Arsene Wenger oversaw his side add another pre-season trophy with the Emirates Cup on Sunday. He then went on to confirm that the forward Theo Walcott, who incidentally was the goal scorer, is close to signing a new contract with the Gunners.
The contract for the English forward expires at the end of next season and if there is no development on the new contract by January, Walcott will be free to negotiate with foreign clubs. However, Wenger appeared calm all through the time indicating every now and then that the situation is under control. He kept reminding that a deal worthy of the forward would be offered and eventually be signed; meaning all necessary steps be taken to keep the player at the club.
Though there were no indications of the talks, latest reports put that the discussions over a new four-year deal for the Englishman are progressing well. There are talks about a good rise for Walcott from his current £90,000 per week deal. Both the parties are supposed to be close to reaching an agreement and Wenger indicated the same yesterday.
“He’s not signed the contract yet, but we are getting closer and closer and hopefully we can finalize it very soon.” said Wenger.
The news comes as a boost for the supporters ahead of the new season. There are talks of Wenger being interested in signing a proven goal scorer. There were reports linking Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema to the club but there isn’t anything progressing on that front.
Wenger will be eager to test all the available options upfront to ease the burden on his central striker Olivier Giroud. Walcott may not have scored the goal from the central forward position but it is a position he is keen to fill on a regular basis.
On an entirely different note, Arsenal fans will be boosted by the fact that the Gunners keeper Wojciech Szczesny has announced on Instagram that he will join the Italian side Roma on a season-long loan. The finer details are being ironed out but it looks all set to be finalized, which means that David Ospina will remain as our cup keeper.
Szczesny lost his starting place in the Gunners XI to David Ospina last season following a series of poor performances and troubles off the pitch. And his position has become ever more untenable following the arrival of Petr Cech. This loan deal should serve him well and could give him regular game time.
The 25-year-old made more than 180 appearances for the club in all competitions and even lost his national place. He would be eager to reclaim that too and the move to Roma should help him.
Sridhar
Theo deal probably semantics, Schez had to go; performance – wise he was runt of the litter.
Title got me; wishful thinking for new signing.
My rating
Title > article
I hope everyone’s right about Szes. I definitely rate him higher than Osoina. I’ve seen him have amazing games and bad games, but most of his games were good and he is young! I’ve seen Ospina have good and bad in just a few games (Monaco). I hope we keep the Pole around.
You are completely right. Szczesny is a better goalkeeper than Ospina though the hysterical fans who never take time to analyse things will disagree with you. Ospina was the goalkeeper of a settled Arsenal team on a good run with key players fit. During his brief time Ospina had a settled defence of Per/Koc and Coquelin infront of them. Again Arsenal were on a run in which very few teams actually challenged them and when they did Ospina could either not rescue the team (Monaco) or was actually at fault (Swansea). Fans forget that Szczesny won the golden gloves (shared with Cech) the season earlier. He has had amazing games with Arsenal but his undoing is that he failed to control his sense of arrival and didn’t realize the thin line between confidence and arrogance.
I have watched Ospina, his recovery is average when the ball is moved from one side of the post to the other. Watch the Swansea goal and you will see this clearly (I also observed this in a number of other instances that did not result to a goal). He is a bit short for a goalkeeper especially for balls that go towards the far post. In the long run this will tell and you all will all jump on his back like you have done Szczesny.
You talk about all this analysis but the fact is you actually have to analyse matches to show when Ospina makes mistakes because they are never the sole cause of a goal, it’s always more of a “another goalie could have probably saved that”.
Yes, Ospina had a defence in front of him that made him look good but face it, Szcz makes mistakes that makes everyone nervous, including the defence in front of him which is never a good thing.
Now I do think Szcz has a higher potential ceiling so to speak and that’s probably why he is being loaned out to Roma for now.
Szcz has had much worse matches than Ospina and Monaco.
Why are we suddenly portraying Walcott as some messiah. He is decent but no world class player who can lead us to title. Again wenger refusing to address real situation and is covering flaws.
I just Walcott is fully motivated for whole season and not just when he wants extension in his contract.
