Tag Archives: AFC

Dec 18 2012

January Looms, Targets Presented: Etienne Capoue linked with a strong move to Arsenal

With the transfer window looming in 2 weeks it seems we may have a clearer picture to who we maybe seeing at the emirates…………or be linked with various names once again. Eurosport.fr (link below) believes Arsenal are the front runners of trying to sign Etienne Capoue from Toulouse in France. Why is this so key for Arsenal? Because he maybe the solution to a recurring problem in AFC where we have not had a player to stop the gap in midfield (most possibly he’d be a solution to the problem that is Abou Diaby and his injuries.).

Taking a closer look at Capoue, he ticks all the boxes for what Arsenal need at the moment in terms of a midfielder who is able to control the midfield and give his team mates the space to create the opportunities in attack. He is a very intimidating figure in the middle of the park for Toulouse and doesn’t shy away from going into challenges, a very physically imposing midfielder who make sure his defensive duties are first before anything else. A quick glance at his show that he’s one of the best players in the midfield (only behind Matuidi):

Defensive:

Apps=16 Total Per game
Tackle 38 2.4
Interceptions 37 2.3
Fouls 26 1.6
Off Won 5 0.3
Clearances 106 6.6
Was Dribbled 7 0.4
Blk Shots 7 0.4

Offensive:

Apps=16 Total Per Game
Goals 3 –
Assists 2 –
Shots 23 1.4
Key Passes 13 0.8
Dribbles 14 0.9
Fouled 46 2.9
Offside – –
Dispossessed 25 1.6
Turn Overs 19 1.2

Passing:

Apps=16 Total Per Game
Key Passes – 0.8
Avg. Passes – 67.9
Pass Suc% – 80.8
Accurate Long Balls 128/204 8
Accurate Through Balls  1/4 0.1

While he’s not the most offensive minded player he does keep his own area very tidy and provides a position for his team mates to dictate the play. If you look at his stats more closely though you will see his long passes are very good (he completes an average of 8 long passes per game) it shows that his passes are a bit underrated ( though Arsenal don’t play a long ball style it should still give us a better understanding that he can pick out a pass which is key for the style that Arsenal play). Overall, this would be a good signing for Arsenal, he fits the bill for a good defensive minded midfielder but does he actually take the place of Diaby? Perhaps not, mostly due to the fact he’s extremely defensive minded but at this moment in time that is what Arsenal need, a player with the ability to create from the back whilst keeping things tidy and creating the occasional play or two. The stumbling block here is the apparent transfer fee of Capoue which is rumoured to be around 13-14 million euros but it should be noted that Capoue is looking to play in the Champions League and our lure of Champions League football should be able to secure this signing. If Capoue is able to come in to the Emirates it will be a giant step towards a positive direction.

Article: http://mercato.eurosport.fr/football/ligue-1/2012-2013/mercato-arsenal-chelsea-et-le-bayern-munich-lorgnent-sur-etienne-capoue_sto3530182/story.shtml

*all stats provided by whoscored.com

Dec 10 2012

Foreign ownerships effects on the English Premier League (Part 1)

What are the effects of foreign ownership on a League? Are they primarily positive or do the negatives outweigh the positives? These are questions one often stumbles upon when discussing football nowadays.  Foreign ownership is not exclusive to football, however, as its roots are in the business world where it happens rather often. It basically means that a local company is being bought by a Foreign Investor. So why is it so different when it comes to football? The answer is: you. The presence of fans who love the club they support can make foreign ownership in football a bit messy. This piece will be a 3 part analysis with part 1 having the aim to explore the the types of foreign ownerships. Part 2 will look at its effects on the financial success of the league and foreign ownerships’ effects on the transfer market prices and wages. Part 3 will look at the National team and the youth and how foreign ownership affects it. It is in part 3 where we will see if the 25-man rule of the FA was the right decision or not.  The English Premier League (hereinafter EPL) will be the focal point simply because that is the league I follow and thus have a deeper understanding of how things work in it (compared to other leagues).

Even the lampposts hate Glazer

To date there are primarily three scenarios that can happen to a club when it is taken over. I will name these three scenarios as “Project“, “Business“, and “Self-sustaining”. The first twp scenarios are exactly the opposite of each other which will have an effect on the way the fans perceive it. Generally speaking “project” type ownerships are more welcome by the fans (of the club that is being taken over) while “business” ownerships will most probably bring grief to the fans. Whether foreign ownership sells the soul of the club remains to be seen (and I will not spend much time on this specific issue myself) but I will state that foreign ownership is unfair by default as the fans do not know if the owner will look at the club as a business opportunity or as a project, not to mention a project ownerships external effect on the league. 

