Yesterday, we focused on how Arsenal have managed to find themselves in another situation where they’ve embarked on a blurry journey to find the next level. Today, we’re going to move away from the doom and try and paint a picture of what things could look like for the club if they make good decisions over the next 5 years.
Liverpool Football Club is an unbearable institution, of that there is no doubt. However, what they have achieved in 5 years is beyond spectacular. It is a minor miracle. A benchmark for clubs that don’t have the luxury of billions of dollars in sugar daddy cash.
We spent years on here extolling the virtues of using smarts to beat the system while so many people just aped the old Arsenal line of ‘it’s impossible to win with financial doping.’ It has always been weak to believe there is only one way to achieve success and this story aims to uncover how better decision making that starts now could set us on a future path to glory.
Firstly, let’s start in 2015. Arsenal had just lifted their second trophy of the decade, they finished 3rd in the League comfortably on 75 points, things were looking up. We had the makings of a decent squad. It was so good, the only signings we made that summer were Mo Elneney and Petr Cech (lol). People inside the club genuinely thought that FA Cup win was about to spark something at Arsenal.
Liverpool had just crashed to 6th after nearly winning the league the season before but for a slip. Brendan Rodgers squad hadn’t moved forward, and they doubled down on the problems that summer by spending £50m on Benteke, £20m on Clyne, with the only saving grace being Firmino for £45m. They also lost Raheem Sterling to City.
The following season saw Liverpool crash to 10th in the table by October, Rodgers was sacked and they went big with the replacement. They brought in Jurgen Klopp, the charismatic German who’d ended his Dortmund tenure in flames the season prior. This was a spectacular decision.
We finished 2nd in the league with Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester besting us by 10 points. Let’s get this absolutely straight, that season was an absolute disaster for all the teams around us. Every club in the big 6 had cycled through a new manager within a year. Our celebrated stability under Wenger still couldn’t deliver a major trophy
Bold exec leadership would have looked at the context of that years 2nd place honestly. They’d have seen that it was in fact a dismal failure, not a success. The only joy was beating Spurs to 2nd on the last game of the season. It would have been apparent to anyone worth their salt that the clubs around Arsenal were making smart hiring decisions, moving into areas we were ahead of them in, whilst laying the foundations for a brighter future.
So what did we do?
We entrusted Arsene Wenger to make magic happen with the money we were ensured would make the difference to his performance. He signed Mustafi, Perez, Xhaka, Asano, Holding, and Brammal. Mikel Arteta retired and went to City. Serge Gnabry was sold to Germany for £4.3m.
That season was a tipping point for both Arsenal and Liverpool. Both clubs took on very different strategies, one grounded in data and a clear vision, the other in mess of conflicting thoughts and whims.
The top guy at Liverpool for data is a person called Ian Graham. Before we talk about him, it’s worth noting that Liverpool owner John Henry made his money from algorithms way back in the day when he was in hedge funds, Fenway Group also had a successful baseball team (they love the Moneyball numbers game), so they know there’s value to be unlocked in spreadsheets.
Ian Graham is a smart guy, he has a doctorate in theoretical physics from Cambridge, he decided to lend his experience to football, he bummed around at Spurs for a bit though found little luck with the management, then he landed his big break. Liverpool brought him in during 2012 to create a data-centric culture for a club that had lost its way. Famously, it was Ian’s data that led to the hiring of Jurgen Klopp, he correctly assessed that his final season at Dortmund was mostly terrible because of bad luck, the xG numbers were heavily weighted against Dortmund.
Klopp loved hearing that story when they met and immediately connected with him when he joined and the rest is history.
Here’s a snippet from the NYT on how he approaches player identification.
Graham’s weightiest responsibility is helping Liverpool decide which players to acquire. He does that by feeding information on games into his formulas. What he doesn’t do is make evaluations by watching those games. “I don’t like video,” he says. “It biases you.” Graham wants the club that he works for to win, but he also wants his judgments to be validated. “All of these players, there has been discussion of their relative merits,” he said. “If they do badly, I take it as sort of a personal affront. If I think someone is a good player, I really, really want them to do well.”
His data doesn’t just inform transfers, it also helps the club understand the true performance of the team in games and training, it helps them find advantages in areas others aren’t looking, it is a true competitive advantage that is there to support an elite team of coaches with their decisions.
So what about Arsenal? Well, we’re a long way behind, but it didn’t need to be that way. Ivan G went out and bought one of the leading football data companies in the world with StatDNA. We had that in 2013. The problem? Our manager didn’t embrace it, nor his dated staff. The exec team didn’t insist on making it work. They just allowed the investment to sit in the corner gathering dust.
As I wrote about extensively yesterday, Ivan G made inroads with modernising his backroom team, knowing full well we’d neglected his purchase. He hired in Diamond Eyes, a famous data-centric scout. Sadly though, we never saw the fruits of this smart hire because our former CEO quit mid-project and left the German to the ‘contacts’ wolves. So now fast forward to 2020, we’re actually further behind in modernizing than we ever have been. One of the founders of StatDNA has left, a bunch of scouts have been fired, and our leader gets his player updates from a small selection of agents with very average taste.
