Arsenal is a selling club, but that's not really the point. If we are talking about targets, I'd prefer to go for good players who are a few years younger. You get players entering their prime and who can retain value - if you need to sell. Just a difference in strategy.
Yeah, but we screwed that up. We’re going to finish tenth next year and arteta will be managing man city when Guardiola will be moving to juve
I summarized it on the last page: "Arsenal have 10 players, including loan players 24 and younger, 6 players 29 and older and seven players between the ages of 25 and 28. This last group includes, Lacazette, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Jenkinson, Xhaka, Elneny, and Leno." So if you look at the talent in each of the groups, instead of a pyramid based on a foundation of young players with potential and good players in their prime, Arsenal have an hour glass of good players entering the final stages of their careers and young players with the potential to become good to very good players with a number of players with holes in their games between the two extremes.
I can see how he might fit the mold of a player Emery would like on the wing (pacey, hard working, box to box player, good crosses) but i seriously question whether he could really make us better and/or belongs on a top 6 club as anything other than a squad player. Might be less critical if he was atleast HG.
Links to Mario Hermoso have been picking up considerably in the last couple of days. He is said to have a 30-40m release clause but is thought to be obtainable at 17-18m.
Where does Reiss Nelson fit in the discussion of wide forwards. He had a decent loan at Hoffenheim, where he continued to show a boatload of potential. While he's not yet a complete player, he will be a year older next season. I know I'll be accused of sounding like Wenger, but wouldn't buying Frasier help block Nelson's integration into the first team. I'm not catagorically opposed to buying a wing, but I'd be looking at players like Ziyech or Neres at Ajax, or Pavon, not Frasier
I haven't watched Nelson at Hoffenheim, but it sounds like he had a decent spell with them, but not quite Sancho grade. Still I'd gotta figure they're giving serious thought to bringing him back. Dependent on who we might buy new at his position. There are quite a lot of moving parts. Not least of which is that we won't know our full budget until after the Baku result.
We also are apparently relying on a manager with an at best indeterminate history of talent evaluation for our plans this summer.
Thanks! For me this is the often overlooked damage of late phase Wumger in calendar year 2013 we had the best performing team in the EPL by 2017, he had really done a lot of damage, especially through inaction on the squad, or by poor cornerstone acquisitions. Alexis really stands out as a good buy, but its really noticeable how little we actually invested in solid quality until 17/18 Now we pay for it because the likes of Xhaka and Mustafi aren't good enough, Ramsey is gone. Wilshere failed, Ox was sold etc The new heartbeat of the midfield are 23 and 19
Word seems to be that Edu is coming in as TD, but not until July, after Copa America. Arseblog an others think that therefore he won't have an impact until next January's transfer window. I hope that's not entirely true, but I think we have to be realistic that any business we do in July will be largely in the hands of Raul and his cadre. Also, on today's Arsecast the figure of 40-50MM was thrown out, as what extra funds we should expect if we win the EL and therefore qualify for CL. Can anyone who's better versed than I am in the finances of CL, corroborate that?
I assume the majority of our summer business will be done without a TD. Between Edu likely not arriving until July/Aug and Raul stating that he , Emery , et al already have a plan in place and have begun speaking to the guys they want. Earlier in the season Ornstein responded to rumors of a 40-50m summer budget stating that the number would be closer to 100m if we made CL.
Yeah this. Right now our squad reminds of the last couple years of RVP. One phenomenal goalscoring talent papering over a bunch of holes in the squad. That means, for the next couple years, the squad strategy seems pretty clear: backfill the holes in the squad with young new signings and academy players, and see how they turn out. In the meantime we are still competitive with superior finishing. That's why I'm not as negative on Ryan Fraser as some. We need basically 5-6 players, costing maybe 5-25MM GBP per, probably a lot of them from South America or maybe Spain or France, bearing in mind of creating a squad that always has legitimate options. Last year, after Holding and Ramsey were injured, we found ourselves in a lot of situations where we didn't have any good options in defense or midfield (and sometimes winger too). Ryan Fraser is fine for me, depending on how much he costs and who else get. I saw one of those octogon spiderweb things which supposedly demonstrates that his dribbling isn't good enough. It just seems too pedantic for me. He's not Eden Hazard, but he looks fine on the dribble whenever I've seen him. More to the point, we can't be too heavily invested in the lack of capabilities in one player. We're significantly more than one player away from winning the League anyway.
Don't know much about Ryan Fraser other than knowing he plays in the EPL for Bournemouth. So I looked him up to find he's a Scot. And so, if we sign him and he presumably makes it into our first team then he would probably be the first Scot to do that since Charlie Nicolas in the 80's! And before that Willie Young & George Graham. So I say sign him up! We've dissed the Scots for too damn long now. p.s. And while they're at it, they should sign an Irishman! Those guys figured so prominently in the 70's and I don't think we've seen one since! I think I just channeled @BIGHMW on this post.
I'd be impressed if we're going out and getting players like Palacios, Saliba, and/or Martinelli, but less so if we're going for players like Fraser
If Fraser was in the squad now, would he start in Baku? I think the Arsecast talked about this, as long as your best lineup includes two strikers, how does spending big on a winger make sense? He has one year left on his deal, I don't see how Bournemouth have the leverage to ask for 30m. Wasn't 30m being thrown around for Ramsey last summer? Seems like this report is wishful thinking on Bournemouth's behalf.