Can Arsenal challenge for next year’s title with just one or two signings?

Arsenal were left facing the facts yesterday that once again they have finished a season having massively underachieved from what is expected of them and on this occasion they couldn’t even achieve the consistent top four slot that they’ve held down for the past twenty years. Everyone at Arsenal from the management to the staff will be deeply disappointed to have missed out, but unsurprisingly there is one or two that still maintain the odd view that this team is capable of winning the biggest of competitions.

Unfortunately for the Arsenal fans, one of those members who shares such a view actually happens to be our current manager Arsene Wenger, the main man who can actually see change amongst the squad. Wenger unfortunately still has his view that this squad is capable of winning major honours and that like every year ‘we are just one or two signings’ behind the winners of this year’s major competitions.

On the matter, Wenger is quoted saying: ‘They have learned a lot and they have gone through difficult periods this season and they have bounced back in a very strong way. I think that will help them, absolutely, next season.

But first I think we have to keep 90 per cent of these players together and find one or two more who strengthen the group but we don’t need a lot. We don’t need many. But we need maybe top quality.’

I completely agree that this squad, the spine of the team, ie the starting eleven must remain at Arsenal, especially our most influential players such as Koscielny, Ozil and Alexis. There are of course numerous other names that will be on such list but I think it’s also vital that the mediocre players and ‘deadwood’ players are shipped out of the club and replaced with the highest quality we can attract.

The issue we have this summer is that of course we will not be playing in Europe’s biggest club competition next season and thus we may find it difficult recruiting the quality of players we require. Premier League winners Chelsea and Champions League teams Spurs and City have the advantage now, with things like heritage, history and of course the reputation of Arsene Wenger no longer having the meaning it once did.

Furthermore, if we are just one or two players away from success, or at least challenging for the league, then why has Wenger been saying this for the last few years at least, with pretty much no improved results. We have pushed for the league on a few occasions over the past couple of years, but never consistently for the entirety of the whole campaign. Perhaps Wenger thinks he is capable of leading this current squad to success with the addition of one or two star signings, but I think in reality that’s proving to be much easier said than done.

By AH

37 Comments

  1. It’s just the same ‘ol story. If he remains as the manager, he might get the two ‘top players’ he’s talking about but the thing is it will be the same ‘ol story come end of the season. Pretty obvious right?

  2. We are no longer one or two players away from success. We used to be, but not anymore. Incredibly wasteful spending, buying the wrong players, always looking for sub-20 million Pound value has brought us here. We spent 100 Million last year, what did we get, Mustafi was above average but not great, Xhaka was below average and Lucas didnt play. Chelsea bought Kante and Luiz for less money and they brought the title. So Wenger’s lack of transfer ability has brought us to a point where we need at least 4 players to make a difference.

    If we are going to keep playing with three in the back, we definitely need anther world class defender. We also need a left wing back. Since Cazorla is done and Coquelin and El Nanny are mediocre at best, we do need a beast of a midfielder, I would go for power above anything at this point. Obviously even if we keep Sanchez we will need to buy one of the outstanding forwards out there, Aubomeyang, or Greizmann or Mbappe, or Lukaku etc.

    So if we keep Ozil and Sanchez and buy 4 top players, spending about 200 Million, we will be good to compete. Obviously with a new manager.

    Is any of this going to happen? If Usmanov had bought the club maybe it would, but with Stan, Ivan and Arsene, the gruesome threesome in place, forget about it.

  3. Arsenal need at least three signings! One holding midfielder, One striker since Welbeck has a series of injuries and Santi Cazolla respectively. With one more defender. To be honest Arsenal must sign super striker to partner with Sanchez and that is what will make Arsenal deadly upfront relevant to Barcelona.

  4. Now is the time for change!! As much as I hate to say it I can’t see Wenger leaving.. like most gooners I do believe the daft old Frenchman has peaked and therefore declining at alarming rate.. his tactics.. man management.. transfer stubbornness.. and bullshit belief in under achieving players is a joke..

    I for one believe changes will happen ( or should I say I prey it happens ) but we all know kroenke is a businessman. He is not a fan of our club.. he does not bleed gooner like we do.. he quite frankly pays “our board” to run the club.. only interested in profit and advertisement. I read something the other day on sky sports news that all of kroenkes francises are running at heafty profit margins but the 5 or 6 sports teams he owns NONE of them win anything.. they are all bottom half of their respective leagues.. so kroenke doesn’t necessarily need to sell up.. Just sell enough to make usamov majority shareholder.. let him have his say and input wherever he see fit.. sack gazidis and that other gimp chips Keswick or what ever his name is

    Then dare I say it but back Wenger for once in transfer market.. go above his stingy valuations and pay some release causes.. greizmann is available for 85-90mil euros GO PAY IT WENGER!! If we are only getting 2 or 3 signings they have to be BIG signings or what’s the point??

