Mikel Arteta: Aston La Vista To The Title?

[Trilly]

No EL & the bottlejob vs Olympiacos costed the club 40-50m.
Arteta should have done better if he wanted more transfer money, Emery was murdered for finishing 1 point below a CL spot

How did the bottle job cost 50M? Isn’t that assuming we made it to the final?

 

[GDeep™]

Apparently Emery also wanted N'Zonzi in his first summmer and had to be convinced to get Torreira instead. Wonder what impact that would've had, if any.

Don’t know how he is now, but Nzonzi was quality in Spain. Older so Torreira made more sense I guess.

 

[Makingtrax]

You also need those, thats the point. Torreira wasn't purchased as a back up player nor do I think he has the quality to just be back up which he's proven many times.

Over the windows with the players you've just mentioned we have signed starters and backup players.

Arteta was right, the Liverpool game highlighted what a huge technical gulf there is between our squad and theirs. Partly down to money, partly down to poor transfer business. Apart from those two blunders they were all over us. That's why we're mid table.

We'd likely lose to our own 2015/16 squad with Ramsey, Özil, Sanchez, Cazorla, Coq,Ox, Walcott, Giroud, Kos, Per, Nacho etc that came 2nd.

 

[GoonerJeeves]

We'd likely lose to our own 2015/16 squad with Ramsey, Özil, Sanchez, Cazorla, Coq,Ox, Walcott, Giroud, Kos, Per, Nacho etc that came 2nd.

That team would have hammered us.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Arteta was right, the Liverpool game highlighted what a huge technical gulf there is between our squad and theirs. Partly down to money, partly down to poor transfer business. Apart from those two blunders they were all over us. That's why we're mid table.

We'd likely lose to our own 2015/16 squad with Ramsey, Özil, Sanchez, Cazorla, Coq,Ox, Walcott, Giroud, Kos, Per, Nacho etc that came 2nd.

I dont disagree with you, far from it. We are lacking quality its obvious to see. But after wenger left everyone knew it was going to take 3+ years to rebuild a team.

 

[EinmalImmerEwig]

What if they spoke and money was promised?

Now that would also make sense

In fact that's cheered me right up!
Many thanks!

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Even if money was promised everything changed when Covid hit.

 

[<<reed>>]

How did the bottle job cost 50M? Isn’t that assuming we made it to the final?

Correct, there aren't many better team than Arsenal in the EL, so they should be reaching the semi-finals/final most of the time.

 

[Trilly]

Well then sack Raul and bring in someone else. Surely he can't be completely safe considering how poorly he's done since arriving.

It takes a rolling period of about 3 years before you can really judge how someone has done in the transfer window tbf.

 

[bingobob]

As promised a long breakdown. Hopefully you read and find it informative even if you disagree. Please dont quote the whole post if you want to reply. Just @bingobob all figures are from transfer market.

transfers
Arsenal
13/14 In. 44m Out. 10m
14/15 in 107m out. 25m
15/16 in 23. out 2m
16/17 in 101 out 9m
17/18 in 137 out 142m
18/19 in 72 out 7
19/20 in 144 out 48
In. 628m Out. 243 net 385m


City
13/14 in 104 out 10
14/15 in 92 out 27
15/16 in 187 out out 60
16/17 in 192 out 31
17/18 in 285 out 82m
18/19 in 70 out 48m
19/20 in 150 out 62m
In. 1.08b out 320m net 760m

Liverpool
13/14 in 52m out 29m
14/15 in 136 out 89m
15/16 113m out 81m
16/17 in 71m out 76m
17/18 in 156m out 175m
18/19 in 163m out 37m
19/20 in 9m out 37m
In. 700m out 524 net 176m

Chelsea
13/14 in 117m out 70m
14/15 in 123m out 128m
15/16 in 81m out 78m
16/17 in 119m out 98m
17/18 in 234m out 180m
18/19 in 187m out 65m
19/20 in 40m out 127m
In 901m out 746 net 155m

Man Utd
13/14 in 69 m out 1m
14/15 in 175m out 44m
15/16 in 140m out 91m
16/17 in 166m out 42m
17/18 in 178m out 40m
18/19 in 74m out 27m
19/20 in 192m out 64m
In 994m out 309m net 685m

