Summer Transfers 2025 Missed Opportunities and Regrets

[KSE Comedy Club]

This is what I've been trying to say...

Using Net spend is inaccurate though.

It's like getting a extension with a new Kitchen on your home - you will spend (let's say) 60,000 on it.
But you plan to sell your old Kitchen to offset some of the cost.

Now, that sell on value could be 5,000 / 10,000 / 15,000 - great.

But if someone asked you how much it cost as they want to do the same the answer is - 60,000.
You cannot tell them it's only 45,000 as that would be misleading.

What you recoup is not a set figure and can only be known after you have sold your assets for what someone is willing to pay.

The amount you spent to get the finished job done is 60,000

The amount Arteta has spent to build this squad is nearly a billion pounds.


This is a real figure and factual as already posted. Notice it doesn't have a side note that says this amount is less if you go buy net spend

[HCZ_Reborn]

Just wait a few games, that's where the evolution is going to.

Meh if it works and we aren’t just making pointless short sideways passing in front of a team with everyone behind the ball

I haven’t found our football that entertaining for the most part for a long time, whilst entertainment is good…effective is better

[IBK]

Using Net spend is inaccurate though.

It's like getting a extension with a new Kitchen on your home - you will spend (let's say) 60,000 on it.
But you plan to sell your old Kitchen to offset some of the cost.

Now, that sell on value could be 5,000 / 10,000 / 15,000 - great.

But if someone asked you how much it cost as they want to do the same the answer is - 60,000.
You cannot tell them it's only 45,000 as that would be misleading.

What you recoup is not a set figure and can only be known after you have sold your assets for what someone is willing to pay.

The amount you spent to get the finished job done is 60,000

The amount Arteta has spent to build this squad is nearly a billion pounds.


This is a real figure and factual as already posted. Notice it doesn't have a side note that says this amount is less if you go buy net spend

But this ignores 2 crucial factors. First (as I have said before) if you are going to cite actual (non-net) spend (as many are doing criticise Arteta's performance on this basis), then you need to compare apples with apples. On non-net spend since our manager arrived, we are only 4th in the table and almost equal to 5th (Spurs) so he has out performed on this basis. I think its also fair to mention that Liverpool are 6th but have been a much better run, and established team than Arsenal during this period.


Second, net spend is a far more accurate indicator of funds available to managers, because transfer income both affects ability to comply with PSR, and directly generates transfer funds. We lie 3rd in the net spend table for the past 5 years.


Next, it's pretty ludicrous to point to Arteta's net spend since he joined the club without accepting that we have had a far bigger gap to make up than the managers you are comparing him to - and specifically Citeh; Liverpool and Chelsea. This comparison (and criticism) implies that there has been a level starting point. There hasn't. We were in a shambles when Arteta joined us - and more pertinently had ageing players on the way down and a squad full of difficult or impossible to sell players on high wages. To use your example - our competitors had bespoke kitchens in mansions that required freshening up. While we had a 15 year old kitchen in a red brick house. Of course we needed to spend a lot more to join the dinner party set.


Noone is denying that our traditional failure to sell players has been a problem for Arsenal. We would be in much better shape had we been in a position to improve transfer income, and if this was the case then your £1bn figure would be much lower. But Arteta can neither be blamed for this, nor was it his job to turn around the club's business model. Hi brief was to take us from mid table - and years of under performance given the size of the club - to being competitors for major trophies. We have made solid progress during his time at the club. If people want to point to last season as an underperformance/disappointment then fine - but this does not change the overall picture.


I have said that I have concerns that the manager might not have what it takes to make the final step to major silverware. But anyone who denies that Arteta has done very well in taking us back to a place at the top table - and wants to use a deceptive headline figure to detract from what he has achieved is IMO mistaken.

[Chippy]

Tbf he shouldn't be played on the LW - this was an issue at Chelsea as he was terrible there - but Arteta seems to be clueless to that fact.

Sooooo, the Rookie bought a player from Chelsea that played terribly on the left wing for £50m in order to play him on the left wing at Arsenal?

Can anyone see the problem here?

[KSE Comedy Club]

Sooooo, the Rookie bought a player from Chelsea that played terribly on the left wing for £50m in order to play him on the left wing at Arsenal?

Can anyone see the problem here?

Yes indeed. I think we can all see the problem - except for Arteta

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Irrelevant. It doesn't matter who bought which players. The point is if you spend a billion on players and recoup nothing then you should be a billion pounds of talent better off. If you spend a billion and recoup 350m then you're only 650m better off. That's all a bit simplistic of course but the players who go out are completely relevant.


Also irrelevant for the same reason as above. It doesn't matter which manager bought or sold which player - actually these days is it even the manager who does that? The point is the club's net spend is a better metric of how much "better" you would expect a squad to be.

Like HCZ, I don't know what you're talking about with the route one football. That isn't what we play. Pretty much everyone on here laments how we fanny around at the back and move the ball forward far too slowly.

It's totally fair to judge where we are by how much we've spent, although I continue to believe net spend is the more relevant metric. And our wage bill is another. I think it's fair to argue that the ROI hasn't been that good. 1 FA Cup in 5 years isn't a great return. Although that's a little simplistic, we've had two serious title challenges. One was unexpected, the other we pushed City to the last day. Last year was disappointing, to say the least. The CL run was pretty good, the league form was patchy at best. I feel cautiously optimistic for this season. We were certianly poor on Sunday but we got the result. Obviously far too early to make any sensible comment about the season that has just started.
For me Arteta absolutely has to deliver a big trophy this season to survive.

