When Arsene Wenger talks about the modern transfer market there is a good chance that most Arsenal fans will react with a collective groan and a shake of the head, as the Frenchman’s words about players being too expensive or some clubs paying way over the odds generally signals to us his intention to buy an unheard of Lithuanian teenager.
However, you have to admit that the boss does often have a point. Would we really have been happy to pay the ridiculous transfer fee and salary that Manchester United paid to bring Paul Pogba back from Juventus? The fact they had him in the United academy made it even worse and his average performances this season did not help much either.
The other club from Manchester have not been shy about splashing the cash either and some people feel that Le Prof may just have been having a sly dig at one of their recent transfers in his comments reported by The Mirror this week.
He may well have been referring to the massive price paid by City for the young England centre back John Stones as compared to the pittance we paid for young Rob Holding. Stones did not exactly cover himself with glory this season and although he did not play for much of it, Holding really impressed towards the end and could well be one of the stars for England at the under 21 championships in Poland this summer.
Wenger said, “We have to be clear what we understand as a big signing. Is [Rob] Holding a big signing for you or not?
“When you buy a player for £40 million, everybody will have at the start a positive judgement. When you buy him for £2million, he can’t be good? “That means a big signing is not necessarily linked with the amount of money spent.”
So is Wenger right? Is Holding proving that Man City spending so much on an unproven Stones was a bit of transfer madness?
Bob.
We sometimes get too wrapped up in transfer fees and we like to joke about players like Pogba, but the players themselves have no control over the pricetag. And years later if the player turns out to be worth it nobody will even think about how much they cost. At the time Real Madrid paid 80mill for CR7. They would glady pay that again for the amount of success he has given them. You need to take risks in football sometimes. There are smaller risks like Holding, and then there are larger risks like Pogba and Mbappe. For all we know Pogba could hit his stride next season and be amazing. Arsenal don’t have any amazing players outside of Sanchez, and we’ve already witnessed a season where he has given it his all, and the rest of the squad is just clearly not on his level. So if Arsenal need to take a huge risk and spend a bunch of cash to get top players, I don’t care. Time to wake up and compete with the big boys which means completing big transfers. I bet next season there will be a new young talent that will be even more than Mbappe’s asking price.
Damn right! Well said.
Yeah and it would have been an even better story if Wenger would have convinced Mbappe to join Arsenal last summer!
?? £230,000 was his valuation back then and now his club are turning their noses up at £100 million bids. It’s a thumb down ?? for Wenger… He should have offered the kid more sweets!
So a club pays over the odds for a crappy player? Big deal! Arsenal fans pay over the odds to watch more than our fair share of crappy games. Money in the bank don’t entertain the fans, maybe Stan, players, quality players excite us.
In a world of exorbitant transfer fees, the holding-stones comparison proves that a player’s true worth is not in the price tag!
That’s no excuse for Wenger,look at big teams , the value of the players is directly proportional to trophies,but in case a good player was forgotten somewhere and you bought him cheaply then count yourself just but lucky.ie vardy or meherez.
Precious, can’t believe I called you that, no it doesn’t prove what you say. It proves what everyone already knew, that sometimes big price tags fail whilst little ones can sometimes succeed. There is always a flip side to these things, and I’d say the flip side here has a higher success rate at top clubs.
I am looking forward to seeing Saed play this season.
He has received praise for his LB play and also has played CB and DM.
Hopefully he will be able to handle the PL which is a lot more demanding physically than Bundesliga
Somewhat better that Wenger didn’t get Mbappe last year because I guess our poor Arsenal fan would have said he isn’t good enough to be in the Starting Xi putting him in all sort of pressure till he sinks especially in between the season we had.
Dude, you should look at the run Mavididi did for Charlton before he got injured, the guy has been performing at kid level and looked to stepped into a bigger stage without any adaption but got injured.
He got the ball in Charltons own box, ran past the entire team to the oppositions box before scuffing his shot.
I would love to see us get MBappe but at the same time I am eagerly awaiting Mavididi next loan move so I can watch him more, kid might be a flash in the pan but looks to have some real talent.
Holding was for sale at £2mil, he was the player of Boltons season and played for England under 20’s, so he was hardly an unknown, yet still Wenger offered £750K.
He did similar when Cahill was up for sale and we lost him to Chelsea, so Wenger takes the credit for finding Holding but almost lost him trying to be a clever arse.
He then puts in a bid of €100million for a French teenager knowing he won’t get him, but then will tell us he tried.
Cynical and dim.
I like how you summed up your overall comment at the end! 😉
OT
Sky Sports News HQ understands Juventus have agreed a deal in principle to sign Wojciech Szczesny for €16m (around £14m) from Arsenal.
I am not sure if Wenger is such a genius when it comes to transfers. Yes, Holding looks like a good piece of business no doubt. But did Sanogo look like a good piece of business? or Kallstrom? or Perez? or Ozil? Even Xhaka and Mustafi have still to prove their worth and both were very expensive players.
For me, the two most important elements are (1) do your purchases and sales of players move you up the table? (2) are you really trying to improve the team with better players replacing what you already have or have sold?
