Arsenal's wage structure

[evoh_1]

That lsit of wages is totally made up he does one each year and it just looks more random as he tries to fit the squad into the total wage.

On the matter at hand the contrract length and wage is simply a way to protect and retain the asset (player), you pay him what you can afford to keep him at the club so that in the event he has to leave you can get a fee for him.

There should be one simple argument for all of this:

Do we value the transfer fee demanded / paid for each player to be equal e.g is van persie worth 10-20% more than djourou etc? If that is not the case then the players need to be paid in the realtive to their possible transfer value.

In this situation the whole idea of egality breaks down as at the end of the day you won't be going around asking for 15-20 mil for Djourou and 24 for a van persie.

 

[bingobob]

Bingobob - you were the designated "no concessions to socialism" guy in this debate... What happened?

Consider the subject of motivation. Add it to both the hard worker average guy, and to the multi talented vastly paid punk up front. Poems are nice, but what do we do in real life?

And I still am. What about the lad who studies day in day out and gets an A and the guy who just shows up to the exam and gets an A, both should be treated the same regardless of how they got their grade. For a team to be successful it needs both types of guys, the guy is just somehow amazing and the guy who has had to work hard every day to get where he is. Both are on equal pegging and deserve to be highly rewarded. The lazy punk upfront gets goals, a fundamental aspect of football, and should be rewarded for that effort or not, and the guy who worked his ass off doing the right things training hard helps the team and he too should be rewarded equally because his contribution is just as vital to the goal scorer. It is when people who play half a dozen games, do not contribute, laze about the pitch and act like a spoilt rich kid they should be put on a lower salary. If they start putting in performances like the two previous mentioned players then he should be rewarded with a salary matching their contribution.

In the work place it would be the same. The new guy would not be getting the same as the guy who gets all the big accounts in, though if he proves his worth he should be allowed to earn it, even if the top guy does nothing else all day but get the big accounts in. At the same time the work who works his ass off getting hundreds of small accounts in should be rewarded the same as the top guy because all his small parts add up to be the same as the top big account guy. There is a ladder off opportunity, how far the new guy decides to go is upto him he might be content doing the minimum, ie not a lot, or he might decide to go after the small accounts and be his protege or go after the big accounts and be his protege, or he could decide to be the coffee runner. Its up to the individual how far they go and the wage structure at Arsenal should also reflect an opportunity to progress. 4/5 pay brackets

Developing performer (0 -15k)
Low Performer (15k – 25k)
Mid performer (25-50)
High performer (50-100)
Top performer (100k-200k)

Top performer could play in any position and so can the developing performer but the construction of salary brackets should be reflective of

A/ Their role within the team/squad (1st name on the team sheet? Struggling to get on the bench? 1st used sub?)
B/ Their contribution (be that goals, work rate, clean sheets)
C/ A structure that mirrors their direct competitor.

 

[yuvken]

What about the lad who studies day in day out and gets an A and the guy who just shows up to the exam and gets an A, both should be treated the same regardless of how they got their grade. If they start putting in performances like the two previous mentioned players then he should be rewarded with a salary matching their contribution.
the construction of salary brackets should be reflective of
B/ Their contribution (be that goals, work rate, clean sheets)

Tricky part is not if both the lazy punk and the hard worker get As - it's when the punk gets and A- and the hard worker gets a B or C+. Contribution is the be all end all - but "work rate" is still high in there. And even if we take work rate in a narrow way (not effort, but, say effective pressure, assuming good positions - stuff that really does reflect "results on the field", and not just the will and attitude to work hard) - we still have that question of team morale: everybody in that team knows P (lazy punk with .75 GpG stats) is more valuable to the team than W (hard worker who's always 100% committed, but his contribution is significantly less important in terms of results).
But there won't be one person in the entire team and staff (and fans?) who will not feel disgruntled at some level because of this (even though they may actually support pure result based system).

So - what do we do? say "tough"? milden things a bit (towards "social")?

 

[Glovegun]

I guess its the club's way of maintaining a happy squad. If you aren't playing football, you'll expect to be adequately compensated. That way you can ensure that if you have two centre-halves injured, you can call on a Djourou rather than some kid from the reserves.

However, I think it comes back to Wenger's ideas about motivation. He wants the players to feel trusted and valued (which involves money), which will in turn enable them to perform to their full potential. That might work on one level, but it prevents you from being able to offer seriously good money to the players who get seriously good. I'd say that it also creates a culture of complacency, with a complete lack of accountability.

