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Arsène Wenger is the football management equivalent of a biro pen

Wage bill analysis from 2006-2017 shows club finishes are about par for the course

21 June, 2017 12:07 28 comments
Arsène Wenger is the football management equivalent of a biro pen

Arsène - New stadium shoestring budget a myth

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Arsene Wenger spoke at some length in an interview with the BBC prior to the FA Cup Final about how tough things were for him personally during the seasons that followed the move to The Emirates. He identified the period of time between 2006-2014 where he stated that if somebody asked him now to go through that period of ‘austerity’ at the club again he would turn the chance down. If you listen to the full interview you would certainly get the feeling that the amount of money he had made available to him during this period of time would have been on a far smaller scale than his competitors in The Premier League.

How do you get the best gauge of a club’s true financial potential? It is not clear enough for me to simply look at the transfer fees some clubs pay for their player purchases in any given season. The reason for this is that it doesn’t factor in who and for what they have sold in that same period of time.

I personally don’t feel even that looking into NET spending gives a total picture as this can differ massively from one season to the next. For example Spurs might sell Bale and Modric one summer then not spend much of the funds until the next transfer window opens. At other times clubs NET spend can go up or down and clearly fluctuates too much too quickly. The best route therefore to a Football Club’s true financial power must be in looking closely at the club’s wage bill each year. As this in general stays more constant than either of the above two options. Anyone paying close attention to the top clubs’ wage bills season after season will understand the close correlation between where you sit in the wage bill league and the actual league table itself.

It is quite uncanny how consistent this correlation is and therefore it must be looked at carefully to get a true reflection of how Arsenal are performing on the field of play over any extended period of time.

I took the time to reflect on the period of time that Arsene reflected on himself during that BBC interview 2006-2014 and came up with the following facts, figures and conclusions.

First up was the season of 2006/2007 and in all seasons I have included the final league standing for each side at the end of that line.

1. Chelsea - £132.8m Finished 2nd
2. Manchester Utd - £92.3m Finished 1st
3. Arsenal - £89.7m Finished 4th
4. Liverpool - £77.6m Finished 3rd
5. Newcastle Utd - £62.4m Finished 13th

So in the above 2006/2007 season Arsenal had the 3rd highest annual wage bill and finished the season in 4th place. This is therefore one place below what you might consider to be an average season.

2007/2008
1. Chelsea - £149m Finished 2nd
2. Manchester Utd - £121.1m Finished 1st
3. Arsenal - £101.3m Finished 3rd
4. Liverpool - £80m Finished 4th
5. Newcastle Utd - £74.6m Finished 12th

So in the above season Arsenal has the 3rd highest wage bill and finished in 3rd place. An average or par season you could say.

2008/2009
1. Chelsea - £149m Finished 3rd
2. Manchester Utd - £123m Finished 1st
3. Arsenal - £104m Finished 4th
4. Liverpool - £90.4m Finished 2nd
5. Manchester City - £82.6m Finished 10th

Arsenal had a similar season to two years ago here finishing one place lower than the wage budget would suggest as an average season. Worth noting that in three seasons so far since 2006 we are yet to experience a better than average performance.

2009/2010
1. Chelsea - £174m Finished 1st
2. Manchester City - £133m Finished 5th
3. Manchester Utd - £131m Finished 2nd
4. Liverpool - £121m Finished 7th
5. Arsenal - £110m Finished 3rd

Arsenal here outperformed the wage bill by two places having finished in 3rd place despite ‘only’ having the 5th highest wage bill in the league. The first above average result in four years.

2010/2011
1. Chelsea - £190m Finished 2nd
2. Manchester City - £174m Finished 3rd
3. Manchester Utd - £153m Finished 1st
4. Liverpool - £135m Finished 6th
5. Arsenal - £124m Finished 4th

Arsenal outperformed themselves for the 2nd season in a row finishing one place higher in the league than the wage bill would indicate they should.

2011/2012
1. Manchester City - £202m Finished 1st
2. Chelsea - £173m Finished 6th
3. Manchester Utd - £162m Finished 2nd
4. Arsenal - £143m Finished 3rd
5. Liverpool - £119m Finished 8th

Another season in which Arsenal finished one league position higher than what the wage bill would allow us to see as an average performance.

2012/2013
1. Manchester City - £233m Finished 2nd
2. Manchester Utd - £181m Finished 1st
3. Chelsea - £179m Finished 3rd
4. Arsenal - £154m Finished 4th
5. Liverpool - £132m Finished 7th

Par for the course performance in this season. 4th highest annual budget and 4th in the league table.

2013/2014
1. Manchester Utd - £215m Finished 7th
2. Manchester City - £205m Finished 1st
3. Chelsea - £192m Finished 3rd
4. Arsenal - £166m Finished 4th
5. Liverpool - £144m Finished 2nd

Boring Boring Arsenal! A second season in a row where we hit a par performance. 4th in money list and 4th in the league yet again.

