Winter Transfer Missed Opportunities and Regrets

[IBK]

I have never, at any point in the last couple of decades and particularly this season thought we had the faintest chance of winning the CL. We've never hit the levels of consistency that convinced me we wouldn't fuck it up during the sequence of performances required to win it.

But people seem to have amnesia when it comes to the PL run-in. There are always swings and plots twists in the final few weeks. Even now I don't consider us out of it and I don't think Liverpool are superior to us, in fact I think they have been the weakest league leaders in some time. They are clearly favourites but a couple of injuries here, a couple of dropped points there, a dodgy penalty, all the things that have happened at Arsenal could happen at Liverpool too and we should have done everything in our power this January to ensure we are there to take advantage if they slip up.

This isn't about long term plans or strategies or wage bills or anything that doesn't directly impact what happens on the pitch. This is about selling strikers and not replacing them in the summer - so now we say, wait until the summer and we'll get a striker. Says who? We didn't get one when we needed him last summer and we didn't get him when we needed him this month. This is about losing Jesus and not doing something to correct that when we had the chance. This is about winning titles when we have the opportunity to win titles - right now. If we can write that off and say, wait until the summer and then next season, then give it up now. Because something else will happen in the summer and next season that will then become the excuse to hurry up and wait some more. Jam tomorrow when the jar is open now.

It's like we are trying to paint the perfect picture of a football club, all we need is for our opponents to stand still and not disturb us. We were 2 points behind city last season and now they have dropped a level. That was when we should have been stepping up a level, particularly in the transfer market. Instead we sold players and kept the money. And brought in a has-been on loan that wasn't a good player before he came here and still isn't now that he's here. Cheap, insufficient, and I'd call it negligent.

I'm not up for hearing more excuses from these owners, or the manager or anyone who isn't 100% committed to winning this title, this year.

And maybe we still can if, scandalously, we can rely on the maligned Havertz to just keep going in the hope he doesn't drop, and if we can pile a ton of pressure and expectation on a 17 year old kid. This is not a smart strategy in any context. It smacks far more of incompetence. Or lack of ambition.

Other clubs managed to freshen up their squads this window. They'll face all the perceived problems and issues some say we can't afford to face. We could have and were compelled to do the same and we didn't even try, apart from nosing around the players we were never getting - like Watkins - and blatantly ignoring those that were there for the taking given some determination and a decent bid - like Vlahovic or Gyokeres.

We can try to decipher what's going on at the club and be generous in our conclusions, but it's also fair to look at it and say, here we go, same old Arsenal. The Kroenke's told us to get excited. We gave them another chance, which we shouldn't have done considering the way the hid behind Wenger with their wallet clamped shut. Fool me once...

OK so we are aligned on last Summer's business insofar as there was evident negligence in seeking to strengthen our forward department (and re our second GK BTW). The club seemed obsessed with getting players out, and got rid of 4 forwards without bringing in any credible replacements (Sterling was clearly an unplanned last minute punt made in near desperation). I don't think this is hindsight either. Arsenal took a huge risk on Jesus' resurrection and Arteta being able to revive Sterling - and this has backfired. While the injury record of Partey and the questions surrounding Zinchenko, you can make a case for buying Calafiori and Merino, but this should not have been the total of our acquisitions for a team with ambitions to win the league. I am still mystified why we couldn't snap up Ivan Toney when I think he would have been great for a title push.

So risks and 'jam tomorrow' there.

But I don't think the same criticism can be levelled at this transfer window, for the reasons I set out in my post above. The damage had been done already, and given Liverpool's lead and the clear absence of options available to raise our level I don't think January was the time to try to rectify our Summer errors.

I don't think either that its as simple as saying that the owners and the manager lack ambition. The Kroenkes have spent a lot of money over the past 3 years or so, and part of our predicament has been (1) that unlike say Liverpool we started from a very poor base in terms of quality of players and had to spend big to catch up, and (2) our relative lack of recent success, combined with a downturn in clubs' finances accross Europe, meant that we lacked the ability to raise funds via player sales. Its easy to say - here are billionaire owners so the money is there, but like it or not we are run with one eye on sustainablility.

Aretea has neglected our forward line, but I don't think this equates to not wanting to win things. Nor do I think that (like AW) he is content with 4th place. I think it is more about our manager's natural proclivity towards control and structure - and perhaps a lack of flexibility particularly regarding strikers that he want's to be 'just right' to spend money on. I think he has been burnt by strikers in the past, and is wedded to the idea of his system producing goals rather than individual players.

I think also that our opinions need to be tempered a bit. I believe that but for some unbelievably harsh refereeing decisions that could not have been legislated for by the club, we would be well in this title race despite very bad luck with injuries (that Liverpool have avoided in the main). We are still second in the league and (I believe) the best team in the league (opinion not empirical evidence, obviously). Yes, we are a Havertz injury away from a massive problem, but let's not criticise too much based on 'what if's'. If you ask me whether I would prefer to be a City; Villa or Spurs (of the so-called 'top teams' that have been active in the January window) than Arsenal - I think the answer is pretty obvious.

So I might be regarded as lacking ambition in my opinion on our club, but I still believe that we have the base for success. Is it ideal to now wait until another Summer to see evidence of a planned intention to progress (assuming that we don't win the league)? No. But winning is not a given, no matter who you sign, and I think I'd rather be patient for another season than crashing and burning by making a reactive decision in January.