I know - cant sell Torreira, cant sell Mustafi..also selling Kolasinac for only £9m? The big issue is we have to sell at least 4-5 players to bring in 2 - and we have struggled to offload anyone. Shows how poor a large chunk of our squad is. Without the midfielder getting strengthened there's no way we are making top four this Season.
I'm going to go a step further and say we will be lucky to get top 6. Everton and leicester have a better squad and 1st 11 to us. Wolves look better than us. The others I'm not even going to talk about. Arteta is a great young coach but come next season if pep steps down and city offer him the job I won't blame him for leaving. Why should he waste his time at a club with no ambition. The hate I have for the kroenkes is unmatched.
Hard to say - I think we have a better squad than Wolves or Everton. Auba's probably the best striker in the league and with the additions of Tierney and Gabriel our defence is much improved. Its just the lack of creativity and class in midfield that really holds us back.
Although I agree RE the Kroenkes, we've also been inefficient with the way we've spent our money and the contracts we've handed out. Our squad is bloated and there is a limit to the players we can name in a PL squad (24, of which 6 have to be home-grown). The reason we're struggling to offload players is because the clubs who are interested in them find their wage demands too excessive, especially with COVID impacting club finances across the board. Sokratis - £92k a week Mustafi.- £90k a week Kolasinac - £130k a week Ozil - £350k a week Elneny - £55k a week Who is going to pay that for these players when they won't take a wage cut? The only significant outgoings have been Emi Martinez (£20m), Sam Greenwood (£3m) and Torreira, but he's gone on loan. Spending £72m on Pepe when we had other areas of the pitch in dire need of reinforcing was stupid. Signing Cedric on a permanent 4-year deal before he'd even played for us was baffling. Likewise, signing Mari for £16m after playing 2 games seemed confusing, especially as we were supposedly tight with finances. For a club that is supposedly tight on cash, we sure haven't been sensible when we have spent.
Yeah I agree except for Cedric and Mari as I think both will end up being decent signings. Shame Mari got injured though.
Net spend of +£178m since Sept 2018 or +£265m since Sept 2016... and you're moaning we don't spend money? Dude. I moan, but come on.
Soo Torreira's going out on loan to Athletico and Guendouzi is going out on loan to Hertha. No Partey and No Aouar? That leaves us with Xhaka, Elneny, Ceballos, Willock and AMN as our midfield options. That's mid-table quality. Surely they will try and bring one more in? All we need to do to sign Partey is pay his £45m release clause .. are we really that broke we cant afford to do this?!
Partey deal back on apparently. We've met the release clause ..... We'll wait and see. https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/05/arsenal-thomas-partey-atletico-madrid-release-clause-13373801/
Apparently we are not letting torreira go on loan to athletico now we have triggered release clause for Partey and are telling them it has to be a transfer or nothing. This is scummy business but I love it. Athletico have no time to bring in a replacement. We have bent them over I hope we fleece them for minimum 25 million.
Bloody hell, this is gathering pace and getting more reliable by the hour... https://www.skysports.com/football/...release-clause-for-atletico-madrid-midfielder
Just been reading that. Looks like we’re trying to get it done. Hopefully we can get all of this sorted before 11pm !
Listening to Charles Watts and Ornstein lately has really made me realise what a good transfer window we actually had. (far better than the press were giving us credit for) Firstly we have lost out on over £100m in revenue from matches soo far at a time when budgets were already tight. Our main targets at the start of the Summer were: Gabriel, Partey, Aouar and Willian/Coutinho. On top of that we had a bloated squad that needed trimming down.(still does but we got rid of Mkhitarian, loaned out Guendouzi, sold Torreira etc) We signed 3 out of our 4 main targets - despite the budget restrictions. Its not often you can say that! I think back at many of our recent transfer windows where virtually all of our first choice signings fell through. On the downside we lost Martinez and did'nt manage to offload Ozil, Sokratis, Mustafi. Will be interesting to see if we go back for Aouar in January. But it seems Edu and Arteta have a clear plan of what players they want to bring in and how they plan on building a top level squad.
Wonder if we go back in for Aouar in January. Arteta may feel he cant go back to a 4-3-3 without a genuine attacking midfeilder in the side. If we did sign him I think we would lineup like this.. ------------------------------Leno---------------------------- Bellerin-------Luiz/Mari---------Gabriel-------Tierney ------------Partey--------Xhaka--------Aouar------------ --Pepe---------------Lacazette------------------Auba-- or the more likley... ------------------------------Leno---------------------------- -----------Holding-------Gabriel-------Tierney---------- Bellerin-------Partey------------Aouar------------Saka ----Willian-----------Aubameyang------------Pepe----
Have to say I would love Grealish at Arsenal. Links to him in the papers today. He's got a nice mix of goals and creativity add another creative amf on top and the squad would be ALOT healthier. ------------------------------Leno---------------------------- -----------Holding-------Gabriel-------Tierney---------- Bellerin-------Partey------------Aouar------------Saka ----Pepe-----------Aubameyang------------Grealish--
I think Grealish will end up at Utd personally. Hossem Aouar should still be our no1 target in Jan. We're really missing some creative spark from midfield. It's the part of our game where it becomes laboured and we end up knocking the ball around sideways and backwards. Gabriel and Partey were incredible signings, so I have faith in Arteta and Edu.