Arsenal’s majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke, will reportedly hand over a £55 million transfer kitty to Arsene Wenger to strengthen his besieged squad in the summer, according to the Metro.
The American tycoon dubbed ‘Silent Stan’ by fans and the media alike because of his rare appearances and interviews to the press, is scheduled to fly into London on Thursday where he will hold a meeting with Wenger and the rest of the board to discuss the club’s long-term plans and ambitions, as well as other things. Here is a bit of a breakdown of the club’s finances (click HERE).
The intangible owner is also thought to be fully behind the Frenchman’s management, even if the club fail to achieve a top four finish this season.
Now if all this turns out to be true, then what I want to ask you guys reading this is – is £55 million enough to strengthen our squad this summer?
Well considering we’re tracking down Eden Hazard, Mario Gotze and Lukas Podolski, as well as a few other high-profile players in Europe, perhaps we’ll need more cash than Kroenke is expected to hand over, a lot more.
Personally, I feel we need three top players to come in this summer, and probably one or two better players to add to the squad. We definitely need a striker to come in to challenge Robin van Persie (providing he signs on), a winger to either replace Andrey Arshavin or keep Theo Walcott on the bench and one formidable, experienced centre midfielder to add steel and leadership to our team in general. A back up goalkeeper and full-back wouldn’t be bad either.
Now bearing in mind the highly inflated prices of top players these days, £55 million isn’t a mass amount, not from our billionaire owner Kroenke. Although potential player sales would rake in some cash, whose to say it will be given to Wenger to spend?
If we are indeed the fifth richest club in the world then we should start flexing our muscles and look to invest in the world’s best to get back to the top. I’m not suggesting we go money crazy and be like City and Chelsea, but we should start splashing the cash on the right players before we slip further behind our rivals.
In my opinion, £55 million will no way be enough to strengthen our squad. Perhaps one or maybe two areas of our team could be improved dramatically, but if we are to challenge for silverware next season and show the rest of the league we mean business then a bigger amount of cash must be injected from the board and Kroenke than the proposed sum!
Will we need more than £55 million to strengthen our squad during the summer?
Give us your thought and comments on the matter below
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This is a good point 55 mil may not be enough although I would love to see these players come in Gotze,Podolski,Cissokho,Gourcuff I would love to see a hard ass midfielder come in and a back up goalie . But I don’t think we could afford half this lot it’s about 70 mil worth
Dont forget money we would add from selling arshavin and walcott. As i have been saying, if allowed to add to the kitty, much more than 55 to spend,of coutse a few mil more for dogs like almunia,squill, etc
Good point were get a bit from selling apart from squillaci about a fiver I think lol
Now that the world knows we have $55M to spend… no, we won’t be able to get what we need with that sum.
arsen wenger must be changed if u please the gunner supporter.
enough enough the time of wenger.
let try another best coach expect morino.
In Wenger we Trust !!!
It won’t happen, wenger and the board need to go, let another manager rebuild. The current regime is not going to change.
55 mil should be more then enough with dross going out the other door and the eventual sale of Robin to many of our underachieving players are on inflated wages……It is crazy that bendtner earns 50 grand a week and so do denilson and Djourou etc.
we need clear out like juande ramos did for tots, almunia, squillaci, fabianski, djourou, gibbs, rosicky, ramsey, diaby (even though i believe in what this guy can do more than what RVP can do cos he is always injured and we are a ftballing club not a rehab), ashavin, chamakh, park, vela, bendtner. It is not a must to get money for this guys just make sure they are sold or released just like alex left chelsea for QPR. Abolish the wage cap & offer extension of 140k per week to RVP. Then get 5 mourinho calibre of player and wenger’s crap type that he can later furnish to superstars. Gunners till i die!!!
The 55m as i understand it includes wages of the people we sign, so lets do some sums:-
£100k a week player = 5.2m per year and lets assume we sign them on a 4 year contract = 20m.
lets assume that when you buy a player on a 4yr contract you pay 50% of the transfer fee upfront and the rest in installments.
therefore the best we can hope for is 2 *10m players on 100k.(which would leave us 5m to bung to an agent)
roughly this is inline with what the club usually does and its record signings, so i think we can safely say therefore this summer is going to be no different to usual.
I’m going to assume all the players sold etc will be reinvested in salary payrises and bonuses for the remaining players.
So in short – £55m isn’t enough if you think the club needs more than a couple of 10m players, most fans are after marquee signings in the 20-30m – bracket. nfc imo.
If Accountant is right then it’s just another example of the Arsenal Board misleading the suffering fans and another reason why that lot must go. £55m isnt enough anyway, even with the panic buys we still made about £20 odd in transfers last summer as I recall.
Szczesny
Sagna…Verm..Kosci..Santos
HAZARD..Wilshere..Song..Rosicky
Rvp..Gervinho
subs:_Martinez,SAMBA,Arteta,Coquelin,
J.Campbell,Walcott,
Chamberlain,Ramsey,
Gibbs,Mertesacker,
Jenkinson,Park J.Y,Frimpong
SELL THE REST!!!
.’. Sign just HAZARD and SAMBA …for £30m