Summer Transfer Shit and Everything Else

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Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn

I’d honestly say Caicedo is definitely worth twice as much as MacAllister, but I don’t rate MacAllister…the majority of his goals are penalties. And watching Argentina at the World Cup, MacAllister waned in the game and it gave the opposition time and space to get back into the game…they won both games on penalties but arguably should have won normal time.
He’s another one that can’t deal with pressing or physicality, hasn’t got great first touch either.

Caicedo is for me a must because of the way he can play through the high press, actually thrives on it. Exceptional player. Rice could fill the Xhaka no8 role (in that he’d roll his sleeves up more, is quicker and better on the ball) but think don’t want to spend money on both…and Caicedo is the player we absolutely must sign between the two of them (but Arteta as he always goes, gets his priorities wrong)

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I agree, I think Caicedo is the next world class midfielder, he's like a younger version of Kante, but in Caicedo he seems to have a bit more to his game, he is almost the complete Midfielder.

We absolutely need to do all we can to sign him, I'd happily not sign Rice and sign Caicedo if it was a choice, however i genuinely think we want both players. You can't fault our ambition.

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Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn

I don’t think Chelsea are in a position to buy until they sell.

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Aye, we are in a strong position with Caicedo if we do actually have the budget to buy both him and Rice. Reports everywhere are saying we are Caicedo's first choice, he recently did that interview where he was basically saying he was disappointed that he didn't move to us in January and that he wanted us to win the league, he also said he likes that we have a great group of young players and loves our style of play.

We have become a desirable destination again, we absolutely need to take advantage of that this window, because we have the potential to build a truly frightening squad stacked full of top class young players.

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Originally Posted by selassie

I think Rice is pretty much done or at least agreed in "private and principle between Rice, West Ham and Arsenal". Rice has made it pretty clear that he wants to stay in London and there are numerous reports of his admiration for Arteta, our playing style and new found status / improvement.

I like Rice as a player, I think he is overpriced but it is what it is, he will most definitely improve our team and we should have him for a good few years too.

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Definitely overpriced but I think he would be a decent addition to the midfield. Seems like a very driven and likeable individual too, could easily see him as our captain.

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Originally Posted by Marc Overmars

Sell Balogun and buy a big, athletic striker.

Might as well keep Eddie as back up seeing as we only just gave him a new deal and wage hike.

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In terms of actual good strikers, we have none. Jesus can huff and puff all day but he cant finish for shit. Balogun actually looks like a very promising striker and his finishing % is better than Jesus and Nketiah combined. I would rather we keep him, buy another striker, sell Nketiah and keep Jesus on the wings (or as an impact sub).

If Balogun was not an Arsenal player and we were pursuing a young player who went toe to toe with Mbappe in terms of scoring playing for a shit team in Ligue 1, we'd be very excited. At the bare minimum, Balogun deserves a solid pre-season with us and given a run in the team if he impresses during the pre-season. Will it happen? I dont think so.. something tells me Arteta has a massive hard on for Eddie.

The weird thing is that while we didn’t have a Haaland or, dare I say it, a Kane, we actually scored more goals last year than The Invincibles last season. City didn’t actually score that many more than us. Defence was the bigger issue, particularly when Saliba got injured

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Originally Posted by fakeyank

In terms of actual good strikers, we have none. Jesus can huff and puff all day but he cant finish for shit. Balogun actually looks like a very promising striker and his finishing % is better than Jesus and Nketiah combined. I would rather we keep him, buy another striker, sell Nketiah and keep Jesus on the wings (or as an impact sub).

If Balogun was not an Arsenal player and we were pursuing a young player who went toe to toe with Mbappe in terms of scoring playing for a shit team in Ligue 1, we'd be very excited. At the bare minimum, Balogun deserves a solid pre-season with us and given a run in the team if he impresses during the pre-season. Will it happen? I dont think so.. something tells me Arteta has a massive hard on for Eddie.

