As is usually the case for me, Twitter this week provided me with what I hope is some excellent fodder for writing a column about where North London’s rival clubs may be headed in the near future. Unfortunately, the conclusions aren’t particularly bright for either side and I hope I’m wrong (even about the Spurs part) but the harsh realities are that it is going to be a challenge for either of these clubs to compete at the highest level of the Premier League and European competition.
Now, before we get too entrenched into our story, I recognize that this is primarily a draft fantasy Premier League column and I should spend some time dispensing some practical advice for managers who are concerned that Arsenal’s defense is right back to being almost entirely crocked, Spurs attack seems to be joining them, and Chelsea are getting a new forward. Here are a couple of quick thoughts there:
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Toffees Ascending - Everton have a nice upcoming stretch that starts with goal-challenged Huddersfield Town. You aren’t picking up Richarlison or Lucas Digne on the waiver wire but you might find a useful replacement for Hector Bellerin or Laurent Koscielny on the Toffees scrap heap. Michael Keane or Seamus Coleman anyone? Coleman especially has been disappointing this season but he could have a mini-run in him given Everton’s schedule.
Wolves Streaking - Diogo Jota and Joao Moutinho both exploded against Leicester City in Week 23 and could well continue given that Wolves next six matches are very much winnable. It is worth pointing out that Wolves haven’t actually been that great in matches they look like they should be favored in. Jota, specifically, is the more interesting of the two to me having scored five and assisted on two goals over his past six matches in all competitions (five PL and one FA Cup vs Liverpool). Given Jota’s age and his performance in the Championship last season, there is a strong case that it just took him half a season to adjust and he’s about to become the player we hoped he’d be at the beginning of the season. Moutinho is what he is at his age but if Wolves start scoring more through Jota it wouldn’t be crazy to see the European Champion pick up more assists from his deep-lying midfield role.
Higuain Qustions - The big question is how much fantasy managers (or Chelsea supporters) should be counting on Gonzalo Higuaín as he arrives in the Premier League to solve all of Chelsea’s forward issues. Yes, I’m aware that he scored more than a goal per match when paired with Sarri at Napoli. Since then, though, the trend line hasn’t been great. In the three seasons since his 36 goals in 35 Serie A matches season, Higuain has managed a strong 24 goals for a dominant Juventus side in 38 matches followed by a pedestrian 16 in 35 for the Old Lady the next season. That drop-off in form led to a loan to AC Milan for the first half of this season where he only managed six in 15 matches. Could Sarri reinvigorate his one-time star pupil? Certainly. Is there just as good a chance that we’re seeing the inevitable decline that comes with going from going from the season where he turned 28 (his 36 goal season) to the season when he turned 31 (this season). Both Milan and Chelsea currently sit fourth in their respective leagues but, even without a productive forward, Chelsea are on a stronger scoring pace (1.73 goals/match without Higuain for Chelsea vs 1.4 for Milan with) than their Italian counterparts. I don’t think we’re going to see the goal-per-match scorer of three seasons ago, that was clearly an anomaly in Higuain’s career, but expecting something closer to an 18-20 goal pace for the balance of the season isn’t unreasonable.
OK, back to the fate of our favorite North London clubs. Chuck Booth, Jeremy Spitzberg, and I were Tweeting back and forth yesterday in reaction to a piece on Football365 suggesting that Arsenal need to follow the Spurs model of doing more with less to be successful in their next phase. Certainly, looking at all of the stories about financial austerity at the Emirates, it is a logical conclusion to reach. As such Twitter conversations so frequently do, our conversation went further than the original premise to the merits of both clubs going forward in the context of the Premier League and elite sides in Europe.
Money Issues at Spurs
It is funny hearing Mauricio Pochettino quoting Arsene Wenger chapter and verse in this transfer window. While Spurs would seemingly be in a position to bring in new talent in January given that they “kept their powder dry” over the summer, Pochettino has been saying Wenger-ian things about bringing in players of a certain quality or not making moves just to make moves and placate supporters eager for headlines. What that really means is that either the money isn’t there or good players have no inteterest in coming to Spurs. If it is the former then the question is how soon Spurs might change their financial fortunes - will it be as soon as their new stadium opens or, like Arsenal ten or so years ago, will there be a financial hangover that lasts well past the opening of the new football shrine/money printing machine?
