Pale rumours fly by as time is ticking on… by KM
Hello fellow Arsenal people! Are you as excited as me to see a real Arsenal transfer? I hope not, because you’d be disappointed at the realistic chances. First, let’s look at the areas we need to improve – a CB, a Midfielder/Winger and a Striker to add to the lonely addition of Granit Xhaka.
So going through the papers, rumours from Sky Germany suggest that we’ve opened talks with Valencia for Shkodran Mustafi. The German international on papers looks like a decent signing, and I’ll take decent instead of nothing. Reports suggest that the Spanish team would agree on a offer around 25 million, regardless of the 50 million release clause.
Moving down the list Riyad Mahrez is a player that is so Arsenal, you could easily see why we are linked with him. Ranieri even said that Arsenal talks are turning his head. He’d be in the range of 40 million which is a high price, but the market is so absurdly overpriced, that this is the reality.
And finally latest news suggest Lyon would sell their star striker Lacazzete if the right price comes in and again it’s reported to be around 40 million. His stats in the French league were impressive and he’s French. You could see the pattern and how it would typically make sense, knowing the fact Arsene doesn’t really change.
So how possible would you rate all those transfers? My guess is that if we are extremely lucky, we’d get two of the three players at best. Realistically getting all three would cost close or more than 100 million pounds added to the fact we bought Xhaka for 30 already. It’s hard to imagine Arsene would spend such money, especially with the fact that he and Ivan Gazidis came out and said we’ll not spend “reckless”…
City and United are spending big with Chelsea not too far behind. Worst is the fact those teams have already made their transfers while we are yet to open talks, if we ever do it for the above mentioned people. I agree with Arsene on the fact that no player costs 100 million as United are trying to give for Pogba, but the question here is how much are we ready to give to win the title?
If Arsene delivers a profit and the top 4, another 3 years on his contract will be certain. It’s sad, but we have no real ambition to finish first and Ozil and Sanchez will be the first to be unhappy with that and they might be looking for a new club if we fail once again to put up a team that will be able to challenge and will also have the numbers.
I don’t expect that Akpom and Rob Holding are the missing striker and CB that would lead us to glory, with all my respect to the youngsters, who scored in the friendlies we played (against lesser opposition).
Finally I cannot go past the fact Wenger looks like he’ll be giving the Ox and Jack another chance, despite the fact both will probably miss at least half of the season due to injuries. The premier league starts in just 2 weeks and again I feel our squad is just not prepared. We lack the necessary quality and quantity at the moment.
I really wish I am wrong about the situation, but if we start the season bad and then try reconstructing the pyramid on September the second, honestly I’d be less than surprised. Anyway, enough is enough, enjoy your warm summer holidays!
Konstantin