Sunday, November 4, 2012 at 2:58PM

Last February, I gave estimated figures of Arsenal’s wage bill, citing the huge amount of money Wenger had wasted on (a) flops, and (b) overpaid youngsters he couldn’t get off the wage bill.

My overall assessment was that, contrary to popular opinion, Arsenal’s failure to compete with the heavy spenders in the Premier League has nothing to do with how much money is available for Wenger to spend, rather how he chooses to spend the considerable resources made available to him.

Yet, while the sum total of my wage bill estimate added up mathematically, the breakdown lacked accuracy and I’ve long been meaning to perfect it. So, armed with further information - and recent access to Arsenal’s full-year accounts, the below update should be a little more accurate an estimate of how Arsenal’s current £143.4m wage bill is made up.





FIRST TEAM WAGE (pwk) WAGE (p/yr) Lukas Podolski £107,000 £5,564,000 Tomas Rosicky £80,000 £4,160,000 Per Mertesacker £80,000 £4,160,000 Andrey Arshavin £78,000 £4,056,000 Santi Carzorla £70,000 £3,640,000 Mikel Arteta £70,000 £3,640,000 Thomas Vermaelen £70,000 £3,640,000 Theo Walcott £60,000 £3,120,000 Olivier Giroud £60,000 £3,120,000 Gervinho £60,000 £3,120,000 Bacary Sagna £60,000 £3,120,000 Marouane Chamakh £60,000 £3,120,000 Andre Santos £60,000 £3,120,000 Jack Wilshere £60,000 £3,120,000 Abou Diaby £60,000 £3,120,000 Denilson £60,000 £3,120,000 Laurent Koscielny £60,000 £3,120,000 Johan Djourou £50,000 £2,600,000 Kieran Gibbs £50,000 £2,600,000 Nicklas Bendtner £50,000 £2,600,000 Sebastien Squillaci £50,000 £2,600,000 Aaron Ramsey £50,000 £2,600,000 Wojciech Szczesny £50,000 £2,600,000 Lukasz Fabianski £50,000 £2,600,000 Ju Young Park £50,000 £2,600,000 Vito Mannone £30,000 £1,560,000 Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain £30,000 £1,560,000 Carl Jenkinson £30,000 £1,560,000 Emmanuel Frimpong £30,000 £1,560,000 Francis Coquelin £30,000 £1,560,000 Ryo Miyaichi £18,000 £936,000 Ignasi Miquel £10,000 £520,000 Joel Campbell £10,000 £520,000 £90,636,000 RESERVES Alex Iwobi £750 £39,000 Alfred Mugabo £750 £39,000 Anthony Jeffrey £750 £39,000 Arinse Uade £750 £39,000 Austin Lipman £750 £39,000 Benik Afobe £750 £39,000 Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill £750 £39,000 Chuba Akpom £750 £39,000 Chuks Aneke £750 £39,000 Conor Henderson £750 £39,000 Craig Eastmond £750 £39,000 Damian Martinez £750 £39,000 Daniel Boateng £750 £39,000 Deyan Iliev £750 £39,000 Elton Monteiro £750 £39,000 Glen Kamara £750 £39,000 Hector Bellerin £750 £39,000 Nicholas Yennaris £750 £39,000 Isaac Hayden £750 £39,000 Jack Jebb £750 £39,000 James Shea £750 £39,000 Jernade Meade £750 £39,000 Jon Toral £750 £39,000 Jordan Wynter £750 £39,000 Josh Rees £750 £39,000 Josh Vickers £750 £39,000 Kristoffer Olsson £750 £39,000 Kyle Ebecilio £750 £39,000 Leander Siemann £750 £39,000 Martin Angha £750 £39,000 Nigel Neita £750 £39,000 Philip Roberts £750 £39,000 Reice Charles-Cook £750 £39,000 Samir Bihmoutine £750 £39,000 Samuel Galindo £750 £39,000 Sanchez Watt £750 £39,000 Sead Hajrovic £750 £39,000 Serge Gnabry £750 £39,000 Tarum Dawkins £750 £39,000 Thoma Eisfeld £750 £39,000 Tom Dallison £750 £39,000 Wellington £750 £39,000 Zachari Fagan £750 £39,000 Zak Ansah £750 £39,000 £1,716,000 FIRST TEAM STAFF Manager Arsène Wenger £135,000 £7,020,000 Assistant to Manager Boro Primorac £7,500 £390,000 Steve Bould £5,000 £260,000 Coach Gerry Peyton £1,300 £67,600 Neil Banfield £1,300 £67,600 Tony Colbert £1,300 £67,600 Tony Roberts £1,300 £67,600 Paul Johnson £1,000 £52,000 Marcus Svensson £1,000 £52,000 James Collins £1,000 £52,000 Ben Knapper £1,000 £52,000 David Wales £1,000 £52,000 Physio/Medical Colin Lewin £1,000 £52,000 Gary O'Driscoll £1,000 £52,000 Simon Harland £1,000 £52,000 Kieran Hunt £1,000 £52,000 Darren Page £1,000 £52,000 Danny Flitter £1,000 £52,000 Kit Vic Akers £600 £31,200 Paul Akers £600 £31,200 Scouting Steve Rowley (Chief) £1,000 £52,000 Gilles Grimandi £600 £31,200 Tony Banfield £600 £31,200 Danny Karbassiyoon £600 £31,200 Sandro Orlandelli £600 £31,200 Pablo Budner £600 £31,200 Everton Gushiken £600 £31,200 Bobby Bennett £600 £31,200 Francis Cagigao £600 £31,200 Jurgen Kost £600 £31,200 Peter Clarke £600 £31,200 £8,938,800 RESERVES STAFF Liam Brady £3,200 £166,400 David Court £1,000 £52,000 Roy Massey £1,000 £52,000 Terry Burton £1,000 £52,000 Steve Gatting £1,000 £52,000 Lee Smelt £1,000 £52,000 Carl Laraman £1,000 £52,000 Steve Leonard £1,000 £52,000 Craig Gant £1,000 £52,000 Dennis Rockall £1,000 £52,000 Lewis Manning £1,000 £52,000 Richard Goddard £1,000 £52,000 Alastair Thrush £1,000 £52,000 Kwame Ampadu £1,000 £52,000 £842,400 BOARD Ivan Gazidis £39,423 £2,049,996 Ken Friar OBE £10,980 £570,960 Peter Hill-Wood £1,500 £67,000 Stanley Kroenke £481 £25,000 Sir Chips Keswick £480 £24,960 £2,737,916 OTHER COSTS Pension/social security £387,500 £20,150,000 Player bonus pool £192,307 £10,000,000 Peripheral staff £160,000 £8,320,000 Total £2,756,771 £143,341,116



