Is Arsenal the best run club in the Premier League?

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I'm not an Arsenal fan in the slightest however, nothing irks me more than seeing clubs spending well beyond their means. I recall Leeds United doing this in the early 00's singing players like Robbie Fowler and Seth Johmson whilst paying well over the odds for their transfer fee and wages. The resulting impact was Leeds having to sell of their star players whilst dropping into the lower echolons of league football.

Recently, Liverpool have shown total neglect to club finances making a number of signings for large sums of money. This has left their finances in ruins given they have consecutively failed to qualify for champions league football. Thankfully, Brendon Rodgers looks to of indorsed this problem and has made use of the clubs youth system to promote talent internally.

This brings me onto the big 4. Man Utd, Chelski & Man Citeh pretty much play in a false economy where money is no object. Nevertheless, their qualification into the lucrative CL draw is never really in doubt given their financial muscle and resources made available from their owners.

Arsenal on the other hand are a profit generating machine who incredibly seem to churn out a number of star players whilst not exactly paying ludicrous sums of money to do so. They've also gone onto make large profit margins on players such as Nasri, RVP, Adebayor, Anelka & Fabregas whilst still finding the ability to replace these players with equally talented youth academy products or cost effective signings.

For me Wenger is the only one playing a fair game and if there was "real" financial fair play introduced into Club football there would only be one team dominating the premier league and that would be Arsenal FC- a magnificently run football club (notable mention to Everton as well).

Anyone care to agree re: the above statement?

To be honest cosmetically they look like a well run club but they got well and truely had when it comes to the sponsorship deal with Emirates.

They got offered £100m to sponsor the Stadium and Kit for the next 15 years! and duely signed.

100 / 15 = £6.66mil per season!! Which looks quite bad! Condisering that Liverpool get £25mill per season alone with Standard Chartered + £25mill from Warrior as our kit supplier, this makes a mockery of Arsenal's sponsor ship deal. If our deal ran for 15 years, this would bring in £750mill!

Makes you wonder who agreed to this!! Did they get sacked afterwards!! Could this be the reason why Arsenal must sell every year to balance the books??

It could well be SOF - it is a ridiculous deal, I think (though may be wrong) that I read somewhere that we desperately needed money upfront to pay for the building of the stadium, and as a result of our desperation couldn't wait for a good deal, and got shafted.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:

Smirnoffpriest wrote:Seeing as Jones cost £16m and was an unproven youngster and we got German captain and proven international defender for half the price in Mertasacker, I think we did good business.

That sums up everything that's wrong with Arsene/Arsenal's transfer policy.

Well done, you got a solid but ponderously slow defender just hitting his prime that'll likely be out the door in 3yrs. United bought a hot young prospect who could be with us for a decade or more (a la Rio) and be one of the greatest defenders in the EPL (again, a la Rio).

Hang on - you criticize Arsenal for not bringing in established stars and having not having players in their prime - when I point out that we bought an established international you now say the problem with our tranfer policy is that we only buy players in their prime and don't invest in youth? Which is it to be?

You also miss the point that we wanted Jones but were out bid by United (as we don't have the money to out bid a team like United) and United payed over the odds for Jones, and far over the odds for Rio - nobody else in Britain could afford the amount United payed for Rio back then.

A 'prime' Mertesacker is hardly going out shopping with the big boys, his price relfects his value - limited. You bought a limited player in his prime as you did want to stump up a couple of mil extra for established EPL defenders and Arsene did his usual trick of going to the continent to buy cheap.

Out bid by United? Rubbish. 1) You had the money to spend more than £16m, easily, it is just Arsene's chosen transfer policy that means you wouldn't exceed that amount; and 2) the only element of 'out-bidding' could be on wages which, even if it wasn't explained by Arsenals silly wage structure, is hardly an explanation as Jones isn't on big wages.

If ever there was evidence you've be taken hook line and sinker for the Arsenal sob-story BS about having no money boo-hoo aren't you such a well-run club/business it's your comments re 'over-paying'. We bought the best English CB of the last decade (second only to Adams in EPL history IMO), that doesn't mean over-paying. And you can't say we over-paid for Jones as he hasn't had a run yet (but when he has played he's looked very good indeed). If anything was 'over-paying' it was the £3m you paid for the waste of space Park - as acknowledged by the club who've just written off all his wages until contract expiry as an impairment in this years account.

Over-paying is not about how much you spend, but what you get for your money.

Each to their own opinion, but IMO Mertasacker is playing well, is a good experienced defender - proved by his 80+ caps for Germany.

