After reaching 3rd place in the Premiership having been at the front of the pack for large stages many felt that Arsenal would be well on their way for the next season. Wenger’s charges were finally reaching their potential and could end up winning the next title after the disappointment of just missing out on the previous one.
With a promising season set to unfold one would assume that the only task Arsene Wenger might have would be to add to his young talents. For the past three years Arsenal have been a club going places but not quite getting there and many feel that there is one world class player with experience missing from this bunch in order to give them that little bit extra. The signing of a player like this would never happen at this current time it seems due to Arsenal’s policy of signing young talent.
However, there is another policy of Arsene Wenger’s which I would like to look at and that is the selling policy. A club like Arsenal which was at the top of the revenue charts for Premier League clubs a season ago does not need to sell its players to improve its financial stability, so there must be other reasons. One of the key cogs in last season’s relative success Mathieu Flamini has already left for Milan and the likes of Aliksander Hleb and Emmanuel Adebayor look set to follow him out the exit door. Why would these 3 players who are all certified starters in the side want to leave? Well in the cases of Flamini and Adebayor at least it’s down to money. However, this isn’t the “I don’t care for the club or its fans and only want to deepen my pockets” kind of thing. It goes a bit deeper and more into the wage structure at Arsenal.
Arsenal unlike other clubs, distribute their wages in such a way that the bottom earner isn’t too far off from the top earner. This makes for a quieter dressing room at first but when your key players begin to question their value to the club you get the predicament Arsenal currently find themselves in. Flamini and Adebayor see themselves as being undervalued by the club given their performances from last season. Wenger however doesn’t see it that way and wants to make sure the wage structure of the club remains intact. Fair enough Mr.Wenger but will paying 3 or 4 of your best players a noticeably higher amount than other players really hurt your club that much? It seems to work for other clubs so why can it not work for yours. This is one of the main reasons why clubs such as Milan and Barcelona have been attracting the Arsenal players to them.
One funny thing to note regarding this is the double standards of Mr.Wenger. He goes about stealing young talents from under the noses of other clubs, yet when these players grow up and another club comes in for them he bitches and moans about it before he agrees to sell. This becomes even more evident in the case of Mathieu Flamini. After taking him on a free transfer from Marseille, the French manager makes quite a commotion when Milan do the same thing.
The other thing which may have weighed on their minds is how Arsenal treat players when they reach the latter part of their careers. Offering one year contracts to players such as Pires and Ljunberg who were key members of the golden era when Arsenal went unbeaten. Having given tremendous service to a club for such a time players would prefer a little more contractual security when it comes to knowing where the might be playing the next season. The environment at Arsenal is great if you’re a youngster but when you begin to reach the twilight of your career it can all be over quickly.Probably the final thing which is sending these players out the exit door at Arsenal is the fact that they are going places but not quite getting there. Arsene Wenger hasn’t displayed the ambition of the club by splashing the cash on one or two world class players and prefers to stick to his young faces. These younger players however lack a sense of maturity which could take them all the way. Their drop off at the end of the season could possibly be as a result of this as most other title chasing teams after one or two blips would not have taken such a nose dive.
Arsenal and more appropriately Arsene Wenger needs to change this policy because it can mean the difference between keeping his current squad happy for a few more years as they continue on their quest for those elusive trophies.
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