Well, if you read my column from the 21st you’d know that I do think it’s a big deal because debate about whether it’s good to to have a left [...]]]> So Clichy is gone and the last of the Invincibles goes off to the Eastlands to finish his career in the lap of luxury. Big deal, right?

Well, if you read my column from the 21st you’d know that I do think it’s a big deal because debate about whether it’s good to to have a left back who makes a lot of tackles aside; not only was he a terrific servant, but he’s only 25 years old, and the best part of his career is ahead of him. Worse, we enter the meat of the transfer season, with the team on parade in Asia, and Arsenal needing to replace a left back as well as add components to the team. I guess I’m saying that right after I read that he completed the deal, I could understand the panic that I’ve seen around.

I know that Clichy wasn’t the greatest in the air, that his crosses were diabolical and that he made mistakes, but the one thing that I heard countless times last season was “I don’t care if they can play or not, just give me a player who plays hard.” Judging by some of the comments from supporters toward Clichy the last few months I guess that idea that you just want players who give their all is another of those Gooner myths that can be retired.

Like I said, with Clichy gone, Song being accused of assault, Arsenal already needing to add reinforcements, and everything about the club being slaughtered daily in the press (even from reporters who claim to be supporters) I can understand where the panic comes from. If Manchester City want a player, they will have him. To a lesser extent, if Chelsea want a player they will have him. To put it succinctly, Manchester City offer transfer fees and wages that even Barcelona players can’t resist. Yaya Toure is on some kind of 1/4 million a week deal at City and Chelsea aren’t far behind in terms of the crazy salaries and fees that they can offer.

Even if Arsenal completely destroyed the wage structure can they afford to pay the third or fourth best left-back in the League what Cesc is making? That’s what he’s now earning.

Which brings me to my points. First, Arsenal cannot compete with City and Chelsea financially. And second, is it any wonder that Nasri wants £100k when Clichy is making £90k?

To the first, it’s a stone cold fact that City and Chelsea have collectively spent £1bn+ in transfers over the last few years. It’s also a stone cold fact that he who spends the most tends to win the most and so it has come to pass that Chelsea have won a bunch of trophies and City seem to be starting down that same path.

Arsenal haven’t been exactly paupers but rather than transfers we’ve sunk our money in wages. Moving to the new stadium the club looked at the market and saw that clubs like Chelsea, Barcelona, and Real Madrid were spending on both wages and transfers and getting into massive debt. Looking at their own books Arsenal must have reckoned that they had a choice; be like Tottenham and spend a bunch in transfers but have your players picked off with hugely improved wage offers every year or stop buying players and use that money to try to keep your up and coming players and the stars happy.

Or, the third option, invite in a billionaire who will line your coffers with iron pyrite. I don’t know what happened in the board room but from the outside it looks like a civil war erupted and the side that wanted the self-sustaining model over the Oligarch model won. From that point forward, Arsenal made a conscious decision to spend on salary rather than on constant transfers in. There would be no super billionaire owner and without a sugar daddy, Arsenal cannot simultaneously have a salary structure in the top three or four and have a transfer budget in the top three or four because the top three are in a different league of spending.

Arsenal made a business decision and in retrospect it might have been wrong but only because the business climate changed in the last three years. When Ashley Cole left his boyhood club for Chelsea, he “nearly crashed his car” when Arsenal offered him the amount of money that Denilson makes now. Gael Clichy is reportedly making £90k which is supposedly the same as Cesc Fabregas and of course we know that Rooney makes some outrageous amount of money, but not nearly as outrageous as Yaya Toure. In short, the addition of a second moneyed owner has taken what was already a distorted system and warped it further.

When Arsenal built the Emirates the idea was to level the playing field but the problem is that the field was ripped up, plowed, and replanted with £50 notes. To compete on the new field Arsenal might need to fire the likes of Denilson, sure. They may need to change the wage structure and stop paying players like JET, Frimpong, Watt and Lansbury double or triple what other teams pay, right. They could become leaner and more efficient and add new revenue streams, certainly. Regardless what happens they will need to keep any transfers in very secret so as not to tip off the big sharks that blood is in the water, absolutely. They will need to do all this while still finishing in the top four and competing for trophies and possibly winning something or half the supporters will stop going to the games (which technically means they will stop “supporting” the team) and they will stop being picked up on television which will lead to a downward spiral of income, yes.

And even if they do all that? What will happen when City come along next year and offer £80m for Wilshere, plus drop hints that he’ll be the first player to make £300k, 400k, or even half a million a week?

You think that’s impossible? That if only Arsenal were slightly better managed we could compete against the likes of City and their bags of gold? That somehow Financial Fair Play will save us from a future which sees the fields of the English Premier League plowed under to grow money trees?

Perhaps I’m in a bit of a cynical mood today, but I’m not so sure.

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It’s common knowledge that Arsenal play the most beautiful football in England. It’s also reported hourly that Arsenal have not won “a trophy” in the 5 years since they moved down the block to their bigger, newer home. And it is reported somewhat less frequently that the newer home has guaranteed massive increases in profits while [...]]]>

It’s common knowledge that Arsenal play the most beautiful football in England. It’s also reported hourly that Arsenal have not won “a trophy” in the 5 years since they moved down the block to their bigger, newer home. And it is reported somewhat less frequently that the newer home has guaranteed massive increases in profits while at the same time funding one of the largest wage bills in the League.

