by Stephen Bradley

“Spend some f*#@ing money!!!!!”

How many times have we heard the above phrase being bellowed from the back of whatever stadium/pub/living room that you happen to be watching a game in, as soon as it looks like that same game is lost? We fans don’t have too much time to indulge in nuance and context at the best of times, so when times are tough, such subtleties are often thrown out of the nearest window.

The following is a conversation between two fans, fan A and fan B. Read it and try to work out who you identify yourself with more:

A: I’M SICK OF THIS! WENGER NEEDS TO BUY THREE WORLD-CLASS PLAYERS NOW!!!

B: Who though? 

A: I DON’T CARE WHO!!! ANYONE WILL DO!!!

B: You do know that you can’t buy players as if you were playing FIFA 15? This is the real world, there are many issues to factor in, such as price, home-grown status…..

A: I DON’T CARE!!!! JUST BUY SOMEONE!!!!

We all like to think that we’re Fan B, but really, it depends on how desperate you think the situation is. The further away we think the club is from being able to be competitive, the more we morph into Fan A. We become so desperate for something about the club to change that we welcome any changes with enormous gusto, only so that we can convince ourselves that next year will be different.

It’s for this reason that the Petr Cech signing is being greeted with such rejoice amongst Arsenal fans. It’s not that he’s a quality player, or that we’re signing one of our rivals’ most heralded players. (Oh how sweet it is to see that particular shoe now fall onto the other foot.) It’s that for the first time in a quarter of a century, Arsenal have spent BIG money on a goalkeeper.

That’s right. BIG money.

When Arsenal bought David Seaman in 1990, we broke the British transfer record for goalkeepers. That’s BIG money. Since then, Arsenal haven’t spent more than £6m on a goalkeeper. Have a think about all the outfield players that cost more than that during that time.

One of them is Andre Santos.

It’s crazy to think that we paid more for a journeyman full-back than any goalkeeper in 25 years, especially given the less than optimal performances that have come from those who have played in goal since Arsenal moved to the Emirates Stadium. Yet it’s true, and I can’t figure out why this is.

If this was just Arsenal not valuing the worth of a top-class goalkeeper, then assigning blame would be easy. But it’s a mistake that almost every football club has been making ever since the financial boom that TV rights instigated at the end of the 1990’s, started to inflate transfer fees for outfield players. Arsenal bought Dennis Bergkamp for £7.5m. Danny Welbeck cost £16m. With all due respect to Mr. Welé, he’s not worth double the price of Bergkamp.

So why hasn’t this affected the price of goalkeepers as well? That’s the bizarre thing about this, because it did affect it. Juventus bought Gianluigi Buffon from Parma for £33m in 2001, thanks in no small part to the £45m they received from Real Madrid that same summer for a certain Zinedine Zidane. But the precedent was set. If you wanted a world-class goalkeeper, it was going to cost you.

Or so we thought.

To this day, £33m is still the record for a transfer involving a goalkeeper. But incredibly, not only has this figure stayed the same, it hasn’t even been threatened. Give a guess as to how many goalkeepers have been bought for over £20m in the history of football. Here is the full list, including Buffon:

Gianluigi Buffon.

That’s it.

The second most expensive goalkeeper in history is Manuel Neuer at £19m, when Bayern Munich prised him out of Schalke in 2011. Even though transfer fees have skyrocketed since the turn of the millennium, fees for goalkeepers have barely reached half of what Juve paid for Buffon. Manchester United bought David de Gea for £18m from Atletico Madrid, and could end up making a loss on him because of his contract situation, even though he is unquestionably one the best five goalkeepers in the world right now.

Imagine if Neymar had one year left on his contract, how much would you bid for him? £30m? More? De Gea is only three months older than him, and will likely have a longer career at the top level because of how long goalkeepers can stretch out their prime, yet Real Madrid are only offering £13m for him and will likely buy him for not much more than that.

It’s for this reason that the “Spend some f*#’ing money” argument takes a twist. The amount of money being spent is largely irrelevant, it’s the context in which the money is being spent that matters. Petr Cech will become the sixth most expensive goalkeeper in history when he signs for Arsenal, even though the fee will only be around £11m. In market terms, it’s a huge fee. However, in relation to what £11m would garner if spent on an outfield player, it’s a bargain.

That’s why the best thing about buying Cech will turn out not to be buying Cech himself. Arsenal have upgraded at its weakest position for a very reasonable outlay. They have taken full advantage of a quirk in the transfer market to buy a top-class player and still have plenty of money available to get another one in. All the scrimping and saving and bargaining done during the era of austerity at the Emirates Stadium is finally starting to bear fruit.

Now, Arsenal have a chance to go for it. One more world-class player and we will have the best team in the country. Our form since Christmas was a clear indicator of just how good they can be when fit and healthy. But there is little point in hoping that this team might be good enough, even with Cech in goal, when the funds are now there to once again tilt the odds in our favour.

We’ve done the hard part in catching up with our rivals. The easy bit comes now. All we have to do is one thing.

Spend some f*#@ing money.