Summer Transfers 2025 Missed Opportunities and Regrets

[KSE Comedy Club]

Yup, I too was one of the mugs who paid to go along and watch tedious football played by a team whose manager wanted them to be the kings of control, only he'd paid no attention to how we maximise that control and so we end up with the Horseshoe of Death

The best games - Citeh and Real - were against teams who didn't deploy the low block, but everyone knows that's how to defeat us

The irony is that in brief moments we've seen that most if not all of our players can transition quickly, but 99% of the time our system and style prevents it

Exactly what I was saying.

[KSE Comedy Club]

What I would say is that if Partey is going to leave, then the club should stop negotiating with him now and focus on picking up a cheap replacement.

Zubi is going to be the main man in that position by all accounts, so we need a back up to fill in.

[KSE Comedy Club]

https://www.skysports.com/football/n...arsenal-target

If Leipzig want 85.5 million for him, we probably should look elsewhere. Ekitike, Watkins (would be bottom
of the barrel), Jonathan David and Martinez.

Especially if Sesko isn’t going to force the issue

That's what I have been saying all along.

He's not worth that kind of money as he is as much a gamble as Gyokores for example.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Exactly what I was saying.

Our system and style doesn’t prevent it. The system and style of most other teams prevents it.

You have to rely on other teams committing players forward, which most premier league teams won’t do unless they have to go for broke (usually in a situation that they are already behind to begin with). My question I pose is how do we create the state of affairs to make these teams go behind, and I give the answer that we need more creativity and you respond like I’ve called your mother a vapid whore.

[HCZ_Reborn]

That's what I have been saying all along.

He's not worth that kind of money as he is as much a gamble as Gyokores for example.

No what you’ve been saying all along is we should be signing Gyokeres because of all the goals he’s scored in a spastic league

Your argument the other week was that Leipzig were demanding 80 million euros for him (which as I pointed out to you was the same as the 67 million pounds often cited). I’m saying if it rises to 85 million we should look elsewhere

[KSE Comedy Club]

No what you’ve been saying all along is we should be signing Gyokeres because of all the goals he’s scored in a spastic league

Your argument the other week was that Leipzig were demanding 80 million euros for him (which as I pointed out to you was the same as the 67 million pounds often cited). I’m saying if it rises to 85 million we should look elsewhere

I prefer Gyokores as he has proven the ability to score more goals than Sekso, therefore he is also a gamble but less so than a player that has only managed a qtr of the goals.

And yes - 80m Euros is too much for him when he has been bang average.

So we agree that any more than that is way too much - no?

[HCZ_Reborn]

Again, in a way I'd say the same for you. I mean your arguments defending the club always come from the extremely naive position "the club is run properly" (despite evidence to the contrary), as it seems you consider running what is now largely an entertainment behmoth akin to running the local kebab shop, where you live to balance the books every year and more importantly pray no one else opens one next to you!

As for Partey, he did have that funny spell after coming back from injury last season, though before he got injured he was churning out his usual imperious displays IIRC.

Also I readily admit I'm probably not one of the best people to have a Partey argument with (just like you are terrible to have a Martinelli discussion with) as I consider him the most important recruit under the Arteta era, and have always believed when he is on form, there has been no player better in the league capable of doing what he does so seemlessly in the last 5 years. Still give him so much props for our first title challenge, which really is the challenge I believe we should have won.

Anyway lets sees how much "perfect sense" your infatuation with caution makes, as I'm pretty certain we are losing him for nothing seeing as African players don't do pay cuts (or freezes).

You could of course make that argument but it’s the equivalent of “I know you are but what am I”

That and it would ignore the amount of times I’ve castigated the club from failure to prioritise a striker last summer (and people here took issue with me for being impatient when I said why are we signing Calafiori when we need a striker), referring to Josh Kroenke as “Stan’s idiot son” and criticised the club for allowing Arteta to do a power grab

It’s just Im able to employ enough nuance that I don’t think every single thing the club does is bad. Because it’s a ridiculous and maximalist position and you can twist it in so many ways so that you’re never wrong. I’m sorry to say had we given Partey a new contract and he’d spent half the season injured like the 23/24 season the same people would be blaming the club for giving him a new contract. And I can I'm afraid smell that heads I win, tails you lose mentality a mile off.

[KSE Comedy Club]

Our system and style doesn’t prevent it. The system and style of most other teams prevents it.

You have to rely on other teams committing players forward, which most premier league teams won’t do unless they have to go for broke (usually in a situation that they are already behind to begin with). My question I pose is how do we create the state of affairs to make these teams go behind, and I give the answer that we need more creativity and you respond like I’ve called your mother a vapid whore.

It's 50/50 I'm afraid. Our style absolutely contributes to our lack of attack.
Also you are wrong about my response - I said that I agreed that we could add creativity to take the burden off Odegaard, but I disagreed that it was as important as sorting out the attack.

You still believe that these players can't make runs or defence splitting passes, when we have seen the very same players do it.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I prefer Gyokores as he has proven the ability to score more goals than Sekso, therefore he is a gamble but less so than a player that has only managed a qtr of the goals.

Yes - and 80m Euros is too much for him when he has been bang average.

So we agree that any more than that is way too much - no?

No I’d pay up to 75 million for him, just not 85 million so we don’t agree

Just as we don’t agree that scoring however many goals Gyokeres has in a spastic league is any more impressive than the 27 in 64 that Sesko has in the Bundesliga

[IBK]

More thoughts on our transfer situation. Believe me, I get that its early and that there may be a lot going on behind the scenes and that Arsenal may be on board with this Sesko/Gyokores saga so as not to seem too desperate for either. But the problem is that we have been badly burned too many times before, and seem willing to take risks - both in holding out and with playing games with selling clubs (Suarez springs to mind) that end up blowing up in our faces.

I'm a bit sick of being constantly linked to players that we may have no hope in hell of signing. I know that this can be to a large extent outside the club's control but rumours thrive in a vacuum. Based on our transfer business over the past few years - when even our best signings have been protracted affairs I don't think its unfair to say that we are neither decisive nor efficient when we do business, and the impression that despite changing sporting directors this trend is not changing is disappointing - more so when our needs are so obvious, and we are supposed to have been courting certain players for so long; failed to address our forward position both last Summer and in January to keep our powder dry for these, and arguably f*cked our best chance to win the league last season as a result.

Like I said yesterday, our competitors are showing far more decisiveness and effectiveness than we are so far. This suggests that they have very clear ideas of how they are going to improve. Our apparent position demonstrates the opposite. At best that strengthening our squad depends upon opportunistic signings or meeting our own valuations rather than simply signing the best players identified for a position. At worst that we have no clear idea which players will work best for us.

The other aspect to consider is reputation. We are selling targets the promise of jam tomorrow, because we have not won anything big for so long. Despite our CL progress last season, we were distant also rans in the league, and in both comps we need to compete with clubs with proven track records of major silverware. My honest opinion is that we might already seem a less attractive target for players than we were at this stage last season - as much as anything because our lack of transfer activity blew up in our faces. Our current lack of concrete progress in the striker department, combined with relative tumbleweed re a winger - and certainly in attacking CM positions - does not exactly enhance the impression of a club on the cusp of greatness - or even one with a clear and considered pathway for success - for our top targets. Further, being seen to be flirting with a number of different options must convey a message to, say, a Sesko, that the club is not 100% committed to them.

It's hard to escape the impression that we are a bit 'small time' for the 7th or 8th biggest club in the world (depending on which rankings you look at), or that our owners are not committed to winning the big comps. We are looking hesitant rather than canny in the transfer market ATM.