But apparently because he's not English, young and costs a lot then he's not the best option and we should have gone for someone like Shawcroft instead.

Out-bid by Man U yes - £16m is a huge amount to pay on an unproven youngster whose going to need a season to accilmatise (which Jones did at Man U), especially as we needed a player who could start playing straight away. Man U had a lot more money to dedicate to their targets that summer (as they only needed a handful of players) and have a lot more to offer on wages as well - we needed around 7-10 players to strengthen our depleted squad and so couldn't justify spending a significant amount of our budget on 1 youngster, when we needed more experience.

and re: your comments about Rio - yes you bought a great defender (I've never said Rio isn't great) - but I said you were the only team who could afford to spend £29m on a young defender in 2002, that was a huge amount more than any other defender cost then (and most even now), and as I've said no other club could even have hoped to have matched that. Not until Chelsea came along could a club match those sort of transfers. I said over paying as in defenders around that time cost between £10m-£18m roughly - you payed almost double that, yes you got a great defender an the centre piece of your defence but you blew all other teams out of the water with your bid.
It's not a sob story it's a fact. I'm not saying boo-hoo if only we had Rio ... I'm saying we spent only what we could afford and as a result have been able to afford more and more every season - unlike Leeds, Newcastle, Blackburn and the like that tried to compete at the top and got into serious trouble and eventually relegated.

We can't go out and spend £30m on a young defender, (even now) that's not boo-hooing thats another fact.
We could have bid £16m for Jones, but it would have meant not strengthening in other areas, and our defence being a little short while he acclimatised - but either way I doubt we could have matched the wages for Jones - always assuming United didn't up their bid to £18m, or £20m or £22m if we'd pushed them into a bidding war - United could afford that, if we'd spent £22m on Jones we may only have got 1 or 2 other players and wouldn't have got Arteta (amazing signing), Jenkinson (looking very good - essential with Sagna out), Santos (decent signing - essential with Gibbs injury prone) ect.

So to say we should have bought these types of players and didn't coz we were stingy is simplistic and missing some of the crucial factors

Smirnoffpriest wrote:It could well be SOF - it is a ridiculous deal, I think (though may be wrong) that I read somewhere that we desperately needed money upfront to pay for the building of the stadium, and as a result of our desperation couldn't wait for a good deal, and got shafted.

But am sure in the grand scheme of things a better offer could have been negotiated?! Its like Peter Ridesdale brokered the deal for you!

Who knows, and I suppose we'll never know. It is poor though, and the only positive is that we're coming to the end of it, and regardless of what happens Gazdis should be able to negotiate a hugely better deal next time.

I wish we were all so limited to play 80 caps for the german national team. Arsenal has made poor decisions financially in regards to their sponsorship deals but I think that all signs point ot arsenal being competive at the top due to good football management. And on the business end of things with the new stadium online and and a new and much rircher sponsorship deal in their future the club will continue to go strong.

I actually don't doubt Arsene wenger's strategy of stockpiling a deep and young squad as opposed to overpaying for every transfer flavor of the month that comes along. There are very few players in the world worth the transfer fees they are commanding at the top levels. A ronaldo, a messi; something of that order might be worth a supermassive transfer fee. But football is a team sport, and a sport that favors a deep team. If you look at most of the mega transfers that take place in the last decade or so I think you would find the scorecard to be very mixed as to whether said superstar ended up being worth all that money. I am a big, big supporter of growing a club organically through the reserves, juniors, and yes even from the youth and boys teams. In short the Ajax model of the 70s and 80s.

No better example exists than Barca and Real. Yes both teams have bought big players, always have and always will. But Barca's best players are homegrown and these players not surprisingly having played since boyhood for the club are more loyal and have the barca way of playing engrained in them since they have been a cub. PUyol, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, etc. weren't bought for 40 or 50 million pounds. They were bought when nobody even knew who they were and they were still playing with toys.

I agree Social.

I also think regardless of peoples thoughts on Wengers reign/methods, IMO the next 5 years will be a lot richer as the new sponsorship deals should bring a lot more spending power to the table, and allow us to compete much better, the reduced stadium/loan costs and the remaining property sales will also help.

While I'm unsure how the Financial Fair Play rules will effect the top clubs, it'll probably help close the gap a little bit between Arsenal and Chelsea/Man C.

As a result I think we should see greater squad depth, a few star signings/proven players, to be combined with the young players who break through the squad.

