It’s summer time, so naturally, it’s time to look at club finances!

David Conn has released his annual state of the Premier League finances over on the Guardian and I have compiled most of that data into a handy sortable Google chart. get out those accounting goggles and start licking pencils: it’s time to play “Amortization FC!”

Notes:

  • Crystal Palace didn’t turn in any financial results and I left them off the table because it sorted funny when they were included. They finished 14th that season.
  • Only two clubs failed to report a profit, Chelsea and Sunderland. Man City broke even. All other teams posted profits despite rising wage bills in large part thanks to massive increases in TV deals.
  • Average profit last season was £28m per club. Total profits for all teams were £530m. This average is heavily weighted by Leicester who announced an astonishing £92m in profits thanks almost entirely to a Champions League payout of £70m.
  • If we divide the profits into quartiles 6 teams made less than 13m in profits (Chelsea, Sunderland, Man City, Watford, Stoke, Boro) and only one team made more than £80m (Leicester).
  • Arsenal finished 4th in the profits tables.
  • Amazon announced today that they bought the rights to some Premier League games, which will further enrich teams and TV contracts
  • Chelsea supporters should have major concerns. Abramovich has £1.17bn in debt loaded on the club, the stadium has stalled, they are out of the Champions League again, and they are losing money again. They do have quite a large inventory of players that they could sell should the need arise for Abramovich to recoup some of those debts.
  • Stoke were 8th in net debt, owing £76m. They were 6th in debt/turnover ratio at 0.56. Relegation this season means a massive drop in turnover and oddly they are in debt to online gambling firms.
  • Burnley and Tottenham are topping the debt table with announced cash reserves in excess of debt.
  • Arsenal supporters continue to contribute the most money directly to their team, putting in a whopping 23% of total club turnover in matchday income. Liverpool were 2nd, Man U 3rd, and Chelsea 4th. Bournemouth supporters contributed the least, just 3.6% (£5m).
  • Arsenal were 5th in wages, £72m more than Tottenham in 6th and £65m less than Man City in 1st.
  • Arsenal were also 5th in commercial income with £91m.
  • As an aside, I noticed that there was an “eyeball” fit between commercial income and wages so I did a one-off RSQ and the correlation came back as 0.91. That might be an interesting project for someone who has time. If you want help, feel free to reach out to me via email, here, or on twitter. I’d be glad to give you tips and a platform to publish results.
  • Arsenal’s wage bill is higher than the bottom three teams combined and higher than the turnover of of the bottom 13 teams in the Premier League (not combined, obviously).
  • Conclusions: this is definitive proof that a 0.4 reduction in average age of Arsenal’s players will result in a top four finish.*

Qq

*No one is making this argument, except the people who want to make believe that someone is making this argument.

36 comments

  1. Are we the only club this season who is going to a sleeve sponsor or do other clubs have them too? I’m drawing a complete blank. We are lagging significantly behind in our commercial income. I guess that’s not a big revelation. Maybe we should get a sock sponsor and a collar sponsor as well? I can think of a couple of rich countries who can do with a little bit of advertising to attract more tourism.

  2. Touche, sir, I’m most regretful for having misunderstood your arguments. Maybe I’m dense but I still don’t know what you were trying to say if not what I thought you were trying to say (does that make sense?). I know you feel like you’ve explained yourself sufficiently so we can just leave it at that, it really doesn’t mean that much to me.

    This is a nice analysis, and chapeau for the RSQ: 0.91 is an impressive correlation! I submit you’d find a similar correlation of wages with net worth or any other measure of a club’s overall financial power. Or do you think there are other factors at play there?

    The main takeaway for me was how far behind Arsenal were compared to the clubs above us in commercial income. Aren’t some of those deals up for re-negotiation soon?

    1. We reupped with Emirates. We’ve added Rwanda, and the crypto currency. We’re reportedly signing with Adidas next season. I can’t remember but I get the feeling there were one or two more partnerships we announced this year. I’d expect the commercial income to rise.

    2. Oh also, finishing 5th would have meant less income from existing sponsors too. I think we know that Emirates pay us less if we’re not in the CL.

