City & FFP | 2020/21 Accounts released | Revenues of £569.8m, £2.4m profit (p 2395)


But how can you compare buying Bergkamp for 7 million in those figures when he would cost 70 million today because the game has completely changed. Arsenal coud out spend City back then, now City can out spend Arsenal, why because our owners decided to invest more money than Arsenals. You are comparing apples to oranges, that's what you don't get. As Arsenals investment in players has gone down so has their winning ability, as Citys/Chelsea/Utds has gone up they are the ones that have won the leagues between them in that time. If Arsenals owners had not sold Kolo, Adebayor, Nasri, Henry,Clichy etc, maybe they would have have won the league. I say maybe as clearly it's not just about throwing money at it as Liverpool/Villa have shown, but it certainly helps.
 
Arsenal have spent big on players and their stadium.
Where they've done very well is that they've offloaded players for a tidy sum too, thus their net spend is pretty healthy. But that doesn't mean they haven't spent.

In a sense, they've been buying Audi and BMW and managing to sell on with less depreciation, whilst others have been buying souped up Porsche's only to discover the depreciation is horrific. I'm over simplifying things, but essentially, they've still been dining at the top table of players and buying quality players that most clubs couldn't hope to.
In more recent years, they've seemingly been focusing on paying for the stadium, which in part is reflected by their lack of success of late (that and Chelsea and City proving to be a fly in their ointment).

No matter what Arsenal fans think, and there's plenty to commend Arsenal on, they HAVE been spending, they've not been operating on a shoestring, and they've still had a lack of real success in the last 7+ years.

Have they had more 'value' per pound spent than City? - that's a tricky one, as it would seem that squeezing another 5-10 points out of a title contending team comes at a hell of a premium (something we're discovering). Getting a 10% better player can cost 50% more.
Regardless, Arsenal have had money to spend, and chose not to in recent years - that's their business, and it's probably cost them league titles.
We've spent aplenty and won recent league titles. We're happy with our lot, it seems they aren't happy with theirs. My heart bleeds.
 
You own the TPI book, why don't you post a couple of the relevant chapters on here
There's no need, it's online already.


Price Rises

Currently (and this is based on figures prior to the Mata deal), this season’s average transfer fee is £5.6m; almost ten times the average of £594, 309 in 1992/93, when this whole era got underway.

10 times 90s average transfer fees, that would make Vieira £35m, Bergkamp £80m, Wiltord around the £80m mark as well, Overmars over £50m etc etc.
 
Is it a good read ?
Tomkins doesn't really buy into net spend as a relative measure and he has a good point. He uses a measure called TTV (Total Transfer Value) which takes the perceived value of a squad as a more reliable indicator.

As an example, if you have a squad worth £100m and spend £100m net you've got a squad worth £200m.

But if you have a squad worth £350m and have a negative net spend of £50m, you've got a squad worth £300m. The first club has by far the higher net spend but who has the better squad?
 
I'm not sure about this accusation of who is a City fan and who isn't - it's too easy to get it wrong, and having been in the receiving end of it myself, it's crap.

I don't think anybody can deny Arsenal have done well for their net spend, that's not the issue. The issue is that they have still spent well above most, and that believing they've done well PURELY on footballing terms is a myth.
They've bought to give themselves a good chance, then relied on Wenger's acumen to get more.
Where they are today didn't come about because of 2003 onwards, it's a result of a hundred years of events - and investment at multiple points in their history. Where City are today is the same.

If Arsenal's success is purely based on football and not their finances, then they may as well spend nothing and scout for free right? After all, it's all down to their footballing acumen right?

But we (and they) know that's a total myth. They've have a good manager who (arguably) has been better than many others, and that's helped them greatly. But it's only gotten them so far. Many Arsenal fans were screaming for Wenger's head not too long ago, not least because of his reluctance to spend. That seems incongruous with the belief that money hasn't helped them.

We City fans KNOW money has helped us. We know what it's like to squander what we have, and what it's like to not have any money.
Some Arsenal fans are just refusing to accept that money's helped them. It's the height of delusion.
 
You own the TPI book, why don't you post a couple of the relevant chapters on here

I'm not going to spend the night transcribing a book. But here's a useful metric for you, it's the "XI caalculation that you yourself recommended for their squad compared to their finishing position

FISZMAN BUY IN

92/93 - 7th most expensive - finished 10th
93/94 - 7th most expensive - finished 4th
94/95 - 7th most expensive - finished 12th

FISZMAN INVESTMENT

95/96 - 4th most expensive - finished 5th
96/97 - 3rd most expensive - finished 3rd
97/98 - 2nd most expensive - finished 1st
98/99 - 4th most expensive - finished 2nd
99/00 - 3rd most expensive - finished 2nd
00/01 - Most expensive in the country - finished 2nd
01/02 - Most expensive in the country - finished 1st
02/03 - 3rd most expensive - finished 2nd
03/04 - 4th most expensive - finished 1st

You can see a clear narrative. They were midtable in investment and position and then it took them about 3 years of putting money in consistently to build a squad capable of winning, then this squad cost started to die down as they kept hold of their squad and others started building their own.

