What with the sticky situation that Arsenal are in now with Cesc leaving towards the end of the window, after the Arsenal management faffed around with the most inevitable sale for months for not a lot of extra money, presumibly meaning that Arsenal either wont be able to replace him (and likely Nasri) or have to pay massively over the odds for a replacement at this late stage... Its just made me think how nice it is that we've done most (or possibly all if no CB coming in) in private and in early / mid window, and no more of the tense last minute speculation / scrambling... I like the new regimens way of doing things...
I have to say bar say suarez and enrique.... who as foregin buy scould have thier heads turned one day by a real madrid our signings have effectively transofrmed our squad in a very long term manner. Arsenal in the end are a selling club PURELY becasue every child they took for hither and yon all look to big european clubs as their eventual destinations.... in other words our signins modest as some would claim they are see us as their big move.... arsenals signings have historically looked to money and see arsenal as a stepping stone. I for one hope the cesc and nasric things drag on til we play them and disrupt thier preparations for the season and our game too...
Delighted with our transfer business/policy so far. We've got the players in quite early and that lets them work together in pre-season training and understand each others skills and weaknesses. That will help us in our games this season.
I don't buy this foreign players will all want away to some European club. Iit's a bit like the rubbish spouted about Reina being happier with another Spaniard now in the squad! So far I am happy with the policy that we are trying to adopt. Yes we have spent money but that investment has been wise. We are a developing squad. We have resisted the temptation to try and buy immediate success with 'marquee' players. We have already invested in our youth policy and the first fruits of that starting to emerge. All of our signings have been on long term contracts. We are building a true squad and not a first 11 with spares. What FSG, Kenny and DC have promised us is an improving squad with the ability to re-gain CL football (anything over that would be a bonus) and what the first half against Sunderland suggests is that they are keeping to their word.
Our transfer dealings would have been brilliant if we could've signed a back-up striker and a centre back. However this is just phase one. Rome wasn't built in a day. Its taken just £5.2 million net(since January 2009) to rebuild our squad. Spent £166 million Recouped £160.8 million.
Are you including non transfer related profits in that too. No I'm not. These are the figures. In September 2010 the figure was £102 million recouped £59 million spent. In January 2011. It was £117 million spent......£158 million recouped. This summer its £166 million spent....£160.8 million recouped. Thus we've went about rebuilding our squad with a net spend of £5.2 million.
