After spending years enduring mediocre football with little indication of progression, Arsenal finally look like a side ready to take their place atop English football once again.
Mikel Arteta has taken his side from eighth just a few years ago into back-to-back Premier League title races and within one match of the Champions League quarter-finals.
The squad has dramatically improved under the Spaniard as well, with the likes of Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard, and Ben White joining during his tenure.
However, there are still a few players who should be moved on this summer, one of whom significantly more than transfer target Ivan Toney earns at Brentford.
How much Ivan Toney earns at Brentford
Toney joined the Bees in August 2020 for a fee of £5m – £10m with add-ons – from League One side Peterborough.
It took no time for the Englishman to get settled into life in west London, and by the end of his debut season, he had scored 33 goals, provided ten assists in just 52 games, and helped the club fulfil their long-term ambition of returning to the top-flight.
In the three seasons since, the Northampton-born nine has scored 39 goals and provided 11 assists in 79 games for Thomas Frank's ambitious side.
With the amount of money in the Premier League these days and Toney's undeniable importance to the team, you'd be forgiven for thinking that his weekly wage must be somewhere near £100k-per-week – well, you'd be wrong.
In fact, according to Capology, the 27-year-old "monster", as dubbed by data analyst Ben Mattinson, earns just £20k-per-week, and while that's an absurd amount of money for the average person, it's about a third of the average salary in the league, which is around £60k-per-week.
1
Man City
Erling Haaland
36
£375k-p/w
2
Tottenham
Harry Kane
30
£200k-p/w
3
Brentford
Ivan Toney
20
£20k-p/w
4
Liverpool
Mohamed Salah
19
£350k-p/w
5
Newcastle
Callum Wilson
18
£46k-p/w
To put that into perspective, Arsenal's current first-choice striker, Gabriel Jesus, earns around £265k-per-week. However, there is another player in N5 who, despite being significantly less important, still earns considerably more than Toney.
How much Eddie Nketiah earns at Arsenal
Yes, it's Eddie Nketiah, a player who has been fighting for a place in Arteta's first team for several years now, who earns five times more than Toney.
The former Chelsea youth product signed a long-term deal in North London in June 2022 following some impressive performances in the latter half of the 2021/22 campaign, which saw his wage increase to a whopping £100k-per-week at the Emirates.
Now, the Lewisham-born poacher certainly looked to be justifying his new pay packet for a period last season as he filled in for the absent Jesus. Still, his brace against Manchester United on January 22nd marked his final league goals of the campaign.
This season, the 24-year-old has managed just six goals in 32 appearances – including his hatrick against Sheffield United.
In all, the 5 foot 11 forward has scored 38 goals and provided ten assists in 163 games for the Gunners, which means he averages 0.29 goal involvements per match, a return which makes it hard to disagree with journalist Kaya Kaynak's assessment of Nketiah as being "disappointing."
It gets worse though, as if you include the 37 weeks of wages he has received this season on top of the £11m or so he has already earned while at Arsenal, it takes his total earnings to around £14.7m, which means that he has cost the Gunners about £386k-per-goal, £1.47m-per-assist, or £306k-per-goal-involvement.
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Ultimately, with the links to Toney once again heating up and Nketiah being used less and less by Arteta, it would make sense for the club to cut their losses with him in the summer and use the £100k-per-week they'd save for the far more efficient Brentford ace.
