Podolski a sign of things to come? | Global commercial potential, how we stack up against our rivals

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Hawaiian shirts... so Shoreditch right now.

Well good morning everyone! Day 3 post-Spurs and I’m still enjoying the feeling, amazing what a North London annihilation can do for the soul!

News today centres around Lukas Podolski and our early moves to snap up some players. Now, if you’ll rememember correctly, I did tell you plans we’re afoot 5 days ago. I don’t have names but I’m pretty sure you might see stories emanating from France at some point. Again, nothing is for definite with transfers but I’ve heard rumblings of a big name being earmarked from over there…

Is this the turning point for the club and summer transfers? For years we’ve been told you can’t do deals before June, now all of a sudden Dick Law is on a plane to Germany to thrash out a move for a long mooted target. It’s sensible though. If we snap up some of our key targets it 1) tells the fans the club actually mean business this summer 2) it reassures want away players we are driven to become contenders again.

Podolski for me is the sort of player Theo could become. Bulky, fast, direct and very clinical. He’d be a great addition to the squad as long as it’s not against the back drop of selling someone. He’d be no replacement for Robin.

In other news we’re being linked with Roma’s Inter’s Walter Samuel. He’s a good player, but he’s 33 and he’d be rolling in from Serie A. He’d never adapt to the pace of our league. So for me, his link is both offensive and upsetting

Robin has been speaking about his love for the club. Which is both sincere and heartwarming. This has led to many suspecting he might stay. Well… may I offer a conspiracy?

What if Ivan has told Robin he can’t possibly sell a player who is integral to the future of the club. So, as a favour, he’ll offer him a 4 year deal worth £150k a week… and let him go next year if he wants to, no questions asked.

Would that not be fantastic for everyone? Would that not be totally ace? I think it would be. Zidane didn’t move to Real until he was 30ish, he still had a good time.

I just worry if we let Robin go, everything unravels. We need to have his replacement here whilst he’s still with us… that replacement should be Cavani. If we could put a good squad in place this summer, who knows where we could be next year?

Let’s all pray to the footballing gods his injury isn’t serious. The Dutch have been pretty cautious with him this year, they know they need him fit if they have any chance at this summers Euro’s. Him being out could spell disaster for us. Pray people!

There was a really interesting podcast about the Arsenal finances last night if you’re interested (Radio 5 Live). It’s amazing how much information is out there and still how much debate can come of the figures. The reluctance of some journalists to see the wood for the trees is truly incredible… but I guess it’s easy to admire Andre Villas-Boas and his intelligence when you’re not in the stands paying to watch his team every week!

Finally, some good news, Chamakh might be making a move to Firoentina this summer. That’d be fabulous. I have been wondering what the tipping point is with over paid crap players. You know, the point when you do what Newcastle did and just give away the players that aren’t working for you to clear them off the books?

It’s interesting, I see many parallels between our position and the Geordies. Obviously they were in a far deeper sh*t chasm than us, but they had totally mismanaged contracts, they had a poor backroom team and their commercials were poor. Not just that, they were alienating the home support.

2 years on, Mike Ashley has made some very bold decisions. He binned off a fan favourite manager, he sacked off the stadium name, he spent some money on top quality nearly world class players, he shipped out expensive dross and now he’s running a pretty tight ship. Sure they’re not top 4… but come on, this is Newcastle!

Even Spurs give you hope. A turnaround, if managed correctly, can happen inside 2 years. So there is always hope even if the season does go pear shaped.

Finally, someone said on that 5 Live interview last night that no club could ever catch the commercial revenues of United and Liverpool. That to me sounded like a nonsense and complacent in the extreme. So I thought I’d do a bit of research on the the kids. Not the Arsenal kids. No. I’m talking about 13-16 years olds on Facebook. The commercial revenue generators of tomorrow. It’s a good place to start. You probably have almost 100% penetration on Facebook with the kids these days and they use it to its fullest. As Geoff has said many times before, if you can snare the kids of today, you have them supporting for life and their future offspring.

