The Great Squad Cost Thread

[Ärsenik]

And Real Madrid sold Özil, Higuain, Di Maria and others. Heck, they got £22.5 million for Jese! The spending gap isn't nearly as big as it is between Arsenal and the Manchester clubs. Over the past eight years, Arsenal has a net transfer spending of £289 million. Manchester United has a net spend over the same period of £750 million. City has a net spend of £1.011 billion. Yet Arsenal has somehow managed to be competitive with those clubs and even finished ahead of them sometimes.

So things are not so dire as some of you seem to believe.

Spending insane amounts of money doesn’t automatically give you an edge over your opponents if you don’t purchase wisely. Both teams may have nearly spent 2 billion over the last 8 years yet none of them has a current back 4 capable of winning the Champion’s league which is laughable.

As for Spain, you should also take into account the differences in the wage bills (Atletico 1/3 = Madrid) Atletico can’t afford to have players like Benzema or Suarez even if they were able to pay the transfer fees.

Besides, Real and Barça don’t actually need to outspend the other clubs in order to attract the best talents thanks to :

1) their performing scouting systems

2) their prestige. Who would hesitate to join one of the 2 best clubs in the world if he had the choice - even for less money?

 

[Deathstroke]

Squad cost is not the reason for players being shoehorned into unfamiliar positions, or the mystifying tactical decisions and substitutions. Squad cost is not why we've been entering season after season unprepared and getting humiliated by teams below or at our level year upon year.

We're one of the richest clubs on the planet, with worldwide brand recognition, a loyal, huge fan base, a team assembled at great cost by a manager responsible for some of our greatest successes, supported by ample resources in the form of world class facilities, back room staff and an extensive scouting network.

Squad cost, Walcott... spin obfuscating the real issue. The relevant question - the only question that should matter to us, and is not being answered here, is this: are we really doing the best we can with all that we have?

 

[Makingtrax]

We're one of the richest clubs on the planet, with worldwide brand recognition, a loyal, huge fan base, a team assembled at great cost by a manager responsible for some of our greatest successes, supported by ample resources in the form of world class facilities, back room staff and an extensive scouting network.

Fair enough, if you want to pretend there aren't three clubs above us with almost unlimited spending . . . you're pretty much right.

 

[RoadrunnerReloaded]

In fact, Stan Kroenke runs Arsenal as a hedgehog. He avoids risk. Some of the examples you gave of other clubs (Monaco, for example) are clearly more fox than hedgehog. Creative. Outside the box. But they still haven't been more successful than Arsenal during the decade of the 2010s even if they have a league title somewhere along the line. So does Leicester City, but they've largely been way behind Arsenal aside from that one glorious night at the royal palace ball.

You've misunderstood Collins' concept of the hedgehog. Avoiding risk at all costs is neither necessary nor sufficient condition for a hedgehog concept. Collins gives specific examples of his Hedgehog concept that the diagram I linked illustrates.

Kroenke's Arsenal is not even remotely a hedgehog run club as we can see if we examine each circle.

There is no passion for AFC from the Board. Kroenke attends one match a year, Chips recently said he loves racing gasoline burning vehicles more than football and there is clearly no David Dein figure on the current board. Since Dein is gone there is clear lack of leadership on the board that differentiates current AFC from the good to great companies' leadership.

As the examples I mentioned and many others show, the club does not know what it can be the best in the world at anymore. Scouting has grown complacent and fallen behind. Medical was behind for decade but slow changes now. Keeping players for too long with no clear plan (Diaby, Arteta, Cazorla). We used to operate akin to Collins' hedgehog concept when Dein led our Board in the 1990s but the current board clearly has no hedgehog concept.

They do have a basic resource engine but it is not optimized because as you mention it is basically as risk-averse as possible. Admittedly the mistakes in not maximizing our resource engine go back before even Kroenke, though Kroenke has just let the situation rot and worsen. Several iterations of our board have failed to capitalize on both our best years and failed to recognize the growth of commercial revenue. Kroenke's Arsenal though wastes footballing assets more than we ever did previously.

