Reus was going back home to bvb - that was a done deal No English clubs had a chance Blackburn was the only club interested in lewandowski at Lech Poznan - in fact - very few other English clubs were interested in him - polish players before lewandowski in fact were not not exactly revered by the English - only the Germans regularly look to Poland for talent (recently Italians have been keen) While bvb is good at bringing youth and hit gold with lewandowski - they have struck out plenty of times On a side note - lewandowski didn't travel to England because of volcanic ash from Iceland - perhaps the best thing for him I don't think our scouting department is a problem - and your examples poor
I don't think our scouting department is poor either, however, I do question why we rarely pull the trigger on talents that we seem to scout for a long period of time. How many times does a scout need to see a certain player in action to determine his worth? I can't give a good answer to that but it certainly seems as if Arsenal would rather just scout players for the joy of scouting them lately. As others have mentioned, we could've had certain players years ago for far cheaper than what we are being quoted now when we decide to consider them. It's mind numbing. Everything is coming to a head...we are not consistently bringing in quality players for depth or to address needs, numerous contracts are up in 2 years or so and it seems as if the players are waiting to see what happens before resigning, and the fanbase is becoming increasingly fractured and/or apathetic. I honestly fear that Arsenal, despite all its supposed money, is staring at some years of severe also ran mid table status unless some changes occur within the next two to three years.
Wow, Lynesjc you're on a roll with these awesome posts! Maybe you should form a company with Swiss Ramble and create an industry of pro sports team financial analysis? Or maybe someone's already tried to do that.
Nah man what is he supposed to do get Messi? Spend £500 million its beyond his control lets just keep calm and wait for Sanogo to come goodz.
I'm as apoplectic as anyone, but we DID sign Xhaka and I do expect big things from him. Still a shitty window and about the 4th straight summer window in a row that has been massively bungled by Wumger. Sent from my SM-G928T using Tapatalk
This. but Stan doesn't care, since he's "not in it to win trophies". Wenger? the FA hired the wrong club manager.
great analysis. Now that the stadium finanicing debts have reduced, there is no reason we cannot afford a 50 million player per season. the 200 milloin in the bank figure is moot, since transfer fees are paid installments. Money from winning trophies (prize money/TV money) will cover any transfer fees. We also are in top 10 in the world for shirt sales, but it's so Stan's conglomerate looks good overall, not to win trophies....
And Dortmund crushed again this summer. Their player recruitment is probably the best in the world right now. The quality of players that they consistently bring in is second to none.
What are some good examples of a great scouting department. Name a few players that were found and have made meaningful contributions more than what would have been expected by us lay people. 2015/16: elneny, seems a good player but jury still out. 2014/15: id say the only unexpected contributer was ospina. 2013/14: nada 2012/13: santi was a good find...as were nacho and giroud. 2011/12: JC who just last year broke into the squad and we are ready ship him off already. Not too much to support that we have a great scouting setup, but as @cantona94 said we may be scouting good players but management Isn't pulling the trigger.
a) I'm convinced ManU have blackmail material on the folks at Chevy and adidas to land the deals they got, even if they still make their sponsors money. b) Arsenal appear to be doing the best of all the clubs that don't have/didn't get some form of major outside financial support. Yay, us! Thanks for sharing, BTW. You realize he was a billionaire before he got married, right?
The fans have got to be an interesting conundrum for Kroenke. On one level, who gives a fcuk? As people have already mentioned, Arsenal's stadium will always be full as long as it's the most centrally located major London stadium, whether that be with generational Arsenal supporters or just Chinese and Arab tourists and exchange students. On the other hand, supporters are not just buying the product---with football, they have BECOME the product. This is essentially why Liverpool is still supported worldwide and also a part of why BvB is exploding in popularity especially in the US. Supporters want to be part of a larger group that feels cohesive. Having a good atmosphere at the stadium and a good support culture is vital to growing your brand and attracting more supporters. In all likelihood, however, TV deals outbid that line of argument in favor of having your club be as bland, squeaky-clean sanitized and "family friendly" as possible. It has a lot to do with the conversation we've been having on shirt sales vs game revenue vs non-merch commercial revenue. Merch revenue is the only part of our revenue stream that is correlated to the strength of our fanbase. Commercial revenue and gameday revenue will go on the same, even well after all of us lose interest in the perpetual planned high-achieving mediocrity of this club and move on with our lives. In this sense, appeasing the supporter base does not serve any purpose beyond that conveniently aligning with the purpose of getting the most matches on TV possible and providing relatively attractive football and a hard to dislike brand (i.e. top four football and advancement from CL group stages). Trophies aren't something that significantly expand any of our revenue streams. Kroenke et al. are probably looking at this through the model of "viewers" rather than supporters. And viewers don't have to be fans, they just have to be watching your team on the TV--which means your team needs to be on the TV. Which we are. Job done! Watching sports used to be an escape for me but it isn't much anymore. Arsenal barely do it for me, I must admit. They're just blending into the same neo-liberal branded blob of a club that is every other football team in Europe and sports team in America.
