There was always going to be consequences for missing out on Champions League football next season and it is being reported in the media today that Arsenal has lost the opportunity to sign at least three of their targets.
The transfer budget has taken a huge hit and is now said to be just £45 Million, which is paltry compared to their closest rivals and obviously not being able to offer Champions League participation to any potential signing is a significant handicap.
There is a possibility that the transfer budget can be increased with player sales but until that happens the buying power for Arsenal is severely diminished.
Crystal Palace star Wilfried Zaha will not be signing for us, we cannot afford him and he has made it clear that he wants to play in Europe’s elite competition next season.
The same applies to RB Leipzig centre-back Dayot Upamecano who wants to play in the Champions League his £65m transfer fee is now beyond us.
Leicester City’s James Maddison is also a no-no because his club has slapped a £60 Million valuation on him and that takes him out of our reach.
It has to be said that even if we had won the Europa League and qualified for the Champions League we would have probably only been able to sign one of those three anyway.
But it shows the dire situation we are now in, we are no longer an attractive destination for ambitious players and our financial restrictions makes the situation a whole lot more difficult.
The consequences are real and we are experiencing that right now.
Did not take long, did it?
I say good riddance !
Wilfried zaha is a total waste of space and money i cant say i know a lot about the other two but
they have just shown that only care about themselfes and not the club.
Zaha – waste of money. Worth of 30m at most
Maddison – same. 30m at most.
Upamecano – not worth 60m either.
Willi Orban, statistically the best CB in the Bundesliga last season. Available for 20m or less.
Manolas, release clause of 31m.
Mario Hermoso, £18m release clause.
Any of these 3 would be better value for money.
And instead of Zaha and Maddison:
Ziyech, £25m release clause.
Pablo Sarabia 20-30m.
Bruno Fernandes, likely 45-55m.
Nicholas Pepe, around 45-60m.
All of these 4 are better and cost less than their overhyped counterparts.
We need new defenders immediately because they need to be integrated into the team as soon as possible.
Kroenke is a mafia aiming at sinking Arsenal, how I wish,, bse even Newcastle now will be better than Arsenal next season,,
Even with champions league, we wouldn’t have been able to afford those fees unless we make major sales.
Though terrible, this was expected. What I did not expect is to spend 3 years in the Europa League after getting dislodged from the top by Tottenham. Now what’s even more disappointing is we can have a genuine debate on whether Leicester or Wolves have a better squad than us. Why can’t we unearth these gems Leicester and the rest of the midtable teams seems to churn out every season? Our scouts need to improve!
QD, exactly right, Arsenal needs an upgraded scouting network to identifh these players, before they become worth £20 million plus.
What follows is totally irrational, illogical, emotional and at our place, for reasons discussed over a decade and counting, is not going to happen any time soon – but I have to get this off my chest ;
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES GO INTO NEXT SEASON WITH A LEAST HALF OF THE CURRENT FIRST TEAM SQUAD !!
Purge the place of underachievement from top to bottom, leave no stone unturned.
Never has the saying “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH” been more apt !!!!!
Our prob is #1 the rubbish we have no one wants
Those players will gladly stay and do nothing while counting their loot
Unfortunately true, Les.
Sell (if we can):
Mustafi
Ozil
Jenkinson
Elneny
Lichtsteiner
Iwobi
Xhaka
Mkhitaryan
Keep iwobi, he is still relatively young, can be a good back up CAM, and besides he played better than EVERYONE in the final !
Emery should pay for the Arsenal failures with his job. He should be held responsible for our failure to make the top four in the league even when it was a matter of ensuring we collected only a point in the last five games or so.
He should also be held responsible for the humiliation in Baku because its his work to manage the team, take care of all technical issues and put the best team forward in every game. In my opinion, he failed to deliver on that and needs no excuses but to leave.
Dude, it was his FIRST SEASON IN THE MOST COMPETATIVE LEAGUE IN THE WORLD + he didnt get a ”war chest”
I hope his contract had the provision not to deliver in the ‘first season of the most competitive league in the world’.
Michael, if you had your way Sir Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp would have been sacked after their first season at their respective clubs.
