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Mikel Arteta: Top Of The Klopps

Macho

In search of Pure Profit 💸
Dusted 🔻

Country: England
Can someone explain his obsession with bringing in Tomiyasu 88th min every league game?

Think he's just throwing players he likes a bone tbh. He's technically done nothing wrong to lose his place other than been injured.

A less cynical answer is keeping bench players fresh and involved something I've criticised him very heavily for in the past. Still needs to work on that upfront maybe.
 

drippin

Obsessed with "Mature Trusted Members"

Country: Finland
I posted the facts, you’re posting agenda stuff. Arteta had full use of the 19/20 buys. Pepe helped him win the FA Cup that you’re keen to quote, and Saliba and Tierney are very much part of his current set up. Arsenal are the second highest investors in players since 19/20, plain facts. We should celebrate that.
It's not agenda stuff, it's Arteta's spend on his team that needs to be clear rather than include earlier spend. It's the same for any manager, it's not an agenda. Earlier spend helps of course and should be thought about, but facts are facts. Just like earlier huge spend helped Tuchel, but those weren't his buys either.

Can you explain the other question I put forth, about how you say Kroenke's spend is why we could attract City's players now? It doesn't make much sense to me. Sounds like an agenda where you can't give any credit to Arteta himself.
 

drippin

Obsessed with "Mature Trusted Members"

Country: Finland
Can't see the difference between this and including the whole squad he inherited in his spend
Exactly. He just picks some time frame that looks the best for his stance, but ignores the inherited total squad cost when it fits him.

Plus the wages, agent fees etc. It's very amusing to witness. This stuff he also doesn't comment about when brought up.
 

samspade

"You said I said" detection expert at your service
Exactly. He just picks some time frame that looks the best for his stance, but ignores the inherited total squad cost when it fits him.

Plus the wages, agent fees etc. It's very amusing to witness. This stuff he also doesn't comment about when brought up.
I find it strange because surely inherited squad cost just makes his argument simpler? I dunno
 

Slug457

Active Member
Hardly remember a discussion on wages here until recently under Arteta.
For obvious reasons, the published data shows us as the second biggest investors since the Kroenkes have taken full ownership, some guys feel that this fact takes away from Arteta's shine, so the wages stuff now comes up. Obviously, a team not regularly playing CL, or even in the Conference league is going to have a lower wage structure than a City, which is near guaranteed CL every season. You are generally not going to be able to attract the mega wage guys with no CL, with a few exceptions like Partey/Willian. This is why it's funny to see guys here posting about our "bloated wage bill", we had a top 4ish wage bill (and likely still do) because we were top 4 for decades. It was necessary. Newcastle won't be paying City wages, or even CL level wages, in the short/medium term, but their investment speaks for itself and will improve them dramatically over time, unless poorly managed. The wage bill will rise as the team's success rises. Investment in players (I.E transfer fees) is the biggest determinator in success, everybody knows that.

Ultimately, think we can all agree compared to where we were only a short few years ago, we've taken a big step forward in terms of investment, and a necessary one. When you are going up against billionaires a miracle worker can compete on a self-sufficient model, against sovereign states, no chance. If it leads to things like FFP investigating us, so be it, a necessary evil in my view.
 

Bagels

Well-Known Member
Trusted ⭐

Country: Canada
I posted the facts, you’re posting agenda stuff. Arteta had full use of the 19/20 buys. Pepe helped him win the FA Cup that you’re keen to quote, and Saliba and Tierney are very much part of his current set up. Arsenal are the second highest investors in players since 19/20, plain facts. We should celebrate that.
Power to the Kroenkes if that’s true! I find it extremely weird how confident you are in claiming this as fact using only that table you provided, after openly acknowledging you don’t account for wages which is a significant portion of player investment…

Perhaps you should rephrase to say it’s a fact about transfer fees paid for players? Which suddenly becomes a bit less telling in context but a bit more intellectually honest, as the difference is a large one
 

Dokaka

AM's resident Hammer
Wages are not a separate metric when discussing a club’s investment in its squad. On the contrary, they are the single biggest investment a club makes makes in its squad and a crucial determinant of transfer strategy.

Ben White was not a bigger investment than Varane. Matty Turner was not a bigger investment that Cristiano Ronaldo.

Not to mention wages being on average the biggest factor when it comes to player retention. Back in those lean Wenger years you were still offering wages at a level where you sometimes had problems finding landing spots for players out of favour because of how much they were earning. You literally had a bench filled with players earning more than star players at mid-table clubs. Sure, they didn't cost much up front, but the reason you could keep them in the first place was the ability to spend on wages.

