Highbury lowdown

Arsenal transfer woes typify Europe's 'almost elite'

Sometimes, holding your position is even tougher than moving up a couple of rungs.

Consider the case of Arsenal, the only club to have challenged Manchester United in the Premiership over the last few seasons and a side that, just six months ago, played some of the best football in Europe.

Manager Arsene Wenger and vice chairman David Dein have a massive laundry list of issues to resolve before they can even begin to worry about strengthening the team.

It's far from an ideal situation, but it's also a paradigm of the current state of the game and the tricky business of moving a club to the very top.

Arsenal is an important club, but -- in terms of history, success, fan base and financial capability -- it ranks below United and Liverpool domestically and the likes of Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern, Inter Milan, AC Milan, Real Madrid and others across Europe.

Mailbag

If you'd like to submit a question to Gabriele Marcotti, please enter it below.

Your name: Your E-mail Address: Your Hometown: Enter Your

In many ways, the Gunners were in the same boat as Lazio, Valencia, Borussia Dortmund, Roma and Deportivo La Coruna: clubs trying to break into the elite where success becomes self-sustaining.

Dein and Wenger correctly understood that moving into the very top tier would require a combination of good results on the pitch and savvy maneuvering aimed at ensuring financial stability off the pitch.

In many ways, they did everything right. They were able to build a competitive team while keeping wages at a reasonable level. They dealt intelligently on the transfer market, picking up players such as Nicolas Anelka, Patrick Vieira, Sol Campbell and Freddy Ljungberg for a combined fee of under US$10 million.

And they sold very well: Anelka, Emanuel Petit and Marc Overmars fetched around US$75 million between them.

Along the way, Arsenal won two Premiership titles and three FA Cups, while reaching the UEFA Cup final in 2000.

With the club's historic ground, Highbury, permanently sold out, Arsenal understood it needed a larger, more functional stadium.

Highbury's 38,500 capacity was simply too small, which is why the Gunners are planning a new 60,000 seat stadium, an absolute prerequisite for a top European club.

Which brings us to the present and a summer of difficult decision-making that could determine the club's future. The new stadium project, described as "a necessity" by Dein, is proving to be outrageously expensive, more than half a billion dollars by some estimates.

And with the game facing a cash crunch as the general economy remains in recession, raising the requisite funds is proving to be expensive and difficult. No longer are sponsors throwing wads of cash at anything soccer-related -- if Arsenal could go back in time to 1998, odds are it would have raised the money in less than a month.

As it stands, Dein and Wenger must balance the funding for the new ground against the strengthening of the current squad. And that's proving to be rather tricky.

With David Seaman having left the club, Martin Keown pushing 37 and Dennis Bergkamp's future unclear (he is out of contract and -- at 34 -- isn't getting any younger) the team needs a new goalkeeper, central defender and striker just to remain where it is.

Wenger has been told that he can spend between US$10 million and US$15 million. Even in today's cash-strapped market, it's going to be tough to get three quality starters for that kind of money.

As if that weren't enough, Patrick Vieira and Robert Pires are entering the final year of their contracts, which means that, if the Gunners don't re-sign them, they will be able to walk away on a free transfer next June.

Arsneal needs to sort all of this out before it can even think of strengthening the team (and last season proved the team needs bolstering in key departments).

It amounts to a major headache for Dein and Wenger.

Extending the deals of Vieira and Pires ought to be the club's top priority, but, if things drag on, Wenger may feel he has no choice but to sell either or both (Vieira would fetch some US$35 million, while Pires is realistically worth around US$12 million).

On the one hand, cashing in on the two prize assets would help fund the summer transfer campaign and, indeed, Wenger hasn't been shy to sell in the past. On the other hand, it could well weaken the side beyond repair and risk sending the wrong message to the investors who are being wooed to finance the new stadium.

The frustrating part for Dein is that -- for the most part -- he has done everything right. Everything, that is, except the timing. Arsenal finds itself looking for money at a time when it has completely dried up.

Looking around Europe, he can see that there are plenty of bargains to be had. Among strikers, Roy Makaay, La Liga's top scorer last season, wouldn't cost more than US$10 million, Parma's brilliant Adrian Mutu is a snip at US$15 million, just like Mateja Kezman, Europe's Golden Boot winner.

Similarly, there is no shortage of talented goalkeepers (Paul Robinson, Petr Cech, Sebastian Frey, Flavio Roma all cost under US$8 million) and defenders (Rafael Marquez, Philippe Mexes and even Jaap Stam are all relatively affordable).

Yet they are all outside of Arsenal's budget, unless Dein decides to take the club into debt (something he has been loathe to do) or he elects to sacrifice Vieira.

Will he choose to gamble, after years of fiscal responsibility?

Or will he play it safe and run the risk of slipping further away from Europe's top tier?

Tune in to find it.

Good Week/Bad Week

GOOD WEEK: For Boca Juniors, which beat Santos 2-0 the first leg final of the Copa Libertadores, a hard-fought and often nasty affair marked by 60 fouls and eight yellow cards. It was a cruel blow to Santos' young stars, but, one hopes, a learning experience as well.

BAD WEEK: For excitable Roma chairman Franco Sensi. First he got stuck in a war of words with Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, who pipped him for defender Nicola Legrottaglie, then he had a pop at his own coach, Fabio Capello, only to withdraw his comments later and, finally, faces an investigation from Italian authorities over unpaid wages.

Not an auspicious start to the summer transfer campaign.

GOOD WEEK: For Gheorghe Hagi, who returns to the game after an 18-month absence to take over as coach of Turkey's Bursaspor. His record as a coach may not be exceptional (his previous experience was with the Romanian national side), but it's great to see one of the game's legends back in action.

BAD WEEK: For coach Vicente Del Bosque and skipper Fernando Hierro, who were unceremoniously dumped by Real Madrid hours after winning the Liga title. It obviously wasn't the classiest move by Real, which then replaced Del Bosque with United assistant Carlos Queiroz. Some are speculating that Hierro wielded too much power in the dressing room and Del Bosque was not enough of a yes-man for chairman Florentino Perez's liking.

 

Related information

Stories

Previous Marcotti Columns and Mailbags

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video