Bony off to Stoke. Should be a good signing for them if his stint at Swansea is anything to go by.
Roma interested in Wheelchair now. Chesney probably wants him so they can blaze up together.
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Bony off to Stoke. Should be a good signing for them if his stint at Swansea is anything to go by.
Roma interested in Wheelchair now. Chesney probably wants him so they can blaze up together.
:lol:
A year or nothing, 5 million is nothing considering the talent that Gnabry is and the price of footballers these days. I was expecting 10 million at least. Sane just went for close to 40 million and it's my opinion that there's nothing between Gnabry or Sane ..... obviously there are other factors at play (year left, injuries, bad two years etc) but it's still very low.
I'm hoping it's low because ala Carlos Vela, we've put a buyback clause in there.
Don't see the problem.
£5m for a totally unproven, 21-year old player in last year of contact. Pretty sure there will be other caveats added into the sale too. Probably spent a couple of mill on wages, double that back with the sale price, makes absolute sense.
Oh, I completely agree. The trouble is that the players hold all the cards with one year left. What can we do if we don't get a fair offer?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Emirates Gallactico
That's what's worrying about letting Sanchez & Ozil's contracts go down to their last years...
Didn't we let Campbell go on loan just so Serge could have a run in the team?
We really don't have a lot of winger options.
I think that was the assumption that was made, it seems perhaps now that this was to free up space in the squad for Mustafi and Perez.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
I think we are fine in terms of numbers on the wing, just not necessarily in terms of quality.
I'm being greedy and I know it won't happen, but I would love it if there was just one more good surprise before the window closes.
Leicester agree a 30m fee for Slimani. :lol:
Could be clearing the decks for The Jeff to feature more, or maybe even freeing up some senior squad space for someone like Chris Willock, who Wenger seems to rate highly?Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
Willock is highly rated but it's surely too soon for him. He looks about 13.
Wenger quotes from earlier in the season...Quote:
Originally Posted by Douglas Reynholm
http://metro.co.uk/2016/03/12/arsene...-team-5748381/
...so I wouldn't rule it out.Quote:
Arsene Wenger happy to play Chris Willock in Arsenal first team
Arsene Wenger has backed Chris Willock to become Arsenal’s next big star.
The French coach believes that the talented 18-year-old is set for an incredible future.
And Wenger would have no problem giving the English winger an opportunity in the first team soon.
"Chris is a very gifted player with natural strength and natural talent," Wenger told the official site. "He has what you do not find very easily. He can have a go at people, can get past people in one on ones. We forget sometimes that the basis of team sport is to first be strong one against one and Chris has that quality."
"I believe that he has the needed character when he has his back to the wall to always respond in a very strong way. That’s a very important quality, to be able to play under pressure."
"Overall, I would be very comfortable to play him now but of course there is a lot of competition for places because there are players like [Theo] Walcott, Alexis [Sanchez] and [Danny] Welbeck in front of him at the moment."
"‘If I had to play him then I would have no fear in doing so. Next season I think he will be a player who will get to feature in the team."
Could definitely do with a bit of time down the gym, but the club website has his DOB down as 31 Jan, 1998, so he'll be 19 in 5 months - still very young, but we've fielded younger?
We should really snap up Isco. Play him wide until Ozil leaves.
Due to squad size noQuote:
Originally Posted by Goonermarvee
I'd love that as well but think would necessitate another player leaving firstQuote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
Have only seen Willock a few times in the U21s but he looks a cut above the rest, hopefully he gets a start in the carling cup (or whatever its called)
Coca Cola Milk Carling Pepsico liquid CupQuote:
Originally Posted by Gooner23
It looks like we already have players leaving. Wilshere and Gnarby plus Campbell has gone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
https://youtu.be/HHXo25LUYJw
A lot more of this treatment needed in general
True but even with that, add up the numbers in the squad we have and it adds up to 25Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
looks like for instance we are saddled with both debuchy and jenkinson
Our youth academy is dreadful, the last worldy to come out of there was Ashley Cole and that was probably before Wengers' 10 year plan (whatever happened to that), don't really trust us to discover any decent players at the moment.
Yes we've had a few overhyped players like Wilshere and Gibbs, but neither amount to much.
:lol:
Loads have left, our squad is smaller than last season, Campbell, Rosicky, Arteta, Flamini, Chambers looks like Wilshere and Gnabry as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
We've signed Perez, Mustafi and Xhaka and Holding (Asano can't play), so that's 7 out 4 in and Wellbeck is out long term as is Gabriel and Mertesacker.
:beer:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Name a world class player that has come out of the big four in this country over the past ten years? It's a symptom of the PL money spent every summer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Our squad is currently Cech, Ospina, Martinez, Gibbs, Monreal, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gabriel, Mustafi, Debuchy, Jenkinson, Bellerin, Elneny, Coquelin, Cazorla, Ozil, Ramsey, Xhaka, Ox, Walcott, Giroud, Perez, Welbeck, Alexis and Sanogo (25 players not including Wilshere and Gnabry)
Players like Akpom, Iwobi, Willock, Rene-Adelaide, Holding etc are presumably exempt because they are under a certain age
The problem is we are saddled with useless players that we can't even get rid of, on loan
why are we expecting world class players to come out of the academy. they just need to produce good players that can play for arsenal. I always think of a world class player as someone who could get into any side in the world. In my mind that would only be Ozil at Arsenal. So therefore we don't need loads of world class players.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano
Cech/Ospina/MartinezQuote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Bellerin/
Monreal/Gibbs
Koscielny/Mustafi/Holding/Gabriel(supposedly back in 3/4 weeks from now)/Merts
Coquelin/Xhaka/Elneny
Ozil/Ramsey/Cazorla
Walcott/Ox
Sanchez/Iwobi/The Jeff
Giroud/Perez/Wellbeck
Bellerin back up is the only concern if Debuchy leaves but add in a couple of wild cards and the numbers are there. We could debate the quality all day long but we've got rid of some deadwood in Flamini, Arterta, Rosicky, potentially Wilshere and Chambers too.