The more concerning possibility is that through a combination of lack of glamour and unwillingness to spend on wages, Spurs just aren’t an attractive destination for players who can make a real difference. Daniel Levy frequently sounds a lot like his former rival Arsene Wenger when talking about wages. It is as if both men live in some idealistic world where there are right answers to the question “what is a player worth?” as if such a maximum value could exist in a free market where the answer is “as much as someone is willing to pay”. Spurs will have a beautiful new home (eventually) and are located in London which should provide some advantages but, despite those things and having a manager everyone seems to love and respect, we still hear quotes from players like free-agent-to-be Adrián Rabiot implying that Spurs are just beneath him. Not good.
Money and Arsenal
You can’t swing a dead transfer rumor these days without reading about how poorly Arsenal have managed the past couple of years worth of transfer windows and contract negotiations. Between letting the contracts of Jack Wilshere, Alexis Sánchez, and Aaron Ramsey run down they lost leverage and the ability to cash in on assets or keep them based on what is best for the club. Personally, I don’t object to any of the three being former (or soon-to-be-former in Ramsey’s case) Gunners.
Alexis is getting old and you want out a year or two too early rather than a year or two too late.
Wilshere has never actually been good so much as promising goodness in the future and that future should have arrived by now if ever it is going to.
Ramsey is a tougher call than either of the above because theoretically, his is in his prime and has actually demonstrated exceptional talent. The problem is that he can’t maintain that form and his injury record only looks good in comparison to Wilshere’s. He is the definition of a luxury item for a club that is years removed from being able to afford luxury players.
All of the above said, Arsenal could certainly have gotten more in return for being rid of the above trio if they had managed their contract situations better. Selling a year earlier in the absence of a contract extension was the obvious move in the cases of Alexis and Ramsey for sure. Throw in the poor choices on the Ozil and Mkhitaryan contracts and the unwillingness of Stan Kroenke to invest beyond the ability of the year-to-year P&L statements to support it means that the Gunners are in a difficult spot for the next year or two at least.
The final damning piece of evidence on the Arsenal side of the ledger is that the man brought in to find bargains out there in the transfer market, Sven Minslitat, has just left the club. If ever there was a time to have someone with a method for uncovering and recruiting inexpensive gems like Pulisic, Dembele, Aubameyang, and Sancho then this is the club and this is the time where he should be most valued. This is not the time to be shopping at Barcelona or Real Madrid for your next player, it is the time to be shopping in MLS or the Championship or the Eredivisie.
The Top Four Environment
I’m not going to belabor this point but one of the biggest problems facing Arsenal and Spurs is the financial might of their competition for top four spots. City, United, and Chelsea are all playing at a different financial level than the Gunners and Spurs. We have seen Chelsea specifically able to overcome the comings and goings of managers and the frustrations of big players. They just have enough to spend on transfers and wages to ensure that the talent level rarely dips below the level where anything short of a Mourinho-level meltdown can undermine their final spot in the table. City has more money than that and is currently blessed with excellent management and a commitment to a long-term plan. United are showing just how quickly having crazy-expensive players makes you to rebounding from even Mourinho-level disaster. All three of these clubs have inherent advantages over Arsenal and Spurs.
Liverpool is a slightly different story. They are currently in the early stages of what looks like a next golden age. They have the history, financial backing, manager, and young assets to be very good for quite some time. The club seems “big” enough that their biggest players aren’t agitating for moves to places like Barcelona or Real Madrid. Jurgen Klopp doesn’t seem to be the subject of Pochettino-like rumors about how soon he will be leaving. You could certainly see the Reds glow starting to fade if they don’t win a title this season and Klopp/Salah/Van Dijk start casting longing eyes at the big clubs in Spain (and/or Bayern). In this sense, Liverpool are similar to Spurs in that a lot of things have gone right recently with the key difference being that there don’t seem to be the same constraints with history/ego and money for wages.
With four clubs seemingly in better medium-term positions, life is certainly hard for the two North London clubs.
And...
So, back to our original conversation about which of the two North London clubs is better positioned to challenge their top four rivals in the medium and long term?
