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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Good news everyone! This weekend will see the second coming of Jesus! That’s right, Arsenal’s captain and inspirational midfielder, Cesc Fabregas will be returning to play against Owen Coyle’s Notlob. Meanwhile, Gael Clichy might be fit, but Wenger is taking it a bit slow there and unless Traore picks up an injury expect to see Gael [...]]]> Injuries

Good news everyone! This weekend will see the second coming of Jesus! That’s right, Arsenal’s captain and inspirational midfielder, Cesc Fabregas will be returning to play against Owen Coyle’s Notlob. Meanwhile, Gael Clichy might be fit, but Wenger is taking it a bit slow there and unless Traore picks up an injury expect to see Gael on the bench at the start of the game. Denilson’s mystery injury gets more mysterious as it’s now migrated from a rib muscle injury to a stomach injury to… well, I suppose we’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s presser to find out how long he’ll be out. And as you already know (since I reported it last week) Bendtner has started training and will be back in a couple of weeks — which as I pointed out before means some time in February before he’s a regular starter.

Transfers

Nothing today, no official announcement on the Galindo deal. No official announcement that Sol has signed and there isn’t even any fresh speculation.

Booo….

FC Twente might take Jack Wilshere on loan, yawn. Ok, it’s not like he’s ready to step into the first team at Arsenal a loan would be good irregardless the injury situation. Wenger can’t seriously be thinking of using him in the EPL right? I mean, he’s prodigiously talented and all but I think it would do more harm than good at this stage of his career to get kicked around the pitch in the EPL. Naw, let him go to Twente!

Jay Simpson

There’s a piece on the dot com today about how Jay Simpson wants to put his mark on Football by scoring 20 league goals this season and with his tally already at 9 you might just see it happen. But what I found truly amazing is that according to his ESPNSoccernet stats Simpson has scored 9 goals in 9 shots on goal. In all competitions, he’s scored 10 goals in 28 totals shots or 1 goal every 2.8 shots.

I wanted to compare him to Drogba (who scores a goal for every 5.2 chances he gets) but that’s not fair because the leagues are so different. So, I looked at the top scorers from the English League Championship and they are Peter Whittingham who scores a goal every 3.7 shots, Darren Ambrose who scores a goal every 4.5 shots, and Michael Chopra who scores a goal every 3.9 shots. It looks like the standard in the English League Championship is about 1 goal for every 4 shots for the league leaders which puts our Jay Simpson at the very top among goals per chance ratio.

Don’t be at all surprised if Wenger rules out buying a big striker this January and points to the progress of Simpson and Bendtner as the reason why. Moreover, I’d put money that if Simpson can manage 20 goals this season, Arsene will call him up over the Summer and give him a shot to compete for Bendtner’s starting spot.

And as a kid who’s come up through the ranks it would be a great story.

Transfer Kitty follow-up

Last week I reported that there were a spate of stories claiming to know how much money Arsene Wenger had in his transfer kitty. The Independent went  so far as to tally up the amount that they thought Wenger had and it came to total £35m. That in itself made the story stink to me, we all know that the last thing Wenger needs is for the amount of money at his disposal to be made public. It’s a sure-fire way to drive up the cost of any potential transfers.

The story went like this: there’s a special bank account at Arsenal into which 70% of all proceeds from player sales must go. This account is “ring fenced” from other accounts in the Arsenal Holdings company meaning that banks cannot access this account, which is a measure to prevent what they call “asset stripping.” In other words, if Highbury Square were to go tits up, the banks couldn’t force Arsenal to sell players to pay off that loan, since 70% of the proceeds from those sales would go into this special account.

But what made the story intriguing is that in other places the journalists reported where they got the information about this special bank account; the Arsenal Supporter’s Trust. So, I did what any responsible adult with a blog would do and I emailed the AST! Here’s the response from Tim Payton:

When the Stadium financing was signed in July 2006 the Club signed up to the following agreement …it protects lenders against asset stripping / fire sale of players:

AFC must ensure that, if it transfers the registration of a member of the playing staff of AFC to any other person, not less than 70% (adjusted for tax) of any transfer receipt is deposited in a Transfer Proceeds Account (TPA) , with amounts standing to the credit of any TPA available to be drawn by AFC only for certain specified purposes, including the purchase of certain fixed assets or registration rights of a new member of playing staff for AFC.

