please finish top 4

[cini65]

have to keep them simple, so people like you understand them

Another quip about intelligence eh?

'Simple' is certainly one way to describe them.

 

[SpursDisciple]

Less than half your budget? Who told you what the budget was?

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick, Spurm said you should look to strengthen even the strongest areas if you can and I said not if you have a limited budget. It wasn't particularly Arsenal related but if you want to make it Arsenal related then let me know what Kroenke said the budget was and we can discuss how the £40mill plus that you say is spare could have been used to sign better players than the frees and loan you brought in.

Kroenke famously put a number on it. He said £70m. Given Ozil is £50m (nearly) and £10m per year in salary (apparently) I would say their budget is fully spent. I am a bit off message, I am genuinely pleased that a great player has joined the Prem League and I hope it attracts others (more quality, less quantity). However I hope Eriksen can be just as good, he seems to have been blessed similarly with skill levels.

 

[afcftw]

Kroenke famously put a number on it. He said £70m. Given Ozil is £50m (nearly) and £10m per year in salary (apparently) I would say their budget is fully spent. I am a bit off message, I am genuinely pleased that a great player has joined the Prem League and I hope is attarcts others (more quality, less quantity). However I hope Eriksen can be just as good, he seems to have been blessed similarly with skill levels.

£42.4m is not nearly £50m, if your going to round it off surely you have to round down the 2.4m not up by 7.6m? And he is on nowhere near 10m a year either. More like 6m-7m

We where also told that on top of the 70-100m that we had available for transfers that we could afford to add either 2-3 players on 150k a week wages or 4-5 player on 100k a week, due to the massive amount we cut our wage bill by and the new funds available to us.

We didn't add ozil at the expense of other players. We got him as he was available and if you have the opportunity to sign a player of his level you don't turn it down. We still have more moneyi n the transfer budget and it wouldn't suprise me if we spent morei n January.

(as for Eriksen being blessed with the same skill level, you must be joking - Ozil is the best number 10 in the world (or if you disagree, then "one of the best") and has the best creative stats of any player over the last 5 years in europe. Eriksen is a young player who has potential and looks like he may become a very good player, but i'd hold off the comparisons for now )

 

[SpursDisciple]

£42.4m is not nearly £50m, if your going to round it off surely you have to round down the 2.4m not up by 7.6m? And he is on nowhere near 10m a year either. More like 6m-7m

We where also told that on top of the 70-100m that we had available for transfers that we could afford to add either 2-3 players on 150k a week wages or 4-5 player on 100k a week, due to the massive amount we cut our wage bill by and the new funds available to us.

We didn't add ozil at the expense of other players. We got him as he was available and if you have the opportunity to sign a player of his level you don't turn it down. We still have more moneyi n the transfer budget and it wouldn't suprise me if we spent morei n January.

(as for Eriksen being blessed with the same skill level, you must be joking - Ozil is the best number 10 in the world (or if you disagree, then "one of the best") and has the best creative stats of any player over the last 5 years in europe. Eriksen is a young player who has potential and looks like he may become a very good player, but i'd hold off the comparisons for now )

My mistake, I thought it was more like £47m.

I didn't say same skill levels?

 

[Spurm]

he can have the same skill level, the game is much more than that though. There are probably hundreds of players with the same or higher skill levels but there are still very few that are as good as him.

 

[cini65]

Kroenke famously put a number on it. He said £70m. Given Ozil is £50m (nearly) and £10m per year in salary (apparently) I would say their budget is fully spent. I am a bit off message, I am genuinely pleased that a great player has joined the Prem League and I hope is attarcts others (more quality, less quantity). However I hope Eriksen can be just as good, he seems to have been blessed similarly with skill levels.

Using these new rules of rounding are we to assume that Eriksen was £40m (nearly)?

England will definitely win the world in 2022 (nearly)?

I'm going out with Scarlett Johanssen (nearly)?

 

[SpursDisciple]

I was expressing the hope that Eriksen can become as good as Ozil. I didn't say he already is.

 

[SpursDisciple]

Using these new rules of rounding are we to assume that Eriksen was £40m (nearly)?

England will definitely win the world in 2022 (nearly)?

I'm going out with Scarlett Johanssen (nearly)?

I've already corrected myself on that. I don't round £42 to £50, I made a mistake on the cost. Wind your neck back in

 

[Dier Hard]

One thing I will say is it'll be interesting to see if Ozil can reproduce the Real form in terms of impressing statistics. A lot of his assists no doubt went to Ronaldo, who's movement on and off the ball is pretty much unparalleled and is therefore a number 10's dream to work with.

 

[No Kane No Gain]

We had agreed a deal in principle for Higuain and so it was expected he would come to us. Madrid then came to us and said the deal was off unless we would up our bid by £10m+ as Napoli had shown late interest and where willing to pay more. Unless we where willing to largely over-pay for a player after having already agreed a deal for him (making us look like idiots) then we couldn't have got him. And tbh i dont think he is worth £35m.

Jovetic we cooled our interest in before City even went in for him. He wasn't the finisher we needed and i think we where more interested in playing him behind the striker in the position weh ave signed Ozil for, or out on the left with Cazorla inside.

We also failed to bring in Suarez or Benzemaas there clubs wouldn't let them leave and the Rooney deal was only going to be possible for silly money, especially after Chelsea had there bids rejected.

