Xhaka was Arsenal’s priority, but two more please Arsene?

Hopefully we sign two more players, but the midfield was the priority. By Galen Sona.

Arsenal finished 2nd in what could be one of the worst seasons we have had in the last decade. We finished 2nd without challenging for the title, but as usual finishing above Spurs covered up the cracks in our season. Its been a revolutionary season with fans fighting amongst themselves, fans boycotting games, fans demanding the manager to go, while other fans demanded the purchase of a new CB or Striker.

I seriously believe Cazorla’s injury ended our season. A team like Arsenal relies heavily on its ability to control games. By controlling games we face less pressure defensively. Pep Gaurdiola could play anybody at CB because he really believed that if the game is properly controlled the CB’s will be under less pressure. Can you guys remember the Man City game at home? We played route 1 football from Koscielny to Ozil. Players like Ramsey, Flamini, Coquelin and even Elneny have a serious inability of starting play from the back and building our game. Which means we easily lose the ball. Our CB Koscielny became our deeplying play maker. One week later Southampton just put Long on Koscielny to stop the balls from going out, and we found ourselves losing 4 nil down! Our inability to control games meant that we faced a lot of pressure defensively.

Whilst I can understand that on the surface it looks like there are more pressing issues in the team that need sorting out before DM this signing; if he turns out to be the kind of player I think he is, then he is what I think we’ve needed for a very long time. The fact that Arsene first went for a deep lying play maker strengthens my believe that he actually realises what our biggest problem was last season.

What Xhaka brings is a lot of character, strength and a good height. But he brings this together with the Arsenal technical way of movement. We have seen players like Morgan Schiniderlin struggling in a possession base system where the team has more control of the ball. This also explains why I wanted a DM like Xhaka than a Kante type of DM who is perfect in a counter attacking system.

Now we have a spine of the team. With Cech, Kos, Xhaka and Özil, that’s four really strong players. We need a great and dominant partner for Kos and an absolutely top draw striker. If we can make huge investments and sort those two positions I believe we will see a completely different animal next season, and finally give the club a proper foundation on which to compete. We’re going up against the best managers in the world next year, if we turn up to a gun fight with water balloons like we did this season then I really don’t think even Wenger will be able to scrape his way to a top four finish.

I like the idea of 3 players as it doesn’t disturb the technical balance of the team and we don’t need to have to make several players settle in the team. If we could add a striker and a top defender it will make us stronger.

Realistic Striker Options.

Realistic for me is players that won’t cost more than £45million. As I don’t see us paying £60 to £70 millions for strikers like Lukaku or Aubameyang etc.. That is something for Man United and Man City to do.

Possibles:

1) Alexandre Lacazette 2) Gonzalo Higuain, 3) Alvaro Morata, 4) Kevin Gameiro 5) Mauro Icardi 6) Javier Hernandez 7) Jamie Vardy 8) Carlos Bacca 9) Vincent Jassen 10) Arkadius Milik 11) Michy Batshauyi.

CB’s we could add at Arsenal:

1) Niklas Suele 2) Mehdi Benatia 3) Jonathan Tah 4) Kostas Manolas 5) Ezequiel Garay 6) Benediekt Howedes 7) Antonio Rudiger 8) Van Dijk 9) Shkodran Mustafi 10) Daniele Rugani.

Nobody can claim to know what Arsene is thinking. But 2 more players and we are good to go. On other news we made £100 million last season from TV. The most in the league. …

Galen

Tags Cazrla Lacaztette Xhaka

28 Comments

    1. Benatia just turned 29. Maybe it’s just me but I think we need players for the long term. Especially when Mertesacker turns 32 and Koscielny 31 soon enough. Kostas Manolas anyone?

      But a forward is a must right now. I keep hearing that Wenger actually stated Giroud would be here for next season? Damn I hope it’s not true.. We’ve seen him already and he won’t get any better.

