It’s VE Day in the UK and 75 years ago today the second world war was officially over. It meant lots of parties and celebration as the country finally stepped into “post wartime”. It was a time for people to appreciate life and what they had and with us all in this current situation together, I think the days after we return to whatever normality will be, will feel very similar to the post wartime era.

Because during that era there were still plenty of hardships a people began to try to patch up and rebuild lives, the economy, etc. That will happen with us too and in a football sense we’ll most likely have more than just an instant return and normality kicking in.

So this morning I’m thinking about The Arsenal and, specifically, how much of the current family china will need to be sold to keep us resembling somewhat competitive against the oil whore and country-owned clubs.

It’s going to be hard. Our billionaire is a silent partner that delivers little value. And with his interests in the States keeping him permanently busy we have seen that The Arsenal needs to be run with a self sustainability model that doesn’t work when the dice are loaded as they are in the Premier League.

So with that in mind, and back to my original thinking about selling the family china, how are Arsenal going to recoup some cash given that revenues have tanked so hard?

And, by the way, i’m talking about sales only today. Imagine you have to fund your current situation without being able to rely on your income from your normal work. That’s where we’re at right now, so I suspect what Arsenal are going to have to do is to sell assets we own and try not to just see the cash come in from one source and go out on another by signing another player.

The good news is that because of the bloated nature of our squad over the years, we’re in a position where we not only have some talented youngsters who could fill some voids, but we also have some stars who still carry a bit of value.

For example we’ve Mkhitaryan, who this week has supposedly told Arsenal that he wants to stay in Roma, and apparently they want him to stick around too. Raoila his agent has already denied the stories of Mkhitaryan telling Arsenal to come to Roma because he’s not setting foot in England, telling people via Twitter that it’s ‘fake news’, but a sale right now works for everyone. That’s if Roma can afford it. According to TransferMarkt he’s valued at around £18million. In the current market I can’t see us getting anywhere near that, but if Roma coughed up around £10million I suspect Arsenal might be happy to let him go. And if you think that we’ve got Saka and Martinelli who can play in those advanced positions, as well as Nelson, we have an ‘internal solution which would mean we could ‘bank’ the £10million.

You’ve also got Elneny and Mustafi, who will most likely be out the door given one is on loan and we have an impending transfer of William Saliba when the season eventually finishes. Again, based loosely on Transmarkt’s values, the Egyptian would make £4.5million in market value, which if we halved sounds more like it. Then you’ve got a £10million Mustafi who will probably again only get half the value of, but it’s a good £7 – £9million we’d recoup, if I’m being conservative and assuming clubs can afford it. If they can’t and they want swap deals, then Arsenal will have to have a sniff at what Roma have on their books but I’m not sure life will be that simple. So for now I’ll just focus on these hypothetical assumptions of value and purchases.

So we’ve managed to bank some of the Mkhi money, we’ve got £7million in for Mustafi and Elneny and that’s being used to give Saka a new contract and then bank a bit more cash. We’re probably at this stage doing alright in terms of the numbers – again, i’ll caveat all of this by saying I’m not a numbers man so don’t chastise me, as I’m just speculating in my head – so what else needs to be looked at?

I think Sokratis has made some suggestions that he doesn’t want to play second fiddle, but at 31 and with just a year left, he’s not going to get much close to his £13million Transfermarkt value. Let’s call that another £5million. Ainsley Maitland-Niles is also most likely to be out the door, and for him I think we might be able to get some kind of value closer to his £13million. In the old market we might have hoped for between £15 – £20million for a player who has so much Premier League experience at such a young age, but if I play conservative again and say £10million, then I think we’re probably up to about £15million of cash to play with.

New contract for Auba to pay for that maybe?

If we do then we can write off that £15million as going to him, so we still need to sell a bit. This is where we start too run out of obvious candidates and we have to start looking at regulars. Are Atletico Madrid as hot on Lacazette as we’re led to believe? If so then we could be looking at some kind of swap deal for Partey if both parties are keen. But that still doesn’t bring in any cash, does it? Hmm….so who’s left? Guendouzi? Nketiah? It would be tough because the squad starts to be thinned out a bit. So really, what we’ll be looking at when the season finishes, is Arsenal just trying to do a bit of shuffling of their squad, rather than focusing on big acquisitions. And hey, maybe that isn’t the worst thing in the world. After all, our big signings have hardly all been a universal success, have they? So maybe we look to go back to being a little more wheeler-deelery. Looks like we’re going to have to.

Anyway, just some thoughts on a Friday morning for you, so hope you enjoy yours and are safe and sound as well as the family.

Catch you guys tomorrow.

 

p.s. I haven’t spoken about Ozil because my assumption is that nobody is paying his wages!