 

[fabo]

Is there much to say, it's been a complete bust.

 

[bingobob]

If the players are not happy they can go somewhere else. It has not troubled United who have won the Champions League and Premier League with huge disparity in salary. Berbatov, lazy player but top goal scorer in the PL 2 seasons ago, typifies the player you seem to be talking about. Ferguson deemed goals were not enough and shipped him off and replaced him with Hernandez, probably not as many goals but more work ethic but come the end of the day it really depends on the managers perspective is, is he getting value for money? He deemed Berbatov wasnt value for money. When players like Smalling look at Ferdinand earning potentially 3 or 4 times what he is earning does he think its not fair or does he think heck if I achieve what he has achieved I could earn that. If Ferdinand was earning 10k more than Smalling does Smalling have an incentive to try and push himself to get to Ferdinands level? Personally speaking I don’t think so, if I set next to one of the top guys in my work and I was a new unproven worker earning slightly less than them I would think I lucked in not lucked out.

A manager decides if a player earns its and deserves it, Berbatov example shows the manager didnt think the goals were the be all and end all, if a player is unhappy at an experienced established top drawer player earning 3 or 4 times more than him then he probably in all reality doesnt have the mental strength to cope at being at a top club were people need to prove they deserve to be at a top club. Perhaps one reason why we lack mental strength is because a lot of our players have had things handed to them without earning it, without pushing themselves for themselves, the team and the fans in contrast United players have to show and earn the right to get a bigger salary and when they push themselves and show that commitment they and the team get rewarded and the player gets medals and most likely a salary that reflects what they have helped the club achieve.

 

[Anzac]

Like other aspects of AW's philosophy/approach,
the wage structure, the training, coaching, style & patterns of play,
the make up of the squad and the team selections ALL promote an ethos of stability and longevity so as to provide for the future.

The problem being that they've forgotten to define just WHAT it is that the future is supposed to provide; for WHOM it is supposed to be providing whatever it is for, and just HOW it is meant to do so. We constantly change the goal posts & there is no longer any line drawn other than to generate profit.

We are in a position where we are providing longevity & stability for their own sake & have lost sight of any end game,
and as a result we are on a long transitional road to nowhere.

 

[yuvken]

we are on a long transitional road to nowhere.

aspects of AW's philosophy...ALL promote an ethos of stability and longevity so as to provide for the future. The problem being that they've forgotten to define just WHAT it is that the future is supposed to provide

Anzac pearls thread coming soon

I'm not sure what remains of the claim in the end: do you think the flat (socialistic) structure is meant to be more profitable? suppose we agree (hypothetically) that 4th is all they ever want to get: is the flat structure the most economically efficient way to do it? some here would insist there's a 30, maybe even 40 mill a year wasted because of that structure. I'm not sure where you stand on this. And now the same applies to another, more straight forward goal: suppose we really do want to win: which is the more economic way to do it? (this, if indeed the club wants to win, would be the way they'd do it, more or less. Perhaps add a tweak, depending on just how much extra they are willing to invest in getting their goal).

My own view, BTW, is that there is some truth in what you say, but regarding what they want to achieve I think there is more than one goal there. Profit is one, some chance of winning something (yeah, I mean it as I say it) is another, and probably "running it adequately" (that could be seen as in according to values, morality, what have you) is also there in some way - at least in the boss' mind. And I'm not saying what I think about such set of goals, just that I think they have that set.

 

[dpt49]

Like other aspects of AW's philosophy/approach,
the wage structure, the training, coaching, style & patterns of play,
the make up of the squad and the team selections ALL promote an ethos of stability and longevity so as to provide for the future.

The problem being that they've forgotten to define just WHAT it is that the future is supposed to provide; for WHOM it is supposed to be providing whatever it is for, and just HOW it is meant to do so. We constantly change the goal posts & there is no longer any line drawn other than to generate profit.

We are in a position where we are providing longevity & stability for their own sake & have lost sight of any end game,
and as a result we are on a long transitional road to nowhere.

Exactly.
We have been in transition for so long that Wenger and the board don't even bother trying to cover it up any more.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that several seasons ago Wenger said "judge me after this season" and other classics like "we will win trophies" and "I will only buy super quality."

How come when he comes out with idiotic statements like these, and others, reporters don't actually question what he says?

I would ask him one simple question,

If you have failed for over eight years to improve this team, after promising you would, then why should we trust you any more?

