Well the dust is finally settling on the summer transfer window and I was hoping to gain your thoughts about our rivals. Arsenal Significant signings made. Carl Jenkinson Gervinho Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain Joel Campbell Park Chu-Young André Santos Per Mertesacker Yossi Benayoun Mikel Arteta Liverpool Jordan Henderson Charlie Adam Doni Stewart Downing José Enrique Sebastián Coates Craig Bellamy Man City Gaël Clichy Stefan Savić Sergio Agüero Samir Nasri Owen Hargreaves Chelsea Thibaut Courtois Oriol Romeu Romelu Lukaku Juan Mata Ulises Dávila Raul Meireles Anything there to make us jealous?
Aguero & Nasri perhaps. Maybe lukaku as he will one day become immense. Tbf, i quite like how arsene has strengthened. He realised what he needed and got it. Chelsea and city buy for buying's sake. Liverpool have bought Enrique and downing but other than that i don't know why they bothered.
I agree Aguero is quality and I wouldn't have minded Nasri though our wide players are better than him at the moment. In 2 minds over the Arsenal signings. Mertesacker has over 70 caps for Germany and you don't get that many for the Germans if you're kack. Also at 6'6" he adds a presence they have missed for a while. Arteta is a good player though too old and injury prone for the gooners. Only Mata at Chelsea interests me. The dippers No thanks.
I think you've got to look at who's gone out as well as who's come in. Arsenal lost Fabregas and Nasri, but Arteta, Mertesacker and Benayoun are good, hard working and direct players and Gervinho and Park are likely to be more of a goal threat than Chamakh and Bendtner (well they could hardly be less of one ). So they have lost some of their ability to dominate weaker teams with slick passing and movement, but may have gained the ability to play more directly and grind out results when teams don't roll over for them. It will be interesting to see how their season plays out - will Wenger finally recognise that his approach won't win the PL and try to be more direct, particularly against better teams? Or will he try to turn his new players into pretty short passers? Liverpool have shot themselves in the foot a bit in the last couple of weeks I think. Adam and Henderson are decent mids, tho' no better than our CMs, and they have now lost Aquilani and Meireles. Meireles was their most effective CM last season, and Aquilani was impressive in pre season. So their only real strengthening has been Downing and Enrique, and they are still very reliant on Suarez for pretty much all their attacking threat with Carroll showing nothing so far. Their defence is also pretty lacking imo - very little proven quality apart from Carragher who is older than Rio, and Agger who is made of glass. They've made an effective start, but it'll be interesting to see how they cope if Carragher, Agger or Suarez get injured or lose form. Man City have strengthened, and Nasri and Aguero will give them that attacking option that they seemed to be missing over the last couple of seasons when only Tevez was a really effective attacking force for them. If the Nasri / Aguero / Silva combination really clicks then they could be awesome this season - they gave Dzeko chances pretty much on a plate against Spurs, and I think they would be difficult for any defence to handle. Their defence is still suspect, but with Toure and De Jong / Barry screening they can almost afford to be. First place in the PL this season could well be decided by who is more effective out of Nasri / Aguero / Silva and Nani / Rooney / Young and it's looking pretty close so far. Chelsea have a great squad, and Mata, Romeu and Lukaku could all be awesome for them, but they are still a bit of a mystery imo. In their first three games of this season, AVB has done very little different from what Ancelotti did last season, which in turn isn't very different from what Mourinho was doing six years ago, albeit less effectively and with Torres as the attacking focus instead of Drogba. Thus far they've been pretty poor, and been quite luck in some of the results they got. It's hard to tell how their season will pan out until their new signings bed in and AVB actually tries to impose the attacking philosophy he's been trumpeting. Also, how will the formation change when Mata is starting games, and can Torres ever hit the net again without assistance from a puddle? I'm not sure if there's anything there to make us jealous, but I think City definitely have the attacking force needed to make us wary.
