Huss Fahmy, what do you do?

A few years ago i was sitting in the Emirates when the chant rang round "Ivan Gazidis what do you do?"

Now a few years on the people chanting that look a bit foolish as we have found out with everything behind the scenes rejuvenated to a world class level under Ivans control, of course he has now moved on with many see the job incomplete.

Anyway Ivan isnt the topic of this piece but in similar fashion this article may look stupid in a few weeks/months/years. 

It was with much fanfare in Summer 2017 that Arsenal announced they had recruited Huss Fahmy from Team Sky to be a contract expert, taking over from the seemingly incompetent and inept Dick Law.

It was announced he was appointed to take over contract negotiations with both exisiting players aka contract renewals and on contracts for new signings. 

Fahmy came with a reputation of being very tough in negotiations and the rumours were he offered what he feels is a fair deal once and there is very little room for negotiations with him.

Now 15 months on i have huge questions about what Huss Fahmy actually does and how much of an expert he really is.

Lets look at his work so far, he came in after our moves of last summer were pretty much done (Kolasinac, Lacazette) i cant put any blame on Fahmy for the debacle with Lemar. It seems upon appointment his major focus was renewals, at the time we had superstars Alexis and Ozil going into the last year of their deals as well as fans favourite Jack Wilshere. Also looking further ahead he had the likes of Danny Welbeck and Aaron Ramsey with 24 months left, key negotiation time you would think.

With Alexis it is fair to see he wanted out way before Fahmy came to the club and whilst its very difficult to put any blame on Fahmy for Alexit it was one of the key roles he was given upon appointment.

Next we move to Mesut Özil, now we have a lot of Ozil bashers in our fanbase and im not one of them but even i will admit that we vastly overpaid Mesut, there is surely no way that was our first over and Fahmy stood his ground. This showed other players and more importantly agents they could get one over Fahmy with his tough negotiator stance.
My personal opinion is you dont need to be an expert negotiator to get Ozil to sign for £300k+ PW.

The next major job was Jack. Jack was offered his first renewal in December when he was in the team and at the peak of his fan favourite-ness. The offer was seen as derogatory and rejected, numerous offers followed (again making a mockery of Fahmys reputation) and they eventually got to a place where Jack agreed however others at the club then felt Jack was surplus to requirements.
Did Fahmy over offer?

Danny Welbeck to the best of my knowledge has only been offered 1 deal which was on the same terms as he was presently on, this was rejected and now Welbz holds all the power.

Finally we have Ramsey, yesterday it was announced that after months of negotiations and many rejected offers from team Ramsey that they finally came to an agreement and Arsenal renegged on the offer. Could this again be that Fahmy over offered and the power's that be werent in agreement?
Anyone can get someone to agree if you offer over the odds.

In the interest of accuracy he has extended AMN, Nelson, Iwobi, Chambers, Holding and El-neny.

I understand Nelson was a difficult one so credit where its due but the others were all on long term deals and just had their wages increased, im some aspects i believe overpaid or just unnecessarily eg Chambers when he had only signed an extension 8 months prior.

He was also played part in the recruitment of Auba and Mkhi who both were desperate to get out of their clubs and the rest of the incomings were huge steps up in their careers and will be on alot more money than they were at their previous employers.

To me it looks like Fahmys reputation as a tough negotiator has left the building and if he does have a reputation its in vastly over paying.

The list of deals he has been involved in i will now give a pass, fail or 50/50 for.
Alexis-50/50 not sure how much he could do

Ozil- 50/50 great to get him to sign,but feel hes massively overpaid which could become a strain on the club.

Jack- fail. Took too long to negotiate and was then over ruled

Ramsey- fail. See above^ 

Welbeck- fail. Welbeck now holds all the power

Nelson-resounding pass, had alot of obstacles to over come

Iwobi 50/50 good to get him to extend and to make sure he still has a value, i think doubling his money was very excessive though.

The other players listed that ive not given a rating on all fall into the 50/50 category.

To me the above does not look like the CV of an expert negotiator.

There is an explanation to all of this, that someone above Fahmy is blocking his moves, if thats the case why hire an expert to then overrule them?

So for me the question remains
Huss Fahmy, what do you do?

Tony