There are still some thorns in this emerging garden of roses. In theory, Arsenal should be ideally placed to benefit from Uefa’s new Financial Fair-Play regulations and the ‘break even’ principle that clubs should not spend more than they naturally earn. In practice, Deloitte’s new league table of the biggest earners in football very clearly signalled how Manchester City and Paris St Germain will seek to underpin their vast spending with sponsorship deals that would appear to have a close connection to their respective owners. City have gone from generating £18 million in commercial income in 2008-9 to £166.9 million in 2012-13. This is already well ahead of more historically famous and successful clubs, such as Arsenal and Liverpool, and only marginally behind Manchester United, Real Madrid and Barcelona. PSG have gone even further and now outstrip every club in world football for sponsorship revenue. These deals will be evaluated for ‘fair value’ by Uefa and, during lunch this week with Michel Platini, it can be safely assumed that Gazidis was clearly outlining his “healthy sceptics” view of FFP.