The years after this with the exception of one season they have been the 3rd-5th most expensive squads and have finished 4th or 3rd every year

Thanks for playing Champ.
 
There's no need, it's online already.


Price Rises

Currently (and this is based on figures prior to the Mata deal), this season’s average transfer fee is £5.6m; almost ten times the average of £594, 309 in 1992/93, when this whole era got underway.

10 times 90s average transfer fees, that would make Vieira £35m, Bergkamp £80m, Wiltord around the £80m mark as well, Overmars over £50m etc etc.
Nice try, if you would have read a bit further down that article it shows that bergkamp would be £28m, wiltord £33m and overmars doesn't feature , which means he's less than £25m
 
Tomkins doesn't really buy into net spend as a relative measure and he has a good point. He uses a measure called TTV (Total Transfer Value) which takes the perceived value of a squad as a more reliable indicator.

As an example, if you have a squad worth £100m and spend £100m net you've got a squad worth £200m.

But if you have a squad worth £350m and have a negative net spend of £50m, you've got a squad worth £300m. The first club has by far the higher net spend but who has the better squad?

There's the rub. For 400m you might get yourself a top 4 squad, but it might cost you 800m to be a PL winner.
People look at it as 'twice the spend' which is essentially true, but the cost of success is exponential, not linear.
 
Nice try, if you would have read a bit further down that article it shows that bergkamp would be £28m, wiltord £33m and overmars doesn't feature , which means he's less than £25m

Overmars cost as much as Bergkamp at a similar time.

Still, are you denying that their relative spend in the 90s/early 00s was as great as ours? At nearly every point where they finished in the top 4 they were among the top 4 spenders. Similar to ourselves.


Not to mention huge money on the likes of Walcott, Ox and Reyes since.
 
There's the rub. For 400m you might get yourself a top 4 squad, but it might cost you 800m to be a PL winner.
People look at it as 'twice the spend' which is essentially true, but the cost of success is exponential, not linear.

Exactly, so I wonder if City never mind Arsenal are prepared to invest on that final costly 10% when keeping a top 4 position is all they really need to maintain commercial success globally ?
 
The chances of City being the epitome of prudent spending are zilch.
But few clubs have been faced with the FFP drawbridge rising before their very eyes, and having to spend massive, and disproportionately in order to scramble into the elite just in time.
City have paid over the odds for many players, partly out of necessity, partly because others have known our wealth and exploited the situation. We're never going to be the perfect model for spending, but that's not the point. The holier than thou attitude of some moronic rival fans is galling.
 
I'm not going to spend the night transcribing a book. But here's a useful metric for you, it's the "XI caalculation that you yourself recommended for their squad compared to their finishing position

FISZMAN BUY IN

92/93 - 7th most expensive - finished 10th
93/94 - 7th most expensive - finished 4th
94/95 - 7th most expensive - finished 12th

FISZMAN INVESTMENT

95/96 - 4th most expensive - finished 5th
96/97 - 3rd most expensive - finished 3rd
97/98 - 2nd most expensive - finished 1st
98/99 - 4th most expensive - finished 2nd
99/00 - 3rd most expensive - finished 2nd
00/01 - Most expensive in the country - finished 2nd
01/02 - Most expensive in the country - finished 1st
02/03 - 3rd most expensive - finished 2nd
03/04 - 4th most expensive - finished 1st

You can see a clear narrative. They were midtable in investment and position and then it took them about 3 years of putting money in consistently to build a squad capable of winning, then this squad cost started to die down as they kept hold of their squad and others started building their own.

The years after this with the exception of one season they have been the 3rd-5th most expensive squads and have finished 4th or 3rd every year

Thanks for playing Champ.
You forgot to add one other event into the timeline , namely Arsenal playing in the champions league from 98/99 , which would significantly increase their revenues

Also Wenger joining the club in 96/97

Fizsman gave them a leg up granted but it was just that, it wasn't the game changer
 
Exactly, so I wonder if City never mind Arsenal are prepared to invest on that final costly 10% when keeping a top 4 position is all they really need to maintain commercial success globally ?

I've said in the past that in the last few years only 3 clubs have actively tried to win the Premier League and provided enough investment in the team to do it. Us, Chelsea and the Rags. Arsenal are happy with top 4 and I wouldn't be surprised if the rags under the Glazers don't settle for that too now.
 

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