ACTION ITEM: This summer, the club needs to refocus its energy on making us a data forward football club. We should make it a priority to hire someone at the cutting edge of scouting or empower talent that has shown an interest in the area at the club. Every decision we make should be underpinned by data-driven insights. It should help identify the talent with scouts out in the field to give context well before an agent is asked for an opinion. We need a new Sven and a version of Ian Graham and they should both be given a mandate. Data should not be optional in 2020. That is a backwards approach. If our Technical Director is not technical, what is the point?
Transfer Approach:
We are in a bad place with our squad at the moment, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The first thing you have to do is stop making bad decisions. Don’t give big deals to average players, stop listening super-agents, and build yourself the profile of the sort of player you need to succeed. This is how Ralph Rangnick describes his player profile for the RB group.
The difference between us and other clubs is that when we sign or scout new players, we are fishing in a very small pond. We only interested in players aged between 17 and 23, as from our experience, when you are 23 you are no longer a talent. If you look at other clubs and their development, you can see that players start their careers earlier than 10 years ago and finish earlier too. So we are only scouting those players. The maximum age is 23. The second difference is that in both clubs, we try to implement and play the same style of football and of course between the two clubs, we make use of synergies that can be developed out of those two factors.
The RB business model is predicated on moving on experienced players on so they can fund growth (and buy better kids). The player profile matches their intent. What is our player profile? Does it match our ambitions? Does it suit our finances? Does it get us closer to the Champions League? Arguably, no.
Arsenal is not being honest with themselves. Some people at the club know what we need to do, others are living in a Barca-Lite fantasyland where hobnobbing with the fancy super-agents gives them some sort of weird personal status kick.
We need to be honest about how we navigate the future and stop chasing childish dreams hoping that maybe, by accident, we’ll stumble back into the top 4.
Factors that should shape the profile:
- Our wage bill needs to reduce drastically
- We lack power and pace in a brutal league
- We have a coach that is highly technical
- This is a 5 year plan
All of that points you to a very specific profile of player we should be signing. Young, talented, technical, cheap, and ambitious. Not Cedric Soares on a 4-year deal.
Spending money well now pays huge dividends in the future. The easier it is to sell players for profit, the more money you have to play with each summer. Liverpool sussed this and managed to become Champions of England and Europe whilst being a selling club. Look at the net spends of both Arsenal and Liverpool over the last 5 years (£).
Liverpool’s 5-year net spend is £107m, Arsenal’s is £270m (TransferMarkt)
They are a selling club, raking up £400m in sale, versus our £200m. Worth noting that they haven’t sold less than £37m worth of players a season over 5 years, we had 3 seasons of not breaking £10m in sales.
Liverpool’s ground zero moment was Benteke for £50m in 2015. The Liverpool brain trust managed to keep Klopp’s spending to below zero for two seasons before they went big on two special players that helped them win the Champions League at the second attempt.
There’s also a case to be made for wages as well. Ours sits at £230m a season and we’re barely in the top half of the league. We need to cut that and improve quality. That can only come from great scouting that uncovers value. At the moment, we’re blowing £200k a week on a 33 year that all in cost £24m. Can you honestly tell me there’s not a centre back in the Bundasliga that wouldn’t have cost 30% of his salary and given us some resale value? You can’t.
We need to get back to basics because here’s another harsh slap in the face, Liverpool landed where they are spending just £100m a more on wages over 5 years (Swiss Ramble). Sounds a like a huge difference, but it’s basically one Mesut Ozil for 5 seasons.
.
The byproduct of right-sizing and building on a plan grounded in reality is that as you get more success, you can offer more money to talent. Those big jumps in salary came as a result of more prize money and winning trophies. We are stuck in rut, throwing big money at temporary solutions as our revenue disintegrates. This approach started in 2017 and it hasn’t worked. Time to face the music and try a new way.
Raul, Edu and Arteta need to be aligned on what it takes to get back to the top. It was clear from Emery’s complaining that was not the case for him. It would seem from out business so far this year that once again, it’s a Raul/Edu production and the agents are the stars again. That is not going to be successful.
There is simply no excuse for not being at Liverpool’s level when we’ve had more resource to play with. Stan K and his KSE operation are not cheap, they have invested £163m more in transfers than Liverpool over 5 years. The problem with our owners is they keep letting visionless people spend their money. We arguably have the most broken squad of the past 20 years, we are lower in the table than we’ve been in living memory, and we are looking at team that finished 8th in 2015 lift the Premier League and the Champions League trophies 5 years later.
It is possible to get back to the elite, you just need a plan.
Action Items:
- Get a grip on the contract issues so we stop losing high-value talent for next to nothing
- Focus on buying younger players with higher ceilings so we can grow value
- Become a better selling club by enforcing the 2-year deal rule
- Offer market rate contracts so players don’t get fat and stay with us if things don’t work out.
- Ban super-agents from the exec box
The Coach:
I won’t labour on this point for too long, but Liverpool pulled off a masterstroke with Jurgen Klopp. He was the right man for the right moment. He wanted to rebuild a fallen giant. That meant he was happy to work with a brain trust, he understood that success wouldn’t be overnight, and he was happy to play the net spend game until the clubs finances repaired.
Arsenal didn’t hire Klopp. We blew the chance for that sort of coach when our ‘experience’ hire ended up being Emery. We let the Spaniard spend more in 18 months (£161m) than Klopp has spent in his entire Liverpool career to date (£75m).
