There’s been a bit of panic in the Arsenal Twittersphere that Gabriel was slipping through our fingers after worrying rumours emerged that United and City were in to ‘compete’ with us. Those worries seem to have been misguided, most newspapers are now reporting that Brazilian has chosen Arsenal. Sport Witness has done a nice job covering off what’s been going down. I was getting info last night from some ITK fans about which hotel he was in. I also dreamt about Cessna planes last night, no doubt our obsessives are studying private-jet manifestos as we speak.
I think we just have to accept that this is what the summer will look like for most players we go in for. We’re not the richest club in the room by a margin and every player is going to make sure they’re making the most out of pandemic offers, which I’d imagine are less rich than they were in January.
Needless to say, this would be a statement of intent signing from the new Arsenal recruitment team. I think it’d also close a nice loop if Sokratis ended up being the consolation prize for Gattuso.
There has been a lot of ‘WE LET RAUL LEAVE TOO EARLY’ chatter going off. Please, try not to indulge in that sort of thinking. We’re more than capable of doing business without him and this particular moment in time requires us to do things that work best for Arsenal. We need to get good prices, pay market rates, and keep deals as clear of hangers-on as possible.
I wrote a piece a few weeks ago about the need to rethink how we did TV deals. A few people in the know said it was unlikely we’d see a shift in the way deals dropped, but, it looks like SKY has shifted their approach with the EFL (DM).
- Next season, across all three divisions, all games will be live-streamed. Even Saturday 3pms, which has been a sacred cow
- Season ticket holders will get all the games free via club websites
- Casual fans will also be able to access the games for £10 a pop
I thought this piece was very interesting.
the broadcaster will permit clubs to stream all games that were scheduled for live TV coverage without demanding any compensation as long as the majority of fans are excluded from grounds.
The arrangement will be reviewed on a regular basis but is expected to remain in place until the Government permits a 50 per cent occupancy rate at stadiums.
Now, that to me looks like SKY is building some good faith for the next round of negotiations. They are giving a lifeline to the football clubs, fully aware that Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, and DAZN are probably waiting in the wings to buy up the content in the next round. It’s super smart.
This model has apparently been rejected by the Premier League who don’t want their clubs to stream their own games. I find this absolutely baffling and look, I’ve spent a few hours reading up about rights and I think I’m basically an expert now. Here are some numbers I pulled last time we chatted about it.
If Arsenal sold 200,000 digital season tickets for £90 p/m (9 months) that’d be £162,000,000. £21 a game. Maybe that’s a bit pricey. Perhaps they could charge £10 per game to hook more people into the season ticket. If you could find 500,000 subs globally, that’d be a £190,000,000. Simpleton numbers, but just trying to paint a picture of the things the TV channels could do to bring in a little more revenue. Appreciate you’d have to rework the entire HERO GAME model, but look, everyone is on their arse on the moment, no better time to give people options.
Now, I know those figures are unlikely, but if you worked off the SKY £10 a game model, Arsenal might go some way to getting some revenue back. It is VERY complicated though.
Here’s my basic numbers game.
If you sold all the games to make up the lost stadium revenue, you’d need to average 500,000 subs PER GAME. Connor McGregor who fights 2-3 times a year, generated 1,000,000+ $70 subs for his Cerrone fight earlier this year. Tyson Fury vs Wilder 2 850,000 subs at $80.
Arsenal has a huge fanbase, but that sort of number is monstrous to convert.
1) Not every country as the same wealth, so don’t assumer social followers converts to paying subscribers.
2) Asking people to sign up each time is laborious. CLICK £10 3x a week might grate.
3) We might be shit so the stream of interest could fluctuate.
Then you get into the complications of what you are selling. If Arsenal is playing Burnley away from home… who sells the virtual tickets? Can Arsenal bring 100,000 away fans to the game? Do they keep the cash if they do?
