So it would appear that the unanimous pay cut we thought the players and execs had taken didn’t come to fruition. There were 3 players that decided they wanted to sit it out. I actually speculated in the first draft of my post yesterday who that would be but I decided to take it out because it was unfairly speculative and maybe a touch inflammatory (soft, I know).
Two hours later, John Cross ran with the story that it was in fact Mesut Ozil.
Does it matter?
Yes it does. Anyone who thinks it’s not important doesn’t understand human dynamics and what goes into creating a unified culture in an organization that is striving for high-performance. Imagine how you’d feel if the highest-paid person in your company passed on a pay cut everyone else agreed to? It’d be scandalous. Imagine managing a group of young footballers and having to normalise that sort of behavior? It’d be tough. It’d feel like an assault on your authority, even though it’s more of an indictment on the individual.
The German is our most expensive player. He’s one of the most influential players in the world. He turned his back on the club and his team mates. One of our 5 captains didn’t want to put club before personal profit.
‘He pays taxes’ > so do the other 21 players.
‘He does things for charity’ > as do most players.
It’s not cool. It sends a terrible message to the younger players and it’ll leave a bad taste in the mouths of fans who have likely had financial hardship forced upon them.
Fans are waiting for his side of the story. It’s clear what that will be. He’s in the last year of his deal, in his early thirties, and his star has faded badly. The whole world knows Arsenal has been trying to move him on for 2 years. He was poorly treated by Unai Emery. He has very little reason to be loyal to leadership at Arsenal. However, I did hope he might take the moral high-ground on this one. Foolish, I know.
There are 2 other players that also refused. Interesting that the leaker of this story didn’t expose them. Seems like the dark arts of Arsenal PR were at play here, no doubt praying this pressures Mikel to stop loving on him so badly, and maybe spark fan pressure for him to go. I suspect the other two are likely players who have deals that would normally be expiring right about now.
I also think it’s a bit disappointing to read so many fans side with the players in this situation. Weird to saddle-up with millionaire footballers as you watch players all around Europe and in America volunteer much bigger chunks of their pay-cheques. So-called fans waiting to see if this is a huge profit scam haven’t been paying attention to 1) how much we lost last season 2) what happens to companies that suddenly lose the ability to operate.
Still, we can’t focus on the players not willing to do their bit for the club or moan about dim fans. The exec team landed a voluntary sacrifice from the players, they themselves gave up 33%, and the management team also did their bit. We shouldn’t let anyone dampen the initial positivity here. 21 players did their bit, that’s a huge chunk of commitment from a squad of players in disarray only 5 months ago. Where do you think we’d be with Emery running the negotiation? He’d still be explaining it.
The bigger worry for Arsenal fans is whether Bukayo Saka signs a new deal. His £7k a week deal is looking pretty shoddy right now. I don’t mind losing big-name players this summer, it really doesn’t bother me who goes, but I’d be desperately upset to lose a teenager of his pedigree. That’s an essential signing.
The Arsenal Thomas Partey links seemed fanciful to begin with, now Spanish press are reporting that Atleti are going to double his salary to £130k a week to fend off our interest. I guess that’d be us out the mixer. Still, I like that we’re being linked with a player like him, he’s exactly the sort of athlete we need in our midfield. Anyone coming from the University of Don Simeone is going to fit with the system Arteta wants to play. Let’s hope Cagigao has something a little more creative up his sleeve.
Right, short post today, see you in the comments. x
I think it’s becoming bloody obvious that this league season will be cancelled. UEFA have started wrapping their minds around that possibility with all the talk of coefficients.
Why don’t they just expand the CL next season?
If Liverpool or Leeds complain about the season being cancelled, refer them to that city in Hubei province.
Marc
Your comment above sounds more like your opinion than a fact
Unless you were present at the time of course
This will cheer you all up – Partey is on his way according to his father!
https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/22/thomas-partey-father-arsenal-transfer-12594168/
While Pierre is the mommy whose little son asks her why daddy doesnt love him any more after the divorce
Im telling you this for free!
…but Upamecano is not….
https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/22/manchester-united-man-utd-chelsea-arsenal-transfer-dayot-upamecano-12592549/
Dissenter
Liverpool can go fuck themselves – little bit of karma coming back to them (there’s still plenty owing mind you) as for promotion if it’s a real problem just promote the 2 top teams, relegate none and then relegate 5 at the end of a new season.
Hillwood
Are you referring to my comment about clubs announcing wage reductions? If so is it an opinion – yes – is it based on how people and clubs generally work – yes.
I’d say it’s pretty much common sense when you bear in mind that it got out pretty quickly that the Spud’s had furloughed their non playing staff.
No doubt a Trump supporter! “An anti-lockdown protester who railed against Covid-19 closures in his home state has died of coronavirus aged 60. John McDaniel, of Marion County in Ohio, died at a hospital in Columbus last Wednesday, around a fortnight after he tested positive for Covid-19. On March 15, he railed against Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s closures aimed at stopping the spread of coronavirus on social media, writing on Facebook: ‘If what I’m hearing is true, that DeWine has ordered all bars and restaurants to be closed, I say bullshit! ‘He doesn’t have that authority. If you are paranoid… Read more »
Darwinism in action there Aussie!