Now we’re in a new moment. The club has little to no money, it has a broken squad, and the wage bill simply has to be crushed if we’re to survive the next 3 years.
Arteta, if things go well, is the correct coach for this moment in time. He loves Arsenal FC, which means he’s committed to restoring it. It’s his first job and he’s extremely ambitious, that means he has extra capital invested in making sure he doesn’t fail. He’s an exceptional coach, which means he’s is perfectly suited to helping our young squad of kids grow into their careers. The ceiling for him is the very top.
The expectations are also at an all-time low for Arsenal fans. No one is expecting much from the club at the moment. That sort of environment relieves a bit of the pressure on a green coach and it certainly gives the young players a better environment to work in.
Arteta has worked in a high-performance culture. To thrive, he needs to work with like-minded people with the interests of our great football club at heart. Those experts should be on Arsenal’s payroll. Decisions should never be influenced by grifters. Every single person needs to be pulling in the direction of an exciting agreed-upon vision. That is the only way it works.
Actions Points:
- Allow the coach to do his thing and support his vision for how we grow the team
- Back his aggressive push for a high-performance culture. Ship out players and staff that don’t meet the standards.
- Build an infrastructure around him that pushes him to be better. He has no bad habits as a coach, there’s no legacy, that means he’ll be open to new ideas and ways of working.
- Find the very best people in the game and bake them into the project. Who is the new Sven? Who is the new Ian Graham? Who are the elite young coaches in the game that could bring fresh thinking to the squad? Are there any cool ideas we can borrow from The Rams?
- Support the manager with players that fit the profile of how he wants to play football. Fast, intelligent, mobile and hungry to be the best at what they do.
So to conclude this monster.
There is always hope. We are a beast of a club. We have the name, the training facilities, great staff, and more than enough revenue to do great things if we get creative this summer. We just need a bit of honesty about where we are as a club, we need a strategy to get back to the top, then we need to make sure every single action we take as a club is in support of the vision.
The success story at Liverpool has shown Arsenal the way forward, the question is, can Raul and Edu step to the occasion, or do we have to search out a new leadership team to help us finally make the jump?
We’ll find out very soon.
Ummm the Luiz deal is out there for everyone to see. Why is there any doubt. Read morons.
Excellent, well – researched post. Yesterday too. Wish someone could email these to Kroenke, or maybe Vinay , the Accountant lost in football land
Why are we being linked to a 6’5 aryan forward who is 28 for £35m?
We haven’t scored a headed goal since 1998.
We are an agents wet dream at the moment.
“it’s not true if you believe Kia and every other news outlet in the world over Amy Lawrence.”
fixed that for you Pedro. Any thoughts on the reports of Luiz taking a huge paycut for his last year from his 120k a week wages?
The whole club is a comedy of errors.
No plans for elite managers coming in the manage the team.
The board is totally disfunctional.
The squad is so unbalanced with young inexperienced and past it players.
The owner is disinterested in soccer, just wants property portfolio.
Arteta is chasing shadows.
Management set up is a joke
Watching the team is painful, constant back passing, no forward movement holding up the ball, and set piece disarray.
Not a lot of fun right now
Excellent stuff Pete, total banger. Running the numbers on Klopps final season at Dortmund will always fascinate me, side absolutely tanked bringing his managerial stock way down. But the numbers didn’t lie and they believed in their process. Sonyucu is example 1 for me of our flawed policy under Raul, a player we chose not to sign that fits into profile we should be bringing in. Has done very well at Leicester. Slightly misleading going with the net spend on Emery’s and Klopps overall but that how good they’ve recouped on assets but they sold. More importantly the players they… Read more »
Another great post, Pedro
And a great shame you’re not head of strategy at Arsenal !
Gentle
I never said Wenger was shit 10 years ago, I don’t even think he was as bad a manager as many here thinks. Where he truly lost it was in the transfer market and with contracts. I did say he made the squad worse and worse for 10 years though and that’s hardly debatable. Even when we were close he always had his blind spots, eg defence and DM that stopped us from going the last mile.
Liverpool had Coutinho, we have Ozil.
Reverse that and we would have had a net spend of 20m and Pool 215m and a crippling wage bill with an underperforming Cam stinking the place out. Small margins…
Freddie
“Even when we were close he always had his blind spots, eg defence and DM that stopped us from going the last mile.”
Ain’t that what’s lacking now.
And Valentin was telling us on the other thread that none of the young academy players can defend.
Wenger lives on! Long live the king!
Freddie –
“Liverpool had Coutinho, we have Ozil.
Reverse that and we would have had a net spend of 20m and Pool 215m and a crippling wage bill with an underperforming Cam stinking the place out. Small margins…”
Top comment.
Ish
We did try to address DM with Torreira and for a while there it looked like we had, sadly it doesn’t look like it’s enough.
CB is getting slowly fixed although we’ve had to employ too many stop gaps than I would have liked. Saliba is almost certain to have that spot nailed down for the forseeable so we just need a partner for him. If that has to wait until next year because our midfield is a clown school on crack then so be it.
PedRo
“”””Dissenter, amazing you are still getting offended for Unai Emery, even now. 3000 words and your take away was tears for a bum. Unreal carry-on.”””””
I wont give you 3000.
