Arsenal’s Real Problem: Is it Wage Structure?
It has been a long wait for the fans of Arsenal, almost seven years now, since the last trophy won by manager Arsène Wenger’s team. Every year the fans have to listen to the assurances of Wenger that they might win a championship, but in the end they do not even stand close to the titles.
For the last three years, at least, according to Wenger, the team has been undergoing some kind of transformation, and the trophies would come after the transformation is complete. But this verbal guarantee is not enough to please the fans, as they need a reason to back their favourite team and players. So what is it that Wenger is doing wrong? When he says that the team has a potential to pose a threat for the title, then why is it that he is unable to exploit the true potential of the team? Maybe he is miscalculating the potential of his team, or maybe he is overstating things on purpose to keep his job intact and fans interested. Though there is no doubt that fans still trust their manager, but it would not be long before that trust is lost, and these very fans would be furiously demanding a drastic change of order.
The real problem for Arsenal and the manager is that the players who develop their skills in the Club do not tend to stay in the Club afterwards. Here, the first problem is the wage structure of Arsenal, as the players get very meagre money while playing for Arsenal and they get better offers in other Clubs. Naturally, they tend to leave the Club in search of better earning options. This has been problematic for Arsène, as every year he has to start rebuilding the team, which is a task that makes it impossible to win trophies.
Now, let us take the example of Fabregas, who was retained last year only after he was made the captain of the team, that too at a petty age of 22. But this year he is not going to stay because he believes that he is not going to win any trophy while playing for Arsenal, and he is definitely not getting a salary package that can be offered by Barcelona. Barcelona is also the hometown and the original club of Fabregas, and now as his skills have developed he wants to return to the original club. Though he played for Arsenal for seven long years but according to him his days in the Club are over. If we consider the loss of the midfielder of the calibre of Fabregas, the loss would not be compensated easily. This loss would take a few more years for Arsène Wenger to cover, as it would take both a substantial amount of money buy another good young midfielder and both time and effort to develop him into a world class player. Another option would be to buy a really good senior player right now, but the salary package of Arsenal is not good enough to attract quality players of a senior age.
Sometimes, it seems that Arsène Wenger does not have the ability to retain senior players in the Club. It has been obvious as many senior players left Arsenal one after the other, maybe because of the poor management of the manager. Thierry Henry, Vierra, Alexander Hleb, Flamini and Gilberto Silva are few examples of such senior players. One interesting thing here is that many of the players were holding the midfielder position for Arsenal. Since their departure from the Club, this position is still the weakest in the whole squad, as the youngsters are still too inexperienced to fill in the gap of these world-class senior players.
Two seasons ago, Andrei Arshavin was bought by the Club and was paid a handsome amount as well. At that moment, though he was senior player, he was still emerging as a world-class talent. He progressed in the Club and earned fame as well; his feat of four goals against Liverpool was the best performance by any midfielder in the history of Premiership. This year, it seems, that Wenger would lose him as well, because he could not deliver the promises he made in terms of trophies for the players. Maybe it is time for the Arsenal manager to revise his wage structure, in order to maintain the status of the Club.
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