So as a club, we have no hedgehog concept really - no clear strategy in the center of the venn diagram. Sometimes Gazidis says things like our strategy is to act like a big club, then Wenger doesn't purchase and says we are happy with our current squad. Again, Ornstein's recent comments about people close to Wenger saying we lack structures of support is seriously damning indictment of what does appear to be a lack of organizational strategy at our club that current Dortmund, Atletico and Monaco do not like. They have clear strategies to try to find the inefficiencies in the market and maximize their footballing resources to compete with richer clubs. We do not have such a strategy anymore.

I don't know how you can legitimately say Dortmund, Atletico and Monaco have not been more successful than us in the 2010s. All three have clear hedgehog strategies as I mentioned, all three have won league titles in the 2010s, gotten consistently further in the CL than we have and increased their finances relative to other clubs greater than we have.

By what measure do you believe Arsenal in the 2010s have been more successful than Dortmund, Atletico and Monaco?

 

[RammiXP]

Fair enough, if you want to pretend there aren't three clubs above us with almost unlimited spending . . . you're pretty much right.

Your missing his point. He never stated we should win stuff. He asked whether we are being the best we can be. The clear answer is no. We have performed horribly against our peer clubs over the last few years in head to head encounters with the exception being the FA cup.

I believe irrespective of spend we should be performing more consistently and as a club done more in the CL and PL over the last 3 years than we have shown. FFS Sp**s have performed equal to us over the last 3 years if your being fair (yes they have not won a trophy but solid points tallies and good cup runs have been in there) and spent a hell of a lot less.

 

[Makingtrax]

We have performed horribly against our peer clubs over the last few years in head to head encounters with the exception being the FA cup.

Here's an excellent post from a couple of weeks ago which charts our head to heads against our peer clubs. After you've read it perhaps you might want to revise the words 'performed horribly'.

Arsenal home & away against the top 6 since 2013/14 in all competitions

Liverpool
WLWDWDDLLL
3 wins, 3 draw, 4 losses.
Scored 18, conceded 23.

Sp**s
WWWDLWDDDL
4 wins, 4 draws, 2 losses
Scored 12, conceded 10.

Chelsea
LDLLDWLLWLWW
4 wins, 2 draws, 6 losses.
Scored 8, conceded 17.

Man City
LDWDWWDLDLDW
4 wins, 5 draws, 3 losses.
Scored 20, conceded 17.

United
LDLWDWLDW
3 wins, 3 draws, 3 losses.
Scored 12, conceded 9.

Overall
18 wins, 17 draws, 18 losses.
Scored 70, conceded 76.

Remarkably even, overall. Could be better perhaps, but not as diabolically bad as one might think.

Why then do we have a persistent reputation as 'big 6 bottlers'? Four reasons, in my opinion.

1. Some poor patches during which we didn't record enough wins overall or we didn't record a win against a particular team for too long, which reinforced our bad reputation.

2. Far too many drubbings. 6-0, 5-1, 4-0 etc. sticks in people's memory a lot better and a lot longer than, say, a 2-1 win. So when people think Arsenal v top 6, they tend to think of the times we rolled over far too easily.

3. The manner in which we drop points. Drubbings aside, there have been too many games where we've dropped points in silly ways. That stuff sticks.

4. The big one: our away record. The media headlines are frequently filled with our atrocious away record against the top 6. And atrocious it is. 2 wins, 6 draws and 13 losses. This again reinforces the idea that we're horrendously bad against the top 6, but it also conveniently glosses over our good home record and decent overall record. But our away record is what gets rolled out time and again in the media.

We play away to a big side? Our terrible away record hits the headlines. We get another drubbing, like last week against Liverpool? Out comes the away record. Repitition is reinforcement.

But from the above you can see that, overall, it's really not all that bad. I'd say we still drop points a bit too often, but our record against the top 6 is actually much better than people think. None of this is to say, however, that our record against the top 6 is beyond reproach or that aspects of it should not be criticised.

 

[RammiXP]

As I mentioned if you take the FA cup away its a different story! I literally mentioned it in my original post. Also the community shield is a joke to include!! who gives a damn!

When you can read perhaps you can revise your post!

