If Rogers was Arteta's top choice and he was willing to spend £90m+, isn't it more likely that he will pivot to a player that is similar to Rogers as opposed to someone with a different profile?
Fair play to Chelsea, they won Rogers fair and square. I trust we'll come up with someone else for our needs, that's 100 mil we can apply elsewhere. We didn't dodge a bullet. The club has been very, very careful with big money (more than 50 or 60 mil might be big money to me) buys the last couple years. Gyokeres is the only one that could be conceivably be deemed below expectations. The last two seasons we haven't had any big bust buys. So, if we were willing to pay 90 to 100 million for Rogers, a player who was being praised by everyone last season, its unlikely to be dodging a bullet. We simply don't know the club's plans and trying to second guess like we do (your right) as if we do and they're wrong is typical 'fan knows best' spectacles. Its normal. Its what fans do. Every NFL draft fans bemoan draft picks and such. No worse than 2nd for 5 years is extremely hard. Both Liverpool and City, former champions have been below runner up. We are starting to make CL semis or finals the norm or expected. Its difficult and maybe even lazy to some to say 'I'll have to trust the club on this one' when you can't figure out the reason to buy someone but based on their recent history the last 24 months they have the track record to earn that trust. The league is going to be very, very competitive Seemingly more so than the last couple years where its been a 2 man race. Spurs have bought the best of any side. Chelsea are back, Liverpool and City rarely have bad back to back seasons. Th recent events makes Bruno G even more important. I expect we'll over pay for him. I actually don't want Alvarez. He doesn't want us, he wants Barca. He has a great season and we'll see Barca coming for him again and he'll go. He will end up at PSG I think and that will be HUGE and another CL win is my guess. Alvarez is that special. If we buy him, I don't expect him to stay more than a year or two if he performs as expected. But we should recoup most of the fee.I've long made it known I'd love Kofane and think he will be great for us to the point he'll start by the end of his first season.
I mean last time we missed our supposed target to a big spending Chelsea we got Trossard and that player at Chelsea copped a ban so maybe lightning strikes twice With the exceptions of Sterling and Madueke I back the club with transfers, so if they wanted Rogers I'd expect it to work. I also expect the club has a 4 or 5 player deep list so if not Rogers then who is up next. But 117mil for Rogers is insane. That's wanting a 25 g\a EPL winger money.
We didn't get gazumped though. This happens in many potential deals. Teams determine how much they want to pay for a player at most, but the market determines the value in the end. For some reason Chelsea have a wildly high estimation of the player. Perhaps he has more value to them. You seem to have the idea that it's about fiscal responsibility. But it's actually about investment risk and ROI. If you want to win the league you have to invest as efficiently as possible. And that's about who has the better estimation on value and risk. Chelsea have consistently demonstrated that by wildly overpaying, they've achieved underperformance and huge debts
Exactly. It's about figuring out what has the best return. So instead of overpaying for Mudskipper, there was better ROI in investing in multiple alternate deals. At Trossards price, we still had a lot of money left over for an extra player
If Alvarez ends up at PSG, I'd have to make them CL favorites. Bayern Munich always buys well, they will be a semi finalist or finalist next season probably. Never count out Mourinho. He's a great cup manager. Maybe the best. As for the league, we didn't need much. We get a LW and a 3rd striker if not a 3rd striker Merino again. We need to be able to be effective against the top 4 or 5 sides without Rice. That's where the buying of midfield players comes in. Assuming we get Bruno G. Would a Zubi, Bruno, Odegaard midfield be able to go to City or Anfield? Or any combination of Eze, Bruno G, MLS, Zubi and Odegaard? Assuming we get Bruno G.
Ornstein said as much on an Athletic podcast. Arsenal have a price, they won't go over it, and they will walk away if necessary. When asked if missing on Rogers meant they have more money to pursue Bruno, he said no. If they can meet Newcastle on price they will make a deal. But if not they will walk away. The problem could be with Arteta, who hasn't signed a new contract. Ornstein said Arteta will be disappointed as he really wanted Rogers. There is some reporting that Arsenal could have sealed a deal for 100m a couple weeks ago if Berta had acted decisively and not tried to lowball and quibble over 5-10m on a 100m fee. Maybe that's true, or maybe Chelsea were just waiting until Arsenal got serious before parachuting in with their record fee. Not every deal is going to be like Mudryk-Trossard where the second choice is clearly superior. One of these days it's going to hurt.