No, I’m not going to talk about Arsenal’s finances. For that discussion I recommend the very thorough Swiss Ramble’s article Cash City Rockers. It’s impossible for me to condense his article into a single sentence so I won’t even try. Just read it if you want to have the most complete understanding of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead (financially) for Arsenal FC.

Instead, I want to turn my attention to Liverpool FC and their prospective buyers Henry and Werner. There is a lot of speculation around what the investment group may or may not do and given what I know about them and the Boston Red Sox I thought I might throw my predictions out for all the world (or all 3 people who read this) to see.

Sabermetrics at Liverpool

When it comes to sports, Henry and company are acolytes at the church of Sabermetrics. For my English readers, Sabermetrics is about the “search for objective knowledge about baseball.” And I call it a church because devotees tend to be absolute in their zeal for the system and its internal logic.

What Sabermetrics preaches is instead of asking questions like “how many shirts will Gerrard sell” they ask “how much does Gerrard actually contribute to his team’s success?”

This means that emotional things like what passport a player carries or common sense notions like “he’s Liverpool through and through” will no longer be valid reasons to buy or keep a player. Statistical analysis will win over emotions in most cases.

Arsenal did a similar move when Arsene Wenger took over the club. Wenger modernized the diet and training regimen for his players, introduced statistical analysis of player movements, and used data rather than emotion to sell players who were at or beyond their peak. It hasn’t been perfect but the performances of players like Henry and Vieira were never at the level that they were when they played for Arsenal.

Given the above, I expect that these new owners will get rid of overpaid, underperforming players like Carragher and Gerrard and bring in fresh players.

But, like Arsenal, don’t expect them to bring in big names. Big names cost more than they are worth and using lessons from Soccernomics and Sabermetrics Liverpool’s new owners will be scouring the world for bargains who fit the team and contribute rather than big names who sell shirts and bring headaches.

Fresh ideas in the manager’s office will be required as well and you will almost certainly not see Roy Hodgson’s 20 year old football management style kicking around for long after the sale. What they will be looking for is someone like, well, like Arsene Wenger. A manager who will keep them competitive for years and revolutionize the football team.

Joint ventures in beautiful football

Another thing that Henry and Werner will be keen to replicate is Arsenal’s successes in terms of building a new stadium and keeping it full. Once they build a beautiful football team that is competitive and that keeps wages down, I suspect that they will look to growth opportunities in gate receipts.

Liverpool’s current match day revenue as a total of their turnover is an appallingly low 23% at Eur. 43m compared to Arsenal’s Eur.100m and 50% ratio. Arsenal do this through a combination of three things: some of the highest ticket prices in Europe, a larger stadium (60,335 at Emirates v. 45,276 at Anfield), and (since having a big stadium alone is useless) the highest percentage of seat sales compared to any other team (Arsenal sell 99.37% of available seats).

Arsenal even manage to beat Chelsea to percentage of seats sold, and they have been perennial title challengers since Abramovich spent $1bn creating his real-life football manager’s dream team. Despite having won everything, Chelsea are joint 2nd place with Fulham at 99.25% of available seats sold.

In fact, Chelsea’s numbers in general point to one thing and one thing only: people don’t pay to watch boring football. For all his billions spent, Chelsea only managed to get an additional 1,600 season ticket holders in the last 5 years. Meanwhile Arsenal have gone from a 38,000 seat arena to a 60,000 seat arena and have maintained massive attendance figures and doubled their season ticket sales.

Blackburn, Birmingham, and Bolton on the other hand struggle to fill even their small stadiums with small ticket prices. Bolton is the lowest of the group averaging just over 20,000 people per game and an amazingly low 72% capacity.

Beautiful football sells.

So, once they transform the team they will be looking to expand capacity and I suspect that no stone will be left unturned here. A joint stadium with Everton seems almost unthinkable but it has been mooted before and the opportunity to share the costs of a new stadium with even the most heated of rivals would surely be enticing.

What they will certainly do is increase box seats. That is what this group of investors did at Boston, that is what Arsenal did, and it is the most lucrative way for any sports team to increase revenue. I’m sure there will be some token gesture to the average fans, but they will be looking to increase Liverpool’s matchday revenues with luxury boxes before the insane costs of building an entirely new stadium is ever even considered.

Troubles ahead

Obviously, it’s not going to be an easy road. Transforming the kick and rush football that is seemingly embedded into the DNA of Liverpool is going to take some time. Getting the fans to accept beautiful football, played by foreigners and unknowns, with the occasional trophy thrown in is not an easy task.

Moreover, they will find the world of football vastly different from the “collusive oligopoly” that is Major League Baseball. Only in America can a sports team, using monopoly power, run by billionaires who don’t ever invest any of their own money, do things like break unions and impose salary caps and hold cities hostage over upgrades to their facilities. In the USA a team like the Seattle Supersonics can tell the city of Seattle that they need to build them more luxury boxes or they will move to Oklahoma City and when Seattle refuses, they move. The new owners will find no such luxuries in England where the European labor laws actually protect workers (even rich ones) and where the city of Liverpool will collectively tell the new owners where they can put their required new stadium.

