LOL yeah people really should read SwissRamble - excellent, excellent stuff if you have the patience and willingness to engage brain.
Bottom line is that we are now in a phase of high structural profitability all the while sitting on reserves that are obscene for a football team. We do NOT have the massive debt hanging over us any more and really there is no good reason not to be aggressive any more.
AW and the Board are showing their true colors more and more each passing window. Any credible doubts must surely be erased now. Hopefully we get Mahrez and another player, but I expect us to fight for 3/4th place again and be out of the race by Feb/Mar if not earlier. We could seriously sputter out of the gate with everyone out and it could get ugly. Wonder what the odds on Arsenal falling out of top 4 are this year.
Because I don’t think accounting works like the ways we remember it.
For us, 2015-16 season was 12m for Cech & 12m for Elneny; so 24m.
But if you look at the image, they have this term called ‘Player Amortisation’.
A Quote form Swiss Ramble
Basically, football clubs consider players to be assets, so do not fully expense transfer fees in
the year a player is purchased, but instead write-off the cost evenly over the
length of the player’s contract via player amortisation – even if the entire
fee is paid upfront.
That’s simply an accounting tool though to lower profit and so taxes. Ultimately it’s a lot more interesting what is in the bank at the end of the day.
If De Laurentiis refused our two offers for Higuain, I don’t understand why you are blaming Arsenal. It’s a stupid move to sign him for 94M of € and to hope about the turnover with Olivier Giroud.
We don’t need a number 9 like El Pipita (despite he is one of best strikers in Europe), but a tactical alternative to play on counterattack when the game needs to be played without a pivot.
The affaire was perfect is Napoli would have accepted minor cash plus Giroud.
…and apart this, the situation about Higuain reminds me to Radamel Falcao when has signed with MUFC.
Unless Higuain suffered an ACL injury last summer, I’m not really sure what’s similar about the moves other than Higuain being 28. Infact, Higuain last season was in the best physical condition of his career so far, something he thanked Sarri for during the season (pushed him to lose weight in the pre-season).
What matters is what we make on annual basis as a club.
Our Cash reserve is a pile up which took a decade to build up, hence looks massive.
But as a club, We make 65m as EBITDA. Check image, which is taken from Swiss Ramble. I have highlighted only those parameters which are taken annually, so gives a much better picture unlike player amortisation.
After reduction of stadium debt payment of 12-13m, it comes down to 50-55m.
All that without taking Player Transfer Sale/Purchases into consideration; so that is basically the amount available for transfers if we only go by yearly account.
Yes, we have cash reserves & we can buy players, but if we go about it by spending 70m or so on players like Higuain who are 29 year old (in December), we won’t last that Cash reserve long, would we?
These are unforeseen circumstances, I always knew player prices would increase but i though only oil clubs & spanish clubs would indulge in it, leaving some room for sanity.
But now even West Ham are forced to spend 40m for players.
Swiss Ramble concentrates too much on cash reserves but never highlights that our revenue is not that impressive.
With increase transfer prices & wages, the profit is going to decrease even more.
We are in better financial condition as compared to 2008, but our 50-60m EBITDA may not keep up with market prices.
And since Broadcasting has already been optimised, It’s either Commercial revenue or Match Day revenue the club would need to increase.
Hence I am again & again insisting that fans need to be careful what they wish for.
What’s the best way to increase commercials and revenue year over year? How does Manure do it? How does Chelsea do it? How does Barca do it? They fucking win shit. At some point you have to shit or et off the pot and really go for something, tangible success that makes us stand out.
We can ALWAYS revert to what we’re doing now, but we’re just falling behind at this point and it’s the results on the pitch that are holding us back from taking that next step, something Wenger Fundamentalists just can’t come to terms with.
Just a couple of things… I don’t know for sure but I’d imagine that these 12-13 in dept payments are already accounted for in other expenses. Also going by the same article you’re quoting we’re due another 47m annually in TV money come this season, putting us on over 100m a year, before taxes, amortization, etc.
Also Swiss ramble doesn’t so much focus on cash reserves in particular, but it’s just the easiest number to pick out of his articles to show that there’s actual money available, that isn’t used on the team.
That being said, I’m not really interested right now to discuss Arsenal finances, much less in the Higuain thread. I’m sure you’re sick of it too and so I suggest to let this topic rest for now. Maybe when there’s a designated thread available in the future and the summer’s over there will be need to talk about this again.
Also, Higuain is fine player and I’ve said all summer I wanted us to sign him–and would gladly have had us pay his release clause–but there’s definitely nothing wrong with preferring PEA, and certainly not with saying they are the same level. It’s also rather facile to use the fact that Higuain is sometimes (lately often) preferred to Aguero for Argentina to mean Higuain>Aguero. In fact saying Higuain>Aguero strikes me as rather mad tbh, and overreacting to Higuain’s great season in an impressive Napoli team and Aguero’s bad season in a broken City team.
I completely believe that Higuain is a better striker than Aguero but I don’t think there’s too much in it and I also think Aguero might grow under Pep.
Higuain and PEA aren’t on the same level, PEA is pretty great but Higuain is a cut above.
Also using the fact that Higuain starts over Aguero wasn’t to necessarily say he’s better but rather that he’s simply in the top echelon of strikers alongside the likes of Aguero at the very least. Also this hasn’t just been happened lately it’s been the case for years and under the tenure different managers to boot.
No one is overreacting Higuain’s season, his quality has been evident from his days at Real. I wouldn’t call City a “broken” team either that just sounds like an excuse tbh.
The thing is PEA has had his first outstanding season whilst Higuain has been an outstanding striker for about 7/8 years now and a lot of people tend to neglect longevity in favour of current form.
And tbh even on current form PEA is a level below Higuain.
Juve activating his release clause arguably makes them the 4th best team in Europe. I completely believe they’re better than Real anyway despite the European success.
