns out to be an advert for their clothing range.
And since I have spent time on their website, boosting the number of people therein by one, I thought I would have a look for anything else that seemed to be of interest, and I found the headline “The Club has today published its financial results for the year ended 30 June 2025.”
Now it is interesting to have a look at these as it was quite a positive season. For although the club came 17th in the league, as indeed they did for the year ending June 2026 and they went out of the FA Cup in the fourth round and the League cup in the semi-finals, they won the Europa League which led to much excitement.
As a result of this development their total revenue went up to over half a billion pounds!! But despite that leap forward they made a loss of over £100m, which after tax was just under £95m.
So there we are. Super duper new stadium, winning the Europa league and a loss of £95m. Now as you might have noticed from the above, the 17th position the club got in that season of winning the Europa and losing around £100,000,000, was the season before last. Last season they got to 17th again, and played in the Champions League going out in the round of 16.
So we might perhaps look forward to the accounts in a year’s time when they tell us what sort of loss they made. Just out of curiosity of course, and reporting on it just out of a sense of completeness.
And just in case you think they might need a new manager, perhaps I might add that since 2023 they have had six, although some were only temporary. Although actually come to think of it, all of them were temporary when we look at the dates.
