Also during that spell where he looked dodgy, he had Nuno and Xhaka to his left. Not ideal defensively. You’d imagine he’d look better with Zinchenko sitting next to him
Agreed, it speaks to pretty bad transfer process still. I think they’re way too tunnel-visioned on “their guys” and when they have to be adaptable in the market it looks pretty suspect. It works when they nab the people they want early but then we just treaded water in the market for like two months. Not to mention the sales of players.
my thought on it is they had tielemans and douglas luiz on the board as 1) buy candidates, 2) especially at what they'd hope to be cut-price given their contract status, but 3) it all depended on outgoings. xhaka not leaving and vieira coming in meant tielemans became unnecessary. partey not going anywhere and elneny staying meant luiz was not a necessity until the injuries - one predictable, one not - where they took stabs at both danilo and luiz. i don't know that they saw getting luiz and danilo in as emergencies as much as we do and maybe more as depth would be good to have (otherwise, i don't think danilo would have been an option), especially after last year. we've seen that the eduteta regime have some very distinctive leans with their transfers: 1) if the player is a must-have, they will push to get it done and, generally, end up meeting the selling club's valuation (ramsdale, white, odegaard, vlahovic, gabriel jesus, zinchenko) and, generally, get it done early. 2) if the player is what they consider more complementary to those primaries, they stick to their upper limit on how far they're willing to go (tavares, tomiyasu, arthur melo, lisandro martinez, douglas luiz) and are quite willing to walk away. 3) they appear to place a huge emphasis on (at least what they think of) the players' personality and character. that takes out a whole chunk of possible buys, especially emergency buys. i don't know if the willingness to walk away is truly their nature or if it's needing to get approval through lewis but, either way, i'm happy with it. i mean, people still clutch their pearls over park chu-young and lucas perez so i'm happy they didn't just blow their wad on someone they didn't truly want/were wholly convinced on just to get a body in.
He looked good the other day because Xhaka was minding him. ETA: I’m not down on Sambi at all. He’s got a lot of promise. He’s a good ball carrier and very good passer. He’s also still suspect receiving the ball under pressure and is pretty slow to recognize that pressure.
When we do business early it’s a bad thing now? I know that’s not what you’re saying, but it feels a little disingenuous that you’re not acknowledging the last he amount of business done in the window. We can believe that it’s crazy not to prioritize multiple central midfield signings, but that’s based on our preferences to remove Xhaka and not rely on Partey. The reality is that Arteta was happy with his midfield after re-signing Elneny and retaining Xhaka. He and Edu never felt those signings were priorities.
Xhaka was forward a lot, I don’t really think it was a case of Xhaka minding him. In 95% of the cases, Sambi was the one showing for the ball from the center backs. To your point however, Villa are really bad at pressing, so Sambi was rarely tested under pressure. United haven’t been very effective with a high press either high, so he may be just fine on Sunday.
they swapped some in the first half but, in the second half, i think xhaka was back more both defensively and to show for the ball. i'm still pretty happy with lokonga, though.
I said Fulham previously but meant villa big test, wonder if vieira gets the start if ode is out or esr?
ESR. He's atleast been getting some sub minutes now. Increases the likelihood that Vieira gets sub minutes at CM/AM or wing though.
As you said, that's not what I said. Their process works for them when they are getting the specific players they want. But if they miss the player they want they stall out on that need. See: Raphinha. They keep saying they're only going to bring in top quality players or it's not worth it. Which seems to suggest there aren't loads of great players who are coming and going all window long to other clubs that could do a job here (see Bruno G or any number of CMs moving around this summer). I think they're too honed in on one or two players per need. It's a bad way to work because it means you are vulnerable to being What galvanizes this for me is trying to panic-buy a CM on the last day of the window. If you're that unready to play Sambi at 6, then that's an issue of bringing in a player like Sambi last year without a clear path for development/play-time. And it's obviously also an issue that we're that reliant on Partey and Elneny--Partey for availability reasons and Elneny for quality reasons. They clearly saw a need but were unprepared to find a player who would solve that problem. That's more what I'm saying. But you're right, full credit for the business they do when they know the player they're looking for. They've mostly been on target in that regard.
