Medhi Benatia

[AVENTUS]

Especially when if you consider the amount of money we need to spend on an offensive signing too.

Xhaka: 35M
Benatia: 15M
Striker: 40M

Total: 90M

Would be "a new Arsenal" if we use that amount of money.

Potential income:
Whoever of Szcz, Ospina, Debuchy, Jenkinson: 10M
Walcott: 20M

Still af net spending: 60M, but the wages from Arteta, Rosicky and Flamini could also make space in the budget.
Campbell could be a funding source too (around 10M).

We'll probably have to offer both Alexis and Özil the same money too wouldn't be justifiable to pay one more then the other and both will probably command £180.000 per week minimum could even be £200.000

 

[say yes]

People always read far too much into the warchest stuff - we've got a huge amount of money in the bank and don't have to spend it all up front.

 

[AVENTUS]

Arsène will not spend a lot of money on a defender. I don't see him forking 35 M for Manolas. That is why I think the Benatia rumors may have some legs.

Last year of his contract 50% of fan base calling for his head if he has an idea he wants to resign a contact he knows he has to spend to please the fans and win a major trophy next season.

I could see him spending serious cash this summer to be honest but I think he'll sign another contract if we do well

Also reading that JM is a dead cert to take over Utd in the next few days. Wenger knows he has his work cut out with him, Pep, Klopp ect..

Now or never really

 

[Heisenberg]

It was also refuted in detail, too. No one really knows how much we have to spend but best estimates say £90M-£100M. And that's without selling anyone.

Fair call. I was not aware of that.

Anyhow, for me it is still odd not to think transfer fees are very important, when we also need a striker, who is likely to be priced in the region of £30-£50M. And Xhaka was 30-35M. And we could use a right winger too. And a centre back.

The total numbers for Xhaka, a striker, a winger and a centre back can easily be 150M if we go for lets say Mkhitaryan/Mahrez, name a random highly rated striker, and a highly rated centre back (like Manolas or similar).

The amount matters, and hopefully we can get some income from some of our reserve players, but to take a gamble on a defender also seems like a good idea. Worst case, he gets injured, and then we still have Mertesacker and Gabriel/Chambers to cover.
In attack, we cannot afford to be wrong because our alternative options are not near as good.

 

[AVENTUS]

I'm struggling to think of a realistic striker we can sign that would improve the team without spending an absolute fortune.

 

[Heisenberg]

People always read far too much into the warchest stuff - we've got a huge amount of money in the bank and don't have to spend it all up front.

I might be wrong, but I think we do.

Credit ratings on football clubs are low, and a football club do not trust another football club enough to allow the payments over lets say 5 years. At least that is what I think. The financial situations for football clubs are extremely volatile, and to trust a football club to meet its obligations in 5 years time will be a very risky strategy.

Only way to postpone the payments is borrowing the money in a bank. And of course we have that option, but it will also be a costly affair.

 

[carlito'sway]

Last year of his contract 50% of fan base calling for his head if he has an idea he wants to resign a contact he knows he has to spend to please the fans and win a major trophy next season.

I could see him spending serious cash this summer to be honest but I think he'll sign another contract if we do well

Also reading that JM is a dead cert to take over Utd in the next few days. Wenger knows he has his work cut out with him, Pep, Klopp ect..

Now or never really

50 %? Not sure where this number is coming from...From the last protest, it seemed to be like 1%.

 

[AVENTUS]

50 %? Not sure where this number is coming from...From the last protest, it seemed to be like 1%.

Not if you count the Internet fans

 

[carlito'sway]

Not if you count the Internet fans

Indeed....if it is just Twitter it may be 75%

 

[DanDare]

I might be wrong, but I think we do.

Credit ratings on football clubs are low, and a football club do not trust another football club enough to allow the payments over lets say 5 years. At least that is what I think. The financial situations for football clubs are extremely volatile, and to trust a football club to meet its obligations in 5 years time will be a very risky strategy.

Only way to postpone the payments is borrowing the money in a bank. And of course we have that option, but it will also be a costly affair.

nah we don't it's even mentioned in our budgets that some of our funds are tied up in installments

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Worrying about the money side of things is just bizarre. I mean Wenger knows what there is to spend and he knows what players we want... is he all of a sudden gonna go "right now that Benata is sorted time for a striker.... oh ****!!! I accidentally wasted all the money we had, now there's none left"?