Transfers are gambles and Wenger doesn’t hold a magic wand or formula. I think we have the 3rd or 4th highest wage bill in the PL but didn’t finish 3rd or 4th.
Let’s just all hope and support Wenger to move us up the table before we anoint him as a genius.
Apparently Turan has just been sent home for attacking a Journalist
Still reading article. More details shortly lol
Wow. Turan has retired from International football too. He choked and insulted a Journalist who was sitting in the same plane.
Not a good sign.
To be fair Obviously there are two sides to a story and I don’t know if he has had anger problems before but we don’t need that sort of thing.
Barcelona midfielder Arda Turan has retired from international football after verbally and physically assaulting a journalist travelling on the Turkish national team’s plane.
The playmaker, who has always enjoyed a tense relationship with the media in Turkey, is a target for Arsenal this summer but is currently on international duty.
The incident took place on a plane to Italy on Monday night, when Turan reportedly approached Milliyet’s Bilal Meşe just before takeoff to vent about a story he had published about a pay dispute at Euro 2016. Coach Fatih Terim later expelled him from the squad and he has since quit the national team, after a row that got out of hand on the aircraft.
We dont need turan…..he is a good player but his style of play does not suit arsenal.
I wouldn’t write Stones off yet. Allot of clubs wanted him and am sure Arsene might have been interested for a time before the price went way up. Pep signed him, not known for his defensive signings but that is as much about his system as it is about his players. He signed allot of top defenders, inherited some too, but they were made to look a little less solid under himself. Goes to show you if you aren’t working on being somewhat solid well then you wont be solid.
Stones is a talent d footballer and will come good.
He is doing just fine now and didn’t choose his sale price..
Yet another article to try to convince us Wenger is right by ‘proof’.
All Hail awenger
Some players take time to adapt to a new team and their system.
So I guess Wenger isn’t buying Mbappe then? Haha
According to reports from France, Arsenal have jumped into the lead with an 140 million euros bid. ?? waiting for response from Monaco.
Money spent is not always the gauge off a players quality. The Holding-Stones comparison is a classic example. However finding gems for £2 million out off the lower leagues is getting harder and harder. Clubs are prepared to slap ridiculous money on players therefore it’s gonna get worse and worse. These days you have to put the money down cause if you don’t someone else will, Wenger can’t go around sitting on his hands holding out to try to save £2 or £3million pounds. That don’t work unless you putting putting more money down upfront. It’s like this Mbappe bid they say our bid is fake cause we have gone in £5 mil short of Madrid however Madrid are only putting 30 million euro up front and the rest in Instalments and we are putting 60 million euro upfront. So in cases like that you can save a bit and still buy the player. Arsene just pay the money and get us the player we need to get back to where we should be.
COYG
Im not sure your comment is correct … everyone starts somewhere at a reasonable price
Cesc was free and turned into a valuable player
Bellerin – similar and valued at £50mn now apparently
Kante – bought for nothing and won 2 premier leagues in a row
Vardy from non-league to England and prem league title
Mahrez – 400k
Holding – looks good and only £2mn
Mbappe – last year was £230k now £100mn
Teams like Man City, Chelsea and Man Utd plus eg Monaco and others just pay silly money which inflates the price and then ‘fans’ feel their clubs have to spend the same….
Leicester’s story was so globally loved because they did win the league playing great football with a squad of cheap players!
Most players in world football are not worth the money paid for them and this article points to that perfectly, however the best players will always cost more and make us fans moan more than usual when they do have a bad game.
All these papers suddenly linking us to all different players, thats how you know they’re talking rubbish.
You have to use a little common sense with some of these rumours ??
The difference between this window and all the previous ones is that the club have instructed Wenger to Spend and to do his business quickly.
It’s seems as if Mbappe is Wengers main target, what with a supposedly 140 million euros bid made today.
Seri is also a target at £34 million and I guess that he’ll be our next signing. ?
People love to cite Paul Pogba as an example of why you “Shouldn’t spend big” but he’s not been in the side long, and is such a quality player that’s almost unimaginable that he won’t come good eventually.
Our best player (Alexis) was one of Arsenal’s most expensive signings, and as was Arsenal Fan’s Player-of-the season 2015-16 Mezut Ozil. Granit Xhaka was one of Arsenal’s most expensive players ever, and took a while to get going, but looks like he will be well-worth-it in the long run. Same goes for Mustafi. Even the Ox wasn’t cheap considering his age and status when we got him.
On the other hand we have Yaya Sonogo, Park Chu Young, Marouane Chamakh, Ryo Miyaichi, Thomas Eisfeld, Sebastien Squillaci… And stacks of youth players that never made the grade.
So even Wenger’s own transfers prove that spending big money gets you better players, and has to be done. Rob Holding is the exception, not the rule, and going on about him doesn’t prove Wenger right what-so-ever.
Based on this article, arsenal should not sign any expensive player….why? Because pogba turned not to worth the 100M !!!
Based on this article, we should always sign cheaper unproven and younger players because they may turn out to be good and yet cheap ! So that we can call this “good business” !!!
Right ? I rest my case….