This year, last year; a comparison of progress

20 Replies to “This year, last year; a comparison of progress”

1. Great post as usual, can’t wait to see what the table looks like at the end of December heading into January!

   Only thing, Arsenal and Everton still have Blackburn instead of Southampton.

2. Hi,
   There is some great reading on this blog.
   Can I publish some of the articles from this site on my website?
   Regards

3. It will be agood idea if Arsene Wenger will break the bank of this Club and try to replace Song who went to Barca for Another Attacking Midfilder and RVP who haeded for Manchester United.

4. there are so many variables not considered here that would have made your analysis sound and more realistic

5. Good analysis.

6. Nice analysis, but please iron out the mistakes (The Tottyham results are not matching neither in total nor in reality – they did not beat MU last year, and some of the Home and Away naming is inconsistent – see Newcastle).

7. Grande – the simple answer is no – the articles here are copyright Untold Arsenal, and cannot be reproduced except with fair usage (meaning putting a short quote in and linking to the original article). If you have a special proposal in mind please write to me at Tony.Attwood@aisa.org

8. ML,

   Yes, I missed a couple of things when I proof read it. I have double checked and the scores and points for Newcsatle are correct but just got home and away boxes mixed up on a couple of the games. The comparative data is correct though.

   With regard to Tottenham, yes there is an incorrect score so I apologise. I have ammended my database and hope to have a future edition out (if they let me) where this correction will show up.

   All the data except points totals is manually entered so the mistakes are human error I am currently in process of migrating the data into a new spreadsheet which can automatically calculate goal differences etc… That is going to be a while coming yet as I’m still promoting the ref reviews for new referee candidates.

   Other than the mistakes, what are you thoughts?

9. Grande,
   If you want to suggest some variables, I would be happy to consider them. I’m at design stage at present so would be easier to factor them in now rather than later.

   I was hoping to add in features such as last seasons ref review score (need to ask Walter if OK first though), Penalties & Red Cards.

10. Xavier,

    Thanks, I have updated my Master file.

11. Just out of curiosity, what do people think of my method for substituting the relegated / promoted teams?

    Would there be a better alternative?

12. Tony,
    I think you intended to reply to Kubus instead of Grande

13. I picked this quote from the recent AST Analysis of the recent Arsenal accounts here http://www.arsenaltrust.org/news/latest-news/ast-analysis-of-arsenal-holdings-plc-accounts-for-year-ending-may-31-2012

    QUOTE:

    However, we also know that Arsenal avoid paying top level star wages and tend to reward squad players more highly than other clubs. We calculate Arsenal’s recent “wage equality ratio” – WER – to be 5:1. We’re defining WER as the multiple paid to the top earning player compared to the low-end squad members, with the WER at most top clubs being over 10. This is a policy the AST have questioned, especially when it seems to leave the club burdened with players they then struggle to move on. Interestingly Ivan Gazidis’ view on changing this policy seems to be in flux too. In June at the AST Q&A he was quite clear we’d move gradually towards paying a higher WER (top wages to top players) but then reiterated the previous position in his media interviews in mid-September that this was not Arsène’s way.

    MY THOUGHTS:

    The reasoning behind the assertion that Arsenal’s equitable wage distribution is not effecient is defective.
    I will illustrate this using a benchmark supplied by some advocates of the inflated wages for top talent players brigade.

    It is claimed that the WER at most top clubs is about 10:1
    And there is a standard PL squad size of 25.
    If we add on about 10 more players in the U21 category who are on the fringes of the first team (I’m assuming these are the lowest earners being referred to) this makes on the average 35 players on the rosta responsible for over 90% of the wage bill.

    Now, lets assume the highest earners are 5 players, the medium earners (who actually form the bulk of the squad) are 20 and the lowest income earners are 10, now I’ll do a quick distribution using a standard wage for a low income earner which I’ll represent with a value called x. I’ll also make an assumption that medium income earners in the club earn an amount midway between 1/2 and 1/4 (using an approx 40% to simplify maths) of what the top earners earn.

    I’ll admit this distribution is quite arbitrary but I’ll challenge those who came up with this metric to give a more valid distribution of wages. Factors I’ve considered in coming up with this distribution include effect of injuries, number of matches/competition and the all important fact a lot of people seem to miss that football is a team game where 11 of 35 players in the squad have to consistently be on the pitch in order to have any chance of success.

    Now, lets flesh this out and get some ratios and real life figures that make some sense.

    For Arsenal:

    5 Top earners earn: 5x so Top earners earn: 5 * 5x = 25x
    20 Medium earners earn: 20 * 2x = 40x
    10 lowest earners earn: 10 * x = 10x

    Total: 75x
    % of wages for low earners is 13%
    % of wages for medium earners is 53%
    % of wages for Top earners is 33%

    x for Arsenal would be 121m / 75 = 1.613m per annum i.e. about 31K per week (I wish I could rewind time and find time to develop my talent to play football)

    meaning a top earner in Arsenal would earn 1.613 * 5 = 8.065m per annum i.e about 155k per week (If they don’t suddenly start hearing strange voices of kids inside them).
    meaning a medium earner at Arsenal would earn 1.613 * 2 = 3.226m per annum i.e about 62K per week

    x for the top clubs would be

    City 174m / 140 1.243 m
    using the same as above, Top earners would earn 10 * 1.243 about 12.43m = approx 240k per week, medium earners about 4.97m = approx 96k per week
    Chelsea 168m / 140 = 1.2 m (I’ve ommitted Chelsea)
    United 153m / 140 = 1.1 m Top earners would earn 10 * 1.1 about 11m = approx 211k per week with medium earners on about 4.4m = approx 84k per week

    Note: These are averages and do not claim to give actual figures even if some of them have a semblance of realism.