 

[say yes]

I might be wrong, but I think we do.

Credit ratings on football clubs are low, and a football club do not trust another football club enough to allow the payments over lets say 5 years. At least that is what I think. The financial situations for football clubs are extremely volatile, and to trust a football club to meet its obligations in 5 years time will be a very risky strategy.

Only way to postpone the payments is borrowing the money in a bank. And of course we have that option, but it will also be a costly affair.

We definitely don't. One of the big advantages of our massive cash pile is that we are one of the few clubs around that can offer money up-front.

Contrast to the likes of Barcelona who probably still owe us money for Fabregas/Hleb/Song.

 

[Heisenberg]

nah we don't it's even mentioned in our budgets that some of our funds are tied up in installments

I just very quickly searched through our latest annual report, and I could not find it.
Can you by any chance help me on this?

I would like to see the size just to have an idea of how much you can postpone, or if it is just unrealised clauses in some of our transfers.

Of course, minor amounts, lets say 5M out of a total 40M might be paid over 12, 24 or 38 months. Or be due to international games, league appearances, goals or similar.

EDIT:
I just found a good example: The leaked Özil documents.
€24M paid in 2013, €15M paid in 2014, €5M paid in 2015, and then €6M that will be activated if we qualify for CL for six years in a row.

Soo allright, it is possible to postpone around half of our payments in the large deals. Good to know. I thought we needed to pay much for percentage wise up front.

 

[Heisenberg]

We definitely don't. One of the big advantages of our massive cash pile is that we are one of the few clubs around that can offer money up-front.

Contrast to the likes of Barcelona who probably still owe us money for Fabregas/Hleb/Song.

Exactly this is what i doubt. I think Barcelona owe money to the bank, not to Arsenal. I simply cannot see why Arsenal should accept such terms.

 

[SuperGoon]

We tend to be managing muscle injuries a lot better. It's the impact injuries we usually suck at managing.

 

[spartandre217]

We tend to be managing muscle injuries a lot better. It's the impact injuries we usually suck at managing.

We do seem to get the recovery right when they happen, mostly...

 

[DanDare]

Exactly this is what i doubt. I think Barcelona owe money to the bank, not to Arsenal. I simply cannot see why Arsenal should accept such terms.

I do remember reading something on here once (it was a quote and from some years ago so have no link) saying we do prefer to pay up front as much as possible. But that was a quote from a time before these £30m+ deals

 

[Heisenberg]

I do remember reading something on here once (it was a quote and from some years ago so have no link) saying we do prefer to pay up front as much as possible. But that was a quote from a time before these £30m+ deals

For the buying club: It is good to postpone the payments.
For the selling club: It is not good to postpone the money they are about to receive.

Should football clubs trust each others financial stability? In general, I do not think so. Our economy is solid, but a bunch of clubs might see their billionaire owner run away, or just simply go into some difficult financial situations.

The largest football clubs off course have some sort of financial stability, but compared to most other business segments, all football clubs should be considered relatively risky.

That is simply what rational economic theory will suggest. For smaller transfer fees it for practical reason might be convenient just to get them out of the way.

 

[Trilly]

I was thinking about putting this in the Xhaka thread, but the Benatia thread now makes more sense.

Signing Xhaka will allow us to play 3-4-3 when we attack similarly to how Barca and Bayern have under Pep. Our normal formation will be 4-3-3, but when we have the ball Xhaka can drop in between the CBs and our fullbacks can push farther up. And Xhaka's range of passing means that he can actually get the ball to them. Coquelin can't make that pass, so now we just had two fullbacks run out of position for no reason.

Yet playing 3-4-3 in attack requires CBs that are comfortable on the ball and quick because they have to move out to the wings and help launch the attack. Gabriel is quick, but not good on the ball, and Merts isn't quick at all. We couldn't play this formation with our existing defenders. Benatia can play with this formation, and he played it for Pep.

Signing a striker is the next piece of the puzzle, but Xhaka and hopefully Benatia will make us not only better defensively, but better offensively too.

Very good post, didn't think of that. I'm sure that's something Wenger would love to do as well.

 

[dysphoria]

I'm struggling to think of a realistic striker we can sign that would improve the team without spending an absolute fortune.

Kalou's available. He'd be utter dogshite but i really wouldn't be surprised if we were in for him.