Mourinho calling Arsenal big spender’s and asking for calculator to prove it, by that logic why was spurs and liverpool not mentioned. We have spent allot lately but we are spending to play catch up. His and cities spending was unprecedented at the time and were the only two clubs matching Real and Barca’s spending. Then season after season more and more going into these teams and discarding whatever or whoever they liked after just one season, we cannot discard in such a fashion so therefor many more risks on our part. We have to get thing’s right whereas Mourinho can just dump Shurrle De Bruyne Cuadrado F Luiz in one hand and open a blank cheque book in other.
I think Mourinho’s touching on it because we do have a fantastic squad and are very close to having a team capable of challenging on all fronts. Some mind games with Mourinho maybe hoping for Wenger to then try get a good deal on or next two targets instead of just paying to see us over the line. We have some great depth to our squad and anyone coming in will have to be good enough in making the starting line up, Mourinho should be scared.
It is called Mind Games.
why not calling Ibrahimovic instead of Abramovich and see if he would remain at Chelsea
On a side note. I’ve changed my mind on getting another winger. Oxlade-Chamberlain is the man. If he stays fit he will be quality. Still young and still developing and improving, he will be one of the best RMs around in a couple years time. What can’t he do? He’s very quick, he’s strong, he can dribble, drive the team forward, go past players, make key passes and has a good finish on him.
Against a pitiful Lyon maybe.
Last season he huffed and
puffed with little or no end
product. And he’s injury prone.
But may be he will remain
fit and develop some end product.
I hope so other wise we should off load
him to Chelsea or City for 40 mill
He was our best player at Old Trafford.
Anyone saying offload The Ox can’t be a Gooner. He even has The before his name. The shall regret turning The’s back, for The Ox shall Theliver.
He can turn the ball over. Mental strength Ox! Your right he could be amazing.
100% for me it should be ox right alexis left and theo down the middle, that’s of our current crop. At least that would be my choice for counter attacks, so quick so dynamic. But when we need the ball to be retained more and held up, plus there is more defending to do, then in come welbeck and giroud for ox and theo.. Wheter we have a 6th player to enter that group is debatable, wellington, campbell, gnabry and akpom could be that man if it’s to be a forward, but equally wilshire, Ramsey and rosicky could do a better job though in a different way.
Our front 6 options are very strong indeed, sure we could keep adding world class player upgrades (like cech coming in for ospina, thus forcing Szczesney out) but there reaches a point when you simply cannot leave some players out and keep them happy as they are simply too good to be left out.
Wenger has been “fortunate” and I say that tongue in cheek that injuries have meant the 20/22 man nucleus of his squad all get a fair amount of game time. But if everyone stays fit this season for longer periods, he will struggle to keep them happy.
The back 5 is pretty much a two horse race for each position with 8 defenders and 2 top keepers. Martinez, will probably go out on loan as well with Macey, iliev and Huddart rotating around the 3rd choice keeper role or may be a “retiring keeper” might be happy to play 3rd fiddle and collect his wages. Personally I see no reason for that as our 3 younger keepers are all good enough to warm a bench for the first team, however, I hope that either Martinez or Szczesney loan include a recall option.
Howeverfor the front 6 positions it is already competitive, coquelin flamini arteta cazorla Ramsey wilshire rosicky ozil chamberlain Welbeck Walcott giroud already means 12 players fighting for 6 positions but add to that hayden, bielik, zelalem, gnabry, wellington, campbell, iwobi adelaide and akpom. Of which only 2 are classed as over 21s and you start to see the reason why wenger is reluctant to spend in that department until he has replaced.
As I have stated many times even with a horrendous injury record like last season, we only fielded 33 players in all 5 competitions. 4 of those only made 1 appearance, and a further 3 made 6 or less. In addition to those 10 you have players like podolski who made 13 appearances but 11 of those were as a sub. Whilst rosicky and Walcott also made twice as many appearances from the bench as they did starts.
In my eyes a squad should be just 23 players, 2 for each but with a third keeper.That rule should be applied across all football, with the matching squad increasing to 23 from 18. Of that 23 man squad, there should be 5 homegrown players at a minimum of which all 5 should be able to represent the country play in The u21 rule should remain, but for the keepers it should be 25 as they most definitely have a different role and length of playing career.
Basically this long post leaves me saying we now currently have a 24 man squad classed as over 21 (born 1993 or before) in addition we have some highly thought of under 21s like bellerin and chambers that already command a place in first x1 or the “23” so unless flamini, campbell, wellington, Martinez or even rosicky decide they won’t be getting enough game time I do not really see any signings more coming in.