Then you have the idea of season tickets. Do I get a code if I have a real season ticket? Would Arsenal broaden out who could have a virtual one? What does a bulk price look like for one? How does it compete with the Sky monthly package? Is it global? Also, what do you charge? For an IRL experience, the cheapest price was £891. No fucking chance anyone is forking over a ‘support the wealthy footballers’ fee to keep Arsenal going. But what would you pay? We’d have to sell about 78,000 tickets at £1200 to make back the money we’ve lost (tells you how important corporate fans are).
But what about an Arsenal RUNDLE deal (recurring-revenue subscription model and bundling). Amazon Prime is the best example of RUNDLE, they charge $80 a year for all sorts of perks. HBO gets away with £15 a month. Netflix £14ish. What would you give Arsenal a month? What could they bundle with a virtual season ticket?
Again, the numbers need to be HUGE to cover off our massive IRL season ticket holder deficit.
- £20 per month (9 months) = 500,000
- £25 per month (9 months) = 400,000
- £30 per month (9 months) = 335,000 (ish)
You’d need to make that fee worth it. Even if you are loaded, that £30 a month would still likely be your biggest ‘play’ subscription per month. But again, not impossible to think that the biggest game in the world ‘might’ be able to get a small percentage of their 40m person fanbase to pony up.
So, what have we learned here?
Local fans are really, really important. What we’ve also learned is there’s a massive opportunity right now to test the water by finding out what the true monetary value of our global audience is. The dream for a marketer is to have a consistent flow of revenue from superfans. It would be very interesting to see what our mega global audience would be prepared to pay directly to the club. Can you imagine how much our sponsors would love it? You’d have so much elite data to play with. That pool of RUNDLE subscribers would allow you to learn a lot about your audience and be more targetted with how you market the brand and maybe give you sharper indicators of where to take the team in the summer.
This sort of approach though is very much for the elite clubs. Collective bargaining in the Premier League is the acceptance that smaller teams would struggle with the above model. The disparity between the rich and poor would grow and you’d end up with a situation like the one in La Liga. Three teams at the top and everyone else slumming it in the cups. That wouldn’t be good. However, desperate times call for desperate innovation. Clubs need money, sitting on a now broken model out of fear of what is next is not good business sense.
Football should open its doors to something a little more fan-friendly. Right now, in America, every TV channel is putting the games I paid for via cable onto their new apps that I have to pay for. It takes me at least 25 minutes to find where the games are. By the time you add up the additional expense, you are paying through the nose. Fans need a simpler way to get to games, clubs and leagues taking more ownership might be better for fans and more lucrative for them. Well, that’s my hope anyway. This moment might end up fast-forwarding that realisation.
Let’s see what happens, the EFL has made a smart move, I hope the Premier League follows.
P.S. Freddie Ljungberg has quit Arsenal to pursue dreams of first-team management. I wish him the best. Totally expected move. He had a tasted of the dugout, no way he was going to want to go back to a behind the scenes role.
GOOD LUCK FREDDIE WE LOVE YOU!
1st
Here for the Tr0p4y
2nd
4
4
Tr4phy
Doh!
Bollocks!
In other news, Freddie leaves Arsenal
Thank you… You were worthy adversaries
I doubt we’d make anywhere near those numbers, and key point is that again the rich get (much) richer and the poor suffer leading to an noncompetitive league.
No thanks.
Can you imagine a league where United make ten or twenty times what most of their competitors do? Probably three or four times our revenue too.
I lived in Australia for 11 years, and when Fox had the rights, they streamed every single PL game. Then Optus bought the rights, who were an average phone network, with a well below average broadband coverage, with some crazy idea trying to tie people into internet and phone contracts, and roping them into PL football package at the same time, but they had no way on streaming it through Fox, we all had apps, but you could use up to 4 devices, so I then got the code off my mate who had a phone contract with Optus, and… Read more »
@Pedro,
Educate me because a payment mode for anything from Arsenal shops is really hard for someone say lives in Africa, I tried several times buying merchandises and failed instead I ended buying knockoffs.
Mean While I can buy anything thing from china shops from my home using my currency.
So I don’t understand if the main focus for a club is certain type of fans or Europe based fans.