Honestly can’t seeing us signing Partey. Ornstein in the Athletic thinks that we want to sign both Mari on a permanent deal and Disasi from Reims but again that sounds unlikely unless Arteta wants to field almost an entire team of centre backs.
Bin ozil already, this player is a complete misfit at arsenal, he just doesn’t understand the collective culture that is being fostered here.
Marc
This comment
“It is being reported that Ozil is willing to take a bigger pay cut than the the 12.5%
He just wants it done properly and not done on the back of a fag packet
If that’s the case it sounds fair enough to me”
Sounds more like “oh it’s been leaked and I’m getting bad press – I didn’t think that would happen er need to make it look like I’m the good guy after all”.
I know we don’t always have the most perceptive of folk on here, but what many are clearly missing is the fact the whole 12.5 % wage cut fiasco was only instigated in an attempt to embarrass Ozil.
Don Rauls Monty Python dark arts strike again.
Ozil like the Emery and Edu traps before has not fallen into it.
I doubt if he will yet.
If Arsenal don’t want him around any more.
They should simply pay him off and be done with.
Quite simple really.
I wonder if there are any posters on here that remember the pandemic of 1968 termed the “Hong Kong Flu”. Some of the older boys on here. Think it was named after Hong Kong because they were the country that suffered most from it but it wiped out around 100,000 in the USA due to US troops returning to home soil from Vietnam bringing the virus with them and of course there was no lock-downs going on then. Life just carried on around the deaths that were taking place. Originated from China again apparently the 1968 one. I suppose the… Read more »
Ozil agent came out with that stupid statement. So it was he that spilled the beans mostly.
I do wonder who the other 2 are. ….
Quite a mystery…
Ozil should come out in the press and say he is taking a 100% wage cut until we get back up and running. Not a deferral but a wage cut.
He has been nothing but a scourge on this club. A chain wrapped around our ankles
A divorce that should have happened a long time ago.
Now he is a big fat cat sitting around getting fatter…
CG
“I know we don’t always have the most perceptive of folk on here, but what many are clearly missing is the fact the whole 12.5 % wage cut fiasco was only instigated in an attempt to embarrass Ozil.”
You did say saving 24 million yearly isn’t worth the effort, so there you go.
Now it was all done to embarrass Ozil.
Maybe Ozil can use the offense taken from the slight to eff off to the Turkish league.
Hillwood
That’s based on my cynical take on players like Ozil – again I’ll ask the question if he was so concerned with making this done bigger and better why didn’t he take a leading role in going to the club and making it happen similar to what Messi has done at Barca?
Ozil is derided by most fans who have the ability to see him for what he is.
I sometimes wonder if Germany did not win the WC would Ozil have been placed on such a pedestal …. folks still think that player is in there …
Alert! its not. HE is shit and once upon a time he played well in a team stacked with the best in the world.
Now, he is exposed.
He is a phony and a fraud. I wish he leaves
Ishola In my limited knowledge of naming diseases I believe they were named after the first place where an outbreak was identified – Ebola is a river close to the town where that was first identified (they didn’t want to stigmatise the actual town / village), you also have Marburg virus which whilst being a relative to Ebola it’s was first identified after an outbreak in a German town where some lab workers picked it up form infected monkey’s they were working on. They’ve changed that with this virus to stop any racial stigma against Wuhan or China – not… Read more »
Ishola
Just as a reference Spanish Flu is reckoned to have killed 50 odd million globally – for Covid 19 to have a similar effect on the global population it’d have to kill something more than 200 million.
“but what many are clearly missing is the fact the whole 12.5 % wage cut fiasco was only instigated in an attempt to embarrass Ozil.”
Why stop there why not claim Sanllehi orchestrated the release of the virus to either embarrass Ozil or even kill him – he does have a weakened immune system after all, Wenger was having to give him time off because of illness every time we had a tough away fixture.
Dissenter, Circumstances are completely different in Spain to UK. Spain has a law that allow companies (clubs are companies) to unilaterally cut employee’s salary under specific circumstances. Barcelona threatened the players to do so. La Liga clubs have the upper hand in those negotiation. The Messi PR and Barcelona can then rewrite history that the players have voluntary agreed to a huge pay cut, but the reality is that Messi and consorts had to to threaten with a much worse deal before agreeing to the current change. I don’t think that the UK based players are on average greedier and… Read more »
Valentin
You’re doing a stand-up routine if you think anyone in Barca can FORCE Messi to accept a pay cut.
Messi is big enough at Barce to openly call out board members and rebuke the director of football. Anyone that crosses ways with him backs off.
Have you considered the fact that Messi understood the gravity of the times we are in…and agreed to the wage cut. No one cut Messi’s wages by fiat.
Guns of SF “He (Ozil)has been nothing but a scourge on this club. A chain wrapped around our ankles” Unless I’m mistaken, I could have sworn Arsenal reached 5 cup finals in 6 years (winning 3)since Ozil arrived. Taking into consideration that the previous 8 years before he arrived, we had won nothing and reached a total of zero cup finals, I would say that his contribution has been more than adequate. Definitely not a “scourge on the club” Guns of SF “Ozil is derided by most fans who have the ability to see him for what he is.” Unsurprisingly,… Read more »
Don’t understand the hate towards ozil. It’s his money, he’s got bills to pay like everyone else. I’m not taking a pay cut, hell I asked for extra money to work online and guess what, I got it.