    For the ‘so called’ top clubs

    5 top earners earn 10x so Top earners earn: 5 x 10x = 50x
    20 Medium earners earn: 20 * 4x = 80x
    10 lowest earners earn: 10 * x = 10x

    Total: 140x
    % of wages for low earners is 7%
    % of wages for medium earners is 57%
    % of wages for top earners is 35%

    Now Lets do an analysis of the last season’s wage bill:

    Low earners

    Arsenal 13% of 121m = 16.12m
    City 7% of 174m = 12m
    Chelsea 7% of 168m = 11.76
    United 7% of 153m = 10.7m

    Medium earners

    Arsenal 53% of 121m = 64.13m
    City 57% of 174m = 99..18m
    Chelsea 57% of 168m = 95.76m
    United 57% of 153m = 87.21m

    Top Earners

    Arsenal 35% of 121m = 42.35m
    City 35% of 174m = 60.9
    Chelsea 35% of 168m = 58.8
    United 35% of 153m = 53.5m

    Now, lets assume that the Arsenal board is full of people who believe our WER should be 10:1 with the top earners (but still have to work to the same wage bill we already have) and decide to halve the amount of wages being paid to the lowest earners, this would save 50% of 16.12m which is approx about 9m and lets assume this goes to the top tier of earners, 42.3m + 9m = 51m, this is still less than the amount being paid to United’s top tier of earners and might we remind ourselves what United won last season again? NOTHING (I derived some pleasure writing that by the way).

    The flip side (which the AST analyst has missed) is that:

    1. If you increase the wages of the top tier of earners, there will be an upward pressure from the middle tier of earners which is actually the larges cost centre of wages and the quality of which is what guarantees sustained success and not ‘flash in the pan’ cup wins. This analyst might not know it, but there is a very good reason why there is a differential of about 20m between the wage bill of Arsenal and Manchester United (which has the least wage bill of the 3 clubs that seem to consistently finish above arsenal).

    2. If you decrease the amount spent on these low earners, you miss out on keeping your young top talent (e.g Cesc, Nasri, RVP, Song, Adebayor) who have since been sold off for profit largely to offset the three pronged challenges listed below:

    a. Operational losses due to an already large wage bill occasioned by the upward pressure on wages from none football related expenditure (which has led to the agitation for FFP)
    b. Additional expenses due to paying off the cost of building the stadium
    c. Income limitation due to the front loading of contracts to obtain adequate initial start up funds to get the stadium project off the ground.

    CONCLUSION:
    Our wage bill structure is not inefficient in anyway even though like everything else in life has room for improvement, some point to the fact that we have some players on the books we’d rather move on but this is not unique to Arsenal. An Example is Man City effectively paying off Adebayor so that he can go and play for Tottenham. We, don’t pay off such players but keep them around (and some of them do come around to show they still have some life left in them e.g. Arshavin and Chamakh in the recent Capital One cup game) or charge loan fees for them (2.9 million in the last year came from such fees).

14. Correction:
    In my last comment, I used 2010/11 season wage bill from each club’s annual reports and not 2011/12 seeason’s wage bill as not all clubs have released last season’s results.

15. Interesting analysis….but for some reason, I feel so much more confident this stage this year. Stats aside, I think Santi has made a huge difference to this team and our prospects

16. duduspace,

    You should have send that to Tony as an article.

17. How do I do that Walter? What’s the email?

18. @Stuart good read, but i understand what your trying to do but i believe you cannot compare Reading and Southampton with Bolton and Blackburn (West Ham and Wolves you can get away with), I know Bolton are/have changed the way they play, however the southern clubs will have a go at trying to beat us, Not just trying to beat us up in and around their own penalty area. Maybe it would have been easier to omit their results from your study? This is in no way a criticism just an observation.
    Is your conclusion that we need to improve.

19. Hi Adam,
    Yes I had considered this however it would have meant comparing 6 games of one team to 7 of another as not all teams will play the same amount of games against the newly promoted teams… I also considered looking at the performance against the three promoted teams the previous season but felt that is too far back.

    I decided to go with swapping relegated / promoted based on their actual standings (highest ranked relegated team for highest ranked promoted etc..) as I couldn’t think of another way.

    Not really sure of a conclusion just yet as the difference is marginal. I don’t think Arsenal have deteriorated, instead I believe Arsenal and other teams have hit a peak and the others are catching up but we’ll see.

20. duduspace, send your article to Tony.Attwood@aisa.org, you might want to read this before submitting:

    http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/writers-wanted