Pest Control: A quick pre-match snifter for those unable to get to “the game” « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Sir Hardly Anyone

Before the match my chums and I generally frequent one of the many watering holes around our sacred ground in North London and exchange the news.   Now next week that is simple because we are at home taking on the North, so plenty of time to do the deed and place the sure fire fiver with the old Premier League Betting whatsit.   All winnings go to the staff of course.

But before the away game, then what?   A drink in the lounge bar of the local?  A dry sherry kindly brought in by Wadkins, my man, and a quick snifter on the terrace before settling down before the box?

Well, yes, that’s how it goes, but there is still the need for news before kick off, to feed the debate and what-not.   And so, my good pals at the Untold Estates, Rutlandshire, have asked that I might draft a line or two, to help us all pass the hours before kick off when the lads are not chez nous, as ’twere.

They’ve called this little column, PEST CONTROL, for reasons which (to me at least) are not clear at this time.

Now I don’t want you to think this takes over from the serious pre-match build up.  Not at all.  That is all written and available on Untold at this address.   But now, down to the pests.

And for today’s pests- I thought I would consider Barcelona.

Now for this investigation I am greatly aided and helped by a rather jolly web site called Arsenal Report which has calculated that over the past 10 deals that we have done with Barcelona we’ve made a profit of £83.6m.

Put another way Barcelona is a significant part of the funding of Arsenal, and Arsenal is a significant part of the drift into bankruptcy of Barcelona.   (The only other club that apparently comes even close to us with this is Manchester City, who over the last 7 deals have funded Arsenal to the tune of £71m.)

Deals in this context of course means buying and selling.  We sell them people like Overmars, Hleb, Henry and Fabregas, and they sell us people like Fabregas, Héctor Bellerin, Jon Toral, and Ignasi Miquel (although in this case via UE Cornellà)

Now clearly on one level this looks as if we are selling great players to them, but if you consider just how many games these big name players actually got with the club, and how much the wages were for these players even when not playing, you can see this is a rather jolly wheeze.

We get money, and some promising youngsters, they get older players who are moving towards the later part of their careers and who won’t play much but need lots of cash.  Half a million quid or so per game in the case of Henry.  Nice work if you can get it.

So, in fact, the rest of football (especially Real Madrid) ought to be thanking Arsenal big time.  And we should thank Barca for their generosity.

Pest Control.  Geddit?

Next time: How Arsenal caused Tottenham to buy a wildebeest from the Maasai in the belief that Serengeti was African Player of the Year.

 Ordinary is Pointless

The Great History of Arsenal Competition – complete with prizes

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