Summer Transfer Speculation and Shit

[Power n Glory]

I don't personally see the striker position being as big a priority as the DM position, nor do I feel it as urgent, hence 'settling' for the potential of turning around someone like welbeck instead of relying on Giroud, Sonogo, Podolski or Walcott to lead the line.

In DM, the players are there, and we should go all out. Strikers? Very few are any good, and almost none of those are available.

I think a striker is more important if Wenger has no plans for Sanchez playing through the middle. We’re sitting ducks if we can’t break down defences and with the poor options we have up front, it inhibits players like Sanchez, Ozil, Ox, Cazorla and the rest of the attackers. They’re having to work extra hard to fashion out chances because we have a player that can’t hold up the ball or run beyond defenders. We can’t play it short, we can’t play it long. We don’t have the best of DM’s but it doesn’t effect the surrounding players nearly as badly as what I saw over the past two games.

In an ideal world, we should get both but we know that’s not going to happen.

[Dein-machine]

I don't personally see the striker position being as big a priority as the DM position, nor do I feel it as urgent, hence 'settling' for the potential of turning around someone like welbeck instead of relying on Giroud, Sonogo, Podolski or Walcott to lead the line.

In DM, the players are there, and we should go all out. Strikers? Very few are any good, and almost none of those are available.

Understand what you are saying but there will be far less pressure on our DM & defenders if we had a quality striker up top. I would expect Welback to be an improvement on Giroud but there is too much about his overall game that is far from the finished article. Giroud's hold up play & passing was so awful the other night that we ended up being under attack 50% of the time we played the ball to him. We also have clever players like Rambo, Ozil & Santi who are looking to break defences with quick 1-2's around the box - I don't think a Giroud or a Welback is quite on the same wave length as these guys

[Letters]

Your stat would say he's getting "a few" goals every 5 games.

I'm not sure how you get that from 40 goals in 100 games

I'm not disagreeing we need better though.

[I am invisible]

Hearing the Cavani stuff myself now on Twitter.

Does seem within the realm of possibility as I know PSG are looking to offload some players as FFP has screwed with some of their transfer targets. For example, they want to sign Di Maria but have been prevented from doing so already because of FFP. Also they could only sign Aurier on loan because signing him outright this season would have been too much. Cavani is rumoured to be unhappy as well.

Wasn't fond of him after his WC displays but as it stands with just Giroud and Sanogo leading the line for us I'd take him. He'd need to take a substantial cut from his 300 k a week though.

WC displays are always a poor guide for these things - you've got to go off club form really, and in that respect I don't think anyone can argue with Cavani's record of 30+ goals in each of his last 3 seasons in Italy, and 25 goals (from the wing!) in his first season in France. Whichever way you turn it, those are big boy stats!

I also think those figures that are being chucked around for his wages could be a little misleading? Don't forget that France have an eye-watering top-rate tax band of 75% now, so he'd only be trousering about a quarter of that as his take-home pay (about 75k a week). And if we're talking euros instead of pounds here, then you can probably knock another 20% off again to get to what he'd be earning in this country (we're getting down to about 60k a week, take-home, now). If I've done my (admittedly very quick and rough) sums correctly, then that means that a comparable offer of wages for a PL club would be between £110-135k a week gross (give or take), with anything above that representing an increase? That kind of salary would still make him one of our top earners (if not the top earner), but you never know - it might actually be more doable than it looks on first glance?

(* Incidentally, that 75% tax rate was approved in December 2013, after Cavani and Falcao et al moved to France, so that might explain why they're all suddenly so eager to get out, and why clubs like Monaco and PSG might genuinely be open to selling? If a large chunk of their squads are demanding pay-hikes to bring their take-home pay back to where it was before, then they may actually be keen to offload some of them?)

It still seems like a pretty unlikely deal though (for us, anyway) - even if we can afford it (and I suspect we could, given all our new commercial deals, the massive amount of extra money we're all getting for this new TV deal, and the added possibility of CL football), it's still a big outlay for a player that will be 28 in February, and who we may not actually need, depending on what the plan for Alexis is?

[selassie]

Wow...just shows how far our standards have dropped with strikers what with folks actually considering Welbeck as a viable option.

He's what 3rd/4th choice at a team that finished 7th last season, he's not a prolific scorer and from what I have seen of him struggles to strike the ball cleanly.

Our standards for a new striker should be as high as our standards for AM and Winger, as in Ozil/Sanchez level.

I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea what Arsene is doing with our forward line, our options are tragic compared to our rivals.

[Dein-machine]

I'm not sure how you get that from 40 goals in 100 games

I'm not disagreeing we need better though.

40/100 = 4/10 = 2/5
I have enough trouble educating you on the subject of "Wengeritus & its effects on Arsenal Football Club" without having to add Maths to my list.

[Power n Glory]

Wow...just shows how far our standards have dropped with strikers what with folks actually considering Welbeck as a viable option.

He's what 3rd/4th choice at a team that finished 7th last season, he's not a prolific scorer and from what I have seen of him struggles to strike the ball cleanly.

Our standards for a new striker should be as high as our standards for AM and Winger, as in Ozil/Sanchez level.

I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea what Arsene is doing with our forward line, our options are tragic compared to our rivals.

We should be aiming higher but unfortunately we're often faced with such dilemmas because we have a very rigid and stubborn coach. If I was certain Wenger was going to play Sanchez, Campbell or Walcott through the middle, I wouldn't sweat it. Welbeck shouldn't even be on our radar when you consider the names I just mentioned in comparison. But here we are.

[Dein-machine]

Tbf, we don't even know that Welbeck is on Wenger's radar, our problem is that this is the kind of signing we have got used to instead of the real quality we need, especially in the striking area, so these potentially garbage reports tend to worry us all maybe more than they should.

[Power n Glory]

Tbf, we don't even know that Welbeck is on Wenger's radar, our problem is that this is the kind of signing we have got used to instead of the real quality we need, especially in the striking area, so these potentially garbage reports tend to worry us all maybe more than they should.

I don't mean Wenger is this regards. I mean the fans. It shouldn't be a debate or consideration. But the fact that we're starting with Sanogo and Giroud shows how far we've fallen. It makes no sense to be starting with either when you consider what's on the bench.

[Letters]

40/100 = 4/10 = 2/5
I have enough trouble educating you on the subject of "Wengeritus & its effects on Arsenal Football Club" without having to add Maths to my list.

Wait....wait....

Right.

Yeah, fair enough