Letters, your argument (especially the part in bold) isn't genuine and you know it.

In one sentence you are asking us to judge him on his effort in bringing in and selling players (the theory behind net spend), and when it is pointed out to you that practically all the players he has sold that have value weren't recruited by him, you say it's irrelevant , despite the fact that it has also been shown that the players recruited and sold by him have little or no value. Be honest, if this business was your family heirloom and he was your staff, how would you rate him on that?

Also, we are both old enough to know that net spend became a buzzword because of AW, with the way he consistently brought unknowns into our team, created value and sold them off for quite profitable amounts. It was never considered a big thing in England till he came and practically invented the model.

No one was rating him for selling Graham's or Riochs players, it was his direct effort with his recruitment that showed a club could be self sustaining on transfers if they knew what they were doing and trusted their manager. Is there anything in this model that Arteta scores highly on or has followed properly? What do you think AW would say if he had to rate him? Why is everyone in agreement about Arteta needing to deliver now if he has done such a great job on netspend?

But if if you insist that we should judge him on this padded figure why are you only highlighting what Chelesa and United have done? Why not comment on the fact that the two clubs that have won the league (on multiple occasions since he arrived) have spent considerably less than us? Even the two above us, have better trophies. Chelsea's won a CL and two WC titles, while United have an FA cup and LC...so what exactly are we arguing on? That out of the 6 top net spenders Arteta has provided the least value when it comes to silverware? Oh and please, I hope we are not going to consider imaginary 2nd place trophies again, I want to believe we've greyed out and moved beyond that.

As for the style of football, my point was that we are retrogressing back to days of Graham slowly, something we thought we had moved past thanks to AW.

No top club in Europe is winning trophies by playing route one football, but if you guys think it's ok to spend a 1billion on a squad to take us back to the past, where extreme physicality and "kick and run" tactics are the only way we score, then so be it.

[KSE Comedy Club]

But this ignores 2 crucial factors. First (as I have said before) if you are going to cite actual (non-net) spend (as many are doing criticise Arteta's performance on this basis), then you need to compare apples with apples. On non-net spend since our manager arrived, we are only 4th in the table and almost equal to 5th (Spurs) so he has out performed on this basis. I think its also fair to mention that Liverpool are 6th but have been a much better run, and established team than Arsenal during this period.

Ok that's fair enough, but I don't care what other teams have spent tbh

Second, net spend is a far more accurate indicator of funds available to managers, because transfer income both affects ability to comply with PSR, and directly generates transfer funds. We lie 3rd in the net spend table for the past 5 years.

That's half true. Every club has a transfer pool of money that they can use without selling. Otherwise no one could do any business without selling players for fixed fees first to be able to generate their transfer funds.

Next, it's pretty ludicrous to point to Arteta's net spend since he joined the club without accepting that we have had a far bigger gap to make up than the managers you are comparing him to - and specifically Citeh; Liverpool and Chelsea. This comparison (and criticism) implies that there has been a level starting point. There hasn't. We were in a shambles when Arteta joined us - and more pertinently had ageing players on the way down and a squad full of difficult or impossible to sell players on high wages. To use your example - our competitors had bespoke kitchens in mansions that required freshening up. While we had a 15 year old kitchen in a red brick house. Of course we needed to spend a lot more to join the dinner party set.

I didn't point to net spend, Letters did. I don't use that as marker because it's for financial analysts & accountants. It's also completely variable as I have already explained.
Our competitors Kitchens are not the point and whataboutism.

Noone is denying that our traditional failure to sell players has been a problem for Arsenal. We would be in much better shape had we been in a position to improve transfer income, and if this was the case then your £1bn figure would be much lower. But Arteta can neither be blamed for this, nor was it his job to turn around the club's business model. Hi brief was to take us from mid table - and years of under performance given the size of the club - to being competitors for major trophies. We have made solid progress during his time at the club. If people want to point to last season as an underperformance/disappointment then fine - but this does not change the overall picture.

True, I agree with you.

I have said that I have concerns that the manager might not have what it takes to make the final step to major silverware. But anyone who denies that Arteta has done very well in taking us back to a place at the top table - and wants to use a deceptive headline figure to detract from what he has achieved is IMO mistaken

No issue with this either, I agree with what you are saying here - but again this isn't what sparked this initial debate.

It was that after all the money we have spent, we are still 1-2 players short

[Mac76]

I'm seeing reports that we're giving up on Eze with only Spuds really going for him.

Ofc if he's really a childhood gooner he shouldn't even contemplate gping to Spuds but we should just pay what it takes to stop it IMO, if the Kroenkes got what Arsenal is they'd do it and not give a f*** about the money

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Meh if it works and we aren’t just making pointless short sideways passing in front of a team with everyone behind the ball

I haven’t found our football that entertaining for the most part for a long time, whilst entertainment is good…effective is better

Trust me, you'd change tune after a while....but anyway like I said, once we get into a proper barren spell, we'll see it live.

He's obviously been planning for it for a while, which is why he insists on buying physically imposing attackers no matter what their skill level.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

.

No issue with this either, I agree with what you are saying here - but again this isn't what sparked this initial debate.

It was that after all the money we have spent, we are still 1-2 players short

I really wish people would stick to the points and recognise the patterns.