They will also be looking for success on the field, make no mistake, because success on the field increases the value of the club. They will find success very hard to come by in the Premier League especially if they aren’t paying the big wages that clubs like City and Chelsea manage. Liverpool fans should be ready to see their own versions of Adebayor and Toure go to rivals like Man City and the club will still need to be competitive, just as Arsenal has done.

Hidden in the paragraph above is the last thing that I predict will become more like Arsenal. These men are investors, not benefactors like Abramovich, and they will want to maximize profits in their investment. They are sports lovers but they are also investors and in a sense, what I think that Liverpool are trading is short term speculators in Hicks and Gillette for long-term investors.

Henry doesn’t have the personal fortune that even someone like Hicks or Gillette have so he won’t be putting his own money into the team. Instead, he will be looking for ways, like Arsenal, to make money in order to re-invest and grow the company. Selling players, increasing match day revenue (higher ticket prices and bigger stadiums), developing talent, and all the other things that Arsenal get decried for doing in the press (because “we haven’t won a trophy for five years”) are likely going to become du jour at Liverpool.

If they are to be successful in this venture, though, I think that they will need to emulate Arsenal in many respects. And Scousers the world over might need to start boning up on their French.

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Seattle SuperSounders average attendance: 36,144

Tottenham Hotspurs average attendance: 35,710

Total number of goals scored in the Premier League so far: 187

Home goals scored: 110

Away goals scored: 77

Average goals per game in the EPL: 2.67

Average goals per game in the MLS: 2.43

Arsenal goals scored: 16

Percent of [...]]]> Attendance for the Seattle SuperSounders back-to-back U.S. Open Cup win last night: 31,311

Seattle SuperSounders average attendance: 36,144

Tottenham Hotspurs average attendance: 35,710

Total number of goals scored in the Premier League so far: 187

Home goals scored: 110

Away goals scored: 77

Average goals per game in the EPL: 2.67

Average goals per game in the MLS: 2.43

Arsenal goals scored: 16

Percent of total goals scored: 8.5%

Percent of total goals that have been scored by Chelsea: 12%

Number of Arsenal players who have scored this season: 9

Percent of Arsenal’s goals scored by injured player Theo Walcott: 25%

Tottenham goals scored: 8

Average IQ of the Tottenham supporter: 73

Place on Forbes Richest Americans List for Liverpool’s proposed buyer John William Henry II: 0

Last known wealth estimate before the housing bubble burst: £540,000,000

Reported sale price of Liverpool: £300,000,000

Current price per share of Arsenal FC: £10,250

Value of all Arsenal’s shares: £637,740,000

Number of minutes for the fan video Dear Mr. Hicks…: 6:42

Number of videos I want to make called “Dear Mr. Allardyce”: 1

Number of podcasts I have completed to date: 1

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I didn’t get the chance to finish Kuper and Syzmanski’s incredibly detailed book about football finance called Soccernomics before my library loan was recalled but I did get far enough in to learn that football is not big business.

Take for example the latest turnover figures for every club in the league published in the Guardian courtesy [...]]]>

I didn’t get the chance to finish Kuper and Syzmanski’s incredibly detailed book about football finance called Soccernomics before my library loan was recalled but I did get far enough in to learn that football is not big business.

Take for example the latest turnover figures for every club in the league published in the Guardian courtesy my favorite document archive Scribd. Arsenal blew everyone away with an astonishing £316m turnover in the annual accounts ending in June 2009. That was the season, you’ll remember where Arsenal finished 4th in the Premier League and were knocked out of the Champions League in the semi-finals by eventual runners-up Manchester United: before the Summer sales of Adebayor and Toure, before Arsenal paid off the debt on the Highbury Square development, and before we played Barcelona in one of the most anticipated quarter-finals in Champions League history. If Arsenal don’t break another record with the profit reports due out any minute now, I will quit blogging.

Still, £316m is chump change in the world of business. Tesco, you know the little store where you get a paper, a can of lager, and a apple wrapped in plastic on the way home from work, that Tesco had an annual turnover of £62bn. If you add up all the turnover from all the clubs in the Premier League I believe you get somewhere near £3bn, with the top 5 clubs (Arsenal, ManU, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Tottenham) ringing in over a third of that total. Still, at £3bn turnover it’s just 5% of Tesco’s turnover and we aren’t even talking about profits. Tesco reportedly made over £3bn in profits last year. Football is hardly big business.

What’s even more amazing is that for some clubs, match day revenue is an astonishingly low percentage of the total turnover. Take a well supported club like Everton, they are 8th on the list of Premier League attendance this season, packing in an average of 36,725 souls (nearly capacity at Goodison) and they managed just £22m in gate and match day income. That’s less than half their payroll of £49m.  Only Arsenal even come close to pegging their payroll to match day receipts with a payroll of £104m and match day receipts at a cool £100m. All the other teams rely, in most cases heavily, on television revenue to bankroll their bloated payrolls.

It’s a common phrase to hear a supporter say “my season tickets pay for the salary of these players and so I expect more from them” or, “I deserve a trophy with all that I pay to see this team play week in and week out.” At Arsenal those statements ring pretty true; our gate receipts are 2nd in the League behind only Manchester United. But the sad reality is that at a club like Aston Villa their payroll of £71m is completely underwritten by the £49m they got in television revenue.