I really doubt that “certain fixed assets” include Highbury Square!

Which means that 70% of the money that came from the sale of Toure and Adebayor must have gone into the TPA, right? Well, not so fast there chief! The fact is that we all don’t know. What we do know is that the debt from Highbury Square was going to be made due on April 30 of this year, and it stood at £120m last year. We also know that they found a way to reduce the debt to £47m and extend the loan until December 2010. This has led some to speculate that player sales may have funded the debt reduction on Highbury Square and honestly, I bet a part of it did. That 30% or so that is allowed to.

Using ballpark figures we can easily get to the £73m needed to reduce the debt on the HS development from £120m tp £47m. What you have to remember is that according to the last public report Arsenal have huge cash reserves, some £100m or so, and they have an annual operating profit of over £30m (depending on how far we go in the Champions League). Plus the official statement from Ivan Gazidis is that they sold a large batch of condos to a single investor. That means that it isn’t impossible for Arsenal to have paid this debt down, rather easily. £13m from the Ade and Toure sale, £30m in profits from last year, £23m in condo sales, and £7m from cash reserves would make it happen pretty easily.

More importantly, it would have left the TPA intact and that means that in all likelihood Arsene does still have his transfer kitty and that’s what he’s been using to sign all of the Arsenal team to extended contracts.  How much is in there? I don’t know. No one outside the board knows. It could be anywhere from £27m to £10m to I don’t know, £50m? You have to remember that this account has been building since 2006 in which time Arsenal have sold more registrations than we have bought so the number could be bigger than £27m. We don’t know.

And frankly, I don’t want us to know. It’s good for it to be a bit of a mystery. That’s how we get players like Arshavin for a coupon book and few bob found underneath the seat cushions.

What we do know is that the board is officially committed to making sure that Arsene has money for transfers. According to page 15 of the latest financial announcement (September 09) the board’s official position is that player transactions are Wenger’s business and they stay out of it.

All proceeds from player sale transactions are made available to Arsène Wenger for re-investment back into the development of the team.

That’s good enough for me.

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Stone Cold Truth

I was re-listening to last week’s It’s Up For Grabs Now Arsenal podcast and was surprised that one of the commentators used the words “War Torn Angola” to describe the ACN, and this was before the Togo bus was attacked. Unfortunately for many, that term is actually just the way that we see much [...]]]>

Stone Cold Truth

I was re-listening to last week’s It’s Up For Grabs Now Arsenal podcast and was surprised that one of the commentators used the words “War Torn Angola” to describe the ACN, and this was before the Togo bus was attacked. Unfortunately for many, that term is actually just the way that we see much of, if not all of Africa. Wenger has issued a stern admonition to the rest of the EPL not to use the Togo bus attack for selfish reasons and has ripped the nearly apoplectic reaction that folks like Martin Samuels and others at the Daily Fail have perpetrated in the name of news.

Behind things like that, is it a selfish motivation or is it a real issue over security? We, here, are not in the best position to judge the security of this competition. That’s why I don’t want to do it [recall my players]. If you organise the European Championships and you have an incident like that – it can happen, and has happened already – you do not want all your players suddenly to move home. International competition is international competition.

If the security within the country is well-organised [then that is what matters]. You hear many noises now that they [the Togo squad] were told not to travel by bus, I’ve heard, and to fly in. So I don’t know what happened there. And, as well, why no one from the official organisation was travelling with them. I don’t know.

It’s always like that, when you hear sometimes there’s unrest in the suburbs of London, you still live well in London. When I speak to my friends in France, they ask me: ‘Is a revolution happening in London?’ It’s the same in Paris, you know. You immediately think it’s a revolution everywhere. It’s not always the case.  You have to judge the place, whether the competition can go on or not, and I don’t know [the intricacies]. I don’t like this culture of fear, either. I hate that.