2014/2015
1. Chelsea - £217m Finished 1st
2. Manchester City - £205m Finished 2nd
3. Manchester Utd - £203m Finished 4th
4. Arsenal - £192m Finished 3rd
5. Liverpool - £166m Finished 6th

Arsenal have a ‘successful’ season here managing to finish one place higher in the league than the wage bill would suggest as a par performance.

The ‘austerity’ seasons are now considered to be over at Arsenal Football Club. 2006-2014 was the timeframe Arsene himself alluded to in his most recent interview about his time at the club.

So let us analyse further his own performance ‘against the par’ throughout the above seasons before we move on to more recent times.

In a total of nine seasons from 2006/07 to 2014/15 Arsenal had an average wage bill position in The Premier League of 3.89.

In the same seasons we had an average league table position on the field of play of 3.56.

Out of the nine seasons we finished below our anticipated league position twice, performed bang on it a total of three times and outperformed it a total of four times. The biggest outperformance was only two league places which occurred just once in 2009/10 when we had the 5th highest budget and managed to finish that season in 3rd place on the field.

On each of the other three times we outperformed our budget this was just by the one solitary league position.

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28
comments

  1. highburyJD

    Jun 22, 2017, 17:20 #102359

    worth taking into account that our wage bill was artificially high. The topping up of wages was effectively covered by player sales.

  2. mbg

    Jun 22, 2017, 14:53 #102353

    General, good post, and remember this stat, the only team to beat them home and away something TOF (with his usual smirk)and his wengerites made great blowing about at every opportunity (God knows why)what good did it do ? it didn't set much of a foundation did it, and we didn't exactly push on, lol. We want wenger out.

  3. General

    Jun 22, 2017, 11:03 #102349

    The analysis is decent but I think you’re letting Wenger off lightly here. There are far more damning stats out there that shame him and expose the excuse making culture he’s infested the club with. The 07/08 season, the season you point to being an average or par season is actually our best season since we moved to the soulless bowl. It’s the only time we’ve exceeded 80points, had a credible title challenge and the closest we’ve finished to the champions. There are a broad range of factors that skew the picture when comparing wage bill to finishing position and context is important. 2015/16, our so called best season because we somehow magically ended up 2nd , is also the season we finished 10points behind the mighty Leicester City. Our points total that season wouldn’t have been enough for a top 4 finish for the past 3 seasons. Worst of all we accumulated more points last season and ended up 5th. The only stats that matter are who the champions are and where you finished relative to them points wise. Wenger mastered the art of finishing 4th, took advantage of the turmoil at other clubs and used austerity as a convenient excuse not to try his utmost best to win. He became comfortable and was consumed by his own self-importance. Last season was a game changer and those who are strongly opposed to him have found a powerful voice via protests and media coverage. No matter how small the numbers he now knows it can have a powerful destabilising influence on him and the team and when he inevitably drops the balls again next season we will be there to remind him of his incompetence.

  4. MAF

    Jun 22, 2017, 11:00 #102348

    i see we are our usual sharp decisive selves in Transfer market dealings. whinger the old codger the biggest ditherer of all time at the helm. Alexis is off as we all suspected, more so as lost faith in wenger during that horrible 9-10 game period where Whinger totally abdicated his Job and let the guys get slaughtered. unforgiveable really and now we pay the Price for that period.

  5. Badarse

    Jun 22, 2017, 9:58 #102347

    Exeter-not nice.

  6. Exeter Ex

    Jun 22, 2017, 9:51 #102346

    Ah Badarse, the old 'when I call people names it's nice, when others call me names it's nasty' defence. I wonder if it'll ever sink in why you get accused of hypocrisy. I'm happy to carry on with Eggman and Rev. Arsewipe if you are, but clearly you want it to stop. The old adage 'Don't dish it out if you can't take it' springs to mind. We have nothing to say to each other personally but this is a public forum so you can expect to still be taken to task for the comments you make on it (especially patronising advice). I know you are very sensitive to this, though again it's something you do to others, far more than anyone else on here in fact. That hypocrisy again. Will it ever sink in? I doubt it, there'll just be another router malfunction sooner or later.

  7. peter wain

    Jun 22, 2017, 8:13 #102344

    wenger has had money and could have had more. He chose not to buy players. Remember two seasons ago he did not buy one outfield player his choice. He has had his time he should go now.