I will give you just 6.
“””””Be careful what you wish for”””””””
Our man Wenger, left 68 games ago,
43 points off the top
And the northern giants Burnley and Sheff United ahead of us.
Going swimmingly ever since.
Canaries next.
CG, Arsenal had become very boring under Arsene Wenger. I wouldn’t change him being moved on for anything.
We have a good coach, some exciting kids, and maybe the right sort of media pressure to see a good summer.
I also told Mr Wenger that you’d been on here suggesting Sean Dyche for the managment role, he was disgusted, I think your fan club subscription ‘might’ have been cancelled.
CG
and I can do it in just 4.
“Thank god for that”
Would take a few years of transition ahead of ten years of regression, all day long.
PedRo
“”””CG, Arsenal had become very boring under Arsene Wenger. I wouldn’t change him being moved on for anything.””””
I was not bored.
I liked our manager. The Class and Loyalty.
I liked winning FA Cup Finals and the sparkling soccer.
The Highs & Lows of Wengerism,
My thinking has always been the same. “If you have got a Good- Un! – Keep him!”
But each to their own.
ps. 10/10 Herculean effort on post
CG
Nearly everyone I speak to, with an inkling of football knowledge, says the same thing about Arsenal.
Guess what that is CG?
Give you ten guesses.
“Some people at the club know what we need to do”
That is not the case of our fucking owners, and unfortunately they may be the most important “people”.
Exactly, “each to his own”, well put CG.
You and a few other deluded individuals supported slow and painful regression, I and many others, didn’t.
🍺🙏😷
If managing Arsenal is so easy – why are Arsenal after:
spending £250 million on players
recruiting a technical director
and a DOF
and a contracts guru
sitting in 10th?
and barely able to string 5 passes together?
Wengers BIGGEST problem at Arsenal was always – he made managing the club look too easy.
Well lets see how easy it is from now on.
Wenger made modern Arsenal and you will now see it in its fully glory under KSE when he ain’t around.
Canaries next.
Jamie and Freddie “Freddie –“Liverpool had Coutinho, we have Ozil. Reverse that and we would have had a net spend of 20m and Pool 215m and a crippling wage bill with an underperforming Cam stinking the place out. Small margins…” (Jamie)Top comment.” Well, Coutinho was at liverpool for 5 years from 2013-18 and won nothing . During that period Ozil won 3 winners medals at Arsenal I happen to prefer my team to win trophies, not improve the club’s bank balance. That is why I watch football, for the excitement of seeing us competing for and winning trophies. Freddie and… Read more »
Graham
“Nearly everyone I speak to, with an inkling of football knowledge, says the same thing about Arsenal.Guess what that is CG?
Give you ten guesses.”
Is it “why do Arsenal fans think they are so entitled ” ?
CG, Arsenal lost the Premier League to Leicester… a team that scouted properly, that managed its wage bill well, that had a, errr, progressive manager. The problem was that too many people thought Wenger had a second wind in him. He didn’t. Instead of recognizing that, we empowered him to fail. That is one problem. The second problem is it doesn’t matter how good or bad Wenger was, the fact is the system we replaced him with was badly managed. Now we’re heading into phase 3. If this goes wrong, we really are in trouble, but whatever happens, Wenger isn’t… Read more »
I am impressed with Pedro’s dedication.
PedRo
“”””The problem was that too many people thought Wenger had a second wind in him. He didn’t. Instead of recognizing that, we empowered him to fail.”””””
Wenger at 90 – will still be better than 50% of managers out there.
He knows the game.
Others think they do….
And his Arsenal race is still certainly not run.
I know it in my bones- Arsene Wenger will return to Arsenal.
CG, that’s a nice idea, but the market doesn’t reflect your nostalgia
In a hypothetical world if Arsenal were owned by Fenway Group and managed by Jurgen Klopp, we would also win big trophies. Similarly, Liverpool wouldn’t win anything if Stan Kroenke and Unai Emery were their owner and manager respectively. I believe most clubs these days have smart support and backroom staff, it all boils down to managerial choices and financial support or lack of it from owners. The day Pool signed VVD and Allison, we all knew it was only a matter of time before they won big trophies.
Pedro I have to agree with Dissenter regarding Emery. You can accuse the guy of being an uninspirational, dull coach. You can accuse him of not learning English properly and not being able to get the best out of players. In the end I was glad he was sacked. However, you can’t blame him for assembling our current dogs dinner of a squad. You were the first to celebrate the club’s all new , shiny management structure with all the stuff that wenger used to do delegated out accordingly. It’s as if you thought that in itself would be enough… Read more »
“Well, Coutinho was at liverpool for 5 years from 2013-18 and won nothing .During that period Ozil won 3 winners medals at ArsenalI happen to prefer my team to win trophies, not improve the club’s bank balance. That is why I watch football, for the excitement of seeing us competing for and winning trophies.Freddie and Jamie obviously prefer counting the pennies ..” And now we can’t move on and improve the team like Liverpool did because Ozil is a millstone on the clubs finances while the sale of Coutinho allowed Liverpool to become the best team in the world, winning… Read more »
Wenger just became too stubborn in the end.
If he had signed a striker in the summer of 2015 (no outfield players recruited was a massive oversight, possibly arrogant) we could have made up the difference between ourselves and Leicester when Giroud went 20 odd games without a goal.