Like you say, "we are on a long transitional road to nowhere."
You could argue he has transformed us from contenders to also rans.
He has certainly succeeded in that.

 

[yuvken]

Not the right thread for that, dpt. It's nice you are answering Anzac (who did, I guess, work on the periphery of the thread topic), but you're not even talking about the wage structure.

 

[dpt49]

Not the right thread for that, dpt. It's nice you are answering Anzac (who did, I guess, work on the periphery of the thread topic), but you're not even talking about the wage structure.

Sorry about that ops:
I was so impressed with Anzac's line of "a transitionary road to nowhere" that I forgot where I was :wink:

 

[yuvken]

Sorry about that ops:
I was so impressed with Anzac's line of "a transitionary road to nowhere" that I forgot where I was :wink:

Yeah, epic line that.

 

[truth_hurts]

Our wage structure is a joke and the fact that Wenger has tried to take tthe moral high ground is a joke. Football is a results driven business/game and as such pay should be linked to performance. There should be some sort of parity between employees but as the saying goes 'by treating everybody equally you are in essence not treating them fairly'.

Gone is the YTS culture of football sadly 10 years ago a young player like Ramsey or Gibbs would have been in awe of players like Vieira, Bergkamp and Thierry NOT thinking about how their wage compares to the top players ditto for squad players. Now we have young players and squad players on a similar wage to players like Walcott, Sagna and Song (when he was here) who have contributed much to this club over the last 3 or 4 years.

Players like Nasri as much as I despise him, Song and RVP had every right to expect a performance related pay rise and did not receive them whilst players like Vermaelen, Ramsey, Chamberlain and Djourou have recieved payrises for very little. This strategy is more likely to cause unrest then an unbalanced wage structure where there is a huge distance between earnings.

How the hell did we ever get to a point where players like Bendtner. Almunia and Denilson were earning allegedly over 50k a week that wouldn't have happened at any other top club and even more of a travesty how were the likes of RVP, Song, Nasri, Sagna and Theo earning a similar amount to players who were contributing so little?

 

[dpt49]

How the hell did we ever get to a point where players like Bendtner. Almunia and Denilson were earning allegedly over 50k a week that wouldn't have happened at any other top club and even more of a travesty how were the likes of RVP, Song, Nasri, Sagna and Theo earning a similar amount to players who were contributing so little?

This is why players like RVP, Cole, Clichy, Nasri, Toure, Flamini, etc left.

We had a squad crammed with a few genuine world class players that were earning marginally more than the mediocre players, of which we had loads.

Clubs like Man U have their top players on more than three or four times what the squad players are on, because they normally deserve it.

We have our lowest paid first team regulars on a comparable wage as our top earners.
I know that some of our recent signings have been offered nearer 100k a week but that was only because we have finally learned that if you want quality, you have to pay for it.

How RVP, Cesc, Nasri and Song were only being paid around 20-30% more than the likes of Bendtner, Arshavin, Chamakh, Almunia etc, is the very reason they left.

If you look at what RVP has done for Ferguson this season, he looks worth every penny of the 200k a week he is getting.

When he was at Arsenal, RVP saw Chamakh come in and earn almost as much as him, and some supporters still think RVP was some sort of traitor.

I would say to those same supporters, would you not have done exactly the same thing in his situation?

 

[ArsenesNO1Fan]

I'm a big Wenger fan BUT even I have to admit if he is artificially overpaying our players in a socialist model it is both arrogant and rewarding mediocrity. It's also putting the players interests over giving value to the fans, his customers. In essence it's anti-capitalist and there's no reward for good performance in the system

Personally I'd push for performance related pay for young players, play in a match winning team double your pay for the week. 50k a week would be fine for the 'dross' for the weeks they were in match winning teams

Having said all that it maybe BS anyway because how much are our wages for average players above the other top clubs?

Looking at Man U, Ashley Young is on 100k, Welbeck 75k, Evans on 65k, Smalling on 50k

Looking at Liverpool, Gerrard 140k, Stewart Downing 80k, Andy Carroll 80k, Joe Allen 45k, Sterling 40k. Cole was on 120k a week and had to be paid off 3million to take 50k a week

So based on those numbers are we really paying 'socialist wages' or the going rate?

