I too, think Utd will fail to retain their title. I will never write them off, purely because they have been written off so many times and come back. But I am sure their ability to keep rebuilding teams and coming back was down to SAF. Its a rare manager that can do that. Everyones time at the top ends at some point (ask the Dippers). I think Utd will deffo get top 3 this year tho, just because they have a great squad.
I don't think Arsene should be plauded for the Ozil deal. They were already well-stocked in that department. But still Ozil is an upgrade on all of them. It's not like theybought Ozil on sale. And Ozil, though amongst the top 5 playmakers in the world, isn't Bale. For one, Ozil is poor in front of goal, maybe a little better than Cleverly.
He's scored 27 goals in 3 seasons for Madrid from midfield. In his last 4 years he scored 11, 10, 7 and 10 goals. Whilst also assisting more goals than any other player in any of the top 5 european leagues (not to mention his stats for key passes and creating chances from open play). So for me that's not a bad goal return. He also has ~1 goal per 3 games at international level from u19, u21 through to the full senior team. If he is as creative for us as he has been for club and country over the last 5 years and chips in with around 10 goals a season i'll be very, very happy.
In comparison Cleverley has scored 10+ goals only once when he scored 11 goals on loan at watford. His last 4 years are 4, 0, 4, 11.
If you had even half a brain cell you would see that Arsenal fans are not comparing them for playing ability but are like myself saying that Ozil is the first world class player we have bought since Bergkamp
Ozil is obviously a class act, but Arsenals creativeness in midfield is there strong point, yes Ozil is better than Cazorla, Wilshire and Arteta, but they still would have been alot better off spending that money on a striker. Giroud has made a good start to the season, and that's probably what has persuaded Wenger not to buy a striker. I still have my doubts wether Giroud can maintain his good start, and if he were to get injured Arsenal would be in big trouble. Even Demba Ba would have been a useful loan signing, as he's probably as good as Giroud, so would have been good cover
Correction: Bale was a match winner for a small club (relatively) for one season. I think he's in for a shock at Madrid.
May sound strange coming from a gooner, but i agree with the OP. We have far more pressing needs than a CAM, we need a winger, a striker who's not useless, a CDM, a utility defender, and some squad players. But what does Wenger do, he wastes 40 million on something we don't need.
Have you seen the players he had finishing them off, not putting the signing down in any way though, i wish we had signed him and can`t believe nobody else was even reported as trying.
Not sure how you can waste £40 mill on a true world class talent and a vast improvement on anything you currently had before.
With the strikers you do have a couple of good wingers would have helped. Every team needs an Ozil once the rest is right, you have Santi who is quite capable of filling that roll until the centre back pairing is sorted and possibly a different type of striker to suppliment what you have.
this clown has been hiding on the arsenal board and the minute they signed Ozil he's been trolling all of the boards Ozil is not the best no10 in the world The gooners have been getting slaughtered and the minute Wenger buys a big name player they are out in force, unfortunately they have swallowed Wenger's bait.