Arsenal.com is very complicated on everything.
Nice article Pedro on trying to think out of the box for Virtual Season Tickets. Right now I’m paying roughly $20 per month for the availability to watch all Arsenal matches in the US. That’s EPL, Europa League, FA Cup, and EFL Cup for less than $250 per year. I don’t know how they would do things on a global scale since most people outside of the UK can watch every Arsenal match quite easily and affordably too. It’s crazy to think that it’s easier for someone in Minnesota to watch Arsenal legally on TV than someone in London. Why… Read more »
Also, if you’re struggling to find what channels a match is on may I suggest worldsoccertalk.com? They have a great breakdown of the various league schedules and where to find the matches.
Just read a interview of Ralf Ragnick, damn this man impressed me(from what I read) a lot…
I’d be interested at £5 per game, but until that happens I’ll stick with the free streams I’m getting now.
Best of luck Freddie
You can get all 380 PL games for $14.99 with Optus, and they’ve now got CL games.
And I used to pay $12 a month for BEin sports, which had the Europa league, Carling cup, and the European leagues, but if we phone up to cancel, they then offer you half price for 12 months.
You can get all the football in Australia for
$27 a months, which works out around £15
I don’t understand what happening, Sky pays premier league much money and they are also going to allow clubs to charge money to watch Sky streams?
if clubs are going directly to consumers (rather than the current FA deal) then it’s not going to make for a very fair league. While Arsenal might be pulling in tens of millions of pounds globally from supporters, what about small clubs such as Burnley, Watford or Sp*rs?
One of the things that makes the Premiership exciting is its competitiveness and a lot of that is down to the distribution of media funds via the current model.
Go to a club based approach and you might as well have a European super league.
Being on the Pacific Northwest coast of the US, the early games would never see my money. (Still sleeping my friends) Only only chance I’ll payout would be for the late games and there is a very good possibility that I would be at a pub getting breakfast. Thus, reduce your count by 1.
I don’t know how they make any money? Optus pay $63 million p/yr for PL rights, there’s no information how much they pay for CL and Europa league. They charge $15 p/m, and outside the casinos most bars in Sydney have now had their 24hr licenses removed. So $180 a year subscription 24,000,000 population You get 4 devices for your code, so most people are sharing. Say 500,000 Australians are paying subscribers? 500,000 x $180 = $90,000,000 There can’t be much margin, if any? Optus have won the last 2 contracts, where they outbid Fox, I just don’t see how… Read more »
Just watched a preseason game between the Pool and Stuttgart. Pool’s preparation is much more advance than us.
I don’t post much, but enjoy reading your post and the comments. So, thank you. I’ve been playing with VR and MR headsets, speaking with companies who are creating interesting business models getting devices onto users’ faces. One big player is leasing them to students in USA universities for $110/semester. I mention this because I am a season ticket holder, paying about £1500 a season. My mate has the seat next to me and pays the same. Our mate and his son sit a few rows behind. We’ve got about 30 mates in our block and around us. There is… Read more »
Virtual headsets …interesting.. .i need to find out more…
What’s up guys, it’s been a while.
Marc Lewis-Thanks for the comment. I would be interested in something like this. For example….It doesn’t look like I’m going to be using my Minnesota Vikings season tickets this season, and I’d be happy to do something like this with the NFL. My family and I have 7 seats, and we’ve gotten to know the people around us extremely well over the last couple of years. They’ve essentially become extended family members. The thing I’m going to miss the most about this upcoming season for the Vikings is getting to see “my extended family” at the stadium. The camaraderie is… Read more »
Marc, that is really interesting. Going to check out that Spatial link!
My son has a VR headset to play PlayStation games . Every thing appears 3D. But you can get headache after awhile. In Canada, it costs around $300.
