I'm beginning to think there is a small possibility we end up with none of them.
I'm beginning to think there is a small possibility we end up with none of them.
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I don't want Martial either. There is a lot of raw talent there but Arsenal isn't the place for him to develop, at least not right now. He's a 50/50 for me in terms of how he progresses regardless of what club he ends up at.
Lacazette is a no-brainer, he is a proven goalscorer, the only question marks are that he hasn't yet made a mark on the International scene or in CL but that is more down to lack of opportunities. I suspect that his next move will improve his record in both those competitions assuming he joins a CL level type club, I think he's a good player and will fit in well at Arsenal.
His price is very top heavy but that is more to do with our dithering in the market over the past few seasons, 50million now is equivalent to 30million a couple of seasons ago IMO.
I’m holding off from fully judging Martial. When he delivers he’ll get the praise but I’m not writing him off or saying he’s the next Henry until I see more. We’ve seen players with loads of potential fail to live up to the hype. But saying that, there is no chance Man Utd are selling him to us. No way. Allowing the Club to divert our attention away from a striker (Lacazette) that’s ready to leave France and Lyon are willing sell for the right price, in order to pursue a player that we have zero chance of getting is what bothers me. Fall this and you’ll fall for anything. We’ll end up with nothing or another Perez.
Lukkau and Lacazette are the players we should be bidding for. They have the numbers and consistency and play for clubs that can’t offer them much more. There are no Henry type strikers available but we could be looking at a striker that plays a similar game to Anelka in Lacazette. Play a 3-5-2 and form a deadly strike duo with one of our existing strikers. Don’t just copy a paste a formation from other clubs like Chelsea. The top clubs can afford to play a solo striker with wingers either side because they have the right players for it. We don’t. Giroud, Welbeck,Perez Walcott could play a lot better if paired with someone else. Shifting these players or Ozil out to play wide makes no damn sense. It just blunts there potential to perform and how effective we play as a team. Buy a striker that can consistently score 20+ gaols a season and add one of the mentioned players to the mix and we solve the problem. We’re not going to find a player that has it all in the locker. There aren’t many players out there with strength, speed, agility and the goal record that we can afford.
Reality is everything is on hold until Ozil and Alexis make their decision. Wenger's inability to manage the contracts of the squad we already have will cripple us in this transfer window, beyond the normal crippling that Wenger supplies by default. What we should be doing is sacking Wenger and bringing in an ambitious manager. But the right option is not an option at all at Arsenal, so we'll crawl through this transfer window listening to media speculation (probably generated by Pravda anyway) and we'll be back in panic buy, appeasement territory once the season has kicked off. Ozil and Alexis can take their time. They are in total control and we have almost nothing of significance to offer them. They can get the cash elsewhere, as well as CL football and a genuine chance of winning a major trophy. They'd have to be shit out of options to stay here, so figure them gone. The one thing we have to offer is free transfers next season. Perhaps they'll stay under those terms. But that means the money crew at Arsenal will have to be up for taking a big loss. Another non-option.
We wouldn't pay for Lacazette las time around. What makes people think we'll pay much more this time? The only way it'll happen is if Alexis gets shifted quickly and if that happens it means we'll be paying 60 odd million, less Alexis' fee, to make the squad worse.
These are Wenger's chickens coming home to roost. We're watching Arsenal in the final stages of becoming a genuine second tier club. It had to happen as a result of Wenger being allowed to continue with 10 years of bullshit. Give him a few more years and he'll take us even lower. I wonder how long the likes of Kroenke needs to see the same old shit happening over and over before he twigs?
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Mbappe? Haha! More chance of us signing Mugabe.
I’m not dead against Martial. I just don’t see it happening and wouldn’t be fully convinced that he solves our striker problem. After a few games I’m sure Wenger would shift him wide if he’s not tearing it up there. Wenger said he saw him more as a winger and Utd have also played him there for a lot of games. We just don’t need that sort of problem again. Buy a striker that has the numbers and games to back up that his best position is central striker and I can’t see Wenger trying to play them wide.
We’re really in a ridiculous situation. We should have bought Lacazette years ago or at least committed to playing Walcott or Sanchez up front for a whole season. It’s taken us an age to get this right and it’s becoming more costly. Wenger doesn’t have the answers to solve this.
I agree with a lot of this post NQ and I don't for one minute think signing Lacazette is a sign of ambition, he's going to be a replacement for Sanchez and make no mistake he's a significant downgrade on Sanchez.
I agree we are in this mess because of Wenger, a lot of this was avoidable too. If we had shown more ambition and been more proactive over the past few seasons by genuinely improving the team/squad with the quality it has been lacking then I think we would have been in a much stronger position. Our lack of ambition makes us a less attractive option when purchasing players, what can we honestly offer a player above any of our rivals?
I think Wenger's hand will be forced with signing Lacazette, I don't think we have any other real options TBH, we aren't going to sign Mbappe and the likes of Lukaku, Belotti are beyond us.