Martin Keown has revealed that Arsenal’s Premier League winners of 2002 were on an average wage of £10,000-a-week, with bonuses only paid out for winning silverware – which fluctuated depending on how many matches you played.

The 50-year-old defender wrote an article on how wages in football are now beyond inflated and as an example, used his previous situation as an effective way to illustrate the problems in modern day football.

He joked that maybe he should’ve got himself an agent, whilst admitting he used to do all of his own notations in the past.

“The figures revealed in these pages of money paid to Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba show how far clubs will go,” he said.

Arsenal have been heavily criticised with the way they fail to match rival offers for shortlisted players, often due to things such as a wage increase that they’re not prepared to offer or attempt to negotiate.

The opinion of many Arsenal supporters was summarised with his comment on the Daily Mail:

“The current Arsenal crop are not even worth £10,000 a week right now, that 2002 double winning team was a team full of winners who actually gave a care about the club and worked hard for their money, this current crop we have are happy to rack up our wage bill and do nothing but let us down time and time again.”

Keown said that if you played every game within the season, players could expect to earn something in the region of £150,000 as a bonus.

“Arsene Wenger’s attitude was: “If you play well and are a regular and you are successful, then you deserve the money.” I agreed with the sentiment. Zlatan earned £999,000 in one month of bonuses alone. Staggering.

“I do question the idea of paying bonuses for scoring goals to an individual.

“I never had a goal bonus (fill in the gag here) and I wasn’t aware of any team-mates who had, either. I wouldn’t have been happy about it. Why is the striker’s job more important than the centre backs’?

“I’ve heard of goalkeeper bonuses for clean sheets, but if I’m putting my head in the way and getting it kicked in to save a goal, why should the keeper get the bonus?

“When I got into Arsenal’s first team in the mid-Eighties, I was earning £250 a week with a bonus of £400 a game for playing. That was typical for young players to have their breakthrough incentivised. It is a system still enforced today.”

Although Keown’s opinions may be classed as outdated with regards to modern day football, it’s understandable that he has had his say on the matter given the inflated wages players receive today.

Perhaps it also makes more sense as to why he has criticised Alexis Sánchez recently for ‘turning up too late in the season’.