Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Arsenal's Transfer Window Deja Vu

I thought this summer was going to be different!

Remember those new commercial deals? The kit deal with Puma?

Ivan Gazidis magnificently played the major bidders (Adidas, Nike, Puma) off each other to get a new kit deal worth 150m over 5 years, or 30m per year. That alone was a 375% increase in commercial income over the old deal with Nike, which admittedly was front-loaded to finance the new stadium, but only brought in 8m per year. The new Emirates shirt/stadium sponsorship deal will also bring in 150m over the next 5 years, starting right now. Our commercial revenue has ramped up significantly. After failing to compete financially with the big boys for years, finally we had commercial firepower we needed to field a competitive team.

Not that we aren't competitive already. The Arsenal team is good enough to win trophies, proving as much on May 17th. For years, our best players wanted to leave the club because they wanted to win trophies. Now that they've won, they still want to leave!

Bacary Sagna was offered more money, more years, and a better chance of winning trophies at Man City than we could offer, so he refused to sign a new contract and moved north to Manchester. Sagna's departure is unfortunate. He has been one of our most consistent players for his 7 years in North London. He has earned the right to do make his own career choices. I just wish we had made the prospect of staying with Arsenal more appealing to him.

Reports have emerged that club captain Thomas Vermaelen has negotiated terms with Man United for a 50% increase in weekly wages. I am not very worried about the prospect of him leaving. Vermaelen is paid like a key player but the emergence of the Mertescielny partnership has diminished his role in the team to that of a squad player. Selling a player whose contract doesn't match his importance to the team makes perfect sense.

But at the same time, Vermaelen leaving would leave us extremely short of central defenders, and we would need to buy cover. I'm not sure who would play if Mertesacker or Koscielny was injured or suspended right now. Flamini? Arteta?

The most frustrating situation emerged yesterday. Santi Cazorla has made no effort to distance himself from a move to Atletico Madrid after just signing a new contract with us this spring.
"When the World Cup is over, I'll start thinking about my situation." Cazorla told reporters in Brazil. "I don't want to be thinking about it right now and I've told my agents not to tell me anything if an offer comes in."I know a few of the Atletico players -- Godin, Juanfran -- and I know the side well from when I was playing in the Spanish League. But until the tournament is over, I won't know if the rumors are true or not."

If Cazorla does leave, after declining to bring back Fabregas, all of a sudden we would be short of creative midfielders. Another injury to Ozil could have devastating ramifications.

 I have gone into detail as to why I don't understand our failure to pursue Cesc Fabregas and why I think letting him go to Chelsea was a big mistake. Reports have suggested we were less interested in bringing our former captain back to London than we were in securing the cash from our agreed-upon sell-on fee with Barcelona.

We were strongly linked with a Carlos Vela return, with Real Sociedad's president even claiming "Arsenal have informed us that Vela would be with them next season." But just a few days after that quote emerged, reports suggested we were actually negotiating a buyout of our buy-back clause with the Spanish club, choosing cash over a player who could have helped the team at a hugely-discounted price.

I expected us to sign at least one player before the World Cup began because Wenger has historically acted swiftly on the transfer market to secure his targets before a major international tournament inflates their fees. No deals came. Not for players anyway. Instead, we continue to build our cash reserves.

When the new commercial deals were announced, Gazidis proclaimed:
"What we can do is develop a really solid financial platform for the club that gives us the ability to compete for top players that we want to bring in and also top players that we want to keep. I think we will be able to be more financially competitive. We can pay bigger salaries and I think we can invest more in transfer fees. How we make those decisions will be based on a manager who judgment over the years have been shown to be be absolutely outstanding. We do have cash coming in. We want to be able to invest more in the team."
So why aren't we? There is plenty of time remaining in the transfer window, but at this point, the summer seems like deja vu all over again. It has been much more reminiscent of the painful transfer windows of 2011 and 2012 than the very encouraging 2013, when no key players left the club, many signed new contracts, and a world class player was added.

I hope that we are biding our time, choosing to be reactive over proactive, waiting to see what the other big clubs do and swooping in to secure a player like Ozil from a club who has spent a massive sum of money on a new player. That explanation is the best-case-scenario.

This strategy makes sense, but it's risky, and it seems like a risk that we don't need to take when factoring in our newfound commercial firepower.

We absolutely need a defensive midfielder, a striker, and a central defender. We might also need a right back (depending on your opinion of Carl Jenkinson's readiness and Hector Bellerin's potential) and a reserve goalkeeper (unless you think a youngster like Damian Martinez could fulfill that role). There are several major needs in the squad that need to be addressed.

Perhaps AC Milan and Barcelona wanted to put Mario Balotelli and Alexis Sanchez in the shopping window and refused to do a deal until the World Cup is over. Perhaps we are waiting until after the World Cup to ensure our targets (I really hope we have targets in mind) don't suffer major injuries.

We have the money to significantly improve the squad. We need to use it.

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