I half agree with you on that one he defo messed up on wednesday with team choices and tactics, as for sacking him, he inherited a bad bunch that were already displaying a lack of fight, spirit and pride in the shirt, his signings for the most part have been good so far as to say that apart from lichstiener you would probably retain them.
Tommogun58, who should Emery have chosen for the Europa League final, from the players available in the Arsenal squad?
I agree, Emery failed and should be held responsible for being a joke.
Next time speak with your head and not your heart
Ok if Zaha and Upamenco wants champions league football why don’t the quality their respective club. All these talk about a player want to play in European club competition is bull. Besides, how reliable are the rumors we want those players.
If those three don’t want to join us, no problem because there are better players in the market. I don’t believe the 40 M transfer budget though
Arsenal should use Iwobi to attract Chukwueze. I read his release clause is low and we have to get him before Liverpool buy him
gotanidea, the big question is what is the £60 million per annum from the Adidas kit deal going to be spent on?
Surely Adidas will want some high profile players associated with their brand and a high profile, successful Arsenal team wearing their kit?
Korenke is behind arsenal prosperity because he doesn’t spend much more to buy players.
#ONE WORD FOR ARSENAL: (ACADEMY)#
Laca, Auba, Ozil, Alexis… They are all academy signings right?
The media were only interested in glorifying Chelsea and Hazard in the run up to the final and were sitting on their story of Arsenal falling away from the elite (the only story they are ever really interested in) and so were pleased with the Final’s result. Maybe it’s better not to have huge amounts of cash so as not to be fleeced by selling clubs and overpay for the likes of Zaha. We need to be going after other more realistic targets (e.g Sarr from Rennes) and also proven players from clubs like Watford (Holobas, Doucoure?), give chances to the young players and maybe Chambers and Bielik. Perhaps Nzonzi is an option on loan for the season from Roma. What will be more problematic is to shift all the deadwood.
Why is merry staying if there no money
Not sure where the 40m came from , I haven’t seen it quoted by a club spokesman just paper talk, maybe I missed it if it came from within the club, anyhow whatever happens serious surgery needs to be done to get a quality squad together, I treat all transfer talk very lightly and would be surprised if any of those three appeared in an Arsenal shirt,It’s a sit and wait and see situation and lets hope we see some action sooner rather than later.
You as a coach needs to aproach each match as they come, you are in a competition to win every single point at your best and the only reason you won’t win is if your team is inferior to that of your opponent as per performance wise during the game not on paper. He was gambled with making top four by not approaching each match as they come with the hope of making champions league through Europa which eventually backfire just because i think there was already a big pressure on him and the team to win, so they bottled it up disgracefully. If Arsenal had qualified for champions league normally, they would have won chelsea or stood up for the game better than they did.
Not forgetting of course that at the beginning of the season, everybody was just praying UE would “stop the rot”. Few fans (particular the armchair type) and none of the media gave us a hope in hell of finsihing anywhere near the Champions League. Hence a headline like “so it begins” is a complete nonsense. Look back to August and quote your headline predicting us getting into the Champions League this season.
Mikey, exactly how I remember it from on here and the media, including AFTV at the beginning of the season. Very few, if anyone, expected Arsenal to get this close!
People were wrong.
We have the third best team and if the manager didn’t tinker as much as he does then we could be sitting with UCL football before the UEL final kicked off.
We went on a 22 game unbeaten run and while it didn’t hide our flaws, it shown that the squad has potential, we went unbeaten for 22 games even though we played so poorly.
This whole “Who thought we would be where we are” is a load of lies.
Either lies or stupidity.
I thought we would be where we are, so did most the gooners down the pub. Funnily enough, the most caution I read was people who read a lot of online stuff and didn’t have their own opinion.
You can claim all you want that those lies are truth, they are not.
Nothing backs them up other than the pessimistic comments of other supporters who wanted Wenger gone and will praise any result that any manager got the year afterwards. Probably down on their knees keeping their fingers crossed Emery walks by with his zipper down.
We got a few more points than last season.
We let the same amount in though… Done worse defensively, consider the signings we made.
We scored less!!!!!
WE SCORED LESS!!!!
Think about this, Auba and Laca who were new to the EPL done better than Auba and Laca who have adapted to the EPL.
