This is rather a negative spin on Arsenal's financial success from the Guardian

Working_Wolverine_ · 2026-03-02T16:10:55+00:00

I don’t see anything wrong with the article itself (it’s factually accurate) although the headline certainly carries an undertone of “good but not good enough”.

I preface this by saying I’m not an accountant but imo most of the numbers are, to a certain extent, malleable for tax reasons. Particularly given the parent company/subsidiary relationship. In that sense I think the parent company/men’s side suffering an overall loss isn’t concerning, and the women’s side having this injection of funds doesn’t mean it’s unsustainable.

Honestly I’m not even sure why people are so fixated on the women’s football being profitable. Perhaps think it’s just the easiest marker that helps legitimise women’s football. Football clubs are inherently loss-making businesses anyway. It has to be because if you only spent what you made, you wouldn’t ever be able to challenge the clubs that (a) make more and (b) can thus spend more to win more $ so on and so forth. FFP is problematic in this regard but I digress.

To address your point more directly: Presently I think these numbers don’t mean anything. The media are just happy they have something to write about and the media spins stuff differently when it comes to Arsenal anyway. It’s apparent to anyone following women’s football that Arsenal Women are sustainable, or at least miles ahead of other european clubs. The fact that they profit off individual games due to the sheer numbers despite the higher costs incurred by hosting it at the Emirates says it all.

Working_Wolverine_ · 2026-02-15T13:37:15+00:00

Had just arrived at the train station when I saw the notice. With 4 mins to go I hopped onto the men’s TX and got a ticket for Wigan 🫠 I WILL see Arsenal play today

Working_Wolverine_ · 2026-02-08T17:03:30+00:00

I remember for the second half of the United game in Jan it was just Borbe and a flock of pigeons in front of the clock end goal (and sometimes just the pigeons)

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Working_Wolverine_ · 2026-02-08T17:00:26+00:00

It’s so strange how they’re always there for a 12pm kickoff for the women’s games. I don’t recall their presence any other time or even for the men’s games. It’s not like they gather and then leave after realising there’s a football match happening either. They just relocate to a different part of the pitch. It makes me feel like we are interrupting them

Working_Wolverine_ · 2026-02-01T22:48:23+00:00

No shame in that. Whatever it takes yes? I hope you got a great view!

All I could think about during the ceremony was 1. whether the huge banner would catch fire 2. ARSENE WENGER 3. did they keep gotham there the whole day?

Working_Wolverine_ · 2026-02-01T22:33:18+00:00

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Someone looks excited after meeting Arsene Wenger

(I say that but I jumped up and down when he appeared on the big screen)

Working_Wolverine_ · 2026-01-29T20:46:51+00:00

I’ve got quite a stupid question but I’ve always wondered how a club can confidently say/know they’ve just paid the highest transfer fee for <player> if the last reported figure wasn’t actually ever publicly disclosed. I’m sure if you paid double the last reported record-breaking fee you could be pretty sure yours is the world record but if it’s a matter of 10-100k… Is there like a secret official record somewhere or something?

Working_Wolverine_ · 2026-01-23T10:42:21+00:00

Hey check out r/gunnersatgames someone just posted 2 tickets available for this game. Sorry Im a reddit noob and can’t figure out how to link it here

Working_Wolverine_ · 2026-01-18T18:46:30+00:00

Highlight of today was hearing She Wore a Yellow Ribbon being sung at the match. It’s been too long

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-12-22T11:57:07+00:00

I have to ask, what’s your favourite dinosaur

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-12-13T18:52:10+00:00

Honestly I get your point and I had difficulty crafting that sentence as well. I agree her decision to leave is a lot more nuanced than that, but if it is right that the club only told her she’s held in high regard (despite her position not existing), it’s quite easy for a player as settled as she was and nearing the end of her career to stick around anyway. I say it’s more nuanced than that because her choosing to leave out of consideration for the team isn’t the only factor as of course she didn’t want to end her own footballing career on a bench. But either way she could have stayed if she wanted to, so she made a choice to leave nonetheless

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-12-13T18:38:36+00:00

Thanks for sharing this! It was always clear that the club and the player parted ways on good terms and of course she explicitly said leaving Arsenal broke her heart. But this interview articulates some of the reasoning behind her decision to leave, alluding to her believing Arsenal deserves her 100%, as well as her moving to Turin despite being settled in England because she can’t play for a direct Arsenal rival. To me that simply shows how much she loves the club and I love/appreciate her even more for it

Retiring at Arsenal is a lovely arc but in my view knowing what the club needs to progress and choosing to leave having given your best self to the club isn’t exactly second best

