the times | Thursday August 6 2020 2GM 63
Sport
Barcelona’s Philippe Coutinho has end-
ed. Mesut Özil, who has not played
since March 7, remains the club’s high-
est earner on £350,000 a week.
Arsenal were the only Premier
League club to agree a wage cut with
nearly all of their players during lock-Results Fixtures
Cricket
Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester:
First Test, England v Pakistan (day
two of five).
Football
Europa League, Round of 16, second
leg: Wolverhampton Wanderers (1) v
Olympiacos (1).
Snooker
Betfred World Championship:
Crucible Theatre, Sheffield Round of
16 (England unless stated): M Selby
v N Saengkham (Thai) (10.0); J
Higgins (Sco) v K Maflin (Nor) (10.0);
J Trump v Y Bingtao (Chn) (2.30); M
Williams (Wal) v S Bingham (2.30).Football
UEFA Europa League,
round of 16, second legs
Cop’hagen(1)3 Istanbul B(0) 0
Wind 4 (pen), 52
Falk 62
6 Copenhagen win 3-1 on aggregate
Inter Milan (1)2 Getafe (0) 0
Lukaku 33
Eriksen 83
6 Inter Milan win single-leg tie 2-0
Man Utd(0)2LASK (0) 1
Lingard 57
Martial 88Wiesinger 556 Man United win 7-1 on aggregateS Donetsk(0)3 Wolfsburg(0) 0
Moraes 89, 90+3
Solomon 90+1
Sent off:
Khocholava 68Sent off:
Brooks 706 Shakhtar Donetsk win 5-1 on
aggregate
Snooker
Betfred World Championship:
Crucible Theatre, Sheffield (England
unless stated):
Round of 32: B Hawkins 10 A
Ursenbacher (Sui) 2; M Gould 10 S
Maguire (Sco) 3.
Round of 16, overnight scores: K
Maflin (Nor) 5 J Higgins (Sco) 3; M
Williams (Wal) 5 S Bingham 3.break before next season
Money Arsenal will save is just
a fraction of £232m wage bill
earliest, and even then stadiums are
likely to be at 30 per cent of capacity or
less. Clubs have also had to pay a rebate
to broadcasters who have live rights to
the Premier League because of the
change to scheduling and the impact of
playing matches behind closed doors
on the viewing experience.
Francis Cagigao has been made re-
dundant after 24 years of scouting for
Arsenal, as have Brian McDermott and
the head of UK scouting Peter Clark.
Arsenal’s wage bill was £232 million
in their latest accounts, about 80 per
cent of which is thought to be spent on
wages for players and coaching staff.
Arsenal already had plans to cut their
player wage bill after failing to qualify
for the Champions League in recent
seasons but they have assured support-
ers that they will continue to invest in
the team next season.
Mikel Arteta’s side have responded to
their victory in last weekend’s FA Cup
final by trying to secure the services of
the striker Pierre-Emerick Aubamey-
ang on a new £300,000-a-week deal.
The club are very close to signing
Willian, the Brazilian midfielder, from
Chelsea and are trying to bring in
Thomas Partey, the Atletico Madrid
midfielder, though their interest indown. After qualifying for the Europa
League, the cut will be 7.5 per cent
between April 2020 and March 2021, in
theory saving the club £18 million.
However Arsenal have not said how
many players signed their agreements.
The executive team also agreed to
waive more than a third of their salaries
over a period of 12 months.
Arsenal earned a quarter of their
total revenue from match-day income
last season. It has been difficult for the
club to outline the extent of the finan-
cial black hole facing them given it is
not known when and how many fans
will be allowed to return to stadiums.
But the football finance expert Kier-
an Maguire suggested yesterday that
the amount saved by the 55 job losses
will be a fraction of spending on players.
In a social media post Maguire said:
“Arsenal announce 55 redundancies,
which at an average salary of (say) £35k
a week will save just under £2m from
their wage bill, which was £232 million
last season. Arsenal earned £3.6m for
winning the FA Cup and qualified for
Europa League next season, worth up
to £40m.”
Insiders, however, do point to the
club’s 724 staff, of which only 73 are
players, and the need for streamlining,
with the club having already restruc-
tured their stadium loan this summer.Wolves from Olympiacos in January,
has been providing the team with
information about the Greek club’s ap-
proach. Wolves already have an away
goal advantage from the first leg in
March, which was the final game a
Premier League club played before the
lockdown.
“That moment when we travelled
to Athens everyone was scared,
without knowing what was coming,”
Nuno said. “Nobody knew the
pandemic was coming.
“We knew that something was going
on and that people were dying, but we
didn’t know what was going on. That
uncertainty caused a lot of problems in
the approach of the game. Tomorrow
we know how we have to deal with this
situation.”
Nuno’s team will have to win the
competition in order to play in Europe
next season after missing out on a top-
six Premier League finish following
their defeat by Chelsea on the final day.
“We tried after the Chelsea game to
give some days off but the situation has
changed,” Nuno said. “The tourist cor-
ridor between our countries is not open
so we have to sacrifice those days but ...
we couldn’t risk going and when we
return not being able to be involved.
