Arseblog News – the Arsenal news site
Hey, it’s quiet, any excuse for a cheap gag. We’re not really getting a whiff of anything truthful from today’s rumours, so there’s no point worrying.
Also, there’s a lot of talk this morning about Arsenal’s wages and how Arsene Wenger is the man in charge of them. Headlines from the Mirror, for example, shout:
‘I decide how much my players get paid’
But this quote is worth reading:
I don’t know how it works at other clubs, but the wages at Arsenal are decided in consultation between me and the board. There is an amount of money that is dedicated to the wages every year. Within that budget, we try to come up with payments that are sensible and defensible.
As long as the economical balance within a club is respected and you pay the people with the resources that make economical sense, then it is fine. If I want to pay a player a little more than the budget, then I ask for the authorisation from the board.
While there are obviously issues with wages at Arsenal, some earn too much, some earn too little, isn’t it more ridiculous to think that a manager wouldn’t be involved in deciding what a player earns?
At any club it’s the manager who knows his players better than anyone and is therefore best placed to decide, or at least inform the board, what his salary ought to be in relation to others at the club.
Storm, meet teacup. Now, let’s get on with the business of beating Swansea.
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C.O.Y.G
What’s all the fuss about? This isn’t new. The wage structure problem is caused by the stadium move, by us having to attract cheaper/transfer free players who could then demand higher wages. Surely this will be dealt with in the coming years.
The fuss is about the fact that we can’t keep our best players and can’t get rid of the useless ones! Not a problem if we were competing for stuff but we aren’t. Wenger should let others balance the books and concentrate on his job as Team Manager, not that of the FD.
Oh I see, you’re expecting us to be really competitive this season.
I’ve lowered my expectations, I can only see us becoming a force to be reckoned within 2 to 3 years, gradually getting rid of lesser players, buying quality players (Isco for example) while keeping the (British) core playing together. Look at Bayern Munchen, they barely make any changes to their squad on a year to year basis, and the results are there (2 CL finals in 3 years). Whereas we have to rebuild the team every year, which is why performances like the one against Southampton are no longer an exception.
The fuss is about the flat wage structure, not that Wenger decides the wages. Arseblog has done a good job of setting up a straw man in this argument and then knocking it down. The question is not whether Arsene decides the wages on his own or in consultation with the board, but to what degree he influences wages. Wenger further goes on to say he is proud of their flat wage structure (this all originated pre-Kroenke and should dispel claims that Kroenke is responsible for all our problems). The flat wage structure means Arsenal pay mediocre players high wages, then we cannot sell them, so we cannot recruit new players, because the old ones are sitting on too high wages.
It is interesting that Arseblog questions Wenger having too much control over deciding whether Arsenal should buy new players and thinks someone should be putting pressure on him, then in this article he laughs off suggestions that Wenger has too much control over wages. Which is it? Does he have too much control or too little control?
In any case, Arsenals flat wage structure could be a major reason Arsenal has not been able to attract top quality and retain key players, both because they can’t pay them enough and because these players realize Arsenal will never be able to compete with their self-imposed restrictions. I am proud that arsenal are self-sufficient and I would not change that. The wage structure on the other hand is broken, combined with poor recruitment this has left Arsenal adrift and without any easy solution. (Sell the players you say, who is buying I say, and that is the problem)
I did say it was a flawed system, but I don’t think wages are really an issue for most players, they’re well paid.
For example – Cesc didn’t leave because he wasn’t paid enough, he took a cut to go to Barcelona.
I just need to add, look at how many of our high wage players are out on loan. Next ask how many high wage players are loaned out from other top clubs? Usually you loan out young, developing players. We loan out our “deadwood” to get them off the wage bill, but nobody will buy them. Denilson, Bendtner, Chamakh, Djourou, we would loan Squill if someone would have him, we’ve been trying get rid of Arshavin for nearly two years. In my opinion Ramsey will soon join this list of illustrious talent. It really says it all about how bad our wages are (and by bad I mean good, if your average join Arsenal, they’ll pay you like a rockstar).
@ Arseblog
Cesc was special, and wages might not have mattered to the skunk or even to Walcott now, they just want to be part of a team that can win. Unfortunately Arsenal has been mismanaged to the degree that players are losing faith, I think that Wenger coming out and saying he has a big say on wages, including the flat wage structure, puts a lot of the responsibility for Arsenals current plight in his hands. As you wrote in todays blog, Wenger might be holding the team back by not wanting to recruit new players, the “that would kill Denilson” problem.
