OPINION
West Ham’s appointment of Manuel Pellegrini will have raised a few eyebrows from fans of rival Premier League clubs.
But Arsenal fans will be particularly concerned that the new Hammers boss will be handed a bigger transfer kitty that their own soon-to-be-appointed manager.
To be brutally honest, they will be spitting feathers.
The Times report that Pellegrini will be given £60million to spend on the five players he wants to strengthen the West Ham squad this summer.
This comes after reports filtered through, including in the Telegraph, that Arsene Wenger’s successor will have a restricted budget of just £50million to work with.
Gooners will be angry and dumbfounded in some cases given that their club is sixth in the Deloitte Money League across world football and posted a pre-tax profit of £25million for the first six months of 2017-18.
By contrast, West Ham’s £183.3million for the 2016-17 season is less than half that of Arsenal’s and they are placed at 17th in the list of the world’s richest clubs.
Arsenal fans will recognise their club have spent more than £100 million on Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang during the past two transfer windows alone as well as committing to three massive contracts in January for Aubameyang, Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
But there will be concern that incoming boss Unai Emery will be working with a transfer budget £10million less than the club who have been in their footballing and financial slipstream for pretty much ever.
It’s hardly an ambitious way to herald the start of a new era.