  3. The commercial performance is really poor. With £91m, we do barely better than Spurs (£73m), and are far behind Pool (£136m) and Chelsea (£140m). Remind me again why we were paying Kroenke a consulting fee…?

    1. If Josh kroenke sells a match day ticket to Stan korenke for 50mil, that ‘ll solve everything !

  4. Ok, re: your last comment, obviously there were some mixed signals in our conversation yesterday, but I will admit my sarcasm probably didn’t help! Apologies for that, by the way. Here’s where I was going:

    Of course you didn’t argue that lowering the average age by 0.4 would mean a title. That was my point. You never would make that argument. Why? Because, for one, there is no correlation between average age and where you finish in the table. Given this lack of correlation, and given that the presentation of facts is always rhetorical, I felt that the posting of the graph actually undermined its surrounding argument, one that was expressive, generally, of an anxiety about the age of our squad.

    1. *Should clarify, I’m using “rhetorical” in the classical sense of, roughly, “in the service of persuasion,” not in the sense in which it’s often used today (“theoretically” or “hypothetically”).

      Come on, Tim. You’re not returning my calls. And I see the flowers I sent you are now in your trashcan.

    2. Tim was merely saying that when rebuilding a team it makes no sense to buy old players when you already have an ageing team in a very athletic league. They offer no resale value (squad depreciation), can’t play back to back games (ie Sat, Thurs, Sun) and take longer to recover from injury.

      Its reasonable to expect Arsenal to be ‘competing’ deep into the season and the chances of having to field our old players all at once is high and for me that is scary. If Cech, Lichtsteiner, Kos, Monreal played together they would get shredded by all the top 5 offences due to the athleticism mismatch.

      Comparing our squad average age to our direct competitors was to illustrate the work needed to be done to get closer to them to at least compete on an equal footing with regards to athleticism (strength, endurance, pace etc). It wasn’t to suggest that lowering the average was some magic bullet and we would suddenly overhaul the performance/results deficit.

      1. We’re going to hit the wall again in about two years. And if we’re only able to invest 50m now and continue to sit on the cash, where is the money comong from then. We will be in a pretty unappealing situation. I don’t think the effects will be bad short-term, although longer recovery times are a concern, we’ll probably be fine next season, but we only kicked the can further down the road. At some point the club will have to bite the bullet and invest the cash . There’s no telling if the teenagers from the academy will make it, we have been here beofre so many times. So many youngsters that looked like “the real deal” but weren’t good enough in the end.

        1. The argument then becomes to blow this team up. Replace Xhaka with..Torreira? Ndombele? Ndidi? Replace Per and Kos with Soyuncu and sell maybe Mustafi or Chambers. Sell Monreal and add a young LB to compete with Kola. Buy a young RB to backup/compete with Bellerin. And of course add a new GK (which we should do if we can)

          You’re still left with worrying about Miki, Ozil and Auba, who are some of the better players in the team and will be most expensive to replace. So do you look to sell them now? Or hope the talent you acquire behind them is good enough to help make the most of their ability? In the first you’re basically giving up on top 4. In the second you’re saying the team we have is not good enough.

          The argument against the latter is that despite the disruptions and shortcomings we had a great home record and a deep EL run. Even the season prior we missed out on CL by a single point. Maybe what’s lacking in the team is not talent but know-how? Maybe the club has assessed that there’s a conveyor belt of talent coming through that will help us replace the older guys when it’s time, including through raising money from sales? Maybe we’re worrying over nothing?

          And as for adding older guys, we’ve gotten younger. Auba is younger than Theo! Cazorla and Per are going. Kos is out for half a season. Anyone we get is going to be younger. We have a 2 year window easy. Maybe even 3, before we need to worry about this. How far ahead do you plan for your team?

          1. No, I get that, the plan is to get back into the CL by hook or by crook. I’m not as alarmed as Tim, but I can see the problem. I like Sokratis, and I see that he’s sort of an emergency measure. Soyuncu, if he was indeed a target, would have been nowhere near ready and we needed to replace Kos immediately.
            The last two seasons have left us in a precarious situation and what we’re seeing a emergency measures, I get that. I mean, the summer just started and those were the deals that could be pushed over the line fast, especially before the World Cup. But now it’ll be a matter of looking beyond that.