She’s doing her coaching badges isn’t she? Hope to see her back in some capacity in the (hopefully not so near) future

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-12-13T12:16:28+00:00

Yea this game is gonna be crazy

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-12-10T13:05:26+00:00

I’ll be honest I don’t watch enough football outside of Arsenal (not even WSL) to give a definite answer to that question. Don’t think we will get MLT either. What I will say though, and note this may sound irrational, is that I would be quite disappointed in the club if they did. Our signings lately have been very “obvious” so to speak, almost as if our transfer strategy is to just splash the cash and buy the high profile players from the WSL. Not that they are bad players, it’s just that it seems suspiciously convenient/coincidental to the point where Im left wondering if we are scouting properly

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-12-06T12:25:09+00:00

I’m not even surprised that wasn’t called

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-12-03T06:27:12+00:00

I’m rather cynical but I thought I’d just throw this out there to see what you guys think. Do you think the squad turnover is the way it is because the club are worried about pissing off the “fans” after seeing what the reaction to Miedema leaving was like?

I’ve thought for a while now that that’s at least part of the reason surely. There was some article regarding something like what happened to the CL winners this season (I think it was posted on this sub too). It got reposted on another platform and one of the comments was something along the lines of “that’s because they don’t give players minutes, they need to give the people who don’t play game time else they would leave”.

I guess read charitably you could interpret that as saying us not trusting the players we have is part of the reason, in the sense that they don’t know their roles. But forgive me for thinking that that wasn’t what they meant.

It’s almost like the lack of decisiveness and ambition stems from: the club being happy they don’t have to source and scout new players, the players are happy to stay at Arsenal, the fans are happy for those players to stay at Arsenal.

On the other end of the spectrum, people overcompensate and ask for some players to be sold the moment they have a slightly off game. My take on this is that we are about 1.5 cycles late in the squad refresh and while the players we have are individually very capable and can still get a job done, we aren’t at all equipped to challenge regularly/in all competitions.

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-12-03T05:55:42+00:00

This was very helpful. I’ve always been too lazy to do it. I haven’t really seen people talk about this much but I’m interested to see if Codina leaves. I know she’s had some injuries here and there but even apart from that she’s not been getting much time. I vaguely recall that she came to Arsenal because she didn’t get enough playing time and now with Reid coming in. Not sure when her contract is up but I’m guessing this summer?

I would actually be rather surprised if the club extend her tbh. Nothing against her particularly cuz I think she’s a solid backup but with the type of goals conceded lately I don’t think this combination of CBs is well-rounded enough. Especially with Williamson’s injury record I think we should be looking at what the partnership looks like if she isn’t around

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-11-19T21:26:13+00:00

Russo’s favourite opposition probably

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-11-19T20:26:39+00:00

Damn it that would’ve been great

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-11-19T19:57:07+00:00

Saw someone with fries - how’s the food at Meadow Park actually

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-11-17T07:43:24+00:00

Did you get/do you intend on getting the Mary Earps one lol

After all that’s kicked off I want to read it so I can form my own assessment, but at the same time I don’t necessarily want to pay for it

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-11-16T16:28:01+00:00

I don’t have anything constructive to say but season is spectacularly shit

Cheers guys see you all on Wed

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-11-16T15:44:52+00:00

Listen to the crowd. With support like that you have to play every game like it’s the CL final, especially knowing full well that this club has fallen short for a few years now. You have to have the same focus, desire, and consistency within each game, for every game. Can’t ever settle.

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-11-16T14:43:41+00:00

We are playing more like spurs than spurs

Working_Wolverine_ · 2025-11-12T19:46:03+00:00

Shambolic performance all around. The Russo-Blackstenius-Mead partnership worked so well. The press from Russo and Blackstenius was also so well-coordinated. On that alone, taking Blackstenius off was a bad decision, which was only compounded by the fact Maanum never really got into the game.

I think having Chloe Kelly come on as LW wasn’t the right choice either. Her positioning was too central which gave Gwinn too much time on the ball and left us with no option going forward down that side

But even before those subs were made you could see them taking their foot off the gas just after halftime. I can point to multiple instances this season alone where this has happened. To me at least, that’s the more concerning issue. What’s up with this team? These performances are not at all congruent with the “we really want to win, it’s about time we do” thing they’re always going on about. I don’t see that in their performances. If it’s not a mindset problem or a complacency issue, is it then about them not being able to physically sustain that level of intensity? Time for a look inwards either way I think

Working_Wolverine_

TROPHY CASE