It appears that Arsene Wenger is at least getting closer to adding to his only piece of Arsenal transfer business of the summer so far and his second signing cannot come quickly enough for the army of Arsenal fans who are beginning to get that usual sinking feeling that a typically quiet transfer window brings on.
With just a month left to go before the start of the new Premier League season the Gunners have added only the central midfield star of the Switzerland national team. As much as the performances of Granit Xhaka at Euro 2016 gave us Gooners plenty of reason to be happy, he is not going to fix all of the problems and transform Arsenal into a title winning team on his own.
The general consensus is that our minimum requirement is another centre forward and central defender and the papers today are suggesting that Wenger is close to completing the transfer of the latter and it seems like he has focused his attention on Italy’s Serie A to find the right player. Not a bad idea after Italy’s defensive strength this summer reminded everyone that they have always been skilled in the art of stopping other sides from scoring goals.
Only one of the two possible targets are Italian though, with CalcioMercato reporting that Arsenal have made an offer of 30 million euros to Juventus for their 21-year old centre back Daniele Rugani. The offer was apparently turned down but that does not mean the pursuit is over.
Meanwhile the 25-year old Roma and Greece international star Kostas Manolas is being tracked by Wenger and also by our Premier League rivals Chelsea according to Corrieredellosport. Manolas has honed his skills in the Italian top flight for the last two seasons and established himself as one of the best defenders in it.
If these are the last two centre backs on the list, which would you rather see come to Arsenal?
Bob.
Kos is number one.
Gabriel +Chambers will get a chance
to establish them selves as 2 and 3.
Mertz is an excellent back up number 4.
Another CB can wait till next season.
I hate to be a ‘Doomsday Prophet’ but I’ve got to say this…
Our transfer activity this summer has been horrible so far. It’s not over yet, but it’s been horrible.
Among all the top teams in the BPL, we’re the ones to move with urgency than the others…but that’s not the case.
I’ll put my membership on the line here (Admin, take note)…If we don’t sign at least 2 QUALITY additions, we won’t win the BPL title at the end of the season.
If we however do win (with this same squad, or 1 addition), I’ll issue my apologies on this site, and Admin can take me off.
I totally agree with you
theres no way on gods clean earth that we are going to win anything with the current strike force.
And with all the competition manning up I think its doubtful we will make CL football next season.
there were Only two top tier clubs who needed to man up over this summer and that was Man United and us and Man united have and are
what the F@ck are we doing?? is Wenger hoping that all his squad have had a collective brain transplant?
I wonder how many people thought Leicester would win the league with Vardy ozaki and ulloa?
And how many of us thought with a few weeks to go that we would finish runners up with giroud? ahead of spurs and kane, city and aguero?
True but that was more down to the fact that Man city and spurs blew thier leads and lost games that they should have won NOT down to us having a fantastic finish, Giroud only broke his duck against an already relegated Villa so lets not think that we were wonderful cos we were not it was nip and tuck at one point if we’d even finish in the top four
Giroud also scored against City before the Villa match. We were better over 38 matches than Spurs, Man City (& Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea).
I don’t think we’ll fall out of the top 4…we never do. It’s Wenger’s blessing and curse at the same time.
Totally agree, I can bet we will not win with Wenger. There is a feeling around he wants a top striker because it seems to be his last year at charge. He wants to do something NOW, not in future. But as clever as a man Wenger can be, he wont overpay. So I doubt if we can get any good players. Juventus is going for Gabigol, he is a nice prospect at just 20M. Lucas Digne at 20M is a gr8 prospect for CB, and we missed. Janssen at 20M is as good as Giroud and gives a different style, and we missed. Dortmund has taken in the best youngsters this year, we missed. 1-2 such players are fine along with a striker for this year
I really dont see any legs in any of these stories about any more transfers, The evidence is all there among all the smoke and mirrors,
Look at the evidence,
Wenger stated that Giroud would lead the line next season and as such we have have only seen any real movement towards buying a striker in the purchase of Asano who clearly is nothing more than a shirt selling move.
Wenger also stated that he would ONLY have a transfer kitty of circa 50 million.
He has spend around 35 of that in Xhaka and whatever Asano cost.
Wenger has donbout how the rest of the worlds teams and thier view of us? NOTHING with regards to any other tyransfer business and nearly all the english press reports are ominously quiet about any potential targets only going over the same ground with regards to Lacazzetta and Higuian et al
Every Arsenal Fan (and just about everyone else) realises that there are a number of players that WE should be selling, Walcott ect but theeres NO news of that either
Its telling that NOONE is making moves on our players (Apart from a reported bid for Sanchez) despite the fact we finished second in the hardest league in the world, what does that say av does that say about the vast majority of these stories are always just media hype to sell papers and thats all this is I bet you.