          2. concerning the first paragraph, that is exactly what most of us are putting so much faith in Mislintat. These are the players we need. We don’t have much leeway to get it wrong and now he has to prove he can do it. I’m always a bit sceptical about the labeling of “tranfer gurus” and geniusses. Rory Smith wrote about it a while ago in the NYT. Remember the genius behind Leicester’s recruitment Steve Walsh? He’s just been fired by Everton.

  5. I wonder what the average age was for the Invincibles back 5. They weren’t no spring chickens.

    1. The Invincibles weren’t old. Cole and Toure are still playing for instance

      Lehman
      Lauren Toure Campbell Cole

      You must be thinking of the late 90s to early 2000s teams?

      1. Lehman was 34, Lauren 27 and Campbell 29, Cole was 23 and Toure was also 23

        1. Also back up centre backs were Keown 37 (3 starts and 10 apps)and Cygan 30 (10 starts and 18 apps)

    2. I answered this in the previous thread they were 28.2 and Bergkamp was 35 and played 21 times

    3. The Invincibles were almost at the end of a cycle in 2004. Their last breath was reaching the 2006 Champions League final. We’re talking about recruitment strategy here. To be really fair, you should look at the players’ age when the club signed them, i.e. the beginning of the cycle. I’ve looked at the Invincibles’ age when Arsenal signed them: Lehmann 34, Cole (academy), Vieira 20, Keown 27, Reyes 21, Pires 25, Ljungberg 21, Bergkamp 26, Wiltord 26, Lauren 23, Henry 22, Parlour (academy), Edu 23, Gilberto 26, Cygan 28, Clichy 18, Campbell 27, Toure 21, Kanu 23. You can see that only Lehmann and Cygan were 28 or over when the club signed them (I only checked the year not the month of birth and signing, i.e. Campbell was in fact still 26 when he joined Arsenal).

  6. the concept of bringing in older players as opposed to younger players makes sense, especially for arsenal. in most jobs (soccer is no different) who do new employees learn how to do their jobs from? it’s not their boss. they learn, mostly, from their peers; that senior guy who’s been around and knows what’s important and how to get stuff done. in soccer, it’s no different. old heads teach the young bucks how to be professionals and how to win, especially in tough games; how to win when talent alone is not enough.

    it was the primary problem when wenger blew up the invincibles. it was too much experience leaving too fast. in the end, you have 19-year old denilson trying to learn from 20-year old fabregas. arsene’s “just let the players express themselves” approach encouraged the players to “give it their best shot and to believe” while minimizing sound strategic direction. as a result, arsenal found themselves as a very talented team that simply couldn’t win the games that mattered. this is where the older players come in. they help get the boss’ message across the same way someone did for them when they were young.

    more specifically, under arsene wenger’s arsenal, the older players come in and provide the direction that wenger’s management team clearly didn’t.

    1. I think Wenger’s hands were pretty much tied behind a stadium sized back after the Invincibles, had we won the 2006 Champions league maybe we could have held onto a few more of the senior players. How we stayed as competitive as we did with a young squad is probably down to Wenger drawing a wolf on the board and telling them to just do what they wanted on the pitch.

      1. Also as a point of interest the 2007/08 squad of Eduardo fame had an average age of 24.6 based on the 19 players who played 20+ games

      2. He got in the most talented midfielder of his generation and tried to build a team around him on the cheap. It should have worked too.

        Also, in the discussion of the invincibles we miss out on the larger point that the core of that team had been together for five years by the time Vieira kicked in the winning penalty in 2005. Vieira, Henry, Lauren, Ljungberg, Cole, Gilberto, were all born within a few years of each other.

        Plus that was a different time (there were only two teams in the League), the club had an ancient goal keeper (Seaman), and some of the oldest players were absolute legends in their time. Plus the speed of the game, fitness, etc. Let’s not forget that Wenger’s revolution in 1995 was to ban candy bars.

