Transfer thread for 2016-17 season

Whilst we're always trying to improve, we must also get out of the mindset of a "First XI", IMO. One of the biggest problems last year was the glaring difference between the "first XI" and the "bench". It may be difficult to improve our "First XI", but there's no harm in adding players of a similar quality bearing in mind that not only do we have a CL campaign to deal with, but also we've got the struggle of trying to finish at least 4th again. In the Europa, we've got away with putting out a much weakened team, but the CL is not a competition we can do that in, and nor is the PL, as we know.
Despite the signings of Janssen and Wanyama (who look like great additions to improve the strength in rotation in the squad), we're still quite short IMO. Especially if 1 or 2 more leave. We could find ourselves with more gaps and a new set of squad problems this season. Wanyama and Janssen are both players great additions who have the ability to compete with positions they play in. Zaha just doesn't make any sense to me. He's not an improvement on Chadli or Son, which says it all really.

 

As City, Chelsea and United have demonstrated repeatedly over the past 5, there is no correlation between money spent and success. Ambition is signing the right player at the right time, and moving players on when they cannot make the grade. We've got ruthlessly good at the latter under Poch, and the former isn't far behind. You'll notice that Arsenal are terrible at both.

 

Spot on. I'd add as I mentioned earlier that another big problem we have is that Alli, Eriksen and to a lesser extent Lamela don't have any like-for-like competition in the squad. There isn't anyone there who can do what they do, which means that the attacking midfielders are all 'Plan B' options. Same applies to the Dembele position. So when we rotate or pick up injuries, we're dealing with a drop in quality as well as a cog whose style doesn't really fit the rest of the machine. Tom Carroll could magically turn into Luka Modric overnight and it wouldn't matter; if our Plan A calls for a Belgian tank with excellent dribbling skills to be most effective, Carroll's presence will negatively impact the team around him.

The frustrating thing is that Bentaleb and Pritchard in particular had the skill sets to push those positions where we have no obvious like for like cover. Zaha, GKN, Onomah, NJie, Son - they're all slightly different varieties of the same player. Quick, skilful, direct and an eye for goal. But to a man, they lack the intelligence and nous of Eriksen or Alli (although I have high hopes for Josh).

 

Every team has a first XI and bench though mate. Whether that be Leyton Orient or Real Madrid, the difference is the size of the club can dictate how good the quality of it all is. In an ideal world, we'd love to have guys who are similar to Eriksen/ Lamela/ Dembele that can come off the bench and get things done similarly to their first team counterpart but chances are that won't happen, we're not at that level to be bringing in top, top players to play squad roles, we're at a stage where we hope our good scouting and youth development can help us find/ promote players that can grow into becoming better players than those in the first XI or at least be challenging them to ensure they remain on form and to be fair, I think we've done that to a certain extent.

The only time we got massively shown up in terms of the squad last season was when we faced Dortmund away with a second string side, it was embarrassing to do so and the only real gripe I've had with Poch since his tenure but I think that game has made some people feel we're worse off than what we actually are. For all we know, we could've gone Dortmund with the first team and still lost by the same margin, they're a quality side. Aside from that game, Poch hasn't rotated in masses like that and it's not really been a problem, we're going to face periods of players out of form and we'll have results that don't go our way but that's natural in football, it doesn't mean the squad is or isn't good enough.

For what it's worth, the two key areas that we were short on last season have been strengthened early and Poch has said he'd like to bring in a few more (presumably Lopez, Nkoudou and one other), so for me, any additions from today on-wards are just massive bonuses because I have great faith in this squad and management to do good things.

Where do you think we need to improve or perhaps more importantly, who is it that we should bring in to improve it?

 

The Pochettino game needs to be played for 90 mins, every game.
Not for the first 65 mins. Not for the first 30 games of the season.

So improvement is needed in squad management to ensure this is possible.
Pochettino showed signs of this with the FB rotation during the final half of last season.
This needs to be extended to MF (who do most of the running in a game) , and ideally
CB/GK/striker too.

