Summer Transfer Speculation and Shit

[Kano]

finishing five points behind man city come the end is quite misleading. come jan/feb we were 10 points behind them which (apart from 2011/12) is round about the gap between us and 1st and in any of those years i don't think we would believe we were anywhere near challenging.

city tailed off once mancini screwed them over and they were only interested in the cup but if they had a real target in the league after march, we would have been the usual distance behind.

[Özil's Panoramic View]

No, but your post implied we need a complete clear-out in order to push on. We don't. We finished 4th. Utd went mental, no-one else was any good last year. We were only 5 points off 2nd. We're not that far away from a side who can challenge. If we clear out a bit of dead wood (which we've started to) and make some proper quality signings then we'll head in the right direction.

My post implied no such thing. I said we needed players of genuine quality to replace those 1st teamers I listed if we're to mount a title challenge. The cycle needs to broken, and only a mass clear out can help us at this point.

What we currently have barely scraped 4th on the last day of the season, again. And, if the outfit is anywhere near the same next season, then it will be more of the same.

I could care less about how close we finished to 2nd place last season. Fact is, we were out of title contention very early, and were miles off the champs. Only reward for finishing 2nd, 3rd, 4th is CL footie, which is only prioritised for the prestige and for keeping the troughs loaded with cash so the fat swines at the top can gorge their snouts in and have their fill. Time us fans get some reward, too, by getting a team that won't be sent packing the 1st proper team we meet in the knock-out stages of the competition.

[Ollie the Optimist]

Man U had the best manager around, probably the best motivator as well, he almost gets players to play beyond their ability, Wenger can't do that.

I think we need more than 3, we've lacked a quality spine to the team for years now and that would be the starting point for me, we also need some options on the bench, right now we don't really seem to have much in terms of matchwinners.

The end of season run was never going convince me as we always have a run like this every season and in the end we get to the new season and then realise nothing has changed.

I think we have a spine though. the defence this season was solid, second best in the league. add in some cover, williams and cesar adn we are sorted there. midfield is solid imo, just need fellani and i think we have a very strong midfield, if we could get cesc will that would be fantastic, but up front is where we need the matchwinners. higuain and rooney would do that imo. podolski, walcott, and giroud as options are not bad. look at uniteds strike force last year, judas ****, rooney, hernandez and welbeck (just for a laugh here, mertesacker scored more goals then welbeck)

so we would have our spine of mertesacker, kos, gibbs, jack, arteta and cazorla. the matchwinners (assuming we get higuain) would be him, cazorla, jack and to an extent koscienly.

then you have players like rosicky, ramsey, podolski, giroud, sagna (if he is still here) ox, vermaelen, podolski, as squad players. thats not a bad squad at all, and can challenge imo

[Letters]

Had is right. They don't have him any more and while they're not going to suddenly be in mid-table I don't think they'll go nuts without him like they did last year. Chelsea and City are obviously going to go nuts in the transfer market and it is hard to compete with them but I don't think we need to do as much as you say to get a lot closer. We drew way too many games last year - we had 8 0-0s or 1-1s. Get a real top class clinical striker, and a top midfielder to create more chances and we could turn a lot of those into wins. The defence actually did well last year, we could do with a top 'keeper to push Chez and maybe another centre back.

[Özil's Panoramic View]

Do Utd have 5 or 6 world class players? I don't think so.
My issue with Josh's post is he's listed 6 of our first team. We don't need to replace that many to get a lot closer.
We do need to clear out a lot of dead wood but I'm thinking players like Arshavin, Chamakh, Bendtner, Gervinho.
Podolski is fine, Giroud I'm not so sure about but for a first season he did OK.
Sign 2 or 3 top class players and it would make a big difference.
And if I sound like a broken record it's because that's been true for years and we've never signed the right players.
Will we this year? I'm not holding my breath.

Thing is, Letters, it's already clearly established who are the deadweights that need offloading. You correctly listed a few here.

I'm just taking it a step further and calling out those in our 1st team that just aren't good enough to push us to the top. Might sound a bit harsh if you think what we have now is only 2% from donmination.

[Letters]

I'm just taking it a step further and calling out those in our 1st team that just aren't good enough to push us to the top. Might sound a bit harsh if you think what we have now is only 2% from donmination.

I think where we differ is I think some of those you're calling out are good enough to be in a squad that could push us to (or near) the top.
They're not good enough without some quality additions but with them I think we could be right up there.

The players I listed shouldn't even be in the squad of a top 4 side.

[Özil's Panoramic View]

I think where we differ is I think some of those you're calling out are good enough to be in a squad that could push us to (or near) the top.
They're not good enough without some quality additions but with them I think we could be right up there.

The players I listed shouldn't even be in the squad of a top 4 side.

Fair enough. Maybe my call to sell them all might be a bit drastic. We could probably relegate a few to squad duties, like say Sagna who's proven himself and might deserve better than to be carted off as soon as he's dropped form; Sir Ches probably needs an experienced, top keeper a la Cesar to understudy to properly hone and develop the potential he clearly has; Giroud might be worth a punt seeing that the mancs have Welbeck and the chavs have Torres; and maybe Podolski who currently seems our best finisher, albeit undeniably a lazy fuck .

I still contend, though, that the rest have no place here if our ambition has been elevated to title hopes.

[Özil's Panoramic View]

To get back on track a bit, the chavs have signed Cavani and Liverpool Mignolet, why hasn't our boy Higgy come home yet?

[Master Splinter]

Their last £50m striker was a bit shit.

As was their last superstar striker from Serie A.

Sanogo > Cavani tbfh.

[Özil's Panoramic View]

Their last £50m striker was a bit shit.

As was their last superstar striker from Serie A.

Sanogo > Cavani tbfh.

Hard arguing against that, tbh.

Following up on my Higgy inquiry, how reliable is The Independent?

It is reporting this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...e-8672699.html