That television revenue is currently going up by about £10m for each club this year because the Premier League just signed a deal which raised overseas television revenues to over £1bn. That puts us people watching your teams at nearly half of total television rights money. The rights money which completely subsidizes your team’s payroll.

That means that more than ever, it’s me, the “fat Yank” in America, getting up at 4am and watching Chelsea crush Villa on ESPN2 in High Definition that is underwriting the growth of the Premier League and their ability to attract the world’s best talent. Unfortunately, those crazy television revenues have also underwritten the enormous debt that threatens to sink clubs like Liverpool, Man U, and Chelsea.

And that’s the problem. This whole thing seems imbalanced and in fact, very much like an economic bubble. In the old days, clubs could rely on a steady stream of income from the people who showed up to watch the team play. They’d sell an occasional shirt, some beer, maybe a special commemorative scarf for the odd European night but that was all gravy. Match day revenue was king.

And by and large it was a sustainable enterprise. The only way that teams went out of business was if they went crazy and spent beyond their means. It happened a few times, teams were reorganized, or in the case of Wimbledon renamed, and they went back into the “business” of entertaining whatever sized crowd they could draw and paid payrolls equivalent to that crowd.

But lately, things are getting a little bit crazy. Clubs are being taken over by billionaires who are willing to dump billions into a club, buy up tons of talent, inflate transfer prices, inflate wages, and hope to hitch their new found club on the star of the Champions League. And to some extent, this is underwritten by the promise of crazy television revenues and prize money.

Manchester City, for example, had gate receipts of just £15m last year and while their attendance is up a bit over last year, I don’t expect that number to jump any where near the amount that their salary probably jumped from the £83m they reportedly paid out last term. After all, mercenaries like Tevez, Barry, and Adebayor don’t come cheap with estimates that have Manciti paying in excess of £125m in salary this year. That’s nearly 10 times the gate receipts.

I’d like to say that again, because it seems mildly important: Manchester City will in all likelihood be paying 9-10 times their gate receipts in salary. That, folks, is a bubble. Whenever you stumble onto an economic situation where people are making wildly irrational economic decisions because they believe that there is a payday at the end of some mythical tunnel, you have found a bubble. And bubbles always burst.

Often the bubble bursts on its own with the outer shell seemingly normal until suddenly the whole thing just collapses in a puff. Think back to the economic panic in the U.S. of a few years ago. Things were going along pretty normally, with everyone believing that the housing market would go up and up forever. And even more importantly, people believing that the derivatives that giant financial corporations were creating out of thin air would always return profits. When suddenly… just one company looked weak and all the other companies suddenly refused to lend it money. Within what seemed like hours the whole system collapsed.

Now think about Setanta. As much as I made fun of Setanta, it was the channel which basically built football’s presence in the States. I know Fox Soccer Channel was first, but they only played one or two games a week and that usually meant that I only got to see Arsenal once a month. Once Setanta burst onto the scene, I went from being able to see Arsenal occasionally, to being able to watch every single Arsenal match, including pre-season friendlies, and early round Carling Cup matches. At the height of the Setanta TV bubble, I often bragged that I could watch more live matches than people who lived in Islington — and it was true.

But that was a bubble and it burst as Setanta went out of business and their television rights were sold off to various interests. Most going to Fox Soccer Channel, who quickly created a second channel to divert the good games to called Fox Soccer Plus. Now, it’s difficult for me to watch games. I almost certainly will not be able to watch Carling Cup matches next year and if the end of the season viewing availability is any indication, live Arsenal matches on television in the States will decrease, not increase.

So while some fans are going to see less and less of their team on television legally, technology is going step in and be a huge challenge for Fox and ESPN going forward. Illegal streams of football matches have become so widespread that people don’t even seem afraid to mention this illegal activity that they are about to engage in publicly on blogs. With all these pressures and with big teams sucking up hundreds of millions in television rights, will Villa fans be able to count on £49m in television payments going forward?

I don’t think so, I think it’s a bubble, and I think it’s about to burst. Which brings me to the thesis; when the bubble bursts Arsenal are in the best possible financial health of any team in the Premier League. With turnover at 3x their payroll, a sustainable payroll structure pegged to gate receipts, and the derided investments in real estate turning huge profits, Arsenal football club look prepared to not only withstand any type of financial collapse in the Premier League but gain significant advantage from it.

I’ve heard some supporters on other sites say “you can eat the money with the board. I’d rather have a rich guy come along and sink us into £500m in debt to win some trophies!” But that’s not just short sighted, it’s missing the whole forest and the trees. Even if Stan Kroenke or Usmanov were to buy up the club and fulfill your dream, the financial rules, the television revenues, and the League are going to be changing because there is a coming tidal wave of change when the bubble bursts. You will no longer be able to rely on £50m in television revenue and it’s too late for a rich investor to come to Arsenal indebt us because we are 1-2 years out from that model no longer being viable under UEFA rules — unless you don’t care about playing in the Champions League.

