Arsenal: Ivan Gazidis ineptitude and Unai Emery patience

The Ivan Gazidis ineptitude has been laid out fully by Swiss Ramble on Twitter. The extent of his failure requires patience in the Unai Emery Arsenal rebuild.

As has been widely and painfully reported this summer, Arsenal do not have very much money to spend whatsoever, approximately £40-45 million. In the modern market, it is a measly sum. But just a few years ago, the Gunners were one of the richest clubs in the world. In 2012, they had almost as much cash (£154m) as the rest of the Premier League combined (£181m). So in the last five or so years, what has happened?

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Well, as this brilliant thread by Swiss Ramble outlines on Twitter, a number of mistakes were made — I will not quote many exact figures here, but they are all included in the thread, which is a must-read.

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Essentially, the financial problems of the club stem from falling commercial revenues in comparison to their rivals, especially Liverpool and Spurs who have caught up and overtaken them, a rising wage bill, dropping out of the Champions League for what will be three-straight seasons, and a failure to consistently sell players for decent prices and reinvest this smartly. And Swiss Ramble attributes a lot of this ineptitude to Ivan Gazidis, who was the chief executive during this period.

I do not want to dig into the figures here. I am not qualified to discuss them and Swiss Ramble does an excellent job of portraying just how deplorable the management of the club has been for the past half-decade. Instead, I simply want to highlight just how messy a situation Unai Emery was inheriting last summer, and that he — and the double-headed management figure of Raul Sanllehi and Vinai Venkatesham — requires great patience as a result.

From a footballing perspective, in terms of sheer, on-paper talent, Arsenal already had the worst squad of the top six in the Premier League. That is a major problem in and of itself, of course, but it can be solved quickly through substantial and smart spending. That, however, is not what Emery will be allowed to do.

Because of the financial mismanagement of the club, from failing to sell players for good prices to incurring egregious interest and tax rates that far outweigh what their direct rivals are paying, Emery is now stuck with this £40-45 million transfer budget. That is not enough, especially when you consider that many clubs will spend upwards of £100 million. Emery is trying to make up ground with significantly fewer resources.

And this task will only become more difficult the more time Arsenal spend out of the Champions League. The revenue earned from Europe’s elite competition is astronomical in comparison to the Europa League. That is money that Emery cannot spend until he earns it with a top-four position which he cannot earn without spending money. You can see the predicament here, I am sure.

All this is to say that Emery and this current regime require time. That does not mean that they should not be held accountable whatsoever. They absolutely should be. But patience is essential because this rebuild is not going anywhere without fixing the finances, and that, sadly, will take years.