Arsenal’s pursuit of Zaha is just another gamble the club cannot afford to take
Which brings us to a central point: if part of Arsenal’s strategy this summer is to sell to buy then what faith can supporters have in their ability to do it competently? As the excellent blogger and analyst Swiss Ramble showed in a fascinating thread, the club have been pretty poor at executing this in recent years. Apart from 2017-18, when £120million was brought in, Arsenal have been extremely inefficient in player sales. In the past five years their £165million is a long way below Chelsea (£337million), Tottenham Hotspur (£265million) and Liverpool (£260 million).
Examining just a few of those sales is depressing for Arsenal. For example, Serge Gnabry left for just £4.5 million but is now a regular for Bayern Munich and Germany, and would be worth at least £40 million. Jeff Reine-adelaide is another – sold for around £1million last year and now attracting interest from many top clubs for around £20million.
There is a double whammy here, because Arsenal have been pretty wasteful in buying, too. For years, the story was that they did not have funds to compete because they had the stadium to pay for, but in the past four seasons net spend has risen from £40 million to £232 million – more than Chelsea, Tottenham and, astonishingly, Liverpool.
But how well have they spent? The return has been poor and that was brought home by their failure, again, to qualify for the Champions League. Given Arsenal have portrayed themselves as beacons of self-sustainability under the ownership of Stan Kroenke, it is odd that so much of their transfer kitty and planning came down to one match: lose the Europa League final, fail to qualify for the Champions League, and their budget was far less.
Which is what happened. Before the defeat by Chelsea in Baku, Arsenal were apparently optimistic that they would have the funds to sign Zaha. After the loss they have concluded they need to sell to buy, and that is going to be tricky. The limitations in Arsenal’s budget were already revealed by the £15 million bid they lodged with Celtic – which was dismissed – for left-back Kieran Tierney.
Swiss Ramble shows that failure to qualify for the Champions League has really damaged them. The run to the Europa League final earned around £32 million but, to put that in perspective, it is £50 million less than the English clubs in the Champions League will realise.
All of this is taking place while Arsenal are enjoying their 16th consecutive year in profit, which will only anger their fans – who are paying top dollar – even more. Clubs need to be run on business lines but, at the same time, the dream of being well placed to take advantage of Financial Fair Play rules has been dashed as others have overtaken them on and off the field.
So will Arsenal really pay the fee for Zaha that Palace are demanding? Maybe, but it seems unlikely, which begs the question of why they are pursuing the deal. The player is wanted by head coach Unai Emery, although an added complication at Arsenal is who is driving the transfer policy.
It would appear that while Emery has an input, it is his fellow Spaniard, Raul Sanllehi, who is head of football and is undoubtedly well connected from his Barcelona days. But there is confusion and not least because Arsenal have yet to appoint a technical director, as had been the intention. Unsurprisingly, there is talk that Emery is growing frustrated. He is not the only one around Arsenal to feel that way.