Midkemma, how can you rate Arsenal the third best squad at the start of the season, when Arsenal with the bulk of the squad came sixth in season 2?017/18?
Furthermore, how many of those players would get a run playing for any of the other top six clubs?
i wonder if we were going to be fed this usual bullshit regarding the transfer budget, regardless of us winning the europa league or not !.we were the arsenal, now we are the farcenal.we are back to being the laughing stock of the football world. one of the top ten clubs in the world with just a small budget going into the summer (if true).i guess all we can do is wait for the summer transfers to take place and see what happens.it is out of our hands, regardless of what some might think. the board dont give a flying fuck about the fans, that has been obvious for a number of years.and it really makes me laugh when our previous manager, (the one who was sacked) comes out and says that he loves arsenal , and,. that arsenal are his club. what bullshit. if he loved the club that much he would have walked many years ago, and, he would have not set up his favourite little boys with massive salaries. this is the ghost of him coming back to haunt us. this will not stop until every player that he brought to our club have moved on. then, and, only then, can we have our arsenal back.this cancer is with us while his favoured ones still “play” for us .
I think Arsenal need a simple strategy. Keep quality players, promote the best youth, sell old and sub-par players and buy for the gaps. Making smart signings and being patient with youth is key.
Eg sell: Ospina (£2m), Martinez (£2m), Mustafi (£20m), Kosielny (£10m), Elneny (£5m), Mkhi (£15m), Ozil (£30m), Jenkinson (£5m), Asano (£2m) and Iwobi (£20m).
A starting eleven of: Leno, Grimaldo (£25m), Holding, Sokratis, Bellerin, Torriera, Guendouzi, Ziyech (£25m), Nelson, Lacazette, Aubameyang.
Bench: Butland (£15m), Kieran Tierney (£12m), Saliba (£10m) Chambers, Kolasinac, Mavropanos, Bielik, Willock, Smith-Rowe, Fraser (£30), Nketiah and Sarabia (£30).
Total spend: £147m
Transfer budget: £40+ £111m (from sales) = £151m
This is the perfect solution, a much younger team and much more competition for places. Cut the fat!!!! Only issue is who wants the players we want to sell!
I forgot to add Xhaka and Saka to the bench as well!
Martinez has done better than Leno this year.
Made more ‘harder’ saves, made less errors leading to goals… To be honest, I think he is the better GK.
Jenks contract appears to be up till 30.6.19, same as Welbeck.
I don’t know why people are saying we will sell him when we do not have him in an active contract.
“This is the perfect solution”
Perfect? Really?
Let us just think on the Jenks contract… 30.6.19, the date it expires is prior to window opening.
How are we to sell a player out of contract while the transfer window isn’t open… and receive a fee for it?
I know… DREAMLAND!
LOL you focused on one player in a full text that is out of contract.
The overall idea of moving players on and bringing in fresh blood is what we should be focusing on. Also Martinez has never proved himself in the premier league so it is a little hard to judge his ability and i would certainly not make the assumption he is better than Leno. Leno has been a shining star at Arsenal since he joined! He has saved us so many points, it is sad that you would over look that.
Midkemma, It is CLEARLY nonsense and there is no evidence at all to claim that MARTINEZ IS BETTER THAN LENO. Leno has done well, is our first, NOT our third choice keeper and yet you, most strangely, claim that our third choice keeper is better than our first. How come? I would really like to know the thinking – presumably there has been some – behind your odd claim! Are you perhaps related to MARTINEZ? Yourown final word describes your own post accurately.
Why you would expect us to buy any of these players even if we did have the cash is beyond me. Most of that money would’ve just gone into Kroenke’s pockets. let’s be honest. No matter what happened this summer was going to be a disaster. Now it’s a disaster with low expectations from the start at least.
Nobody knows what our budget will be,you are all coming up with 40-45 millions,did anyone from the club confirm it? No,by TV the way we’re getting at least 90m from TV revenues plus more for finishing 5th,then money for our europea run(more TV money and gates)we have players leaving out of contracts,retiring,cotracts extensions not taken,players and a good few will be sold and you really believe our budget is going to be 40 millions!utter b*llsh*t or complete ignorance!!