i think most of us are just talking about the topic of Shaw, this article hasn't convinced me he is going i havent taken a thing from it. Although personally i think he will go to Chelsea eventually. I know we are aiming to be a CL club, but Chelsea are one now.
I say we do some sort of reverse player + cash deal, where they get Shaw, but we give them £10m and they have to take Fox too.
Plus, don't Chelsea know that there's a bloody financial crisis on?! £70m for Cavani + £30m for Rooney + Schurrle + an interest in Falcao + Shaw all in the same papers!
Nicola will convince Chelsea that it is really Fox they want, at the bargain price of £15 million plus Bertrand.
If he goes, he's a very silly boy. He'll make his money; he'll probably make more long-term if he doesn't spend two years on the bench, in fact.
You would hope that any money would go straight back in but with the leibehrs wanting to "change the way things are done" does anyone worry that it may be kept as profit?
People said this about Walcott when he didn't play much for a season or two but he's doing all right now.
Indeed. But it's a question of whether Shaw wants to spend a season or two playing very little, rather than being a consistent starter and moving on at a time when he can practically walk into a starting role.
Yes, doing all right, but perhaps he could have been one of the best players in the World by now, rather than being just one of the best players in the UK. OXO is in a similar position. It seems to be typical of Arsenal. Supposedly, they bring younger players along, but they really don't, simply because they don't have good enough experienced players to allow the inexperienced to slot into a team and survive.
I don't think so. Walcott is lightning fast and a deceptively good finisher, but he's not the greatest footballer around. Much as has been said about Beckham lately though, he makes the most of what he has, and is very effective for that. Chamberlain has a lot more potential I believe, and I'm sure he will become a top class player (and has shown glimpses of that), but he's still very young. I think Arsenal are one of the better teams for giving youth a chance, probably because they don't spend as much money, but it's clearly a philosophy of Wenger and co and that's to their credit in my opinion. The likes of Walcott, Ramsey, Wilshere, Gibbs, Jenkinson have all been given more opportunities than they would have got at one of the other big clubs (well, maybe Wilshere would have been good enough to break through anywhere but the others have been given several chances). Chelsea on the other hand, well they're not so good, most of their promising youngsters have had to leave to get those opportunities. We have been beneficiaries of that with Cork of course, Lukaku says he wants to stay on loan for another season, and Sturridge is doing very well for Liverpool having left. Ironically for Shaw, maybe the only player they have brought through recently, Ryan Bertrand, plays in his position! (and he's probably only playing because they can't buy anyone better to be an understudy for Cole) I'm sure Shaw, Chelsea fan though he is, must realise his opportunities for first-team football would be very limited there. If he is to leave us (and I don't believe he will), he would probably be sensible enough to go somewhere else.
It's all relative. You say Arsenal are one of the better teams for bringing youngsters along but, in my opinion, they stunt development in youngsters because they don't have good enough experienced players to shepherd their inexperienced ones. Sure, they are better than Chelsea and Man City, but are they really any better than ManU, for example..? I would point to Bale as a player whose development moved on because he was played as much as possible by Spurs, when injury free, even when they lost every time he played. Of course, individual players respond differently, but I'm not convinced that Arsenal have the golden touch, by any means.
Yeah Arsenal are one of the better teams. United are probably as good, they are giving Welbeck, Cleverly and Jones a lot of game time. Liverpool under Rodgers are giving players like Shelvey, Sterling, Wisdom and now Sturridge, opportunities. I would probably trust any of those clubs to do right by Shaw, but that's sort of beside the point as, as I said, I don't think we'll let him go in the foreseeable future. Bale only played because they had nobody else, Redknapp planned to loan him to Nottingham Forest before they were hit by an injury crisis. Then he got injured himself, Assou-Ekotto took his position in defence and he had to play on the wing, and the rest is history. I'd say his emergence was more down to good luck than any policy on Spur's part. I'm sure the Spurs kids are in better hands with AVB than they were with Harry though.
But he played all the time, and even Harry was aware that he needed to play all of the time. There is no substitute for good coaching AND regular competitive matches. Which is why, as we know, Shaw would do better to stay at Saints. Besides, if Cortese has his way, Saints will be up there anyway, so why change at all..?
I'm not sure that Harry is aware of much at all. He had no choice but to play Bale. He was the only fit player ion that position and once Assou Ekotto came back Bale was a goner. It was just lucky he got that game time in the end. Bertrand has played 27 games for Chelsea. People seem to think he has played more just because he played in the CL final but he was an emergency left wing not left back in that game. 27 games total for a 60 game a season successful team that needs to use a rotation policy to be able to facilitate that number of games a season is not a lot. So he is obviously not considered to be a likely successor to Cashley. Shaw is much more viable. I would say he is equal or close to Bertrand now even though he is 6 years younger. Still think Luke will stay next season though.
The amount Bertrand played doesn't really show much. Cole is going to play if fully fit and not in need of rest. He's the best left back in the league other than Baines. Bertrand still had 14 league starts (7 at left back). Buttner for example had 4 league starts. Micah Richards had 7 league starts.
On Oxlade-Chamberlain.. He's still only 19. 11 starts and 13 sub appearances seems quite a lot of appearances to me considering the attacking options available to Wenger. They've played 4231 meaning Podolski, Walcott, Cazorla, Gervinho, Rosicky and even Ramsey and Wilshere are options in the 3 behind the striker. So 11 starts seems more than reasonable. To compare to our team Fox had 14 starts 6 sub appearances, Guly had 8 starts and 10 sub appearances and Ward-Prowse had 4 starts and 11 sub appearances. 9 starts for K.Davis(1 sub app) and Gazzaniga.