 

Wenger has no idea how to balance a team. It seems to be an alien concept to him.

Ironically, he was shown how to do it when he first took over. He had the old Gooner back 4 in situ. Bought Vieria & Petit to sit in front of them, and built from there.

Nowadays he seems obsessed with filling his midfield with 5 1/2 ft ball players.

 

Fair point. Although I'd say we're pretty intense for the full 90 minutes for most of the season, it was only at the tail-end in which we stalled and that comes to your point of squad management, which should be better now for Poch with the additions of Wanyama and Janssen, which helps in the CM and ST areas you mentioned. GK I don't think is a major issue, Friedel played like 27,325 games in a row without a problem but I do think Vorm should play more in cups to ensure he's fresh and ready to come in should Hugo get injured again, I don't think it's coincidence that Vorm has looked solid in the past couple of games as he's had a good pre-season with loads of game time.

 

Indeed.

Events may be a blessing in disguise for this season as far as GK goes, but I would
rather it be happening due to planning than fate. Same for CB etc.

 

I understand that we can't bring in top players to squad roles, that's not what i'm getting at mate. I also appreciate that in the literal sense, each club has a first XI and a bench. What I'm hoping that we can achieve is a squad where the replacement coming into an attacking role (in particular) offers something of an improved quality to what we currently have. There's a few areas in the squad where the option off the bench was quite frankly underwhelming and pretty much a pointless substitution last season. So far we've brought in Wanyama and Janssen who I'm very impressed with as signings to boost the squad quality. What i'd like to see is a couple more like these two. Wanyama was a solid player for saints in particular, and although he's got a sketchy disciplinary record, he'll do his job well on the whole. Janssen scored tonnes of goals last season and was the top scorer in the Holland.

There must be players in the positions we need, that fit the same mould as these two who we've got for an approx £30m combined.

 

We're allegedly crossing the ts and dotting the is on loaning in Lopez.

L'Equipe are reporting that former Marseilles president Vincent Labrune visited Clinton N'Jie at home in order to convince him to join the club on loan...but was pretty much told to bugger off, given the club promised N'Jie they'd sign various players and didn't (L'Equipe say one of those players was Javier Manquillo, who just signed for Sunderland) combined with OM's poor start to the season, with them picking up one point from their opening two games.

L'Equipe are also reporting that we've offered a contract to Chateauroux (check I spelled that right...) striker Jean-Philippe Mateta - which strikes me as an experiment to see if French third-tier teams are actually willing to negotiate on transfers rather than be a colossal arseache.

 

sky sources are saying that Hull have agreed a fee with us for Mason.

 

Zaha deal blocked, are we disappointed?

 

Delighted to be honest. Now I just hope we have learnt our lessons from Saidogate. The chairman has emphatically said no - jog on. We're clearly interested in bringing more players in and if for once we're sensible about it, there is still time left to make that happen.

 

Great! Can we have any deal for Mangala blocked next?

 

devastated.


However, I genuinely think this has some legs, despite the comments from Parish. He's just playing levy and waiting for us to try our usual deadline day antics. it'll be a Clint Dempsey special

 

GKN has been training with us for the last 2 days apparently!

 

Last I heard, he was with Elvis and Tupac in Never Never Land.

 

Ward-Prowse? It would be hilarious if we went shopping back there again.

 

Hull's bid for Mason was apparently accepted this morning. I can only assume that the player was on his way up north for a medical when Moyes called and made a counter-offer from Sunderland. Either way he's going to one of our B teams so I'm happy for him.

 

Tricky choice for him, but I think I'd risk Sunderland.
Hull would put him back alongside Huddlestone and Livermore, but they're a club in transition.
He'd definitely start a lot of games, but they could easily get relegated and the takeover could mean anything.

The Mackems have a manager with a decent Premier League record and a better squad.
That means more competition for places, but a higher chance of staying up.
Probably a safer bet. They do have a ****ing hideous third kit, though.