But we need two CBs, don't we? Even if that means just the two and not one more, given the new recruitment policies.Originally Posted by Chippy
But we need two CBs, don't we? Even if that means just the two and not one more, given the new recruitment policies.
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Which makes me wonder about Calafiore. Isn't he a CB?
Is this the summer? Saliba out and Sesko in?
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Calafiore is a CB but Arteta likes a right/left footed combination at CB, how much do you think we'd get for Saliba isn't he still only 23? if so should be at least £120m (it is Madrid so try and rinse as much a we can might get another Barca)
Trouble with selling Saliba is it means waiting until the Kroenkes leave before we seriously try to grab top spot in England and compete with genuine intent in the CL. That could be a long time.
Selling Saliba means it's all over for the club for the foreseeable future, not because Saliba can't be replaced but because he won't be.
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The point is they work extermely well as a partnership and also Saliba is geniunely world class, he's only 22 or something so can only get better, selling him would be an act of insanity
that said as others point out we do need to show him we can win stuff or he might get restless
Thing is I blame the Kroenkes much less than Arteta - you don't spend £105m on a player unless you're prepared to back the c lub, but thay don't understand football so are heavily guided by Arteta's judgement, and his judgement when it comes to prioritising signings to strengthen our attack is seriously flawed
I don't see how one of England's top clubs paying the going rate for urgently required players is some special level of commitment as opposed to the reality of the game if you are serious about competing - which is not necessarily the same as being serious about winning.
According to Transfermarkt Pep has spent 1.2 bill building his city squad from the pile of crap he inherited. Klopp spent 800 mill which is why Slot has had the luxury of putting his feet up in the transfer windows. Like Pep, we had to get rid of shite like Luiz, Mustafi and extraordinary waste like Pepe and replace them with actual footballers like Gabby, Odegard and Rice. Failure to do that would have seen us heading back down the table, we've seen this with Utd and the spuds, we've seen what happens if you fail to do at least the bare minimum.
We've spent around 590 mill since Arteta arrived, not the 700 mill being touted. It's a lot of money, but not as much as the club we finished a couple of points behind last season. And not as much as the club we finished above. Seems to me Arteta has made more of what he's had than most. Whether you believe the Kroenke's have been instrumental or not, we've definitely improved under Arteta. The discussion now is whether we can go the final mile and win something more than the minor cups. It took city at least half a billion more in spending to achieve what we are chasing.
We'll see though, won't we? There's a reason fans are now talking about 200 mill plus being required in the summer, because that's what's required, in today's market, to bring in the top talent required to compete at the top level. If it happens then okay, maybe it couldn't happen sooner for reasons we don't know about but at least it happens eventually. If we don't spend what is required then it's be just as easy to conclude the Kroenke's are here to keep the cash cow eating well enough to keep the milk flowing. If the latter is true then there aren't any managers out there who could do anything about that. Do you think Pep could have delivered with half his budget chopped?
It's not just the spending, it's the statement of intent. The top players will want to come to teams that can fulfil their personal ambitions, they won't want to go and keep time waiting for something that, by design, will never arrive. And players already at the club will look elsewhere as their career paths shorten.
But none of that has a bearing on the other issue that can't be reasoned away. We are short of players this season, not short of talent but short of actual bodies. Injuries, bad decisions in the summer, all required emergency measures to be taken in January and nothing was done. There's no excuse for that, at least no acceptable excuse. It's pure negligence. Arteta has said he wanted a striker, maybe true, maybe not. If it was his decision not to bring somebody in the absolutely, it's a massive mistake that has already been exposed. But if it really was the Kroenke's fucking around with sell-on fees then I don't see what Arteta or any manager can do. You ask the board for the players you need and the board then does what it does best, shoots of an insultingly low bid designed to scupper the deal. Now I'm hearing we actually offered £32 mill, £17 mill of which was to be paid next year. That could be just more of the hot air floating around the net but it's not like we don't have a long track record of shit like this.
