Is it perspective or do we screw up more than others transfer wise?

[The Emirates Gallactico]

We have the fourth highest wage bill in the country.

We have never finished lower than fourth and will probably finish fourth again. Think most of you don't really understand what 'value for money' means.

If you include transfer fees in this argument, we come out a long way on top.

The fans may be getting ripped off (1300 for a season ticket to watch a club that hasn't won anything in eight years - lol) but the club's financial side is, as always, very well maintained relative to our performances on the pitch.

As for transfers, it's a lot more difficult to unearth 'gems' when you're playing around in the bargain bin of the market, but all clubs make mistakes. Chelsea have spent 100M this year to get knocked out of the CL in the group stages and are a mere two points ahead of us, Man Citeh have ended up with a far weaker team despite adding 4-5 players during the summer and we all know about Liverpool.

It's not as simple as pointing to final position on a table and equating final position with wages spent as defining value for money Teggers you simpleton.

You have to look at actual figures and differences in wages in comparison to points earned to consider whether we're getting value for money.

This is from two seasons ago. These are out of date now as it's been established thanks to some bumper contracts we've offered our wage bill is now hitting the 150 million mark. It's the best I can find though:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...ts-profit-debt


What would be a more accurate comparison for "value for money" is if someone compiled a table (*cough Letters*) dividing Total Wages by Points acquired last season so we can a "Wages spent per point gained" figure. Because it's clear that Spurs who seem to be spending roughly 33 million less than us on wages per season yet they finished only one point behind us last year are significantly better than us in extracting value for money. Likewise even Man United who spend about 28~ million more than us yet finish roughly 15 - 20 points better every season are clearly getting better returns on their investment.

Plus you have to also consider real effects and not just maths. How can we realistically claim to be extracting value for money when we have so much dross on large contracts who are unable to be shifted out of the club sucking millions out of the club every season, yet we're unable to keep our top players because we can't match their wage demands that other top clubs are able to.

Furthermore if we didn't have such a ridiculous bloated wage structure we perhaps would be so compelled to sell our best players every summer just to make a profit. All this wastage in wages affects our ability in the transfer market when it comes to recruiting players.

It's really hard to believe that our scouts can't find talent and value in the market these days. I was just watching Yaya Toure and thinking how we had the inside lane for this guy and didn't move for him. It's a shocker. In fact, I'm reading that he had a trail with us! No idea why we didn't work hard enough to get deal done for the kid. Or maybe we didn't want to kill Diaby?

We also could have signed him whilst at Olympiacos. We didn't. He moved to Monaco, Wenger's former club but we didn't move for him and he went to Barca for around £7m. Maybe Wenger thought he'd kill Diaby!

That's an example of one player. There are others we've missed that have the talent but wouldn't have cost a fortune as well. The Prem is littered with such players so I don't agree with this idea that we can't find hidden gems. Wenger and scouts just aren't moving for them.

True, though as GP points out I do think we tried getting him whilst he had a trial here but couldn't because of Work Permit issues. Though we probably could have got him when he went to Olympiacos.

Still like I've said about other top players that Wenger has claimed to have "just missed out" on, I don't think he would seem as good as he is now if he joined us, with our inability to structure and organise a defence and our lack of some basic footballing principles. Essentially he would have been "Arsenalised" to some extent.

[Kano]

it's a stupid argument. he trialled and didn't perform very well but arsenal still wanted him.

"He was here as a young boy but we cannot get players in here if they are not internationals. He had no work permit and was too young. We tried to wait until when he was in Belgium, we tried to get him a European passport.

"He was not patient enough and left for Metalurh Donetsk, that is the club where he went."

shit happens. sure, our buying policy hasn't been up to scratch but what is the point of banging on about players who we could've signed at the time who none of us acknowledged as being of much use? hindsight makes it too easy.

you do know we could've also got ronaldo and zlatan right?

[Syn]

What would be a more accurate comparison for "value for money" is if someone compiled a table (*cough Letters*) dividing Total Wages by Points acquired last season so we can a "Wages spent per point gained" figure.

Jesus fuck. Assuming a linear relationship is pretty silly.

TEG is generally right (the real one, not the weirdo). And I’ve explained this on here before but this isn’t really the forum for perspective, logic and sound reasoning. We get value for money to the extent that we generally finish around where we’re supposed to. And it’s also rather convenient to leave out the fact that we’re actually making money in the transfer market. Talk of profits through player sales, for your average club that might spend £20m or so, we’re talking about a swing of around £35-40m or 30% of our wage bill. Overall we are no more wasteful relative to the league but what highlights the problem is that the variance in ‘value for money’ across players.