Sp**s
13/14 in 110m out 121m
14/15 in 43m out 39m
15/16 in 62m out 78m
16/17 in 75m out 47m
17/18 in 109m out 93m
18/19 in 0m out 4m
19/20 in 133m out 51m
in 532m out 433m net 99m

Leicester
13/14 in 450k out 1m
14/15 in 20m out 0
15/16 in 44m out 8m
16/17 in 82m out 59m
17/18 in 79m out 45m
18/19 in 103m out 86m
19/20 in 93m out 79m
In 421m out 278m net 143m

Out of the 7 clubs listed 4 spent more signing players however we sold the least amount resulting in us having the third highest net spend. Looking at those figures if squad cost won the league we would have a United City duopoly since 2013. But we havent. United havent won a single league title in that period.

Context is important. So why use 2013. Two reasons. It's the year we were meant to compete with the likes of Bayern Munich and challenging for top honours as we got to renew sponsorship which gave us resources we didnt have access too in the past.. Secondly it's also when we had the basis of a good squad. Because I know people will say squads are built up over time etc. Well going into that season we had players at their peaks in Koscielny an established French international defender and Mertesacker who went on to win the WC. We had Monreal at full back and Sagna on the other side. We had Sczesney in nets who was no longer a young lad. He was our first choice keeper for two seasons.

In midfield we had the experience of Arteta and Cazorla and also maturing midfielders in Ramsey and Wilshere. Both were no longer young players finding their way. Ramsey had two seasons as a consistent starter and Wilshere had a full season back after his horrible injury (more on this later and how context is key for squad cost). We also had the exciting young Oxlade Chamberlain and Iwobi looking to break in.

We had Giroud an experienced goal scorer who topped the charts in France and a 24 year old Theo Walcott. No longer a young boy but a man who alot of hopes were pinned on. We also had Podolski who had a reputation for getting goals.

So the squad was strong. Built up with clever investment in guys like Cazorla, Artera and Monreal, established longstanding players like Sagna and Koscielny and finally the thing we built our house on when we moved to the Emirates. Youth players. Gibbs, Wilshere, Diaby, Ramsey, Jenkinson, Sczesney, Walcott no longer raw kids but men ready to contribute consistently.

So the squad was there to build upon and the new found financial muscle provided access to instant quality who can contribute to a decade of success. How did it all go so drastically wrong?

Wilshere as I've mentioned should have been sold. This would have provided funds in the out column that could have been added to the in column. Instead he left for free like Ramsey, Sagna, Welbeck, Cazorla. We held onto players like Gibbs for far too long when it was clear he wasnt going to contribute. How did Liverpool get 20m for Abe they sold him before anyone saw he was ****e.

Weve backed our managers significantly. The figures are there, third highest net spenders in that time. We have been absolutely awful at selling players otherwise we would have been able to spend more. We failed to build from a position of strength non more evident when Leicester won the league. That should have been us. How different might things be. Özil and Alexis sign new deals weve momentum from FA cups and finally a league. Confidence grows and we add better players and move on those not good enough. In another place in another time maybe. Instead weve spent marginally less net than Liverpool yet theyve been to two CL finals winning one and won the league and came pretty damn close last season and most expect them to be there again next season.

The figures are there its indisputable we have backed our manager/coach. the context shows we have only ourselves to blame. We could have had a higher squad cost, like Liverpool, but we are poor at selling. To 2013 our strategy was developing young players to mature into £50m players and we got that wrong too. Some werent good enough, some were too injury prone and we should have moved them on. Some we should have sold for the sake of refreshing the squad. Instead sentiment hurt us which lead to poor decision making which in turn leads us to where we are now. A lot of money spent, assets that are no longer as valuable as they were and an uphill battle against to reclaim our rightful spot.

 

[lomekian]

I didnt cherry pick them. I picked them on the basis @Macho said we never backed Emery. for convenience I looked at seasons in which Emery was in charge rather than taking out the January 2020 window. I imagine if I done that there would be a drastic shift as thats when United signed Fernandes. Take that out it moves us up further.

As for the wages argument, please. Context. I assumed people knew of our situation. Naive of me. We have the 5th highest wage bill in the league 40m below Liverpool in second place, sandwiched between us are Chelsea and City. Those clubs have also paid out CL bonuses. So yes I stand over that statement we could compete with any club over an individual signing. We pay 350 per week to Özil for nothing, paid Mkhitaryan 250k pw and pay Aubameyang and Lacazette 200k pw. If we wanted them we can afford to pay the going rate. The fact that we are now dealing with agents and paying agents more than we done in the past is another indicator we can do the business if we want.