So as i said - i think once it got to the point that none of our main targets where available we would have settled for Ba as a short term fix.

I agree we have some depth issues at the moment. Our first 11 and 18-man match day squad are very good. But with a few injuries in particular positions we could end up in trouble. Couple this with our attempts to land a striker and i think it's clear we will try and strengthen the squad in January. If we can make it that far and still be within touching distance of our goals then i think we will be alright.

Personally i'm happy with the additions of ozil, Flaminiand Viviano and think it was a good move in the right direction. We have no deadwood left (other than Bendtner -hahahaha) and so everyone is worthy of there place in the squad.

Transfers can always be unpredictable. We showed exactly how to roll with the punches this window. Villa changed his mind last minute so we went for Benteke and when we found he was overpriced we went for Soldado. When Willian changed his mind last minute we went for Eriksen. When Real were in for Paulinho we paid the release clause and tied it up early. Madrid moving the goalposts for Higuain and Chelsea changing their mind isn't washing as an excuse. How many Arsenal fans would be disappointed with Villa for £3mill or Aubemayang(however it's spelt) for £10mill?

If you're pleased with the business you did in the window then fair play. I don't know whether you were one of them but from the early summer expectations most Arsenal fans had I think they have to be disappointed. I'd be disappointed too.

 

[SpursDisciple]

One thing I will say is it'll be interesting to see if Ozil can reproduce the Real form in terms of impressing statistics. A lot of his assists no doubt went to Ronaldo, who's movement on and off the ball is pretty much unparalleled and is therefore a number 10's dream to work with.

That is a good point. Rolling a simple ball to Ronaldo then watch him beat 6 players is technically an assist, but one that can be achieved by many players. What we don't know is how dispirited Ozil will get if Giroud and Walcott waste chance after chance.

 

[Boss]

he can have the same skill level, the game is much more than that though. There are probably hundreds of players with the same or higher skill levels but there are still very few that are as good as him.

Adel Taarabt.

 

[Spurm]

Adel Taarabt.

fine example

 

[Boss]

That is a good point. Rolling a simple ball to Ronaldo then watch him beat 6 players is technically an assist, but one that can be achieved by many players. What we don't know is how dispirited Ozil will get if Giroud and Walcott waste chance after chance.

I doubt there will be an issue as Arsenal teams under Wenger tend to always create chances, their pass move and find attacking space combinations tend to work no matter who they have.

Thats all down to Wenger and his coaching.

Although it be interesting how long before Ozil is happy with playing attractive football with no substance, as I doubt he wants to spend his career aiming for 4tth.

 

[Krome]

Adebayor, Berbatov, Le Tissier, Arshavin could all have been really top players

 

[afcftw]

One thing I will say is it'll be interesting to see if Ozil can reproduce the Real form in terms of impressing statistics. A lot of his assists no doubt went to Ronaldo, who's movement on and off the ball is pretty much unparalleled and is therefore a number 10's dream to work with.

Whilst i agree it must be a dream to be able to play the ball on to Ronaldo to finish it off, if you take away his assists for Ronaldo last season he still has more assists then any player at Arsenal did.

 

[afcftw]

That is a good point. Rolling a simple ball to Ronaldo then watch him beat 6 players is technically an assist, but one that can be achieved by many players. What we don't know is how dispirited Ozil will get if Giroud and Walcott waste chance after chance.

Walcott doesn't waste many when he gets an opportunity to shoot - 21 goals last season. I'm hoping Ozil will quickly form a good understanding with him as he is used to playing with a quick WF in Ronaldo.

 

[AshfordGill]

Adebayor, Berbatov, Le Tissier, Arshavin could all have been really top players

Berbatov is a top player, a golden boot winner and twice prem league winner, and possibly the best player with his back to goal (bringing the ball down out of the sky and keeping it) that the premiership has seen.

 

[afcftw]

Transfers can always be unpredictable. We showed exactly how to roll with the punches this window. Villa changed his mind last minute so we went for Benteke and when we found he was overpriced we went for Soldado. When Willian changed his mind last minute we went for Eriksen. When Real were in for Paulinho we paid the release clause and tied it up early. Madrid moving the goalposts for Higuain and Chelsea changing their mind isn't washing as an excuse. How many Arsenal fans would be disappointed with Villa for £3mill or Aubemayang(however it's spelt) for £10mill?

If you're pleased with the business you did in the window then fair play. I don't know whether you were one of them but from the early summer expectations most Arsenal fans had I think they have to be disappointed. I'd be disappointed too.

I think Villa wanted to go back to A. Madrid. And at the time he was available we where confident of landing a big name striker. So i can understand why we missed out there.

Whilst i agree spurs have gone about there business in a good manner i think you may have overspent on some players, but i guess that was the cost of getting the deals wrapped up quickly. Arsenal needed to bring in at least oneworld class player and some squad depth, we got the WC player and a couple of players for depth but not quite enough. We also cleared all the deadwood at last! So although it wasn't exactly what we hoped for i think tehre are some big positives to be taken from the window.

We shall have to make up for not strengthening all the areas we needed to in the January window and hope we don't get too many injuries before then.

 

[AshfordGill]

I'm putting Giroud in my fantasy team. The guy is looking too good and we need to jinx him.

I have done this and my record is good (as a jinx that is and you may be pleased to know that I have no Spurs players in my side!)