We are doing well with some players that could be higher paid if we operate in a similar way to some other clubs (i.e. paying your first-team players a lot, lot more than what you pay your squaddies) but - and what drives the bias is that - we have players that could be paid a lot less and it’s clear to see that, whereas it’s not so clear to see at other clubs. Another source of bias is looking at the genius Wenger delivered at the start where he did get us results far and above what would be expected with our expenditure, but in looking at our performance relative to the league, that’s not now important. Looking purely at end results year after year, it’s clear that we generally do as well as we’re supposed to, but that’s not to say there aren’t clear ways we can improve - and I think a good manager would get us to do better. And what we're all looking for is - instead of buying 2 players at £10m, to get 1 player of £20m, assuming the squad numbers are healthy.

[Power n Glory]

it's a stupid argument. he trialled and didn't perform very well but arsenal still wanted him.



shit happens. sure, our buying policy hasn't been up to scratch but what is the point of banging on about players who we could've signed at the time who none of us acknowledged as being of much use? hindsight makes it too easy.

you do know we could've also got ronaldo and zlatan right?

It's one example of many players and whole point relates to this false argument of there being no value in the market. As said, we could have bid again before he moved to Barca but we didn't. Maybe Wenger and the scouts didn't believe in his talent or that we had better players and this is where we have a problem.

We're worse off now squad wise with £120m in the bank but Wenger and the Board are using the same sort of excuses. How can we not find value in the market when so many clubs around us are able to? I used Yaya Toure as one example.

Edit - A lot of fans were talking about Yaya Toure whilst in Greece and France. I wouldn't say it's hindsight. He was building a rep before Barca.

[Kano]

It's one example of many players and whole point relates to this false argument of there being no value in the market. As said, we could have bid again before he moved to Barca but we didn't. Maybe Wenger and the scouts didn't believe in his talent or that we had better players and this is where we have a problem.

We're worse off now squad wise with £120m in the bank but Wenger and the Board are using the same sort of excuses. How can we not find value in the market when so many clubs around us are able to? I used Yaya Toure as one example.

of course there is value in the market. the only person who says otherwise is wenger and really, anyone who listens to his words and takes them as the truth or a serious argument needs their head checked.

maybe toure didn't want to turn back, as proved by him not waiting around for a euro passport and wanted to forge his own path? until you have it from toure, you're just making things up.

toure is a poor example.

we have plenty of others we HAVE bought we are better ones.

[Power n Glory]

of course there is value in the market. the only person who says otherwise is wenger and really, anyone who listens to his words and takes them as the truth or a serious argument needs their head checked.

maybe toure didn't want to turn back, as proved by him not waiting around for a euro passport and wanted to forge his own path? until you have it from toure, you're just making things up.

toure is a poor example.

we have plenty of others we HAVE bought we are better ones.

There are plenty of people on here who make that argument. We've already had it on this thread and there have been plenty of others that blame Chelsea and Man City's billions.

Okay, let's say Toure is a bad example, but what exactly am I making up? I'm just pointing out our reluctance to move for a player that we could have used and especially at a time when we had players like Denilson and Diaby in the squad. It's not as if there was no need for a strong powerful midfielder at a time when the press kept saying we were soft in the middle.

It's the same pattern now even though we're richer but with less talent on the field.

[The Emirates Gallactico]

Jesus fuck. Assuming a linear relationship is pretty silly.

TEG is generally right (the real one, not the weirdo). And I’ve explained this on here before but this isn’t really the forum for perspective, logic and sound reasoning. We get value for money to the extent that we generally finish around where we’re supposed to. And it’s also rather convenient to leave out the fact that we’re actually making money in the transfer market. Talk of profits through player sales, for your average club that might spend £20m or so, we’re talking about a swing of around £35-40m or 30% of our wage bill. Overall we are no more wasteful relative to the league but what highlights the problem is that the variance in ‘value for money’ across players.

We are doing well with some players that could be higher paid if we operate in a similar way to some other clubs (i.e. paying your first-team players a lot, lot more than what you pay your squaddies) but - and what drives the bias is that - we have players that could be paid a lot less and it’s clear to see that, whereas it’s not so clear to see at other clubs. Another source of bias is looking at the genius Wenger delivered at the start where he did get us results far and above what would be expected with our expenditure, but in looking at our performance relative to the league, that’s not now important. Looking purely at end results year after year, it’s clear that we generally do as well as we’re supposed to, but that’s not to say there aren’t clear ways we can improve - and I think a good manager would get us to do better. And what we're all looking for is - instead of buying 2 players at £10m, to get 1 player of £20m, assuming the squad numbers are healthy.