Interesting Peds, I would probably pay around $20 a month to get all the Arsenal games in one easy spot. Certainly better then signing up for 3 or 4 different services and then hunting for which one has the match. And then remembering to cancel the service you don’t need anymore after the season ends. Virtual reality ? hmm that would be cool.. Wonder how good it is though with lag-time and scrolling, sound quality etc… ? Can you imagine though, we could have a VR Le Grove section, . I could finally get to tell some of y’all off… Read more »
I had a go at football in VR during the last World Cup with BBC. It was OK then, and the tech is moving very quickly. Back then, I could move between halfway line or behind the goal almost seamlessly, so moved every time there was a penalty.
Really surprised Facebook haven’t used global lockdown to push Oculus Quest by doing deals with leagues in football, American sports,etc. There are some good apps in their store that would do a good job at delivering a decent VR experience for season ticket fans.
Pedro, I think that you may have some of the thing wrong. The TV deal is not one or the other. People may have either a full subscription (view all games likely to be exorbitant), subscription to a single club, subscription to a club home game, subscription to a TV channel, on demand game. Of course a TV channel is less likely to pay over the top, but for casual viewer not affiliated to a specific club that may remain the main approach. Club could bundle their physical subscription and their digital subscription together. So if you are club physical… Read more »
Pedro,
I think you’re on to something here, but it would be better to be a SAAS (subscription as a service)business model. $30/ month for unlimited access is much better for the consumer than a pay as you go model.
Interesting piece today.
I’m not convinced letting clubs sell their own rights pay-per-view would necessarily be a good thing.
The big clubs will outsell the small clubs by a significant margin, and we’d be leaning towards the La Liga model where the top 2 clubs take in far more than the other 18.
It should be Sky/BT selling the rights for individual matches and sharing the money out evenly amongst all the PL clubs, imo.
Goes without saying that all clubs should be able to let their season ticket holders to watch games remotely on their own websites during covid.
Jamie
Tend to agree, can’t let fans subscribe to their own teams because that will severely hinder smaller clubs.
All for subscription to your own team, but it would have to come alongside a general agreement that the revenue share is distributed maybe in accordance to the league position per season or something.
Now you’d get clubs with big followings flap their arms at that, but you can’t simply let the established big boys loose on a market or it knackers competition. Integrity of the league and all that.
Jamie/CC- You would have to have some sort of streaming service revenue balancing act.. either revenue sharing of all, subscription fees to all the clubs regardless of number of subscriptions (NFL model)or some sort of luxury tax where if you have over a set limit of subscription revenue from streaming you have to pay a revenue sharing fee with the other Clubs.(Baseball Model). Otherwise I agree, I could see it getting way out of balance. Although to be fair it already is way out of balance in some regards. Still the way the world is going towards specialty streaming services… Read more »
Arsenal lady just ties it. It is 1-1 now.
I’d definitely be against individual rights for clubs. It made Spanish football less competitive. It made Italian football less competitive. It’ll basically lock in the top 4 forever. Would I like to pay less overall a month and only get Arsenal games (and maybe CL knock out rounds/final)? Definitely. I pay silly money to Virgin every month and I get things I don’t want. My old man on the other hand? He watches it all. Tranmere Under 8s versus Luton Ladies Reserves, sure. But to really sell Arsenal as a package you have to do better than what’s already out… Read more »
If we win, we’ll meet either Lyon or Bayern. The other Semi is between Barca and Wolfsburg. DAZN will show the two semi’s and the final.
Shit! PSG just scores.
Seriously who gives a crap about womens football lol
Great piece today
I have been wondering for a while now why we are not subscription based. My only concern was UTD and probably pool would get a hell of s lot of subscribers and will make our league weaker
The sky money makes sure everyone can spend.
I would pay £30 a month to watch all Arsenal content. I would keep my st for sure though
Buzzy not me mate I would rather watch paint dry
Tried watching the women CL match, my word it’s a load of shit. Not being sexist but youth team matches are better and I’m not being sarcastic.
At least watching paint dry can release alpha waves in your brain since it’s technically Zazen meditation
For context:
In preparation for two upcoming friendlies against Russia, the U.S. women’s national team played the FC Dallas U-15 boys academy team on Sunday and fell 5-2, according to FC Dallas’ official website.