That is right Smirnoff, I am not against star signings but the have to be a good fit and not just ridiculous money for a player that may or may not deserve that kind of fee. Unfortunately, in my mind Man U, City, and Chelsea to some extent have been overpaying for talent it doesn't mean we should follow them along that path if we don't have the money they have. Still good star veterans should be brought in when the fit and the price is right. From what I hear Arsene has 35 million pounds for a new striker if he wants it. And Arsene will spend it on a player for the most part that is really worth that kind of money.

The other thing is that if Man U/City/Chelsea make a £20/£30m signing then they can afford to still make a few other signings around it. And if that marque signing goes t!ts up (like Veron or Shevchenko) then they can afford to ditch them and look to another biggish signing next year.

If Arsenal signed a player for that much and they turned out to be pants, then they'd be stuck with them, and it'd also means regardless that they'd be unable to strengthen other areas of the side. It's a much bigger risk.

TheFootieNews wrote:No. It's the best run business in the Premier League

Nail on head. The best run clubs win trophies, and keep the books balanced in the process. Who could argue that Chelsea aren't the best run club in the Premier League? They may have a billionaire owner but the reality now is that Chelsea are a global brand, they are the current European Champions, they have players on big wages but they aren't the top payers anymore, and they appear to be in a position where if Roman left tomorrow, they wouldn't be doomed, far from it. Other than some excessive transfer fees, which for the most part are funded by sponsors, they're pretty level in terms of expenditure with the rest of Europe's big guns.

I'd say more fool Arsenal fans for believing that healthy accounts is equal to success. Football is about winning, not at any cost, but winning nonetheless. Arsenal are not a well run club because they haven't actually won anything in 7 years. Other than the open top bus parade where the players hold up a sheet of paper that says "We finished Top 4 again", they are not successful.

Exactly Marky. As you say, more fool the Arsenal fans who let themselves get suckered in to believing this BS.

United made £50m as losing finallists in the Champions League in 2010/11, an EPL win is meant to be £10m+ but I'm not sure of the exact figures.

Winning is success and makes money, finishing 4th year after year and reaching QF stages is not. If Arsenal used their considerable resources and title winning signings rather than squad fillers they would be able to recoup their investment through prize money rather than flipping players like a feeder club.

Well that facts remain despite what you guys believe that Arsenal are in a much better financial position hat will allow them to compete that hasn't been the case for all of the last 7 years. The stadium was a long term investment that had to be made for the longterm interests of the club. Trophies or no trophies I always enjoy watching Arsenal play that is more than can be said for a large number of the clubs in england and in Europe. But I agree that the major thing that keeps them from where they need to be is the lack of major trophies in the last few years.

TopHat - But we got to a CL final without spending more than £15m/£18m on a player and lost because our keeper got sent off and we didn't convert our chances - or do you think we would have definately won that CL final against Barca if we'd signed a £30m/£50m player, ala Ronaldo, Shevkenko, Torres, Rooney? As if we hadn't won the final, but had bought the player then we'd have an outlay on a player we couldn't afford without the £50m pay off at the end. We'd also have to curtail our investment in other parts of the team as well.

I believe football is a team game, and while one star player can make the difference in close games, One star player doesn't win you anything, particularly if the rest of the team is poor, or there are serious weaknesses in other parts of the team.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:But we got to a CL final without spending more than £15m/£18m on a player and lost because our keeper got sent off and we didn't convert our chances - or do you think we would have definately won that CL final against Barca if we'd signed a £30m/£50m player, ala Ronaldo, Shevkenko, Torres, Rooney?

Arguably one of those players you mentioned would have taken those chances

Ahh I see so we should have ditched Ade/RVP (because they aren't big signings in 2006) and signed Torres for £50m and all our problems would have been solved and he would have bagged a few goals against Barca?

OR

Maybe a players value isn't directly linked to his cost, and spending money isn't a automatic guarentee of success. Just maybe...

Torres moved to Liverpool for closer to £20m actually. £50m was a one off as it was an over-inflated price only a billionaire owned club would and could pay. But countless times we see Arsenal linked with Player A for £20m-£25m and it doesn't happen, the player then moving elsewhere and being a huge success for their club. And I believe that if Malaga weren't forced to sell Santi Cazorla so cheaply, he wouldn't be at Arsenal because there is no way Arsenal would have spent £25m+ on Cazorla even if he was worth it.

Arsenal had Thierry Henry upfront in 2006, not Ade/RVP so that argument isn't valid anyway.