Ronaldo is reportedly earning £26m per year. That is literally the cost of a £10-15m player + a 3 year contract's worth of wages to a mid-table club, and he's earning that per year.
 

Big Nate

Member
I’m happy Arteta has managed to bring back that “feel-good” factor has been missing for years. The division is mostly gone and I know that the trajectory of this team is up. My only gripe now is I want Arsenal to be their own team. I don’t want us to be “Man City-lite”. I really want to see Arteta grow out of Pep’s shadow. It wasn’t too long ago that City would be plucking a player from us every summer because they wanted to the class we had. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that. But enough flattering City and their state-funded boytoy project. I want Arsenal to be their own team. I want Arteta to be his own man and grow out his shadow. I think if Arteta wants to be at the top then he has to incorporate his own ideals to his football. I understand how revolutionary Pep has been to modern football, but for every Rinus Michels there’s a Johan Cruyff in the background who can change the whole game.
Artetas football isnt a carbon copy of Man city. We are much more direct than them. Arteta is more than happy to not play out from the back against teams that press high. Instead he prefers us to kick the ball into the opponents half so that we can then press them in the opponents half (this is also why we punt the ball into the opponents half at kick off). If you look at the pass map for Ramsdale compared to Ederson you will see that Ramsdale kicks it long much more often.

Also our transitions are much faster as we try to get a goal as quickly as possible, similar to Klopps liverpool. When Martinelli and Saka get the ball there job is to be as direct as possible and not to make they keep the ball and open space with passing moves. When we are winning or think we need to be patient we keep the ball similar to Guardiola and our inversion of full backs, and a philosphy to control the game through positional play in a 4 3 3 is similar to Pep.

There are definitely similarities to Pep but saying we are Man City lite isnt correct imo.
 

Bagels

Well-Known Member
Trusted ⭐

Country: Canada
For obvious reasons, the published data shows us as the second biggest investors since the Kroenkes have taken full ownership, some guys feel that this fact takes away from Arteta's shine, so the wages stuff now comes up. Obviously, a team not regularly playing CL, or even in the Conference league is going to have a lower wage structure than a City, which is near guaranteed CL every season. You are generally not going to be able to attract the mega wage guys with no CL, with a few exceptions like Partey/Willian. This is why it's funny to see guys here posting about our "bloated wage bill", we had a top 4ish wage bill (and likely still do) because we were top 4 for decades. It was necessary. Newcastle won't be paying City wages, or even CL level wages, in the short/medium term, but their investment speaks for itself and will improve them dramatically over time, unless poorly managed. The wage bill will rise as the team's success rises. Investment in players (I.E transfer fees) is the biggest determinator in success, everybody knows that.

Ultimately, think we can all agree compared to where we were only a short few years ago, we've taken a big step forward in terms of investment, and a necessary one. When you are going up against billionaires a miracle worker can compete on a self-sufficient model, against sovereign states, no chance. If it leads to things like FFP investigating us, so be it, a necessary evil in my view.
Great post! I’d only say that were loads of conversations around wage bills/structure (including on this forum) throughout Wenger’s reign, at least as long as I’ve followed the forum. The conversations didn’t even necessarily look that different from today either, maybe just added commentary about the structure itself, Wengers unwillingness to break it and overpay certain players disproportionately to others, not pay crazy agent fees etc.

I think its a bit silly to say things around squad cost (wages/fees) have only come up because of x, when every fanbase across every team in every nation will discuss such factors as they are always pertinent to success at all times. To say otherwise is really just to take potshots at those we disagree on a point (we are all guilty of this in some form or other)
 

Dokaka

AM's resident Hammer
we had a top 4ish wage bill (and likely still do)

Nah, you really don't:

w6p1BP4.png


They only use numbers they can somewhat reliably source, so City's wage bill is a lot lower than it should be as it doesn't include a number of the new players etc. It also doesn't include Zinchenko for you lot, but that's the only player of note missing from your side.

It'd be more accurate to say you're spending Europa League levels on wages, at least in the PL context. You could literally absorb our entire wage bill and still not be top 4 in terms of wage spending.
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
For obvious reasons, the published data shows us as the second biggest investors since the Kroenkes have taken full ownership, some guys feel that this fact takes away from Arteta's shine, so the wages stuff now comes up. Obviously, a team not regularly playing CL, or even in the Conference league is going to have a lower wage structure than a City, which is near guaranteed CL every season. You are generally not going to be able to attract the mega wage guys with no CL, with a few exceptions like Partey/Willian. This is why it's funny to see guys here posting about our "bloated wage bill", we had a top 4ish wage bill (and likely still do) because we were top 4 for decades. It was necessary. Newcastle won't be paying City wages, or even CL level wages, in the short/medium term, but their investment speaks for itself and will improve them dramatically over time, unless poorly managed. The wage bill will rise as the team's success rises. Investment in players (I.E transfer fees) is the biggest determinator in success, everybody knows that.