If so, fans need to reevaluate whether it is Kroenke and the board, or Wenger, or all of them, that are responsible for our steady decline.
Look, you won’t catch me arguing against the point that certain players are paid too much. We gambled on potential. I remember Gazidis saying something about how they paid above the market as a way of securing the futures of young players they thought were going to make it, but obviously that hasn’t worked in most cases.
I don’t think we disagree, but by quoting the most outrageous of the news coverage of Wengers comments, and ignoring the part about the wage structure, makes it look like you have an agenda in dismissing the type of criticism these comments generate. I thought that Wengers comments were the most interesting news from the last 24hrs, yet you ignored them in the blog and dismissed them here as sensationalist journalism, yet not all of the coverage is as bad as the Mirror and this article is nothing more than a don’t look here, nothing to see, they (the media) are all idiots, it ignores some of the issues that underlie the comments, issues I think are important.
But good of you to keep addressing these comments, I would just ignore me.
We should never have needed to play young, unproven players unusually high wages because we had another attraction to offer: namely that they’d get first-team football with us, including in the CL, which richer clubs with bigger and better squads wouldn’t offer them. The danger of giving them that as an incentive to join us, of course, was that once they’d proved themselves they’d be off to those richer clubs . . . oh.
I don’t believe wages are usually the main incentive anyway. Success is; playing with good players around you is. Wages matter not so much for how many houses, cars, yachts they can buy you – no top footballer is going short in that respect – but for what they tell you about how you are valued. Wages have to feel fair. Would you feel it was right if you’d worked for 20 years for a company and were in a position of considerable responsibility but were being paid the same as a teenager who’d arrived only last month? Our supposedly equitable wage structure with the kids getting more than they’re worth and the key players getting less almost certainly won’t feel fair to the players. Far from breeding a contented dressing room, I’d suggest it makes for a sense of injustice.
The Cesc argument is old, get a new one. The rest left for more money.
@Neutral
‘this all originated pre-Kroenke and should dispel claims that Kroenke is responsible for all our problems’
Who’s said that Kroenke is responsible for all our problems? In particular, have you ever heard anyone suggest that he interferes with the wage structure? I agree with your point about arseblog setting up a straw man in order to deflect attention from what are legitimate causes of concern, but isn’t this precisely what you’re doing yourself?
OK miranda, I’ll be more specific, that should dispel claims that we did not buy this or that player because Kroeke needs a new ranch, or such that is written in the comments section all the time. I don’t love Kroenke but these problems were apparent long before he become the owner. It is easy to blame the owner, even the Glazers get a ton of shit (leveraged buy out is pretty awful), yet the Glazers have built United into a commercial powerhouse, helping to secure continued success on the pitch.
I wish Arsenal would speculate a little to grow by being successful, but I also think they missed their opportunity, which was back in 2007-2009. Wenger has to build from scratch now, and it is not easy or he is not the genius he is made out to be.
The ‘wage structure problem’ was there before they moved to to the new stadium.
Look at what happen to Blackburn and Leeds when they spent future earnings that didn’t materialise. Both had won the top flight a few years before Wenger arrived and they are now a shadow of the clubs they were before.
The Mirror really needs to think over paying Matt Law’s wages this week.
Apart from Fergurson I dont think there’s any other manager in the world who enjoys job stability as much as Arsene does. Only fergie can back it up with success on the footballing success of the club, Arsene on the other hamnd takes pride in maintaining a “good financial model” Big difference there, we fans deserve better, just saying……COYG today though.
*Footballing aspect/side of the club.
Wenger is a goddamn Commie!
We are only looking to bring in special players says Arsene…or…there are of course great players out there but the fans expect proven names! It is one poetic assessment of the fans reaction too many! ’We believe’….we know that Arsene unearths great talent…so let me start by asking that you please don’t insult us by saying we’ve turned into shallow, quick fix, money oriented chelski fans!
But in fairness…and this is not an assault on Arsenes talents, what were the last lot of last minute panic buys? Hardly special…so perhaps they were unproven gems..not looking likely. Santos, Park, Gervinho…proven to be average at best….very best. But hey we have had many others who have been stellar…it cuts both ways. What is true, is that the promise of milk tomorrow, the realisation of our stunning youth policy, is what we have lived on for the past 8 years. The milk is turning sour and getting harder to swallow.