(Note to other websites: please link to this weblog rather than publish salary statistics as the figures are being constantly revised)



The wage bill has risen by 19% from last season and is currently only £19m less than Manchester United’s and £25m behind Chelsea. All clubs trail behind Manchester City, although just because Man City have a wage bill of £174m doesn’t mean you need a wage bill of £174m to compete for the Premier League.

Money will get you so far in competing for the Premier League, but paying ridiculously over-inflated salaries to beat off the competition is not necessarily a true reflection of a squad’s overall ability or the ultimate route to success. The missing link is a management team’s ability to convert that financial outlay into trophies.

Basically, Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal have much fewer resources than Man City, but still have more than enough to field a world class first team + bench that is capable of outstripping the rest of the Premier League and winning consistently enough to mount a title challenge.

This notion can be further assessed by looking at the spend of a team such as Tottenham, who competed with Arsenal for a place in the top four despite spending £30m less in wages, while Newcastle finished just 5 points behind Arsenal despite spending £110m less in wages! The Northern club has halved its wage bill from £74m to £34m over the past two seasons, yet still managed a top four challenge.

If Newcastle can compete with Arsenal notwithstanding a £110m wage deficit, why can’t Arsenal compete with Man City, Chelsea or Man Utd for the title when the wage gap, in relative terms, is far smaller?

This evidence re-establishes the fact that Wenger’s inability to challenge for the title has little to do with being unable to compete financially, but everything to do with inefficient wage spend allied to poor player purchases and rank bad management.

Based on my salary estimates above, we can better view Wenger’s horrendous cash wastage by examining the salary spend on the following distinctly average players over a 4-year period.



Vito Mannone £6.2m

Kieran Gibbs = £10.4m

Ju Young Park = £10.4m

Wojciech Szczesny = £10.4m

Lukasz Fabianski = £10.4m

Aaron Ramsey £10.4m

Johan Djourou £10.4m

Sebastien Squillaci = £10.4m

Nicklas Bendtner = £10.4m

Denilson £12.4m

Abou Diaby £12.4m

Andre Santos £12.4m

Marouane Chamakh = £12.4m

From that list, Wenger has, or will have by the time their contracts expire, blown £139.3m on wages. Add another £24.6m in transfer fees = a total expenditure of £163.9m. In fact, the cost is actually considerably higher as some of those players have been at the club far longer than 4 years - up to 7 in some cases.



Some might bemoan my choice of targets to pick on, but it would only make for worse reading if I chose to include some of Wenger’s other grave disappointments such as Theo Walcott and Andrei Arshavin. Many might want to add a prize dud like Gervinho to the list, or judging by Arsenal’s abysmal defending, Mertesacker, Vermaelen or Koscielny.

The jury’s also out on new signings Giroud and Podolski, who so-far have only 3 goals between them in 10 Premier league games. Early days, but that £24m outlay doesn’t look like coming good either.



The players mentioned in the above two paragraphs have cost the club a further £86m in transfer fees, and over a 4-year contract Arsenal has either spent, or is committed to spending, at least £119.6m in wages on those players.



The question is, how many of these Wenger purchases have proven to be the absolute top quality required to sustain a title challenge or compete for the Champions League? The total expenditure on wages and salaries for all of the above players combined amounts, or will do by the time their contracts expire, to £369,500,000.

Sorry, but the idea that Arsenal is a club unable to compete due to lack of finances is utterly preposterous.

Now that we can take Wenger’s resources out of the equation, we can focus on the real reasons Arsenal has been unable to challenge for trophies going on 8 years, such as the obscene amounts of money Wenger wastes on average players, his total failure to coach defence, fundamentally flawed tactics and clear inability to motivate the squad.

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