Aaron, they lost 8-2 to the mens u-17 team too 3 months before they won the gold lol
Useless it’s a totally different sport to men’s so crap
Yeah Buzzy but those were 17’s!
I would definitely buy a digital season ticket and have never understood this socialist subsidy of every competitor
Most of Western Europe do not do this
It’s time all clubs stood on their own feet and did their own deals
Why the hell should we help Wolves or Leicester buy a player to compete with us which is what the current system does
By the way, why did we let Raul go so LATE
Arteta and Edu much better placed to sell the dream without the slug getting in the way
CC – We’re on the same page for sure. Disappointing that the FA/clubs/TV networks haven’t been able to figure something out. They’ve all known for a while that the stadiums will be empty for the start of the season at the very least. Kind of ridiculous that I get every single game live on beIN Sports for roughly 200 sheets a year, but they haven’t pulled their finger out here and come up with a fix. Middy – Yeah, whatever the revenue-sharing model, you can’t have the big boys taking all the massive commercial contracts as well as letting them… Read more »
Jwl Sky are permitting EFL teams to sell game streams via their websites because in the absence of stadium ticket revenue, many of those lower league teams WILL go out of business this season (some likely will anyway), which is self-defeating and erodes the product in the medium term. The government are being lobbied to let non-league clubs allow fans to matches ASAP, because countless clubs will disappear forever if they have no revenue at all this year. Rich Those telecoms / broadband companies buy the football rights to tie your whole media package to them. No switching broadband provider… Read more »
Gabriel done 😁
Fabrizio Romano
@FabrizioRomano
Gabriel Magalhães to Arsenal, here we go! Total agreement just completed: he will fly on Monday to London to sign his contract until June 2025, €30M to Lille (add ons included), official statement on next week. The deal is finally done. ⚪️🔴 #AFC #Arsenal #transfers
11:42 PM · Aug 22, 2020
30.2K
12.4K people are Tweeting about this
Amen Northbanker!
Which in your view works better Stateside – the NFL or MLB model? ___________ Jamie- well it depends on how you look at it… If you want parity of competition then the NFL. If you want to maintain the status quo then I would say MLB. Personally I think The PL would just want things to remain about as they are. Its all good to say what about Bournemouth and Watford or whatever.. But I think most people want a big 6 and the occasional over achiever. To be honest though I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a Super… Read more »
Looks like he’ll be coming in on really low wages too, €2m a year initially. That’s peanuts compared to what the rest of our ageing CB pack is pulling in. Can’t be bothered doing the exact maths but between 35-40k a week. A third of what some of the other underachieving cunts back there earns.
Shift a couple of them out and we’d have a lot more wiggle room in the wage bill.
Thank you Elmo, that makes sense. I was wondering why Sky would agree but now I know.
Speaking of football, about 10 years back, we used to get real madrid TV on a channel. It was awesome. Every single game of madrid, behind the scenes, documentaries, classic games, latest games. Of course they loved showing games where they won. Of course back then, football streaming wasn’t as popular as it is now.
Maybe arsenal can do something similar. I know we have arsenal TV but no idea what we get with it.
Freddie, Gianluca Dimarzio is reporting 4mil before taxes. That means his salary is around 70k to 80k. Not a bad if he doesn’t turn out blto be a dud. I am glad we are getting it over the line though. Now we can focus on Ceballos and Partey.
*2mil after taxes
*to be
Habesha
Patience good sir! The kid weighed his options and Arteta’s barmy army is where it’s at. Huge W to pull a coveted talent over other interested parties.
Speaking of…
Partey time next!
There are reports in France that if David Luiz were to join Rennes, Arsenal may also hire Malang Sarr. I wonder what that would mean for Pablo Mari!
At least we may have 3 very decent CBs next season!
I don’t think that we will get Thiago Alcantara as he looks a shoe in for Liverpool, but if that’s the caliber of midfielders Arsenal is now working to attract, then I am glad that Raul is now gone.
