According to a senior boardroom source at the Emirates, Arsenal could afford the wages of big stars or the demands of their existing ones if some of the crazy salaries given out to the much maligned members of the squad were somewhat less ridiculous.

This boardroom source recently claimed that Arsene could put a big contract offer to Nasri if Diaby only earned £30,000 per week instead of £60,000 per week. £60,000 for Diaby! A week!! When you hear that Luka Modric is on £35,000 a week a short jaunt up the Seven Sisters Road at Spurs it really puts into perspective how badly overpaid some Arsenal players are.

Don’t get me wrong, when fit Diaby has great potential but that is the point. When fit…. potential. £60k is too much for someone with a poor injury record and debatable influence when fit.

Samir Nasir, reportedly on £45,000 per week has been offered a salary of £90,000 per week however has been reported to be holding out for parity with Fabregas who is on £110,000 a week as the clubs top earner.

For a long time now Wenger has offered big wages to lesser known players or up and coming talents in order to tie them down to long term contracts. Sadly whilst this works in getting players to sign 6+ year contracts, guaranteeing that Arsenal either get their best years or a good resell value, it actually creates the disproportionate wage bill that holds Arsenal back as they refuse to breach 50-55% of turnover as their marker for maximum wages.

Currently Arsenal have a weekly wage bill of £2.3m compared to £2.6m at Chelsea and who has had the more recent success? With “world class” stars such as Drogba, Cech, Terry, Lampard, Essien, Torres (of days gone by), Cole, Malouda and Anelka as well as other future talents like David Luiz in their ranks you would expect Chelsea’s wage bill to eclipse Arsenal’s by more than £300k a week!

With ‘stars’ like Denilson, Almunia, Vela, Bendtner and Squillaci reportedly earning over £50,000 a week it is not hard to see where Arsenal are going wrong.

Denilson, Vela and Almunia all earn salaries of £50,000 a week with Diaby, Bendtner and Squiallci earning £55-60,000 a week.

That is £340k a week, the difference between Arsenal’s and Chelsea’s wage bill. That would afford Arsenal their reported targets of Parker, Cahill and Gervinho with increases in their salaries of 50%+ and still leave close to £150,000 a week to bump up the salaries of players such as Nasri, Van Persie and Walcott to get them to sign new contracts and still probably have change for an ice cream.

A long term solution for Arsenal would be to offer ‘reasonable’ wages to young players breaking into the first team of around £10-15k a week on long term deals and a net increase of 10% of salary to new purchases on 3-4 year deals with a caveat that performances and contributions to the team will result in an increase that will be backdated such as with Fabregas.

Whilst Wenger has been very astute in the transfer market over the past 15 years he has been extremely naïve when it comes to wages. I cannot help but feel that this foolishness coincided with the departure of David Dein.

With great power comes great responsibility and it seems that Wenger has had more power than he can actually handle since Dein left.