The early optimism of the 3 new signings has been eaten away with the sales of RVP, Song and potentially Theo It's an exaggerated statement when we here "it'll be like having a new player" with Diaby's return...we need to see at least half a season of consistent, uninjured form from him before we can get excited by that and unfortunately we will incur others injuries along the way 4 Dropped points already with some really tough fixtures looming I fear for another mad scramble at the end of the transfer deadline and we might just be repeating last season..is there another RVP type in this team to drag us through a season if needed? Getting really nervous for our prospects for the 2012-13 term and the reality that we are just treading water, we're alive by our consecutive seasons in the Champions League but for now and probably the foreseeable future this will be the height of our ambitions....break even or make profit on transfer dealings, get at least 4th. Lets call a spade a spade this is what our club has now become! This achievement still deserves some credit but it can't last forever and the competition will be huge this season...I hope by September 1st I'm wrong and we've added the necessary quality
2 games in and your already worried. get a grip man new players need time they will come good, and what did rvp, song and theo ever win us? nothing!! so these new players cant do any worse
The only team with full points are Chelsea and they've played an extra game. United are on one more than us, City two, Spurs and Liverpool are below. Swansea top 4. Far too early to draw any conclusions.
All you have said is difficult to disagree with. what we have seen so far is not really encouraging, i was away and only saw the Sunderland "highlights" on MoD but what was on view was not encouraging, however I was able to see the Stoke game, the only plus was that we dealt reasonabvly well with the high ball game of the home team, but going forward- apart from Arteta, who once again rarely wasted a pass and Carzola, what a find he is, the rest have a long way to go, and even when c Carzola did get the moves started as soon as it arrived with Diaby, he either lost the ball, or slowed to walking pace, allowing stoke to get in front of our attack. Diaby has ben with the club since Highbury days, and has yet to prove that he can play football at the level required in the premier league, his name as a first choice on the temsheet only underlines how far we have fallen, Spurs have have signed Dembele , apparently we were showing intereest as we were with Sahin, who is now at Liverpool, something is seriously wrong at the highest level in the club when clubs who are unlikely to challenge for the Champions League are able to consitently appear more attractive.
We are two games in and a point better off than last year. The media are banging on about our goal scoring woes but we hadn't scored by now last season. We have more players that are likely to score this year. I think we've moved sensibly forward. Also defence looks much more disciplined this year.
I know it's 2 games but who here is happy, confident with the current team/squad with only 2 days left in the transfer window ?!?!? Maybe Wenger has a plan but with these last minute deals things can go wrong and after its shut we could be stuck yet again without enough quality. A couple of years ago we were screaming out for another Centre Back which never came and it played a part in costing us the league, last season we were 1 injury away from having the whole season destroyed and ending up mid table My point is we are always stretched too thin and end up saying the same thing at the end of each season..."we need more quality"...that was answered this year then we opened the door and let people leave so we're basically back to square one
I am. We have more cover in the midfield than last season, both with cazorla coming in and Diaby and Wilshere returning (eventually), and while we lost our best striker we now have more variety there. If we do get another player, however rated they are, they will face stiff competition to get in our first 11... It's interesting how people here are quick to rate players from different leagues as "much better" than what they have when they most probably haven't even seen a full 90 min game of the player. As I've said before, going into the season with this: please log in to view this image makes me much more confident than the start of last season.
And this time around we have a settled Arteta for the start of the season, the defense is looking good without Sagna (and will get better when he returns), we won't have to rely on a 'miracle' comeback to form by Rosicky (love how people have forgotten how thin our squad was in that position) to scrap a place in the CL. The strikers are looking really promising too. RvP was very ineffective in front of goal this time last season too (without the utility of Podolski to compensate). Whoever comes in, unless we go for an unprecedented 35mil signing of a truly world class player (that isn't available), they will face stiff competition from the players in the above pic.
Theo's staying, we've already signed 3 attacking players and we'll probably add one more before Friday night
Where's all this faith in Diaby come from?? I'll admit I've seen flashes over the years but not enough to be confident he'll produce...we're not going to have another Rvp situation where he's a top performer and injury free...lightning doesn't strike twice
We've lost RVP's 30 league goals and Song's 11 assists and people act like we're stronger now? I hope I eat my words but at best we're as good as we were last year
It's a little irresponsible of AW to be pinning our hopes on our medical team & the return to full fitness & form of player's well acquainted with injury. Hopefully this is all a ruse while behind the scenes negotiations for players that will improve our squad are close to completion, I have my doubts, but a day is a long time to a team able to offer Champion's League Football.
We are a lot better than last year. RVP probably wouldn't have been as good as last year, even if he had stayed. I will not be upset if we don't make any more signings, gent put up the squad back there, I think it can win a lot.
Song+RVP = 39 million Giroud+Pod+Cazorla = about 39 million? I don't see much ambition from our club, or a willingness to use the heaps of money we got from the sales of Nasri, Fabregas, Adebayor, Toure, etc. It's like the money just disappears down a well and is never seen again.
Piskie, answer honestly, where do you expect us to finish this year, I looked at the team that Gent put up and I find it difficult to believe that we are pinning our hopes on Gervinho, Arshavin, Diaby, and Ramsey. Wilshere and Sagna aren't yet fit Giroud and Podolski haven't shown much so far, please God they do soon. The team looks pretty lightweight to me.
