A bit of accounting, a bit of Pepe …

Morning all.

Arsenal released financial results for the period ending May 2023 yesterday, with the top line being a reported loss of £52.1 million. The club said:

The financial result was impacted by impairment write-downs on certain player registrations amounting to £18.1 million, which by virtue of their quantum are classified as exceptional. The loss before tax, excluding the impact of exceptional items, amounted to £34.0 million (2022 – loss of £45.5 million).

There’s been a lot of chat about how this basically related to Nicolas Pepe, but it might also have included Hector Bellerin whose contract had a year to run when he joined Barcelona. We reported at the time that he waived any payments due to him for that final year, but maybe that was included in the write down for accounting purposes. I don’t know. I’m not Swiss Ramble. Only Swiss Ramble is Swiss Ramble. If you’re looking for Swiss Ramble, subscribe to Swiss Ramble!

Nevertheless, it’s fair to say that the Pepe transfer was not a success. I think there was a talented player in there, but one who just couldn’t provide what Mikel Arteta wanted. Not so much from an attacking perspective, because he did put up some decent numbers (16 goals and 5 assists in all competitions in the 2020/21 campaign), but the defensive part of his game left a lot to be desired. I think his race was run when Arteta put him on in a tight game against Aston Villa in March 2022. He replaced Bukayo Saka, but I remember seeing the manager immediately urge him to track back and do the hard work required.

Then, with just a couple of minutes to go, he chased back like an eager puppy and gave away one of the softest, daftest free kicks you will ever see. It did, in a funny way, create a nice moment, because Bernd Leno was playing that day having lost his place earlier in the season to Aaron Ramsdale, and he made an excellent save right at the death before being mobbed by his teammates. But you know Arteta wanted that…

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Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-02-28 07:30:01

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