 

[Makingtrax]

As I mentioned if you take the FA cup away its a different story! I literally mentioned it in my original post. Also the community shield is a joke to include!! who gives a damn!

When you can read perhaps you can revise your post!

I'm good at reading, not much else mind if most posters are to be believed

I have noticed this though, it's a strange thing, but people who want to criticise our team want to exclude certain competitions or exclude home matches etc.

Call me cynical, but to judge us fairly it seems all competitions, home and away seems the best way to compare us with our peers in an overview.

Anyway that aside, what do you think about the overall picture. Were the results horrible?

 

[Ärsenik]

If we only take into account the PL results, the figures are indeed less sexy…

Total
16 draws
16 losses
9 wins
53 goals scored
69 goals conceded

***********

Results
Home
DRAWS - 10
LOSSES - 3
WINS - 7

Away
DRAWS - 6
LOSSES - 13
WINS - 2

Results per season:

HOME
2013-2014
DRAWS - 3
LOSSES - 0
WINS - 2
2014-2015
DRAWS - 3
LOSSES - 1
WINS - 1
2015-2016
DRAWS - 2
LOSSES - 1
WINS - 2
2016-2017
DRAWS - 2
LOSSES - 1
WINS - 2

AWAY
2013-2014
DRAWS - 0
LOSSES - 4
WINS - 1
2014-2015
DRAWS - 2
LOSSES - 2
WINS - 1
2015-2016
DRAWS - 3
LOSSES - 2
WINS - 0
2016-2017
DRAWS - 1
LOSSES - 4
WINS - 0
2017-2018
LOSSES - 1

Worst place to visit = Stamford Bridge : L-L-L-L

Results VS Top 6
VS Sp**s : 2W - 4D - 2L
VS City : 2W - 4D - 2L
VS Liverpool 2W - 3D - 4L
VS Chelsea : 1W - 2D - 5L
VS ManUtd : 2W -3D - 3L


Goals VS Top 6
VS Sp**s : GF 8 - GA 9
VS City : GF 15 - GA 16
VS Liverpool GF 16 - GA 22
VS Chelsea : GF 4 - GA 14
VS ManUtd : GF 10 - GA 8



TOP 5 defeats
PREMIER LEAGUE 2013-2014 22/03/14 AWAY Arsenal 0 Chelsea 6
PREMIER LEAGUE 2013-2014 8/02/14 AWAY Arsenal 1 Liverpool 5
PREMIER LEAGUE 2017-2018 27/08/17 AWAY Arsenal 0 Liverpool 4
PREMIER LEAGUE 2013-2014 14/12/13 AWAY Arsenal 3 Man city 6
PREMIER LEAGUE 2014-2015 5/10/14 AWAY Arsenal 0 Chelsea 2

TOP 5 wins
PREMIER LEAGUE 2014-2015 18/01/15 AWAY Arsenal 2 Man city 0
PREMIER LEAGUE 2016-2017 7/05/17 HOME Arsenal 2 ManU 0
PREMIER LEAGUE 2014-2015 4/04/15 HOME Arsenal 4 Liverpool 1
PREMIER LEAGUE 2015-2016 4/10/15 HOME Arsenal 3 ManU 0
PREMIER LEAGUE 2016-2017 24/09/16 HOME Arsenal 3 Chelsea 0

***********

Points
Pts gained per season VS top 6
2013-2014 - 12/30
2014-2015 - 11/30
2015-2016 - 11/30
2016-2017 - 9/30
2017-2018 - 0/3

Points gained VS "Bottom 14"
2013-2014 - 67
2014-2015 - 64
2015-2016 - 60
2016-2017 - 66


Pts "given" per season VS top 6
2013-2014 - 15/30
2014-2015 - 14/30
2015-2016 - 14/30
2016-2017 - 18/30
2017-2018 - 3/3


Opponent- ARS Pts - Opp Pts -Max points
Chelsea - 5 - 17 - 24
Liverpool - 9 - 15 - 27
Man city - 10 - 10 - 24
ManU - 9 - 12 - 24
Sp**s - 10 - 10 - 24
Total - 43 - 64 - 123



Our results against City & Sp**s are even.
We should have done better against ManU considering how bad they were.
Liverpool & Chelsea definitely know how to deal with us.