1. Foreign ownership in general – Selling the soul of the club?

First of all we have to note that currently the majority of the 20 clubs in the EPL are under foreign ownership, and that out of the big six (Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal FC, Chelsea FC, Tottenham Hotspur, and Liverpool) only Tottenham Hotspur is in British Hands (with Joe Lewis being the majority stockholder owning 85% of spurs). Newcastle United are a team that looks like they can break the top 6 that I have named and they are also a team in British hands.

1.1 Project ownership – Expensive toys for rich (overgrown) kids

By project ownership I mean an owner who looks at his team as a project. In the EPL the first owner to do this successfully was Roman Abramovich whose business attitude towards Chelsea FC, which lead the team to become an EPL force, paved the way for Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Manchester City. The basic idea behind a project ownership is to inject funds into the Football club which will then be used for transfer activities, as illustrated by the table below:

Transfer Market Activity (from Transfer League). Values are nominal and not weighted against inflation

Please note that I only used EPL teams for the representation, and since the EPL was created in 1992 most of the data used in the calculation will be from 1992 onwards. Also note that the table above merely looks at  the dealings of the clubs at hand in the transfer market (in no way are these numbers a representation of the boards dealings) and that I only looked at the clubs within the top 6. There are other clubs that would fit the description of project buyout in the EPL: QPR, Sunderland (prior to Short buyout).

Looking at the table above one might ask if Liverpool FC really does fall under the banner of “project” ownership and it might be argued that to some extent yes it does (especially with last seasons transfer dealings).  But these numbers do not show other revenue streams apart from players being sold and when that is being factored in, Liverpool’s financial activity on the transfer market does not stand out like Manchester City’s and Chelsea’s. In short, John W Henry is a massive improvement over Hicks and Gillet (regarding funds invested in the team), but is far from following the classic “sugar daddy” concept. Instead Fenway Sports Group is aiming at maximising its revenue streams similar to Stan Kroenke of Arsenal FC and and Elis Short of Sunderland.

What is a distinguishing feature of this type of ownership is that the enterprise will have a soft budget constraint. This basically means that the clubs management (this is a wider group than just the club manager) can negotiate with the owners to invest more money into the enterprise’s squad. This is a vital difference as it leads to these clubs having seemingly  limitless demand for players since when they would need to balance the books they simply engage in vertical negotiation with the well off owners to invest more into the club. However by doing so the clubs management loses some control over the club and allows it to be shaped by the owner.

In a “project” ownership the personality of the owner will very much define the managerial aspect of the football club. Ever since Roman Abramovich took over Chelsea, the team has seen 10 different managers at its helm which is roughly 1 manager/season (!!!). This is an alarming figure by itself but factor into the equation the amount of money needed for these manager changes and you get a fortune being paid just for hiring and sacking managers.There is nothing wrong with this but a manager tends to plan for a longer term than 1 season and most of the times the real benefits are only reaped in the 2nd or 3rd season when the manager figured out which tactic is suited for the team and who he should ship in (and out) to make the team better.

If we look at André Villas-Boas record with Chelsea it is not horrible in fact it is better (by a very small margin) than Mancinis record was when he got the Manchester City job (as represented by the table on the left). From the table and the fact that Roberto Di Matteo was just recently sacked after being in charge of Chelsea for a shorter time than Villas-Boas,  it is apparent that Abramovich’s impatience is starting to define Chelsea FC’s decisions. Roman Abramovich wants to produce a team that can consistently win (such as Barcelona FC or Manchester United) but in the process of doing so he is actually taking 2 steps back every time he sacks a manager. If Chelsea do want to be a European force they might have to consider parting ways with Roman Abramovich. The real question is: can they afford to?

Suddenly this doesn’t just seem like a joke

Indeed the first issue that most teams under this type of ownership will experience is that they are essentially locked into a position. Due to the excessive transfer spending (and commercial deals that come from the owners network) these teams generally become indebted to their owner to the extent that they can no longer afford to walk different paths. This dependence is the reason why the personality of the owner will start the define the football club. In fact the more money the owner invests in the club the more it can define what it will look like as the more dependant the club becomes the more superior the owner becomes in any vertical bargaining situation. Of course it is not to say that if the owner leaves the club has to file for bankruptcy but the lavish transfer lifestyle the fans are used to will suddenly come to an end and these teams will have to look to their academy for survival, assuming their academy is good enough to supply the quality needed to stay on top.

