With all this rumour about Whinger finally getting his arse into gear in the transfer market and making bids for Real duo Di Maria and Benzema, should AFC manage to acquire this pair would that bring them level with us in squad depth and quality, or will they still be lagging behind? Mind you, how much credence is there in all these Real transfers? With us rumoured to be taking Coentrao as part of the Bale deal, and with United rumoured to be making bids for Modric and Ozil, is it really likely that Real will get rid of 5 players simply to bring in one? It seems too far-fetched to me. Plus, if Di Maria and Benzema are genuinely on the market, wouldn't Real be advertising the fact in order to garner interest from the real money-clubs, such as Monaco, PSG, and City? Okay, so we know that neither Modric nor Ozil are up for sale and that United are likely to be told to sling their hooks, but these journos surely cannot imagine that Real will be off-loading any key players until, at the very least, Bale has settled in and proven that he's not going to do what most British players do in Spain, and flop. One can see why lazy journos are happy to run with these rumours, because it would explain how Real is going to be able to afford to give us £93m + the £12m outstanding on the purchase of Modric. Yet, it is unreasonable to believe that Real will be prepared to lose 5 quality players in order to bring in one. All that aside, and assuming that Whinger managers to acquire his two Real targets, do you think it will improve Arsenal's chances of a top 5 finish?
Speculation upon speculation but a good post HIAG. I think we can be pretty sure that if players ARE available at Madrid that Arsenal will be first in the queue and they have the money. As to will they be as strong as us it depends on the unknown factors of who they sign, but I think we underestimate them at our peril. Their existing squad was strong enough to put in a very impressive run at the end of last season, they only have to continue at that level to be a seroius threat to everybody. We have the problem of settling in half a new team and both City and Chelsea took a season to do this after their massive spending sprees. This season should be one of the most exciting that we have seen for some time with so many change factors in the mix. I can't predict anything, right now.
I'd say them lot need a GK, CB, DM and a new CF to be able to challenge for the title which is what Wenger would expect. I won't sit here and say we're better yet because I don't want to jinx things but I won't deny that at present, I'd be surprised and disappointed if we didn't get a Champions League place this season, whether that's at the expense of Arsenal or not.
There is another question. How far off are Spurs from being as strong as United, City and Chelsea? And don't underestimate Liverpool either, another team quite capable of putting in a good run.
I'd say we're a mentality away from Chelsea and United. I think City have the strongest squad but i'm still tipping Chelsea for the title. The winning mentality, win at all costs, grind out results mentality is utterly MASSIVE and ingrained at Chelsea and Utd. We NEED that if we ever want to match them and challenge for a title.
How many years have people written off United? How many years have people written off Arsenal? Spurs have bought some good players over the summer, but that is all they are at the moment....players. You have to make a team out of them yet to be better than Arsenal. Its not all just about buying players You may well turn out to be far superior to Arsenal this season, but it is far to early to talk about how much better than them you are when they are playing Champions League and you are not. As a pool fan, there are 6 teams above us. Hopefully it will be less by the end of the year. But you have to show respect to those teams which in recent years have done better than you. And Arsenal have consistantly bettered you, so id bide my time if i was you. But then again you are HIAg and have therefore written this to solicit an angry response from Arsenal fans. Cant believe i just wrote a reasoned response.
If I were Levy I'd say to Perez, if you sell any players to any of our rivals the Bale deal is off. RM might just sell them somewhere else then and with a bit of luck string l'arse along for a bit.
Not at all. I really do have better things to do with my time that wind up Gooners. As everyone on this board will know, it is not in my nature to seek to wind-up anyone unnecessarily.
Real are not going to listen to a club like spurs, no one else will pay that massive fee you want, and bale will not sign a new contract, even if you did not sell him now you would have to within 12 months or his value would plummet. Plus with all the money you have spent I would be surprised if you spent that amount without expecting a big sale to cover at least some of the costs. There are not that many teams out there that would be able to pay 40 million for benzima, the likes of PGS and monaco have already bought what they want and he would be unlikely to want to play under jose again.
A good troll always makes it ambiguous whether or not he's trolling. Your technique still need improvement
Arsenal have clearly been waiting to see whether they'll get into the CL proper before making any moves in the transfer window, but it seems a bit of an odd strategy to me. Surely they'd have been better off signing their key targets first and then sorting out any less important switches now that they're basically through? It'll be interesting to see what they get done, but they'll need to do a lot to make an effective title challenge, in my opinion. We've made a lot of changes and seem set to make several more, so we need time to bed these players in and get everyone on the same wavelength. I think that a good chunk of last season's side should remain in the first XI for most of our league games for the first couple of months, but I'm not sure that's the way we'll go. We could drop points while trying to get into a decent rhythm.
Why would Real not listen to us when we have them bent over a barrel over Bale? The reputations of all the top men at Real are on the line with this signing which is why the fee is seemingly now £109m. If you think Levy is afraid of missing out on the money and forcing Bale to stay then you don't have to look far into the past to see how silly that thought is.
I'm not so sure. Firstly, by doing that AFC has missed out on several quality signings, with the number of remaining possible signings ever dwindling. For your theory to be correct, PNP, we'd have to accept that AFC had agreed with other clubs to hold onto certain players until such time as they (AFC) had made up their minds as to whether or not they were going to buy. That's simply too far fetched to accept. Secondly, it is surely in AFC's best interests to buy quality players and strengthen Whinger's squad regardless as to whether or not they get into the CL? If (as now seems unlikely) they didn't make the CL proper, they'd need a strengthened squad to ensure a top 4 place, because they could not have any guarantees that they'd be able to attract those kinds of plays, later, should they fail to secure CL footy next season.
I was going to post exactly the same thing then I scrolled down a bit. It must be easier to have a winning mentality if you don't have to work as hard as other teams to get the points! I must admit I haven't seen last nights match but is there an argument that refs are now going to go out of their way not to disappoint the special one?
As the squads stand it's fairly safe to say we've more than caught up on the one point they beat us by last season. But yes you're right Hiag is probably just poking the Arsenal fans with a stick at the moment. There's time enough for Arsenal to make some quality signings yet, the same for most clubs. Arsenal at the moment have weaknesses in goal, defensive midfield, left wing and up top. Every team in the league has weaknesses though and if they get players for 2 or 3 of those positions, plus some depth elsewhere in the squad then they'll cause everyone some real problems.
