Yanking the New Transfer Thread Chain (R)

But do you really think that if Arsenal were in the mix we'd hear about it? Is it really that hard to believe a young player would choose Manchester United over Arsenal?

And as for the 'another story'/no young players being acquired by the club, I'm pretty sure we bought the best young player available (and Campbell) last summer and only last January signed Miyaichi.

 

Wait... you mean the Nick Powell, the shining light of the Fourth Division? We missed out on signing him for a mere 6 million pounds! FFS Wenger, you've lost the plot!

 

If you're a young midfielder you've got to like your chances at United next season.

 

Yeah, what is this, rebuilding season 3 over there? I don't think they'll be able to pull off another title challenge with that midfield next year.

 

£4m plus clauses.
Is it any less relevant that he has played 61 matches (15 goals, 8 assists) for crewe, was a regular england u17 player, now in the u18s, than joel campbell's £1m move with u17 and u20 international games but less costa rican club appearances than i can count on both hands (now making the jump up to ligue 1 quite well)? or less than wellington silva's £3.5m move with 2 u17 brazil appearances and max of 17 fluminese appearances (now plying his trade at the bottom of the spanish 3rd div. after being a nightmare elsewhere)? neither of whom were even in a position to be allowed to play in the uk, whereas powell is homegrown and can fit in immediately. (you remember the homegrown player rules, right?)
It seems to me that powell has, easily, as much going for him as those other 2 and probably much more than a £3.5m wellington silva.

yeah, IF he was bought to start, but that is unlikely to be the case. They're probably going to buy 2 starting top class midfielders who will start, so those chances don't really look that much greater.

"another story" ≠ "no young players being acquired by the club".
i am referring to the general lack of ability to progress and then close deals.

 

Were you not of the ones going ballistic over the Oxlade Chamberlain signing? I seem to recall you seriously slagging off the boss for buying teenagers when "men" were needed.

Personally, I love it when we sign young players. It provides a story within a story -- i.e. the blossoming of the young players is a story we end up caring just as much about as winning the league. And since we are never going to win the league again, the young player story is more fun to think about.

 

yes, but again, like others, you have missed the main point.
at the time chamberlain was signed we needed more experienced players. it was nothing to do with chamberlain himself. at the time we signed chamberlain we had already signed 7 other players and only 1 of them had any major experience (gervinho). the season was already starting, and we all know how that went. do i need to remind you that it was a complete and utter shambles? our worst start in over half a century, no less.
on deadline day, 5 competitive matches into the season, panic set in and we signed the absolutely necessary experience in arteta, mertesacker and santos.
it demonstrated a total inability to prioritise and cost us, badly. there was no balance. that's the point.

btw. i'm not sure how well this might have worked out, but we had a backup dm/rb/cb in nordtveit and let him go to 'gladbach, who finished 4th in the bundesliga with nordtveit playing in 31 of their 34 matches.

 

I understand your point. In fact I think EVERYBODY understands your point. But, by saying "Arsenal/Wenger are scratching their a$$es" because they're not signing Nick Powell you just sound disrespectful.

I would love to sign Nick Powell. In fact, I'd love to sign every top quality 17 year old, because I know we'll never buy a top quality 26 year old. In fact, my main criticism of Wenger is that he hasn't signed enough top youths. So we've had to persist with the few we've had such as Denilson. Imagine if we'd been less conservative and signed Victor Moses and Gareth Bale and Pastore when we had the chance: all young, cheap buys. We'd then be saying who gives a crap of experience when we have the best youth prospects in the world. Dude, we could've even bought Aguero.

We are a cheap-ass team, the equivalent of a guy who gets his clothes at Filene's basement and his shoes at Payless. Dude, we're probably even worse than that. We're Goodwill level or Salvation Army Shop buyers. Unless the ownership changes, the only way we compete is by taking advantage of our top strength -- Baby Snatcher Wenger and his ability to make reasonably winning teams using children.

 

i couldn't honestly give a flying monkey's left nut if it sounds disrespectful.

 

Sounds like you've donated your left nut to some other cause before this...

 

Powell is a good talent, but 4 mill is a lot. Rather look at Rhodes or the talented trio at Birmingham...mutch, redmond and butland....we need experience though, everyone saw how arteta did!

 

Since I can't seem to remember, please remind me which deals did we not close? Regardless of what's said by the club hierarchy the evidence of the past several years suggests that Arsenal don't have money to spend on transfers.

Am I the only person who's come to terms with this?


PS: Mirror has us looking to sign Nick Powell from Crewe.

 

interesting

 

that's what i thought, but i'm saying nothing *stum*

 

Interesting. For some reason I always liked him, and hoped he'd make it.

 

if it happens it'll be a bigger shock than stealing ramsey from them and i'll take it all back.


somehow i think i'm safe enough though.

 

yeah, ive come to terms with this too. And by "money to spend on transfers," I take it more as money to compete with the Manchester clubs and Chelsea, who are the clubs that are winning the league now.

I saw this earlier, Id rather the debate go onward because its funny so I decided not to post it, lol.

Apparently Arsenal have bid for Powell at least once in the last two years also. Honestly, this feels more like a Phil Jones doesnt want to leave the northwest type of deal.

 

of course we've scouted and enquired. why do you think i mentioned it in the first place? you were hardly keeping a secret no-one else knew ....you didn't really think you were, did you??

 

I didnt say scout or inquire, I said bid. We apparently bid for Powell at least once over the last two years (not including this year). A bit different, but you probably knew that.

I still dont see a need to criticize the club for not getting him but you will be doing your "lamb complain about everything at Arsenal" type of posting again, so I will let you vent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/c/crewe_alexandra/8715896.stm
that was one of the articles I that mentioned something to that effect, I will look for others if its needed.

Altho in doing a search I found this:

interesting. Oh well, lets see what happens. But I may have to revise my prefer to stay in the Northwest feeling.

 

To a "he's the next David Bentley" feeling?

 

nah man, lol.


Also Junior Holiett apparently signed with Borussia Mönchengladbach

 

the news of the world reported us bidding £1m for him 2 summers ago. no other outlet that i know of did (apart from that fraud jamie sanderson ), so i'll stick with "enquired" to cover whether we did or not. we have certainly been interested.

 

glad you admitted that cahnt Sanderson is a fraud. Im good.

 

Hoilett who is at the USA-Canada game said he has not signed with anyone yet fwiw

 

I didn't realizes Hoilett was an "undeclared" international. Wikipedia says he's eligible for Canada, Jamaica, and the U.S. (I'm skeptical about that last one).