I ran a search for male / female… 13-16… based in the UK for the top 6 teams in the UK… then I rand the same query worldwide. Which wasn’t really world wide, it was the following countries I see as big Premiership fans judging by my site analytics.

  • USA
  • Australia
  • Nigeria
  • South Korea
  • South Africa
  • China
  • Malaysia
  • Japan
  • India
If your country isn’t there, don’t be offended, I just don’t like it.

So what have we learnt here? Well, Liverpool have maintained a steady flow of younger fans. What can I say? Scousers bread quite heavily, so really, it’s no surprise they have such a big child base over here despite a lack of true success. What is warming is that we have 5 times the fans Spurs do. They have a long way to go before they catch us. What else have we learnt? Winning trophies is ultimately what makes you appealing to kids on the supporter front.

Chelsea and their impressive score shows you another thing, you can buy fans but you can’t buy history. Supporting Chelsea in this country still isn’t cool. However, their splurge on amazing player over the last 10 years has obviously impacted fans globally. I’d imagine their African base of players has also helped the cause. In summation, the 4 big boys are Liverpool, Arsenal, United and Chelsea. We’re in 2nd position, but for me, considering how great our early Wenger sides were, we should be higher. 7 years out in the wilderness has no doubt reduced out global child snaring abilities.

Now, the next table is purely rough shot. I don’t know the ideal spend per fan you’d look for globally or locally. However, I’ve steamed in and said at home, you’d look for £5 per fan, abroad you’d look for £2.50 a fan. I have low commercial ambitions.

 

So there you have it. We’re bunched in Chelsea and Liverpool on the commercial revenue front, but United are the dominant force. Our commercial revenues should be far better than they are at the moment. We have a giant fanbase generally and we have a very healthy young fan base to work on. We need to make sure we don’t tail off over the next few years by lowering fan expectation and sending out dross teams. Sometimes you’ve got to take a gamble. For me, this summer is the time to do it. Bring a bit of excitement back to the club, get that £2.50 global basket a bit higher and start to catch United. It’s no good just accepting they are better than us. A real business strives to be better. However, we have to look at where that United commercial success started…. on the pitch.

 

That’s your lot. Have a great day!

 

281 Responses to “Podolski a sign of things to come? | Global commercial potential, how we stack up against our rivals”

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  1. passionandpride

    Cant believe that Wenger is going to get another year. OMG!! How mean of lady luck to keep favoring him! How spineless of the board to put up with his arrogance? Things CANNOT CHANGE A BIT with Wenger around. To make him quit, hope a catastrophe strikes rather than intermittent failures with mediocre performances. Let hell break loose on Arsenal till May. Let Wenger quit. Let’s hope for new beginning….Amen

  2. kapslock

    If we manage to get rid of the following players we could save so much money on the wage bill and use these funds for re-newing RVP’s contract and spending on top quality –

    Arshavin – 80k/pw
    Chamakh – 60k/pw
    Park – 50k/pw
    Squillaci – 50k/pw
    Denilson – £40k/pw
    Bendtner – £52k/pw
    Vela – £30k/pw

    Wages are a guess. That alone is a saving of approx £19 million. I haven’t factored in the likes of Diaby & Djourou because Wenger just won’t get rid of those two. Add that to a £53 million TPA and you get total funds of £72 million. A lot to work with.

  5. follow the money

    GoonerM you might be onto something there. I was watching Rivalries on Fox Soccer Channel and they were interviewing fans, pundits, opposing coaches etc from pre-2006 and one former Spurs coach said that the thing that made Arsenal so good was unity in the boardroom–we’ve kind of lost that, looks like to me. And it has coincided with not winning anything. Maybe we haven’t lost the unity but their priorities have shifted. There’s no one like Dein it seems whose top priority is winning

  6. Gunner2301

    Afternoon Pedro!