Charlie
Yeah I am happy it worked out. I wasnt confident we would get it over the line. Remember the Higuain and Suarez debacles? Getting the first choice targets is what will make any manager happy. Defense is sorted if bellerin can focus on his football again.
I genuinely think our forward line is going to be top class if we can add creative ammunition to it. See bruno Fernandez making Martial and Rashford play at their best. Now if we get Partey, Ceballos and another creative midfielder, I think we can make top 4.
Habesha
Agree. Thiago one puzzles me a bit, feel like that’s a Ceballos alternative, or a cheaper Partey option. Think Arteta wants a ball carrier/progressive, and a creative player.
Partey/Aouar likely the goal with retaining Ceballos on loan. Then you have Coutinho and Thiago as potential alternatives.
Part of being a top manager is convincing incoming players and the top players already at the club of the vision that the manager has for the club. I have to say that Arteta is very convincing in his positivity for the future of Arsenal football club.. If it wasnt for Arteta I doubt whether Aubameyang would stay. Willian has already talked about how Arteta laid out his plans for the next 3 years in not only qualifying for champions league but winning it. Arteta has to be pretty persuasive to have players believing that winning the champions league is… Read more »
Good news regarding Gabriel if true. Now we need to get aggressive about xhalas midfield partner. Cebellos is all action but we need a proper ball carrier. Wheres this generations yaya toure?
Charlie I don’t think thiago is on the table for us. It’s Liverpool or he might be staying in Munich, especially if they win the champion league. You ever know with arteta though. I have a feeling t aouar might be possible. Pierre Too bad he didn’t persuade Ozil. Just kidding. I do agree though. He must really be convincing. And now he has a trophy to show for it in his first half season against all odds. Auba, Willian, Saka and now Gabriel. I would like him to convince players who aren’t good enough to go to other teams… Read more »
* Champions league
* Never
It’s also a huge plus that Arteta is multilingual.
For incomings, “project midfield” should be next.
If Gabriel deal is done., to improve financial position,, Vinai and Arteta should try minimise damages Raul left behind by practically reversing 2 or 3 deals. AFC would take a hit financially, like cutting loss in day trades, but would save much on wages on these new 3, 4 year deals. Footballing reasons too. These guys aren’t Arsenal grade, even when we finished 8. Elneny is still around ffs. Unless they bought Ozil don’t trust Turkey clubs when it comes to money. Loan Elneny to a Championship team or he’d leave on his own. Same as Mikhi if not 100%… Read more »
“I’m a central midfielder and I like to play box to box. Offensively I’m a creative player and I can play with my left or right foot. I score goals and get assist, and defensively I like to think I do my bit too, especially in the transition.”
Salah-Eddine, another exciting addition to the U-23 team.
Incredible scenes from California.
The delay if Gabriel, according to some sources in twitter, was being due to Lille wanting 2.5-3 mil more because they will have to pay the sum to his previous club. So pretty good transfer technik….
Pierre I agree with your above comment ideally we get two new midfielders aour Partey and bring back Ceba who I thought was great when we came back
By Lille*…
Graham 62 what’s happening in Cali ?
Habesha I think Thiago is an outside possibility, he’s come to the end of his cycle in Germany and wants a new challenge so I don’t think staying there is particularly appealing. He no doubt wants Liverpool, and I expect to see that happen, but I definitely feel we could soften him if they’re anything but foot to the floor in trying to get him. If they leave Bayern dangling, and him in limbo, over a transfer fee etc then that leaves ample window for us to sell him being a central figure in a rapid ascension. Maybe that appeals… Read more »
Thiago would be great value if we can agree at 15-20m. His wages shouldn’t be too hard to top if he’s coming from Germany. I prefer him to Ceballos, though he has grown into the Premiership.
We would still need a destroyer there. Like Partey. Maybe tx Penalzette and some of the Torreira sale money?
If we can sort out CD and CM in one transfer window then we could be a great work in progress next season.
We still need to get our finger out on the exits though. Too much procrastination won’t help us.
