The Not Really About Transfer(s) Thread

He basically closed the door for a new CB and that would lead to believe we may instead get some reinforcements
in MF and attack this offseason.

 

Great news for me. Another guy of the Schneiderlin/Illara type would be great.

 

Mert, Kos, Gabriel and Chambers as a 4th choice (with Debuchy in an emergency) is enough.

Get Schneiderlin and another offensive player and this team has more than enough to win things, if healthy.

 

I like to believe with the added depth and new practices in our physio room we will slowly see us move towards having less injuries overall. I think it is already showing.

 

d

Agreed, I think our defensive situation is good enough for at least one more full season. We have Debuchy, Bellering, Monreal, and Gibbs for oustide backs. All of those players are a cut above most. We also have Jenko if Wenger somehow thinks he can work him into the team. For CB's we have Gabs, Mert, Koz, and Chambers. That's four quality players for two postions.

If we add a distributing midfielder, a winger to replace Podolski, and maybe a forward, the sky's the limit.

 

We're certainly ready to win things if we significantly improve from where we stand now, that's for sure. But that's not necessarily a given.

This is going to be an interesting summer, in that the problems are more subtle now than they've been in the past. We have a squad that ought to be competitive most days and has found a good run of form. We still need to take a couple of steps but it's a question of how radical the surgery needs to be. Some of the team's issues have to do with lack of player quality at given positions, and some of them are about players not gelling together.

Specifically, there are plausible issues with lack of quality at CB, GK, DM, and maybe center forward. There are also a couple problems with players not playing well together, Sanchez in particular for one and Ozil/Cazorla/Walcott/Ramsey/Welbeck for the other. Not all of these will be addressed directly, but Wenger will have to use to some intelligence because I don't think we can play a pat hand either.

GK, CB, and CM can all be addressed by buying players (or not, as the case may be) and upgrading like for like. The interesting one is how we're going to deal with the balance between wing players and central creative midfielder types. I'm not completely sure of the answer but I suspect at least one of Walcott, Cazorla, Wilshere, and Welbeck has to go.

Also, Sanchez has to integrated with the team better. In the first half of the season, he was playing like it was Michael and the Jordanaires, which was a good thing because so many other players were doing poorly. But now those same individuals (Ozil, Cazorla, Ramsey, Coq) have upped their game, the team is playing so much better we need less of the Lone Ranger and more of a total footballer.

 

Anyway, two players we can cross off our list for next season: Lacazette & Fekir.
They have confirmed today that they will not be leaving OL, specially since the club
has directly qualified for the CL next season and will be moving to its shining new stadium as well.

 

What exactly is Theo good at? No one can ever tell me other than "he's young, so be patient." Are we keeping him around for any other reason than he's been here so long? I mean, if he played for any other club, would you want to sign him?

 

Yeah, but Charlie, how many players confirm they won't be leaving, only to move? Gotze, RVP, Cesc, etc.... The list goes on. If a team of our caliber truly comes calling, or any big team for that matter, they would more than likely leave. It's all about the right price.

I mean OL is cool an all, but...

 

He and Alexis both ********ed up today. Big time. I'm not ready to write him off, but Theo does look pretty bad. His head just doesn't look there. Also, I think it says something that Jack is preferred to Theo on the wing.

Also, just saying, Jack has looked pretty good on the left with freedom to roam in.

 

My wish list:

Samir Handanovic: Inter Milan looks certain to finish out of the Champions League for the 4th year in a row, and Handanovic is looking for a payday. I believe he's out of contract in another year, and is currently on something like 25k a week. I'm guessing we could get him for around 10 million .

William Carvalho: Bigger and cheaper than Schneiderlin at the 21.5 million price tag that's been in the papers. We've been undersized for years, and some strength and skill at the back could go a long way.

Antonio Rudiger: Potential replacement for Per. Valued around 7 million pounds.

Jackson Martinez: Too good to not take a chance on. Valued at 23 million pounds.

That adds up to 62 million pounds. Take our transfer kitty of 50 million, sell off some dead weight like Poldi and Campbell, and you're pretty close.

----------Handanovic---------
Debuchy--Kos--Per--Nacho
------------Carvalho--------
Sanchez----Ozil------Ramsey
-----------Martinez-----------

 

Didn't he start on the wing? I always remember him initially as a very attacking player, not a CM, and scoring a cracker vs Inter in pre-season years ago.

 

I agree on the Handanovic and Rudiger suggestions, however not the other two. I think Martinez is too old to spend that amount of money on, and Carvalho has had a really off year.

To build on your ideas, this is mine:

GK: Handanovic, Cech, or Casillas
Def: Rudiger or Mustafi, both could be Per replacements/understudies.
Midfield: Milner for utility, Fekir for AM/Wing, Kondogbia for pure DM, Veratti, or Scheiderlin.
Striker: Lacazette, or I don't know, because I feel like there are no strikers anymore.

Obviously most of mine wouldn't happen, that's why it's a wishlist.

 

Keep Milner the fuhk away from Arsenal. we have enough underwhelming overpaid players

 

Milner is hardly underwhelming, especially considering the fact that he is on a free. That alone means we can afford to give him a higher wage. He's a pretty damn good player for City, and had a pretty damn good game against Barca recently. He's a utility and squad player, and a good one at that. There would be worse ways to spend our money.

Again, you can't have 23 first team caliber players. You need some people that can fill in multiple places. He can, and he brings quality to each of those.

 

Not Casillas, he's been done for years. Might as well talk about signing Lev Yashin.

Martinez is the same age around the same mileage as Giroud. I wouldn't go to 30 million for him, but at 2oish, i would take a punt on it. It would be a shame if he finishes his career having never been given a shot at a big club.

 

Do you not worry he's too one dimensional? I'll admit, I've not seen him play much. Isn't he another Giroud?

 

He's on 120k week at Citeh. Apparently his issue is that he wants to play more. I don't see much chance of that happening in our midfield.

 

Yeah, pretty much. If Coq is our main guy at holding midfielder, Milner could be a stopgap #2. The issue is age, and I could go either way on that. Supposedly Milner is a great athlete and committed professional, so he could probably last a bit longer than other players his age. On the other hand, we've already been hurt trying to get the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube from Flamini and Arteta. So yeah, 50/50 I guess. But it does depend on getting some guys out, which is never a gimme with Arsenal.

I don't know if there's any chance that he's available, but the player we need is Griezmann. If he is available, we should pay whatever it takes to get him out of Spain. He already is the player we've been waiting a decade for Walcott to develop into, and he's the player we need.

We already have a lot of intelligent, skilled players but Sanchez is really the only explosive one at the level we need. We need one more, and if we get it I think we take some of the downside risk like the first part of this season out of the equation.

 

I could see that, yeah. I'm just going of what Smith said on Sky today. He claimed the deal was pretty much done that he would be coming here. We shall see.

 

I haven't seen him play much either, but the scouting reports make him sound like a faster, more lethal striker than Giroud. Downside is he's not an assists guy, but we've got enough of those.

 

what?!? Milner as a DM what Milner is this?

 

James Milner can play pretty much anywhere, and has.