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This

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Originally Posted by fakeyank

In terms of actual good strikers, we have none. Jesus can huff and puff all day but he cant finish for shit. Balogun actually looks like a very promising striker and his finishing % is better than Jesus and Nketiah combined. I would rather we keep him, buy another striker, sell Nketiah and keep Jesus on the wings (or as an impact sub).

If Balogun was not an Arsenal player and we were pursuing a young player who went toe to toe with Mbappe in terms of scoring playing for a shit team in Ligue 1, we'd be very excited. At the bare minimum, Balogun deserves a solid pre-season with us and given a run in the team if he impresses during the pre-season. Will it happen? I dont think so.. something tells me Arteta has a massive hard on for Eddie.

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I don’t think it’s a case of not wanting Balogun to stay, it’s probably more about him preferring to leave to be the main man somewhere now, I can’t see him warming the bench after the season he’s had. Realistically he isn’t going to get more than a few run outs in the cups if he stayed with us. We’ve got a good spread of goals across the front line so I’m not sure what we’d be missing because he’s a similar type of striker to Eddie. I think we need to be looking at a more physical striker to give us the option of mixing it up.

The loan worked a treat for all parties. We can get good money for Balogun and put it towards other areas of the squad. Stick a sell-on fee on him too incase he really explodes. Unfortunately we don’t have an infinite money cheat code, so we need to be a little clever with how we operate and moving on surplus players for good money is part of it.

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Originally Posted by Letters

The weird thing is that while we didn’t have a Haaland or, dare I say it, a Kane, we actually scored more goals last year than The Invincibles last season. City didn’t actually score that many more than us. Defence was the bigger issue, particularly when Saliba got injured

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Yep, whilst you can always improve all areas of the team / squad, offensively we are actually very strong even without a "Haaland" or "Kane" type upfront like you say. Our model upfront is similar to Liverpool's where there is an emphasis on all 3 of the forwards to chip in with goals, even Odegaard had a great goalscoring season last season and I think that will continue merely based on how we play.

My opinion is that we are deficient in two areas

Central midfield and full back

I don’t expect the left full back issue to be addressed but hopeful that Arteta recognises that White isn’t the long term option at right back. I do like White as a player I genuinely do, but I think he’s a centre back

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Originally Posted by fakeyank

In terms of actual good strikers, we have none. Jesus can huff and puff all day but he cant finish for shit. Balogun actually looks like a very promising striker and his finishing % is better than Jesus and Nketiah combined. I would rather we keep him, buy another striker, sell Nketiah and keep Jesus on the wings (or as an impact sub).

If Balogun was not an Arsenal player and we were pursuing a young player who went toe to toe with Mbappe in terms of scoring playing for a shit team in Ligue 1, we'd be very excited. At the bare minimum, Balogun deserves a solid pre-season with us and given a run in the team if he impresses during the pre-season. Will it happen? I dont think so.. something tells me Arteta has a massive hard on for Eddie.

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Hmm, on one hand I do agree 100% with you that we do not have a real clinical finisher in the team. How much of an issue that is though I’m really not sure….there were four games last season in the league where we failed to score…and scored 88 goals.

With Balogun it’s hard to know, because he has been playing in an inferior league…and we had our fingers burnt by Nicolas Pepe based on his performances/goal scoring in Ligue 1 (and even then half the goals were penalties)

It would of course be my preference to keep him and sell Nketiah, but think it’s clear that he would want to be the first choice striker and I absolutely don’t think we can give him any such guarantee. Plus although a better finisher, he is similar in his style to Jesus…and I think what we actually need is a Giroud type player to give us something from route one and set pieces.

Either way despite what I said about 88 goals, the majority of that came from four players in the attacking diamond…and we probably could do with maybe a main focal point than rely on same four players to get the same amount of goals again (especially a player like Odegaard…for his position 15 goals in a season is more of an outlier than the usual)