Re the discussion of defenders. per TransferMarkt, Monreal's contract is up at the end of this season. Mustafi, Sokratis, and Luiz' contracts are up at the end of next season. At this point, I suspect that they will all leave on frees at the end of their contracts. If we couldn't sell Mustafi this summer, were not likely to sell him next summer and Sokratis and Luis will be 33 and 34, respectively.
So Cech was not a good signing because he wasn't as good for us as DDG has been with ManU? We paid an absurdly low amount of money to have a top 5 keeper in the league for several seasons. IMO, that was one of Arsene's BEST moves.
I don’t think the Eriksen comparison is relevant really, but I didn’t bring that up and I took mebe bringing it up out of context. As for sane, i don’t see iwobi doing one thing offensively better than sane and this was Iwobi’s best season by far. Pepe is in and iwobi will lose minutes no question. We don’t know yet, but it’s possible he (his agent) engineered this whole move because of this. Only time will tell, but Martinelli seems a real prospect out wide. Same for Saka. Not sold on Nelson yet, but others are so that’s stuff competition for minutes. 28m sounds low, but if we don’t know for sure yet and if you guys are correct about him he will hit all the add ons and if he doesn’t we will be grateful for the 28. Also, him only getting 1000 mins next season won’t help his value much. Look at the final product pool, city and spurs get from their wide players—sane, mane, salah, Sterling, moura, Son—iwobi is no where near their output. If we are to compete at that level we need final product goals across the front three.
This seems harsh to me. I think this is the best window I can recall since I've been watching Arsenal. Didn't sacrifice the short term for the long term, or vice versa. Didn't sacrifice quantity for quality, or vice versa. Didn't sacrifice too much on budget even, give or take the deferred payment schedules for Saliba and Pepe and the remaining sales of this window.
It's very likely that our best player from this window will be the cheapest, Ceballos. It's very clear to me the need that he addresses within our squad, especially in the context of going 4 points for 18 in the crucial stretch at the end of the League season last year. Even if we didn't get anybody else, I think Ceballas would be able to get us a credible haul in a similar situation.
I think it's a huge upgrade. Let's face it, even with the horrible defense from last year, most of the time the opponents created an attack or threatened our goal, we still didn't concede. But what did happen is that they could hold on to the ball and stifle our attack, for fifteen minutes at a time, a half, or a game. Now, I don't think that's going to happen. If Mustafi or Xhaka or any other player for that matter makes a mistake, they create a threat bearing down on our goal, and they don't convert we'll get possession. With Ceballos and maybe Luiz, we'll create a counterattack or slower buildup play, as the case may be, and we'll create chances for our creative talent at the other end of the pitch. And even if the opponents score a goal or two, we should still get all three points most fixtures.
Loan deals at big clubs are seldom successful. I am not getting my hopes up. Most often the player isn't integrated properly because everyone knows he isn't staying. But who knows? Maybe this is going to be a sharp new dynamic of freelance players who play their hearts out for a season and are given every opportunity in the team.
One devil in the detail is that Auba hasn't reupped and also the window is now closed. So now he can seriously run his contract down this season.
Gotta admit, I'm not seeing this at all. Football fans tend to exaggerate sometimes, and it could be a little unfair to say that Iwobi is crap or dross. But still, he's not very good, after 100 appearances in the League. And this is a situation where the old Wenger formula "Player X was blocking a path for Player Y" actually applies. Not only are there three better options ahead of him, there's also four credible younger options behind him (Martinelli, Nelson, Saka, John-Jules), and I'm not even counting Ozil or Mkhitaryan which I could. No, if things work as we hope in the current squad Iwobi wouldn't be playing very much. And if he's not playing his value wouldn't be appreciating. Cash the check already.
Yeah maybe some of the time but not this one. I think all parties are going to be strongly motivated to make this loan work for a lot of reasons.
Everton are saying he was their main target for the window. Even if not true, I think this deal did not appear at the last minute. My guess is Iwobi saw the writing on the wall re playing time, so this suits both parties. Otherwise, if it is just about money, why would Iwobi agree to downgrade to Everton just to help out Arse financially?
The point about Sane is he is a genuine wide player who will break down defensive shape and bring goals and assists with direct play. IMO that is what Arsenal are trying to move to with Pepe. Germany also made that move away from the bitsy attacking midfielders to be more vertical Iwobi is a very Arsenal-esque midfielder who glues stuff together but doesn't score goals. Not saying the "helb" is not important - but at that time we also had the Fabregas who became the most dangerous and productive AM in the league. I had high hopes Mkhi would be that player based on his Dortmund record, bringing 10-20 goals from midfield. Sadly not to be. So anyway I'd rather play Ozil (if he can ever get back near peak) in terms of production, or play with proper wingers and 3 midfielders. We have no idea if Iwobi can succeed as a CM - the clubs seems to think he isn't good enough.
