Dan Tunna

Curtis Jones is preparing to leave Liverpool this summer, with @TEAMtalk understanding that Aston Villa are ready to step up their interest in the England midfielder. teamtalk.com/liverpool/asto…

You want a debate? Here you go: the decision to turn £318m of net debt into a net-cash position in 10 years (2098 to 2018) was a gross strategic mistake from the Board. It led to wild underfunding in the squad that has been impossible to repair in an FFP world. To fix it, the club adopted a Moneyball approach: who gives the best return on investment? Who gets “at bat”? That, in football terms, is the defence, not least because of the aphorism that defences win titles but also because defenders command lower fees and wages. The club strategy for the rebuild has demonstrably been to favour a solid base with a few undervalued superstars (Kai, Declan, MØ) and a big reliance on the academy. Even so, the chronic underinvestment has continued (see below, courtesy of @themagic_tophat). Consequently, there has been scant money available to invest in Arsenal’s forward line, where the top players demand much higher fees and wages than defenders and GKs. Arsenal have spent on average £30.6m on each of their forward players. Manchester City have spent £51m on each of theirs (per Transfermarkt.) This results in a demonstrable lack of comparable quality. The comparison between Haaland and Gyokeres is… well, there isn’t even a comparison. And this means that the few top players we do have get overplayed. In his first 14 games for Arsenal, in 2022-23, Gabriel Jesus played pretty much 14 full 90s. He got 10 goal involvements in those games, an outstanding output, and then broke down with his knee injury from which he has never recovered. Entirely understandable he was asked to play that much because the alternatives were Eddie Nketiah, a 20yo Nathan Butler-Oyedeji and a 19yo Khayon Edwards. This pattern has been repeated with other players: chronic underinvestment leads to chronic overplaying, which in turn results in chronic injury problems. The injury problems then diminish the players when they return: look at the dip in performance in Bukayo and Kai since they snapped their hamstrings. What Mikel has been doing is permanent crisis management: responding to the reasonable demands from fans to win football matches and trophies while using a squad that is under-resourced financially. As demonstrated, that lack of resources results in injury problems that in turn compound the underinvestment issue. The simple fact is, clubs tend to finish in the league where their wage bills would put them. The data show this, and I know quite a lot about this because of the consultancy I have done in this area for the insurance industry. A player’s wage is a reflection of his quality. Ergo, the more you play the players you put out on the pitch, the better your chances of winning football matches. Manchester City demonstrate this every season. When you either don’t pay your players very much in the first place (Arsenal) or when your top players are unavailable through injury (also Arsenal), you tend to win fewer matches and trophies (consequently Arsenal). Every single springtime, Arsenal players break down in a widespread injury crisis. Every single springtime results suffer accordingly. When the same thing happens over and over and over you have to acknowledge there is an underlying issue. In business in these circumstances, you would start looking not at the personnel but the strategy. So this is not about the manager. It is not about his tactics. It is about the strategy. Arsenal have suffered from two decades of strategic underinvestment against their goals. This is what is being reflected on the pitch. Change the manager who has proven to be able to make us competitive *despite* that fact and we will return to where our financial resources would place us: fourth or fifth. Sacking Mikel would be football suicide. Invest in him properly and we might actually win something.

Tiger-esque from Rory. He’s less than 46% for fairways hit and is -11. This could be a procession. #TheMasters

The reigning champion leads by six. #themasters