It always comes down to money: Arteta’s departure from Manchester delayed by £2M

No matter what you’re talking about, whether it’s work, life, hobbies, or whatever else, it will eventually always come down to money. How much is it? How much is it worth? How much to get started? These quotidian-yet-ultimately-important questions always pop up whenever any transaction or negotiation happens.

Arsenal, of course, are no different. We’ve known for a while, from a variety of reliable sources, that Mikel Arteta is going to leave Manchester City to become the next Arsenal manager, and we’ve also known that there has yet to be an official announcement from the club to that effect. We’ve been speculating why that is for a few days now, with “contracts take time to execute” and “Arteta’s bringing two City staff with him, so City is probably dragging their feet as much as they can” being two leading contenders.

It’s also known that City aren’t happy with the way Arsenal have carried this process out. From the sounds of it, they didn’t actually approach Manchester City or City Football Group first, they just sort of called up Arteta and said “hey you want to talk”, which isn’t exactly the way it’s supposed to be done, and City reportedly are not happy about that at all, which I totally understand.

And today, we’re apparently learning the cost of that approach. The deal is being held up by City’s compensation demands for Arteta, with the Manchester club reportedly looking for a £2 million payment in order to release Arteta to Arsenal:

City are resigned to losing Arteta and will not stand in his way, but are expected to be less than flexible when it comes to both the amount of compensation and the payment schedules agreed with Arsenal.

I don’t think this will kill the deal, or at least it shouldn’t - Arsenal have the money, and are technically in the wrong here - although it would explain the delay in making it official. Freddie Ljungberg’s weekly press conference was postponed until tomorrow, though, so despite all the delays up to now, all signs point to tomorrow being the day that Arteta finally gets to take the job permanently (even if Freddie is still actually managing for Saturday’s game).