In the past couple of years, Arsenal fans have been looking at their Liverpool supporting counterparts through envious glances. They have everything that a Gooner has been craving the past 10 years. They have a charismatic manager who plays a breathless brand of football. Their entire fanbase is unequivocally behind the club. They have meticulously assembled a team, without the backing of a sugar-daddy owner, that can compete with Europe’s best. There’s a feelgood factor around every aspect of the club, and there has never been a better time in the last 30 years to be a Liverpool supporter. So how did they manage to turn things around? Their journey to a champions league triumph at the end of a record-breaking league campaign, was fueled by a combination of managerial skill, intelligent executive oversight, and frankly a bit of luck to help the final pieces fall in place. In this article I’m going to dive into how Arsenal can replicate one aspect of Liverpool’s success, i.e. player sales. After years of selling our best players and not replacing them, Arsenal fans have contracted a fear of selling players. The notion that being a “selling club” would somehow make us smaller in stature, has often held us back from making the right transfer decisions. In reality if we would have let some players go at the right time (Alexis, Ramsey and Ozil to name a few), the club would be in a much healthier situation. The truth of modern football is that there is no such thing as a “selling club” or a “buying club” anymore. A successful club knows when to sell players and when to hold your ground. It's well documented how important Coutinho’s sale was to the current Liverpool project. It facilitated the arrivals of the spine of their team, namely Van Dijk, Allison, and Fabinho. However, the sales I believe set Liverpool apart in terms of transfers in the past few years, are that of the unwanted squad players. They have excelled in squeezing out the maximum value out of squad players who no longer have a place in the squad. That is £135+ million recouped on average at best premier league players. Compare that to the fees received for the departure of peripheral squad players from Arsenal in the last 5 years like Szczesny, Fabianski, Gnabry, Wilshere, Giroud, Perez, Welbeck, Walcott. The revenue received from these departures makes for grim reading for Arsenal. The only one who arguably brought in a respectable fee was Walcott for £20 million. We sold two players who are now regular starters for Bayern Munich and Juventus for a combined £14 million. Letting Fabianski, Welbeck, Ramsey and Wilshere leave on free transfers also represents a major loss. That’s easily atleast £60 million worth of transfer fees for the club. By consistently poor management on the sales front, Arsenal have allowed their squad value drop to an all-time low, which isn’t going to be easily reversible for Arsenal. Since his arrival, Raul Sanllehi has been talking a big game about how he will not allow such financial mismanagement to happen again. He promises that players will be evaluated with 2 years left on their contract and either offered a new contract to maintain the player’s value for the club or be sold. However, the way squad player sales are managed this summer will be a window into the future transfer dealings of the club. Players like Elneny, Mustafi, Chambers, Ospina should all be sold this summer, and the deals made by the club’s hierarchy will indicate whether or not this new leadership is any better than it’s predecessors. Navigating the transfer market successfully is an art; hence individuals who have a successful track record of doing it like Monchi(Roma, Sevilla), Txiki Begiristain(Barcelona, City) and Micheal Zorc(Dortmund) are held in such high regard. Sanllehi or Edu need to take the onus upon themselves to make progressive changes in the club’s approach to transfers particularly with respect to sales. Particularly players who aren’t obvious candidates to be sold. If a top player wants out, it’s usually easy to find a deal that works for both parties. Conversely if a player is not good enough, the club takes a financial hit to get an undesired asset off the wage bill. The players Arsenal have a problem with selling are the ones on the boundary. The ones who have shown promise but may or may not succeed at the highest level. Arsenal have consistently made the wrong decisions on players that fall in this category. They gave up on players like Szczesny and Gnabry and sold them for far too little money. Whereas in the case of player’s like Jenkinson, Wilshere, Gibbs we waited far too long for them to come good just to eventually sell them on for a pittance. Besides the players who are clearly top-level talent, there comes a point every player’s career at a club where their value either skyrockets, or plummets to a plateau. Arsenal need to make the right decision at this point. For instance, I believe Chambers and Iwobi right now are at that point in their Arsenal careers. Chambers just coming off a solid individual season on loan at Fulham where he won their player of the season award. Chambers is versatile defender who can play at CB and CDM as well as being able to fill in at RB. On top of that he is still only 24 and home-grown. With 3 years left on his contract, this is the perfect time for Arsenal to make a deal for him. As much promise as he’s shown across his loan spells and limited game-time at Arsenal, I think his ceiling is that of a solid mid-table premier league defender. If we give him another year at Arsenal, during which he fails to impress at Arsenal, we’ll have lost a significant chunk of change off any prospective transfer fee. Imagine a player at Chelsea or Liverpool with Chambers’ career trajectory so far. They would’ve easily negotiated a £20+ million transfer deal from a mid-table premier league club. That’s a £20 million that might enable Arsenal to target a talented young center back with a bright future in the game like Upamecano instead of a stop-gap aging CB like Sokratis. Iwobi has had an improved season as well. His game has made huge physical and technical strides this season. If you set aside his goal contribution, he is easily Arsenal’s best dribbler and has become a consistent contributor to Arsenal’s attack. Even so, he has been much maligned by Arsenal fans for his performances this season. His oft-incorrect decision making in the final third and lack of confidence in front of goal has hampered his goal contribution as a winger. He’s at that point where Arsenal may be tempted to sell him while his stock is still on the rise. As tempting as it would be to sell him for a £30+ million fee now, I think the right move would be to hold off for another season. Iwobi is still only 23, and his skill with the ball at his feet combined with his imposing physical stature make him a unique talent in football. If Arsenal can solve his confidence issues and find the right position for him, his stock will continue to rise. The final point with regards to player sales concerns the promising talent coming through our academy. Our academy contains some of the best talent in the world in the 15-19-year-old range. Players like Nelson, Willock, Nketiah, Bielik, Smith-Rowe, Amaechi, Saka are rightfully held up as possible future Arsenal stars. However, with the number of variables involved in an academy player successfully breaking into the first team, developing even 2 of the aforementioned talent into first team Arsenal players would be a great achievement. What Arsenal have failed to do in the past is build a market for their young talent. Look at some of the players who have left our academy in the past. Ismael Bennacer’s value shot up by £10 million pounds after two seasons since leaving Arsenal for Empoli and is now being heavily linked to a move to Napoli. Reine-Adelaide has seen a similar rise away from Arsenal and is now back in demand across Europa having starred at the U21 world cup. This is exactly the type of progress Arsenal should’ve facilitated through intelligent loan moves. Far too often have we just kept young players around our first team squad, hoping they’ll automatically make the step up without the requisite playing time. On top of that, the loan moves we’ve actually made have been poorly thought out. Case in point, sending Gnabry on loan to a Tony Pulis run West Brom team. Reiss Nelson’s loan to Hoffenheim was a great start and I would like to see Arsenal create these opportunities for other members of our clutch of talented youth. Nelson’s loan ensures that even if his career doesn’t pan out at Arsenal, with a reasonably successful top-flight season under his belt, we’ll be able to demand a fee that matches his potential. The Arsenal executives’ ability to wrestle with these dilemmas and come out on top will prove crucial in steering the ship out of the proverbial Europa League storm. For a team with coffers as shallow as Arsenal, the progress back to the very top will be incremental. Each individual sale may seem insignificant through the tunnel vision of the fanbase. But shrewd recycling of the assets in our squad, and preserving our squad value, will eventually help us build a platform for long-term success. Arsenal Canon A lifelong gooner venting about the perils of supporting Arsenal. All transfer valuations for this article have been taken from https://www.transfermarkt.com.
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