By Sir Hardly Anyone
According to the Daily Mail, Arsenal’s “summer clear-out” has been “delayed with players refusing to take pay cuts to join new clubs.”
So at last, we have our Arsenal summer crisis. The players won’t leave!!! Well, at least it is original. Anyway the headline grabbing news is that, “Arsenal are struggling to sell with buyers reluctant to meet their wage demands” and “The Gunners have sold only one first-team player, Wojciech Szczesny, so far.”
Oh my goodness – it makes one’s heart ache for the good old days when everyone was leaving and we couldn’t keep them in. When Bellerin was n the next plane to Spain, and had already bought a house there and had installed his family there and… oh… those good old days.
Now the buggers simply won’t leave when we want them to. Jack Wilshere is cited as one. Calum Chambers is another. Then there is David Ospina, Kieran Gibbs, Carl Jenkinson, Lucas Perez, and Mathieu Debuchy who “can all leave the club this summer.” I am not too sure about Ospina, since he’s been given a lot of playing time, but maybe the Mail knows something.
No that can’t be right.
But they tell us, “Arsenal stand to slash £19 million off their annual wage bill if they can secure deals for their players”. And it is not as if we don’t have buyers, “Watford, Crystal Palace, Fulham and Galatasaray are among the clubs keen on their fridge stars.” Sorry “fringe stars.”
1: Barcelona in for Ozil. And Manchester City.
The Manchester Evening News says there is “anticipation” within the Manchester City squad that Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez will “head to the Etihad”. The Mirror writes that he is ready to tell Arsene Wenger that he wants to join Manchester City.
There is report claiming that the club have identified Philippe Coutinho as a possible replacement for Neymar as he goes to PSG but Liverpool say they won’t sell so accordingly Don Balon always sees Arsenal as an easy touch (think Bellerin) and says “Ozil is on the radar of new boss Ernesto Valverde and the Catalans feel that they will be able to sign the former Real Madrid star for £53m.”
2: Perez to Newcastle
He has a new title. “The Underrated Spaniard”. Yep Arsenal are making a BIG mistake. Deportivo La Coruna have placed a bid, says the Mirror. However Crystal Palace now 3/1 third favourites to sign Arsenal’s Lucas Perez, ‘available for £13.4m.’
3: Gibbs to Watford
This one is in most places but here’s the take from the 4th Official website.
“The boss also revealed that Kieran Gibbs has been struggling with illness this week but refused to say for sure that the left-back will still be at the club at the end of the transfer window.”
4: Carol Jenkinson to Hellas Verona.
Not a club I am 100% familiar with but apparently “Hellas Verona appear to be showing signs of intent this summer upon their return to Serie A, and Jenkinson would undoubtedly be a shrewd bit of business”. According to ReadSeria.com
5: Giroud to Everton
Everton have made him the number one choice said The Sunday People. Plus of course “Giroud wants to know where he stands at Arsenal following the arrival of Alexandre Lacazette at the club.”
The People say the price is £25m.
6. Chambers going nowhere
Chambers played in the Emirates Cup and having spent last season on loan at Middlesbrough, everyone now assumes he is off. The Guardian reckon he goes to Crystal Palace. Arsenal want £25m. But the player posted on Instagram to say he is happy at Arsenal. Mind you to have done anything else would have been professional suicide.
7: The Ox to Chelsea
“Conte believes he can turn Arsenal’s Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain into a world-class wing-back” was one storyline. The Metro also says, “Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool are also keeping tabs on the situation as Oxlade-Chamberlain enters the final year of his contract in north London.”
Oh well. Tabs! Say no more.
OK he’s not been with us for a while but I mention him for old time sake. HITC say Sheff Wed want him as Johan is now a free agent.
He is 30 years old, has got 67 caps for Switzerland, earns £2.5m a year and made more than 100 Bundesliga appearances for Hamburg and Hannover, and played over 80 times for us in the League. But he still gets injured – and indeed is injured now.
And there we are.
Sign the Petition
Meanwhile, although a resident of the huntin’ shootin’ and fishin’ county of Rutland, even I, a member of the nobility, would urge you to speak out against Kronke and his disgraceful TV channel that seeks to praise the killing of animals for fun. Please sign the petition.
- Judging the young guns after pre-season: who will make it, who will quietly fade away.
- The five factors that reveal there’s something very wrong with football (and Arsenal)
- The strange history of the Arsenal Debenture Bonds, and how they operate today
What does Wenger expect. He buys Perez and treats the man poorly. Same with Gibbs an England international. Gibbs figures he may as well sit tight on £70,000 a year. Wenger seems to think everybody but him does not understand. Well if you ask for unreasonable transfer fees for players you don’t want anymore, you will get left with the players. No brainer. Arsenal want to buy cheap and sell expensive. Well life don’t work that way. Watch as Lemar stays at Monaco and Jean Michael Seri and Riyad Mahrez go to other clubs, and we finish 5th or 6th in the Premier League. Wenger cries morals but in truth is morally redundant. A cheapskate wins nothing.
