Seeing reports that... - West Ham showing interest in ElNeny. Rumored to be willing to pay 7-9m. - Kos has agreed personal terms with Rennes. - Raul has flown back to London to finalize the Ceballos loan. - Emery has shut down rumors that Eddie Nketiah will leave on loan. - Arsenal have declined their option to match the offer AC Milan has made to purchase Ismail Bennacer from Empoli and will instead take the 30% sell on which will amount to approx 4.3m
The worst part is, if we had a decent budget and were making smart moves with selling and buying players, we would be talking about how its a really good bit of business getting an extra 4 mil. Instead, we get your post, which is equal parts sad and equal parts hilarious.
Who knows the extra £4.3m may allow Arsenal to restructure the Tierney Payment schedule enough to make Celtic happy.
Pape Abou Cisse? He's affordable, rumored to be 10m pounds. Young (23) but not a teenager that needs time to develop. Position of need. Mertesacker-tall (6'-6"). The step up from Olympiacos would be a big one, though.
God we can all just pray that Emery and the management team are smart enough to keep him around this season.
Arsenal scored more league goals last season than any team except the top two. I think everyone knows that the failure to finish in the top four was the result of a leaky defense, but Arsenal apparently can't afford to structure the payments for Tierney to the satisfaction of Celtic, Shelling out £55m for Zaha without improving the defense would be incompetent. They would need to win every game 5-4.
This was due to really hot finishing, mostly by players other than the strikers. It's unlikely to happen again. I find the Zaha interest underwhelming, but there's a lot of smoke around this one. I just hope the people pushing this know what they're doing.
Zaha is at his best as a WF or SS which means it will be near impossible to get he, Laca & PEA on the field at the same time and get optimal output. If you plan to sell one of Laca/PEA and run a 4-3-3 then he makes reasonable sense. There are other options I would prefer in either scenario but if we are going 4-3-3 to me the only really bad part of this move would be the cost of acquiring Zaha. There are options we could add that have been rumored to other teams around Europe for 30-45m that I think would be better and more versatile formation options.
He's also a turnover machine. Per whoscored between unsuccessful touches and being disposed, he turned the ball over 7.8 times per game last season, which led the league. Some of us criticized Sanchez for turning the ball over. Zaha is Sanchez on speed. Fans fall in love with dribblers, but his production doesn't match his dribbling skills.
I actually don't believe Zaha would solve any perceived offensive problem and he's certainly not going to solve the defensive problems. I'm not a huge Mkhitaryan fan, but his production numbers per 90 compare favorably with Zaha. Both scored 0.3 goals per 90 and Mkhi's assist numbers were better.
Arsenal have reached an agreement to sign Real Madrid and Spain U21 midfielder Dani Ceballos on loan for 2019-20 campaign. With William Saliba also set to complete move from Saint Etienne before returning there on loan next season, big week for #AFC in transfer market #RMFC #ASSE— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) July 22, 2019
I know theyre just videos but I hadn’t seen any Saliba footage yet 2 minutes later: We got French Rio!!!!
It's looking more and more like we're NOT gonna sign a new CB for 2019-20 season. If so we may be stuck with this group: * Sokratis (until he goes down injured) * Holding (if he comes back from injury in decent shape) * Mustafi (ugh) * Chambers (sigh) * Medley (who knows?) I'm not including: - Koscielny (he burned the bridge... can't see him ever playing for us again) - Monreal (he's not really a CB) - Mavropanos (doesn't seem ready or fit or much a part of our club frankly) - Bielek (Emery doesn't like/rate him??!) Seriously?? If we can't sell/buy a CB in time, couldn't we at least do a creative loan move! If we don't bring in someone good and solid, this could be seriously stupid negligent!
If Arsenal can't offload him, Mustafi should be moved out wide, where his mistakes aren't immediately punished. Maybe they can use him as a backup right back. With De Ligt at Juve maybe Arsenal could work out a loan deal for Rugani.
Mustafi isn’t fast enough for a fullback. He started his career there and then got moved centrally once everyone realized the speed wasn’t there.
He's not Bellerin or AMN fast, but I suspect he is Jenkenson fast and because of his mistakes in front of goal I'd rather see him wide. On the outside he at least has cover from the CBs when he screws up. I'm not suggesting he'd bee the starter out wide, he could fill Jenkenson's role if they can offload Jenkenson. I would prefer they offload both