Better then to have a club where they aren’t dependent on the false hope of ever increasing television revenue. Better to have a club who are diversified in their investments and own real estate which adds profit back into the club regardless the onfield success or failure. Better to have a production line of young talent at your disposal rather than having to constantly dip into a market annually inflated by rich owners playing real-life Championship Manager. Better to have a wage bill pegged to gate receipts which can change with the times and roll with inevitable ups and downs of football.  Better to have a stable manager who despite “not winning a trophy for five years” is so connected to his players that he can convince his star pupil to stick with them for one more year as the fruits of the clubs austerity are about to pay bounty. Better to have a club which I can deliver proudly to my two-year old daughter who already loves to say “Arsenal” when she’s a little older which will be the only club in the world who’s fans can legitimately sing “Arsenal, ARRRRSENALL FC! We’re the Greatest Club the World Has Ever Seen!”

There’s a bubble out there and that bubble is about to burst and only Arsenal have the model ready to not only withstand that bubble bursting but profit from it. Which is really what capitalism and sport is all about; saving, austerity, planning, and when the right situation presents itself, you capitalize on it and destroy your opponents.

So, while Arsenal might not be big business with their laughable £316m in annual turnover they certainly do seem to be business smart — which you might expect if the manager is an economist. And from where I’m sitting, they seem to be poised for something bigger than anyone previously imagined: I think Arsenal wants to be THE superclub of Europe for decades to come.

And when the bubble bursts, they will.

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Quick blog today as I have construction folks coming to the house for, well, for construction purposes and I have to get some prep work done before they get here.

A brief insight into how the 7amkickoff blog works goes like this: I read the newspapers, see big stories, and little stories, then I try to make [...]]]>

Quick blog today as I have construction folks coming to the house for, well, for construction purposes and I have to get some prep work done before they get here.

A brief insight into how the 7amkickoff blog works goes like this: I read the newspapers, see big stories, and little stories, then I try to make sure no one else is covering a topic and write a blog based on my opinion. On the rare day when there’s not much going on, I can’t think of a neat article, or I’m still researching a topic, I’ll do lazy links and silly one-liners.

Occasionally, there’s a big story which demands coverage and I am forced to comment and as you all know a big story broke today.  L’Equipe are reporting that Arsenal have made a £4m bid for Ligue 2 Lorient’s Laurent Koscielny despite the fact that the official dot com has already basically nixed any deal by publishing a “transfer linked” story on the player.

This is quite a quandary as you can see! On the one hand, L’Equipe is extremely reliable. If they say Arsenal made a bid, then chances are very good that Arsenal have made a bid. On the other hand, the dot com can’t very well go around officially tapping up players by publishing “transfer linked” stories about players that Arsenal are actually interested in, that’s the kind of thing that a grubby club like Barcelona would do.

So, what to believe?

I believe that Arsenal made a bid for Koscielny and Lorient made a counter off that Arsenal thought too pricey and they dropped their interest in the player and subsequently published the “transfer linked” story to officially show disinterest in the player.

Think about it for a second, every player that Arsenal have been linked to (except one or two, who I will get to in a second) has been published in the “transfer linked” section right around the same time that some kind of official story from the player’s current club is released that shows Arsenal have no interest. Bolton’s boss said today that they have made an approach to keep Jack Wilshere for another year and added in that no one has made an approach for Gary Cahill. Oh hey, look, Cahill’s also been “transfer linked.” Scwarzer, Taylor, Mbia, Jagielka, Arteta, Buffon, Toure, and Wright-Phillips all round out the players which Arsenal have “transfer linked.”

Notably absent from the list is the defender that we have been almost constantly linked to: Pape Diakhate. If the “transfer linked” article isn’t basically an official denial then why are all the others listed and not Diakhate? Optimistic observers will also note that Joe Hart has not been “transfer listed” yet. So, hey, maybe something is going on there!

It’s as least as strong a speculation as most of the best English papers.

That’s about all that’s going on today, right?

What? Oh the John Cross article about Cesc quitting because of Peter Hill-Wood’s comments?  I read it, and as I was reading it, my first thought was John was being used by Cesc’s agent and David Dein’s son to foment disarray among board members. So, I checked Arseblog and he pretty much said the same thing though much better than I would have put it. So, if you want to know what I think, read his column.

Come on, Cesc is a big boy, he knows that Peter Hill-Wood often makes stupid statements. He also knows that PHW was speaking the truth and that if he transfers to Barca this year, he will be trading time with Xavi and won’t get an automatic starting spot. It’s hardly a controversial statement. Maybe a bit injudicious, but hardly controversial. Methinks he doth protest too much.

The other big story is that UEFA passed their phony baloney “anti-financial-doping” rule which should be a big story except I suspect that it will just force teams like Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man U to do more creative accounting. Never underestimate the ability of a corporation to “cook the books” when something important like the Champions League payday is on the line. More on that later.

Until tomorrow, I gotta get ready for this construction crew!

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I remember it now. I remember seeing that live last season and remarking [...]]]> Good morning folks. Yesterday’s blogs were fun and the commentary from the readers very good. Many of you mentioned Marouane Chamakh’s header againsy Olympiakos as eviudence of what this yopung player brings to the Arsenal and of course, I went and had a look.

I remember it now. I remember seeing that live last season and remarking that he seems absolutely fearless when it comes to heading the ball. But maybe it was a one off?

Nope (warning: rap music).

He’s just plain aggressive. Note how many times he gets punched in the head by keepers in that video and remember that’s just one season (supposedly). Between Chamakh and Vermaelen (and Sol giving lessons) we should win every header next year — every one, no hyperbole. Now, if we can get some decent crosses…

Couple of other weird stories today. West Ham reportedly bid for Thierry Henry and Robert Pires reportedly doesn’t want to go to Philadelphia because it’s not a beautiful city.

