- Was this summer’s window a total failure for Arsenal?
- Is it really that difficult for a football club to make a profit?
By Tony Attwood
In what follows, data is taken from the Transfermarkt analysis, which includes a more detailed review of all the clubs in the Premier League and their spending. The site also allows analysis by nationality of player, dates, positions played, and so forth. Here, in the analysis below we take a few of the main figures revealed and draw what we think is a rather interesting conclusion at the end.
1: Spending on new players
Only one club reached in half a million euros mark in its spending during the window, at that of course was Manchester City. They spent over 120 million euros more than the second biggest spender: Chelsea, who spent over 400 million euros all told Tottenham showed that having wasted quite a bit of their money of late they were not totally put off the idea, and in terms of spending they were the third club to spend over a third of a million euros.
At the other end of the chart, just four clubs spent under 100 million euros in the window, and they were Leeds, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Sunderland. Arsenal came in seventh with an expenditure of 227 million euros
2. Number of new players arriving
The problem with bringing in lot of new players at once is that the staff in charge of briefing them all in the ways of the club both on and off the pitch, find dit hard to reach each one before the matches start. What’s more, those who don’t speak English can gravitate to fellow players whose language they do speak, and that might not be the influence that the club wants to spread around. Throw in the fact that English players don’t like to see groups of players from one country gather together, and it can lead to problems.
Hull City came in top with 15 players incomers and Ipswich with 14 – both clubs clearly seeing the need for newcomers if they are going to stay in the division. But interestingly Chelsea and Brighton shared third spot with ten new players each. Manchester United had the lowest intake with just three players joining.
3. Income
In terms of income through the window, it was Chelsea who took the most with 447m Euros, followed by Aston Villa, Manchester City and Newcastle.
4. Departures
We have been criticising Tottenham and Chelsea for their approach of “if he moves, buy him” and that approach seems to have caught up with both clubs, as both clubs are now shipping out players faster than they arrived. Chelsea let 12 players go, only just beating Newcastle, who sent 11 on their way. Manchester City and Aston Villa each showed nine players the door.
5. Profit or loss
Actually, that is the wrong pair of terms, as we are only speaking about whether the clubs received more than they spent – but that can be very helpful indeed if the club is in difficulty with one of the various financial rules that now beset the league.
Six clubs received more than they spent in this window, which helps the accounting a bit. Spending more than comes in, can lead to danger.
Chelsea got the most income with 447 million euros followed by Aston Villa Manchester City and Newcastle all bringing in over a quarter of a million euros from sales.
We have been having a few giggles at some of the ludicrous players that Tottenham and Chelsea have been bringing in of late, through a policy of “sign him and we’ll see if he can play” and now finally they have started to see the error of their ways. Chelsea kicked out (sorry sold) 12 players and Tottenham 11, Mancheseter City and Villa both shipped out nine each and Brighton moved on seven men. In fact, everyone got rid of at least one player.
So where did all this buying and selling leave everyone? Actually better off than we expected when it all started. No fewer than six clubs actually brought more money in than they spent: Villa, Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Everton, Brighton, and Forest,
Arsenal did not fall into the positive balance group, but they have not been engaged in an “if he moves, sign him” campaign. Arsenal spent 227m euros on four players, received 65m euros on eight players who moved on, and so had a net outflow of money of almost 162 million euros. If you want to know where your season ticket money went, there is your answer.
The clubs that did the best in terms of recouping money through the window were Tottenham who took in 202 million more euros than they spent and Liverpool with 233 million more coming in than they spent.
So does splashing all the money you have borrowed from the bank on a set of new players in the first available window actually work? The evidence of Tottenham would be no, it doesn’t and that gives clubs a problem.
Because the pattern of behaviour most certainly makes it look as if once a club has ventured down the path of “if he moves, sign him” they find it both hard to stop and equally hard to off-load the players that they have been brigning in under their previous policy.
A careful picking and choosing to build up the squad still looks like the best approach, and that, by and large, is what Arsenal are up to.
does it look to anyone else as if the massive overspend on players is primarily being done in a ring a round manner centered around clubs that have had issues balancing the books?
It just seems to me that forming a ring and overpaying each other is a way to alleviate certain financial issues in the short term.
They do buy from others and sell to others, but their cartel seems to be the home base of everything.
man city seem to stick to internal valuation when dealing with certain clubs while overpaying for others without batting an eyelid. same for Chelsea and same for the others. just an observation or hallucination… I can’t tell which.
Nice article but I would add one point that I think is quite crucial to the transfer spending debate. Some clubs may have recouped a significant amount from transfer income but from a business perspective one has to factor in the level of wages that have been removed from the revenue costs. In that respect I think Arsenal have probably done quite well.
Arsenal have taken criticism in some quarters for allowing Nelson to terminate his contract and almost immediately signing for Brentford whilst we have also heard those claiming we let the likes of Jesus going for a small fee. My argument would be how much have we saved in wages? I’m guessing those two alone are in the region of half a million a week which is an annual benefit of 26 million. It’s not just about the transfer fees.
Slightly off topic I read the most ridiculous article yesterday (I think in the Metro) claiming that Arsenal were trying hard to sign Alvarez right up to the window “slamming shut” but in the next paragraph it claimed Arsenal didn’t sign Fofana for fear of breaching UEFA spending rules. So seemingly it would have been ok to spend £130m on Alverez but not £30m on Fofana. What an irrational claim….and the media think the fans are stupid!!!
Richard
“does it look to anyone else as if the massive overspend on players is primarily being done in a ring a round manner centered around clubs that have had issues balancing the books?”
I’ve been thinking the same, so I tend to think it’s an observation, rather than an halucination.
Unlesss we both somehow got hold of the same batch of dodgey mushrooms of course!!!
As for our window. Pretty good.
My only reservation is selling Martinelli without replacing him. In fact why sell hi at all? I appreciate he hasn’t been pulling up trees of late, but he certainly hasn’t been a
passenger’ either. especially in Eurpoe.
Look, is we’d aquired a ‘marguee/ left sided player I can understand it, if only to balence the books so to speak. But as we didn’t aquire such a p[layer I think not keeping him is something we might live to regret.
On Martinelli. What a guy. I absolutely loved him, and Jesus. So on a purely emotional level I’m gutted to see them leave. Those two, along Zinchenko were the start of the Arteta revolution’.
I don’t think I’m the only one to think that. This is a piece I just found from Rob Dawson back in October 2022,.and I couldn’t agree more:
“The joke doing the rounds on social media is that after making the Premier League look easy with four titles in five years, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has built himself a challenger by sending Mikel Arteta, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko to Arsenal.
With the former Man City assistant in charge, and two former City title winners in the team, Arsenal are top of the table, and what began as a positive start to the new season is looking more and more like a title charge with each passing week. There is a long way to go, particularly for a team that haven’t been considered contenders for the best part of a decade, but it’s now 12 wins from 13 games in all competitions.”
Along with Trossard, and all you other guys that have left us this summer. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
@Nitram if reports are to be believed man city was working to get the best deal for ayoub boauddi forgive my spelling but they splashed a number not too far away from the number of charges they are facing on Anderson, without any negotiations.
for the life of me, I will never understand how anyone came up with such a valuation for him. he isn’t a bad player, but it’s enough to make you squint at the deal.