I find it hard to believe we would be willing to sell Ospina after letting Szczesny go. The way I see it is, Cech is getting on and while Goalkeepers have a longer shelf life than those out on the field he is nearing the possible deterioration period and probably won’t be our first choice keeper for many more years. Ospina would be a great player to take over his mantle with Martinez as his number 2.. Having said that though I’ve always thought Martinez to have really good potential, seen him play a few times and he’s always looked solid between the sticks. I’ve always had a feeling he’d just come from no where one day, Ospina will have a fight on his hands I think. As none of our keepers have been handed the coveted ‘No. 1’ shirt yet.. maybe this season will be the decider, will it fall to Ospina or will Martinez finally get his spot in the limelight? I think it’s safe to say we have the best array of Goal Keepers in the league currently, I can’t think of any club with 3 potential No. 1’s.
I could even see Arsenal offering Cech a similar deal as has been given to Per this season. His Goal Keeping skills and knowledge are still immeasurably useful to our youth programme going forward and he definitely appears like the kind of guy who would be game for something like that
it’s strange to me that the club can be so blasé about blowing £50m+ on Alex Lacazette while at the same time being a bunch of pennypinching bastards when it comes to helping surplus players leave
just drop the asking price for Jenko, Gibbs, Debuchy, Lucas etc by a couple mil apiece, hell even offer to pay a percentage of their wages at their new clubs
and the players need to man up too – especially the younger ones. just take a wage cut so you can actually play somewhere, so you can look your children in the eye and say that you actually earn your living
some public pressure from international managers wouldn’t go amiss at this point either
@The Harlequin
Agreed on the idea of Cech and AFC’s youth programme.
One of the things that made his Chelsea-to-Arsenal move happen– was his family’s being rooted in London.
No reason to cut that cord anytime soon.
jw1
Where are the posts about Kroenkes bloodsport tendencies? If it had been the PGMOL or Abramovich we wouldn’t have heard the end of it.
Well I’ve Being Looking for where to vent my Anger. Seems I’ve found the right place.
Arsenal and our unending saga of been liked to Lemar down to being linked to my Little Bro who loves to carry football around; I believe he would be a dream signing for us cus he got Potential.
Well that’s not really My anger, my anger is why the hell do we arsenal Fans suck a lot yyyyyyyy.
what’s has Stan Korenke launching His trophy Hunting whatever Cause so Much outrage, He is a Business Mogul. Yeh, Humans and their ill placed fanatism of ill begotten pity for there Mimicked catch phrase ‘Endangered species’, We eat meat right? Do u feel pity while doing it? Eh No.
Lets stop making a case of something that’s entirely not what we should be Sucking about as Arsenal fans, Now untold is appeling for a Petition to be signed I guess That would solve our Problem of Not Lifting the PL for how long now.
I don’t think is Le Prof alone that has the final say on players incoming and outgoing transfer at Arsenal when money is involved. I am of the thinking that the Arsenal board’s chairman, CEO and owner Kroenke have a lot of say too when it comes to the money side of things.
I imagine Le Prof usually tender his new players need to the Arsenal board and also inform them of the Gunners he’ll want to off load from his squad at the end of every season’s campaign. And after deliberating on his submissions, the Arsenal board could give him the go ahead to sell the Gunners he wants to off load but at a profit, and approve certain amount of money for him to help him do his incoming transfer in a particular window. In the case of this ongoing summer window, £100m might just have been approved for his use. And out of that amount, he has spent £46.5m reportedly to sign Lacazette. Thus, leaving him with a balance of £53.6. And Monaco are seriously eyeing that balance before they’ll let go Thomas Lemar to Arsenal this summer. Hence, his transfer has become man o war bay transfer between Monaco and Arsenal.
Now, Le Prof wants to sell some specific Gunners this summer to recoup what he has used to sign Lacazette, and recoup what he’ll will use to sign Lemar and also what he’ll use to sign a second holding midfielder if I get my imaginations on Le Prof’s incoming summer transfers rightly. But he has only recoup £10m so far from the unfortunate sale of Szczsney to Jeventus. And that leaves him now with over £64m in his summer transfer kitty.
But why is Le Prof delaying the transfer of Lemar to Arsenal having this cash available in his kitty? Which after using £53m final bidding to sign Lemar but no add ons, he will be left with a little over £10m to continue with his 2nd DM signing after selling Perez, Gibbs, Jenkinson and Debuchy which should give him enough money. But keep Chambers and could allow Wilshere to run down his deal to see if he’ll have an injury free season campaign before renewing his contract. But that will be a financial transfer gamble taken by Le Prof in the case of Wilshere.
