Summer Transfer Speculation and Shit

[Penguin]

Guys, we don't have an unlimited budget.

I would take Cesc over Wilshere or Ramsey any day but we need a striker and a wide forward more than another CM. Those two alone could cost us £60m. Add in Aurier for £10-15m, a replacement for Vermaelen and Fabianksi and that's our budget gone. We don't even have money to buy an established DM, let alone get ANOTHER CAM.

It would only be plausible if we sold Ozil to fund it, and that aint happining.

[selassie]

Guys, we don't have an unlimited budget.

I would take Cesc over Wilshere or Ramsey any day but we need a striker and a wide forward more than another CM. Those two alone could cost us £60m. Add in Aurier for £10-15m, a replacement for Vermaelen and Fabianksi and that's our budget gone. We don't even have money to buy an established DM, let alone get ANOTHER CAM.

It would only be plausible if we sold Ozil to fund it, and that aint happining.

Yep. Cesc is undoubtedly a world class player but we literally have no room for him in the team and have other pressing issues to deal with first...like Centre Forward, DM and Sagna replacement.

I personally feel we need two new forwards. TBH I highly doubt we will get all the "necessary" business done... so Cesc should be bottom of the wishlist. If he goes to City or Liverpool so be it.

[Globalgunner]

I somehow think we have already signed our 2 forwards. Remy and rumour has it Etoo. both would cost in transfer fees less than 8m for Remy alone. (Etoo is free). Granted Etoo would be paid at least 100k pw but with Giroud Etoo, Poldi, Remy and the Postman I think we have seen all our forwards. I think I could live with that. Cesc is a must IMO. It would be a travesty for him to plays elsewhere in England not here

[Power n Glory]

Cesc is worth the hassle. His game is head and shoulders above everything we have in our current set up. We should make space. No spot should be reserved for anyone if we can make a significant improvement in an area and our midfield still needs work. Besides Ramsey, there isn’t a single player in the midfield that has made a strong enough claim to be starting next year. Cazorla was patchy and we have no idea where Wenger wants to start him. Wing or middle. Ozil only starts because of his price tag and form for previous club. Jack has fitness issues and a lot to prove. He losses the ball a lot, chases around a lot but hardly makes a tackle. Rosicky is old. Arteta is old….we have room for Cesc and what he brings to the table.

[I am invisible]

The main issue I perceive (if you can call it an 'issue' at all) is that Cesc and Ramsey are too good to not play in most games. That means ideally, they would both be on the field at the same time. That then means somebody plays alongside Ramsey in the 2 ahead of the back 4 which I guess would be Arteta and then Cesc would play in front.

The other option is to play Cesc and Ramsey in a 2 with Ozil in front but perhaps that is just a little too attack minded.... I can't see a situation where we are rotating Ozil in and out of the team, even if only because of how much we paid for him. What I would say is that, Cesc and Ozil in the same team would turn one of them into much more of a runner depending on who is playing where.

I know exactly what you mean mate, but that's also kind of the point of it - we need to get away from this way of thinking that tells us that we have to shoe-horn all of our best players into the starting XI whenever we can, and start thinking more along the lines of a modular squad that we can effectively rotate across a long season. On the face of it, it seems counter-productive to suggest that you only play someone as good as Ramsey in half your games, but if the guy coming in for him is someone as good as Fabregas then you shouldn't really feel the loss. And, of course, the pay-off is that you're making sure that those players will be as fresh as possible and on top-form whenever you do play them (and you'll also be keeping everyone happy with a fair amount of game time). Besides, as we've seen over the last few years, you only end up getting about half the game time out of your players anyway if you don't rotate them, as they inevitably start to break down through fatigue and injury, and/or start losing form as the games mount up - might as well do it out of choice, and have quality cover arranged in advance.

[Munchies]

How about:

4-1-2-1-2

----Chesney----
Aurier---Kosc--BFG---Gibbs
----- CDM ---------
--Ramsey---Cesc---
-----Ozil--------
Feo-----Striker

[Marc Overmars]

If we're going to sign Cisc it has to be the 1.0 version. The guy who would sit deep and dictate a game, that way he could feasibly replace Arteta and we'd have no selection headaches.

We don't need the 2.0 version who would join in up front and leave the midfield exposed.