Gunning These are all players except maybe reus who we obviously could've had but knew nothing about How does Leicester scout France better than us ffs? The last good bit of scouting was koscielny nearly 6 years ago Just face it. Arsenal are not leading the way in scouting anymore and are terrible at recruiting players
Except that this was only a narrative put about by clueless UK media. In other industries (especially global hospitality) Abu Dhabi is known as a savvy investor with focus on premium assets. They were smart enough to buy a piece of the EPL global media position for a song. They then had to spend money to fix up the product, but thus ended up with a premium global media position at a bargain price. Of course now the load is shared with related strategic partners who are piggy backing in. But it turned out the partners bought those strategic positions underpriced not overpriced
Great post! Some extra notes. The commercial revenue of clubs like Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea is essentially just the value of the media sponsorship. So the sponsorship number has gone up as the global TV audience has increased. The difference with City, Utd and Bayern is that these are strategic media positions. For example Bayern is partnered with brands like Telekom, Adidas and Audi to dominate the valuable domestic market. There is no strategic position available thru the likes of Dortmund - hence the vast difference in revenues. This is the same with Arsenal. The sponsorship of Arsenal is not a strategic position and comparatively valueless compared to Utd. This is why for all the talk, none of the clubs outside of City/Utd have done anything significant in the commercial space beyond re-upping their kit and main sponsor deal. This trend is made worse by the Adidas deciding to place all their bets on one key brand in each league. Adidas have correctly realised that the lions share of the value is in the no 1 club. This is also of course why the Utd brand cannot afford another crap season!
Biggie But Leicester doesn't scout better than Arsenal They hit the jackpot with mahrez and Kante in one season - and now all of sudden - they are scouts supreme? Wenger has an excellent record at finding young talent - perhaps they don't all become world beaters but they become decent pros As for recruiting ? Do you honestly the likes of pogba - griezmann - lewandowski wouldn't love to play for someone like wenger ? Hell wenger recruited Sanchez in one meeting in Brazil It's not so much about recruiting as much as it is about paying cash - and that's something wenger has always be tight on Modern footballer or any sportsman for that matter is about getting paid first and foremost - don't blame that If we dished out 125 mil for pogba - you don't think he would come and have him sing praises about how happy he is to be at club ? Come on toots
As everyone on twitter keeps mentioning, on the Arsenal.com article where it is posted that he is signing, it also says at the end... We remain in the market, so stay close to Arsenal.com for any further transfer news. Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-ar...-deal-to-sign-rob-holding#spWty9DA3wTMSlqg.99
What do you mean by strategic position? Bvb vs Bayern is a no brainier. Just looking at shirt sales, Bayern dwarfs bvb. The difference between United and us or Chelsea is more subtle. In any case, I'm not quite sure what you are driving at. I think the point many are throwing out there is that winning and having stars on your team should drive commercial revenue somewhat. Maybe not enough to fully cover a splurge of 100m per season, but no one is advocating that. One need only look at Chelsea who have surpassed us commercially. Through winning and signing stars, they have globalized their brand as the prem has grown. Their new deal with Nike will be twice ours with puma. After they won the league two seasons ago their shirt sales went up 40% vs our 20%--not effecting their bottom line much, but increasing negotiating leverage for sponsorship deals. Nike knows they will win at some point and winning increases merch revenue. Chelsea also signed Yokohama for 33% more than our Emirates deal. This is made worse by the fact that they didn't have stadium naming rights to throw in. Afaik, these commercial deals aren't strategic any more than puma and Emirates with us. United signed their new adidas deal after one of their worst seasons. They haven't won anything much lately, but they have been busy signing players, changing coaches that don't win, in effect after every disappointment they give fans hope through spending which keeps them on the hook even if it's ineffective on the pitch. I think the adidas deal is for 10 years so doesn't matter if they win this season...they already have done their job. All this spending and change has locked in the fan base (and grown it) for another season.
Who are these young talented players in the squad? Walcott, ox, Ramsey, chambers--all weren't cheap aquisitions and none have exceeded expectations with only Ramsey somewhat meeting them. I'll give you bellarin so one in the last how many years?