Summer Transfers 2025 Missed Opportunities and Regrets

[HCZ_Reborn]

See that's just not true.

We all watched the same players at the end of last season (23/24) do exactly the opposite of your statement. They were playing quick passing, counter attacking football.

So they are capable, but have been coached to be more defensive and possession based in their approach. That is 100% what we are seeing.

You can insist on this all you want it doesn’t make it true

The same way you can insist on this quaint idea that we can play on the counter attack without being in front

The game opened up after we took the lead in games (which we largely did through set piece play) and the first half of that season was the same slog to open the scoring that you’re remarking upon now.


I’m not after being nasty but I’m tired of having to relitigate what is obvious (or at least should be) none of you are actually stupid but if you don’t think we lack creativity to open up mid-low blocks and believe somehow we can make our players who are physically strong and hardworking more technically adept to make Ozil like passes or dribble past players then I do question either your motives or your eyesight


The facts are simple, Odegaard is the only creative player we have in the middle of the park and he has regressed. Even with him on top form we had trouble opening up mid table sides. What changed was we went to Dubai and started working on set piece routines which were hard to defend against, and then once we scored from those the game opened up.


What happened this season was a) teams got better at defending those set pieces b) through injury we missed a few of the key players involved in manufacturing them (like Saka and White) and c) Our only creative central midfielder started playing it safe

Suggesting that was a tactical tweak by Arteta (I mean I’ve accused him of being a psychopath but that was clearly in the heat of the moment)

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

See that's just not true.

We all watched the same players at the end of last season (23/24) do exactly the opposite of your statement. They were playing quick passing, counter attacking football.

So they are capable, but have been coached to be more defensive and possession based in their approach. That is 100% what we are seeing.

Definitely agree with the notion they are currently coached to play this slowly and concentrate on possession more than any other aspect of the game.

We have had players like Odegaard, Jorginho and Vieira who could play exactly like HCZ says with their array of passes, but all of them, including the captain, have been neutered and clearly encouraged to concentrate on not losing the ball.

IMO, our style is boring to watch, however I'm not totally convinced it's outdated yet and can't win us anything.

I do however believe a serious football club (or should I say coach) should be able to vary it, when the situation calls for it.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

On actual transfer news, reports in Spain suggest that we are actually willing to pay Nico Williams release clause and pay him wages of at least €9m a year.

Unfortunately for us and Bayern, his heart is with Barca and he is willing to wait till they fail with Liverpool's Diaz and take a considerable paycut (to what we are offering) to join them.

This seems to me like bad business, as he clearly wants to stay in Spain and his heart will always be their. An Antonio Reyes signing all over again.

Personally I'd strongly prefer we look to the premiership for players like Morgan Rogers and Mbuemo.....history should have thought us not to get seriously involved with young players who get home sick.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Definitely agree with the notion they are currently coached to play this slowly and concentrate on possession more than any other aspect of the game.

We have had players like Odegaard, Jorginho and Vieira who could play exactly like HCZ says with their array of passes, but all of them, including the captain, have been neutered and clearly encouraged to concentrate on not losing the ball.

IMO, our style is boring to watch, however I'm not totally convinced it's outdated yet and can't win us anything.

I do however believe a serious football club (or should I say coach) should be able to vary it, when the situation calls for it.

Jorginho is a deep lying defensive midfielder, he was good at playing balls that could get attacks going but again unless you have players in front of him that can play against deep/low blocks

I mean I thought I had a problem with Arteta, I think he plays it too safe by playing two defensive midfielders but it’s a whole different level when you suggest that players either with rock bottom confidence or who aren’t the most technically gifted are simply being told by Arteta to play sideways or backwards passes. There’s explanations and then there’s agendas

I don’t get why you want to refuse the simplest explanation.

Is the football awful when we play teams that play more attacking football and therefore give us more space to play. No it isn’t. Are we playing safe passes then? No we aren’t

Why is it so hard to admit that we need more creativity against obdurate teams, the stats prove it, your own eyes should prove it.

Having a quick distributor like Zubimendi at 6 will be part of the solution, having a dribbler and passing specialist at 8 will be the other half of the problem. Not this magical belief that we can make defensive players creative prodigies

The only explanation I can find for it, is struggling to accept that as good as Declan Rice can be he’s rather surplus to requirements. I won’t suggest selling him because that would be Pavlovian to the extent of showing Muslims an AI picture of Mohamed fucking a goat (I’ll just think it loudly, given the sheer amount we could generate for him).

[HCZ_Reborn]

On actual transfer news, reports in Spain suggest that we are actually willing to pay Nico Williams release clause and pay him wages of at least €9m a year.

Unfortunately for us and Bayern, his heart is with Barca and he is willing to wait till they fail with Liverpool's Diaz and take a considerable paycut (to what we are offering) to join them.

This seems to me like bad business, as he clearly wants to stay in Spain and his heart will always be their. An Antonio Reyes signing all over again.

Personally I'd strongly prefer we look to the premiership for players like Morgan Rodgers and Mbuemo.....history should have thought us not to get seriously involved with young players who get home sick.

That and he’s only a couple of rungs above Gervinho

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

Jorginho is a deep lying defensive midfielder, he was good at playing balls that could get attacks going but again unless you have players in front of him that can play against deep/low blocks

I mean I thought I had a problem with Arteta, I think he plays it too safe by playing two defensive midfielders but it’s a whole different level when you suggest that players either with rock bottom confidence or who aren’t the most technically gifted are simply being told by Arteta to play sideways or backwards passes. There’s explanations and then there’s agendas

I don’t get why you want to refuse the simplest explanation.

