Reading all these stories coming out the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust meeting last night that Arsene Wenger has a £50millon transfer kitty. That is not really true. Yes Arsenal made around £50millon profit, but not qualifying for the Champions League will cost the club £45millon, wiping out the cash balance.

So how did Arsenal make such a large profit? By selling players. Player sales during the summer of 2011 (with estimated fees) were: Fabregas (£29m – initial payment), Nasri (£25m), Clichy (£7m), Eboue (£4m) and Traore (£1m). These transactions will generate substantial profits as the book value of these players would have been limited due to their contract status, and therefore the profit on player trading is likely to be over £55m (£66m gross receipts less £10m book value). In all, Arsenal generated a transfer profit of around £55m.

So the transfer profit is what is “available” to Wenger in the 12 months to May 31, 2011 Arsenal’s football business made a pre-tax profit of only £2m and was basically run at break even off flat revenues of £225m, with £125m spent on wages and £20m on new players and contract renewals.

So to summarize, without Champions League football next season Arsenal does not have the cash to buy new players unless a) hesells first or b) Kroenke invests money in the club that can be used to buy new players. And I don’t envision that second scenario happening.

One other number I found incredible was that Arsenal has 71 players on its wage bill, which is £125m. That is an incredibly high number of players to have under contract. Arsenal’s wage costs are the 4th highest in the Premier League and getting rid of dead weight like Bendtner, Almunia and Vela will allow great flexibility in resigning players to new deals.

The Mirror is reporting that Arsene Wenger still has the full support of the Arsenal hierarchy, and that the board will back him even if Arsenal does not land a top four finish.

An Arsenal source is quoted as saying:

“We are committed to Arsene and we expect him to see out his contract.” (which ends in 2014

The only danger to Wenger remaining in charge is whether he walks away at the end of the season as he has already warned he would consider his future if he felt he could not take the club any further.

But Arsenal’s US majority shareholder Stan Kroenke and the rest of the board believe he will stay and the club will give him major funds this summer to rebuild.

Arsenal are expected to announce massive profits n excessive of £50m today or tomorrow, and that money wil be made available to Wenger.

But then that sort of transfer kitty has been available for two years and still Arsene have not signed a to star. They keep being linked with the likes of Lukas Podolski, Junior Hoilett and Matias Suarez but nothing in the last 18 months has made me confident that Wenger will spend the £20-30m needed to land a top top player. Or that Arsenal will go to £125-150,000 a week in wages to sign one of these players.

Wenger has insisted he won’t walk away from Arsenal despite the toughest week of his managerial career saying:

“We have what it takes at the club and we will add what it takes. But at the moment I believe we are not making plans for next season, we are making plans for the next game.

“I think we have what it takes at the club when everybody is available, because we had many missing and big, big players, too.

“Our main target now is to focus on the championship. We played away at Bolton and drew 0-0, we beat Blackburn at home and won away at Sunderland, so let’s win our next home game and we will be fine.

“We have played 15 years at the top level and in the top four. It is remarkable consistency and one day when you manage a club, you will see it’s not easy.”

Arsene Wenger vowed Arsenal would “stay united and fight” after a 2-0 loss to Sunderland in the fifth round of the FA Cup that almost certainly condemned them to a seventh straight season without a trophy.

Wenger was not keen to talk about his own future at the club, saying only:

“We have to take the criticism on board, stay together and face the critics. The only response in our job is to stay united and fight and focus on the next game.

“It’s very difficult tonight to say where it leaves us and what we will do, let’s focus to finish well in the championship and fight as well, even if it’s a small possibility, in the Champions League.”

Wenger argued that Arsenal should have had a penalty in the first half when Robin van Persie tangled with John O’Shea.

“I think it was a committed performance and we gave absolutely everything that was left in our legs.

“We had three away games in one week and I believe it was a very unfortunate schedule to play away in the Champions League and immediately away again. They were very difficult pitches as well but we fought hard today.

“I felt we were a bit unlucky, it was 100% a penalty for us that Mr Webb missed and their first shot on goal was a goal. Then we had to chase the game and take every gamble and we were caught on the counter for the second.

“We had a lot of possession, didn’t create a lot down to fantastic defending from Sunderland, but they left us the ball and ran after it.”

 

Arsenal’s miserable week continued as they lost 2-0 to Sunderland in the FA Cup, a result that means that Arsenal have now gone seven successive season without winning a trophy.

While this was a better performance than we saw in the San Siro in midweek, it could not really be any worse, Arsenal were still poor today. Lacking that creativity to break down Sunderland.

Unbelievably, after losing defenders Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker in the past week with injuries, Wenger was forced into a change after less than ten minutes when Francis Coquelin appeared to suffer a hamstring problem and Sebastien Squillaci came on. To add insult to injury, Squillaci had to be replaced in the second half due to an injury he picked up.

Arsenal seemed to have no plan on how to break down Sunderland today. With Oxlade-Chamberlain and Gervinho in the line-up, Arsenal has the pace to get behind any defence, but time and time again the attack was focused down the middle, between the width of the penalty box, making it very easy for Sunderland to defend.

The bottom line is that Arsenal never replaced Fabregas and Nasri this summer, and that combined with the season long injury to Wilshere, meant that Arsenal’s midfield is simply not good enough. Consider that if this game had been played 12 months ago, Arsenal would have lined up with Walcott, Fabregas, Nasri, Wilshere and Song in midfield. Today the Arsenal midfield was Song, Arteta, Gervinho, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain. No comparison.