Yep, agree with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
Also, we’ve invested a lot of time and effort into the youth project unlike other Top 4 teams. It’s been our main strategy whilst our rivals would spend big to replace and not promote from within.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
If you remember when the Prem had gone all anti foreign and pundits kept pounding Wenger for not producing enough English National players besides Cole, he said in 10 years they’d be thanking him. The Academy was supposed to produce those players and we were supposed to see the first batch of stars because we had guys like Wilshere from 9 years old. Wenger’s generation of kids that’s he’d be able to oversee from kids to adults. Besides being good enough for Arsenal, they were supposed to be good enough for England and that’s not the case either.
Lesbian leaves Citeh to go to Seville.
Sissoko for £30m to Spuds? :lol:
Luiz to Chavs for £38m? :lol:
Nice not to have a dog in this last minute scramble for once.
And Chambers has rocked up at Middlesboro for the rest of the season.
There's one difference, none of those clubs have focussed on youth, that's been our primary goal, indeed when Wenger arrived he had a 10 year plan to develop quality young players.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano
If we signed world class players like the other clubs do it might not be a problem but we don't.
Why, because that's been our primary focus, I disagree you do need a decent amount of world class players, they're are the ones that win you matches.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
It's as solid a squad as we've had for a while, tbf - I'd happily upgrade a few more areas over the next couple of windows, but at least there's no gaping holes there for once.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano
Plenty of flexibility too, if we have to get creative - Monreal, Mustafi, Coq, Cazorla, Ramsey, Özil, Walcott, Ox, Sanchez, Iwobi, Jeff, Perez and Welbeck can all play 2 or 3 roles (to varying degrees of cometence).
And finally - finally! - no more temptation to fall back on Flaminis and Artetas, and no more waiting around for Wilsheres and Welbecks and Rosickys to be available.
I think my main gripe with the summer's work isn't the ins and outs, or even how late some of the deals have been done - it's that the players / team that we knew we were going to be starting with didn't look physically or tactically ready. Even now, 3 games in, they don't look like they can comfortably last 90 minutes! If you're going to leave your business late in the hope for getting better deals then that's fine, but at least make sure that the players we do have are match fit and able to do a job while we wait...
I agree we got rid of deadwood, we just haven't really supplemented the squad with top quality that could make the difference, still think we look particularly lightweight up front.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano
Centre back and central midfield and perhaps goalkeeping are the areas we're well covered in and look decent, other areas I'm not so sure about, think down the wings we're lacking somewhat and probably going to have to play the square pegs round hole game again.
Perfect summer would have been a CB (check) and top striker and perhaps a goalscoring winger, but the striker was the big one for me, I think we needed more goals and thus a couple goalscorers added to the team would have made us both more unpredictable and better.
Our summer hasn't been too bad all in all, but I don't find any of those signings really exciting or what I would call matchwinners, CB fine, Xhaka really not too bothered about this one and Perez, hopefully turns out to be decent, let's be honest if you'd asked everyone who they would have signed in the summer how many would have identified any of the players we've signed as the ones they wanted, I'd hedge a bet at very few, that's kinda what Wenger likes though, he generally steers away from the more established players.
Was going to post the same thing before you did. There have been barely any English worldies the past decade ..... Rooney (and that was only for a few years) is the only one the springs to mind really. I think Shaw and Sterling (with some Pep coaching) could reach those levels though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano
It's a problem with English players and general coaching rather than any specific academy system it seems.
Not to do a Wenger but don't forget that Mustafi is a perfectly capable Rightback and has played there numerous times for Germany & Valencia when needed. In fact, I'm sure that was a factor in Wenger deciding to go in for him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano
Apart from Utd I can't think of another team in recent memory in the UK that has developed the all mysterious 'world class' talent. There has been a huge emphasis on youth in terms of the academies but pressure to have instant success has increased, meaning younger players rarely get a chance to show what they can do. Look at Chelsea. They've won the FA Youth Cup 5 out of the last 7 years, so talent has to be there and how many come through to the first team at that club? We tried to put focus on youth for 4/5 years previously but ultimately, could Wenger have afforded to take gambles on more players from the youth set up and risk worse performances in the league and all the pressure that comes with it? I don't think he could. Young players probably get more of a chance here than they do at Citeh or Chavs. Utd only turned to kids last season and struck lucky because of the injuries they suffered. Maureen has come in and knocked that on the head straight away. Liverpool still give youngsters a shot and Spuds have mostly because of the financial restrictions of the stadium.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Southampton for one, West Ham haven't done badly either and Spurs as you mention. There's a few teams out there, just feel that considering how much emphasis we put on youth, our return has been pretty poor, Gnabry is the latest in a long line of failed young players (admitttedly he's not from our academy).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano
Maybe we should stop focussing on kids and just sign world class players if this is all we're going to produce, our kids come with all the hype and none of the talent, I don't get the impression our scouts (who look for kids) are particularly good at it, we seem to miss out on all the top young players and get left with fairly average ones.