Is Arsenal Destined To Be A Selling Club?

Morning all. I've been out of town all weekend so sorry for no blog but I had no computer. I'm sure you all survived. If you didn't, then you wouldn't be able to read this anyway.

So while I was away it doesn't appear I missed all that much, so today I've decided to cover possibly the most controversial comments of the whole transfer season (and that's saying something.) Many people are worried because Arsene Wenger reportedly said that Arsenal were going to have to be a selling club for the next seventeen years. The quote reported in the article (from News of the World) was as follows:

'The strategy of the club is to sell every year and to buy less expensive players. We manage at Arsenal to maintain all our football ambitions - national and European - while having to free up - for 17 more years - an annual surplus of £24million to pay for our stadium. 'The club's strategy is to favour the policy of youngsters ahead of stars and to count on the collective quality of our game.'

So if you go directly by the quote and don't go with what makes sense and read between the lines, you'd think Arsene meant he was going to sell Adebayor this year, Cesc next year, and Nasri in a few years from now. But I do read between the lines and this makes perfect sense to me what he's saying here. Arsenal have a 265 million pound debt that they want to pay off. They have a 20 year fixed interest rate on the loan they took out (thanks Arseblogger) that they want to pay off on time. The loan started two years ago and Wenger is saying we need that 24 million quid surplus each year to pay off the rest on time. That isn't unreasonable. While ManUre and Liverpool are sidled with debt we are trying to pay ours off. At the end of the day football is a business and a business needs to pay off their debts to be successful.

I don't think Arsene Wenger means we are going to be a selling club for the next seventeen years, I just think he means business will continue in the way it has at Arsenal for many years under his watch. Buying Anelka for 500 thousand pounds and selling him for 25 million, selling Vieira and Henry when they were past their primes and bringing in Eduardo for much cheaper. In this way, Arsenal under Wenger have always been a selling club. Our record transfer fee is still 14.5 million for Sylvain Wiltord as far as I can remember. Our transfer sales usually outweigh our transfer buys, that's just how the club has been run.

Just look at last year for an example, when we lost Thierry Henry. We sold Aliadiere, Henry, Reyes, Ljungburg, Muamba, and lost Lupoli on a free for a total of 31 million pounds. We brought in Eduardo, Sagna, Diarra, Nordtveit, and Fabianski for a total of 23 million pounds. Can anyone say that our team got worse? No, in fact the team did better statically. Yet the club made an 8 million pound profit on our transfers. Would you say that we were being a selling club or improving the team with those moves? I don't think many would. While nobody wanted to see Henry go, it was a shrewd business move to sell him because Arsene could tell (as most people can now) that his best days are past him.

So does it make a little more sense now? Arsenal have a debt and want to get it paid off. Does it mean we are going to sell all of our best players in their primes to pay it off and have a mid-table team for the next seventeen years? Not at all. We're going to be sticking with the same system that has worked for Arsene his whole career here. A lot of people are making this out to be worse than it is, but remember: 1: Arsenal is never been a club that spends more than everyone else, they are shrewd businessmen, and 2: The source of this article is News of the World. Not exactly the most respected of journalistic enterprises.

Hopefully this clears up what this all means, at least in my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong and we'll sell Cesc tomorrow, but I certainly think I'm right on this one. It'll definitely give you all something to debate on the forums and comments at least, but I wouldn't let it worry you. Business at Arsenal will continue as usual.


The other main news of the day is Mr. Aaron Ramsey, who I call Mr. because he seems to deserve it. These quotes demonstrate that:

“Obviously the plan for me is to have a good pre-season and try my hardest to get up to the fitness levels the Premiership requires,” said Ramsey in the South Wales Echo

“I will try my best to get in the starting line-up at the beginning of the season against West Brom."

Perfect statement Mr. Ramsey. You have the right mentality exactly. He's been here two weeks at age 17 and is already talking about making the starting lineup for Arsenal in the first game of the season. Spectacular. I love it. I don't think there is much chance he makes it into the starting lineup for the very first game of the season but who knows? Maybe he really is that good. It's only 11 days until the first friendly of the season against Barnet. We get to see him in action on that day and I can't wait. Hopefully Nasri will be here by then too because I really want to see these new signings plus all the youngsters. Football is in the air again! I can't wait.

Cheers all, comments, forums, email (arsenole{@}arsenole(.)com), all that good stuff. Till tomorrow!

Also, in non-Arsenal related news, I have recently acquired a new domain name (http://worldcupUS.com). If anyone can put together a website idea for me I would be willing to pay someone to design a page to put on that domain. Please let me know if you can do anything for me.