You totally miss my point - the idea presented was that Arsenal could get £50m for winning the CL and around £10m for winning the PL (don't know if the figures are accurate/conservative/inflated) and so it makes more sense spending lots of money on players to win these trophy's than spending smaller amounts on lots of players (like Viera, Petit, Sagna, RVP, Carzola, Podolski, Arteta ect).

I was merely pointing out that you can spend LOTS of money on big signings, only for those signings to either turn into flops, or be no more successful that a player signed for much less, or (as in Torres' case) can take a season or two to settle in and start playing well.

I could make another point as well, Newcastle, Blackburn and Leeds all took the view that they'd spend what they couldn't afford now, so that they'd win a particular trophy and then that prize money would retrospectively pay for the outlay on players - Newcastle then missed out on the trophy at the end, Leeds didn't win either the PL or CL and fell away and it lead to all three going into a severe slump, needing to sell all their prized assets just to stay afloat and dropping like stones.

To return to my original point, spending money, even if you spend great amounts and a lot over what you can afford, is no guarentee of success.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:TopHat - But we got to a CL final without spending more than £15m/£18m on a player and lost because our keeper got sent off and we didn't convert our chances - or do you think we would have definately won that CL final against Barca if we'd signed a £30m/£50m player, ala Ronaldo, Shevkenko, Torres, Rooney? As if we hadn't won the final, but had bought the player then we'd have an outlay on a player we couldn't afford without the £50m pay off at the end. We'd also have to curtail our investment in other parts of the team as well.

I believe football is a team game, and while one star player can make the difference in close games, One star player doesn't win you anything, particularly if the rest of the team is poor, or there are serious weaknesses in other parts of the team.

And what have you done since then? Nothing. And your keeper was a horrible cheat and finally got his just desserts on the biggest stage of his club career.

You have money, you spread it rather than invest it and you achieve nothing. If that satisfies you, and other Gooners, then long may it continue as it keeps all the trophies and best players for the top4 clubs.

So you're response is that we got what we deserved bcoz our keeper was a cheat and we haven't done anything in the last 6 years?

This is a ridiculous comment, it hasn't dealt with any points raised in the thread and just gives more sweeping statements that you originated with, which have no referrence to any detail.

I'd ask what has changed in the last 6 years at the club financially? Can we now suddenly compete with Chelsea/Man U financially? No, but there is another even richer player on the market, Man C, yet I don't see nayone saying Man U should be spending as much as Man C (but the money is definately there for Man U...).

I'd question which 4 clubs are have pushed us out of the top 4?

And of course the Gunners fans aren't satisfied with not winning any trophies, but we have been competiting during this period and I'd wager that ALL Arsenal fans are much more satisified that we are where we are now than where Leeds are at the minute.

Could you also describe what you mean by spreading money and investing it?

I thought one of the problems was that we buy/invest in too many youngsters rather than seasoned pros? And we do regularly invest in the team, we have bought players every summer for the last few seasons (but I suppose these don't count because their not transfer record breaking signings).

Haven't time to spend going round in this ridiculous circles with you.

To answer the one above point that I can the quickest - spreading v investing = spending large amounts on greater players is an investment as it is more likely to bring success which earns you prize money (i.e. you spend to get a return = investment); whereas Arsenal (as I've previously shown) rather spend average amounts on lots of average players and the return is 0 i.e. not an investment, just a maintenance of the status quo.

So basically you're saying that the only clubs within the Prem who invest in their teams are Chelsea, Man U, and City? - spurs don't invest as they spend lots of money (up to £200m) on lots of players rather than a few, as do most teams.

Smirnoff with his comments about how our keeper was a cheat shows that these guys are coming from a position of bias. You make great points, it is pointless to spend money you don't have. We wouldn't have beaten barca in that final if we had one or two more signings of the megamillion variety. The fact is that stadium was a structural improvement long term for the club that cost a great deal. The club is through the tunnel with the stadium and some poor endorsement deals and look to be poised for the future. Arsenal can be criticized I suppose for thinking for the longterm success of the club as opposed to putting all the eggs in the basket of winning one league title and then collapsing.

socal1976 wrote:Smirnoff with his comments about how our keeper was a cheat shows that these guys are coming from a position of bias. You make great points, it is pointless to spend money you don't have. We wouldn't have beaten barca in that final if we had one or two more signings of the megamillion variety. The fact is that stadium was a structural improvement long term for the club that cost a great deal. The club is through the tunnel with the stadium and some poor endorsement deals and look to be poised for the future. Arsenal can be criticized I suppose for thinking for the longterm success of the club as opposed to putting all the eggs in the basket of winning one league title and then collapsing.