    What do ppl think?

    1. There are a lot of things going on behind the scenes that we don’t know, but we DO know that Kroenke interferes with the team structure and the running of Arsenal… he certainly isn’t silent Stan behind closed doors, and that could be behind the unrest going on at the moment. We know he forced Wenger to sell our best players to service stadium debt, when it wouldn’t have been a big deal deal to him to finance that, at least as a loan. The downward trajectory of Wenger can be correlated to Kroenke’s arrival. I believe the team we have, under normal circumstances could get pretty close to winning the league. I don’t know if getting a new manager would solve our problems, or if any top manager would be prepared to work under Kroenke. The only way to change our fortunes is to get rid of Siphon Stan.

  5. Players and new signings are not the core problem. Mentality, atmosphere and the current leader are. Leicester have experienced the same in more acute and observable way with Ranieri. Unless Arsen is fired before next season start my prediction is even poorer result no matter the signings.

  6. Off topic, BUt the sadest thing for me this year, wasnt europa, it wasnt loosing to chelsea or spurs, it was actually watching how the fans reacted to one another, the infighting etc. whilst i was horribly dissapointed by wenger, at times i was ashsamed by the fans. Now you can say its wengers fault and the boards, and maybe you’re right, whatever, I just do not want to see fans truning on one another next season

  7. Wenger’s under a spell of ignorance no doubt.. I’m not a mourhino fan, but his talk about wenger being a specialist in failure gets glaring by the day..

  8. Read the full interview and found it quite painful that not once AW mentioned anything about the title or challenging for the title, it was all about the top 4. Says a lot about his aspirations. Wholesale changes are needed.

    1. Not his aspirations, but Kroenke’s, these were never his aspirations before Kroenke arrived. We need more openness in the club, that won’t happen with ‘Silent’ Stan.

  9. HaHaHaHa.. Main target Onyekuru ” Nigerian Player ” Top goal scorer in the Belgium league for 8 million pounds.This is the statements to compete against the big 4? here we go AOB’s this is Kroenke’s fault? WENGER OUT. How can you cmoe with this breaking news when we all know the failure to win trophies has been all Arsene’s fault. this is the kind of players he thinks will improve us. What happened to Lucas? 17 wasted million pounds for decent striker who you Mr Wenger destroyed. SHAME ON YOU! Gooners who love this beloved club rise and protest even more than ever. they are deceiving us all. they cut the prices for the Europa League and also said there was 200 million for this summer transfer and we started with a Bosnian WHO from german lower team and now Top striker from belgium. Get the moeny and buy Abumayang..we do not care if 100 goes in a top WC player but show us respect and intent. lacazette is going to Atletico so who else is left decent in the market? Mbappe, Bernardo Silva, Sidibbe, Lemar, Ballotti. I’m more pissed with the news and still people backing this deluded manager to turn us around. Go and raid Wolsburg for Luiz Gustavo and Rodriguez not a lwoer league striker. OUT, OUT, OUT.

    1. Have you watched the player? If we let one or two of Asano, Akpom or Sanogo go, what’s wrong with replacing them with Onyekuru?

      1. Come on man, Belgium league is worse than the Dutch. Look at spuds with Jansen an he’s a dutch international. No more Sanogos, we got Lucas, who scored goals in la liga and was left benched most of the season. this is why Wenger stays and remains because fans like you happy with this crap signings. UTD will spend 200 millions again and this time Murinho do not have excuses not to win it. Pep is looking to add 3 bug names and is making a cull at City. We will start the next season as the previous. UNPREPARED as usual unknown cheap players.

        1. Lukaku came from the Belgium league, infact that league has produced more quality than the Dutch league has, in the last 5 years.

          1. Arsenal need finished products right now though. Not more “potential.” Unless this kid is Mbappe quality, which he is not, it’s a waste of time.

    2. Of course it is Kroenke’s fault – if you were employing someone who was doing a cr@p job, wouldn’t you try and replace him??????

  10. Xhaka will be a better player next season. The OX should improve on his impressive performance this season. Cech seems to have got his mojo back. We need competition for Cazorla/Ozil and Giroud/Welbeck in midfield and attack. Yes, 2 signings in addition to Sead Kolasinic should see us compete next season.

