Sanchez is a Gunner: The Summer Transfer Thread

Agreed. As I mentioned yesterday, Roy Hodgson must be happy with this move. With such a British presence at Arsenal I'm sure his confidence will go up.

 

exactly

also with Germany, he was actually closer to whoever the center forward was.

 

Per or Poldi?

Poldi can GTFO

 

Both actually

 

Per is a leader, and with the right partner is great.

Poldi can swim to Germany for all I care. He was actually worse than Sanogo on Sunday.

 

Kindo of shocking how highly rated our transfer window is. All the journos are raving how we aced our transfers. I think we did well but lack of defenders/DM limit our grade to a B in my eyes. People giving United stick not realizing we kind of did what they did but luckily our defense isn't really shit. Just need more players.

 

I'd phase him out tho he's too slow man he can't protect when the DM breaks down in tackling

 

I agree with your assessment. Yes, we got a striker to cover for Giroud (and, in the end, he may turn out to be a sneaky good signing), we still need a DM and cover at CB.

Wenger is seen as a long-term planner, so is his mindset that in January (with teams out of the CL) he might be able to pick up bargains here and there for the rest of the season? That certain teams were valuating their players too highly, so wait 'till January when the prices might come down and then pick them up?

 

Kim Kallstrom is still on speed dial!

 

How can you argue that Özil is not wasted on the wing when you know that the majority of our play is to throw it to the wing and cross it in and hope for the best? Our play 80% of the time seems to be exactly this where the other 20% is playing through the middle and trying to hit someone running behind the defense.

I would *much* rather have Özil handling this 20% and playing through the middle, hopefully raising it to something like 60/40 (wing/middle) play.

Having Özil sitting on the LW and kicking in crosses when he can is a complete waste of a world class #10. Özil has never been known for his finishing or his pace so you can never expect him to break the offside trap and run onto balls from the wings. Even if he did it would be a miracle if he shoots instead of slowing down and passing off.

 

I don't think that's the issue.

Mertesacker does many things really well: he's great at tackling, winning headers, organizing defenses, reading the game, and being in the right position.

However, his lack of pace means that any defense with him in it has to play deep unless the team has two other aspects:

1. A lot of pace in the other three defensive positions
2. The fullbacks are really disciplined in how they get forward.

Arsenal have neither: Gibbs is very fast, Chambers is quick, and Koscielny accelerates well, but Debuchy looks a little slow right now, and Monreal isn't the fastest. Playing a high line Mertesacker is generally dangerous, but playing a high line with Mertesacker in this Arsenal team against good sides is suicide.

 

Have you actually read what's been posted? Ozil will nominally start on left or right, but he moves around so much that you can't really say he's "on the wing."

There is something to what you say, however, but I think it's more about maximizing Cazorla's strengths, and to do that you have to understand what Ozil and Cazorla are good at. Ozil is really good without the ball and has excellent one touch play - he manipulates space with his movement and one touch passing. Cazorla is the exact opposite: he manipulates space with the ball at his feet, and his best work occurs when he has the ball. I think what Wenger's trying to do is to get Cazorla to manipulate space by putting him in the space between the midfield and defense and having him draw defenders, creating angles for the likes of Sanchez, Walcott, and Ramsey to make runs. Which is basically a way of saying that Wenger wants Cazorla to be our false nine.

 

I am gutted that we have sold Danny and think he could be a fantastic player for you guys.

His finishing and conversion rate is underrated because he has never been given a proper chance with us to play as a 9 and has had too much time as a winger. If given time and patience he will likely grow in confidence and his finishing could sky rocket. Wenger is more than capable of making him into a fantastic striker, because finishing is the only thing he lacks. You add that to his pace, mobility, creativity and work rate and hes a world class 9.

Staying fit is probably the thing that might interfere with that. Every time he has looked on the verge of breaking through, or has had a chance to play as our main striker he has gotten injured. But with that crack Arsenal medical team I am sure that wont happen (did we buy some phyios off you guys or something?).

Either way its going to be a tight season for 3rd and 4th, and we may well rue the day we sold a local lad to you guys.

 

I don't get why you guys sold him. Especially at that price for a player who scores goals, is efficient in front of goal, is fast, and is homegrown. The more I think about it, the more I like the deal.

 

I'm afraid this is feeling like the Vela situation all over again...

 

I would phase him out too, but I still like him in the team.

this is a big problem with Arsene.

No reason for both to push forward, especially back when Sagna was here. Sagna and Gibbs were terrible in attack.

 

If the choice was between Welbeck or Remy (who failed a couple medicals from what I've read), I think we moved forward with the better "Stop-Gap" option.

I would have chosen Cavani though

 

Me either. Particularly if LVG switches to a 4-3-3 where Danny was guaranteed minutes as a wing forward.

Instead I will have to watch Tony ****ing Valencia endlessly crossing balls into shins of the first defender. The joy.

 

I can't wait to see the result of LVG's "experiment". It may eventually work may as well get worse before it (if ever) gets better. I am still scratching my head at having 3 LB's .....
Anyway, glad we got Danny from you lot. You owed us anyway on the RVP deal.

 

The view from a United fan on Welbeck- http://therepublikofmancunia.com/stats-danny-welbeck-compared-to-other-strikers-at-23/

My view is that Welbeck is about as good as we could get in this window. I'm frankly shocked that Wenger was willing to pay the 16m necessary to get him.

He'll knock in, at best, 10-15 goals this season which could be the difference between a cup and no cup, or between 3rd and 4th place.

 

Those 10-15 goals would have won us the prem last season...

 

I hope that if our "backup" striker scores 10-15 goals we are pushing for the title rather than 3-4...

Good quote from the article."I find it weird that anyone could look at a player at 23 and write off their future. To believe that the form of a player when they’re still years away from their peak determines what sort of player they could become seems totally barmy to me." -

If we are hopeful for Welbeck there is still hope for JFW.

 

Thanks for sharing. Very informative and interesting article!

If we can get 12 to 15 goals from Danny, a similar number from OG and a dozen each from TW and Alexis, we will
be in great shape. We were pretty anemic last year offensively with 68 goals.