Arsenal's financial results for the 2021/22 campaign have highlighted an area where Edu Gaspar is slowly making an improvement.
The big headline from the results for the year ending May 2022 which were published on Friday morning is the operating loss of £45.5m. However, in truth, the picture looks positive for the Gunners when taking into account that they recorded losses of £107.3m for the previous year.
No European football last season for the first time in over two decades is listed as the primary factor for the loss, but the role Edu - recently appointed as Arsenal's first-ever sporting director - has played in the lowering of the club's wage bill by £32.1m has also been given the spotlight.
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"There were several factors behind overall reduced wage costs of £212.3 million (2021 - £244.4 million)," a statement on Arsenal.com reads. "On the player side, there has been a process of restructuring the men’s first-team squad to improve the efficiency of spend; this includes changes made in earlier years but where the full benefit has only been realised in the 2021/22 figures."
Whilst decisions to move on the likes of Alexandre Lacazette, Bernd Leno, Lucas Torreira and Hector Bellerin permanently in the summer transfer window will undoubtedly reduce the wage bill even further when Arsenal reveal next year's books, they are beginning to make progress in the player sales department.
Now, it's well documented this has not exactly been a strong point for Edu since taking up the role of technical director over three years ago as he has struggled to make a profit when selling first-team players. For example in the summer of 2021, the only significant fee that the Gunners were able to extract for any of their players was the £25m they obtained for Joe Willock from Newcastle United.
Furthermore, Emiliano Martinez's £20m move to Aston Villa the summer prior was the only influx of cash Arsenal were able to generate from transfers. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic did have a major impact on the financial power of many teams on the continent, which can be used as a reason for this record.
Then between January 2021 and May 2022, Mesut Ozil, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Shkodran Mustafi, Sead Kolasinac and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang all left the club via mutual contract termination, whilst David Luiz, Willian and Calum Chambers departed without commanding a transfer fee.
To Edu's credit, he did reveal that Arsenal will soon be in a place where they can have more control of their value in the transfer market: "Tell me how many players in the squad we have with those characteristics (of being over 25 on big contracts) today," he told football.london in the summer.
"I can tell you next summer (we won't have as many). Have a look at the valuation of the players we have, the age of the group what we have, and the salaries that we have today. Now, as part of the plan, we create value in our players today. All this squad today, is because I don’t want to face that situation many times more.
"Now if someone wants, say, Gabriel — ok, come here. No problem. Part of the plan is when you are starting to sell the players, that’s the challenging one," he goes on to add. "You already need someone prepared. (If we can) sell, (and) we are able to do that and then chapeau. It’s very challenging.
"For example, let’s talk about next season or another. If we sell, I don’t know, Bukayo Saka - that’s not going to happen but it’s just an example. If we’re going to sell Bukayo Saka, we as a club have to prepare his replacement straight away. So someone has to be in the squad or we have to manage the market well so if we sell we have him, we have someone straight away to replace him in our model. "
With Arsenal's total profit of player sales recorded at £22.2 million, up £10.4m from 2021 when it was £11.8 million, there are signs that Edu is beginning to turn things around. Of course, it's not great but there's been a steady improvement nonetheless.
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