        1. Not much to argue with here, looking back at the Wenger “candy” revolution I’m reminded of another tactic he used which was the signing of Remi Garde 30 at the time (his first official signing) as a role model of the new wave of professionalism Wenger wanted to instill in his old dogs that he inherited and that is how I see the Litchensteiner signing for Emery. Garde made 31 apps in 3 years.

  7. Couldnt help to notice Liverpool and Klopp being mentioned in recent threads as an example of transfer planing and execution Arsenal should aspire to.

    Rodgers was let go eight games into the 2015-16 season after finishing on 62 points and in sixth place the season before.
    Klopp, who was hired in October 2015 didn’t sign anyone the rest of the season finishing in eighth place on 60 points, and curiously his biggest criticism came from certain quarters of Arsenal fan base who used that fact as an argument against managerial changes.
    His first signing as a Liverpool manager of any note was Mane and Wijnaldum some eight months later.

    Let’s suppose Arsenal did that and Emery didn’t sign a single player his first season , finishing two places lower and with two points fewer than Wenger in his last.
    I wonder what the Arsenal fan reaction would be if this actually happened.

    Judging by some of the comments here and other places regarding Emery’s first moves, one needs very little imagination to figure it out.
    Talk about a privileged and obnoxious fan base- terms used to describe Liverpool fans by many Arsenal fans including some on here in the lead up and the aftermath of their CL debacle.

    I realize of course most of the bickering is done out of football boredom and in good fun, and it’s actually quite entertaining when done by posters with considerably bigger brain power than my own but ffs let’s all take a chill pill, enjoy the summer and see what Emery can do with the players we have before he gets to spend bigly on top qualeetee 🙂

    1. The big difference between Klopp and Emery is that Klopp only joined in October and couldn’t sign anybody in the transfer market. Klopp could have tried to sign a player in the winter but he preferred to keep his powder dry and wait for the summer transfer window. Emery joined in May and has 3 months (June, July, August) to sign players. Emery can rebuild the Arsenal squad while Klopp couldn’t in his first season at Liverpool.
      Another difference is the notion of making progress. You mention Liverpool finished 6th under Rodgers and 8th under Klopp. True. But Liverpool had a poor start to the season and were 10th when Klopp took over. 6th is still better than 10th. Also, the Reds were runners-up in the League Cup and the Europa League under Klopp while they got knocked out in the semifinals of the League Cup and in the last 32 of the Europa League under Rodgers the season before. So that’s still progress.

      1. And there Liverpool sit. Again in 4th with a point less than last season when they nudged us from the CL by a point.

        They have still won NO silverware in Klopp’s 4-year tenure. Make no mistake though. I’m impressed with how he’s gotten his team to buy-in to his concepts. He has had one major advantage — Countinho Cash.

        Conventional Wisdom is for Pool to be a contender next season. When they should have been much better points-wise this season (though nobody was going to stay close City). But they dropped a point from 2016-17. Why the ‘Wow Factor’ then? A Cinderella run to the CL Final? They have proven they can beat City– no small feat. Quite impressively too. But Porto, and Roma? Those were possibly the best draws they could have hoped for.

        City could just as easily implode next season with unexpected events. With attendant or inevitable dramas possible among United, Chelsea, Spuds? Well, if Arsenal can improve by more than 12 points– retaining our home record and improving on the away record? CL is possible on 75-77pts next season IMO.

        jw1

  8. No one is arguing Klopp didn’t make any progress in his first season but
    we are talking transfers here and the fact is he signed no one in his first transfer window. You call it keeping his powder dry, I call it taking time to evaluate his squad, which is exactly what he said.

    1. I don’t think Klopp had much choice. First, Rodgers spent more than £110 million in the summer 2015 to sign Benteke, Firmino, Clyne, Gomez, Ings and other players. How much money had Liverpool left for a winter deal? And second, you have more choice in the transfer market in the summer than in the winter. It’s easier for players to move home in the summer and adapt to a new country, especially England where there is no winter break and you have to hit the ground running. Was there any player Klopp was interested in who was available in January 2016?

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