Sir Chips: Spending is good, so is keeping a rainy day fund

Arsène Wenger spent quite a bit of money on new players this summer, which (thus far) has yielded positive results. And according to team chairman and cartoon cookie mascot Sir Chips Keswick, the boss can let the good times roll for the foreseeable future – the club’s financials are in, and they are Good.

Whilst we have spent strongly we have not over stretched...It would have been bad business practice not to have retained some small degree of flexibility to allow us to invest again in the right player and/or to maintain the current squad as and where we want to offer improved and extended contracts for key players [ED. NOTE: hint, hint].

We make our investments on a prudent and reasoned basis which is something the Club does well and which is even more important in a competitively inflated marketplace.

This approach has served us well and it will continue.

The elven treat-master went on to offer some context to the numbers, which will no doubt be lost on the braying masses on Twitter (but good on him for trying).

Our cash reserves at the end of the year stood at £226.5 million and this figure will doubtless attract the usual speculation from fans and commentators.

That being the case, it is my duty to point out that after excluding debt service reserves and amounts owed to other clubs on past transfers the balance reduces to £149 million.

This figure is in itself inflated, due to the seasonality of our cash flows, by advance sponsorship and season ticket receipts for the new season.

Against the underlying balance of available funds we have, as mentioned above, invested strongly in player acquisitions during the summer at a total transfer in cost of more than £90 million with additional significant commitments to player wages, agent’s fees and performance related contingencies on top of that.

I have no idea what the hell any of that means, but you don’t become the heir to the Wonka fortune without a little business sense, so I’ll take his word for it.