GOOD LORD you all bitch and moan so much about using advanced stats to prove a point and then use basic stats in the most illiterate, inane, and/or manipulative ways. Would it be more impressive if Iwobi was on loan in Ligue 1 scoring more goals? Would that make him a different player if he was also feasting on inferior competition? Pepe has played 2500 more league minutes over the last three seasons, more minutes than Iwobi has ever played in a single season. There is much more to being good at football than racking up the most dumb counting stats, goals and assists. Like, very cool, Pepe has scored more goals. I'm not disputing that Pepe is a better player than Iwobi but that has nothing to do with how many assists or goals Pepe has scored versus Angers or St Etienne or whatever other bumfcuk clubs he plays against in France. By your metrics, Andrew Wiggins is better at basketball than Jimmy Butler because he's made more field goals (look it up, it's true!). It's like saying my 1995 Saab 900 is faster than a 2008 Ferrari Enzo because it's driven more miles. Truly astonishing. The charts suggest that Iwobi is better than Eriksen in all the "expected" stats presented. Tottenham value Eriksen AT OVER 100M POUNDS. That Iwobi bests him in several important statistical categories and is essentially equivalent to him in others does not support the argument that "selling Iwobi for 30M is good" like you think it does. Again, comparing him to Sane doesn't do you the favors you think it does, unless you think the (pretty small) surface area between those two plots equates to an approximate 80M pound difference in value. Iwobi is 22, was one of the most efficient attacking players by some decent metrics last year, is homegrown, and an Arsenal player since the age of 8 (last one doesn't mean much as far as valuation but it's still worth pointing out.) He's worth more than 30M, he just is, and him being used as make-weight for more expensive deals isn't the sign of a new management team with a "ruthless streak," it's the sign of a team that's trying to paper over the cracks by distracting with flashy deals but then also needing to mortgage our erstwhile assets to do it. It's CLASSIC Barcelona school of management. Anyways @DaPrince84 and I will take this fight to the jungle if necessary; we will use guerrilla tactics to continue a protracted people's posting war against Raul. All are welcome.
And, let's also note that it's not just a matter of selling Iwobi at maximum valuation, but also about increasing the valuation of the young players behind him. Willock, ESR, Nketiah, Martinelli, Saka, Reiss Nelson, John-Jules: all of these (except maybe John-Jules) should be worth at least 10MM GBP this time next year, and most of them could be worth north of 20MM GBP. But to get those valuations, they have to play. Obviously at least a couple of them are going to get loaned but even that seems to have a more intelligent thought process compared to what we used to do. The rest of them have to play, and they have to play competitive senior matches, at least a little bit.
@Super Llama, let me know the rally point. Iwobi WAS sold 40M too cheap. Raul, you drew first blood with Mislintat
Gee, did any of you actually watch Iwobi play football matches for Arsenal last year? I can't think of a single time where I thought, "Thank God we played Iwobi/had Iwobi there." Tbh, I haven't followed the preseason very much and from what I have read Mkhi has been pretty bad in the preseason. But from what we saw on the field last year, if you have to choose between Mkhi and Iwobi strictly on football performance, play Mkhi, sell (or bench) Iwobi.
BREAKING: @talkSPORT2 understands that Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang have signed new contracts with the club.Join @BroadcastMoose for more on this story! 🚨📻 Listen → https://t.co/RVd0SxkO0q pic.twitter.com/rPmxPEETcb— talkSPORT 2 (@talkSPORT2) August 8, 2019 Wonder if there are any legs to this tweet.
Yep. My guess is that internally, the Saliba deal is slated into next year in terms of the first big instalment. So this kind of all balances out.
I’m going to miss iwobi, I feel like he could’ve become a really decent 8. He was used incorrectly as a lw imo and should’ve got more game time I guess we needed to balance the books but I would rather sell ozil, mustafi and mikhi at bargain basement prices just to lose their wages What’s done is done, let’s see how we do this season because that is the only way to judge I hope we lineup in a 433 ..........................auba/laca Nelson/saka/Martinelli ..........Pepe/mikhi ...........cab/ozil....guen/willock ............../..torreira/xhaka Tierney/kol...holding/sok....luiz/mav....bell/amn ......................Leno Hopefully we get rid of mustafi and xhaka though
Can you link or post these charts/stats? I am not that well versed in them, so if you wouldn't mind posting them.
Why are you assuming last season was a one off? Iwobi is only 23 so he is still developing. Three seasons ago Pepe, who is one year older, scored three goals and had one assist, two season ago he scored 13 goals and had 4 assists, and only really had his break out season last year, with 22 goals and 11 assists. Do I think Iwobi will suddenly blossom into a high scoring winger? No, but I believe he has been playing out of position. I believe he belongs in the center of the midfield, either as an 8 or as a 10. I thought Arsenal would be able to replace Ramsey from within, with Iwobi and/or Willock. For this reason I saw the loan of Ceballos as redundant. I would rather Emery had penciled Iwobi in for Ramsey's minutes than giving them to a player who is only going to be here for one season.