Hello all, How is everyone doing in the new Covid world? Pedro, agree with pretty much everything, other than I’m not convinced yet by Arteta. Ive seen stuff I like and dont like, but not 100% sure he’s Neo yet. I think the key thing is that there are 2 distinct phases needed. 1- Become a top team again 2- Win the PL These are very different things. You dont need “best in the PL” players to finish top 4, just smart buying and good players. To take the next step, you need a group of “best in PL” level… Read more »
The money was there to be used but Arsene wanted to do things his way and by his values.
The club was desperately stale and in need of change. The atmosphere was toxic with the fans. Bear in mind the signs of decline had been lingering for years before the protests etc began, the fans had been patient.
We needed change to stop being a joke in the modern game. Bayern Munich directors openly guffawing over drawing us in the CL. The 8-2 against United, a result of awful or actual non existent planning, would be a sackable offence at any other top club. Losing 6-0 playing kamikaze football even after going down to ten men against Chelsea, was excruciatingly embarrassing. For all the execellent things he achieved, and they will of course be remembered more than the bad times, he needed saving from himself. Compare a picture of him now and from say late 2017/early 2018. At… Read more »
Liverpool are a great example to try and emulate, Arsenal had the vision to build a new stadium at a time when few would have dared and then blew the competitive advantage it offered under Wenger. Just think of the glory we could have enjoyed if the same vision and courage had been applied to management and squad building? Our commercial team have been asleep at the wheel and have been overtaken by LFC & THFC over the past 5 years, granted trying to sell AFC as an alluring proposition would have been tough but as Pedro regularly states we… Read more »
I agree with what Graham says when the last decade or so feels like a wasted opportunity. Winning FA Cups is great, don’t get me wrong and as fans I am sure we all enjoyed them immensely, but we had the chance to firmly entrench ourselves as a giant in European football. Think of the advantages we had over others. A space age arena with world class facilities in one of the best cities in the world. It just seems we have wasted that window a little. There is a tinge of regret for what we could have been, had… Read more »
Chris
Hard luck mate, you’re now officially christened “an entitled fan”.
Oh yes, our wonderful PR and “commercial team“
What a fine group of people..
Gambon, welcome back!
Alex, if Emery wasn’t involved at all in the signing of players, that’s a concern.
Anyway, point of the para was to highlight that the whole club is a mess. Under Emery, we’ve spent more net than Liverpool has under Klopp. If the only thing you take from that is a sleight at Emery, I think you’re missing the larger point of the article which gives a pretty holistic view of the problems.
Great write up Peds.. appreciate the optimism.. I really do. I’m struggling to get there if I’m being honest. If Josh Kroenke is the one who has to fix it.. I think we are doomed to many years of struggling.. Unless,Like I said yesterday.. Arteta channels his inner Sean McVay and is able to overcome the Kroenke handicap. Small amount of hope there, I suppose as it has been done. Also, Sorry that after every long effort of giving us something new to contemplate it turns into a Wenger In/Out battle in the comment section. What you gonna do trolls… Read more »
Wenger in his last 10 years ws solely dedicated to self preservation. Didnt want a strong no2. as he feared people might think he was actually replaceable. Continuously signed the wrong players devoid of character and easily cowered by his “Invincibles ” aura. If you showed any independent streak. You were out ASAP He instituted the disastrous wage policy that had poor players on 80% of the top earners. A diabolical policy that still plagues us today. Dull boring football with nary a shot on goal for 90 mins. Increasingly contemptuous to fans and any that questioned his non performance.… Read more »
Englandsbest no one is saying copy the entire decades long path Liverpool took since their last league win.
We’re saying learn from the approach they took in the last 5 years – that is something that is entirely relevant and achievable, if only we had owners who gave enough of a shit to demand excellence from the club, which truth be told, we don’t.
Ishola 70,
You really need to see a shrink about that hate for Wenger.
You do know that he was not in charge of the academy.
I am pretty sure that he had no input in the purchase of Sokratis, Lichsteiner, Luiz and the refusal to buy Söyüncü, Todibo, Issa Diop.
The worst thing is that his late purchases may have been poor, but they are still better than what Raul bought. Mustafi + Holding > Sokratis + Luiz.
Good to see you Gambon, agree with that outline about needs and requirements. Making noise of having ‘best in class’ players is failing to recognise where we are and where we need to go before landing near a best in class anything. Made that same point the other day. Step 1: compile a side to get back into CL football Step 2: elevate that side to PL challengers Big disparity between the two aspects. We got stale under Wenger because for all the promise of another step 2 he couldn’t figure out how to get out of step 1, and… Read more »
The whole Wenger thing is getting rather boring, it wasn’t up to him to sack himself. One can argue he should have stepped down etc but that’s just fanciful, very few people willingly leave a position of power. The post Wenger thing was handled badly, too many cooks and the chef looking to jump ship( Gazidis). AFC had two options inn which to go after Wenger, – Opt for a long term rebuild and accept it will be a long and hard road back to the top – Make an appointment that looks to get us back to the champions… Read more »
Val
So now Raul is getting “credit” for signing Sokratis? A player signed when Sven was in charge of transfers, from his old club?
This is the kind of rewriting of history that pisses people off.