    OPG

    I think Bendtner is considering moving to Russia because he thinks that’s where Barcelona is :)

  7. BillikenGooner

    We should have 2 goals as a club for the rest of this season:

    4th.

    Doing everything we can to clean out the squad of wasteful wages at the very start of the summer so we don’t have weeks of ‘being unable to do anything’ because we cant bring anyone one in with our ‘sustainable model’.

  9. Samir

    @BillikenGooner

    100% agree!
    If we are to compete we need to meet those objectives!

    Add to the list tying up player NOW. Before the Euro’s… This way the squad will get to know each-other alot earlier…Giving us more of a chance of having a good pre-season and start of the season!

  12. Pedro

    Dan… that is good news… he’ll probably earn about £14mill a year!

    Zeus, I think we’ll get a couple of good players this summer… that’s not enough though.

  13. Dan Ahern

    Pedro – lol.. Yeah, he should go to Ahnzi. They’re like the anti-Wenger with their valuations.

    “Bendtner? What does the rest of the world think he’s worth? 4, 5 million? OFFER HIM 20.”

  18. potter

    However, we have to look at where that United commercial success started…. on the pitch.

    I would contend that it started on a Munich runway. I remember the sympathy vote that spread right across the country and the number of kids that became United fans overnight was amazing.

  21. Gunner2301

    ARGooner

    I had no idea Park Ji had so much commercial value for ManU. We should be using our Park in the same way, but we’ve got ourselves in such a precarious position Wenger dare not play anyone other than RVP if he’s fit.

    It will also make it difficult for us to make other such signings after the way they’ve seen Park treated. Maybe Wenger can convince him to stay and play him more next season. I’d like to have a proper look at him.

    Wenger does these things. Players he should give up on he plays to death trying to make a point, whilst others don’t get a fair chance.

  22. Ice

    So good that there is no tedious Gayspud (Gambon) around at the moment…..

    All quiet during half term internationals at the club then…..

    But again expect it all to kick off as the season comes to a close…..new players, dross out, new technical and management staff, including sports science advances….

    Mertersacker back sooner than expected and jack w expected end of March…and we are apparently interested in bringing Shelvey back from Scouseland once his loan ends (which is a surprise)……

  23. SUGA3

    2301,

    we’ve been saying it all along on here that not playing Park AT ALL was sheer idiocy, given how we were reportedly aiming at the Asian market…

    I mean, fair enough, he might not have the fitness levels required, but why not play him in the stiffs?

  27. Rohan

    Park’s extremely weird. He scored in one of two starts he had and almost scored in the other against City were it not for their 7ft keepers long arms. He’s probably shit, but he’s not that bad is he.

  32. PDT

    Great analysis on the FB stats!

    It would be worthwhile looking at 20-30 year olds outside the UK also…the ones who witnessed the golden years of Adams, Bergkamp, Henry, etc. Satellite TV was just kicking off and Arsenal has a lot of fans in the Far East in that age bracket.

    I see a lot of people wearing Arsenal shirts in the Far East now…

  33. PDT

    I’ve seen ark play with the Korean team. The Koreans play fast fluid football, very direct and very open. I can’t believe that he will be completely inept in the EPL. I guess we will ship him out soon, like AA23.

  36. DaleDaGooner

    Good assessments Pedro on the commercial potential of 13-16 year olds on social media as targeted fans.

    The Podolski move could be very through, likely to replace either Arshavin, Park or Chamakh, I think Chamakh will remain. But i am not convinced Podolski will live up to the hype, he never does well except for Germany at WCs and lately for Koln.

    I do not want to think of RvP being replaced by LP, not the same.

  48. Josip Skoblar

    I’ve just paid a visit to L’Equipe website. They confim the Podoldki transfer for 18M. It’s supposed to be a serious sports newspaper, so let’s wait and see. They also say that Wenger is also thinking about buying another winger on the right flank. So Theo out?

  52. zeus

    Josip

    I take L’Equipe somewhat seriously.