      1. @ Juhislihis McLovin
        I understand that you may want a younger CB like a Kostas manolas or Jonathan tah , Suele. But sometimes when you want to win you need to ignore certain things like age factor OR THE LONG TERM FUTURE. We have bn planning the long term now for 12 years.

        I still remember Wenger saying that if we buy Xabi Alonso what will happen to denilson? Well, Alonso still plays for Bayern and Denison plays for ……….. nobody.

        Ferguson signed Rvp at 29 or 30 cause he knew that’s what they needed to win.

        I won’t mind an older CB if they help us win the league. Howedes or Benetia are older than the other CB in the list above. But they are proven winners too.

        I agree that Giroud won’t get better. Its been 4 seasons now. We have seen it all.

        1. Lukaku (ST), Lacazette (RW) and Koulibaly (CB) to replace Welbeck (injured), Walcott (Sell) and Chambers (Loan out)

      2. Giroud should stay for next season. He has a decent scoring record and that can’t be ignored. He just should never ever be our first choice starter. He can come off the bench and play when our main striker needs a breather.

      3. We have to keep Giroud at all cost. Giroud is an excellent Plan B from the bench, a great presence in the box, perfect for team who defend deep against us. He is reliable enough to start in every Cup game for us. He rarely get injured too. We just cannot depend on him alone for whole season. We do need a different type of striker, with pace and dribbling skill, who can get in behind opponent defence, and more clinical in front of goal.

      4. one of our problems is that wenger prefers younger players with less experience and lots of “potential”. How many trophies have we won over the years… Next season I want the league, not in 3 or 4 seasons. 29 for a CB isnt that old, you sounds like a wannabe wag!

      5. We should not even be thinking about getting rid of Giroud. He is rerely injured and the apparent top strikers are not so impressive if you discount the penalties and take the amount of time they have played in to account.

        Here are the stats, minutes played per goal scored (excluding penalties) in PL
        Aguero, 118
        Giroud, 162
        Kane, 168
        Vardy, 165
        Lukaku, 186

        Giroud is second, which I find surprising. Yes, we need a better, WC striker but to get a significant upgrade on Giroud it needs to be more like an Aguero standard.

        1. What i meant by the above is we need a WC striker as well as giroud not to replace giroud.

  1. The only bada$$ defender I know of now is Shkodran Mustafi.
    Would be something if we got him.

    1. Haha a big shout out to my Main-Man in Football Manager!! The guy’s a beast in the game… Never seen him in real-life though…
      And speaking of FM Gods we’re supposedly in for Maxi Romero again!! But then again Sanogo was otherwordly on the game a few years ago…

  2. Great article!! I agree wholeheartedly re: Cazorla.. Coquelin, Ozil and Cazorla were phenomenal in midfield together for the better part of a year.. Losing two of the three hurt us a lot.

  3. Gonzalo Higuain – Napoli won’t sell him for cheap after the storming season he had – Paris SG is on his case with the number quoted as high as 96M Euroes. Don’t want us to waste time on unrealistic target

    If there’s one thing Wenger and his scout team had done quite well is that they managed to spot the right player before they enter their break through season. We bid 40M + 1 (shame) for Suarez the season before his best return in EPL. Last season beside Benzema, we seriously went for Dybala and Aubameyang but it did not work out. This season, if Wenger and his scout think Alvaro Morata is the man then they should go all the way and capture him, no more money pinching.
    For defenders I would prefer Manolas over Benatia who had lots of injury issues (not another injury prone player at our club pls). Roma can take Benatia as replacement for Manolas with some cash to spare. Win Win for all parties

    1. That’s some good points you made. I put Higuain in the list cause i was thinking nobody will be that crazy to pay £70 million for a 29 years old. I think you can do that for Messi and Ronaldo. I believe that Higuain’s price may drop to around £40m. But with clubs like PSG n United everything is possible. Higuain coming could also mean that Cavani will go. Cavani won’t want another Ibra situation where he found himself on the bench.

      I THINK WHEN ONE TOP STRIKER MOVES It will trigger a series of movement .

