When it has come to the art of nailing a transfer decision it is fair to say Arsenal have got a few wrong from time to time.
For instance, their decision to sell winger Serge Gnabry to Werder Bremen for a reported price of just £4.5million in August 2016 has proven to be a massive mistake, just as their decisions to offload the likes of Emiliano Martinez and Olivier Giroud in more recent years have been.
It hasn’t just been player sales that have been questioned by Arsenal’s supporters and pundits, though. They have also been criticised for signing the likes of Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez for such high transfer fees and then not reaping the rewards with their performances on the pitch.
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In amongst the errors the club has made in recent years, though, there have been success stories, such as the additions of Kieran Tierney and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who have fully justified their hefty-sized price tags.
However, it is player sales that have cost the Gunners so dearly in more recent times. As well as letting go of Gnabry, who is now starring at Bayern Munich and performing as one of the very best wingers in the world, for next to nothing, the Gunners have also parted with the likes of Lukasz Fabianski and Wojciech Szczesny, who are now worth considerably more than what they were valued at when leaving the Emirates Stadium.
With all of that in mind, data released by BettingOdds.com has revealed that Arsenal, who sealed a return to winning ways in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon, defeating Leicester City 3-1 at the King Power Stadium, have missed out on an additional £182.6million in player sales since the beginning of the 2016/17 season.
That is because the Gunners have sold £411.4million worth of talent for just £228.8million, meaning they have missed out on an additional cash boost of not too far off £200million.
In hindsight, football, of course, can be a wonderful thing. Nobody probably would have expected Gnabry to hit the heights in the Bundesliga and the Champions League in the way that he has with Bayern Munich. That was impossible to predict. According to the data, Gnabry was sold by the Gunners for just £4.5million and is now valued at £63million, which is a difference of £58.5million.
Unfortunately for Arsenal, it means they have lost out on more funds than any other Premier League club, just below Aston Villa and Manchester City, who each posted losses of £95.66million and £79.31million respectively.
At the other end of the scale, Liverpool were the biggest winners in this particular financial scenario. The reigning Premier League title holders received £366.57million through player sales. Now, though, those who were sold have an overall value of £259.41million, meaning they are in the positive figures by £107.16million.
To Arsenal’s credit, they have emerged from this in-depth analysis with some positivity about themselves. When the Gunners allowed Alexis Sanchez to join Manchester United in January 2018 as part of a swap deal for Henrikh Mkhitaryan, the financial value of the swap was thought to be around £30.6million in the Gunners’ favour.
But since leaving Arsenal, the Chilean international’s career has been on a downward spiral. Now on the books of Inter Milan, he is valued at just £9million, meaning his career has regressed massively.
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In conclusion, Arsenal have lost more money than any other Premier League club in the last five years in potential player sales, losing £182.6million, but did post one of the most rewarding profits because of Sanchez’s decline.
That, therefore, means that by Arsenal losing out on extra funds in such a massive way, though it could not have been predicted at the time, it could scupper manager Mikel Arteta’s plans of landing his first choice transfer targets this forthcoming summer, with the pandemic still not allowing the turnstiles to get moving on a Saturday afternoon at the Emirates Stadium.