Apart from the monetary issues when the enterprise parts way with their ‘sugar daddy’ there is the issue of the managers (Im referring to the boardroom staff here not the manager of the team) having a different set of skills under this type of ownership. Due to the soft budget constraint the teams management will not be as responsive as other teams when the transfer is negotiated. If there seems to be a financial issue the management of these teams usually just go to their owners and engage in vertical bargaining. This does not mean that these  managers are inadequate (vertical bargaining needs skill as well after all) it merely means that the management has a different set of skills. Thus if the owner decides to leave the club it will be a financial and a managerial challenge which is extremely hard to mount.

However the most important question is: Is this type of ownership sustainable? The answer is no. It creates an extreme subordinate-superior position where dependence is what keeps things in place. What if the owner decides to not pay for the team? For a recent example we have to venture into la liga which has recently become another attractive prospect for investors as “there are no more clubs for sale in the Premier League” (Rossell, 2011). There is a high chance that foreign ownership will be popular in this league as it has a financial disparity that stems from televising rights (will talk about this later) which has the potential to “kill Spanish football” to quote the words of Villareal manager Fernando Roig (2011). The team I shall look at is Malága CF which is currently under the hands of Abdullah bin Naser bin Abdullah Al Ahmed Al Thani. In the summer of 2012 Malága CF were struggling financially and didn’t pay their taxes or the player wages for the past weeks. The management of the team engaged in vertical bargaining with the owner to ask the owner to finance things. However things did not work out and the team was forced to liquidise its assets. This meant that Santi Cazorla and José Salamón Rondon left the club on the cheap for the team to be able to continue. Many things can be said about the owner and how he ‘doesn’t understand the ‘sugar daddy’ concept’; however this attitude doesn’t look at the management of the team: Why did they start vertical bargaining rather than sell their less wanted players? When it was obvious the owner won’t pay the team was at a disadvantage when negotiating their players sales. Of course Malága continued on to the Champions League after the sales but the damage dealt to the club puts it at a huge deficit if it wants to be in the Champions League the next season.

1.2 Business ownership – Fans money in businessmen’s  pockets

Ownership of an EPL team (or ex-EPL team) is a very lucrative investment fuelled by huge amounts of income from television deals. The reason behind this is that televising rights are centrally negotiated and distributed to keep financial equality between the teams. Without a doubt teams such as Manchester United and Arsenal FC could negotiate better television deals than the likes of Wigan Athletic or West Ham United. Of course this all sounds fine but Walters et al. (2009) raises a concern that the foreign investors might be solely driven by business and profiteering and not really interested in the success of the team and the league in general. This moral hazard problem is aggravated by the fact that the fans continue to pay their ticket prices which then end up with an owner who has no interest in reinvesting these funds (neither in the squad nor in increasing revenue growth). Very often these type of foreign ownerships are brief (1 or 2 seasons long) and end up with the owners leaving the club with heaps of cash siphoned from the club. This was the case for Portsmouth FC. 

Fortunately these types of ownerships are not common for teams who already cemented their place in the EPL; however the same could not be said for lower league teams where the respective team is ambitious to break into the EPL. Breaking into the EPL is lucrative as an average EPL club gets 45 million while an average Football League division team gets 1 million (from televising rights). Naturally this invites investors to buy teams which have a high probability of breaking into the EPL and once they make it (if they do) sell the club for a higher value. Some might even argue that this is the reason why newly promoted clubs often get relegated in either their first or second season. Whether this is the case is debatable, however it points to an obvious gulf between the EPL and the lower divisions of England.

Why should we care about this gulf? The reasoning is simple: The larger the gap in financial power between the EPL and the lower divisions the more desperate the management becomes to break into the EPL. This desperation will lead to the active search of people who are willing to invest in the team. The investment required is minimal and the rewards are huge if the team does make it. The worrying part is that the FA does nothing to address this issue and the EPL is only concerned with maximizing the profits for the top division. In fact if a team is relegated from the EPL it is subject to receive funds from the EPL to help it rise back to the top division. As ‘altruistic’ as this might seem it essentially creates a private club of EPL teams that are always financially better off than their lower division counterparts even if their managerial skill is subpar to that of lower division teams. How to tackle this problem is beyond the scope of this piece, but it does present a question to ponder on: Is financial elitism healthy for the league?

1.3 Self-sufficiency – The clubs that desperately want to fit the bill

This is the category that is the exception to the rule (so to speak) and is the broadest in definition. The owners (foreign or not) will want to make the club as self sufficient as possible. One could think of this as the middle ground for foreign ownership. It is not a “business” ownership since the owners do not siphon money out of the club (YES, Kroenke and the board does NOT take money out of Arsenal Holdings plc.). However these owners don’t handle their clubs as a “project” ownership either by throwing money at the squad. Instead these owners aim to maximize revenue streams. According to Dobson et al (2001) these owners of the football club assess the success of the club not solely on trophies but on five factors: profit, security, attendance or revenue, playing success, and health of the league. It is important to note that just like the “project” owners, the “self-sustaining” ownership model also invests/reinvests into the club. However instead of investing completely into the squad, clubs under this model invest in the enterprise itself in an effort to maximise revenue streams.

