Ah, just seen this now. £60m? As if Villa were ever going to accept that . Also, wouldn't Sesko cost a similar amount? Why not go for him??
Ohh they have definitely been trying for Sesko - I think RB are just being stubborn about him not leaving until at least the Summer. Downside with Watkins he's 29 - Upside he would probably score a boatload of goals in this setup.
Reports that Villa have agreed a fee with Al Nassr for Duran - fee is around €75m. If that's true, then no chance they sell Watkins.
I said this last year about Watkins and was it was readily dismissed by the group. I would take him in a heartbeat but can't see him leaving now. But typical Arsenal, getting on the nerves of other teams with a poor timing of the bid. If they wanted Watkins, this bid should have went in weeks ago.
Apparently the bid wasn't even £60m, it was £45m . Yeah, the club were never serious with a bid like that.
Don't know why the Club hasn't chased Gyokeres this month. Sesko deal cant happen until the Summer but if were gonna go after Watkins surely Gyokeres is a similar option (at a similar price) with an insaine GS record.
Ayden Heaven has joined Man Utd for a fee over £1m. Considering his contract was expiring in Summer, we were never going to get much for him. But apparently the club are comfortable with letting him go.
Villa looking to sign Rashford could open up a last minute Watkins grab if he kicks up a fuss about wanting to join us.
This is just the most boring and worst transfer deadline day ever. Not even any unrealistic but fun rumours to get excited about.
People talk about the good work KSE have done getting to this point, and I agree to a certain extent. But they've really let us down the last two windows. When the manager and the players are saying we need help publicly, I just can't fathom how we've decided to not aggressively approach this market like we should have. It's a huge blemish on them and a lot of the goodwill that they'd built with the fans will now turn to scepticism and frustration. Truth be told, I'm not sure we have the right people in the right leadership positions at Arsenal - and that's on KSE. So, whichever way you look at it, everyone should be looking at them and questioning them. It's genuinely bonkers that we're going into the rest of the season so light in the forward positions. Mental.
It's not great at all. The other way of looking at it though is if we are after Sesko / Isak then it's clear they weren't going to come in January That said, we should have at least got somebody on loan until the end of the season.
I don't mind it. I think Arteta is very particular about what he needs to complete the squad. They bid for Sesko in the Summer and they enquired again this Window - this shows they want a striker just Arteta wants a very specific profile of player. (We did bid for Watkins also) Only offered a loan deal for Tel. But they decided against bidding for Vlahovic, Gyokeres etc.. In some ways I like this better than previous approaches where we signed the wrong players just to fit the gaps in the squad (Pepe, Willian etc) and almost feels like we bowed to the pressure from the fans. We need another CF for sure but Havertz is having a decent Season. 16 goals now (20 goal involvements) - Ok he misses a sitter EVERY game but he still works his arse off and holdup play etc.. is excellent. I think there's a chance we see Ethan up top for some games in the run in.
I just think if Havertz get injured, we are then relying on Trossard ? I agree with not blowing our budget out of desperation though. How many times have we complained about panic buys....
Yeah thats the real issue - I think that why a loan move would have been smart. Aside from Tel though there's not alot of options. The other thing though - Martinelli and Trossard if anything have been more problematic than Havertz. At least the German is improving his goal tallies. Luckily Nwaneri has come through while Saka is out.
The thing is, if I was confident we were going to go all out this Summer, then I would (begrudgingly) accept this logic. But the problem is, I don't trust us to get the players we need because what's the guarantee that we get our supposed targets? Because we all said the same thing heading into last Summer too and we didn't do what was required. When we got knocked out of the CL by Bayern last year, the reports came out that were looking at Olise, Sesko, Isak etc. Did we get any of those players? I'm not Havertz's biggest fan, and don't think he should be starting up front for us if we are serious about major honours. But he is playing a lot of football and clearly needs a break. We've done nothing to unburden him or to ease his load. Our current options in the frontline are: Havertz, Trossard, Martinelli, Nwaneri and Sterling. Are those options enough to win a league or CL? To me, it seems like the club are happy to risk what we have because we have enough as is to finish in the top-4 and that's their priority. Winning trophies is secondary. Shame.
Isak is a pipedream. He has 3 years left on his deal and he's at the richest club in the world. If they get CL this season especially, then no chance we'll get him. But this is my point - all of this commotion around our frontline/strikers should have been sorted in the Summer of 2024. It's mental to me that we didn't go for anyone. We literally have money to spend that wouldn't impact our PSR or wage:revenue ratio. It should never have been something we looked at mid-season because the type of deals we want become harder to do. We put ourselves in this position for neglecting what should have been done.
Honestly this sounds like the Classic fan over-reaction. They have backed Arteta PLENTY. Let's not pretend like this squad was built on the Cheap. Rice was 100m Havertz was 65m Partey was 45m Jesus was 45m Ben White 50m Calafiori 42m Timber 40m Gabriel was 32m Odegaard 30m Viera was 30m.. I could go on. I think basically what's happened is the building process is done and they just want very specific additions to complete the squad. We let Balogun and Nketiah leave because they weren't the right profile.. it would be counter productive to buy just to fill in the squad. The fact they bid for Sesko and Williams - shows they do want certain players. I can see the logic - say we signed Vlahovic or Gyokeres (high wages) and they flop now we've put a huge road block in the way of building the team they actually wants to build.
If you watched how we played against City on the ball we basically played with this shape.. Trossard---Rice----Havertz---Odegaard---Martinelli -----Lewis-Skelly----------------------Timber------------ -------------------------Partey------------------------------- --------------Gabriel--------------Saliba----------------- So whoever we sign as a CF needs to be able to both hold up the play and operate like a 10.