 

[bingobob]

Money is the most important variable in football, and no matter how much posters try to rubbish that or me . . . the odds of us winning this league under any manager are not brilliant.

There is a tipping point with money and you're failing to account for it.

Man City blitzed the league with their spending. They over took the Evertons of this world, West Hams even ourselves, United and Chelsea were feeling it. But then it stopped. They kept spending and never progressed domestically or in Europe.

It's fairly straight forward why. They went from Sturridge in 2008, to Adebayor, to Tevez to Aguero. That's rapid improvement. Where do you go from Aguero? There weren't many and there still aren't many better than him as a striker. You can sign Messi and the improvement will be marginal compared to those previous jumps. And that happened across the board for City. The field levelled and the margins of growth decreased very rapidly.

Money is important but at the top where there are so many high quality players scattered across the teams it becomes less important.

 

[Bergkamp a Dutch Master]

You've misunderstood Collins' concept of the hedgehog. Avoiding risk at all costs is neither necessary nor sufficient condition for a hedgehog concept. Collins gives specific examples of his Hedgehog concept that the diagram I linked illustrates.

Kroenke's Arsenal is not even remotely a hedgehog run club as we can see if we examine each circle.

There is no passion for AFC from the Board. Kroenke attends one match a year, Chips recently said he loves racing gasoline burning vehicles more than football and there is clearly no David Dein figure on the current board. Since Dein is gone there is clear lack of leadership on the board that differentiates current AFC from the good to great companies' leadership.

As the examples I mentioned and many others show, the club does not know what it can be the best in the world at anymore. Scouting has grown complacent and fallen behind. Medical was behind for decade but slow changes now. Keeping players for too long with no clear plan (Diaby, Arteta, Cazorla). We used to operate akin to Collins' hedgehog concept when Dein led our Board in the 1990s but the current board clearly has no hedgehog concept.

They do have a basic resource engine but it is not optimized because as you mention it is basically as risk-averse as possible. Admittedly the mistakes in not maximizing our resource engine go back before even Kroenke, though Kroenke has just let the situation rot and worsen. Several iterations of our board have failed to capitalize on both our best years and failed to recognize the growth of commercial revenue. Kroenke's Arsenal though wastes footballing assets more than we ever did previously.

So as a club, we have no hedgehog concept really - no clear strategy in the center of the venn diagram. Sometimes Gazidis says things like our strategy is to act like a big club, then Wenger doesn't purchase and says we are happy with our current squad. Again, Ornstein's recent comments about people close to Wenger saying we lack structures of support is seriously damning indictment of what does appear to be a lack of organizational strategy at our club that current Dortmund, Atletico and Monaco do not like. They have clear strategies to try to find the inefficiencies in the market and maximize their footballing resources to compete with richer clubs. We do not have such a strategy anymore.

I don't know how you can legitimately say Dortmund, Atletico and Monaco have not been more successful than us in the 2010s. All three have clear hedgehog strategies as I mentioned, all three have won league titles in the 2010s, gotten consistently further in the CL than we have and increased their finances relative to other clubs greater than we have.

By what measure do you believe Arsenal in the 2010s have been more successful than Dortmund, Atletico and Monaco?

Hedgehogs are creatures of habit - doing the same things week after week. They also stroll about aimlessly unless they find a rich vein of food. When the **** hits the fan ie noise, fighting cats etc they can run to the hills and go missing for days. When the local temperature gets cold they often duck into somewhere warm and dark for months.....
They also love their offspring for about 2 weeks and then f**k off - abandoning them. Remind you of anything?

 

[Mark Tobias]

There is a tipping point with money and you're failing to account for it.

Man City blitzed the league with their spending. They over took the Evertons of this world, West Hams even ourselves, United and Chelsea were feeling it. But then it stopped. They kept spending and never progressed domestically or in Europe.

It's fairly straight forward why. They went from Sturridge in 2008, to Adebayor, to Tevez to Aguero. That's rapid improvement. Where do you go from Aguero? There weren't many and there still aren't many better than him as a striker. You can sign Messi and the improvement will be marginal compared to those previous jumps. And that happened across the board for City. The field levelled and the margins of growth decreased very rapidly.