I would take Aouar over Thiago all day long the kid looks a talent
We do need to sell 7 players though
Kola
Elneny
Mustafi
Sok
Torr
Chambers
Xhaka
I would keep Lacs
We need to avoid swap deals though to get rid of them – they never work out well unless of course it is for a player we are dying to sign anyway . In those circumstances it is unlikely – such as the attempt to offload Guen as part of the Aouar offer
Very concerned that we seem to be picking a player at Juve in a deal for Laca – we must get a cash only deal
We can sell players up until 5th October.
Yes, it would be nice to sell before we buy but most teams will be keeping their options open for as long as possible.
Bargains are the name of the game this window formost.#
I honestly thought Wenger’s depature and no Champions league would severelly diminish our pull but Arteta must be very articulate and full of conviction to be able to convince his transfer targets to join Arsenal.
‘I honestly thought Wenger’s depature and no Champions league would severelly diminish our pull’
Who of note exactly did Wenger ‘pull’ to Arsenal ? Sanchez and Ozil ? One got disillusioned with him after two seasons and wanted out. The other got disillusioned with football and uses Arsenal as a divorced husband to pay for his maintenance.
More bollocks from the usual BS artists
Don’t know why people are losing it over at Twitter on this Gabriel guy…come on let’s be honest no one heard of him a few weeks back..I would be that excited if we signed Partey..he’s the main man this window! Don’t get him and resort to some cheaper alternative, it’ll still be a shit window
Povetkin ko’s Whyte. Seems the LG experts got it wrong again.
Looks like Coutinho is part of Kowman’s plans at Barca now.
*Koeman
Seems to be running positively in our favour as far as press reports go. Just hoping the delays have all been Covid induced.
I’m sure the kid is being pulled, twisted and nudged in all sorts of directions by hungry “advisors” driven by their agendas rather than the player’s best interests.
Arteta’s stock will definitely rise further for me and others I would imagine if he gets this deal over the line.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8655439/Arsenal-set-complete-27m-deal-Lille-defender-Gabriel-Magalhaes.html
prvhc
So so true.
Ozil and Sanchez are prime examples of what went wrong under Wenger.
It was pretty obvious after about 2009 that many of our recruits came because of the financial benefits and the attraction of London and not because of Wenger’s pulling power.
It has always amazed me that certain folk felt that Wenger Mark 2 was as attractive as Wenger Mark 1.
He wasn’t.
“prvhc…So so true.:
Graham jumps straight in there.
A Wenger obsessive to the bitter end.
We should only take cash, even instalments. Swaps wouldn’t work out most times. Other than the well known, obvious ‘targets’ linked to us by the media, frankly I’d think typical fans wouldn’t have heard of at least half of them. My subscription includes mossy European leagues but how many could you realistically watch. Just some live and watch on demand when interesting stuff was reported about the games. Even then, I probably skip over some … I think most hadn’t heard of Saliba when we were linked with him. But once we had the chance to research (including watching highlights… Read more »
Arteta has shown that he has skill to convince people. He has changed the player’s mind to accept a pay cut.
The first step to follow the Pool has been taken. Gabriel Magalhães will be our VVD.
Arteta demonstrates he’d be articulate and convincing most times. It’s his read and therefore decisions about players, in squad and prospective, that remain something to look forward to knowing.
Hope Arteta could walk the talk obviously but the apparent and reported interest in Mari, Luiz, AMN etc may worry some fans.
We really need to jettison some CBs.
Luiz, Holding, Chambers, Sok, Mustafi, Mari all on the books.. Saliba and Gabriel coming in too.
Kind of bonkers.
Let me guess, everyone has ‘heard’ of this SOB from Brazil. Bollocks. You haven’t. Not until Arsenal reared their ugly head.
What we know about Brazilians.
1. They are pretty good until they get fat and fuck transsexuals. Around 3 years.
2. They are fucking trash from minute one.
That’s it. No grey areas.
Tony
I thought Gabriel was 22m not 27m.
A very expensive Brazilian chambers, it seems.