January Transfer Speculation and Shit

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Originally Posted by Maestro

would you be willing to pay him circa £130k a week?

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That's the gypo/chav premium. They have players on much more than that stashed on the bench and this is the direction they are driving the game. If we want players of a quality above the average then £130k isn't at the high end of what those type of players demand these days (and can get elsewhere) This will be the net effect of ten years of finance building, the players and their agents will take most of it. Another gift from the comedy clubs and another reason why they are so, so bad for sport. Look at the Bony deal, £30mill when they already have a whole bunch of strikers. And I bet the wages will be ludicrous too. I don't think you can be prudent in this game any more if you want to win something. If you want to be prudent then you settle for second tier, which was not the deal sold to the fans when the whole stadium thing was proposed. Just a couple of years back £100K seemed a ludicrous amount for Theo. Things are so crazy now that £30K on top is almost nothing. It's a silly old game.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/...0661327632.jpg

Bony's agent. I'm just saying...

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Swansea are reportedly demanding £25m up-front plus £5m in add-ons for the prolific forward, while Bony wants to double his earnings to £120,000 a week.

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For a bench recruit.

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

That's the gypo/chav premium. They have players on much more than that stashed on the bench and this is the direction they are driving the game. If we want players of a quality above the average then £130k isn't at the high end of what those type of players demand these days (and can get elsewhere) This will be the net effect of ten years of finance building, the players and their agents will take most of it. Another gift from the comedy clubs and another reason why they are so, so bad for sport. Look at the Bony deal, £30mill when they already have a whole bunch of strikers. And I bet the wages will be ludicrous too. I don't think you can be prudent in this game any more if you want to win something. If you want to be prudent then you settle for second tier, which was not the deal sold to the fans when the whole stadium thing was proposed. Just a couple of years back £100K seemed a ludicrous amount for Theo. Things are so crazy now that £30K on top is almost nothing. It's a silly old game.

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yep, it's a squeeze 'em for that max game. theo looks like he'll take £150k/week to go sit on the money bench and make up the ghel homegrown quota. i think the kid has it in him, got bench potential that one.

back to your valid point, unfortunately we have a spending-averse manager and board so can't see us winning anything of note for another ten years easy if the status quo prevails

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/...0661327632.jpg

Bony's agent. I'm just saying...



For a bench recruit.

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they can suck a bony i tells ya, that's their whole village sorted out for generations

We signed Podolski on 100k a week wages from a league everybody gushes about in terms of being THE exemplary football Modus Operandi.....and from a team like Cologne who were never going to win anything of note in a million years.

There wasn't a whole lot of opposition to his wages then or even a couple years after when it was obvious that Wenger didn't really fancy him.

A fair point.

We just cannot compete with City's finances but that is not the only reason we are far behind them. At the end of the day, they can only field 11 players and so can we and if our manager sorted himself out and stopped being french, he might have a chance.

Ive only recently become a fan of Theo, as his early days were a mismash of so-so perfrmances. The only question is whether he justifies earning so much. If we step out of the illusory world of Chelsea and City and back into our own where we have to rank players on a hierarchy. I dont see why Theo should earn as much as say Sanchez or Ozil. If Wenger had the nous to use Podolski properly he could be a 15 goal a season player for us, but for that you would have to tinker with the team and have 2 ball winning DMs to make up for his own inability to chase back.
But I digress. the issue for Arsenal as a club is where we see our finances in 5 years time. We already spend more on wages than Chelsea so something is seriously wrong with our benchmarking of players. Will Wilshire, Ramsey and Theo all be on 180k/pw in 2 years time. If we win nothing for the next 5 years will they even stay?

There is something diabolically wrong with football finances that makes players earn so much, but at Arsenal we are clearly not the well run example that we try to portray to the world. Our finances would at least make sense if we won stuff with all that we spend.

Our wage structure is flawed and it needs addressing. It's of our own making and born out of fear of the oil rich clubs and their financial power so we've devised a flawed counter strategy to try and stay ahead. Theo's case is a prime example of why it's flawed.

The idea is that we develop our own superstar players but on the cheap. Small tranfer fees and £40k-£60k a week here or there is nothing in today's market and shouldn't really hurt us. It sounds like a good idea at first. But when it gets to the point where we'd rather shun world class talent and avoid paying £150k a week so we can pay a few young developing players £50k-£60k, something has gone wrong somewhere.

We're gambling on potential and hoping they come good whilst sacrificing quality in the team. 'Buy cheap, you buy twice' is the saying. The youth project has been very expensive. A lot of people say the Board are tight fisted with money and don't like spending but I never believed that because the amount we'd spend on our wages for 'cheap' players. We've gone for quantity over quality. Blown a hole in our budget shopping at The Pound Shop under the impression we're getting value for money.

For all we've put into the youth project, we haven't got much out of it on the field. Theo is a rare case but still not at the 'Henry' level we were led to believe he'd become. That's why the talk of his wages makes some eyes water. But this is the problem you get when you try to accelerate too quickly. Start a 19-21 year old on £40k-50k wages so early and keep doling out long term deals with more money rising to £60k-£70k, you'll soon reach that £100K+ mark with a player that still hasn't reached his full potential but still young enough to reach it. Jack and Ramsey will hit that point soon as they are both on the £80k mark I think. What happens if injury slows their progress but they're due another contract? After so much time and investment, it makes it very hard to just let the player walk.

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Originally Posted by Blink 1nce Quince 2wice

Are we so brilliant all of a sudden we can lose Theo? I'd be very annoyed to say the least if we don't get him to re-sign. Imagine us pretending to try and replace him.....

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We need to keep Theo, he's one of our only players that actually delivers in the big games. His scoring record against the likes of Chelsea, City and United is very impressive TBF.

Moreover his number in general are very good, he's a 15+ goal, 10+ assists a season player, he'd cost a fortune to replace properly.