What held Arsenal back throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s was the supposed restriction on spending due to the money owed from the construction of the new Emirates Stadium. Arsenal fans watched on as summer after summer, the best talent left whilst what replaced them was simply not of the same level.
Arsenal were, therefore, unable to challenge and by the time the spending began to increase, the gap to their title rivals was too significant to close. Robin van Persie, Samir Nasri, Cesc Fabregas, Alex Song, Aleksandr Hleb and Thierry Henry all left for clubs with greater ambitions to win the biggest titles. Furthermore, they all succeeded and won the biggest accolades.
Meanwhile, the trophy drought went on until 2014 for Arsenal. The FA Cup has been won four times since, but the club have fallen out of Europe completely and are trying to fight back.
READ MORE: Mikel Arteta hands Antonio Conte his latest loss after perfect response to Arsenal mind games
Meanwhile, across north London, Tottenham have now gone through the process themselves. Constructing a new stadium and taking on the associated debt. However, so far, they have not seen anything like what Arsenal fans have experienced.
Harry Kane despite wanting to leave has remained and even applied himself to push Spurs onwards. Heung-min Son signed a new contract with the club and Antonio Conte was appointed as manager. Whilst Arsenal didn’t sign a single player in January, Tottenham brought in Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur.
Add to that the likelihood that Spurs will qualify for the Champions League over Arsenal and suddenly the envy cannot be contained. How is this happening?
Tottenham recorded a pre-tax loss of £80.2 million in the latest financial year. The debt increased to a staggering £706 million.
Despite this they continue to show the ambition to challenge. Even owner Daniel Levy explained that this has no sign of stopping.
“The appointments of Fabio [Paratici] and Antonio [Conte] are a clear demonstration of our intent and ambition,” Levy said. “Since opening the stadium in April 2019 we have spent almost £400 million on players. Player spending is no guarantee of success, and our focus must be on improved recruitment, coaching, fitness and a competitive mindset.”
It took Arsenal ten years before they crossed the £400 million spend mark on players, according to Transfermarkt. Although it is important to point out the value of players and the difference in revenue between 2006 and 2019.
It is very difficult to get one’s head around how two clubs can both switch stadiums and their subsequent actions are so different. Perhaps the proof will be seen in a few years’ time and Spurs’ actions end up costing them in the long term. We can only hope.
From where we sit, it is difficult to look into the future with optimism. The end-of-season run-in could end up being even more important than we could imagine for the futures of both teams.