How is spending £54m spending money you don't have??! It was the same as United spent the same season and the key point is Arsenal fans like to say "oh, but we only had that much because we sold players to fund it", well United had that much because we had a trophy winning side that topped up the difference between sales receipts and transfer signings.

You spread that across 9 or something players and got £5m cack like Park (who you've now written off in your accounts as a 100% loss).

Arsenal's spending policies have meant you have failed to kick on from the great sides of the late 90s and early 00s. It is not a comparison chucking names of one-off sides that had very temporary success with big sugar-daddy backing like Leeds and Blackburn.

you say that Man U can spend so much money as they win trophies, which gives them prize money to spend - I'm confused, as you said that winning the PL gives a team £10m, and the League Cup/FA cup significantly less. Yet Man U didn't win anything last season, yet spent £50m this summer - surely they wouldn't be able to afford anything near that without recieving any prize money?

Strangely they also seemed to spend £19m in 2005 (with some bargain players mind) even though they only won the League Cup (which I doubt is worth £19m).

Funnily enough our 'dry' period started the same time we ploughed loads of money into a state fo the art stadium, strange coincidence - it also seems to be a time when we were spending between £10m-£15m a season (besides one £31m spending spree), another strange coincidence.

You also miss the points repeated many times over the thread and just keep repeating the same thing regardless - as such after this post I give up.
But one point you repeat is Arsenal have money, yet don't spend it. Yet we have spent £150m over 7 years on a new stadium and spent £217m (by my rough workings out) on players in that same period.

And while yes we've bought cack like Parks and Squillachi, so has every team and we haven't been exposed as much as other teams with pants signings such as Veron, Kleberson, Djemba Djemba, Alan Smith, Tosic. And in that period we have bought very very good players.

But you still don't seemt to grasp the simple fact, that while Man U's team is moulded around players bought for £20-£30m and then they buy other £5m-£15m players to play around them - we need 7-12 players and can't afford to buy a £20m+ player (or an unproven youngster for £16m) AND buy the other 6-11 players on top of it. Or we can't afford to write off £29m if a signing goes wrong, and then go out the next season and sign a replacement.

I imagine Manchester United spend money based on future expected prize money, as most businesses will spend money based on future earnings, in the same way that we can take a loan out based on future earnings.

Manchester United are in a better position to spend money they don't have, as they're more likely to make it back with prize money than Arsenal are.

I'd also point out that Arsenal spent £12 million on an unproven youngster in Oxlade-Chamberlain....

My point was that Man U have a lot more money that Arsenal to spend, with or without prize money - their earnings are higher (aren't they the top/2nd top club in the world for sales/merchanidising?) and they don't have a stadium debt to pay off.

So to say that Man U only spend prize winnings, in much the same way that Swansea/Blackpool can only spend the money from getting into the PL, is very much disingenious.

No-one else was bidding for Chamberlain seriously Crimey, Man U were very keen on Jones (which is why Arsenals interest cooled), and do you think if Arsenal bid £16m for him (same as Man U), Man U would have just walked away and chalked it up to experience, or do you think they would have raised their bid significantly? We also got IMO a better deal and player for our side in Mertasacker.

You're saying that Arsenal can't afford to spend £16 million on an unproven youngster, yet they spent £12 million on Chamberlain, hardly that far away from £16 million in the grand scheme of things.

No I meant that Arsenal can't afford to out bid Man U (as Man U have hugely more resources than us), I thought I'd made it clear that IMO if we'd matched Man U's bid of £16m they would have just upped the bid. And seeing as we could get Mertasacker for £8M, who had the experience we desperately needed (80 caps for Germany)and the physical stature (6ft 6 isn't he?) and we also needed a defender straight away, whereas it didn't matter if Chamberlain took awhile to adjust as we had plenty of wingers. }

Ideally though I'm sure Wenger would have loved to have had Jones, but I guess he (and me) saw that we'd be very unlikely to out bid Man U AND still have money left for all the other signings we needed to make that summer.

I was merely pointing out that this point, which you made:

we...can't afford to buy...an unproven youngster for £16m

is probably not true. It might be true that Arsenal wouldn't be able to beat Manchester United in a bidding war, but that's not what you said. Arsenal can buy an unproven youngster for that kind of money, which they did with Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Yes if your going to take my posts out of context and pick and choose which bits to quote...

footballs a fickle world, while arsenal were doing alright there on here saying thier the best run clun in the prem, now when they are struggling they are holding protests to get the board sacked!!