Ultimately, think we can all agree compared to where we were only a short few years ago, we've taken a big step forward in terms of investment, and a necessary one. When you are going up against billionaires a miracle worker can compete on a self-sufficient model, against sovereign states, no chance. If it leads to things like FFP investigating us, so be it, a necessary evil in my view.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Couldn’t have put it better. I’m not complaining that Arsène didn’t get this amount of investment in the transfer market, I’m really pleased that a novice manager is able to learn and shine through this type of tremendous backing.
 

drippin

Obsessed with "Mature Trusted Members"

Country: Finland
I find it strange because surely inherited squad cost just makes his argument simpler? I dunno
He doesn't want to use that in this case, because he wants to make the impression that everything Arteta has succeeded in, is related to how much money he has spent. Plus the inherited squad cost might paint Wenger's business in bad light.
 

MaraDon

Wants you to learn about football
I feel it is quite different already tbh.
From what I can see:
We play rbs with centre back qualities making us half way to a back three.
The striker’s more involved with build up hence the huge discrepancy in number of touches jesus was getting at city vs here.
We like to play through intense pressure to transition even more than they do, they like quicker, safer build ups.
Walker is fullfiling a very similar role to the one Ben has here. He does not overlap as much as he used to and he completes a line of 3 when in the build-up. Zinny and Caicedo are very similar players.

Now that they have Haaland, they are trying to make the number 9 drop and collaborate. Especially when Rodri is out (yesterday against United is a great example of that).

Regarding our fast transitions. you can see the city doing that too, maybe not so much when the recovery of the ball is in their half, or very deep. But when they recover the ball in midfield areas or in the opposition half, they are a lighting shock, they are fast, they move the ball quickly and they try to finalize play very quickly.

We play a very very similar game, we have even adopted things that they started doing when Arteta was already here.
We don't have the muscle or winning culture they have, but we are still very much so interested in how they do things there.
 

MaraDon

Wants you to learn about football
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Couldn’t have put it better. I’m not complaining that Arsène didn’t get this amount of investment in the transfer market, I’m really pleased that a novice manager is able to learn and shine through this type of tremendous backing.
lol.
 

drippin

Obsessed with "Mature Trusted Members"

Country: Finland
Nah, you really don't:

w6p1BP4.png


They only use numbers they can somewhat reliably source, so City's wage bill is a lot lower than it should be as it doesn't include a number of the new players etc. It also doesn't include Zinchenko for you lot, but that's the only player of note missing from your side.

It'd be more accurate to say you're spending Europa League levels on wages, at least in the PL context. You could literally absorb our entire wage bill and still not be top 4 in terms of wage spending.
People saying and others liking the posts which say basically "bloated wage bill wasn't real". :lol:
 

drippin

Obsessed with "Mature Trusted Members"

Country: Finland
Nah, you really don't:

w6p1BP4.png


They only use numbers they can somewhat reliably source, so City's wage bill is a lot lower than it should be as it doesn't include a number of the new players etc. It also doesn't include Zinchenko for you lot, but that's the only player of note missing from your side.

It'd be more accurate to say you're spending Europa League levels on wages, at least in the PL context. You could literally absorb our entire wage bill and still not be top 4 in terms of wage spending.
This is from February 2022. Especially for an UEL team, the wage bill was bloated, with many not very good players for modern game.

It's also related to having to attract players with more wages, because we have had only UEL after Wenger's last two seasons.

Currently the wage bill and the squad are in a great condition.

JB-GRAPHIC-ARSENAL-SPEND.jpg


 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
Wages are not a separate metric when discussing a club’s investment in its squad. On the contrary, they are the single biggest investment a club makes makes in its squad and a crucial determinant of transfer strategy.

Ben White was not a bigger investment than Varane. Matty Turner was not a bigger investment that Cristiano Ronaldo.
You say they’re not a separate metric, but the vast majority of analyses I‘ve seen on the internet with regard to predicting league position have all been one or the other. Both are far from perfect in their correlation of squad quality but they do work reasonably well in reality, particularly over a few seasons. If you’ve seen one using a combination of wages and squad cost, please show a link, I’d be interested.

Ronaldo’s contribution to the squad will probably work out at about £13m, Ten Hag is not using him much, whilst his wages at £500K a week is ridiculously overblown for what he contributes. Can see him being a super sub. Matty Turner at just £5m might be just about right estimate of his worth to the squad.
 

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