We are NOT buying the real thing we need which in my opinion is a real beast of a striker and thats that
Wenger would rather set himself alight that give up on the idea of Olivier Giroud being the next tierry Henry, in fact he’s rather Give the real Thierry Henry an ultimatum cos he critasized the Wenger regime.
Wake up Gooners this is all just distant press talk and we all reall know that theres no more business to be done for us this transfer window.
Yawn…
Where is this beast of a striker? Higuain? Scores every 6 chances & no big improvement on Giroud. Morata?- not a beast just yet. You say Wenger was given a transfer budget of £50M then blame him personally for not spending- he’s already spent most of that.
“Wenger won’t give up on OG being the new Henry”-?????- Well, that’s an immature thing to say- he’s played an important squad role for us- & Wenger hasn’t been afraid to bench him in favour of Welbeck or Walcott.
Henry decision was correct; the punditry is an obvious conflict of interest.
There’s also more than 6 weeks until the transfer window shuts.
The question I keep asking myself is this, “where is all the transfer Money going to?” We are about to get millions more with the BT deals and we already have a surplus of cash that we DIDNT spend last summer, so where is all this money going to??
cos iuts clear we aint spending it on top drawer proven strikers and the like
Where does the money go
W.T. Waggoner Estate Ranch in Texas
Broken O Ranch, montana
Plus another nine ranches.
the prices are dubious, wengers range wont punch the 20 mill barrier for defender….
just received a reading from mystic meg….
Arsenal transfer window 2016
May Vardy
June Morata
July Lacazette
August Higuain
Sept New Contract for Sanogo
#SanogoWillRiseFromTheAshes
As we continue the search for a CB, I couldn’t help but be impressed with Germany / Koln left-back Jonas Hector at the Euro’s.
Surely he would be an upgrade on Gibbs and provide stiff competition to Monreal and eventually take over.
I don’t see Manolas leaving Roma and if he does it will be for good money and may end up at Man City.
Chambers can take it this season.We need a creative midfielder(CM)Isco maybe,a striker as Lukaku and a creative winger who can play with Sanchez,but to be his tipe of player,not Draxler,in my opinion Insigne would be perfect.If we would take such players,our team would be complete and the best in EPL.
We’ve got enough CMs. But I do agree with you on Chambers I’ve said it before, he’ll do well when partnered up with Kos
OT: England FA talking to Big Sam over been the new England boss, this has got to be the biggest joke bar living the EU.
What are yawl smoking up there, with the caliber of players England has of mostly young exciting players you would think they would be looking for a tactical genius to lead this team. I know they are insisting on putting an English man at the helm but is that at the expense of the country’s football progressing? We all cant be Germany you know.
Just had to give my piece on this as I’m curious to how Big Sam will help our English boys (Jack, Chambers, Welbeck, Gibbs, and the young stars in the academy) turn into stars with his kind of football.
@007
No offense mate but who gives two Sh!ts about the “English boys” in our squad ? they seem to care little about the England team and its performance, the only player we had in the squad was the only player who showed any heart and that was Jack.
Webeck is a hard worker but he’s injury prone and just not really good enough, and the Ox and walcott ect are just never going to be good enough its a shame but it true
Leaving the EU a joke?
Well not according to the majority. I believe it is the greatest move for England and Wales. As for Scotland and Northern Ireland it could also be a blessing in disguise for them. They could soon have their own independance referendums and make their own decisions. If they want to join the EU I suggest they hurry up. The EU is a self controlling rat infested sinking ship, I’m just glad we are getting off first.
Just hope that the government now agree to a 3rd referendum, in 2057 approximately 41 years after the 2nd one just like we as a generation had to wait 41 years after the 1st one.
Of the 200+ countries in this world only 29 are in the EU. Of that 29 only a handful were actually contributing. Of the 170+ not in the EU many of them are doing very nicely.
But we have good CBs in the EPL that won’t cost us too much..
Fonte, Van Dijk and Caulker in order of preference and if we wanna go abroad, Howedes is the definition of versatility,there are many out there that are very good and won’t cost much,that shouldn’t be an issue…
But for us, every important transfer is always complicated..
Arsenal is UNIQUELY ridiculous!
From your list Wenger is more likely tracking Asley Williams, D. Blind, or Managala.
You have a point, there so many “cheaper” options with EPL experience. However, Howedes is my dream signing at CB.
For starters, Rugani is not for sale and he is a big part of Juventus’s future project, Yes money talks but Arsenal’s money mainly does its talking with the banks interest rates.
While Chelsea are signing Kante, Wenger is approaching targets with no ‘REAL’ intentions of signing! ?
It’s Unbelievable how this old dog keeps getting away with repeating the same old tricks, year after year.
His just killing time by approaching players and then under bidding for them, his art of looking keen and busy without an end product, abit like our performance on the pitch.
IF Wenger had any real intentions he would have already signed what we needed. ?
Just in case anyone is suffering from Goldfish syndrome,
Wenger will do a little bit of panic buying in the remaining hours of this transfer window. ??