“This is why everybody has been
truly committed. We stayed here,
prepared ourselves and it’s tough, but as
professionals preparing, our families
understand it.”
Nuno will welcome a familiar face to
Molineux in Pedro Martins, the
Olympiacos manager who he played
alongside at Vitória de Guimarães and
who replaced him as manager of Rio
Ave in 2014.
“He is a fantastic guy,” Nuno said.
“The only thing I will miss is to give him
a big hug. I admire and I like him and we
are good friends.”Parker set for new deal at
Fulham after promotion
Gary JacobFulham are ready to reward Scott
Parker with a new contract after their
promotion to the Premier League and
will give him greater control over the
club’s transfer business.
Parker replaced Claudio Ranieri, ini-
tially as caretaker manager, in Februa-
ry last year and signed a two-year deal
last summer after the relegation to the
Sky Bet Championship. He has
achieved his objective of returning Ful-
ham to the top flight at the first attempt
and talks over improved terms will be
held when he returns from holiday.
The 39-year-old wants to give as
many members of his squad the chance
to play next season as possible and has
targeted signing players on loan.
Fulham have asked Tottenham
Hotspur about bringing back Ryan
Sessegnon on loan a year after he left
the club. Parker is also expected to try to
sign Harrison Reed on a permanent
deal from Southampton. Under the
terms of Reed’s season-long loan,
Fulham would need to pay £8 million
for the midfielder.
It would represent a marked differ-
ence in transfer strategy following
Fulham’s promotion to the Premier
League in 2018 when they spent morethan £100 million on 12 players. Slavisa
Jokanovic, who was in charge at the
time, claimed he did not have enough
influence on which players were
brought in and Parker has admitted
that healing the divisions in the squad
has been one of his biggest challenges.
Fulham will try to offload some of the
players from that spending spree who
remain including André-Frank Zambo
Anguissa and Jean Michaël Seri, who
were both out on loan this season, and
Maxime Le Marchand and Fabri.
Reflecting on that period, Tom Cair-
ney, the Fulham captain, said the club
had good intentions but the arrivals
changed the dressing room. “When you
get to the Premier League you have to
bring in quality players,” Cairney said.
“You have to give the owners credit as
they sent the money straight away and
tried to take us to the next level. What
happened was that we lost the team
spirit in the dressing room a little bit too
soon. And that team spirit is what can
get you results on some days.”
Cairney said they need to strengthen
up front to help Aleksandar Mitrovic.
“We don’t have another ‘Mitro’ if he
gets injured, though the people who
have come in have done well,” Cairney
said. “There might be places where we
need cover if we get injuries.”Brentford put
£25m price tag
on forwards
Gary JacobBrentford will fight off attempts by
Premier League clubs to sign Ollie
Watkins and Saïd Benrahma after the
club were beaten in the Championship
play-off final by Fulham.
The club have valued the forwards at
more than £25 million each, with
Crystal Palace interested in Watkins.
Palace tried to sign the 24-year-old last
summer when he had a £12 million
buyout clause; he has since signed a
four-year deal with no such clause.
Watkins, who scored 25 goals this
season, is also wanted by Dean Smith,
the Aston Villa manager with whom he
worked at Griffin Park. He signed from
Exeter City in 2017.
Benrahma, 24, scored 17 league goals
this season and is wanted by a number
of clubs, including West Ham United,
Leeds United and Villa. The Algeria
international has two years left on his
deal, having moved to Brentford for
£2.7 million from Nice in 2018.
Brentford have considered replace-
ments including Ivan Toney, 24, who
scored 26 goals in all competitions for
Peterborough United this season, and
Arsenal prospect Folarin Balogun, 19.Villa beat Liverpool and
Bayern to Exeter teenager
Aston Villa are to sign Exeter City’s
youngest-ever player, Ben Chrisene,
after he turned down the offer of a
professional contract from the League
Two side (Paul Joyce writes). The
England youth international played in
the Carabao Cup at the start of last
season aged 15 years and seven
months before making his league
debut in January on the eve of his
16th birthday. Chrisene can play in
several positions and had interested
Liverpool and Bayern Munich.Probable teams
Wolverhampton Wanderers (3-4-3): R Patrício —
W Boly, C Coady, R Saïss — M Doherty,
J Moutinho, R Neves, Jonny — A Traoré,
R Jiménez, D Podence.
Olympiacos: (4-2-3-1): B Allain — O Elabdellaoui,
P Cissé, O Ba, K Tsimikas — Guilherme, M Camara
— A Bouchalakis, M Valbuena, G Masouras —
Y El Arabi.The key numbers
£395m
Arsenal’s turnover in 2018-19.
Match-day revenue made up £96m
— almost a quarter of that total.£232m
Arsenal’s wage bill for 2018-19. Their
724-strong staff included 73 players,
87 training staff, 441 administrative
staff and 123 ground staff.£350,000
Weekly wage of Mesut Özil,
Arsenal’s highest-paid player.£18m
Money Arsenal hope to save in pay
cuts. Some members of the squad
have agreed to 7.5 per cent cuts.continued from back
side, who lacked fluency in the absence of many of their regular starting players
MICHAEL REGAN/GETTY IMAGES