Why throwing caution to the wind must seriously be conisdered at the Emirates

Another weekend and the apparent fire sale at Arsenal continues.

More clubs are swooping down like vultures to pick the cream of the crop at the Emirates – rumours abound of Theo Walcott to Chelski and Andrey Arshavin to Galatasaray (or Hell as it is better known). Along with the City sheiks wanting to buy most of our squad, at this rate the plane to Malaysia will be a bit light on numbers.

This is where a lot of fans, me included, spout on about player loyalty; how the fans put in the hard yards, but the players jump ship as soon as the next big pay day arrives. This is all well and good, but like the fans, the players are only human. We all know that the wages in football are obscene, but if that’s what the market will pay then that’s what the players get paid.

Say you were at work and you had a 12 month contract with 3 months to run. You go to the Boss and ask him for a raise from £60 to £100 per hour and a 2 year contract. The boss says no to the full raise, but offers you £80 per hour. Not overly happy with the outcome of your negotiations, you hear the company down the road is willing to offer you £160 per hour, you’d resign and take the job down the road, no? Well, that’s what a player is doing when City or Chelski come calling. That’s what anyone else would do, take the pay rise. Unfortunately its human nature, it just affects the fans more because of our emotional input into the club.

This problem only seems to be exasperated at Arsenal due to our apparent wage structure.

In 2010, we paid out £63 million less in wages than that of Chelski.

In total, we paid the players £111 million in a season when we made an unprecedented £56 million profit. Here is what our rivals paid out – the first figure indicates this years payout, while the second one, in the brackets, show 2009’s.

Chelsea – £174 million (£167 million)

Man City – £133 million (£83 million)

Man Utd – £132 million (£123 million)

Liverpool – £121 million (£107 million)

Arsenal – £111 million (£104 million)

And with Middle Eastland’s nearly doubling their salary payments in one year, the difficulty in competing with the rest of the top five, attracting and keeping top players, only becomes harder.

I’m not advocating that we throw caution to the wind and throw money around on players that aren’t up to scratch – Wayne Bridge and Edin Džeko spring to mind – but we seriously have to look at this issue otherwise we are going to be left behind!!!

If you are like me and this transfer window is already doing your head in, @gunnerau is building a treehouse, and along with @ozgooner, @Lizzie_g, and @gleneggunner, we are all going to hibernate in it until the start of the season with copies of Fever Pitch and the ‘Invincibles’ DVDs to inspire us.

The more the merrier.

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