      Benatia is quality. but you are right about his injury record.

  4. I’m starting to believe we should aim for Lukaku. The lad is 23 and he got 60 Premier League goals already. Giroud’s got 57 in same amount of seasons.

    His first touch is horrible yes, but he could definitely work it. He’s built like Giroud but he actually got pace and some trickery. And he shoots more often.

    With the right guidance (Martinez is garbage), he could break the 100 goal barrier in the next two seasons, before he even turns 25!

    Problem is he already said he knows where he plays next season. Surely he can’t crawl back to Chelsea, again not playing the Champions League?

  5. Lacazette is my first choice since I doubt we’re splashing 90mill for Higuain(insane), or 60mill for Aubameyang. And I’d take either Manlos or Mustafi from that list. Haven’t seen much of the Suele or Tah, but I’ve heard good things. Benatia is great, but injured a lot and we need to stay away from injury prone players. Also I like Howedes, but I just don’t think he’s ever going to leave Schalke at this point.

  6. Very please with the Xhaka signing, he’ll be a great addition to the team, and nice to get business done early too.

    Regarding strikers, I’d love to see us get Lukaku. Wants to play CL football, proven goalscorer in the prem, and he brings the power and gold up ability of Giroud while also being much faster and younger, and arguably a more clinical finisher too.

  7. I’ve got this funny feeling that Mourinho’s move to ManU is going to be the catalyst for an out-of-character spending spree by Wenger. Such is the animosity between the two that Wenger’s principles (austerity, youth, loyalty) may get trumped by his desire to prove Mourinho wrong. I’d bet on two more big signings with one being a total surprise package.

  8. “Realistic for me is players that won’t cost more than £45million.”

    Yet Morata has been rumored to cost more than £45mil and you are happy to include him in the possibles list.

    Oh and Higuian? You do know his min release fee is over 70 million!
    They may accept a lower fee BUT he is performing and giving no reason to sell, they could hold out for at least £45mil, they do not need to sell!!!

    We have a bargaining chip with Everton as well, they are English and they lose their young English stars for good money… We have plenty of HG players who are not starters…

    £30mil plus Ox (as example) would be an example of a reduced transfer fee and still giving a value of over £45mil which you used as the cut off.

    We can’t discount any potential as we are already acting differently in the transfer window, we bought someone without spending a decade haggling over the price…

  9. I get the feeling that last years schniederlin is going to be this years Lukaku.

    I see why fans support these transfers but at the end of the day if you have Sanchez, Cech and Ozil and still don’t win the league then it is goimg to take a lot more than Lukaku.

    1. …Xhaka and a CB. Iwobi and Adelaide itching, Bielik looks a man among boys. Gabriel might have learned English, Cazorla might stay fit. The team could end up looking very different, we might lose some complacency.

  10. The midfield needed strengthening, but it is 100% NOT the priority. Since 2012, a world class striker has been the priority, our consistent struggles in front of goal being the proof of this. I would also say we need three more, not two – CB, RW, CF.

    One of big questions this summer, is actually players being sold. Despite having insane amounts of money to spend of late, Wenger still likes to try and balance the books, and to keep the team cohesion. Not selling for big money, definitely has a knock on effect when spending. We’ve only brought in around £30 million over the last three seasons for players sold, which is an incredibly low amount, especially when one considers the amount of deadwood we have at the club to sell. We also have one the biggest wage bills in the world, so again, it’s tough to bring lots of top players when the wage bill isn’t being reduced to make way for them.

    Arsenal need to spend big this summer, but we also need to sell big as well. As I said earlier, I think we need four players for the starting XI – we’ve got one in at £30 million. I think Wenger needs to spend at least another £120 million. We all know a top striker will cost around £60m, another quality winger could easily be around £30/40m, and then a top quality centre-back could be in the region of £20/30m.

