Was this our most wasted summer transfer window yet?

[Maestro]

We have signed premium talent, nothing has changed.The manager is the reason we are not good enough to push for major honours.

Agreed.

The way I see it, we have a very talented team technically if not the most talented in the league. We've seen what they can do when they are fired up, work their socks off and to a set game plan. Sadly we obviously haven't seen anywhere near enough of that, for various reasons which ultimately lead to a couple of doors. ......poor management of the team and lack of sporting ambition from the board and owner.

We've got four world class players (Sanchez, Ozil, Bellerin, Kos) surrounded by a couple of very good players (Carzola, Mustafi) and several good/decent players (Perez, Coquelin, Ox, Iwobi, Welbeck, Cech). Of course we can always strengthen and maybe need to in a couple of areas, but that's not a bad outfit. The only thing lacking is a manager who has not only the ability but most importantly, the balls to run the team. We need a manager with a ruthless will to win and can transmit that to the team, and demand full application win or lose.

There's a whole lot of fucking slackness going at this club, far too much skylarking for my liking.

[topgun]

Agreed.

The way I see it, we have a very talented team technically if not the most talented in the league. We've seen what they can do when they are fired up, work their socks off and to a set game plan. Sadly we obviously haven't seen anywhere near enough of that, for various reasons which ultimately lead to a couple of doors. ......poor management of the team and lack of sporting ambition from the board and owner.

We've got four world class players (Sanchez, Ozil, Bellerin, Kos) surrounded by a couple of very good players (Carzola, Mustafi) and several good/decent players (Perez, Coquelin, Ox, Iwobi, Welbeck, Cech). Of course we can always strengthen and maybe need to in a couple of areas, but that's not a bad outfit. The only thing lacking is a manager who has not only the ability but most importantly, the balls to run the team. We need a manager with a ruthless will to win and can transmit that to the team, and demand full application win or lose.

There's a whole lot of fucking slackness going at this club, far too much skylarking for my liking.

Good post,totally agree.Heard someone recently that we have a really good team we just need a really good manager,can't say I disagree.

[Özim]

Awful transfer window wasted on the wrong players.

Xhaka - not worth the money we paid, not convinced he was the right player to sign though we did new a DM
Mustafi - again relatively unknown, really expensive for someone with no real pedigree
Perez - Once again we waste our money on players that aren't suitable, we needed an out and out goalscorer but we went for a glorified winger, that was never going to end well.

In the end though, Wenger never gets it right, he either doesn't spend the money or when he does signs all the wrong players and wastes millions, the guy just needs to leave and let someone who know what they're doing take over.

As for our latest addition, what an absolute joke, the guy was about to quit part time football to find himself a job and then we go and snap him up lol

[Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie]

Awful transfer window wasted on the wrong players.

Xhaka - not worth the money we paid, not convinced he was the right player to sign though we did new a DM
Mustafi - again relatively unknown, really expensive for someone with no real pedigree
Perez - Once again we waste our money on players that aren't suitable, we needed an out and out goalscorer but we went for a glorified winger, that was never going to end well.

In the end though, Wenger never gets it right, he either doesn't spend the money or when he does signs all the wrong players and wastes millions, the guy just needs to leave and let someone who know what they're doing take over.

As for our latest addition, what an absolute joke, the guy was about to quit part time football to find himself a job and then we go and snap him up lol

The opinion of Le Grove for what it's worth is that Wenger is playing Xhaka as a box to box midfielder when he should be playing him as a deep lying playmaker and therefore we are not getting what we should be getting out of him.

The problem with getting an out and out goal scorer was who do you get?.....the only big striker move in the summer was Higuain from Napoli to Juventus for 75million. Man City could not get Aubemeyang, Real Madrid could not get Lewandowski.....out and out strikers of great quality are a rarity. I think Lucas Perez might have been a panic buy, but 16million reflects the absurdity of the current market and I have to say I actually like what i've seen of him....i just think he needs to play more.

[Goonermerree]

I don't know if I like Perez or not, he's looked good at times, but he deifinately needs to play more.