The degrees to which how much is invested in the squad and how much in the enterprise varies a lot and is often dependant on the saturation of current revenue streams and the potential of revenue growth. Manchester United and Liverpool FC were both capable of increasing their commercial revenues (Liverpool against the odds since they fell out of the Champions League) which allowed both teams to invest in their squad knowing that revenue growth can cover these expenditures. Arsenal FC, however drove its main revenue streams (matchday revenue and property development) close to saturation before attempting to increase commercial revenue via the Asia tour. Now of course Arsenal are tied down in certain deals until 2014 but nothing would’ve stopped the commercial team to attract new secondary sponsors (think about it: Manchester United have 2 different shirt sponsors for their playing kit AND their training kit). Because of this Arsenal are lagging behind in commercial revenue and in order to keep themselves afloat are forced to dip into their squad and sell their assets (More on this here). Of course for Arsenal this is mainly due to the debt they had to incur to construct the Emirates Stadium, a project which left a huge dent on its finances but in the long run, with a strong commercial team, can make the club a European powerhouse as the board envisioned it to be. But for this to become a reality it is imperative for the commercial team of Arsenal FC to ‘up its game’ otherwise the team will start to drift out of the top 4 on the football field as the management will dip in the squad to keep its accounts healthy.

Another point to note is that “self-sustaining” ownerships interest is making the league better as the financial success of the owners are closely related to the financial success of the league (to a large part due to televising rights) as Dobson et al. (2001) rightly point out. In this sense it is closer to “business” ownership since both of these types of ownerships look at the success of the league for potential financial profit. However while  “business” ownership free-rides the success of a league a “self-sustaining” ownership aims to create the success of a league. “Project” ownership takes a neutral standpoint on this matter and one might even argue that it is against the financial success of the league as it decreases financial disparity between teams (increasing competition), and decreases the teams dependency on the owner. However this is debatable and I will stick to “project” ownership being neutral to the success of the league as the team under the owners control has nothing to lose if the league becomes financially successful.

Stay tuned for Part 2 in which the financial success of the EPL is looked at and how foreign ownership affected this. If you are interested in transfer market prices and wages and how  foreign ownership affected it then this is the piece you don’t want to miss out. Part 3 will be published shortly after part 2. Youth development and the national squad will be looked at. If you are interested in how the mixture of the 25-man rule and foreign ownership turned out to be then this is what you’re looking for.

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Sources
Oct 27 2012

Arsenal 0 – 2 Schalke 04: Nutella with Nutella doesn’t work…

Apologies for the late review. All the authors had their life say “LOL TIME MANAGEMENT?!” and none of us had the time to write something up (sadface). In all honesty I was hoping I didn’t have to say this but the game panned out similarly (read: exactly like) as it did at Carrow Road. We didn’t keep our width and got punished for it…hard. We knew before the game that Schalke have players who are capable of utilizing space in the middle of the park so we sacrificed our right wing in order to have more players in the centre of the field. Why the right wing? The answer is twofold:

  1. Jenkinson prefers sticking back unlike our leftbacks
  2. We had our first choice LW (Podolski) fit while our first choice RW was out injured

Enter Ramsey. If you guys recall we had a similar tactic versus Southhampton when Ramsey was played at RW so we have superiority in the middle. This broke down their parked bus quite well as the defenders didn’t know who to pick out: Cazorla or Ramsey. However it only worked because Gibbs did his job of stretching the defence on the left side allowing Podolski to cut in, essentially giving 2 targets for Ramsey and Cazorla. As pointed out in the Norwich Review piece: Santos is not Gibbs. Now this does not mean Santos is a bad player it merely means that we cannot utilize the Podolski-Santos duo on that left wing. Why? Simple: if you already have Nutella you don’t need more Nutella. You need bread. Look at our first choice Right wing: Sagna – Walcott. It works because the players’ styles complement each other (Walcott is the Nutella and Sagna is the bread).