[I am invisible]

The buy back clause is nowhere near as strong as people are making out. What it really means is we get first option if the player requests a transfer and a bid comes in. According to reports the buy back cost is £35mill. If we pay that and there are no higher bids he's ours. But if there are higher bids the clause is blown out of the water unless we match it. The gypos would bid that without thinking and then add £10 mill on top without pausing to rape their sister. Oh so okay, maybe raping their sister would be too big a temptation and they'd do that first (second and third), but they could still outbid us during the cigarette lull. They'd also easily pay any outstanding amounts on the original fee. Remember, the dirty arab scum who have hijacked the club have stolen the wealth of an oil nation, money is irrelevant. They'd also be able to offer him a much higher salary. We are very much in second place if the sand dwelling filth decides to take an interest.

My understanding is that the buy-back clause only entitles us to first refusal if they decide to sell, and nothing more. However, where it gets interesting is that I've heard it suggested that there may also be a sell-on clause, that would entitle us to 50% of any fee if Barca were to sell to another club? If that's true, then it would mean that any other club would have to bid over £60m for the deal to be worth more to Barcelona than a £30m bid from us. And, if they still owe us any money from the deal that took Fabregas there in the first place (and Song for that matter), then it makes our bargaining position even stronger still?

Edit: Although I should also say that I very much put Fabregas in the bonus / luxury signing bracket - if we can squeeze it in with everything else we have to do then far out, but if not then so be it...

[selassie]

Cesc is worth the hassle. His game is head and shoulders above everything we have in our current set up. We should make space. No spot should be reserved for anyone if we can make a significant improvement in an area and our midfield still needs work. Besides Ramsey, there isn’t a single player in the midfield that has made a strong enough claim to be starting next year. Cazorla was patchy and we have no idea where Wenger wants to start him. Wing or middle. Ozil only starts because of his price tag and form for previous club. Jack has fitness issues and a lot to prove. He losses the ball a lot, chases around a lot but hardly makes a tackle. Rosicky is old. Arteta is old….we have room for Cesc and what he brings to the table.

P'n'G I do agree that Cesc is an upgrade on anything we currently have in Midfield and that includes Ozil.

However...signing Cesc will most likely mean we neglect or compromise one of the other areas of the team. I.E. not sign a striker of sufficient quality or not replace Sagna.

Edited to add: If we do bring back Cesc to play second striker and move Ozil to the wings I fear we will resort back to tiki taka....and fail to utilize the likes of Theo and Ramsey correctly. Moreover moving Cesc back to CM/Deep lying playmaker would be a massive risk IMHO, it would leave our midfield lighter than it is now and without a dedicated ball winner, we don't have one a ball winner now but we would be worse off IMHO with Ramsey and Cesc. Square pegs and round holes...

[The Emirates Gallactico]

If we're going to sign Cisc it has to be the 1.0 version. The guy who would sit deep and dictate a game, that way he could feasibly replace Arteta and we'd have no selection headaches.

We don't need the 2.0 version who would join in up front and leave the midfield exposed.

If we could get that version perhaps it could just about work especially seeing as he'd be alongside Ramsey who's industrious himself and is prepared to defend and get stuck into the tackle. But honestly I'd still worry heavily about it - it's just seems sensible and sane getting someone in who specialises in the role instead of hoping that Cesc can revert to his old format.

Also, people are getting too bamboozled by the low transfer fee and like Bibbles pointed out aren't factoring in wages here. Cesc is a world class star. You're talking about 150 k per week minimum these days which'll mean he'll be on Ozil money if not higher. Unless you remove someone else of the wage bill to pay for that you're talking about a significant bite into the warchest there to budget for that which will affect other more necessary signings.





If he did come though, I hope it'd end up as:

---------------World Class Striker -------------

---Greizemann------------------------Theo----

--------------Ozil ----------Ramsey----------

---------------------Cesc-------------------

Bench: Santi, Podolski and Rosicky


As I said before though, most likely what would happen is that we wouldn't sign Greizemann or a LW and instead Santi will be forced there again.



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Also, what's up with Barca always owing us money from past deals? Is this a standard operating practice from modern transfers or are they just always considerably late in paying us off? If it's the latter I hope we take them to court soon - it's disgraceful they can plunder our top stars (and Alex Song) and then delay in giving us the cash for it. If you're struggling to put money together, then stop taking our players!