The disastrous implications of defeat in the Europa League final

After an utterly horrendous, gutless performance from Arsenal in the Europa League final in an inexcusable 4-1 defeat to Chelsea, I will cover the implications of failure to qualify for next seasons Champions League.

I have waited a couple of days to put my thoughts into a post just to give myself some time to calm down from an utterly atrocious performance, and to try and put some perspective into what we’ve achieved this season. The performance yesterday was not good enough. It will be another season in the Europa League, which is a failure given our position earlier in the season. To think we just needed to hold on against relegation threatened Brighton at home, or to have beaten Palace to qualify for the Champions League via league position does make you wonder about the players mentality. These were games which we simply should have won without question, and ultimately when it came down to it the players were not good enough. these players don’t deserve Champions League football. When you can’t win games like that at the times that matter most, that is what separates good from great. These players have shown many a time that they are capable of big performances, with Chelsea at home, Utd at home and Spurs at home all coming to mind, but when it mattered these players failed miserably.

Failure to win this competition has made a massive impact on the size of the transfer budget, too. Reports suggested that our budget would have been around 120m with Champions League football. You get 43m alone from winning it, that’s not taking into account revenue from the Champions League football, potential prize money and the ability to increase ticket prices from higher quality matches. Rumour has it that now we are in the Europa League, our budget will be around 50m. That is simply nowhere near enough to compete and improve our side adequately enough to progress. We know Stan Kroenke will not invest, so champions league money was so important for raising the budget and being a factor in convincing players to join. Who can we sign for 50m in this market? We need probably two centre-half’s, a left back, a winger and an Aaron Ramsey replacement. How on earth are we going to get that with 50m? Defeat in the final as well as failure to see the season out in the league has cost us dearly. The implications for the future of Arsenal football club are massive. This was one of our biggest games in years. It would have provided the foundations for us to compete. We needed the money from winning this competition. Failure to do so has made Emery’s job monumentally harder. It’s clear the squad needs strengthening in so many areas, and now he’s expected to do that with hardly any funds?

It’s going to be so, so difficult to compete with teams next year. Manchester City and Liverpool are already miles better than us, but their owners relentless push for more will most likely see them improve their already near perfect squads and move even further ahead of us. Manchester Utd will no doubt give Ole a huge war chest to spend on players, whilst its hard to imagine that Spurs will go a third transfer window without buying anyone, and if they win the Champions League, well, that sets us even further back. Apart from Chelsea, who have a transfer ban, teams around us will spend plenty of money and move further ahead of us. Throughout the season as a whole, we’ve been on a par roughly with Chelsea and Spurs, but if Tottenham win the champions league that’ll no doubt move them further ahead of us, and make it even harder to get back to the level where Arsenal football club belongs.

Its not just the lack of funds, either. The lure of Champions League football is always a massive factor in convincing the top players to join. Hakim Ziyech spoke of his desire to play for either Arsenal or Barcelona not long ago, but after failing to qualify for the Champions League, why would he want to join us this summer? He would have represented an absolute bargain. A player of top quality in a position where we need to strengthen for only 25m euros. Let’s not forget, Arsenal are a huge club, and still possess pull power through stature alone, but surely he’d think twice about joining us now after seeing our collapse at the end of the season. Who knows?

Anyway, those are just are a few implications from missing out on Champions League football. It was always going to be tough in Emery’s first year, and he must be given time to sort out what can only be described as a mess. However, no doubt I’ll be up at the Emirates first game of the season to support the club I love. Grateful we’ve got a break however, and lets hope Spurs get absolutely destroyed in the Champions League final tomorrow.