Fortunately the infighting at Chelski means that Arsenal still have a good chance to grab that fourth and final Champions League place.

It promises to be an interesting summer. Usmanov continues to buy shares of the club and a decision has to be made about Wenger and van Persie.

Thoughts on today’s performance and loss?

Arsène Wenger has revealed the latest team news ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup trip to Sunderland. Good news of Koscielny but it sounds like Mertasacker is done for the season which is a big blow.

on Gervinho…
He is back in the squad. From the other night, we have lost Koscielny. Everyone else is available for selection.

on Laurent Koscielny’s knee problem… 
He had a scan yesterday and the news is quite good. He will be out for hopefully around a week. He will miss the Sunderland game. But he should be back for next week.

on Per Mertesacker’s ankle problem…
Unfortunately he has had surgery and we have lost him for a while. How long I don’t know. He had reconstruction of his ligaments. So it will be long term.

on Kieran Gibbs’ return…
He played his first game in four months in Milan. So of course it was a shock to go back to that level. But physically, he is alright.

on Carl Jenkinson…
He is back in full training on Monday. That is good news for us.

The Arsenal defender reflects on a disappointing night in Milan

Here are some of Arsene Wenger’s comments after last nights disaster in the San Siro:

on the result…
It was of those nights you never forget. It is our worst night in Europe, we were punished and deservedly so. We were very poor offensively and defensively. We were beaten everywhere. There was not one moment in the 90 minutes we were really in the game. What made it worse is that we had to chase the game. It was always the same problem, balls over the top and we were well beaten.

It is difficult to analyse. I think it is better not to talk too much. We need to analyse with a cooler header and regroup for the next game.

on the focus now..
We will focus on our next games, the season is not finished. We have a big game on Saturday, which is a good opportunity to show we have character and mental strength and that we can respond after such a shocking defeat.

on the reasons for the defeat…
You could blame and blame. We have to stick together and win the next game. The players were very ambitious in this Champions League. They are the first to be very sad. We felt powerless today to get really into the game.

I cannot say I got everything perfect when we lost 4-0 but I don’t believe we made big tactical mistakes. We did not have any other choices. I felt we were weak in some departments. I felt we could have some problems in some departments but I did not think we would not score.

on the chances of a knock-on effect…
There is a danger. A big disappointment like that has consequences on your belief. We have a lot of work to regroup and not a lot of time to prepare for Saturday’s game. We need to show something completely different on Saturday.

on Arsenal’s chances of progression now…
Let’s be realistic, we don’t play in dream world. Maybe two per cent or five per cent statistically. We have to show a completely different performance and you never know. But, you have to say, realistically, we are out of the competition.

on Koscielny…
It’s a knee problem. We’ll see [what happens].

It is hard to find words to describe Arsenal’s performance at the San Siro last night. That was worse than the Old Trafford massacre. That was total capitulation on the worlds biggest stage

So many questions from the team selection to the way the players played. Why not start Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain whose pace would have troubled the slower Milan full-backs? Why play Rosicky?

The goals were a comedy of error’s.

Milan’s first goal came from a poor clearance by Szczesny. They Koscielny and Vermaelen were guilty of ball watching as Emanuelson chipped in Boateng and his shot went in off the cross bar.

I had hoped that maybe the goal would have woken Arsenal up, but they were lethargic al night. Milan’s second goal summed up Arsenal’s lack of effort on the night. There was a hint of offside when Ibrahimovic raced down the left. Sagna had 30+ yards to catch him and never got close and when Ibra reached the byline he clipped the ball back for Robinho guide a header into the far post. It is hard to describe how little effort Sagna put into chasing down Ibrahimovic.

SO two-nil at half-time and I was hoping that Wenger would have read the Arsenal players the riot act at half-time and that we would see an improved effort in the second half. But other than bringing in Henry for Walcott, nothing really changed.

Four minutes into the second half and it was three nil. Vermaelen slipped on the edge of the Arsenal penalty box and Robinho took full advantage to fire a third into the corner.

Ibrahimovic made it four nil from the penalty spot after he had goaded Djourou into conceding a penalty.

So all in all it was an embarrassing night in Milan for Arsenal fans. We can question Wenger’s tactics; Arsenal’s high line which got us killed at Old Trafford resulted in the second Milan goal.

We can question the effort of the players. The Arsenal midfield was awful. Song gave the back four no cover and Ramsey, Arteta and Rosicky were invisible. Van Bommel was never pressured, Boateng ran the show and nobody could mark Ibrahimovic.

What upset me the most with the performance is that Milan are not a great side, even though Arsenal made them look like Barcelona last night. They lack speed all over the park and I expected Arsenal to get a result last night.

We will see what sort of leaders Arsenal have in their dressing room now as the Gunners have to rebound quickly for the FA Cup trip to Sunderland this weekend. Hopefully we will not have the meltdown that we had last season after the Carling Cup defeat, because the FA Cup is Arsenal’s only hope for a trophy this season.

What did you think of the game last night?

The Arsenal manager previews Wednesday’s San Siro trip , Injuries , Henry s last game and more

Long video of Arsenal training ahead of the AC Milan match