With Arsene Wenger struggling to explain Arsenal’s underwhelming start to the season, the north London club will hope for a boost on Wednesday when they make the short trip to face Anderlecht in the Champions League.
Arsenal go to Brussels knowing they must improve upon their showing against Hull City in the Premier League on Saturday, when they required a last-minute Danny Welbeck equaliser just to earn a 2-2 draw.
The result left them in seventh place in the table, already 11 points behind leaders Chelsea, and they have mustered just two wins in their last nine games in all competitions.
“At the moment we are having a bad period, but we didn’t lose,” said defender Per Mertesacker after the Hull game, while Wenger urged his side to get back to winning ways in the Belgian capital.
“Let’s focus on winning the next game. Football is made of pragmatism and realism so let’s focus to go to Anderlecht and win the game,” he told journalists.
Arsenal got off to a bad start in Group D, losing 2-0 away to Borussia Dortmund in their opening game last month, but they bounced back in convincing fashion in their last match, thumping Galatasaray 4-1 at the Emirates Stadium, with Welbeck scoring a hat-trick.
Six points from their double-header against Anderlecht – the return fixture in London is on November 4 – will have them well on course for a place in the knockout stage once again, but Arsenal are not helped by their on-going selection problems.
Mesut Ozil and Mathieu Debuchy are on the sidelines while centre-back Laurent Koscielny sat out the Hull draw with an achilles problem and Jsck Wilshere came off in that game with a leg injury, although Wenger later described the midfielder’s problem as “not a lot”.
In addition, with Wojciech Szczesny suspended after his sending-off against Galatasaray and David Ospina still not fit, Wenger is set to hand a start to 22-year-old Argentine Emiliano Martinez, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Sheffield Wednesday.
At least Aaron Ramsey made his comeback after a hamstring injury against Hull and Theo Walcott returned after more than nine months on the sidelines in a reserve game last week.
“I’ve never played with someone before who times their runs so perfectly and keeps doing it, time after time,” he told Arsenal’s website.
“It’s tough in a game to repeat those sprints 15 or 20 times but he does it, and it’s a dream for a midfielder.”
One of the leading sides in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, Belgian champions Anderlecht have struggled in the Champions League in recent seasons, particularly at their snug Constant Vanden Stock Stadium.
A 1-1 draw at Galatasaray in their opening game was followed by a 3-0 home loss to Dortmund last time out, a result which did little for their prospects of avoiding finishing bottom of the group, just as they have done in each of their last seven appearances at this stage of the competition.
Indeed, their 1-0 win at home to Zenit St Petersburg in 2012/13 was their first at home in the competition proper in nine years, and since then they have suffered five straight group-stage defeats with an aggregate score of 17-3.
They are unbeaten domestically this season, but coach Besnik Hasi was not enamoured by his side’s performance against Mechelen in a 1-1 draw at the weekend.
“The first half was the worst since I have been in charge of the team,” said the former Albania international.
“To say that I was angry at half-time is over the top but I certainly said to some of the players that they had been very bad.”
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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