Then you have people whining that some defend Raul, or Emery or whatever. Stop making shit up then ffs.
Also Mustafi cost 35m and was seen as the long term solution, Luiz cost 8m and was bought as a stop gap with experience so we could fill other gaping holes in the squad.
gambon
No faith in the players signed last summer then?
Think Pepe, Tierney, Saliba and Martinelli all have the potential be among the best in their positions in the PL. Might take a while with the two teens though.
1996—Newcastle 5: ManU: 0 1999—Chelsea 5 : Man U 0 2011—ManU 1: Citey 6 All under Sir Alex. What is the big deal? Accidents can happen in football. The gigantic Liverpool this season had their collective ass handed to them by Watford in a 3:0 flogging. Now look at this: 1999: Middlesbrough 1 : Arsenal 6 2000: Arsenal 6 : Leicester 1 2001: Arsenal 6 : Southampton 1 2009: Everton 1 : Arsenal 6 2010: Arsenal 6 : Blackpool 0 2012: Arsenal 7 : Blackburn 1 2006: Arsenal 7: Middlesbrough 0 2005: Arsenal 7: Everton 0 ALL IN THE PREMIER… Read more »
Haven’t seen Paulinho on here for quite sometime. Is Marko still binned ?
Well Said GB
My, you have come on leaps & bounds.
That boy will be proud……
Spurs 2 Bayern Munich 7
Chelsea 0 Bayern Munich 3
Bayern Thrash London teams in 2020 too.
:I don’t think saying hand the keys to Arteta and let him build a club in his image would be a smart move seeing as Arteta does not even know what his image is.’
Arteta’s football image?
He dresses like a junkyard janitor and oozes ball boy courage on the sideline during a game.
That’s the summary anyway.
appreciate you are trying to help but this piece strikes me as naive at best – don’t you think every other club in the world is trying to copy Liverpool’s “secret sauce” as well ? Plus we have the usual problem of financial doping at Chelski, Man City Barca, Madrid etc , meaning we get last pickings of all the 18-23 talent around – wish I could be less negative but this is the reality for me.
Respect, CG.
Good Morning and Good read Pedro. Please make sure to Fax it to Edu/Raul I wonder if the Arsenal PR team that reads Arsenal related blogs ever passes good information on to the higher ups? I like the RB model of 17-23. I do think its right for right where we are at right now. In time, with more success hopefully, we can land some names, but the core must be younger and with a high ceilings. Luiz deal just reeks of favoritism, friendship and something smelly and dirty. Soares makes no sense. Mari maybe… I am not impressed with… Read more »
Revisionism.
Arsenal were never boring under Wenger.
Under achieving yes but not boring
Pedro
Not sure you read my first response.
What I take from the article is that by comparing Liverpool under Fenway to Arsenal under KSE you only highlight the difference between the two sporting groups.
Fenway are winners
KSE are losers and don’t appear to give a damn
Compare Liverpool and the Boston red sox to Arsenal, the rams, the nuggets and avalanche.
Apart from usual Arteta and Emery bullshit its a fuckin WC post. Fully agree.
Until we have CEO and board that are football people who love club we are going nowhere.
We need one or three mids that can actually dribble past 2 defenders in one go, we sorely lack this skill. Our safe passing game is just so boring and predictable.
We hardly create imbalances on the field anymore. its pass to the open player- mostly at his feet.
I hope Arty works on the off the ball movement much more. We are like a Honda out there competing with Ferraris…
SF Arteta on Soares, today: “He’s a different quality in the full-back area than what we have,” Arteta said. “He’s a gifted, technical player and is probably the best we have in the final third to make the right decision and attack the box as well. “He can play in a four or a five, he’s a really good player with experience in the Premier League that can help us.” Luiz, like the other deals makes sense, especially if he too the reported wage cut and we’re focusing on raising money to fix our midfield. If not then I agree… Read more »
Yes Kroenke and Co are part of the problem. They have no idea how to run a world class football team. That is not surprising.
What is surprising is that Edu/Raul have no idea. These fells have been in the game for a long time.
I truly feel that we need a new owner. We need a new board as it stands right now.
Dangote are you ready???
Bring back the triangles!
I think we all need to see Soares tomorrow ….
Broken nose or not, just play the fella…
He’s available to play tomorrow. I want to see him too, Bellerin has been pretty shite the last couple of years so I wouldn’t mind if Soares is an able replacement and we sell Bellerin and bring in the best 18 year old RB prospect we can find.
Would also help with the rest of the rebuild.
Stuart, I don’t think every club in the world is copying Liverpool, especially not Arsenal, which is why I wrote the piece.
Big clubs aren’t as heavily reliant on data as team in the US. Just read around the stats people who talk about how difficult it is to get a seat at the table. Football Hackers outlines this issue very clearly. Gut instinct still rules the roost
Sven wanted Söyüncü, but Raul because he wanted experience prioritised Sokratis. It was a shit recommendation by Sven, but had Raul had chosen his first choice we would have had a proper defender rather than a wrestler playing at football.
By the time the deal for Sokratis was completed, there was not enough money for Söyüncü. To think that we missed on him for £4 millions…
In view of the resale value, Sokratis at £15 millions had less value for money than the purchase for £18 millions of Söyüncü.
Football isn’t that complex Pedro, it really isn’t.