Is the football awful when we play teams that play more attacking football and therefore give us more space to play. No it isn’t. Are we playing safe passes then? No we aren’t

Why is it so hard to admit that we need more creativity against obdurate teams, the stats prove it, your own eyes should prove it.

Having a quick distributor like Zubimendi at 6 will be part of the solution, having a dribbler and passing specialist at 8 will be the other half of the problem. Not this magical belief that we can make defensive players creative prodigies

Need to stop with the silliness

You are talking about the simplest explanation, but you're the one choosing not to see it.

Arteta hasn't reinvented any wheel, nor created his own style, he's simply trying to mimic the way CIteh played under Pep in those glorious years, the same thing the Chelsea coach, another disciple of his is doing.

Citeh have had far more talented and creative players than we could ever dream of, yet counter attacking is not one of the things they were ever known to do well in Pep's hey days.

However, I do think Pep is slightly changing and trying to reinvent himself like IBK hinted.

To me, saying our players are not technical enough to play faster counter attacking football with incisive passes is quite strange, because we've seen them do it before (in the early days of Arteta) and we've had some of the fastest young players in the league for quite a while, which is a fact.

[HCZ_Reborn]

You are talking about the simplest explanation, but you're the one choosing not to see it.

Arteta hasn't reinvented any wheel, nor created his own style, he's simply trying to mimic the way CIteh played under Pep in those glorious years, the same thing the Chelsea coach, another disciple of his is doing.

Citeh have had far more talented and creative players than we could ever dream of, yet counter attacking is not one of the things they were ever known to do well in Pep's hey days.

However, I do think Pep is slightly changing and trying to reinvent himself like IBK hinted.

To me, saying our players are not technical enough to play faster counter attacking football with incisive passes is quite strange, because we've seen them do it before (in the early days of Arteta) and we've had some of the fastest young players in the league for quite a while, which is a fact.

But I haven’t said we can’t play counter attacking football cos we don’t have the players. We beat City 5-1 by playing on the counter

But City aren’t most teams. For us to play counter attacking against most teams you have to have a lead to begin with, and sometimes that isn’t enough. A team that is 1-0 down isn’t going to go all out to get an equaliser right away.

Therefore you need players that can open up teams. And we need to stop playing two defensive midfielders against say Crystal Palace or Aston Villa at home, it’s unnecessary. We need to spend money on a striker, but we need to spend money on a top creative midfielder (you seem to agree with me that this player should be Morgan Rodgers, except I think he should play at 8 and not on the left).

[KSE Comedy Club]

You can insist on this all you want it doesn’t make it true

The same way you can insist on this quaint idea that we can play on the counter attack without being in front

The game opened up after we took the lead in games (which we largely did through set piece play) and the first half of that season was the same slog to open the scoring that you’re remarking upon now.


I’m not after being nasty but I’m tired of having to relitigate what is obvious (or at least should be) none of you are actually stupid but if you don’t think we lack creativity to open up mid-low blocks and believe somehow we can make our players who are physically strong and hardworking more technically adept to make Ozil like passes or dribble past players then I do question either your motives or your eyesight


The facts are simple, Odegaard is the only creative player we have in the middle of the park and he has regressed. Even with him on top form we had trouble opening up mid table sides. What changed was we went to Dubai and started working on set piece routines which were hard to defend against, and then once we scored from those the game opened up.


What happened this season was a) teams got better at defending those set pieces b) through injury we missed a few of the key players involved in manufacturing them (like Saka and White) and c) Our only creative central midfielder started playing it safe

Suggesting that was a tactical tweak by Arteta (I mean I’ve accused him of being a psychopath but that was clearly in the heat of the moment)

Look, if you pass the ball from the keeper to a defender and then across to the next defender, and back again, then forwards, then sideways, then backwards, etc - and you do this 40 times in the space of 2-3 minutes all whilst only progressing the ball 2 meters from the 18 yard box then any team in the world can get their whole squad back in defense to sit and wait for the attack to come in.

It's not rocket science.

We are more often than not the architects of our own downfall in that regard.

I will absolutely insist on it as being true, as I sat there watching it every week for the last 16 games of that season.
We were quicker moving the ball and more decisive in our passing and shooting.

This season just gone we have changed our style to the shit we had to endure, and whilst there is no doubt teams have been far more cautious against us, our own slow sideways passing, build up play is 50% to blame.

[KSE Comedy Club]

Definitely agree with the notion they are currently coached to play this slowly and concentrate on possession more than any other aspect of the game.

We have had players like Odegaard, Jorginho and Vieira who could play exactly like HCZ says with their array of passes, but all of them, including the captain, have been neutered and clearly encouraged to concentrate on not losing the ball.

IMO, our style is boring to watch, however I'm not totally convinced it's outdated yet and can't win us anything.

I do however believe a serious football club (or should I say coach) should be able to vary it, when the situation calls for it.

Absolutely spot on.

[KSE Comedy Club]

On actual transfer news, reports in Spain suggest that we are actually willing to pay Nico Williams release clause and pay him wages of at least €9m a year.

Unfortunately for us and Bayern, his heart is with Barca and he is willing to wait till they fail with Liverpool's Diaz and take a considerable paycut (to what we are offering) to join them.

This seems to me like bad business, as he clearly wants to stay in Spain and his heart will always be their. An Antonio Reyes signing all over again.

Personally I'd strongly prefer we look to the premiership for players like Morgan Rogers and Mbuemo.....history should have thought us not to get seriously involved with young players who get home sick.

True, I think it's been obvious for a while that he wants to go to Barca so I don't knwo why we are still looking at him (if we actually are of course)