Does nobody think that Wilshere might be approaching the point that he'll be ready to start pulling some serious creative midfielder weight? Also, he's always been good for Koln ... but wasn't he seriously crap when he was playing for Bayern Munich? Not saying he's not a good player, but he's already moved to a bigger club once in his career and had it fail on him ... I'm worried that the same might happen here.
This either means that: 1) The board is loosening the wage structure. There's no way the backup to Van Persie would earn less than Van Persie, so this could mean RVP agreeing a new contract and some good signings coming in because we can now afford their wages. 2) Van Persie is leaving and Podolski is the replacement.
This is crazy talk. We're not going to spend £20+ million on Goetze for him to 'join the queue' on the bench. He would walk walk straight into our starting line up.
Me too. 100K is not an outrageous amount. I'd be more concerned if it was 120K or 150K. I suspect 100K is the minimum we will have to offer RVP to keep him.
We already have a thread talking about Podolski, no need to make another one. That's why I merged it.
I do hope its number 1. We really need to get rid of our silly wage structure now and pay the players what they deserve!
Goetz is far from the finished, perfect midfielder, but he is squarely in our sights as the sort of signing we have to make. However, far from Arsenal's "experiment" being a failure, more and more of the other big teams (apart from Chelsea and Man City) are catching on that they can't buy a Messi or a Kaka or a Sneider (until they are almost past it) and we are going to face a lot of competition for his signature. Wenger used to have free rein going after these types and, perhaps as a result of his success, once Arsenal make an enquiry about a player, his value goes up by 10M. I would say that Wenger is looking very seriously for a player to play as the most attacking of the midfield 3. IMHO Wilshere has shown he is best alongside Song further back and so has Ramsey. For the Song haters, we also have Bartley coming up, Coqlin, Lansbury etc and despite everyone saying we need a DM, we have a lot of candidates who, although they might not be superstars, may well be soon. I love Rosicky but he is not a long term solution. We need at least one more player who can play in behind the striker. Ideally, that player would be able to play somewhere else as well.
Ha ha! Seems we have a comedian amongst us! Robin Van Persie is one of the best players in the world right now. Oxlade-Chamberlain has the potential to be an all time great for Arsenal and England. Arshavin is a shadow of the player is was when he first arrived. Rosisky has never quite managed to reach the expectations that were placed on him when he first arrived either. Do those comments make me ignorant ?
Rosicky was out of the game for a year and half because of injuries. It was a massive shame because in the 07-08 season he was starting to really show his talent. In the last few weeks we have seen the old Rosicky. He speeds up the game by running at people and also plays it quick. Hopefully he can sustain this sort of form.
As Captain he should be on more anyway - whatever the wage structure it needs to be managable, I'd honestly rather RVP leave than us cave in to a demand for £200k a week that impacts on our ability to operate, thankfully RVP is not money driven, he loves the club, he feels he owes AW/club/fans something and I strongly believe he will sign a long term contract and commit to the re-building. If we have a wage ceiling of £120k a week then so be it, but as we've said so many times before, offloading the deadwood that chew up a huge chunk of our wage budget will help massively...
Exactly, does this mean the end of Chamack? We should sell him back to Bordeaux - all profit!! I really think, as I stated above, that Wenger and Arsenal would not be moving this early for Poldolski if he was RVP's replacement because it would be like giving up before we have even discussed it with Robin! I think it's a sign of intent to persuade Robin to stay, hopefully the first of many.
Yeah to some extent I agree with you. The OX's performace against Milan got me thinking "do we actually need another creative midfielder?". he looked fantastic in the middle and with Wilshere soon to be returning from injury our options will suddernly look much better. There's also Rosicky who suddernly looks like the guy we first bought, Arteta as qulaity back up and experience. This is a pretty good side. ---------------------Sczezney-------------------- Sagna----Mertesacker----Vermaelen----Santos --------------------Song------------------------- ---Walcott--------Wilshere----------Chamberlain ------------VanPersie------Podolski-------------- Bench: Rosicky, Gervinho, Arteta, Campbell, Ramsey, Koscielney
In fairness, if we're going to pay any footballer "what they deserve" ... that would mean a significant pay drop.
Not bad, but I'd either have Arteta in place of Theo, if you are going 2 up top, or have: --------------------Song------------------------- --------Chamberlain----------Wilshere------------- ---Walcott-------VanPersie------Podolski---------- With VP and Podolski swithing positions as required.
This is a great buy. Superb. He will be absolute class and his signing already signal to rvp that we mean business in the summer. The deal also shows that we are loosening our wage structure. No way we would give the pod even £80k a week last year. Wenger is learning. And we will start to be title winning material again next year in my view. I think this is only the start and we can expect a holding midfielder and a playmaker to come in too. Hopefully also a decent fullback and resigning rvp and sagna (and selling walshadow). My team with the pod: -----------------ches----------------- ---sagna---mert----TV--------New lb ---new holding mf----song----------- -------------Jack-------------------- The pod-----RVP-----------The Ox
We needed another forward BADLY. Walcott and co have not scored enough goals. This is a great buy for the reported fee. Podolski can play where Van Persie does and he can play on the wing. Also if we went for a front two then both can combine together. Great purchase.
Not sure we need another forward, what we need is better quality. Campbell will be top drawer, Oxo is maturing rapidly, RVP is genuinely world class and Podolski is proven at the very top, there's B52, Miyaichi, Park, Vela, Chamakh and Gervinho, only Gervinho of that lot I think is good enough to cover for RVP/Podolski and with Campbell coming next year we're not short of options...
i wud actually go with rosicky, wilshere and song in midfield. wilshere can play the deep role while rosicky pulls the strings further up. even with the ox playing yesterday, rosicky was in the AM position with oxo sitting deeper.