I think…we think…everyone thinks…we clearly need a quality dm…m’villa has been there for 12 months yet we don’t seem to move. Walcott has been negotiating for nearly as long (undermining the confidence of all – is he really committed…are Arsenal really trying….c’mon Theo where is the love for our club man??) yet spuds, chelski and even Liverpool can wrap up deals for new players in the few days since the market opened. We claim to have money and we clearly need a top quality clinical striker yet we are either fu**ing about over 3-4m extra for Lopez or we are doing f**k all.
These are all worrying or confusing messages Arsene. It looks like we are always too slow, too tight, too uncertain..or simply of the opinion we have the right squad. Take control of the speculation and set out your real vision…talk to us honestly….not vague sound bites that usually mean absolutely nothing. Dare I say do you, the board etc have a real plan..thats probably the key or are we just drifting along as we seem to have for the past two seasons?? This club is all of ours not the preserve of the shareholders.
This season, although other than Manure (and mostly cos of rvp!!!) no one looks to be rocking and rolling, it is getting tighter and tighter. We aren’t so sure of fourth. For the first time in a decade, personally I am not sure we will do it. If we don’t and we end up 5th or lower, the Arsenal experiment will be clinically proven to be at the expense of the Arsenal fans. Our lives, those of the fans (my god I’m 50 and it hasn’t changed since I was a teenager) are positively and negatively impacted by what goes on at 3pm on a saturday. I am Arsenal!!
We never wanted the best balance sheet…reasonable stability of course..but we have that thanks to the economic focus of the past 5 years. Now I want a no holds barred, balls out focus on winning. I want decisive action. I want the inadequate and the disaffected kicked out of the club and the team filled with the type of quality and commitment we had 8 years ago. I want a team that is tight, has winners..fighters…that is not fragile..a team that that has the character and ability to overcome and out play the best. We are Arsenal ffs!!! Where the f**k has that belief gone?? Remember Vieira in the tunnel v utd…I want us to add the gladiatorial element back to the fluid dynamic possession football. It is a tribal game and I want that feeling that whoever we go out against, Stoke or Barcelona, the other team are f**king terrified!!!
Arsenal fans have endured a fall from being one of the top two teams in the country to one of the top four…possibly five…six? We were the Invincibles! The first and thus far ONLY team in history to ever go a year in the premier league with no losses..a truly remarkable team. We had more young talent coming through. What happened?? Is it that the socialist approach in a world full of greedy capitalist who have to finance their baby Bentleys doesn’t work??
Arsene is a legend…and I hope the story isn’t over. Unlike our competitors we didn’t buy success, instead you built a dynasty. A phenomenal team, uncovering truly sensational players and building a playing philosophy that aside from the dinosaurs of the game, the football world universally admires. We see your greatness and we generally stand by you Arsene. In Arsene we trust…but it’s getting harder. Telling us we expect too much is not fair, we tolerate the highest ticket prices in the land. We are THE most loyal of fans….but it is too much to take…and about time Arsene and the board woke up to the frustrations that are felt by the fans……that are not redressed by a balance sheet, self congratulatory back slapping or champions league qualification.
It is hard to deny that the results and the perpetual scrabbling for 4th looks like a deliberate gamble on doing just enough to stay there, until one, two, three of our rising stars makes the difference. It has been 8 years. Unfortunately even Mystic Meg wouldn’t claim the stars are likely to line up for us anytime soon!
So in my humble opinion, as a life long gooner, a loyal and voracious supporter of our great club…It is time Arsenal, Arsene and the board said enough is enough….we are looking to WIN the league, the cups and the major European titles…AS OF NOW, nothing less is an acceptable target. We ARE being caught and it is time to do something. NOW!!!!! COYG, and ffs Arsene, do something that makes us believe that great manager and superb innovator as you have been, you have not run out of ideas and just become a fu**ing accountant in disguise!! Go break the bank, reset your financial plans and short term returns and set a course for football success, not economic prowess…you never know they might just be related!!
tl;dr
FREEEEEEEDOM
Dunno about you guys, i got about halfway through then was like ‘meh’.
I stopped reading as soon as he called Gervinho a panic buy. How panic is to buy in first half of july? No reason to waste time for someone who hasn’t got his facts right. It usually leads to childish rant about getting rid of all the boring lego and bringing new action man figures.
Can you guys please refrain from writing essays in the comment section? It’s the comment section, not essay section!
From the financial point of view it explains why we can’t keep hold of the best players at the club. They soon get offered their real worth elsewhere. Look at van persie, he was the best stricker or top two last year (outside messi and ronaldo). So paying him the same as justin hoyte wouldn’t convince him to stay. Thats all understandable.
What makes players like him twats though is how he thinks fans are dense when they say it’s not about the money.