True you're right. On reflection it probably wouldn't be a pure linear relationship, but more a diminishing returns graph with spending more and more getting you less gains in performance.

However diminishing returns or not, I still don't believe it reflects any more kindly on us - a one point difference vs 30 million more spent in wages against Spurs isn't going to get alleviated considering diminishing returns.

I did allude to profit from player sales in my previous post in stating that we perhaps would be able to spend more on transfers if we able to reduce the wastage in our wage structure. Hence as I mentioned in my very first post on this thread someone needs to generate a combined wages and transfers table for better comparison. Yes you're correct in pointing out that we "choose" to spend more on wages than transfers, however this "choice" may be driven by the need to maintain a profit and the inability to spend because of our wage bill. If we had 30 million free from having a lower wage bill from having less dead-weights like Denilson, Bendtner, Santos etc etc you may see us become more eager to spend more in the transfer window.

Ultimately though waste is waste be it in the form of transfers or wages. That part is impossible to dress up - and we have significant waste on our books, the majority from wages but there's also a part from transfers (Santos, Gervinho etc etc). This costs us tens of millions a year which could be better spent elsewhere on actually improving the team.

This situation may get better with the new Emirates deal and the increase in TV revenue but I rather suspect that a lot of this revenue will get absorbed by the increasing and out of control wage increases that we are seeing in this game resulting in another false dawn for the club.

In short, are we the worst at spending? Clearly not when you look at the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City etc etc. But at the same time we can not claim to be a role model of financial prudence which the board and some fans like to promote at times when our recent profits have been wholly driven by top player sales and external property sales which aren't sustainable in the long term. In particular when the aforementioned player sales continually lead to ever worse performances on the pitch and a steady decline of the club.

[Nayan]

From football365.com ('Why it might not work out at Bayern). Point being even a once potential replacement for wenger / savior has a dodgy transfer record.

The Pressure of Money
Since Guardiola's appointment at the Allianz Arena was announced, there has been talk of that rarest of footballing treasures: the transfer war chest. The Daily Mail reported that this figure was £240million, but one suspects that this may be wildly inaccurate and instead relates to the valued equity of the club stated by President Uli Hoeness during the latest shareholders' meeting. However, whatever the case, reports of bids for Luis Suarez will do nothing but fan the flames.

Unfortunately, I believe the purchase of players to be Pep's largest weakness. Whilst he may not have been the sole decision-maker on transfers whilst at Barcelona, the following (all during his four years in charge) do not read prettily: Alexander Hleb (£15m), Martin Caceres (£15m), Dmytro Chygrynskiy (£22m), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (£60m and sold two years later for a third of the price), Keirrison (£12m), Adriano (£9m). Even the £53m spent on Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez has not been truly vindicated as yet, with both players struggling to truly identify their role within the Barca system. That's nearly £200m of unconvincing recruits.

[Kano]

i'm pretty sure bayerns youth set up with provide a healthy enough buffer and don't most euro clubs operate in a way where the manager doesn't buy the players, rather a 'football director' with the coach told to get on with whoever comes in?

[Power n Glory]

From football365.com ('Why it might not work out at Bayern). Point being even a once potential replacement for wenger / savior has a dodgy transfer record.

The Pressure of Money
Since Guardiola's appointment at the Allianz Arena was announced, there has been talk of that rarest of footballing treasures: the transfer war chest. The Daily Mail reported that this figure was £240million, but one suspects that this may be wildly inaccurate and instead relates to the valued equity of the club stated by President Uli Hoeness during the latest shareholders' meeting. However, whatever the case, reports of bids for Luis Suarez will do nothing but fan the flames.

Unfortunately, I believe the purchase of players to be Pep's largest weakness. Whilst he may not have been the sole decision-maker on transfers whilst at Barcelona, the following (all during his four years in charge) do not read prettily: Alexander Hleb (£15m), Martin Caceres (£15m), Dmytro Chygrynskiy (£22m), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (£60m and sold two years later for a third of the price), Keirrison (£12m), Adriano (£9m). Even the £53m spent on Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez has not been truly vindicated as yet, with both players struggling to truly identify their role within the Barca system. That's nearly £200m of unconvincing recruits.

It's a good observation if we're going to talk about wasting money. That's a lot blown by Pep. Answers the original thread question anyway. We'd be dead in the water if Wenger got things that wrong in the transfer market.