OT: Predicting Player Salaries
TheRegister is talking about a recent academic paper which tries to predict player salaries.
Arsenal (past/present) players listed:
Player _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Salary _ _ _ Predicted
Mesut Ozil _ _ _ _ _ 240,000 _ _ 152,314
Robin van Persie _ _ 210,000 _ _ 152,687
Cesc Fabregas _ _ _ 170,000 _ _ 106,431
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/01/newsflash_now_even_science_says_moneybags_footballers_are_overpaid/
The article itself is a 21 page PDF. TheRegister provides a link to it.
Well here we’ve got another example of presenting only one part of the facts
We know absolutely nothing about the negotiations. We do not know who Arsenal wants to let go, and who wants to leave. This unless a player himself says so or a coach publicly says so.
So to begin with I would not take the whole presentation : they do not want to lower their wages (and thus are doing harm to Arsenal and Arsenal is stupid not to give them away for free) as the reality.
Jenkinson, Gibbs, Wilshere are all british. So they count in the minimal number of british players a team must have.
So why in the world should Arsenal sell them at a lower price when they know that any team buying gets to hire a foreign player more….and Arsenal have at the same time to either get another british player or diverst a foreign player.
Present it any way, it is just a sound, logical and good business decision to have a high valuation fot these player. And if Arsenal were not to act like this, they’d have the whol Kommentariat screaming murder and the WOB brigade screaming for M. Wenger’s head for such a gross incompetence.
And that is just the first issue
Second issue is with the fact that the presse declare the salaries are deemed to high.
Well, look at that…the same press that belittled Arsenal and M. Wenger for being penny pinchers and having low salaries etc etc etc, suddendly pretending they are too high ?!?! And if I remember well, Jenkinson, Gibbs and Wilshere are all on long term contracts, signed a few years back when salaries were even lower
And for the third issue. And there, a little human psychology is necessary. Are you really believing that these chaps are just happy to come to the training center every day, not be part of the sunday team and just go home each night and tell their kids : daddy was a t work, it’s damn boring but it pays well ? Are you really believing thes chaps are not competitors and that thea are not trying their best ? That they can take the fact that the team is ‘big’ as an incentive to get better ? That being alongside Ozil, Lacazette, Alexis, Per is not some interesting day to day experience ? Show a little respect for the guys.
And stop believing the media because all they do is keep on the negatives and create a breeding ground for unhappyness.
Guys, use your good judgement when reading their trash.
Well Matt, where to I start?
On the home page we have “Sign the petition to protest against Kronke’s animal killing TV channel” which you can click on to link to the petition.
Then again we have “Stan Kroenke and glorifying animal killing” on http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/63370
I must say I am a little bemused that you should have written as you did. Perhaps I should reply,
“Where is Matt’s ranting and raving about… ” and you can finish the rest
Ive just signed the petition
I have emailed the club to register my distaste and received the following answer….
‘Thank you for your email sent to Arsenal Football Club. As a member of the Club’s Customer Service team it has been passed to me for reply
We, Arsenal FC are not involved in this matter and cannot comment unfortunately as it does not involve the Club. This is a matter for KSE Entertainments.’
A typical example of an Arsenal customer relations cop out.
@MickHazel,
I respect your position and understand it. Having lived in the US, way from a city, in the woods, I have discovered that bond americans have with hunting. And having lived on an island with tens of thousands of deer brought there 400 years ago, I understand what culling means and why it has to be done.
But, regarding your email, what ought AFC customer service answer ? What would you answer if it were up to you ?
There is a mix here being done between a person (the owner) and his dealings somewhere with a TV channel, and an organisation (the club) that has no damn way to influence the behaviour of the owner and cannot act at all unless the people in the organisation decided to go on strike or all quit.
This is a lose-lose situation and whereas I have no issue with people indicating their displeasure at the person or the Tv channel, I just cannot understand what good it will bring to make Arsenal hostage of the situation.
Apart from that, if we start down the path of looking at the behaviour of owners, well we there are quite a few clubs where the owners are not so white. Where are the emails voicing distaste ?
And the next thing we know is that we will play with a football make out of styrofoam because a) the leather displeases PETA b) it is manufactured by kid slaves in Pakistan which by the way is a fact and no one really taks about it.
Everyone who did not understand this article the way Chris and myself did, here is a fact that has escaped you:
The Daily Mail are not privy to the confidential transfer plans of AFC, which means they know nothing, which means their report is fiction.
Now read this article again.
Sean Williams – ” Wenger seems to think everybody but him does not understand.” According to who? Are you just another one of those people that just completely pulls a statement out of their arse, as as it were a fact, and then acts like it is something that you can genuinely criticise Wenger with?
Amazing how some idiots think that a comment like ‘A cheapskate wins nothing.’ sums up logic. Just in case you do not realise, Wenger has won more than just FA cups.