The Henry story is obviously just the new Wet Hams owners making it look like they are going to spend money this off season. They know Henry isn’t going to play at West Ham, he’s repeatedly said that he’ll never play in the Premier League again. Plus, he wants £75,000 a week and for a player who’s skill level has dropped as precipitously as his that’s an insane wage. No, he’s going to play for the Red Bulls after the World Cup. Mark my words.

As for the Bobby Pires story, I sympathize. The Philly Union stadium is actually not in Philadelphia but in the suburb where I was born. Actually, suburb would be a compliment, try “burned out industrial wasteland.” I love my home town but no one thinks of Chester, Pennsylvania as a wonderful place to live. Just to put it in a little more context, Robert Pires would be moving from Vila-Real a lovely old town in Valencia on the Mediterranean known for it’s oranges to Chester on the Delaware river known for its casinos and economic depression.

Not only that but Philly fans are world renown for how quick they turn on their players. If I was him, I’d think long and hard about whether I really need to keep playing football if my only option is Chester.

And finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the interview that Rafa Benitez gave to Gooner’s favorite journo, Guile Ball-gag. I’m not sure which is worse, Guile Ball-gag cashing in on his recent Fabregas generated notoriety or Rafa Benitez defending his record with the ghosts of Istanbul, again.

My favorite line was when he said that Liverpool won 4 trophies in his 6 years at Liverpool. I had to go look up what the hell he was talking about: Champions League, check; FA Cup, check; Charity Shield, uhhh; UEFA Super Cup, what???

That’s not four trophies, that’s two trophies and two exhibition games for fuck’s sake. I mean, only a megalomaniac would count the Charity Shield amongst his accomplishments.

I also won the Charity Shield; NEVER FORGET!

We get it Rafa, you won the Champions League, with a team built by another manager. We also get it that you finished 5th in the Premier League that season and UEFA had to create a new rule just for you so that you could play in the Champions League the next. We also remember that the very next year you won the FA Cup, still with the other man’s team. And we get it that you count one game tournaments as equivalent accomplishments, because you’re a muppet.

I hope Benitez sticks around a few more years, he’s endlessly entertaining. My only question is, do you think he’ll manage Liverpool when they make the drop next year? From what I can tell, the banks are going to force them to sell Torres and Gerrard and they still might be insolvent. That would mean losing 37 goals and a 10 point deduction where middle of the pack would be a good result.

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Arsenal started the season off with a bang, just not the one we were hoping for as Eduardo’s penalty award and subsequent media furor moved non-English player’s diving habits to the top of everyone’s wish list for top things football’s governing bodies should “stamp out.”

The anti-diving crusaders were whipped into a further furor [...]]]> English players don’t dive!

Arsenal started the season off with a bang, just not the one we were hoping for as Eduardo’s penalty award and subsequent media furor moved non-English player’s diving habits to the top of everyone’s wish list for top things football’s governing bodies should “stamp out.”

The anti-diving crusaders were whipped into a further furor when UEFA’s own official, watched the replay and testified that there was indeed contact between Eduardo and Boric. He then ruled, again, that he would have called it a penalty which should have exonerated the Arsenal forward but instead drove people bat-shiat crazy.

Ordinary people, people I used to enjoy watching a football match with, now watch every match and unless there is leg-breaking contact in the box they scream “dive! dive! DIVE!” every time a player goes to ground. Even when contact is definitively proven, such as Karl Henry’s absurd tackle on Rosicky which video evidence shows left stud marks on Thomas’ calf, the claims are raised that the player has dived in order to get the opponent sent off.

And frankly, that trend is the most disturbing outcome. Never mind the xenophobic remarks of PROVEN serial diver Wayne Rooney, who is on record saying that he has never dived and yet there are multiple videos proving conclusively that he has without a doubt dived. The really disturbing outcome is that diving is the one thing most fans want to see eradicated from the game, while insane lunges like Ryan Shawcross, Karl Henry, and Craig Gardner go not only relatively unpunished but defended to the hilt.

You can lose to the other top teams, but you can’t lose to Wigan

Arsenal managed to lose to Chelsea twice and Man U twice but it wasn’t those losses which killed the season, it was a game against Wigan away. Despite all the hyperbole in the press saying that clashes between title contenders are “6 point games” a loss is just a loss.

Where Arsenal went awry this year is dropping points on the road. Arsenal’s away record was an abyssal 8-4-7 with multiple times the team dropping points from a secure position.  Improve the away form and concentration and win games like West Ham, Burnley, Birmingham, Wigan, and Blackburn for a combined 12 points. Do that and we are champions.

People REALLY want Arsenal to play in a red shirt with white sleeves.

I’m still getting hits over the Arsenal 2010/2011 shirt rumors. It’s a bit strange I have to say.

The rules ARE different in England

Arsenal fans, and Arsene Wenger, have two choices: keep complaining that the rules are different in England than the rest of the world or embrace it and buy 3 Ryan Shawcrosses and deploy them to break Wayne Rooney’s leg when needed.

