wages – ArseSpeak

Last night Robin Van Persie came out saying that Arsenal need to break their wage strcuture if they want to keep their squad together.

Already having lost Flamini, and now facing losing Hleb, Van Persie put further pressure on the club to revaluate the contracts of players like Fabregas and Adebayor. He said:

“They should make sure that these players stay”

“Arsenal have a policy in which they will not go over a specific amount of money when agreeing the salary of a player. They won’t pay enormous amounts of money. I think that they should go to a higher level of salary.

“If you want to keep the group together, you have to keep them happy. If you are 27 or 28 I can understand that you would make the decision to go elsewhere if you can earn three or four times as much. If that sort of money was also paid at Arsenal I’m sure that person would stay.”

“It is very important that Arsenal keep these guys. This group is unique. If a number of them leave it will be different. I think of myself as an Arsenal man but Arsenal should also try to make sure that we all grow together.”

The issue of wages has been hotly debated ever since Flamini left for AC.

I think that RVP does have a point, the club can’t just be naive and hope that players will just stay at Arsenal even when they are offered fat contracts elsewhere.

This is sad, but it is how modern football works. I don’t think that we need to raise salaries greatly though. The best course fo action would be to reassess the wage structure, but the club doesn’t have to go crazy in raises.

We don’t want a system which will spiral out of control and leave us in huge debt. Because of this I do still have sympathy with the club.

It would be even better is if we could just sign some guys who won’t fuck off as soon as they see some extra cash, but instead want to work in a great team at a great club.

What do you think? Should the wage structure be thrown out the window?

Arsene Wenger says Mathieu Flamini has the weekend to decide whether to stay with Arsenal or leave on a Bosman at the end of the season.

Theres been a lot of speculation about Flamini leaving, and I thought he might have already gone, but Wenger says:

“At the moment, we have no news from him but at the latest we expect it to be decided over the weekend.

“He tells me he wants to stay and I want him to stay but it will be down to numbers as well as we want to respect our wage structure.

“It is important to keep the core of the team together. We have shown we have the quality and now we need to improve in certain areas.”

We do need to stick to our wage struucture and no player should be above that, we have seen the results of financial mismanagement at clubs like Leeds. We have done well under the current structure and we are still growing.

What we cannot do is start to make exceptions to the rule which would cause chaos. Flamini is a good player but he is not irreplacable.

Wenger has a good point about keeping the core of the squad together and I would agree, so I hope Flamini stays true to us and stays. SAying that, no player is bigger than the club and the Flamster cannot hold us to ransom.

I would think Mathieu is feeling split between the club and the money, because all the players have talked about the great spirit of Arsenal and the way the club is going. If he stays then great, if he goes, we’ll just have to get over it.

What do you think, should we break our principles to keep one player happy?