However, any injuries sustained or any of those 5 moving on between now and the closure of the window could see that change.
I think Szcz has gone.
He was in a bubble at Arsenal.
He will now see there are
many other opportunities out there.
Better pay, better weather
better food and more interesting culture.
Nice narrative.
And maybe better cigars!
Mourinho says Arsenal trying to buy title: “It’s the easiest thing to do. Get a calculator. If you want to be honest.If you add up the amount Arsenal have spent in the last 3 or 4 years I think you’ll find a surprise.”
loool the cheque book manager complaining the irony
I read that article too. Sure, Arsenal have spent quite a bit in the last two years, but if Mourinihio was honest with himself, he would realize that much of his current team were players bought more than 2-3 years ago, which cost a considerable amount more and exceeded that which Arsenal have spent. A fair comparison should be how much both teams have spent in the last 4-5 years, which Chelsea would undoubtedly come out as the higher spender.
But I hope Arsene realizes that Mourinihio is just saying these things to get under his skin, especially right before the community shield. Like when he mispronounced Pellegrini’s surname by calling him Pelligrino and saying it wasn’t on purpose. lmao – cheeky little Porra
It sounds to me like Mourinho is making excuses just in case he fails to come in the top three
I think that’s why his coming out with utter garbage about spending specially with Arsenal we earned all the money the hard way we playing the game and not with sugar daddy or oil money and even selling shares to keep up like United,
Mourinho can’t have funds becouse they are building new stadium so in one or two years time lets see what happens when players start to leave.
Llorente’s agent in London, according to reports . Striker linked to arsenal in past few days
Don’t understand this transfer? Why not Mabdzukic or Dzeko? Llorente?
think llorente will go to spuds/west ham agent as usual using arsenal to get better deal
as for dzeko wll city sell us to him if we can’t get benz wenger should go for reus
mandzukic has already joined juve dzkeo will city sell him to a rival mourinho is already going crazy after selling us cech
Llorente might be a 2 year stop gap, until Akpom develops or incase the Theo in the middle experiment doesn’t pan out? Who knows what Arsene is thinking. I think he wants to give Theo a real chance down the middle and IF it works and IF Theo stays healthy then Llorente will be a good sub, if it doesnt work then we will have two big target men to choose from. Or maybe it’s all BS as usual.
Llorente? May as well go for soldado!!! But personally I would go with akpom as 3rd choice striker over either of them.
No unless it’s a world class improvement on giroud and Walcott then I don’t see the point. Both players give us goals, in fact between them they made 33 starts last season scoring 26 goals, OK there was also 24 sub cameos, but in my eyes both players are better than they are given credit for and are certainly better or as good as some of the crap that people want on here.
For me if we cannot sign a world class striker, I would rather use theo and giroud as our chalk and cheese striker options and afford more opportunities to akpom, campbell, wellington, chamberlain gnabry and welbeck from the flanks. Obviously using alexis in his favourite position in as many matches as he can sustain. However in the bigger matches where more defensive play is required, draft in either wilshire or Ramsey on the right.
How much have these top players cost Arsenal since Ozil was signed? Ozil – £42.5m, Sanchez – £35m, Chambers – £16m, Debuchy – £12m, Welbeck – £16, De Abreu £15m & Cech – £10. Total: £142m. I think is Cech that made Mourinoh to talk as he is still not beliving Cech has moved to Arsenal. But does spending £142m on new player imports by Arsenal amounted to buying the title? If that be the case, why was the title not sold to Arsenal then? Is that £142m enough to buy us the title? I think Mourinho is afraid Arsenal will beat Chelsea to the Shield on Sunday. Hence he has put that argument forward as a defence for losing the Shield and even later the title to Arsenal.
…….And the purchase of these players, for £142m, spans 3 seasons.
Chelsea spent more than that in just 2 windows in the past !!!!!!
still peeved we dont have a CF that puts fear into the opposition.
so many times watched giroud screw it up from 10 yards in front.
hope to God that Theo will become more clinical in front;
versus wolfsburg he let 2 get away [but got 1]
you do know 33% is a better goal ratio than any striker in the PL right now…
So true, Tidan2 – amazed sometimes at the level of understanding on some of these important points. Messi converted 23% of his shots in La Liga last year, Ronaldo 17% – and we are moaning about Theo at 33%!!!!!!??