The notion of “intent” is not in the rules and yet intent is all that anyone talks about. If a player lunges studs up, knee high, as John Terry did on James Milner it’s a red card because it is excessive force, see for yourself:

How that tackle is not “use of excessive force” is a mystery only solved if Howard Webb decides that “John Terry isn’t that kind of guy” and deems the tackle “reckless.” But the fact is that is a career ending tackle made by an England international (and former captain) and that is the kind of thing we saw Chelsea players like Ashley Cole, John Terry, and Frank Lampard get away with all their careers.

If Terry tries that same challenge at the World Cup, he will be sent straight off. Everyone knows it. The rules ARE different in England and Arsenal, despite their valiant effort to drag the EPL into the 21st Century need to embrace that with some English leg breakers of our own. Save the tippy-tappy for the Champions League.

Defense wins championships but offense is crucial too!

The best defensive team in the EPL was Man U this year, but they ended up scoring 17 less goals than top finishers Chelsea and themselves finished second with just 1 point difference. Meanwhile, Liverpool had the third best defense in the League, scored 42 (!!!) less goals than Chelsea, and finished in 7th place. And Arsenal edged Tottenham to third place in the League by having the same defensive record but scoring 16 more goals.

Defense nearly won Man U the title, nearly.

Never underestimate Manchester United

Speaking of which, how the f*ck is it possible for United to lose Ronaldo and Tevez and go on to score 16 more goals than they did last year, where they finished 1st? I mean, Ronaldo scored 18 League goals for United, Tevez scored 5 and the team scores more?

And don’t tell me it was Own Goal. I know he was United’s second leading scorer but he still scored less than Ronaldo and Tevez combined. I’m still puzzling this whole thing out.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the quality in England is so poor this year that the title was really up for grabs and Arsenal let it slip though our fingers?

Liverpool in much, much, much worse trouble than I thought

According to the guys at Untold Arsenal, Liverpool are unable to repay their debts and are now living off the largess of the banks. Not only that, but clubs are eyeballing their top talent, fans are threatening a season ticket boycott, and they are out of the Champions League.

You Scouse better hope that some fool buys your club.

Sol proves you can teach a young dog old tricks

Sol Campbell was a revelation both on the pitch and, hopefully, in Arsene Wenger’s thinking. Wenger had previously promised never to pick up a former player and famously passed on Anelka and Patrick Vieira over the last few years. So why the change of heart about Sol?

I think Sol has the right attitude and I’m not sure the other two did. Vieira has looked very, very poor since signing with Manciti in January but Anelka has been crucial to Chelsea’s rampant scoring and the only knock is on his sulky attitude.

With Wenger shipping off trouble-makers like Adebayor and yet keeping other trouble-makers like Gallas while re-hiring Sol and leaving Anelka out, I’m left wondering what it is that he really looks for in a player?

I don’t know, but I do know Sol has been brilliant and deserves another year. If nothing else, to give the young players some heading practice.

Nigella Lawson? She’s nice.

No reason, just saying.

November is odd, you’re my firing squad

Wenger mentioned November as the time which makes or breaks Arsenal’s season and it’s no wonder, that’s when Arsenal’s youth team go off to have their legs broken in meaningless international friendlies!

I’ll always remember that November was when Arsenal lost van Persie, the team returned tired from their international travels and then lost 1-0 to Sunderland, and meanwhile Chelsea’s internationals all had “knocks” or got “cramps” and were well rested for the busy Winter schedule.

Cesc is irreplaceable

Sorry, but Nasri can’t do it. We saw that as the season wound down.

You could say the same about Robin van Persie.

Basically? You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Hang on to it with all your might.

Arsenal 5-0 Porto — The Perfect Day

If you get a chance, get over to see a Champions League match. I hear that they are all magnificent.

All the one I’ve seen have been.

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The Arsenal profit/debt report is deserving of its own column but I frankly just don’t have the time this morning to read through the entire [...]]]> Between Arsenal releasing their half annual financial accounting, Wenger giving his presser a day early, and me needing to be in to work early it’s been a pretty crazy morning so far.

The Arsenal profit/debt report is deserving of its own column but I frankly just don’t have the time this morning to read through the entire report and find the aporia. Instead, I’ll just say that my initial reaction is one of surprise. The board are claiming that not only did they turn a profit of £35m on all projects but that sales of the Highbury Square development are going so well that total debt on that project is just down to £13m.

Moreover, the club’s debt at this time last year was a whopping £332m and that has been reduced in just six months to £203m with Gazidis trumpeting the fact that as of today that figure is “well below £190m.” With football now delivering nearly £50m in profit a year and with Highbury delivering nearly £10m a year Arsenal look to be in the greatest financial shape of their entire history. Oh, and that doesn’t even touch on what’s happening at Queensland road where they have already sold the affordable housing to a local trust.

All of this profit is a huge bone of contention among supporters with many asking why that money isn’t being invested in big name players on the pitch and Ivan Gazidis’ answer won’t help soothe those malcontents: we’ve the youngest squad in the Premier League and Arsenal signed 17 players to extended contracts this year.

I’m even starting to wonder what the hell is going on with all the money that this club is generating and until I have a look at the whole report I can’t make a really informed comment there. What I will say is that while the Arsenalization of the Emirates stadium is nice, most supporters who are paying $160 a seat to watch Arsenal in the Champions League would rather that we put money into “Arsenalizing” the squad. I see this Summer transfer window as a real opportunity for Arsenal to make good with their fans and purchase a big name player. Judging from the comments here and elsewhere if they fail to do that and keep reporting record profits they could have a serious fan revolt on their hands.

