Ben White has finally signed. And just to really wind up the Saliba fan club he's been given the no. 4 shirt as well
Ben White has finally signed. And just to really wind up the Saliba fan club he's been given the no. 4 shirt as well
salibaOriginally Posted by Gooner23
Ben White has finally signed. And just to really wind up the Saliba fan club he's been given the no. 4 shirt as well
Phew! Only Arsenal can drag a done deal out for a month.
Excited about this one.
The Cult of Saliba need to let this go - just let the kid develop in peace and get behind White and the other CBs in the meantime.Ben White has finally signed. And just to really wind up the Saliba fan club he's been given the no. 4 shirt as well
I get it - we all wanted to believe the “next Varane” hype, esp. at a time when we desperately needed a good CB to come in and save us, but the reality is he’s just a highly-rated prospect that Raul massively overpaid for (again) and he should never have had the pressure of that price tag heaped on him.
Fwiw, I still think there’ll be a place for him here - for one thing he’ll count as home-grown by the time this current loan ends, and that sounds like it could be a big tick for him - but for now getting regular minutes under his belt is going to be far more beneficial to him than sitting on our bench as 4th choice CB. Final test for him now is to see if he can maintain form and fitness across more than half a season.
Yeah, Roma can go fuck themselves for 12m - Edu needs to get on the phone and start sounding out other options.Apparently Roma's last offer for Xhaka was 12 million euros plus some add ons. Can see why we've told them to shove it. Frustrating though, thought we were finally moving on
Nobody else seems remotely interested in Xhaka. I hear we are now planning to offer him a new contract...at an increased level no doubt because that what we always do. A year from now we wont be able to give Xhaka away for free
Make 2mrw better than 2day
Honestly, I’d be surprised if Xhaka signs any extension. My take on it is he was ready to storm out in a huff in Dec 19 and was even prepared to drop as far as Hertha Berlin to get out - I think what happened then is that Arteta talked him down from the ledge with the promise of getting him a better move in the summer if he gave him 6 good months, and then the pandemic hit and we all ended up stuck with each other for another year as the market collapsed.
At this point I don’t think there’s any part of Xhaka that is remotely interested in signing an extension, and I’m sure he’s quite aware that the main reason he’d be offered one would be to protect his value if we can’t sell this summer. He wants an easy out so it’s really not in his interest.
Agreed. I still think this has to happen this summer - the player clearly wants out, we won’t get a better offer next summer (with or without an extension) and we need to free up non-HG spots in the squad before we can add any more foreign players. I still think this will happen, but it’s starting to look like it’ll be a late deal now, which really isn’t helpful.
I wonder if this might now force our hand with other sales, e.g. redouble efforts to move Torreira on (for the non-HG spot), and Willock and AMN for the money and wages? Seems clear that we can’t rely solely on Roma coming up with a suitable offer and need contingencies.
Also need to call it on Locatelli now - we’ve given it plenty of time and it’s not going anywhere. Pull the offer and move on.
Ffs, we’ve just signed a £50m player and all we’ve done is talk about Xhaka an a teenager we have on loan!
Last edited by I am invisible; 31-07-2021 at 10:48 AM.
Locatelli won't be coming here he wants to move to Juventus (though they are still pursuing with the plan for a European super league so champions league football hopefully will be taken away from them) so we have to forget about him.
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