Regardless, whether guilty or not, Arteta has a shitstorm on his hands now. If he made his bed he'll sure be lying in it if we collapse out of all the competitions in a week, like we often do. Trouble is, if we by some miracle won something it would be vindication of the stupidity that occurred during January, and stupidity is stupidity even when you get rewarded for it.
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Which we're not even doing rn
OK first I want to offer a few more thoughts on our forwards debacle.
Over the weekend, I actually found myself feeling a bit embarrassed when discussing football with friends who are fans of other clubs. Or if that word is too strong, almost apologist. We can debate the reasons for where we find ourselves, but 2 things are true from the perspective of the wider footballing world. Firstly, noone thinks we will win the league now. Secondly, the feeling is that we have brought this upon ourselves as a football club. We might wonder why we are still (relative to our title aspirations) regarded as a bit small time. Not serious about success. Well our lack of a top class striker - even before the season started - sums it up. Even as we were improving and becoming a team in the conversation for honours, Arteta is regarded as having built a team whose principal aim is not to lose, rather than built to take the game to the opposition. It's really difficult to think of a title winning team that do not have a striker who can be relied upon to score 20 goals a season - or if not in numbers - be a true game changer. I commented above that we do not compare in terms of striker talent with any of the teams in the top half of the EPL, and maybe even lower than this. I recall that Pep's Citeh were regarded as having no recognised striker at one stage, but his supporting forward cast was deeper and better than ours - particularly without Saka.
I even wonder whether the 'anti' Arsenal sentiment that we have seen more generally has as much to do with an inherent lack of respect for a team still seen as also rans rather than anything else. It's difficult for fans to 'respect' a team that aspires to silverware but seems timid when it comes to trying to make this happen via player acqusitions.
Even our supposed prime targets seem a bit underwhelming in this context. Like I've said elsewhere, I am generally supportive of pursuing a coherent and planned strategy to raise the level rather than a reactive and scattergun approach. If the realistic plan had been to take the risk of not signing a credible forward in the Summer, or even January, to land an Isaak this Summer (with the huge fee that would command) that would be one thing. But was this a risk worth taking for Cesko - himself a bit of a punt - not top top level...or Nico Williams - bang average Gs and As even in his best seasons in Spain? We are a massive club - currently the 7th richest in the world and 3rd in the EPL. Do our transfer ambitions reflect this?
IMHO aside from what I will kindly describe as over caution in building a self-sustainable model (that I suppose offers a measure of mitigation in some ways), what we are seeing at Arsenal is a degree of incompetence/negligence in our transfer business. I think that last Summer the club placed an over reliance on Arteta's ability to (as NQ says) make more of his resources than most, and took unjustified risks in thinking that our existing players would retain form and fitness. A lack of ability to flex and get business done when the (inevitable) circumstances demanded it will cost us a golden opportunity to win the league, and makes our CL title aspirations seem like a bit of a pipe dream. This is not what champions do, and I think we are seeing a problem at our club at executive level illustrated by Edu's departure - the apparent lack of a plan to replace our sporting director does not bode well, and if January was Jason Ayto's audition, he has truly fluffed his lines.
Where I depart from NQ's thoughts (that may be valid - I'm not dismissing them) is in seeing our problems as down to the owners. First, it is illogical to me that the Kroenkes - winners of 6 US sporting championships and reportedly increasing their weath by £2.5 billon over the past 12 months - would deliberately withhold funds from an Arsenal project clearly (before this season at least) going in the right direction and in with a good shout of winning the league. It makes little business sense - given the income and profile that Arsenal winning the league would achieve. Secondly, Arsenal's net spend under Arteta - even if this is circa £500M - is significant and sees us third in the league over this period. This is inconsistent with funds being denied to Areta. IMO we do not spend £105M on Declan Rice if the owners' ambitions are top 4 only.
I think it's more likely that (with some justification prior to this season), the owners have trusted the club to make the acquisitions it feels are needed. I think there is a fairly fundamental issue at club management level more than in finances level, and I do wonder again what the real reason for Edu's departure was...
Putting the laughter back into manslaughter
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