  8. Badarse

    Jun 22, 2017, 7:17 #102343

    Good moaning Exeter. You know Eggman was not delivered with malice though your response was. So the option you offered is regarded as an insult? How come you never sprang to my defence when it was used as a nasty dig before? Did you run for cover, is that your mode? Why not just call out any other individuals? Do you see it as us against them? The mighty against the few? All a bit silly, isn't it. I tried EG before but felt you weren't setting one so as most have egg on their faces I thought it apt. It isn't an insult though. Still if it hurts and I never want to wound it has been placed in the sports' store cupboard along with, some old navy blue shorts, some cricket pads and an empty Lucozade bottle. It shouldn't be a problem anyway from now on as we really do not have anything worthwhile to say to each other, do we? Sniping from the side lines isn't a good basis for communication. All a bit silly really. Funny thing is I have perhaps fallen out with Ron more than any other poster, yet I regard him highly. I have learnt quite a bit from the lad-and that is as it should be. So my friend, Exeter it is. Now relax and just enjoy the beauty all around. Despite all it's confusion life it is still worth living.

  9. GoonerRon

    Jun 22, 2017, 0:08 #102342

    Nothing wrong with a few stats, although whilst noting net spend can be sporadic based on extraordinary purchases or sales at a season level, surely transfer net spend over the longer term analysis should be relevant. Accordingly here are the net spend figures (06/07-16/17): Arsenal £157m, Chelsea £340m, MU £404m, MC £816m, Liv £204m. If you look at 08-09 onwards (when the top 5 wage bills became the same 5 clubs) if you combine net spend plus wage bills over that period it is Arsenal £1.56bn, Chelsea £2.05bn, MU £1.99bn, MC £2.44bn and Liverpool £1.43bn. So Chelsea, MU and MC each invested on average £607m more than Arsenal. They've won more trophies than us in that period so perhaps the extra investment has been recouped elsewhere (also, what 'price' do you put on winning league titles).. Naturally, it is also open to debate whether Wenger has delivered the best possible results for our transfer and wage spend. In any case, there are the completed facts.

  10. mbg

    Jun 21, 2017, 22:43 #102341

    Apparently wonder kid big baps is going to command a world record fee, and Arsenal are supposed to be interested ? You couldn't make it up, and there's those who are hanging on this and believe it, you have to admire the weasels spin department, it must be the only f*****g department at Arsenal doing it's job and earning it's money. wenger out.

  11. Exeter Ex

    Jun 21, 2017, 22:22 #102340

    Used your chosen username before to give you a chance to do the same, but no. The Reverend Brian Badarsewipe from now on it is then. Your notion that us who have all the arguments are the ones with a 'narrow perspective', versus your total inability to counter any of these and thus the continuous retreat into weak wordplay. You continue your support in the face of all reason and evidence for Wenger's ongoing tenure yet you still pretend you don't 'believe' when that support is manifestly and only an article of faith. You, Reverend Arsewipe, believe, you idolise, you revere the Archbishop of Alsace. You can't see beyond him, you're locked onto him, imprisoned by your reverence. You spent nearly a year and a half just reading comments on here before plucking up the courage off the back of Wenger's new 2 year deal to comment yourself again, and you've not moved on at all. It's been said before - who do you think you're kidding? You are laughably transparent.

  12. A Cornish Gooner

    Jun 21, 2017, 22:21 #102339

    Thanks Baddie. You're top pedigree, chum.

  13. Time for change

    Jun 21, 2017, 21:56 #102338

    No Premier League titles in that period but Leicester managed one. Wenger out.

  14. Badarse

    Jun 21, 2017, 20:53 #102337

    Corny you choose your company and I'll choose mine, chum. Majority is a narrow perspective on what is right. You should know that, a man of your years. Look at Brexit and Trump. Still your sums are nearer the mark than our friend's.

  15. A Cornish Gooner

    Jun 21, 2017, 19:29 #102336

    Naysayers 9 - I sayers 1

  16. mbg

    Jun 21, 2017, 19:03 #102335

    I see TOF is in favour of VAR, no surprise there especially when he thinks HE's been hard done by, and no surprise the one that sticks in his memory, the CL final in 06 and Barcas equaliser, still apportioning blame and holding others responsible even after all this time, what an excuse making waste of space. wenger out.

  17. Badarse

    Jun 21, 2017, 17:22 #102334

    Hello Eggman, I don't believe in any man, and that includes yourself, not personal, but just a rebuttal of your jibe which is also on par. I am above par in comparison to the little old lady who lives around the corner based on how much per head is spent weekly on groceries. True I go to a supermarket to get the BOGOF deals but am still above par. Hang on! I use my car and it cost 10k. Drat, she must be doing better than me...I think. Still as the man said, 'He who can see through women is missing an awful lot.'

  18. equalizer

    Jun 21, 2017, 17:16 #102333

    No mention either of the £200 million in cash reserves built up during those 'years of austerity'. Seasons like 2007-8, when that little bit extra would have possibly won the title for the sake of a couple of million. But we were always one or two quality players short, in various positions at various times. Wenger didn't complain about not having the money then, when he wouldn't cough up for Xabi Alonso it was because he would stifle Denilsons development!

