Arsenal’s financial results came out yesterday and one particularly remarkable bit of detail relates to their wage bill, which is just 45% that of fellow title rivals Manchester City.
The Gunners are playing some fantastic football at the moment and are very much still in the Premier League title race, even if they’re currently third in the table behind Liverpool and Man City, with just two points separating the top three.
Arsenal may have finished trophyless last season, but they pushed Pep Guardiola’s treble winners all the way in the title race, finishing very close behind them and only really suffering once they lost William Saliba to injury.
Clearly, Mikel Arteta is majorly over-achieving with this squad, as the wage bill stats below show…
Arsenal's financial results are out – revenue of £464m (up from £372m), £52m loss. Wage bill is most interesting detail – at £234.7m it is still very low compared to Man City/ Man Utd/ Liverpool/ Chelsea: pic.twitter.com/VCJgYJcitV
— Martyn Ziegler (@martynziegler) February 27, 2024
We so often see money spent on wages correlating to success in the modern game, so for Arsenal to be as close to City as they are when their spending is so different, is quite the achievement.
And even the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea are spending more on wages than the north London giants, despite being below them in the table at the moment, and generally a long way behind them in terms of the progress of their projects.
Arteta working miracles at Arsenal
Given the state Arsenal were in when Arteta first took over, and the fact that this was the Spanish tactician’s first job in management, it’s fair to say he’s worked miracles at the Emirates Stadium.
Arteta was always highly rated when he was part of Pep Guardiola’s coaching staff at Man City, but he had a big point to prove when he took on such a challenging job, and he’s more than paid back the faith that was shown in him by the AFC board.
Gooners will now just hope this can finally lead to some silverware by the end of this season.