Guys,
You're all entitled to your opinions here, but honestly, I don't think we will see us competing with the very best until we have improvements in nearly every single position. Contrary to popular belief, we DO need a major overhaul when you think about it.
Perhaps people will portray me as being negative but to be brutally honest, I don't rate a lot of the players we have in the squad because they won't get us to the level we aspire to be at + they are wasting a squad place for someone better.
@TheBear - use the statistics how you like, but I prefer to watch using my eyes and my eyes tell me that our Polish goalkeeper is not good enough. I honestly think he is an average goalkeeper. Compare him to de Gea, Lloris, Courtois and Cech, he is miles behind these lot.
Re: Centre back position - Chambers may be good later but he isn't now. He is very clumsy and doesn't seem to have the tactical intelligence or the positional awareness to be a regular as it stands. He has a lot of work to do. Mertesacker being a World Cup winner is meaningless, he played two games in the WC and has been useless since. Why he's gone so off form I don't know but he isn't reliable and I have no idea how much longer he will be at the club.
Koscielny as I said has an Achilles problem and we have to be cautious with how regularly we utilise him.
We definitely need two centre backs.
Re: midfield - think about it like this; Flamini & Arteta will most likely be gone at the end of this season, Cazorla is 30 and I don't know how much longer Wenger will play him regularly at that age; Rosicky is 34, he is also on limited time. Diaby is a write off. Wilshere is not reliable because he gets too many injuries. That's FIVE midfield players who are too injury prone or too old! So we definitely need another central midfielder. Don't think many can argue with that, when you put it all into perspective.
A friend of mine watches Arsenal reserves regularly and he said Zelalem has stagnated hence why he hasn't been getting called up to the first team more. Crowley is one too look out for but he's 17, he won't get any first team action for a good few years yet.
Re: a striker - Giroud is a player who I do not rate, I never have and I don't think I ever will. He just hasn't got the required quality to ever be truly successful at Arsenal as a first choice CF. Welbeck will be sold in two years when Wenger realises how mediocre he is. Sanogo will not make it at Arsenal.
That leaves Giroud as our main forward who is acceptable to be a squad player. Sanchez and Walcott will more often than not be deployed out wide. So a striker is definitely also needed, especially if you want to take into account the inevitable long-term injuries we get.
), so we need to address the immediate problems at the moment. These problems as it stands are a CM and DM. Those are as clear as day and the majority on this board agree.