We don’t need nerds to build a football team, just good old fashioned scouting. I think sometimes you beat this data drum too hard
Liverpool made purchases off player performances, the core of them didn’t come cheap either.
It was StatDNA that landed us Mo Elneney.
Chelsea are building a very good team and not a badly dressed adult with an ipad in sight.
It’s difficult to find a reason for Stan to sell up.
He won’t as it’s about property not what’s in it.
It would take a huge protest or empty stadium before he would take notice and that will not happen.
Val
“Sven wanted Söyüncü, but Raul because he wanted experience prioritised Sokratis”
Anything to back this up or did you pull it from the deepest recesses of your ass like all your other fly on the wall info?
I agree though that signing Sokratis over Soyuncu was a mistake.
@Dave –
“It would take a huge protest or empty stadium”
Something tells me there will be a few of those before the season is over.
Wonder where Raul got to know Sokratis from.
“Greece international Sokratis becomes the second player the Gunners have signed from Dortmund in the last year after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang joined for a club record fee in the January transfer window .
The 29-year-old is an experienced centre-back who shares the same agent as compatriot Konstantinos Mavropanos, another player scouted and signed by Arsenal’s new head of recruitment Sven Mislintat at the turn of the year”
https://www.goal.com/en/news/arsenal-complete-19m-sokratis-signing/1aa643ybbk9m91hl50o56qyczt
Sokratis was brought to Dortmund by Sven, he was brought here by Sven. Wonder why Valentin still struggles with this
RH
I’m inclined to agree.
Liverpool have done fantastically well but the coutinho windfall was a real blessing for them.
They spent well and dropped big cash on an established , obviously brilliant CB in Van Dijk.
There’s no voodoo in that, just vision and ambition.
KSE are not ambitious. They just keep their clubs ticking over and if once in a blue moon a franchise wins something- great- if not? It’s no biggie.
“Liverpool have done fantastically well but the coutinho windfall was a real blessing for them.”
They really struck it lucky there Alexander. Really wondered back then what Barca were smoking offering so much for him. That deal enabled them get Allison and VVD both world record transfers.
Pretty straight forward really
Worth noting, for broader perspective, that in Liverpool’s transfers since 2015 we’ve seen: Clyne for 17 mil Benteke for 45 mil Karius for 7 mil Klavan for 6 mil (30 year old CB alert) Matip for Bosman Ox for 40 mil Shaquiri for 15 mil Keita for 58 mil The relative value you’d associate to each of these deals is certainly up for debate. Not every transfer is a given even when you’re doing things the right way. The misses still add up and are very present. Point being, it’s a nonsense to use one or two transfers as means… Read more »
Alex, not quite sure they just want it to tick over, that runs counter to on-paper moves that were big and finances that have been stretched to breaking point.
They just don’t seem to know how to make a Premier League football club work.
CC, that NYT article talking to Ian Graham covers the Keita transfers.
I think the problem with our transfer process is there’s no belief in how they land on a player.
At least when it was Wenger, rightly or wrongly, he’d watched them 100 times and believed in them.
This new lot? Soares could be a hero, but he was signed under dubious circumstances that start to conversation off on the wrong foot. Same with Mari, who I think could be good.
Good piece, and well researched. Very interesting about Liverpool. But I can’t see Arsenal following that path unless they get rid of the deadbeats at the helm, and I can’t see how that is going to happen – they have carved out highly paid, cushy positions where they have centralised power in themselves. Which makes it very hard to dislodge them, especially with a disinterested owner. As for Arteta, I admire your faith, but I think none of us have a clue if he will be a success. It’s a quantum jump from assistant to manager, as he may be… Read more »
CC
For once I actually completely agree with you.
Almost impossible to get every single transfer spot on. You just have to hope that it’s not the big ones they mess up and if they do get it wrong they have the wherewithal to correct it and move the player on asap.
Something we have been very bad at up til now, we’ll see if that aspect of the club has improved this summer. Sokratis will most likely be offloaded which would be a good sign.
He would have probably got a new 3 year contract in times gone by.
Arsenal signed Sokratis past his best.
Tell you one thing if Arsenal had two Sokratis’ in their prime in central defence Arsenal would be more defensively solid than they have been for a long, long time.
Even in his prime more than enough Arsenal fans would have moaned about him. Too agricultural, not a ball playing CB.
Gives us David Luiz. We love his occasional long pinging balls to team mates. Never mind he’s a twat defensively.
Liverpool intentionally created a system that identified value in the market, then sold one of their players for a massive price, and that funded more signings.
Not sure that’s lucky, that’s just an example of a strategy paying off. Looking at the output and calling it lucky is failing to appreciate what goes into that final move. You make your own luck in football.
Pedro I get that, and I totally appreciate the nature of the transfers which doesn’t particularly sit well with me. My counter, or at least my cause for pause, is that both could very well be net positives for the squad and their vilification as players is OTT because of the means surrounding their arrival. To be clear, I don’t like how we arrived at them. But I’m very open to the likelihood that they’ll be good additions to the side, because they represent fulfilling needs in the squad with good fits on paper. I guess in some sense I… Read more »
Pedro Did the previous regime leave us with any players of that value? No, instead we’re saddled with overpaid, low value players, many were ageing as well in footballing years. Only player with real value 2 years ago was Auba and without him the last 2 seasons we would have been in an even bigger mess. He would also never have fetched anything close to Coutinho money so a rebuild off his back alone would not have been possible. That’s why you can’t compare net spends, we have been terribly run transfer wise for ages, of course we’re going to… Read more »
Bayern Munich have tied down Tanguy Kouassi and leroy Sane until 2025 and both deals total to less than €50m..Jesus H Christ
CC, yeah, I think the current situation is:
‘Would you like Mari, Soares and Luiz right now, or should we send them home’
Something is better than nothing.