It wasn’t ONLY about money. He never received an offer from Arsene anyways.
Lol that’s not news, who else should decide how much the player gets?!? The agents!!!
I really really hope we beat Swansea or at least get a reply!
Here’s your reply: Apropos of the game today, we have got to play Swansea again.
some earn too much, some earn too little,
Agree. Denlison can get 55k. Bendtner can get 52k. They earn too much, they should not be offered too much money
Sorry. Denlison can get 50000. But Jenkinson can only get 32000. It is quite unfair. Denlison is useless but Jenkinson is our future
The wages of our players
http://arsenaltruth.squarespace.com/arsenal-truth/2012/2/23/arsenals-130m-wage-bill-exposed.html
That article, and those figures, are wildly incorrect.
@arseblog Never let the facts get in the way of a story!
Sorry but linking to a website which uses very few facts and a whole lot of supposition which it then restates as fact does not add credence to your point.
wenger’s flat wage policy???….just wait till he receives a Thank You note from SAF…one supposedly very greedy player is banging in goals for fun and is very close to winning the coveted trophy….
It’s highly accurate according to Tim Payton of the Arsenal Supporters Trust.
Van Persie told Wenger before the Euros that he was not going to sign an extension. The reasons for that are probably what he said at the time–disagreements about the direction of the club. (We can speculate about what that means–and we have–but it really does not matter.) The club asked him to keep mum about it until afterward so it could secure the signings needed to strengthen the squad (Podolski was already locked up beforehand). I think any retrospective review of the facts will reveal this to be the case. Van Persie was a goner and Wenger knew there was no changing his mind.
Therefore the question was only who would pay Arsenal the most for him, rather than how much should we pay him. Making him play out the remainder of his contract was never going to happen for reasons that would be obvious in the circumstances but have maybe been clouded by the fact are talking about a player who had scored so many goals the previous season.
previous was @ furrowed brow
Could anyone please share a link to a stream for the game?:) thank you!
David Dean , remember him ?
“David Dean (born February 3, 1964) is the American football coach of Valdosta State University. Dean’s teams won the NCAA Division II Football Championship in 2007 (his first year as a head coach) and in 2012.”
Are you saying we should replace Wenger with an American football caoch?
Fuck yeah – with him it could be easier to meet the popular demand for some imposing, phisical, 6’6” bad-asses the team supposedly needs.
Who knows, he might even play Arshavin as a quarterback…
We could be stoke city 2.0
For the first time in a long while we entering an F.A cup 3rd round! match as underdogs!. I mean it could well work in our favour. Oh how the times have changed.
The bookies have us as favourites.
On paper we are perhaps favourites but i’ve never seen a game won on paper. Swansea have topped us twice in as many consecutive games. So we are underdogs and could well win it. Atleast I hope
Your definition of underdog needs some work.
Isn’t that how all companies work?
As a manager, I set range for how much my team members get paid, as i know the market value for wages, and my manager (and FD if necessary) agrees or tells me no.
And if no, I go for less expensive people!
Hey ho.
I think that one of our problems abt not playing at hme so well as cmpared to away…is our home support. At away games…even at Bradford and at Old Trafford, where we were simply awful, our away support often out sung the home support..the same thing which is happening at the Emirates…with our home support being dwarfed out by the away support…we need to be more raucous, if u gt wht i m sayin’
Ramsey starts. Lol coyg.
And yet the better player rosicky is on the bench. This are some of arsenes decisions that baffle me. *shakes head
I hope when Rosicky is 100% he will get time at CM with Caz going to the left wing or benches until refreshed.
He needs to come off for podolski were getting destroyed down his wing and theo let someone fucking else take a free
Yep get him out. Either bring in rosicky or poldi. He’s squandered our best chance for a goal and then does his best to LOSE possesion. Theo once again proving he’s not all that, please arterta, wilshere take those freekicks!
Why is this even that the wages of our players are fixed by Wenger in consultation with the Board.
I have not logged on to this site for a while. What did I miss.
i think the interesting part of the article (not above) was the quote
“We have kept to a structure that makes sense and is defendable when it comes to dealing with every single player. We make exceptions, sometimes, but those exceptions are not too often. If we want to continue to make a profit, we have to respect our structure.”
That for me is exactly what is wrong, i don’t want us to continue to make a profit, i want us to be competitive. I pay a fortune for a season ticket and i do it because i love the club and want to see us succeed, not because i want to see the coffers of invisible shareholders swell. I would be very happy for us to break even and not make a profit if it means we can begin to compete at the top level again. That may not be what a well run ‘company’ does, but i believe that’s what a well run ‘football club’ should be doing. Shame being a shareholder and a football fan are two very different things at Arsenal nowadays.