    But Arseblog said it best this morning. He can’t help us now, so his transfer is about as much interest to me as a “urethra piercing.”

  56. Jim24

    Arshavin with a goal and assist against Denmark. He had been poor for us but lately he had regained some of that Midas touch which he had when he first came here. Letting him go may prove to be a costly error coz he’s the kind of guy who could ensure the 4th trophy with his occasional brilliance.

  58. follow the money

    I’m not sure about Giroud. He reminds me of Gignac, Ligue 1′s top scorer a couple seasons back for Toulouse and now he can’t score at all for Marseilles. I could be wrong tho…it’s been known to happen. hehe

  60. Gunner2301

    Someone compared Giroud to Chamakh but Chamakh never had the goals in the first place even in France. What a weird transfer, maybe he’s Wengers lovechild and he wanted to keep him close.

  63. nishanth

    To be honest Chamakh didn’t look all that bad at the beginning.But since jan 2011 he has been just awful.The way he is currently playing he will struggle to get into any PL team.

    RVP taken off.Thank god for that

  68. zeus

    Gilardino?

    Seems to me that some players thrive better in a smaller pond.

    If I’m fair, the same can be said of Podolski. Couldn’t cut it at Bayern Munich could he?

  72. AA23

    Gunner 2301
    no idea if he’s available to be honest, there are work permit issues. He looks decent for a youngster though and no hurry for him.

  73. follow the money

    I wanted Wenger to getr Huntelaar a couple of years ago when he was available. But he went to Milan or Real (?) or somewhere obviously a team that pays more wages than we do. Haven’t heard much from him since. Streaky player. When he’s on fire tho look out

  85. follow the money

    France 2-0 Gremany. Nasri playing well. Blanc gets good performances out of him as CM. Maybe Wenger should have tried that

  100. gazzap

    Only England could salvage the match in injury time and go on to lose!

    At least an Arsenal player scored a winner tonight on British soil. Joel Campbell against the Welsh.

  106. Gunner2301

    Iffy

    Baines is too obvious for Arsene to pick up. Maybe if he’d been playing in the 2nd division in Tashkent he might have considered looking at him.

  108. Gunner2301

    Baines is a good balanced LB and is deadly at free kicks which we don’t have anyone that comes close to him in that respect.

  112. DaleDaGooner

    keyser, Rohan…people that wanted us to sign Baines and keep name dropping the flavor of the month are the same that said Huntelaar, Cana etc should be playing for Arsenal, and Wenger missed on obvious talent.

  113. OPG

    Good idea showing Robben on his stronger foot..
    Soldado seems a nifty player though!
    England’s first game in the Euro’s is against France they need to be well prepared by that time whoever’s in charge.

  119. Keyser

    The articles compares him to Cole last season, who I’d guess had a pretty poor season by his standards.

    Going forward Baines is good, though that may be helped with the way Everton play, defensively, he just just seems a bit ‘meh’, like tonight he let Robben back onto his left and he scored.

  120. Gunner2301

    Tonight he was playing with guys he’s probably never played with the whole defense was shit. If you’re going to compare him compare him based on what he does week in week out for Everton.

  121. Gunner2301

    I can’t see how Baines is worse than Gibbs or Santos defensively and he’s better than them going forward plus he can take free kicks which neither of them do. I think Cole at his peak would kill him but Cole is a declining force now but he’s still better than Gibbs and Santos imo.

  123. Keyser

    Robbens more left footed than Sturridge, he should’ve shown him the line. That’s down to him.

    He’s a good player, he’s not like nailed on World Class.

  124. Gunner2301

    Hay should never have gone to a press conference that didn’t concern him. He said he was working for TV that’s why he was there. He should be banned as well, I heard Chasora has been banned already, but they can always get round the bans by fighting for another country so it’s a bit like flouting FFP.

  130. LaurenceGooner

    Get on YouTube and look at Lansburys first goal for the under 21′s last night – sorry no link, on the tram.

    Either way, Henri bagged two and the Ox scored…..

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