I hope I made myself clear that I don’t want to see Santos playing behind Podolski. It’s torture that only Jigsaw would want me to watch. Instead I’d like to add some bread to our Nutella so here are possible left wing options we could try when Gibbs is unavailable:

  1. Bread/LB: Meade; Nutella/LW: Podolski – Promote Meade from our Reserves. If you watch our U21 games you know how he like to play wide when going forwards (which he does a lot) and if he cuts in he only does so near the line which would create space for Podolski to utilise as Meade drags the defender wide. Some might even say Miquel could play LB, but that wouldn’t quite work out as he is a natural CB and because of this he doesn’t venture forward enough to create space for Podolski. However there is a risk that Meade can’t handle the pressure psychologically and we would be back at square one.
  2. Bread/LB: Vermaelen; Nutella/LW: Podolski – The positive of this scenario is that none of the players play for the reserves. Another positive is that we can play Mertesacker, Koscielny, and Vermaelen at the same time (sure both Koscielny and Vermaelen had made some mistakes nowadays but wouldn’t it be an awesome backline with Koscielny and Vermaelen on a good day?). The negative of this pairing is that we play Vermaelen out of position and he would be automatically targeted by the opposition.
  3. Bread/LB: Santos; Nutella/LW:Giroud – You are probably thinking “Giroud on LW? You’ve lost it Threkie!” to which I would reply: “I’m not crazy! My mother had me tested!” (Big Bang Theory anyone?). Giroud actually played LW in our Pre-season game versus Köln (when we were experimenting with Podolski at CF) and I gotta admit he did better than I expected in that position going wide and stretching the defence. Giroud’s LW playing style naturally lends itself to a LB who likes to cut in and take a shot which is Santos!
  4. Bread/LB: Vermaelen or Meade; Nutella/LW: Santos – I guess you all saw this coming. Santos at LW since he is a defensive liability (to keep it politically correct) when paired with a LW that likes to cut in as well.

So the lesson from this game was: Never mix Nutella with Nutella…and that we don’t have a backup LB that is compatible with our first choice LW.

Oct 22 2012

Adrian Lopez: A Real Target or a Media Delusion?

Adrian Lopez has been a name that’s been thrown around in the media and been linked with Arsenal (claiming him as their number 1 target for the winter transfer window) as of late. Arsenal scout many talents around the world largely due to its extensive scouting network but is Adrian the correct transfer target for Arsenal? Let’s take an in depth look at the player from Atletico Madrid:

Contrary to popular belief that Adrian is a striker, he is actually a winger. This is where you bring “well he is a striker though!” nope not anymore. When Atletico Madrid had gotten the 24 year old from Deportivo on a free transfer where he was a striker at the time, (as he was with Oviedo where he started his career) many people believed he would be a back up to Falcao but it was completely the opposite and Madrid moved him to the wings. The move surprised people but it paid off with absolute dividends as he became a key player right away. Many people believed he was the signing of the season for Atletico as he drove many key assists and goals from a wide position with his ability to create space for attacks. So that’s him in a heart beat, a very good winger who can play up front given the opportunity as well but is this what Arsenal need? When we look at wingers we usually have to look at his defensive attributes and his ability to keep the ball and it has not been all bright news from Adrian this season:

Defensive stats;
Apps=6 Total Per game
Tackle 4 0.6
Interception 1 0.1
Fouls 5 0.6
Clearances 4 0.5
Dribbled Against 2 0.3
Passing stats;
Apps=6 Total Per game
Key Passes 5 0.9
Avg. Passes – 22.9
Pass Success % – 76.5
Crosses 1 0.15
Accurate Long Balls 4/4 0.6
Accurate Through Balls 1/1 0.5

Adrian is one of the players that has been performing poorly as of late and has been seeing the bench due to his ineffective play. It has come to the point where he has to rely on coming off the bench to prove his worth(he hasn’t been doing that too effectively either). Coming off a great season many people expected Adrian to shine bright this season as well but his poor start coupled with the coach still trying to find the position to compliment the tactical style Atletico play in, has meant its all been a bit haywire for the 24 year old at the moment. Of course when talking about Arsenal many people believe Arsene Wenger is the best at bringing the best out of a player especially when they’re performing badly but at this moment (taking into consideration what the media is saying) should Adrian be a player at the top of our list in the transfer market? A player who needs to rediscover not only his best form but his positional sense as a striker? I’d think if Arsenal were looking for a striker we’d be looking for a striker who’s already known for his positional sense and focused more towards creating an impact for us (almost like a Gervinho-type that is an actual striker). Either way maybe Adrian is a long term target for Arsenal but the thoughts of him being a target in the upcoming transfer window may just be a pipe dream made up by the media (especially if you consider a team like Arsenal who’s bad at set pieces, mixing in Adrian’s defensive abilities would be a recipe for disaster). The player himself is still a work in progress so this move for me would be just media hype move for now.

*stats provided by whoscored.com