Sunday, June 17th, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
By Tony Attwood
Each year every club wants more. “The very least we can demand is an improvement,” is a theme tune of the Moderate Wing of the AAA.
The problem is everyone is going for improvement. Yes, Arsenal may improve 10%, but that’s not much good if the two teams who came above us last season also improve by 10%. It is not just improvement we need, it is improvement by more than their improvement.
But improvement is not just buying and integrating new players. It is also about having back ups, avoiding injuries, avoiding being targeted by bent refs – and a few other things too.
So, I decided to ask myself the question, do we have a clue as to what the leading clubs are doing for next season? And do we know how they are doing it?
Arsenal is not too hard for us to divine, simply because we are closer to them. They are strengthening a squad which came back from 17th in the league to end up third. Podolski is the first obvious example, with at the very least one more player promised.
Financially Arsenal have no problem with Financial Fair Play, since the club makes a profit. But if Arsenal want to keep buying they have to up the profit. That can’t be done via the stadium, so it has to come via marketing, and this is where things are exciting. The big deals that were arranged to pay for the building of the stadium are now coming to an end. New deals are being put in place. The purse strings are being relaxed. And Kronke has worldwide contacts in marketing.
TACTIC: Enlarge the squad to cover for inevitable injuries, and know that in two years Arsenal will have a financial explosion of the most positive kind. And there is still more property development to be done.
Manchester United are buying: Shinji Kagawa and Nick Powell. Powell looks a good bet for the future – Kagawa make take a few months to get used to the style. But these are not huge purchases – if Arsenal had made them it would not have raised eyebrows. The club is still getting rid of money to finance the owners and their purchase of the club, and the fact they can buy at all is a tribute to Sir Alex and to their incredible marketing machine. The only worry I would have in their shoes is just how far this amazing marketing operation can go. What happens when it hits the buffers?
And FFP? I still don’t know, for two reasons. One, I don’t know how it works viz a viz the Glazers expenditure, and two, I don’t know if they can reproduce the trick they just did of making a profit.
TACTIC: Put Sir Alex on eternity pills.
Chelsea paid £32m for Hazard which is enough to keep Lille in business for a year or two – a phenomenal amount of money. So what of FFP? Chelsea have held themselves up as the club that invented FFP – yet that sort of spending, suggests they have had enough of that game. The new manager is popular, and the owner will presumably give him lots more money. Not qualifying for Europe via the League is not an option, and third place in the league is only an option for year 1 of the new world.
Chelsea have got some players to sell, but to give a crude overview, some of them are getting on a little, and the value will go down. So the strategy seems to be, compete with the others by building a new squad fast, to hell with Uefa, and let the manager bed in the new men, while securing a top four finish.
TACTIC: Money can buy anything
Manchester City: if they have any intent on complying with FFP this season has to be a dramatic one of selling more than they buy. Nothing has happened, no one has moved, so we wait and see. Their chances of bringing through many players from their youth system seem limited – so could they possibly be saying that the squad is more than good enough? That seems a risk, given how close the championship turned out to be in the end.
What of sponsorship and marketing? Yes, they can sell the shirts, of course, but it is the giant marketing links that they really need – and they are so closely associated with Ethiad I wonder if this is possible. Maybe it is, and the coming months will tell us. Do multinational brands prefer the global impact of Man U and the international esteem in which Arsenal is held, or the mega-rich owner with a dominant brand name everywhere?
TACTIC: Hope the squad that won this year can be pruned, and its tactics entrenched as the remaining men mature to an even better team. Stop buying just because he’s available.
Tottenham Hotspur: Whatever the tactic was, sacking Mr Redknapp now means start again, and as Chelsea saw last season, even with a good squad top four is not guaranteed with a new manager. Whoever is brought in, he is going to have to work incredibly hard to get the club up and running, with unwanted players out, wanted players held onto (that might be tough), new players bought. All from a standing start. Being tough is Levy’s self-concept, but it doesn’t always make life easier.
TACTIC: Give the guy a year, accept the Europa, and all the while plan for top four in 2013/4 and then on to the top.
Liverpool: At least at Liverpool the owner has made it clear. Building an Emirates Stadium in the far north is not going to solve their money crisis, because it is the wrong type of city. But, the owner said, they have a world-wide reputation. And that will be their weapon.
This is where the owners could come good, because with their American interests (like Arsenal) they have connectivity with gloabal brands, and they see this as their source of money.
As for the squad, I can’t see the current squad making much of an improvement – at least not enough to secure Champions League, so the emphasis must be on cups again to try and secure the Europa slot to continue to give them some coverage. And that’s the problem: the memory fades. Not of the real fans, of course, but of the people who were converted when they last won the European Cup and who live overseas. They may now have new idols.
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