Mohamed Elneny Thread (official)

According to that Sky report, he's more box to box and likes to attack more than Coquelin, but I'm not complaining.

But why has he been allowed to leave mid season and for such a small fee?

Agreed, if he is the best we are going to get then lets hope he turns out to be all we hope for. Coq was never going to get through the season without an injury or booking related layoff so we are here where we are. Let him come in and play the FA cup games. He should be good enough to come in for Flamini after 60 mins. No other player in our squad except Coq and Flamini can be descrided as a DM.
Still need a striker though.

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Originally Posted by Kano

Far from an excuse, it’s a reality. Go back and check how many reputable players transfer early in the January transfer window, if at all. If anything, it’s a thin and lazy accusation to trot out generic statements about big players etc without bothering to look at how recent windows have panned out across the board. Of course Wenger made a big mistake in the summer not buying in a back-up but we can either live in the past and cut ourselves over the mistakes, or accept what has happened and deal with the reality of now. I’m sure you don’t live your life that way, so I don’t see the point in constantly lamenting what happened 6 months ago.

Picking out a random poster on the internet means nothing, mostly because they have no credibility. He is just a random on the internet laying out a post, without any context. Just words that mean pretty much nothing. Fans go onto websites everyday with their ludicrous ideas about the game, suggestions on players that have amazing stats on FIFA and so of course must be just as good in real life, or vice-versa. Some Egyptian dude (apparently) leaving a post means very little. But if you insist we set-out our opinion on this player based on this mystery fan, then take a second look at his opinion. Simple passes and doesn’t get forward much? Tick. A competent back up to Coquelin? Tick. What else do you want at this time in the season, within the context of our current mid-season squad?

And of course, Elneny could turn out to be a disaster or a success but why think of the worst case scenario first of all? Surely we all want him to be a plus to the team, so until we he steps onto the pitch and plays a few games, as an Arsenal player we should be behind him. I always thought that came part-and-parcel of being a football fan. No-one is punching the air because we are signing Elneny but I would assume most fans are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

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The issue isn't so much focussed on the signing (he could be decent and I hope he is) as on the fact we pretty much always leave ourselves in this situation by not doing enough in the summer, now sure you can say let's do the best we can now, but isn't that what we do every single transfer window? What we're doing thanks to Wenger poor judgement and planning is always half dealing with issues because there's never anyone available good enough.

I was just making a point about some information being better than none, this guy is an ubknown and thus we've seen nothing of him to make an accurate judgment, so at this time all we can base it on is other people's opinions who do know a bit about him.

He's better than what we have, how can he not be as our backups are dreadfully inadequate, the issue is the lack of planning and the fact that if this guy doesn't prove to be good enough (which is entirely possible considering the level he's been playing at), we're once again stuck with a player who isn't quite up to the right level but will be around for years to come, just like the Giroud's and Flamini's of this world.

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Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory

According to that Sky report, he's more box to box and likes to attack more than Coquelin, but I'm not complaining.

But why has he been allowed to leave mid season and for such a small fee?

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At that price you can only think that Basle don't thik he's a key player for them, why else would you let your player go at mid-season for such a low fee. If he had been crucial they'd surely have doubled the asking fee at least.

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Originally Posted by Letters

@Zim

You really are the most negative, glass half empty person ever.
You just suck the enjoyment out of everything.


No, it's Wenger that does that (thought I'd add that to save you the bother of replying.

:yawn:

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Thanks :good:

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Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory

http://www.skysports.com/football/ne...-in-at-arsenal

Sounds like a good player on our hands. We need strength and energy in the middle. If his passing is good, it may help Ramsey get back to form and soften the blow of losing Cazorla.

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Aye, my thoughts exactly. Have done a bit of homework on him, from reading the articles he does seem quite a tidy player, looks a decent passer from those youtube clips (don't laugh) and isn't afraid to put his foot in.

Wenger has a good track record with players in the 7-10mill range so I have high hopes for him. I do think it will take him a good season to settle in though.

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Originally Posted by Özim

At that price you can only think that Basle don't thik he's a key player for them, why else would you let your player go at mid-season for such a low fee. If he had been crucial they'd surely have doubled the asking fee at least.

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It does make me wonder. He doesn't sound like a crap player. Was his contract running or low or was he pushing for a move? He's a young player too.

Basle aren't a club who have a history of inflating valuations for their players or dragging their heels to rinse as much money as they can from the selling club. They sold Shaqiri, who was one of the hottest properties in Europe at the time for only 8.4 million to Bayern.

Thing is with them being a big fish in a small pond and dominating their league the same way Celtic and Bayern do theirs, they really aren't desperate for cash.

I also suspect that other clubs who may have been sniffing around decided to withdraw their interest as soon as we, quite early, leaked news of our approach for the player. That probably helped us drive down the price by preventing a bidding war.

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Originally Posted by The Emirates Gallactico

Basle aren't a club who have a history of inflating valuations for their players or dragging their heels to rinse as much money as they can from the selling club. They sold Shaqiri, who was one of the hottest properties in Europe at the time for only 8.4 million to Bayern.

Thing is with them being a big fish in a small pond and dominating their league the same way Celtic and Bayern do theirs, they really aren't desperate for cash.

I also suspect that other clubs who may have been sniffing around decided to withdraw their interest as soon as we, quite early, leaked news of our approach for the player. That probably helped us drive down the price by preventing a bidding war.

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Some very good players have come out of Basle's first team in recent years, Shaqiri like you mentioned, Mo Salah who is doing great things in Seria A even though Chelsea pretty much discarded him, Barca's Ivan Rakitic came from Basle via Sevilla to Barca. I'm not suggesting Elneny is going to replicate Rakitic's rise but Basle have developed some very good players in modern times.

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Originally Posted by Özim

At that price you can only think that Basle don't thik he's a key player for them, why else would you let your player go at mid-season for such a low fee. If he had been crucial they'd surely have doubled the asking fee at least.

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You seem determined to find the negatives about his deal, very strange when you've never seen him kick a ball. Basel are ten points clear, probably heading for their fourth title in a row. We don't know what stage of his contract is at either. As TEG says above, these sort of deals are rarely inflated in price. Part of me thinks you are just waiting for him to fail so you can aim another kick at the manager. I don't see why though, you should have enough targets already.