    We all know Arsenal can easily afford that, what with the new TV deal, and the huge amount of the fans money sitting in the bank. But if the books still want balancing, Arsenal could comfortably recoup a lot with player sales. Getting rid of the likes of Mertesacker, Szczesny, Ramsey, Wilshere, Ox and Walcott, would easily bring in at least £100 million, and free up a large chunk of our wage bill.

    Will Wenger spend big, and sell big or even do any of the two?

  11. i have stop thinking about who will be selected as the new forward or CB, i am more pissed off on some players who have took arsenal for granted, a manager who had put too much fate in them over the last years, a manager who have left the team short of quality in certain areas, in the hope that his prodigies will fill in nicely, which on the contrary does not happen and leave us wanting in the last months of the season.
    it would seem his sentiments have changed, he started with Elneny not a perfect fit, but more superior than the ones he put his faith in, now he has added a rock (Granite) to the squad , filling a large chunk in our midfield, this tells me he has lost patience with his prodigies and i am looking forward to other changes

  12. Very happy with the Xhaka signing, much needed addition of steel and attitude in the center of the pitch. Will hopefully be an Alonzo type of player for years to come.

    An Icardi, Lacazette, Vardy type striker for $30M should be the next signing, unless IBRA wants to take a pay cut in North London. Arsene will not spend $50-60M on the likes of Lukaku, Morata,Higuain unless he plans on shipping Theo or Ox in the opposite direction.

    Minolas fron Roma should be the top choice @ CB. I’ve watched a number of Roma games and he is a bargain @ $30M. One of the best young CB’s in the world.

    With the abundance of midfield options, I would seriously consider selling 2 of Ox, Theo, Ramsey, Jack and Campbell to find a Mahrez type winger and a young LB if Gibbs decides to move on in the summer. The home grown # will take a hit but when healthy will any of these players legitimately slot right in to the 1st 11? Sadly it’s time.

    Icardi/Giroud
    Sanchez…Ozil….Mahrez
    Xhaka…Carzola/El Neny
    Nacho… Boss…Minolas…Hector
    Cech

    Bench… Coquelin, new lb, Macey, Iwobi, Ox, Ramsey, Chambers, Jenkinson, Gabriel, Welbeck

    Love this squad

  13. Hernandez is an interesting one. Some fans don’t like it because they reckon he needs to play next to a tall physical striker. I believe he and Higuain are the best suited players for making the most out of Ozil’s passing. The thing about us is that so much of our play is playing off the front man. I think Ozil could move closer to Hernandez and he could become the linchpin, Bergkamp was great at doing this, and also moving forty yards out to spot passes. Ozil can do this, give him more responsibility, freedom. Hernandez is one of the best finishers out there. Janssen has good finishing ability too, but I believe Milik would be favored more by Arsene. Milik is a focal point type of striker (he doesn’t remind me of Lewandowski). Janssen for me could do this if called upon imo, he reminds me a bit of Kane off tott. I believe we’ll get a striker that hasn’t been named in the papers yet. Arsene will see someone out there who people haven’t picked up on yet.

  14. lets all thank arsene for finally doing the right thing only time will tell but have we finally signed the DM we need STRONG MINDED NO HOLD BAR MIDFIELDER WE HAVE ALL CRAVED, but lets take it back we all know it will take 2 or 3 more like minded players to make us great again, he has tricked us all buy buying one superstar in the last 3 windows ALEXIS, OZIL and CHEC great players but can’t do it all on their own , spending huge amount of money and saying we can buy the best players, on the surface this looks great we are buying top top players big prices but instead of spending his usual 50 mill on 2, 3, 4 , 0r 5 players he has pulled the wool over are eyes with 1 superstar thinking the fans are that dumb enough to believe it , infact he has never spent his budget only balanced on sales too purchases , i love arsenal but this summer i hope for more he needs to do that consistently through out the team spend the same amount on the team stop balancing the american owners, grow a pair say yes we will buy a top defender and a world class striker, stan we love arsenal please be one of us do whats needed then you will fell proud as we are and we will adore you for it.

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