Ridiculous bid that the Liverpool chairman said met his release clause.
Ridiculous in that is was never going to happen!!
And where was the back up plan? Lack of a quality striker has really impacted the latter part of the season......
Ridiculous bid that the Liverpool chairman said met his release clause.
Ridiculous in that is was never going to happen!!
And where was the back up plan? Lack of a quality striker has really impacted the latter part of the season......
The three players I'd like to see us sign this summer are
Draxler
Lars Bender
Manduzkic
All three are realistic targets, Draxler was making very encouraging noises about joining Arsenal and some kind of pre-agreement might already be in place. We've bid for Lars Bender before and it would be a step up from Leverkusen. With Lewandowski moving to Bayern, Mandzukic will be wanting first team football and he'd be guaranteed a starting place at Arsenal.
Christ, this again? Normally meeting the buy out clause is enough to, you know, initiate talks. Talks that the player himself was asking for.
Regarding Higuain though, just because he is doing well in Italy is no guarantee he'd do the same in England. He probably would as he's better than Giroud on paper but you never can tell.
The point is, Liverpool said very quickly that they weren't going to sell. They realised the value of the player to them, and would rather have gone through a court battle over the clause, a battle Arsenal clearly weren't prepared to go through. When was the last time Arsenal showed that level of bottle in transfer dealings?
Here's an article from August 8th: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/aug/08/luis-suarez-liverpool-john-w-henry which gave PLENTY of time to get another striker in, but all that happened was a late move for Demba Ba on loan. Complete ineptitude from the club to strengthen the area of that squad that MOST needed attention.
I agree we let it go far too easily but there's never been any precedent for a club saying "do one" when you activate a transfer clause. At least, not as far as I'm aware. We still had more than enough time to get somebody else in (and not Ba) but managed to balls it up. I have zero confidence whenever we send Dick Law to finish deals off!
Arsenal are close to strking a £7M deal for Eintracht Frankfurt defender Sebastian Jung, 23 (Metro)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footb...-close-striking-7m-deal-3426189#ixzz2zFpYV3US
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Very good young player. Aggressive and good going forward - But makes me thing Sagna might be off
He is younger and better going forward than Sagna although not as solid defensively. Good enough to be Bac's replacement?
I just wish that we'd strengthen rather than be forced to find replacements for our best players.
Transfer windows are for upgrading, that's what the top clubs do...
I just wish that we'd strengthen rather than be forced to find replacements for our best players.
Transfer windows are for upgrading, that's what the top clubs do...
Perhaps if we win something he might be tempted to change his mind and sign a new contract?
Even if Sagna stays, we still need to start thinking about replacing him. What we have seen is that players take a year or so to settle in the PL, so Jung would possibly really start to come good in 2015.
I suspect no matter what Sagna does, we will sign a top right back this summer, Jung or someone else. It is the smart thing to do.
I'd like to think you're right, though I suspect that he made his decision a while back and his agent has been working on options for a while...
Sanga is about to sign his last major contract so you can bet that his agent has been trying to get the best deal for him. I'm not surprised it's going to the wire as that's what these sorts of deals entail. The longer it goes on the more he's likely to get what he wants from Arsenal.
Even if Sagna stays, we still need to start thinking about replacing him. What we have seen is that players take a year or so to settle in the PL, so Jung would possibly really start to come good in 2015.
I suspect no matter what Sagna does, we will sign a top right back this summer, Jung or someone else. It is the smart thing to do.