Arsenal: Contract mismanagement, the decline’s true culprit

Arsenal have handcuffed themselves by mismanaging contract situations and failing to extract value from the sales of star players, which has left them with a shortage of transfer funds.

Stan Kroenke is the man most often blamed for Arsenal’s descent from Europe’s elite, and with good reason. The American billionaire has yet to invest one penny of his own money into the club and he was nowhere to be seen at this year’s Europa League final, arguably the club’s biggest game in 13 years. Yet there is another glaring issue that does not receive nearly as much scrutiny from the fans or the media: the club’s failure to get value for their star players.

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This long-running problem can perhaps be traced back to the summer of 2007, when Thierry Henry was sold to Barcelona for just £16.1m. Granted, the transfer market was nowhere near as inflated as it is today, but this was still a shockingly small amount for the club’s greatest ever player, who was only 29 at the time. Even if Henry was frustrated after the departure of David Dein and wanted to leave for a new challenge, he was still under contract until 2010 and the club should have been able to negotiate for a larger sum of money.

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Over the next several years, the transfer market truly erupted with a number of big-money moves, but Arsenal still failed to take advantage. Captains and club icons Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie, both at the peak of their powers, were sold for less than £60m altogether. Van Persie, in particular, left for just £24m to bitter rivals Manchester United, despite his league-leading 30 goals the prior season. Given the circumstances, the price was reasonable. But the circumstances were self-inflicted. Van Persie’s contract was entering its final year. The club had no choice but to sell its best player in a laughable cut-price deal. You’d think they would have learned their lesson right?

Wrong.

Serge Gnabry, who is now a first-team regular at Bayern Munich, was sold for just £5m in 2016 for similar reasons: Arsenal allowed his contract to run down into its final year and he did not want to extend it due to a lack of playing time.

More recently, Alexis Sanchez should have easily been worth upwards of £50m, but all Arsenal could get for him was an out-of-favor Henrikh Mkhitaryan because they had no other choice. Perhaps the only player they have gotten a decent amount of money for is Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, who moved to Liverpool for £35m in 2017, but even he was in the final year of his contract and potentially could have been worth more.

Many have pointed to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool as an example of what Emery can achieve at Arsenal. One key difference is that they received over £200m from the sales of Phillipe Coutinho and Luis Suarez alone, which has funded many of their recent signings. They have also generated more value from players like Christian Benteke (£27 million), Jordan Ibe (£15 million) and Dominic Solanke (£19 million) than Arsenal have been able to for much better players.

Now Aaron Ramsey, who is still just 28 and probably the club’s only true box-to-box midfielder, is leaving for absolutely nothing. New head of football Raul Sanllehi has already been quick to remark that a player’s contract ‘should never go to the last year, as a policy.’ That’s nice to hear, but it remains to be seen if Arsenal’s new hierarchy will more actively manage player contracts and prevent another fiasco from occurring.

The way the club has managed these situations in recent years has been absolutely shameful, and a serious change is needed if they are to return to relevance in the Champions League.