The game hasn’t even started. ffs support the players during the game.
Bitch about them if/when they’ve turned in a shit performance, not when they are about to hit the pitch.
Wenger is an idealist and thinks his ‘socialist’ wage structure leads to a harmonious group of players. In reality he’s overvaluing & overpaying to many average squad players. When the penny finally drops he finds he can’t get rid. All the while alienating our better performing players who carry the team.
The wage system is wrong. When crap like Gervinho, Denilson and Bendtner can make as much, or close enough, as key players like Arteta and Cazorla then something needs to change.
If Wenger won’t then it’s time for him to leave. We can’t function as a communist club in a western society (when it comes to player wages not the staffs or the boards). The “professor” cant keep his head in the sand. “I don’t know how it works at other clubs” of course he does and if he don’t… Well then he’s outdated and should retire.
“Within that budget, we try to come up with payments that are sensible and defensible.” Denilson, Squid, Gervinho, Djourou, Bendtner, Arshavin, Chamakh, Fabianski… we can’t sell them because they are on stupid money. Someone really should make him defend the payments.
David Moyes is out of contract at the end of this season and we should go for him and move Wenger away from the money.
You do realise that Moyes has vastly out spent Wenger don’t you?
His ‘socialist’ vision is ruining our club. When are you AKB goons going to wake up and smell the coffee? The man’s been a failure for 7 years. At any other ‘top’ club he would’ve been given his marching orders a long time ago.
The more I read Wenger’s statements, the more sick I feel inside. I just want him to go. Now.
Ramsey starting out wide again. Says it all really.
The wage cap is there for a reason. We have a payment plan with paying back our stadium and once it’s paid off we will be getting better players in. I know it looks frustrating and people get annoyed but we owe lots of money. Only problem i see iis the lack of action during transfer windows (bar this summer gone). Players leaving is going to happen and whilst the cap is active it’ll probably keep happening. It’s a good excuse whist we are paying back the stadium but when that’s done, no more excuses.
The stadium debt doesn’t excuse giving average players top class money just to keep them happy. The wage structure is idiotic.
The wage cap is not the problem, it’s having average or below average players being paid well above what they are worth, ie, Chamakh, Denilson, Bendtner, Ramsey, Gibbs, etc.
Michu is the new Drogba for arsenal…tsk tsk tsk
He flicked the ball over a 6 ft 7 defender and made a fool out of him within 2 minutes of coming on
I was an akb, enough is enough what is going on I can’t take any more.wenger must go,are the board dumb.why don’t they listen to the fans ,get rid sooner the better.it will be six years just to get back to where we were four years ago,no more bullshit as for commentator on ESPN you can fuck off
You’ve made yourself look a complete fool here Arseblog. No, it’s NOT up to a football manage to decree who gets paid what. At what other company does a manager tell a boardroom what to pay the company’s employees? None. And none in football either, except Arsenal where Wenger yields insane power.
And Wenger has proved why he should not be involved in making such decisions because the wage structure he implemented has been an utter disaster with a squad brimful of crap players that can’t be moved on because they’re grossly overpaid.
Arsenal is a dysfunctional club with a dysfunctional management structure. And a dysfunctional manager.
Wenger says he pays Socialist wages,listen to the Majority. Do one or upstairs
I don’t think it’s so much that our wage structure is flawed, granted it may not be the 100% best ( but then what in gods green earth is? ) but I think it’s when we are forced to compete with your chelseas and manchester scum of this day that peoples perspectives get skewed.
Isn’t it logical and sensible that you pay average and unproven players average wages, and pay your top performers the market rate, instead of trying to make everyone on an even footing? We would be able to move away from this wage cap nonsense and compete properly. Since when has football become a socialist economic experiment?
Wengers got to go, over the pass couple of days some of things he has said has for me made his position untenable.
From him saying that the market would be quiet at the beginning of the transfer window to him declaring his interest in Holtby only for him to sign for Spurs later that day, demonstrated just how clueless and off the pace he has become. How can you say the market will be quiet when you’re a potential buyer?! If you put in an offer, you’re free to buy whenever you choose!!
But the final straw has to be his “Socialist” wage structure. it’s simply unacceptable that he can pursue a personal agenda that affects Arsenal ability to be competitive. Absolutely outrageous, he’s got to go, and until he has i’m not putting a penny of my own money in their direction.
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