Gazidis tries to address this and you can check out his remarks on the report in the embedded video below.

Meanwhile, tomorrow marks the return to football where we can all put down the balance sheet for a moment and pick up a ball, and a towel, as Arsenal travel to Stoke for a rugby match played without hands and with a roundy ball.

Wenger is saying that every match Arsenal play for the rest of the season is “like a cup match” to which I reply; well we better not play them like we played them in the cup! You’ll remember that match, that’s where they beat us 20 to 8 in the fouls given category.

We can’t expect any relief from the match official in the fouls department because Peter Walton is in charge. You might remember him from the Everton match, where he allowed Phil Neville to hack down Denilson in the box and gave Fellaini free reign to kick everyone off the pitch. We have broken our Premier League penalty “curse” last week and maybe now that the FA lockdown on Arsenal penalties has been lifted the floodgates will be opened.

We all know what Stoke is going to do tomorrow and thankfully Arsenal have Sol Campbell and Thomas Vermaelen available for a little bit of heading practice. Let’s just hope that the really decent version of Manuel Almunia shows up and is able to punch away some of their direct throws. Which reminds me, is it legal to throw the ball directly into the goal?

As you already know, Gallas, Diaby, and Arshavin are all out for tomorrow and Eduardo’s fitness is going to be assessed today. I’d rather Arsene didn’t start Eduardo irregardless his match fitness. Let’s hold him in reserve in case we need a late, poached goal.

On the other side, Higginbotham and Etherington are out for Stoke which just means that we’ll probably see them bring in some absolute animal like Salif Diao to kick, I mean “mark” Cesc in the midfield. Make no mistake, that’s what we’re looking at tomorrow; the whole team will take turns kicking Cesc Fabregas. It’d be nice if Sol Campbell or someone would take a yellow for the team and just take one of their players out for once. Hey, I know, how about Rory Delap? Not that I’m advocating any form of violence against any of their players that they wouldn’t advocate for ours.

Right, the match is live here in the States on Fox Soccer Channel and it’s the late match. Since Chelsea will be hosting Team Bridge tomorrow we should know where we stand in the table by the time we kickoff at 9:30am PST. I have to say that the early match there (on ESPN2 here) could very well be a real cracker since Wayne Bridge is playing and it seems he hasn’t forgiven John Terry his cuckoldry quite yet. I’ll be tuning in to that for sure.

Meanwhile, over here I’m going to try to do the liveblog but I’ll be honest and say that it’ll mostly be you all just chatting since I get to be Mr. Mom tomorrow and watch the 2 year old all by myself.

That’s it for today from me, see you all tomorrow!

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Kickette has the scoop on a bunch of Premier League players who posed for Pepsi and one of them was Arsenal’s very own Andrei Arshavin. I don’t know about you, but for me that photo seriously needs a caption. Feel free to add one in the comments.

Gods, I miss Lehmann

You really need to hang on until [...]]]>

Kickette has the scoop on a bunch of Premier League players who posed for Pepsi and one of them was Arsenal’s very own Andrei Arshavin. I don’t know about you, but for me that photo seriously needs a caption. Feel free to add one in the comments.

Gods, I miss Lehmann

You really need to hang on until the very end with this video: funniest fucking tackle I have ever seen.

Serious Debt

Let’s actually be serious for a minute… ok, there has been a lot of talk from UEFA over the last two years about addressing the problem of debt in the Premier League but up until now it’s just been that: a bunch of talk. Well, as it turns out a secret agreement among the top clubs and top leagues seems to have been hammered out with UEFA and it looks like everyone is going to agree to do something about debt levels. This secret deal has been leaked to the press and is currently making the rounds — I even saw a watered down bit in ESPNSoccernet.

If you want to get the real skinny on how this is going to play out, you need to check out Tony’s article at Untold Arsenal.  According to Tony, Arsenal are going to be fine but several other clubs are going to need to do some major revisions if they want to play in Europe:

Anyway UEFA are now going to publish this report in full, and come out with a new set of Financial Fair Play rules, which it says are agreed in principle by the big clubs and their leagues.

These require clubs to break even financially from 2012-13. There are suggestions that the loophole of putting money into shares so it doesn’t show as debt is being closed in the new regs.

What’s more the report specifically (and yes it is specific on this) identifies Manchester IOU and Liverpool Insolvency as catastrophic in its own right, and there is implied criticism of the way the EPL and the FA have simply closed their eyes and said and done nothing about the disaster.

Ouch!  If I’m a Chelsea fan, first I’d kill myself, but then I’d be shitting my pants right about now. How, exactly, are they going to break even much less turn a profit when they have the second highest payroll, no academy, no prospects coming up, and are bankrolled entirely by a Russian Oligarch? And Liverpool? And Man U?

Hmmm… looks like Arsene Wenger’s fiscally prudent approach to football is going to pay dividends sooner that I thought.

Oh and one more thing, you should fully expect Arsenal’s name to be lumped in with the other financial dopers in all the papers. Despite the fact that Arsenal are one of only a few clubs who are managing their debt, used the debt for improvements rather than leveraged buyouts, and are turning a profit every year.

That’s just how reporters work.

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