With little or no news coming out of Arsenal HQ concerning player transfer, fans have been left to speculate as to who is coming and going. Many a wish list have been drawn up but two names which almost always comes top is Gareth Barry (reminds me too much of Bentley) and Brede Hangelland (Senderos MKII). Seeing that Barry has put pen to paper at Manchester City for a mere £12m, we are left to ponder what is Arsenal’s position in the transfer market.

The simple fact is our position has not changed, we will operate at the middle and lower tiers of the market. We can postulate all we want but like it or not players like, David Villa, Ribery, Chellini, etc. is in the top tier of the market way out of our league and those like Xabi Olonso, Gareth Barry, etc are at the upper reaches of our budget.

The thing is it’s always been like that, we’ve always spent about £5m – £8m per player. It is very difficult to remain competitive whilst shopping at Asda but Arsenal has proved that there are some very good deals in that market.

The question remains though, for a club with such a grand stadium, rich history, and so much income —surely top 5 in the world — why are we not shopping in the upper tier markets?

The answer is deceptively simple, Arsenal as a club has chosen to “live within their means”. I know it’s a very old fashion notion in today’s world of instant gratification, instant credit, spend now and worry about paying later. Many fans just can’t get their head around the fact that the club simply spends only what they can afford to.

Another concept that seems to elude us is that income is not equal to money available. Arsenal has made huge increases in revenue from their football business, but equally the cost of that revenue has increased.

Of course Arsenal can splash out £50 million on players the same way 90% of clubs have done by taking out credit, but is this really the best thing for Arsenal FC. According to a report in the Guardian 15 of the 20 premier league clubs are being subsidised by owners.Only 4 clubs made a Liverpool is so badly in debt that they’ve defaulted on payments, Manchester United has accrued interest of £263m in the last 3 years —

Is 3 trophy winning years really worth £263 million in interest alone?

Arsenal is not that far off with £416m in debts, the only saving grace is that our debt in incurred due to longterm capital investments interest payments amounting to ~£25m per annum.

Now that Sunderland and Portsmouth has joined the “rich benefactor” club there will be even more pressure on the transfer market. We can only hope that the good players will really value quality football over quantity of cash, the signing of Barry however proves that this is a false hope.

Arsene and Arsenal have done pretty well in the transfer market, while it is becoming more and more difficult to unearth gems we have shown recently that it is still possible. Recently Sagna, and Eduardo has proven that if you look hard enough you can get good players under the radar. Arshavin has been another bargain even though his transfer fee is our second highest ever (Nasri at £15.8m the highest).

The goals of the club must be to find that equilbruim between financial prudence and winning at all costs. At the moment we are leaning a bit more on the prudent side, but I fear that our fans want us to go too far in the other direction.I am patient, and also confident that we will find that balance.

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