He doesn’t need to look keen- that’s an absurd theory- the media will link us to 200 players every transfer window, without anyone at the club doing anything.
” IF Wenger had any real intentions he would have already signed what we needed.” – the window closes in over 6 weeks, Are you applying the same criticism to Pep Guardiola, to Antonio Conte?
Main requirement is a striker
I don’t see Wenger spending more than 30 million Euros (don’t have a Euro symbol on laptop)
Rugani is also 21 and 4th in the Juventus CB pecking order
We need a more experienced player and ideally a regular starter
Manolas sounds good. He should be around £20-25 million. He is 25 and plays for both Roma and Greece. If we can pay £16 million for Chambers, surely we can spend a few million more on a more experienced player
Also, Koulibaly, Murillo, Benatia, Howedes, Mustafi, Garay, Laporte would be good
Rugani would start for us- he’s just found himself in a very rare situation, having to be patient.
Well, since Wenger has condemned us to wishing and dreaming let’s dream on. Between both options Manolas is definitely the prime choice if we want a solid partner for Kos. And with Xhaka and Coquilin sitting in front of the pair? We will be impenetrable. But it’s just a dream, unfortunately, Wenger doesn’t get excited about such mouth watering prospects. He gets excited when profits are declared and our books are balanced.
Could someone please tell me which team out of Leicester, Spurs, Man City, Man United, Liverpool, West Ham and Chelsea have 4 centre backs as good as Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gabriel and Chambers.
Considering some of those may well be playing with 3 at the back, I simply do not see why we are all panicking about our centre backs? Chambers proved this summer he is a more than capable option as he captained England U21 to the prestigious Toulon Tournament. Gabriel will benefit from having a full season under his belt and Mertesacker will benefit from being the senior outfield player and most likely club captain.
Yes I would like to see another centre back, allowing chambers to get more experience on loan, like I want another cf and winger. But my own opinion is that it was injuries that cost us last season, though I do fear that United, Liverpool, Chelsea and city will pose more threat this season.
While I see your point atid… IMO we’re still one piece away from having HANDS DOWN the best defense in the league. (It pains me to say… but it’d be between us and tottenham. blasphemy i know but the rose tinted glasses can’t hide their players and the way they defended last season.)
The way I see it we have:
Cech – 8.5-9
Bellerin – 9 going forward, 7 defensively
Kos – 9.5-10
Monreal – 7 going forward, 9 defensively
Then….
Mertz – 7-7.5 – the big man gets a ridiculous amount of unjustified criticism. though the way we venture forward Koscielny does bail him out quite a lot. A rock in the air and when we are absorbing pressure and in shape he’s phenomenal IMO. When we’re committing players forward there is better to be had… And this hurts me to say as i love the big hairy… (sack)
Gabriel – 6-6.5 (last season). I really, really despise bashing Arsenal players. But he was a downright defensive liability in our run in. I struggle to think of a CB that lost out on as many 50/50 balls that he did and some of his decisions were simply baffling. First season in the league and still far better than Koscielny’s first few seasons. But I’ll remain quietly skeptical if he’s one of the two starting CB’s next season.
For half of last season we had Flim-Flam, Arteta and Coquelin… Second half we had Elneny and Flim-flam……… Need I say more?
I really don’t think people give the credit to how much we’ve upgraded our ability to shield our defense from midfield. Coquelin was an absolute revelation pairing with Cazorla. And during their partnership we actually took the most points of any PL team for A YEAR before their unfortunate injuries. As much as I love (and I mean freaking love as he’s aggression is what we were sorely missing for yeaaaaaaaars) Coquelin.. I think he’s going to have to improve a lot to displace Xhaka as his ability to dictate the play from what I’ve seen eclipses the frenchmen.
Bleh I’m rambling now… In short – we have four of five pieces for a title winning defense IMO. Why not splurge on the 5th? There’s going to be a lot more protection for them so why not invest and make sure?
Your right there as much as I hate to admit it Buuut I still think we need a beast of a striker and then we’re where we should be Buuut I just see your god Wenger buying one.
Anyone can see that Giroud and Walcott and even Welbeck when he’s fit are just NOT up to scratch in this department.
Chambers is MUCH better than fans give him credit for. If we were ONLY going to get one more player – please god let it be a class Striker!
True.. But from what I’ve seen he’s still not ready to be our starting CB in a title challenging side. He’s still a project.
People are hitting the panic buttons a bit… Just because people say we need a CB doesn’t mean they’re inadvertently disregarding our striker situation.
The same way our own fans wrote us off last season yet we finished above star studded Chelsea, Man-City etc. Come on guys.
But thats NOT going to happen if we dont address the deficiencies this season as everybody else appears to be doing
the reality is that Wenger appears to be doing sweet FA to address either CB or striker problems, in fact he apperas not to being much of anything with regards to transfers