Meanwhile, Darius over at Stone Cold Arsenal has written the definitive article on the tragedy in Angola. He describes some of the failures that led up to the Togo National team bus attack. He informs us of the political climate in Angola. He also give a run down of the international forces at work, why Cabinda was chosen by Angola, and most importantly, he takes on the press corpse who seek to conflate Cabinda with South Africa or who print obviously xenophobic headlines like “Michael Essien flies into the Death Zone.”

My reader knows that I’m no fan of international competitions, I think they are all just exercises in archaic nationalistic masturbation. I’ll also freely admit that my first reaction was to say “bring Song and Eboue home” out of purely selfish reasons, but the more that people I respect, like Wenger, and people who have keen insight, like Darius, speak out on this issue the more I’m inclined to insist that the games must go on.

Arsene to Denilson, cheat?

The word “cheat” is thrown around a lot and especially, it seems, when it comes to Arsenal players, but this is going too far. Arsene Wenger admitted in his post-Everton interview with the dot com that he spoke to Denilson after the bizarre incident which saw him collapse in the middle of the pitch, turn the ball over, and but for an Almunia save, nearly concede a goal.

No. I wasn’t upset that Everton played on. I said to Denilson afterwards: ‘If that happens again you have to commit a handball.’ I’m very serious. If you go down, and there hasn’t been a foul, you cannot ask Everton to stop their counter-attack and not to score. So, if you go down like that, at least put your hand on the ball and it’s a free-kick.

Yes, either that or kick it out of play, or do what Phil Neville would do and elbow someone in the chest, whatever it takes but stop play so that you can be properly cared for. Is that cheating as The Spoiler would have us believe? Hardly.

Though, if you do, Denilson, don’t expect anything less than a straight red card from the English refs. I’m afraid you don’t have the right passport or club crest to get away with handling the ball in the EPL.

Man U Ties That Bond

I’ve written pretty extensively about debt in the Premier League and the fact that ManU and Liverpoor look dangerously overextended but I’ve always thought that of the two it was Liverpoor who were most likely to sink first and sink hardest. This was mostly down to the fact that of the two clubs, Man U has the most intrinsic value, topping Forbes’ list of the world’s most valuable sports franchises. I reasoned that if the debt started to eat up too much profits, some rich dude could come in and buy the club. But that intrinsic value turns out to be a curse as well. The club is worth £1.3bn but the debt, including the onerous PIK loans where United is rolling debt and interest, is thought of to be at £700m. Paying off that kind of debt takes seriously deep pockets.

There are folks out there who can do it but it needs to happen soon, before the debt gets too big for even the deep wells of money that are out there. Which is one reason why United are going to float bonds.

All the rest of the details of this bond issue are explained in that link above, check it out.

Setanta Update

The Irish Times are reporting that Fox is working with Setanta USA to buy the channel. If true, that would explain why Fox withheld Setanta’s broadcast rights this weekend; they wanted to put the squeeze on them. Though, I still think it was f-ing stupid for Fox Soccer Channel to show Serie A re-runs instead of the Arsenal v. Everton match.

Some kind of official announcement is expected soon.

Fergie Rants, The FA Cowers

SHOCKING: the FA are going to investigate Fergie for his comments about Mark Clattenburg after ManU’s pitiful performance against Birmingham. What is there to investigate? It’s true that Ferguson said “He did the Arsenal-Tottenham game – you had to have someone hit with an axe before he’d book anyone in that game, and he sends a player off here.” and called Clattenburg’s decisions “wonderful and weird.” It’s also true that Crapenburg is one of the worst referees I have ever seen. Worse than Uriah Rennie.