I'll go back and address some of your points later. But your context argument about other clubs buying more is amiss. Simple points. We went another way of developing rather than buying. And we developed players worth the 50m other clubs were spending on players. We then failed to sell players to give us more to buy (a simple look at the figures I provided shows we were joint bottom for selling) and even then we still spent hundreds of millions.

I'll look at the figures to see if what I'm saying is correct. I believe it is just by general knowledge of the situation but of course the figures will provide the answer.

Apologies - Its easy to miss who's replying to who and why in this place!

I think we just right off the Emery period as a guy who was an inevitable inbetweener, who turned out to be a bad fit for the club as well as a limited coach at the elite level.

I think we are talking cross points a little. I agree and have stated often that our selling 05-18 was a shambolic disgrace and has set this club back 4 to 5 years. Thankfully those responsible have all left, no matter where you apportion the blame.

The main point I was making, was that Arsenal COULD compete on any one player, but couldn't do so and address the other problems in the squad. The issue is not that Arsenal can't occasionally spend big money. The facts rule that out. The issue is that Arsenal can't spend big money and hand out vast contracts with the same regularity. If United / City /Chelsea screw up a £30m transfer, its no big deal. We do, and we're stuck with them for 5 years because we simply can't write such an asset off.

There's no doubt arsenal have massively mismanaged things since the team was competing. But equally, the net spend ratios that make Arsenal look big spenders are only really 2 1/2 years. Before that our net spend was miniscule compared to City, Utd, Chelsea and even Liverpool. We only started spending in that period because we had fallen pretty far behind off the back of barely spending at all.

Re wages, its important to look at how wage totals are presented by different clubs. For instance Arsenals published figures always included first team, academy, coaches, support staff etc. Clubs like City and Chelsea used to only publicly present wage cost of first team players. Which massively skews the figures. So while I totally understand your point re wage totals, its not an accurate one due to selective reporting (a bit like when governments and their critics disagree about unemployment figures or coronavirus deaths - its not comparing like for like).

 

[Trilly]

Not gonna lie those xG numbers are worrying. Every fanbase says that it’s ok and you’ll outrun it but you don’t.

Utd fans before they fell apart post PSG said it was down to De Gea, we looked the other way in that 22 game run and Leicester fans ignored it this year when they were almost title challengers by Christmas.

Eventually it balances itself out. Only silver lining is that we have three, possibly four games left of this season and with new players and a pre-season of Arteta’s methods then it’ll be a clean slate.

Very worrying.

A decent defence you could make for him is that he’s sacrificing attack for defence and then explain the xG-against numbers by us having defenders who make mistakes that result in high quality chances. For example Kola’s mistake resulted in Son getting a chance which was at least a 0.5. As others have said the red cards meaning we’ve had to defend more and so concede more shots but I’m not sure about how much of an excuse that really is.

The part that you have to whisper is that Emery also had error prone defenders giving up high quality chances...

 

[Hunta]

@bingobob

Great post, shows that our main anger should be aimed at Gazidis and then Raul for our terrible transfer business. Too easy to ask Kroenke to invest, he’s allowed those who are hired to run the club to spend.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Very worrying.

A decent defence you could make for him is that he’s sacrificing attack for defence and then explain the xG-against numbers by us having defenders who make mistakes that result in high quality chances. For example Kola’s mistake resulted in Son getting a chance which was at least a 0.5.

The part that you have to whisper is that Emery also had error prone defenders giving up high quality chances...

He did but we were giving up 20-30 shots per game under Emery. You can clearly see there's a lot more stability and passion in our play under Arteta.

The xG is poor but that will change with signings.

 

[lomekian]

Morning Lom,
Hope all's well with you and yours.
Major reason why I signed up here, a joy to read your posts.

Luiz is a decent footballer, I was just replying to HairSprayGooners claim that "at the time the majority of people were very happy with our business"
No-one ( in their right mind ) was happy that we signed that chav **** at the time, and the bile does rise every time I see that turd in an Arsenal shirt.
Prove me wrong and get the winner today* and I'll get Luiz on my next shirt.
Lots of love
Babu


*and in the Final, I don't want to make it too easy for him

hey Babu! The alpine master blaster is back! Whatever happened to SGF? It just stopped working pretty suddenly for me. You well?

