Arsenal: At least David Ospina sale shows improvement

Arsenal have reportedly completed the sale of David Ospina to Napoli. The good news? They secured the £4 million buy-out clause, which shows improvement in the negotiation department.

As the old era at Arsenal has transferred into the new, a great discussion has erupted evolving the club’s efficiencies — and inefficiencies — in the transfer market. In a less-enlightened time, this debate would have almost solely focused on the quality of players recruited. But as fan bases have edified themselves and the footballing cognoscente has analysed what works and what does not work, the topic of conversation has also shifted onto the sales made by the club and how they help to build the squad.

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For the Gunners, this, as much as their recruitment, has been the main criticism. Their mishandling of contracts, a lack of foresight to predict players’ future value, and their unbalanced investment in the squad has continually seen them fail to sell players for their maximum value.

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All of those process-based shortcomings are valid. Certainly, Arsenal need to fine-tune their whole management to ensure that they can successfully sell players for fees that release significant funds to be reinvested in the squad. But it would be remiss to not highlight the most basic of weaknesses that the club has suffered from for many years: smart and convincing negotiating.

Consistently, the club has bought for fees far beyond the value of a player and sold for far less simply because they negotiated poorly — or because they put themselves into hugely disadvantageous negotiating positions. Their £35 million panic for Shkodran Mustafi, for instance, was a prime example of this. Selling Kieran Gibbs for £3 million less than a previous offer from the same club in the same summer is another.

Put plainly, Arsenal have not been very good negotiators. And when the game, in general, has modernised and fine-tuned itself, that is a major problem, with clubs able to exploit others’ inefficiencies. This north London outfit, perhaps more than most, have been utterly taken advantage of by their rivals time and time again.

So it was good news, then, to read that David Ospina is to be sold to Napoli for a £4 million fee, the price that was initially agreed as a permanent clause in the loan deal last summer but was rumoured to be unacceptable to Napoli this summer. Earlier this summer, it was believed that Ospina would leave for £3 million. An extra £1 million has been earned, purely through negotiating.

On the same day that it was revealed that Everton are to sign Andre Gomes for £22 million despite being relentlessly hounded by Barcelona to up their offer, it is nice to see Arsenal also make their own stand at the negotiating table, standing in great contrast to their historic norms.

If the Gunners are to right their squad, which needs some substantial surgery, they must sell well. And that means negotiating well, just as they did in selling Ospina for £4 million. However miniscule those numbers may seem, and they are, the improvement in the processes behind them are positive.