So far this season, Crapenburg has refereed at least three Arsenal matches which have been the scenes of some seriously dangerous play. The first was against Manciti where Mark Clattenburg mysteriously didn’t see Adebayor’s stamp on Cesc followed by Adebayor’s stamp on Robin van Persie’s face, despite video showing him LOOKING AT THE INCIDENT. Then, despite the FA’s retroactive action against Adebayor, he was put in charge of the Arsenal Tottenham match that Fergie aludes to, in which Rat Faced Chav did a two-footed, studs up, challenge on Vermaelen. And just last week, he was put in charge of the West Ham Arsenal match which saw Jiminez try to perform oral surgery on Diaby’s face with his boots.

Before the year is out, Clattenburg will referee a game which has a career ending injury. I guarantee it.

So, the FA should throw the book at both Clattenburg and Fergie. Clattenburg, because he’s a disgrace, and Fergie, because well, I hate United.

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As an American I can confidently say…

I know a thing or two about how to cook the books. It’s basically a genetic condition that came with our Pilgrim Heritage, but all Americans know how to hide debts, fake income, and pretend that things are all right when in reality you’re losing millions of dollars a month [...]]]>

As an American I can confidently say…

I know a thing or two about how to cook the books. It’s basically a genetic condition that came with our Pilgrim Heritage, but all Americans know how to hide debts, fake income, and pretend that things are all right when in reality you’re losing millions of dollars a month in income.

So you’ll pardon me when I see a story about how Chelsea claim that they are “virtually debt free” yet posted an annual loss of £45 MILLION and say “pfff, rank amateurs.”

They didn’t wipe out the debt, they securitized it. Remember that word? “Securitized?” Does that word ring a bell, like an alarm bell? It should, because now instead of IOU’s that say “I owe Roman Abramovich £500m” he has stock that says “Roman Abramovich paid £500m for this stock.”  See the difference?

But when you cook the books, the last thing you want to do is do it so publicly. Typically, what you do is get some big accounting firm to make it look like the “security” you just “created” is actually “worth something” and isn’t just a piece of paper with IOU scratched out and COMMON STOCK penciled in.

At least that’s how we’d do it over here. Now, pardon me, I have to securitize the debt on my house. Anyone want to get in on the IPO?

Notlob in free fall, Megson gets the axe

Bolton are a despicable pack of Hunts. That’s mostly down to the fact that a sum total of two of their players have the talent to make a top side and their manager was completely out of ideas.

Gary Megson made this team and, well, this is pretty much what I expected to happen to someone who’s entire playbook includes two plays: kick and lump.

Personally, I’m pulling for Gareth Southgate to get the job. He’s a proper manager, as evidenced by the fact that since his foolish firing Middlesbrough have gone from one point off the top of the table, to “never going up, ever again.”

Who’s Your Caddy?

Arsenal manager Wenger admits Bellamy attraction — Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

As I said in yesterday’s comments I rate Bellamy highly as a player and lowly as a human being. Wenger demands high ratings in both categories so while he might flirt with the idea of a Bellamy, I’d be shocked if he brought such a disruptive influence into his creche of young players.

Maybe Wenger needs a caddy?

WWJD: What Would Joey Do?

Have you been wondering what ever happened to Joey Barton? Well, wonder no more! Joey, who makes £65,000/wk, has been out injured for a few months and has spent that time contemplating the proper life for a footballer. Now that he’s a better person than the rest of us, he has some life lessons that he’d like to pass on to fellow footballers:

A lot of them are so detached from reality it’s untrue and there was a stage when I was like that. It’s only the fact I’m grounded by the trouble I’ve been in (my emphasis – Tim) that’s forced me away from being in the football world. Driving round in flash cars and changing them like you change your socks, wearing stupid diamond watches and spending money like it’s going out of fashion in the middle of a recession when some people are struggling to put food on the table for the kids – it’s not the way to do it.

See, kids? Joey Barton doesn’t do all those bad things like buying cars and stuff, because Joey Barton learned his lesson by getting into fights at every opportunity. So, learn from Joey and stub a cigar out in your teammate’s eye at the company Christmas party while yelling “MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

It’s up for grabs now podcast

Seriously, if you’re not already listening to the It’s Up For Grabs Now podcast, then there’s no hope for you. You might as well go support Crystal Palace.

Right…

Follow me on Twitter during the game today, if you’re in to that!

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