    Sigurdsson, Kolasinic, Lacazette will be a pretty neat summer given our finances and lack of champions league football. You don’t really think we could pull off an Mbappe or Griezmann, do you?

    1. Given our finances Twig, are we suddenly bankrupt ?? or are we still making ££££££££££££

  11. My wish list (next season):

    Arsene Wenger
    Cech
    New_1, Holding, Kos, New_2
    Xhaka, Cazorla, Wilsher, Ozil
    Sanchez, New_2

    Sub: Oxlade-C, Gabriell, Iwobi, Bellerin, Adeleide, Perez, Szczeny, New_3

    1. What with Czech as manager and Wenger as goalkeeper.
      I know Wenger likes putting players in their unnatural positions and he is very good and deflecting the shots!

  12. For the FA cup final, could Chambers come in at centre back?
    Middlesborough have no more matches, so surely his loan is finished, so could he not play for us in the final then?

    1. Per in Central defence after have not played a game the entire season against Hazard or Pacy Pedro – Costa 3 up front? we are for a rough time. I will gp with Holdiing – Nacho and bellerin back 3 then theo and welbeck on the wings to counter ayyack Moses and Alonso in the middle Xaka and Ramsey the up front Ozil and alexis.

  13. My fellow gunners and the rest of you wengerits, the thing with Arsenal is that we dont need 2 new players ( even if its Messi and Ronaldo it wont make the diff) but rather a complete overhaul which means:

    Start to emulate the spurs, yea u heard right efin spurs

    Now you all can go f ur selfs and enjoy the rest of the day

  14. Never forget Wenger thinks of himself as a smart man, and he miss calculeted the 4th place goal due some miss calculation this time

    Which are understemtating liverpool and spurs and relying way to much on luck the luck this time was not shining at him

    Will this happen again? probably not thats why him being the manager next year is a sure thing

  15. So if we are 2 players behind Chelsea in order to challenge, does that mean if Chelsea sign 2 players to strengthen their squad, we will buy 4?

  16. Remember he says many clubs all over the world were after him but he chose to remain faithful to Arsenal.yeah right.joker

  17. If Arsenal manage to keep Sanchez, Cazorla comes back fighting-fit, and Monreal keeps his good form up, then Arsenal could field a title-challenging first-eleven by adding just a couple of players (One of which has to be a 1st-class striker).

    But having a first-choice-eleven that look good enough on paper simply won’t do it in reality.

    It also requires players not to be constantly injured, and for the manager to rotate the squad sensibly to help achieve that. It requires good squad depth. It needs fire and passion from the team AND manager. Leadership on the pitch. Good tactics from the coach that respond to different opposition. Intelligent management of player’s contracts. A winning mentality and not breaking under pressure.

    We all know that the current set-up lacks all of the above, and adding a couple of world-class players won’t change that. A better manager could do. A more demanding owner definitely would.

  18. Kroenke has to go … Maybe empty stadiums every so often … maybe Usmanov et al can support loyal Arsenal fans so they can afford to do this … Kroenke’s latest one is that he will continue investing in Arsenal for the long term … can anyone ever recall a time when he has invested anything? The only thing he’s good at, is taking out.

  19. Players to go: Mertesaker – Holding – Monreal – Debuchy – Elneny – Sanchez – Iwobi – Lucas Perez – Sanogo – Giroud – Wellbeck
    Playern in: Costa – Kolasinac – Depay – Asensio – Werner – Morata – Dzeko
    Manager to go: Arsen Wenger
    Manger in: Diego Simone – Pelegrini

  20. Let’s just stop dreaming of the PL and set ourselves targets that we can achieve. Don’t get me wrong…but for years I have been convinced that we are PL contenders. For years I was proven so wrong….I was even dreaming of CL ! stupid right ?
    Don’t give me the same talk about what players we need because we are currently good enough to contend for being in top 4, to win Europa, to win FA , and that other one that I always forget…Carling is it ? Just lower the ticket, and merchandise prices to meet the reality of our abilities.

  21. The main problem is Wenger and kroenke……wenger has been inept for some time now.,…..he needs to go……the new coach can then decide the type of players he wants……kroenke owns the team…….why this man was given the chance to buy Arsenal beats me…..he is going to run the team to the ground……a mid table team……we are stuck with him for a while …..till the team loses significant money……he bought the Avalanche and won a title…..then turned then into an average team……an unrecognizable team……the worst for us, Arsenal fans is yet to cone……..unless we fight back…..

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