The logical answer would seem to be that Spurs are the ascendand side between the two and that once their stadium is complete they would be able to achieve some level of financial parity with Arsenal and be in a reasonable position to go toe-to-toe with Liverpool as well and Chelsea too if they continue to be sporadically dysfunctional at the management level.
The problem with that notion is that if you look a little deeper there’s a case to be made that everything has gone right for Spurs and, despite that, they’re still only marginally ahead of Arsenal. What do I mean?
- Spurs current manager has been exceptional and consistently punched above his weight while developing inexpensive prospects into not only functional first team players but actual stars of the sort Spurs have been unable to attract to White Hart Lane in their primes for whatever reason.
- Under managers other than Pochettino, Spurs have been unable to sustain challenges to the top four regularly even when the competition for such spots wasn’t nearly as fierce before City emerged as a superpower and Liverpool got its house in order.
- Spurs, despite Daniel Levy’s reputation as a shrewd dealer in the transfer market, haven’t done particularly well when the recipients of massive fees for players like Modric and Bale. Christian Eriksen was the only home run purchase that resulted from the big infusion of cash for Gareth Bale. If not for Pochettino’s ability to develop players like Kane and Alli then Spurs would likely be struggling mightily despite some massive sales.
If you take the premise that basically everything - the most recent managerial hire, the development of youth players in to stars rather than just pretty good players, and the ability to retain very good players who have bigger suitors - has gone right for Spurs over the past couple of years and then recognize that they a) still haven’t won anything and b) still don’t seem to be attractive to big name transfer targets then you have to wonder what happens if Pochettino decides to leave.
Eriksen is already dragging his feet on a contract extension. Hugo Lloris is declining from top tier to second tier goalkeeper as he ages. Toby Alderweireld looks all but gone. Kieran Trippier seems to have regressed and Serge Aurier has never realized his potential. Ben Davies looks average and Danny Rose is either crocked or leaving most weeks. All of these issues can be overcome with Kane, Son, Eriksen, and Alli playing together. If Pochettino leaves either for Manchester United this summer or for Real Madrid or Juventus or somewhere else he’s almost guaranteed to win titles in the next couple of years then you can see the exodus starting.
The easy retort is that if the big attacking stars are sold then Spurs will have more than enough money to buy big-name replacements. Here’s the thing, we don’t have any evidence that Daniel Levy and Spurs can draw that sort of talent. If they can’t do it with a highly thought of manager and a great core of attacking talent now, why would we believe that they will be able to do it after those advantages go away?
None of this is to say that Arsenal’s path back to glory is too much easier, the positive for the Gunners is that they, like Liverpool of the past couple of decades, have a much stronger base on which to work. There are rising players who came up idolizing Henry and Bergkamp and Pires and Ljunjberg and Vieira and the rest of the Invincibles. There is also a global fan base that drives sponsorship deals and merchandise sales that give the Gunners an inherent financial advantage over a club with a more modest history like Spurs.
Arsenal’s troubles are all very much short term ones. The wages currently crippling their books - those of Ozil and Mkhitaryan especially - are not long-term impediments to success, they are short term barriers to spending your way out of years of poor squad-building. If the club can still attract players like Aubameyang despite their recent travails then they, like Liverpool before them, should be well positioned to attract their next few stars when the money becomes available. It will certainly take a season or two more of austerity in the transfer market while the squad is in need of a massive refresh, especially at the back. That said, if Unai Emery can get performances out of guys like Rob Holding who was purchased for a relative song by the previous administration then there is reason to believe that there is plenty of upside at Arsenal even before they can start spending big again.
Perhaps it is my Arsenal red colored glasses but my take is that for the past five seasons just about every big thing that could go right for Spurs has gone right and, prior to the arrival of Aubameyang and Emery, just about every big thing that could go wrong for Arsenal has gone wrong. Despite multiple years of opposite fortunes, Spurs appear to be one managerial resignation away from a potential disaster while Arsenal still have a lot of upside. I’m certainly not saying that Arsenal will absolutely pass Spurs over the next two seasons but if you asked me to guess who would finish higher in the table each year over the next ten then I wouldn’t feel at all like a homer by saying Arsenal will likely do so no fewer than seven times in the next ten years.