I hear you. It’s certainly one way to look at it, but it’s hard to know what they’re really doing. We’re just reading the tea leaves. I think another way to look at the Luiz thing is simply that they decided they needed to try only because of the injury situation, nothing more. As I said, it seems pretty clear to me Arteta was happy with his midfield once it was clear Xhaka was no longer a possibility to move. We may not be happy with that midfield, but if he is it makes sense to not prioritize a signing there. It also makes sense to me that they looked at Luiz as an opportunity because of his contract situation, but they weren’t going to sign at all costs a player that they didn’t view as a long-term building block. Going back to Rafinha, it seems at least very plausible to me that his pursuit was purely opportunistic. Maybe they didn’t intend to make a signing of that level on the wing but felt his situation made it more realistic and they felt they would be negligent not to pursue it.
This is intriguing: we were apparently negotiating for Ferran Torres w/ Barcelona at the end of the window. Fee was agreed, but Xavi rejected it the deal. https://www.football365.com/news/tr...d-barcelona-chelsea-132m-deadline-day-zakaria
Yep, it's just as plausible they thought they were fine at 6, having re-signed Elneny as cover. And with Europa, they could've thought we'll have matches to ease Lokonga into the midfield and determine more thoroughly if he can play that role or is better suited as an 8. The injuries to Partey, Elneny, and OZ at the same time prompted the attempts to buy Luiz. If you want to call it panic, well maybe, but it could be characterized as panic in the sense of "Oh crap, now we only have Sambi for that role."
that's how i see it. i mean, partey being injured (again) is wholly predictable. elneny being injured, less so. like i said before, it feels like they had tielemans and douglas luiz on their board as possible target if there are movements because they like them and see targets on the last year that might be reasonably easy/cheap to acquire. with xhaka staying, tielemans got dropped as a target. with elneney staying, luiz got dropped as a target . . . until injuries meant an opening happened.
The problem from my POV is in the critical 6+8 positions you have Partey (always injured/rape allegations) and Xhaka (can't play football properly) your backups are A guy who is a below average Prem midfielder A young midfielder not ready for primetime An elite player who is your only reliable left back.
£220m net spend will only go so far. It's basically a roll of the dice that the midfield holds together for this season. Hopefully everything else has been fixed and the position is addressed next summer. Re Sambi, he's 22 this year. When Partey was 22, he played 435 league minutes for Atletico Madrid, 3 starts and went the full 90 once. The next season at age 23, he played 628 minutes, 6 starts, 4 90's. No loans, just barely played. It wasn't until he was 24 that he became a regular starter.
He’ll be 23 in October, and he’s got a lot more experience than Partey did at the same age. Again, I’m not dragging him, but I don’t really see that your comparison is doing him any favors.
The thing is, we should be "see a need, fill a need" but I also like to get shit done early. We left too much too late in the window.
i mean, striker was noted as being a gaping hole in the lineup and tierney's injuries + tavares' obvious not-ready status mean left-back was certainly a need. gabe jesus signed july 4 and zinchenko signed july 22. how much earlier did you want them done?
Agreed - but my point remains that you basically only have those 2 guys for 6+8? i.e. you only have Elneny and Sambi as backup at 6 AND 8 Or is Martin 0 also covering 8 and someone like ESR would step into the 8.5/10 role?
Agreed - i wouldn't expect him to be a front line starter But i would expect there to be 3 starter quality players for the 6+8 positions? Otherwise, you are already down to Sambi / Elneny if either Party / Xhaka get injured You could even end up having to play both of them,
i mean, outside of partey, you had xhaka and elneny - both of whom were noted for being durable - to go with zinchenko and lokonga with thoughts of vieira and smith-rowe as possible 8s. is it still a fairly shallow pool? sure. but not particularly dire until the 2 guys who were best suited for the same position (6) both became injured at the same time. i like odegaard and what he brings to the table but he's terribad at the 8. when he drops that deep, he seems stuck every time.
We signed Partey October 2020. By the following July 2021 we realised how ********ed we were when he got injured in his first season. Its now September 2022 and we have the same issue. Partey injured? Midfield is ********ed. Thats 3 transfer windows to get a better Partey backup. And I have doubts we sign someone in January unless he is charged. So it could be July next season before we see anyone new. His injury issues have been known the last 2 transfer windows.