I'd keep Kola of the two, though Monreal has been a great player for us.
Printable View
I'd keep Kola of the two, though Monreal has been a great player for us.
Least Tierney won't complain about the fuhking weather....though he might moan about the language barrier.
I don't think he'd be the one moaning.
Sounds like he loves an injury so he'll fit right in.
Me too. He looks a great little player, massive upside and huge potential ala Andy Robertson. I’ve just heard we have had a second bid rejected, way below the asking price. We better not screw this one up, classic Arsenal lowballing so far.Quote:
Originally Posted by Munchies
but will he want to come to arsenal, he gets to play CL qualifiers each season and wins mickey mouse trophies.Quote:
Originally Posted by selassie
Feels like his reputation has been boosted by the association with Robertson who is the best left back in the prem....
With all due respect to Tierney, hes playing in the SPL which isn't exactly a high standard, he may prove to be to class but in recent times there haven't been many top class Scottish players, the changes of having two top class left backs seems small.
Of course on the other side of the coin there's Van Dijk, but he's Dutch of course and they're well known for having top class talents.
I agree with Blink, Robertsons performances are perhaps influencing people's opinions.
The way I see it he's a gamble, but the fact we're scraping around the SPL for players is a bit worrying, as is spending more than half of our budget on a player from there at full back.
Also worried that with so little money, we're struggling to get rid of the players we desperately need rid of.
We've been linked to Zaha as well, personally would prefer the guy from Ajax, Ziyech who seems to score and create goals, the fee doesn't seem astronomical either from what is reported.
Where have all the fullbacks gone? You used to be able to just look in France’s direction and pick up 5 or 6 for under 10m?
To be fair, his rep in Scotland was way above Robertson's when Robertson was there. Moreover, Tierney has performed well in CL for Celtic so he has been tested and performed at a high level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blink 1nce Quince 2wice
Sure he isn't the very best left back out there, but I think he is as good as we are going to get with our pathetic transfer budget. We can't even close the deal out for him, quibbling over a few mil.
I think he will come, it's more a case of will we close out the deal. Our transfer budget is truly pathetic, clubs like West Ham and Leicester comfortably have bigger budgets than us given the players they are being linked to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bumble
We also have a much bigger salary bill, which makes a big difference as the two pots of money are intrinsically linked.Quote:
Originally Posted by selassie
We've already reduced that by 400k with Cech, Ramsey, Welbeck, Suarez, Lichsteiner and Jenkinson and Monreals' contracts are due to expire on the 30th so I would think the former is on his way and the latter could well be, that's probably another 120k there as well.
So if we get rid of just these and noone else (we need to get rid of some if not all of Mustafi, Mhktaryan, Xhaka and Ozil if we can), that'll be 500k a week saved.
And so that's £26m to cover transfers, salaries and agent fees. don't think it really is a deal breaker.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
I think we either give the youth a chance smith-rowe, AMN, Nelson etc or sell perhaps one of sellable players... those who are good and we could get a fee for them, as realistically who is going to buy ozil, mikhi or mustafi and pay them the salary we pay them. No one. I doubt we could even give Ozil away without covering salaries.
I was more referring to his rep amongst the English. I expect everybody Scottish to rate him, almost regardless and fair enough...they see him all the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by selassie
I also find the notion that our budget is only 40 million and yet our first bid for Tierney should be the asking price almost farcical.
Every club haggles so let the process happen. If we come away without him in the end, then sure..... we can really criticise.
I agree, but to spend 25 million of our 40 million budget on a full back wouldn't be great, unless we can shift some of the deadwood I would prioritise a decent CB.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blink 1nce Quince 2wice
We desperately need to find a buyer for Mkhytaryan, Ozil, Xhaka and Mustafi. A few years ago we could have probably sold the first two to a chinese club, as it stands though we don't have much to play with. To be honest I'd be happy to sell Iwobi if we could find a buyer, there's really only 4 players I wouldn't want us to sell in any scenario, Lacazette, Aubameyang, Leno and Torreira, the rest can go to raise some funds.
I think he is rated all over Europe to be fair, not just by English. H's clearly not rated as an elite talent, but as a decent young player. He does have Napoli looking at him too. Also, he has had a fair bit of CL exposure, albeit mostly in the group stages.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blink 1nce Quince 2wice
It's not that I think it should be the asking price, but it should be serious. We clearly like the player and see him as an important target, let's get this one wrapped up quickly and move onto other targets. Getting it wrapped up doesn't mean paying the asking prices...but it also doesn't mean spending weeks and weeks drawing out a long running saga...this is typical Arsenal to be fair.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blink 1nce Quince 2wice
Rumours that Neymar is returning to Barca on a 5-year-deal. Dickhead.
I’m not sure it’s as simple as taking 25m away from 40m - it would probably eat up something more like 8-9m of our 40-45m budget (e.g. a 25m fee + 70k/wk wages spread across a 5 year contract = 5m/yr in repayments + 3.6m/yr in wages). It’s still a pretty sorry amount for a club of our size to be working with, but it should still be enough to finance 3 or 4 such deals?Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
In a weird way, I’m almost hoping our budget doesn’t increase too much! I’m really worried that any sudden windfalls will remove any immediate urgency to sort this mess of a squad out. Need to keep the pressure on the men in charge...
He may well be, but we in England haven't actually seen him that much and I myself didn't watch him in the CL this season so I'm a little neutral to it. We need a left back so I'm glad we're making the move in any case, but don't share the view of so of the media that our opening offer was insulting.Quote:
Originally Posted by selassie
Insulting to Celtic I suppose as he's a big asset of theirs but we don't have a pot to piss in so we didn't really have much choice but to lowball them.