[Power n Glory]

Wenger recently corrected that statement about Xhaka being a box to box player.

http://www.squawka.com/news/wenger-x...fielder/836501

I don't see that in his game anyway. He's not mobile enough for that role. We just bought the wrong sort of player. He wasn't the sort of midfielder we needed and now we're scrambling around trying to find the right player combination to compliment him. It's a huge waste of money. Not good enough on the ball to protect it and recycle possession. Too reckless to protect the back four and pretty poor at defending anyway. A decent long pass but we can hardly take advantage of it because we usually play against a packed defence. I have no idea what we were thinking.

Too early to judge Perez. He has quality and needs more games to really judge.

[Özim]

The only good thing about our last transfer window was the one season wonder Vardy turning us down, whilst embarassing, it would have been far more embarassing to have waste 20 million on a guy who can't hit a barn door these days.

[mastermind84]

Wenger recently corrected that statement about Xhaka being a box to box player.

http://www.squawka.com/news/wenger-x...fielder/836501

I don't see that in his game anyway. He's not mobile enough for that role. We just bought the wrong sort of player. He wasn't the sort of midfielder we needed and now we're scrambling around trying to find the right player combination to compliment him. It's a huge waste of money. Not good enough on the ball to protect it and recycle possession. Too reckless to protect the back four and pretty poor at defending anyway. A decent long pass but we can hardly take advantage of it because we usually play against a packed defence. I have no idea what we were thinking.

Too early to judge Perez. He has quality and needs more games to really judge.

the best teams in Europe have over the last few years registas like Xhaka.

He is exactly the sort of player we need. The problem is we have the wrong manager to use him.

Good article on Xhaka's positioning and him getting Wenger'd

http://first-11.net/2017/01/arsenals...-granit-xhaka/

Arsène Wenger prefers a dynamic midfield which suits Francis Coquelin and has utilised Xhaka to play the 8 role without the ball and the 6 role in possession, which leaves him unable to fulfil his full potential. The 8 is not suitable for a regista of Xhaka’s calibre: it takes him out of his depth, asking him to press extensively and ask him to support offensive phases. Xhaka now initiates the first counter press, and if it is bypassed is caught chasing back, trailing behind the play, a situation which should not occur for a player who should maintain the 6 role throughout.

[Özim]

The opinion of Le Grove for what it's worth is that Wenger is playing Xhaka as a box to box midfielder when he should be playing him as a deep lying playmaker and therefore we are not getting what we should be getting out of him.

The problem with getting an out and out goal scorer was who do you get?.....the only big striker move in the summer was Higuain from Napoli to Juventus for 75million. Man City could not get Aubemeyang, Real Madrid could not get Lewandowski.....out and out strikers of great quality are a rarity. I think Lucas Perez might have been a panic buy, but 16million reflects the absurdity of the current market and I have to say I actually like what i've seen of him....i just think he needs to play more.

I'm not convinced, just don't think Xhaka is really what we needed, he's a typical Wenger signing really, much like Mustafi, Wenger always wants players who are under the radar so to speak.

As for Perez, he may get a few goals but he's not the answer to a problem we've had for year, who could we have signed, IMO there were a few players with better goal records flying about that may have been a better bet if we weren't going to go for someone like Griezmann. Lacazette would have been my choice.

[Power n Glory]

I'm not convinced, just don't think Xhaka is really what we needed, he's a typical Wenger signing really, much like Mustafi, Wenger always wants players who are under the radar so to speak.

As for Perez, he may get a few goals but he's not the answer to a problem we've had for year, who could we have signed, IMO there were a few players with better goal records flying about that may have been a better bet if we weren't going to go for someone like Griezmann. Lacazette would have been my choice.

No idea why Wenger keeps doing this. I keep reading blogs and tweets suggesting we're not playing Xhaka deep enough and it's a problem with our formation /system but I disagree. We should have bought a player to enhance the current system, not someone that create a whole new systematic conundrum. We finally work out that it takes a player like Santi to play in that role and we finally discover a more combative DM in Coquelin. Instead of upgrading on either of the two players he throws in a totally different player that can't in the current set up effectively.

He did the same after selling RVP. After the struggle we had to find a good striker after Henry and Ade, we find a role for RVP that he blossoms in but we sell him and go for a totally different striker that's incompatible with our current system. Giroud and Podolski were terrible buys. He just keeps on doing it. He doesn't adapt the system just tries to force the players to fit.