OK, I hear ya. And I don't know what the technical definition of "gazumped" is. But regardless... If we ID a target, especially one that's purported to be very high on our list, and we make an offer that ultimately isn't competitive, then you gotta figure that's not what the we were hoping for, or expecting. Regardless of what some might consider the ridiculousness of CFC's offer, our bid failed to deliver. Sure it's probably about ROI, but it's almost surely also about PSR/FFP, wage structure and budgetary limits that ultimately are set by KSE. So I lump all of that stuff under the umbrella of "fiscal responsibility" which I see as a more general term than you maybe? I guess you might prefer "fiscal discipline"? But I think you, me and everyone else agree that hopefully this will end up for Chelsea like Mudryk did. But I wouldn't bet the ranch on that. Rogers was older and had a track record in England that Mudryk did not. So we move on to our next target. And all of us would again agree that hopefully our 2nd choice will be as successful as Trossard ended up.
Yup. And that's a much more nuanced, balanced assessment of this situation methinks. There are pros & cons of not being able to sign Rogers at "our price"
Think this is true, but there are signings that are slam dunks (e.g, Rice) where you pay over the odds, and other signings where there are significant question marks over a player such that it doesn't make sense to go significantly above the valuation.
Yeah but are the question marks amongst us fans and pundits? Don't you think that if Arteta & Berta make a bid for Rogers that they don't have so many questions marks?
One of these players is worth £117m and the other is a player that went for £68m last summer... https://t.co/Hh6safu2Lc pic.twitter.com/0i2ChERa2d— Scott Willis 🏆 (@scottjwillis) July 19, 2026 Price and value is a thing, and a 25% price premium is really, really significant.
True. And as you said, you want to be confident that paying that much premium is worth it, e.g. Rice. But those kind of signings seems rare. A Rogers-type signing, without that clarity & confidence, seems more the norm.
We just signed Eze last summer. There are obvious similarities between the Eze signing and the chase for Rogers. Both were mooted to be the solution at left wing, but both are far more productive in the center of the pitch. What Arsenal are looking for this summer is more goals and assists. I made the argument earlier that in virtually the same minutes as Rogers played, the combination of Eze and Odegaard provided the same end product, i.e., the number of goals plus assists as Rogers (8 goals and 8 assists vs 10 goals and 6 assists for Rogers). The same end product argument can be made about the Combination of Trossard and Martinelli on the left wing. In 200 fewer combined minutes, they actually provided one more goal contribution in league play. So the question becomes, is Rogers ball carrying progression worth £116m, because his end product did not provide an improvement on what Arsenal already had. Chelsea may face the same problem. Assuming Palmer is healthy this coming season, can they accommodate both as center attacking mids?
That was a nicely reasoned post. No idea if it's 100% correct, but it was pretty convincing. In the end, I was never very invested in the Roger signing. I thought it was intriguing because I've seen him do good things (including against us IIRC). My main reactions to him bagging us for Chel$ski are: (a) not being able to close a deal on a key target (already discussed plenty above); (b) who do we pivot to and are they at least as "intriguing" as Rogers was; and (c) can we pivot quickly.
The numbers are readily available on FBref, they still track minutes played and goals and assists. I used premier league data only, because of the difference in competition between theChampions League and the Europa League.
I remember during one of the Wenger eras, there was a running joke that we bring in attackers and coach them into not being attacking. Maybe I'm projecting but even Eze at times didn't seem as attacking as he was at Palace. Odegaard took more chances it seems pre injury. Maybe its this fear of being counter attacked but we aren't as attacking as I would like. Rogers does that naturally. He wasn't goin going to pussy foot around.
I would LOVE it if we bought Yan Diomande. Seems headed to PSG but we have been heavily linked to him since losing Rogers. I thought it was a mistake not to pay the extra for Monga but the club has their valuation standards.
Hijacking Diomande would be great for a bunch of reasons. I think he's better than Barcola, he would cost less, and Barcola would likely stay at PSG and not go to Liverpool. Don't think it is likely to happen. I assume the Bouaddi-City deal is related to Rodri? If he signs a new contract to stay, I feel like they would drop their interest in Bouaddi. If Rodri leaves on a free in 2027, Bouaddi would be his long-term replacement. After his form at the WC, I would think a new contract is likely, unless Madrid have already lined him up for a free move next summer.