At least now the player knows our interest is real so hopefully his head has been turned.
I’m not even sure we have insulted Celtic? Seems like everyone in the world is losing their shit over this except the club themselves, who have just gone about the talks quietly...
Off topic.....Quote:
Originally Posted by I am invisible
Where the fuck did the spuds get 65m from to sign Ndombele? Looks like they funded their new stadium properly. Unlike our shower! FFS
Not signing a player for 2 years and having a low wage bill helps. :lol:
Guessing they got a nice windfall for the CL run as well.
To be honest we had most of that, barely signing anyone of note, selling our best players and being in the CL every season, we still couldn't manage it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
The stadium was supposed to be the golden goose, as it turns out it's been the opposite, we've seen very little benefit from it, in fact we were a better team when we were at Highbury.
Despite not signing a player for 2 years, they still ended up above us, got into the CL final and have managed to build a bigger stadium.
Different times mate. They’re lucky enough to have built theirs at a time when the PL pays out 150m/yr in prize money for finishing anywhere near the top - when we did it, it was probably closer to 1/3 of that (or less). Plus they’re paying about 100m a year less in wages - that helps!Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
Our stadium build was actually incredibly well financed and funded at the time, esp when you consider it was pre-recession / banking crisis, and interest rates were higher (and we then had to navigate through that financial shit storm too). We’re in this current mess purely because we’ve spent and sold poorly, handed out way too many undeserved, big contracts, and have missed out on CL income for 3 years running - we had everything we needed to make a success of this, but we fucked it up.
Fixed that for youQuote:
Originally Posted by I am invisible
They're stadium cost close to a billion I believe though, ours was £390 million I think, so a big difference in cost. Hard to believe it was opened 13 years ago now.Quote:
Originally Posted by I am invisible
IMO we tried to get greedy by building the flats and it backfired on us when we struggled to sell them. The reality is we were promised a competitive team in the new stadium, we never got that, we were told our aim was to compete with the very best, instead we're struggling to qualify for the top 4, we were suppose to go to toe toe with top clubs for the best players and instead we're scraping around for unknowns and cheap buys.
It wouldn't be an understatement to say it's been a disaster, again though I agree with you to some extent, our spending was terrible (but we also sold off our best players time and time again, Spurs have resisted doing this), we kept Wenger (and Gazidis) for far too long, both did a poor job after the stadium move, Wenger got obsessed with proving people wrong and refused to accept what people were saying was correct and waste money left, right and center when he spent it and Gazidis delivered very poor commercial deals, came out with empty promises and delivered nothing, then when he finally got rid of Wenger walked away!
It could have been so different, instead we could well be stuck as also rans for the foreseeable future, with no real investment, a coach who most likely isn't an elite coach and an owner who couldn't care less about us being successful so probably won't replace Emery with anyone decent if he doesn't work out.
I guess we can all hope for some kind of miracle turnaround, but I don't think too many really believe it's going to happen for us right now, our only hope I guess is that we stumble across some miracle worker of a manager, who proves to be top class and has an eye for talent, which in these days seems unlikely.
Pretty much and Gazidis to be fair (and PHW and co before them), some terrible decision making, terrible transfer policy and transfers and stubborness of the highest order, in the end it was all pretty amateurish, lots of people getting rich but very little to show for it on the pitch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Globalgunner
A others have said, they have a lower wage bill, and a lot of CL money. Plus, they have Eriksen and probably Alderweireld to sell too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
Agreed all together that are a colostrum bag full of old farts and haughty toffs who confused cash with success. They looked down on the fans for years and smug in their superiority never considered on the pitch success as a priority and never took the AST members along. If Wenger had kept making top 4 by dint of other team collapsing around us they would never have sacked him. PHW whose family have been in Arsenal for almost a half century meekly sold us out to Kroenke purely because of the cash and more likely racism towards the Uzbek guy.
He may not have been visually appealing but who cares. He would have kicked Wenger to the curb long ago. True he might have found himself today in the same boat as Abramovich at Chelsea, but its just a geopolitical phase and it will pass. We would have been better off with him instead of Kroenke. Not that KSE are bad owners business wise, its just that they care little for success, they only ever get off their ranch house backsides when the bottom line is affected. I doubt we will get rid of them in our lifetimes. Unless another 2008 crash occurs and someone offers him $5B cash, he might be exorcised. Maybe.
As you say, a miracle might occur and Kronke may sell up to a billionaire that wants to take the club forward, like City.Quote:
Originally Posted by Globalgunner
At the moment, we just need to hope that Freddie moving into Boulds shoes may help us. We also have one or two good youngsters that might make the grade.
I will whisper it, but we could take the Sp*rs route and develop players.
We being who? Who are you speaking on behalf of? Or does We mean You? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Blink 1nce Quince 2wice
Fair play on your view of the opening offer.
Below link was from a couple of years back, it was when I first personally started to notice him after watching a few Celtic CL games.
https://www.theguardian.com/football...-celtic-europe
Wan-Bissaka on his way to Man U:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48770843
50m is a bargain really if he lives up to his potential. That’s a position nailed down for the next decade.
Miracles don't happen at Arsenal these days, all we generally get left with is little hope of improvement and moving forward.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chippy
Bit like when they signed Rio Ferdinand I guess, although he was expensive at the time, but he played for them for years!Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
Ornstein says we want Zaha and he wants to come, but Palace don't want to sell and we can't afford him even if they did.