Money is important but at the top where there are so many high quality players scattered across the teams it becomes less important.

Will he reply

 

[Tywin]

This thread will be even more fun next year when 77m in the form of Özil and Sanchez disappears from our squad cost and walks off for free to PL rivals.

 

[Makingtrax]

Will he reply

Sorry mate, I'm out of this thread. Too many angry ****s and point scoring for a decent discussion.

It could have been an interesting topic

 

[Mark Tobias]

Sorry mate, I'm out of this thread. Too many angry ****s and point scoring for a decent discussion.

It could have been an interesting topic

It is a real pity. Without you this thread might as well be in THE DUMP.

 

[TheLawOfDiQ]

Does anyone know if we`ve replaced **** Law?

 

[Makingtrax]

It is a real pity. Without you this thread might as well be in THE DUMP.

People keep twisting what you're saying. And that's the big problem.

It's all about probability. Money gives you a higher chance of finishing further up the league in the long term, regardless of other factors.

But it doesn't mean a rich team will win a particular match , or other less wealthy clubs won't win the league occasionally, or when two teams are similarly wealthy other factors don't come in to play.

Sick of people bringing up Leicester and Atletico as if they've destroyed the whole squad cost concept, but it just shows they don't understand probability. These two teams have only won their leagues once in years. Barcelona on the other hand . . enough said.

So that's it. Leave them to their hedgehogs and other nonsense.

 

[Mark Tobias]

People keep twisting what you're saying. And that's the big problem.

It's all about probability. Money gives you a higher chance of finishing further up the league in the long term, regardless of other factors.

But it doesn't mean a rich team will win a particular match , or other less wealthy clubs won't win the league occasionally, or when two teams are similarly wealthy other factors don't come in to play.

Sick of people bringing up Leicester and Atletico as if they've destroyed the whole squad cost concept, but it just shows they don't understand probability. These two teams have only won their leagues once in years. Barcelona on the other hand . . enough said.

So that's it. Leave them to their hedgehogs and other nonsense.

Yep, also nothing can now be said that hasn't already been said.

 

[tcahill]

There is a tipping point with money and you're failing to account for it.

Man City blitzed the league with their spending. They over took the Evertons of this world, West Hams even ourselves, United and Chelsea were feeling it. But then it stopped. They kept spending and never progressed domestically or in Europe.

It's fairly straight forward why. They went from Sturridge in 2008, to Adebayor, to Tevez to Aguero. That's rapid improvement. Where do you go from Aguero? There weren't many and there still aren't many better than him as a striker. You can sign Messi and the improvement will be marginal compared to those previous jumps. And that happened across the board for City. The field levelled and the margins of growth decreased very rapidly.

Money is important but at the top where there are so many high quality players scattered across the teams it becomes less important.

This seems like the most logical perspective on the debate.

Money can turn you into a league contender, but it can't guarantee you the league. Once you've got a good squad, its variables such as the manager, tactics, team cohesion that have much more of an effect.

Obviously if Huddersfield bought Sanchez for 70 mill in January, it would have more of an effect on their season than if City bought him. If City bought him for the same price, he's is only a marginal improvement over whichever of Aguero/Sane/De Bruyne/Jesus he's replacing. Compared to being an significant improvement over whichever bloke plays LW for Huddersfield.

Like the examples used of Atletico, Dortmund reinforce this, as while their players might not be of the same calibre of Madrid/Bayern, they still have good players but are well managed/coached (Dortmund's counter attacks, and Atletico's defensive solidity come to mind). And as Trax has been saying, while they've been doing well, their actual league wins are few.

The absolute best teams (Madrid, Barca, Bayern), both spend money and are managed well, as opposed to City, United, PSG, who often waste their oil dosh.

I'm no stats analyst but thats how I best read the situation.

 

[Makingtrax]

Yep, also nothing can now be said that hasn't already been said.

Not sure about that. It'll be years before people who don't understand probability stop throwing Leicester in the faces of richer team managers who don't win the league.

In 2156 people will be still posting, 'And if if Leicester can do it, why can't you, you clueless w*nker'.