- Arsenal enter the 4th Revolution as we see what makes Arteta so different
- Players released, sold and signed – how the top 8 clubs compare this summer
By Tony Attwood
With just on 20 days until the transfer window closes 11v11 is showing Arsenal as having a first-team squad of 41 players – of whom 16 are classified as English. Of these four are goalkeepers: Raya, Hein, Ramsdale and Setford.
In front of them we have ten defenders: Riccardo Calafiori, Gabriel, Jakub Kiwior, Zane Monlouis, Brooke Norton-Cuffy, Nuno Tavares, Omar Rekik, William Saliba, Jurriën Timber and Ben White
The next group of called “Defender / Midfield” or in one case (guess who) defender / midfield /.forward, of which there are seven players…
Ayden Heaven, Thomas Partey, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Kieran Tierney, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Olexsandr Zinchenko
Beyond that we have the midfield / forward group with six members: Mika Biereth, Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, Kai Havertz, Marquihos, Ethan Nwaneri, and Charles Sagoe Junior
Then we have nine pure midfielders: Fábio Vieira, Jorginho, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Reiss Nelson, Martin Odegaard, Salah Oulad M’Hand. Charlie Patino, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Leandro Trossard.
Which leaves us with the smallest group: the pure forwards. Just five of them – Khayon Edwards, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli, Eddie Nketiah, Leandro Trossard.
Last season Arsenal used 27 players across all the competitions. Two of them made only substitute appearances (Nwaneri and Tierney) and three made just one appearance each (Soares, Elneny and Sagoe Junior).
If we cut this down just to the players who played in the Premier League we get 22 players who started a match and a further three who made appearances as substitutes. Pulling all this together and allowing for the fact that Smith Rowe has gone to Fulham, Elneny has gone to Al-Jazira, Arthur Okonkwo has moved on to Wrexham, Albert Sambi Lokonga has been loaned to Sevilla, and Nuno Tavares has gone to Lazio also on loan, with Cédric Soares seemingly currently left without a club, the numbers look more or less ok.
But the issue of homegrown seems to get ever more entangled. Transfermarkt gives us a squad of 24 which is what I’ve got to above, with 18 foreigners in the squad, so I am taking it for the moment we are all pretty much together on who’s in and who’s not.
Which in turn means we can start doing some comparisons using the Transfermarkt figures.
Starting with the squad numbers as they are as of today, only one club has fewer squad players than Arsenal and this is Fulham with 23, against Arsenal’s 24. Top of the league for squad players is of course Chelsea, as bonkers as ever with 42, Brighton with 40 and Newcastle with 35.
We are used to Arsenal being talked about as a young squad, but actually seven clubs have a younger average age than Arsenal according to their stats at the moment. The youngest two are Chelsea and Brighton – the two clubs with the most players, which shows how they will get themselves down to 25 – although what they will do with all the other hopefuls I am not sure. Those under 21 of course can be in the first-team squad without being in the “25”,, but they won’t be getting games, so I am not sure they will be that happy.
What about the dreaded foreigners? Wolverhampton have 29 out of 34 and since the rule is still that out of the 25 players over 21, only 17 can be foreigners, they have a problem.
Chelsea with 27 foreigners, are going to have to lose 10 of those when it comes to the first team. Arsenal have 18 foreigners in the list above so one is going to lose out.
Transfermarkt also do a valuation for each squad as it stands. Manchester City are top with a value of €1,41bn. Arsenal are second with €1.17bn, Chelsea (helped by the number of players in the “squad” at the moment) are third on €1.09bn. Tottenham are fifth on €784.7m. At the bottom of the list are the three promoted clubs: Southampton (€230.8m), Leicester €183m) and Ipswich with €91m.
Generally, the value of the squad is quite a good estimate of where the team ends up at the conclusion of the season, so it could well be that for a second season running the three promoted clubs all sinking down to the Championship from whence they came.
Last of all we can take a peek at the changes from last season. Fulham is the team that has increased its value the most – by almost 15%.. Six clubs including Arsenal have seen the value of their team drop for the coming season compared to last season. But this is not unusual for Arsenal under Arteta, wherein suddenly one or two players find their values shoot up as they shine on the pitch.
The difference overall for Arsenal is under 1 per cent, so hardly a matter of concern for if we look at the most valuable players in the Premier League (again staying with Transfermarkt for the figures) of the top six, three are Arsenal men. They are Saka, Rice and Odegaard.
The other three in the top six most valuable players, all play for Manchester City. If we were to make it the top ten, then four of those play for Man C and four play for Arsenal (our fourth man is William Saliba).
Who would want to be a Chelsea player these days? Trevoh Chalobah, that’s who. Unfortunately for him, Chelsea don’t want him to be a Chelsea player, despite him having 4 more years to run on his contract, which was signed less than 2 years ago. Trevoh will have to be content with training at the academy facility until he agrees to a transfer away.
I hope Chelsea will pay off the full remainder of his contract when he does leave (although this could add to their PSR headaches). Any club agreeing to buy him should play hardball if Chelsea suggest a sell-on percentage.