Interesting how hard the hype was for Soares today.
This summer has to be better though. We have to make good deals of Lacazette, Auba and Matteo.
Freddie, 2 summers ago someone bid more than zero for Aaron Ramsey.
Freddie
No we never had any gems per say, but Emery took the midfield apart and we saw funds lost in Ramsey and Welbeck who both walked.
Scoff at the potential returns for either, but it would’ve been more than 0. They’ve certainly not come into a faltering setup and shown up the old guard to such an extent. We’ve still seen poor decisions and compounded errors, only at least we seem capable of bringing in some talent that in future could turn a sale ie Guendouzi, Torreira, Martinelli, Leno, Saliba.
I think it was more like, Would you like Mari, Soares and Luiz so we can get rid of Mustafi and Sok and give you an extra 10-15m budget in the summer. + we get a backup RB that we didn’t have before.
Sokratis is going, no doubt, but Mustafi seems to be getting a lot of love.
“Bayern Munich have tied down Tanguy Kouassi and leroy Sane until 2025 and both deals total to less than €50m..Jesus H Christ”
Yeah, but with agents’ fees and VAT, easy 250 mill.
Pedro Agreed, he should have been sold with 2 years left of his contract, when Wenger and Gazidis was running the show. Or do you mean 1 year before he left? Not sure we had any bids then worth taking? CC Wasn’t Welbeck injured the summer before he left? Not sure we would have had any takers for him for any sort of decent fee, too injury prone. Could hardly find a club on a free. Can’t even remember where he plays now actually. Luckily so far the really bad decisions have been limited to the loans and stop gap… Read more »
Pedro I have no qualms with both Mari and Cedric because the club had them for 6 months and Arteta was able to veto (or not) their permanent addition to the squad. He seems pleased with both so that’s fine by me because they’re low-risk, low-fee additions for problems areas. I’m less thrilled with the same agents pulling strings etc, but am willing to call Jan a bit of a shower having noted the mess of a season in the build up. I’ll judge hard this summers activity and be more comfortable drawing conclusions based on that truth be told.… Read more »
Pedro
Only because of all the injuries, drop Saliba into one of those starting positions and it’ll be a different story. Hopefully at least, can’t see the purpose of extending Luiz if we’re keeping the other experienced clown.
Lots of noise about Bellerin following comments on Cedric today. Some drawing conclusions that he could be a fall guy with Cedric slotting in as a starter.
Have to say, be a lot worse business to do than sell him to a PSG for 30 mil and have a player slot in for free. TAA he isn’t, but solid is currency at full-back until you have bigger aspirations than top 4.
Believe Saliba has played a number of games at RB this season too, albeit preferring CB.
Could be viable that Bellerin is offed with Cedric as starter and Saliba entering the Prem in similar fashion to Chambers who played RB/CB regularly
CC
Yeah, mentioned it before, wouldn’t mind at all if we sold Bellerin, got a shit hot 18 year old RB in while we have Soares as a starter until he’s ready and add any extra money to the midfield pot.
He really hasn’t been very good the last couple of years.
Freddie I said the same when he was subject of interest from Spain that summer and it was reported he wanted out. I’d have taken the 45 mil talked about then and hand the keys to AMN. Long been of the view that if you’re not the finished article it’s a mess to have a RB of value when CM, CB, ST are all of dubious quality. Fullbacks are important modern day, but if I could choose a place to pool limited talent in the squad then it’s still very much the spine for obvious reasons. Bellerin/Partey swap? I’d be… Read more »
Would definitely sell off Bellerin he isn’t dynamic enough at fullback but struggle to see how Arsenal get big money for him.
He hasn’t overall impressed for a long time now.
If a PSG shelled out 30m for him we would be laughing at them while also being thankful of course.
Rather than PSG you can never rule out Everton for wasting money on players.
Bellerin is yours Everton.
Also Newcastle might have more money than sense in the near future. They could be another that would throw money at Bellerin.
Bayern getting Sane, Kouassi and Nubel for less than 50M shows you how clubs should be run.
Very unfair we don’t do smart business like this.
“Bayern getting Sane, Kouassi and Nubel for less than 50M shows you how clubs should be run.“
Bit of a weighted view though because Bayern are a monopoly in German football and as such the talent wanting to go there is staggering. This undermines prices and works very much in their favour when recruiting. Literally had players wait out contracts just to join etc.
Arsenal have pull, but they’re another level entirely with the success they guarantee.
Great piece… just one problem with this whole “Liverpool approach” – they got Klopp, we got Arteta.
Not that we had any chance to get Sane once Bayern jumped in to fray but at least we should have put in a bid. For me he was the best player in the league the season before. Don’t know what happened between him and Pepe. You don’t let such a top player leave.