  19. Exeter Ex

    Jun 21, 2017, 16:44 #102332

    Badarse - where do you want the variables, the factors that must be taken into consideration, to stop? How about countering your debt repayments point with one about the enormous income the stadium generates? The point is to show how boring and predictable it is under Wenger, to explode the myths about him the likes of yourselves want to believe in, that he is some genius overachiever. Of course, by his sheer presence he does 'excite and amaze' you, so you're not going to comprehend this.

  20. Badarse

    Jun 21, 2017, 16:31 #102331

    I'm sorry, have I missed something? Yes taking into account wages is a reasonable consideration, but why leave out transfer balances? Then of course debt repayments? Seems a little half-cocked and more than a bit contrived. Still it's clear you have an agenda John Evans but really you are just throwing a bone to those who will gnaw on it-as you can see by the earlier posts who like your figures. I'm a bit perplexed that the entire exercise is angled to prove that AW hasn't punched above his weight, then proceed to prove that he has by stating he hit par thrice, underperformed twice and outperformed four times. So a Win 4 Draw 3 Lose 2, isn't par, it is above. In the two seasons since your analysis he has on your judgements finished above and below, so that would still be a Win 5 Draw 3 Lose 3-above par. AW has also won the FA Cup 3 times, with 2 losing league cup finals-these should also measure achievement too, but it all becomes too complicated so better to stick to intended outcome, eh? Bizarre. You do make a point that when he has outperformed it isn't by much. Pardon? If you are the second highest spender but perpetually win the title then you would always only 'just' outperform...by a solitary position. It's an article that clearly has taken a while to garner all the facts that you chose to use, but a little pointless in it's conclusion. Still keep up the good work, it reveals the naysayers if nothing else.

  21. Yes its Ron

    Jun 21, 2017, 15:14 #102327

    Thats a very good article. Theres no way of telling now, but even with the players we have brought in this last 12 yrs i think that had AW have surrounded himself with the right support staff and not been wanting to control all that he surveys at the Club, results may well have been better. His sheer doggedness and stubbornness plus many other variables that has impacted on the club cant ever be reflected in the net spends etc etc

  22. jwe1981

    Jun 21, 2017, 14:30 #102323

    Worth also pointing out that when people clamber to call The Premier League the most competitive in world football. Only three out of the so called top six clubs have actually managed to win the league in the last 12 years. Arsenal not since 2004, Liverpool not for the best part of three decades and Spurs not since people first heard of The Beatles! Not really that competitive overall. Dominated by Utd, City and Chelsea for the last 12 seasons.

  23. mbg

    Jun 21, 2017, 14:20 #102322

    MAF, good post, it's inspector clueless trying to assert his authority on the players showing Sanchez who's boss, just like he does with the fans by sticking his two fingers up at us when he thinks we get above our station by expressing our opinions or calling for something, not the wengerites of course they'd never question their messiah. wenger out.

  24. Moscowgooner

    Jun 21, 2017, 14:00 #102321

    Excellent analysis: validates the intuitive view that we punch at our weight rather than above it. Certainly helps kill off the boring mantra from supporters of other clubs - ´be careful what you wish for, Arsenal will be mid table after Wenger leaves etc etc etc etc.' We might slip to 6th or 7th during transition season(s): the economic reality of the Premiership now is that we couldn´t go much lower no matter who is in charge. In any event we have to confront change sooner or later - and clearly the sooner the better given the increased economic clout of other teams (Chelsea, Spurs, Everton etc) as they build new stadia. How long before Stan decides he needs a new(er) stadium (see St Louis)?

  25. mbg

    Jun 21, 2017, 14:00 #102320

    Ha ha, good heading, like when it's placed in one of those spirally things that go round making pretty patterns going nowhere, or more like a feathered pen that you dip in an ink well. We want wenger out.

  26. MAF

    Jun 21, 2017, 12:52 #102318

    Have Arsenal accidentally revealed Alexis Sanchez will leave this summer? Welbeck allocated No 2 7 Shirt already. Sums up this club's Inspector Clueless PR, anything but a PR machine, more like a bunch of overpaid stubling blithering idiots given a Task way beyond them. Roman A demands his Club are on top of every aspect of the game. Arsenal are amateurs by comparison and since Daivd Dein left us

  27. NickF

    Jun 21, 2017, 12:41 #102316

    I think you also need to take into account who is in our squad as well. There has been a load of wasted money with the likes of Bendtner, Diaby, Santos, Sonogo, Asano, Debuchy (to name a few). So while we might have the third or fourth biggest spend, there is a strong argument that we should have done better.

  28. Roy

    Jun 21, 2017, 12:38 #102315

    As you say, boring and predictable in the extreme. And that's exactly what you're gonna get for the next 2 years as well.