Summer Transfers 2025 Missed Opportunities and Regrets

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Originally Posted by Letters

We haven't spent a billion pounds. Net spend is a more honest measure and since Arteta arrived that is about 630m Euros.
Which is still a lot, but it's only the 4th highest net spend in the league. Utd and Chelsea way ahead of us - Spurs were ahead too although we might have leapfrogged them since this article.

https://www.planetfootball.com/arsen...e-mikel-arteta

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I strongly disagree.

Net spend in this case is definitely not more honest especially seeing that most of the players we've made money on since Arteta arrived had absolutely nothing to do with him.

They were either AW/Emery signings or mainly academy products. I mean this is a man who let Ozil, Auba and Pepe ( our record signing ) go for almost nothing. The big sales off my head are Balogun and Smith-Rowe and these were years in the making. All his marquee buys that have left or are leaving like Partey, Jesus, Zinchenko and Vieira, are or will be losses.

He has done a terrible job when it comes to adding realisable value and currently our 2 most valuable players, Saka and Saliba were recruited way before he came. Oh and just in case you want to include Rice, there is no way any team will buy Rice for more than £60m in the market we're in with his current salary. Just look at what Citeh and Man U have gone through trying to shift players like Grealish and Sancho of their books with their huge wages.

AFAIAC judging him by what he has spent is more than fair, especially when you consider that the the two teams ahead of him, Chelsea and United have had like 4 different mangers each or so to divide that sum by.

To even consider that someone has spent over €700m net spend exclusively to take us back to route one football and coming second , while there was a manager last year that spent practically F all to win the league while playing entertaining attacking football.... honestly, appraising any kind of spend is not an argument that can flatter Arteta in anyway, he has been terrible in this aspect and continues to be with signings like Madueke.

Honestly, I said it in a cloud of rage earlier, but have we truly been unable to make any profit on any player Arteta has recruited in these past 6 years?

Even players in their prime like Tavares and Ramsdale, I just rechecked and couldn't believe we still couldn't turn these into profitable sales.

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Originally Posted by Mac76

100%, let's hope there's some truth in it

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Yep, but, we are still stuck with Madueke.
What was the actual point in buying him :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE

I strongly disagree.

Net spend in this case is definitely not more honest especially seeing that most of the players we've made money on since Arteta arrived had absolutely nothing to do with him.

They were either AW/Emery signings or mainly academy products. I mean this is a man who let Ozil, Auba and Pepe ( our record signing ) go for almost nothing. The big sales off my head are Balogun and Smith-Rowe and these were years in the making. All his marquee buys that have left or are leaving like Partey, Jesus, Zinchenko and Vieira, are or will be losses.

He has done a terrible job when it comes to adding realisable value and currently our 2 most valuable players, Saka and Saliba were recruited way before he came. Oh and just in case you want to include Rice, there is no way any team will buy Rice for more than £60m in the market we're in with his current salary. Just look at what Citeh and Man U have gone through trying to shift players like Grealish and Sancho of their books with their huge wages.

AFAIAC judging him by what he has spent is more than fair, especially when you consider that the the two teams ahead of him, Chelsea and United have had like 4 different mangers each or so to divide that sum by.

To even consider that someone has spent over €700m net spend exclusively to take us back to route one football and coming second , while there was a manager last year that spent practically F all to win the league while playing entertaining attacking football.... honestly, appraising any kind of spend is not an argument that can flatter Arteta in anyway, he has been terrible in this aspect and continues to be with signings like Madueke.

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Route one football?

We don’t play route one football, be better if we did frankly

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Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn

Route one football?

We don’t play route one football, be better if we did frankly

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Just wait a few games, that's where the evolution is going to.

Route one would be a damn sight more entertaining and effective than what we currently do, which is neither here nor there.

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Originally Posted by Letters

We haven't spent a billion pounds. Net spend is a more honest measure and since Arteta arrived that is about 630m Euros.
Which is still a lot, but it's only the 4th highest net spend in the league. Utd and Chelsea way ahead of us - Spurs were ahead too although we might have leapfrogged them since this article.

https://www.planetfootball.com/arsen...e-mikel-arteta

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We have spent nearly a billion pounds - that is a fact.
What you recoup and your net spend doesn't change the fact that the initial outlay is a billion quid.
That is the marker by which you should judge, as that is the figure used to build the squad.

Net spend is what people use to make excuses.

Edit: just checked, we have spent 224.20m Euros this summer and sold no one so current net spend must be around 850m Euros

Either way, it doesn't change the fact that it is still loads spent and we are 1-2 players short.

But good attempt to deflect :good:

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Originally Posted by Chippy

Yep, but, we are still stuck with Madueke.
What was the actual point in buying him :rolleyes:

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Tbf he shouldn't be played on the LW - this was an issue at Chelsea as he was terrible there - but Arteta seems to be clueless to that fact.

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Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE

I strongly disagree.

Net spend in this case is definitely not more honest especially seeing that most of the players we've made money on since Arteta arrived had absolutely nothing to do with him.

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Irrelevant. It doesn't matter who bought which players. The point is if you spend a billion on players and recoup nothing then you should be a billion pounds of talent better off. If you spend a billion and recoup 350m then you're only 650m better off. That's all a bit simplistic of course but the players who go out are completely relevant.

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AFAIAC judging him by what he has spent is more than fair, especially when you consider that the the two teams ahead of him, Chelsea and United have had like 4 different mangers each or so to divide that sum by.

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Also irrelevant for the same reason as above. It doesn't matter which manager bought or sold which player - actually these days is it even the manager who does that? The point is the club's net spend is a better metric of how much "better" you would expect a squad to be.

Like HCZ, I don't know what you're talking about with the route one football. That isn't what we play. Pretty much everyone on here laments how we fanny around at the back and move the ball forward far too slowly.

It's totally fair to judge where we are by how much we've spent, although I continue to believe net spend is the more relevant metric. And our wage bill is another. I think it's fair to argue that the ROI hasn't been that good. 1 FA Cup in 5 years isn't a great return. Although that's a little simplistic, we've had two serious title challenges. One was unexpected, the other we pushed City to the last day. Last year was disappointing, to say the least. The CL run was pretty good, the league form was patchy at best. I feel cautiously optimistic for this season. We were certianly poor on Sunday but we got the result. Obviously far too early to make any sensible comment about the season that has just started.
For me Arteta absolutely has to deliver a big trophy this season to survive.

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Originally Posted by Letters

We haven't spent a billion pounds. Net spend is a more honest measure and since Arteta arrived that is about 630m Euros.
Which is still a lot, but it's only the 4th highest net spend in the league. Utd and Chelsea way ahead of us - Spurs were ahead too although we might have leapfrogged them since this article.

https://www.planetfootball.com/arsen...e-mikel-arteta

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This is what I've been trying to say...