Mikel Arteta is struggling at Arsenal but the Kroenkes don’t seem inclined to get rid of him anytime soon and part of that could be down to the fact he’s much cheaper than a manager with experience.
Mikel Arteta was attractive to the Kroenkes for a number of reasons but, most likely, the reason they liked the most was his wages. Still, as many a granny will tell you, buy cheap, buy twice.
Somewhere down the line, you always pay the price.
There is much of talk of who Arsenal could replace Arteta with and Antonio Conte’s availability is tempting until you realise that in his last job he was earning €20m (£17m) base with Inter and taking home around €30m (£25.7m) in total.
That’s five times what Arsenal pay Mikel Arteta. Even when Conte was at Chelsea, he was paid £11m, more than twice Arteta’s £5m salary.
Where does Mikel Arteta’s wage rank in the Premier League?
£5m-a-year is, of course, nothing to be sniffed at for most people, but in the world of football it is so far from the salary of a top manager as to be laughable. In football, generally, you get what you pay for.
In the 20/21 season, Arteta was the 9th best-paid manager in the Premier League which is one place below where Arsenal finished in the league, despite having the 5th highest wage bill for their players, generally a better indicator of where a team is likely to finish.
This season, however, that means there are quite a few earning less, at smaller clubs with fewer resources, who are out-performing him. That’s not surprising, every other manager in the Premier League arrived at the their job with experience.
Premier League manager salaries 21/22
- Pep Guardiola £20m
- Jurgen Klopp £15m
- Brendan Rodgers £10m
- Marcelo Bielsa £8m
- Ole Gunnar Solskjaer £7.5m
- Rafael Benitez £7m
- Thomas Tuchel £7m
- Nuno Espirito Santo £7m
- Mikel Arteta £5m