Re Luiz, I was 'happy enough'. I knew with the summer spend we had and with Saliba lined up we were going to pick up a cheap experienced defender, and for the fee and the timescale, Luiz was probably as good as we were going to get. Likewise I'm fine him getting renewed for a year on less money. If he's here in 21/22, he better have had an epiphany that turns him into a latter day Baresi, or I'll be rather displeased!

Ultimately he's here because we needed a defender who could pass, and at that point Mari was in Brazil proving himself a player and Mustafi was peak Mustafi. Now he's back to being a timebomb. Then he was footballing Napalm.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

@bingobob

Great post, shows that our main anger should be aimed at Gazidis and then Raul for our terrible transfer business. Too easy to ask Kroenke to invest, he’s allowed those who are hired to run the club to spend whatever they make.

Raul?

Guendouzi
Leno
Tierney
Pepe
Martinelli
Saliba

I think Raul has done incredibly well so far. He's bought in Mari knowing we have a lot of CB's leaving next summer and Cedric not knowing bellerin would come back and be very poor.

You need to give Arteta time to put things together. Raul thus far doesn't deserve any criticism. This window is huge and if he gets it wrong then he deserves some criticism. If he gets it right, ie signing a CB, Partey and creative player then he deserves a lot of praise.

 

[Trilly]

The xG is poor but that will change with signings.

You could have said the same thing for Emery though.

 

[lomekian]

TV money has been going since 1992 and whilst it has increased in leaps and bounds, so has the price of players. In the last decade the average cost of EPL transfers have risen from £3.7m to £14m, increasing nearly x4. TV money has increased from £1.7bn to £5.1bn, about x3.

By far the biggest change has been the unstoppable rise of billionaire foreign owners sinking their own money into clubs through loans and share deals. Not just Chelsea and City but teams like Wolves, Everton, Leicester etc. Even the Brighton owner has sunk £200m of his own money into the club. To my knowledge Kroenke hasn't invested 1 cent of his own personal money into the club since he becaming the major shareholder.

The usual net/gross spend quotes on here, don't interest me. A squad takes years to build. And there is only one figure which tells you the true investment in the team and that's the cost of the 25 man squad, published by CIES every year. Currently we are 5th in the league behind City, United, Liverpool, Chelsea. Slightly above Everton and Sp**s. To get into the top 4 we will have to out perform our squad investment as Wenger did for years.

And as for the dying days of Wenger, from 2015/16 to the day he left, the club was under enormous pressure from the fans. Boycotts, protests, social media rants, planes overhead etc and basically it became alarmed and over reacted with panic buys, and Wenger even trying crazy defensive tactics, which were a joke for him. The whole club was paralysed and dropped like a stone. Wholesale personnel changes since, ridiculous transfer windows . . . it's still in freefall.

I don't really disagree with anything you say, but it is true that the most recent TV deal made TV money a much bigger factor than gate receipts and unlike in Spain the money is shared equally, so our spending power is not that much greater than a club with much smaller support and without stadium costs. So despite the RPI increase in player costs, we've been more comparatively adversely affected than most. And yes of course, billionaires have transformed football to our cost as well.

2015-18, my greatest critcism isn't the buys, even if they were scattergun, or even the loss of tactical identity. Its the point that we let £200m+ worth of talent walk out the club for peanuts due to bad decisions

 

[HairSprayGooners]

You could have said the same thing for Emery though.

Well look at it logically. We are looking more solid at the back, individual defensive errors are our downfall. Next season Saliba, Mari and hopefully a new CB will be our first choice trio. You've immediately eradicated the majority of Luiz/Mustafi mistakes in there.

Once we move to a back 4 after having more solid defenders in the side our xG should improve. Add a creative spark in there and it will improve further. What Arteta wants in the market fixes the issues.

 

[lomekian]

He was exactly the player we didn't need. Sokratis and and Mustafi are both rash and needed someone steady, experienced and safe. Instead we got a technically gifted player who is prone to howlers, and always has been . . . getting worse the slower he becomes with age.

To be fair the club were actively shopping Sokratis and Mustafi, so neither were in their plans. Agree Luiz and either of those two is a bad partnership for the reasons you mention. Why I'm optimistic about Mari despite his obvious limitations.