Arsenal give Trossard a pay raise, but I am not sure why

This doesn't make a ton of sense to me in the grand scheme of what Arsenal have been doing this summer building this squad

Leandro Trossard is getting a new and significantly improved contract at Arsenal, but it doesn’t extend the length of his contract with him still running through 2027 according to James McNicholas of The Athletic.

Leandro Trossard has agreed a new contract at Arsenal which will grant him a significant pay rise.

The 30-year-old has reached an agreement on a contract adjustment, increasing his salary but not extending the deal beyond its previous expiration of 2027.

I can’t help but not fully understand what the logical reasoning is behind this.

McNicholas has this in the article as a potential reason, but I still don’t know if that really makes a ton of sense personally.

[Trossard] has been in talks with the club for some time over improved pay, with a view to bringing his salary in line with his valued role in the squad.

Salary information is opaque and not reported well enough that I particularly trust many of the places online that you’ll see wages but if we go with the £90k per week that you would see on a place like Capology or Spotrac that is probably below what a player who has his role of the last few seasons would have been making at Arsenal.

Since he joined in January 2023 he has played in 124 matches, making 73 starts and has played 75.4 nineties in all competitions. He has gone from 12 to 25 to 38 nineties in those 2.5 seasons and he was a player that played a pretty large role, especially the last two seasons.

His agent and Trossard himself, with hindsight probably did a poor job negotiating his initial contract with Arsenal where he agreed to a wage that would be more fringe player than player just outside of the first eleven and they tied him up to a 4.5 year deal (plus potentially an option, I have seen that reported but unsure if fully confirmed).

The part that doesn’t make sense is that his role going forward is not nearly as clear, and it very well could be that he will not be that same player that is playing in 50+ matches and pushing 30+ nineties for Arsenal.

This summer Arsenal spent pretty big on Noni Madueke who is a younger and frankly probably better player than him. When you put together a depth chart he just doesn’t have as many paths to playing time as he did last season.

If everyone or even if most players are healthy, he is on the bubble now for players that would make the bench in the Premier League. He probably would make it most matches with Arteta wanting to have 3 attackers on the bench (it would depend if you count Ethan Nwaneri in that group), but it isn’t a slam dunk and it is far from certain that he would make it on the field.

If this was a player in his prime years and he was looking like he was going to grow (or maintain) his role, fine pay up for it. However, given that he is 30 and the business that Arsenal have done, his role is looking like it is shrinking.

His wage was out of line for a player that was playing 30-40 nineties but is it out of line for a player that is more of a backup and insurance policy for injury? It probably isn’t too far on that.

I think the other factor is that is this a case where there are teams out there beating down Arsenal’s door to take him from the team and offer him more money? I have not seen a ton of interest and it seems like all the teams are not coming close to matching a transfer fee that Arsenal would want to see him go. That is the market giving him the news that other teams don’t see him as worth what he thinks he is there.

All of the word on sources close to Arsenal are that any additional incomings would be tied to players leaving. This isn’t tied to the Premier League PSR rules, where the team has plenty of room but more likely tied to the size of the squad in general and that they are close to the stricter Financial Fair Play rules set by UEFA. Trossard very well could have been one of those players that could have left before this news but now it seems that things are done on that front.

If the club was already potentially limited by the UEFA rules, why make it tighter for yourself if you didn’t have to.

Increasing the wages that is probably only adding an additional £2-5 million to the wage bill for each of the next 2 (maybe three with option) but that is still not something that I really understand if things are as tight as they say and there is so little interest from other teams to pay him what he is asking for. The other thing that this does is probably make it that much harder to sell him to another club in the coming years given that this pushes him above the wage structure of more teams.

It is a bit of news that erodes a bit of my trust on the club’s overall decision making and squad building process.