 

[outlaw_member]

Team harmony is overrated. As long as the players are professional on the pitch, then it simply does not matter if they are best friends or enemies when off it. Man City with all of their disruptive influences won the league last season. Sheringham and A. Cole despised each other, yet they were half of a treble winning striking quartet. Lehmann had feuds with just about every goalkeeper he was in competition with, Wiese, Kahn, Almunia, etc. Romario and Edmundo constantly sniped at one another, yet you couldn't have known after they ran Man Utd ragged in the Intercontinental Cup. How about when Bellamy and Riise fought a couple of days before they went and beat Barcelona at the Camp Nou? Chelsea also managed just fine even though they had John Terry in their team. It's idealistic to want a close knit group, but it's not entirely necessary.

 

[yuvken]

Adams comments on the subject:

"It is not a small wage bill [at Arsenal], it's £143m. I think they can restructure it and give the big boys a lot more and not put so many of the middle order ones on 50 grand a week. They could have put four or five on the top money. If they had done, I would have been positive that Robin would still be an Arsenal player.

Take from it what you will, but it's a clear "it's not a lack of fund, but how they are distributed", anti flat stance.

Team harmony is overrated.
... Man City with all of their disruptive influences won the league... [examples of winning despite rough social atmosphere] Chelsea managed just fine even though they had John Terry.... It's idealistic to want a close knit group, but it's not entirely necessary.

The point is different, though: is it better to have a good relationship between people, is harmony contributing to performance? If city had 50 mill less, but 50 harmony points more - would they have won it? Would Chelsea have done better if, all else being equal, Terry was not a c***? in other words - is flatness valuable, just as cash to a specific guy is, from a team perspective? not saying it is or isn't, just that this does npt show anything conclusive about it.

 

[ArsenesNO1Fan]

Having said all that it maybe BS anyway because how much are our wages for average players above the other top clubs?

Looking at Man U, Ashley Young is on 100k, Welbeck 75k, Evans on 65k, Smalling on 50k

Looking at Liverpool, Gerrard 140k, Stewart Downing 80k, Andy Carroll 80k, Joe Allen 45k, Sterling 40k. Cole was on 120k a week and had to be paid off 3million to take 50k a week

So based on those numbers are we really paying 'socialist wages' or the going rate?

Bump this Q

 

[musicmonkey]

Having said all that it maybe BS anyway because how much are our wages for average players above the other top clubs?

Looking at Man U, Ashley Young is on 100k, Welbeck 75k, Evans on 65k, Smalling on 50k

Looking at Liverpool, Gerrard 140k, Stewart Downing 80k, Andy Carroll 80k, Joe Allen 45k, Sterling 40k. Cole was on 120k a week and had to be paid off 3million to take 50k a week

So based on those numbers are we really paying 'socialist wages' or the going rate?

Bump this Q

For me i think for the players that are contributing we're paying the going rate, who's really overpaid that currently gets game time for us? Rosicky maybe doesn't provide enough for what we give, Diaby too probably due to his injuries. The issue is we have players who don't contribute on as much as other team's players getting time, we're not seeing a return on what we're paying.

The issue is the players we're lumbered with, Squillaci, Chamakh, Park, Bendtner, Arshavin, Denilson etc... They're the ones paid over the odds and that's more because they're failed signings that didn't meet the promise than because of a socialist structure. I think we've learnt from our mistakes, these are all players obviously frozen out that we want rid off and currently i can't really see a player who could go a similar way to the above. Possibly Rosicky if he can't shrug off his injuries could become tough to shift? Everyone else has resale value. I think it's why we're not offering Sagna as long a deal as he's asking for so we don't get stung like we have with Arshavin.

Strip the players who don't contribute and our wage structure will look a lot nicer. The number of those 50k/week is vastly inflated by those players.

 

[CannonBals]

Our wage bill is growing rapidly and currently still manageable but we cannot afford players on high wages to not perform.
Currently only Cedric is the one on high wages and not contributing and most of our squad is locked in till 2027 but if new signings like Havertz/Rice don't perform we are back with wage issues.

Current hierarchy seems to be (kept bit on a higher side and assuming new deals for White/Ødegaard)

300k+ - Saka Ødegaard
250k+ - Saliba Jesus Partey Havertz Rice
150k+ - Martinelli White Gabriel Zinchenko Jorginho
100k+ - Nketieh Nelson Timber Cedric Ramsdale Raya Trossard ESR Tierney
60k+ - Viera Elneny Tomiyasu Kiwior Lokonge Tavares Runarasson


(some wages like ESR/Tierney are assumed and also have added players out on loan)