Hope these Boateng rumours are nonsense, we don't want to waste any of our money on ageing over the hill CBs we'll need to spend to replace in a year, just like we did with Sokratis, you'd hope the club would learn it's lesson, though you never know with this club.
Also worryingly, this sounds very similar to something Wenger might have said, if worded slightly differently:
https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/05/bayer...teta-12004322/Asked about Arsenal’s transfer plans for January, Arteta said last week:
‘Obviously we have a bad injury with Calum a few days ago that will change our plans at the back. ‘The reality is we will not be able to do much. I’m more concerned about getting players back from injury and try to improve the players I have here, get everybody on board and understanding what we’re trying to do.
'And if something extra comes up and we think it is the right opportunity to improve what we have, then let’s do it.’Asked about Arsenal’s transfer plans for January, Arteta said last week: ‘Obviously we have a bad injury with Calum a few days ago that will change our plans at the back. ‘The reality is we will not be able to do much. I’m more concerned about getting players back from injury and try to improve the players I have here, get everybody on board and understanding what we’re trying to do.
The players coming back will be like new signings
I don’t often take the owners’ side, but if I were Stan or Josh I’d be livid, if I heard the club was looking at this kind of player again - that combo of high wages and no resale value is everything we should be avoiding right now.
If the interest is genuine then it needs to be a 5 month loan only, with nothing in there about buying at the end of it...
Last edited by I am invisible; 06-01-2020 at 06:31 AM.
Expected really - he’s only had this group of players for a couple of weeks, so he’ll want some time to see what they can do for him before he starts drawing up a shopping list.
Moreover he sounds like he’s just being realistic / pragmatic about the situation: we’re low on funds and January tends to be a restricted, expensive window at the best of times. Odds are nothing much will happen, so best to concentrate on the parts of the job that you can affect, while you wait to see what Edu and co can find.
CB is at least an obvious one that doesn’t need much assessment and can’t really be ignored - we’re down to two older, less athletic / energetic options (who haven’t had a break over Christmas) and Holding, who hasn’t played for a year, and could be blighted with minor setbacks for a while to come. Don’t know what exactly has gone wrong with Mavropanos, but if he hasn’t played by now then I’m not sure he ever will. This one definitely needs an addition...
Tierney and Holding have been major losses, also MartinellI
it's definitely going to strengthen us a lot to get them back
Right. And we can't go around spending lots of money to replace players who will be back in 6 months, although we should be looking at opportunities to strengthen the squad to mitigate the impact of injuries to key players.