We need massive changes, but we’ll likely have to go to the youth. by Konstantin Mitov
Hello lovely Arsenal people! You can sleep with one less thing on your head as Liverpool beat Tottenham in the champions league final, because had they lifted the trophy it would’ve been the final nail in our coffin. But we should really be looking at ourselves and things do not look good for next season. Our budget is 40 – 45 million and that doesn’t buy a lot in modern football.
Let’s look at who’s leaving – Ramsey and Welbeck for nothing! Cech and Lichtsteiner also depart. Then we have the question of Koscielny and Monreal whose contracts are ending and should not be renewed in my opinion.
With Mustafi being one of the first people we will try to sell, our defense will be shattered. On the other hand it’s not like we could defend anyway so this massive re-work there is a good thing. We need a new CB, perhaps two, even though we have Holding, who’ll hopefully be back next season. We also need a left back as Kolasinac is incapable of defending and also we don’t have a cover for Bellerin. I’m sorry but AMN is not a right back.
So far our budget cannot cover just the defensive needs! What about midfield? We don’t have one proper winger. Zaha is now out of our reach and that leaves Ryan Fraser as a possibility, but a price of 30 million seems rather high for him.
I think Emile Smith-Rowe and Reiss Nelson could return to the side in a bid to help us, because we also need to fill the void of Ramsey. Joe Willock might also be a more featuring face next year.
Then comes the question of what do we do with Ozil and Mikhitaryan? They should both be sold in my opinion. The way Ozil left the pitch was pathetic. His mentality is the symbol of the whole team. If he spent more time on training rather than taking selfies with the Turkish president, he might have contributed more to our game.
We must be ruthless. If there is no money this year, then fine, let’s get rid of the high earning deadwood in the squad and give youth a chance, then return with an increased budget next summer.
Midfield also has the problem that Xhaka and Torreira are not a dominating midfield duo. We’ve tried it quite a lot and it doesn’t work. I’ve had enough of Xhaka and it was so sad to see that if it wasn’t for him, the players wouldn’t have thanked the fans at all!
Emery will have to do it with the kids. Make no illusions, we won’t sign a big name. We’ll need to look for gems, but I want English players. I think we might recall Chambers as we really have no money. But what I want is players who care for this club. People who will wear Arsenal on their sleeve and at least show 100% every game.
I want to see Bould gone. What has he done exactly? Since he came, our defense has become worse! Why don’t we have a director of football yet? We are waiting for Edu to finish his business because nobody else wanted to join.
And Raul Sanllehi comes and says how Arsenal is a pull for a lot of people. No it’s not! We’re gonna have problems with Everton, West Ham, Leicester and Wolves next year. Is our midfield or defense better than the ones of any of those teams?
Speaking of defense, if next season we continue to leak goals, Emery will have to answer. He failed us this season at the Crystal Palace game and that destroyed our mentality. We did our usual crumble. If that doesn’t change next season, Emery must be sacked. We need to start improving and changing our identity. What is that anyway? At least under Wenger we had a style. Now we have nothing.
One game we play 4-2-3-1, next one is 3 at the back, then 1 striker, than 2 strikers. How is the team supposed to build cohesiveness with that? At the beginning Emery made lots of subs, then he suddenly stopped doing it, but why?
Anyway, it’s a big summer for us. It will be another well known, painful summer, but my hope is that we’ll get rid of some players that are simply not good enough for us. If we sell Ozil, Mustafi and Mikhi for me that’s a well done summer, as this transfer window will be about who’s leaving, not who’s coming in.
Konstantin
Reiss-nelson, Smith-Rowe, Beilik, Wilock, Mavrapanos, Guendouzi, Maitland Niles should all be given opportunities next season
We should get rid of Mustafi, Jenkinson, Lichtsteiner, Ozil, Mkhitaryan, Xhaka, Elneny in addition to those leaving ie Cech, Ramsey, Welbeck
Spot on , even though some self foolers will disagree on Ozil. Not me though! As I repeatedly post ALL all idle players are poison, in any team sport. If Ozil was a golfer he would give up and walk off the course after 6 holes!
Beg to differ on Ozil but that aside the idea that these youngsters will propel us in an upward direction is completely delusional…without some real quality additions in defense and on wing this is a squad heading south … the future is looking like Milan rather than man city and with not just Man U ibut several of the pretenders likely to spend cash this summer the future is looking bleak … for me if budget constraint is so binding and the despicable yank is not moving the best would be a younger manager with drive vision and ambition none of which are qualities I see in emery
Liv leaked goals too easily too but they sorted that with two big splashes in the problem area. Also they have hard working players in CM, not pass masters, sure Xhaka is a better passer than any of those Liv CM players. The part about why did he stop with the subs, our options were fuller in first half of season, we were able to keep Auba on bench every now and then, and we had him and Ramsey coming on at times. Iwobi had competition with Danny. Bellerin was looking good and was flourishing, then Niles was not even on bench because he had to fill in when Litch looked in trouble. We do need to improve, but people must know that if you are an attacking team it is not going to be an easy fix without doing similar to what Liv done.
Let’s just hope Kroenke buys the real Madrid team and puts them in a red and white shirt;)
Ozil will be an imovable object imo. Noone will want to pay his wages except maybe a team at the top of the Chinese super League. That or he can go for a free to some Turkish club and at least we will get him off our wage bill. He can stroll around there for about like his on his holidays whilst making the occasional assist.
I’d keep Mika, yes he hasn’t lived up to his capability but I think he deserves a little longer.
Wanna see the youth get a go (like Ajax) where there’s a few older faces to add leadership and experience. With our BS self sustaining tight cheeks kroenke business model in place we simply don’t have the funds (even though we are the eighth richest football club in the world) so we must look for youth with something to prove.
I know they don’t play in the same position but I’d rather see iwobi trying to make an impact than ozil disappearing again and again, any day of the week!
And yes, Tottenham didn’t show up to the final but neither did we and they were in the champions League. Their club is growing and we have to be very careful that as the poorer north London relatives of them we don’t get left way behind.
The rot begun a long time ago (about the same time we moved from Highbury and Kroenke took ownership of the club) but now the decay of AFC is starting to be more apparent now that the spuds are rising…
I just hope Emery moves him to the U23 as punishment for being smug and lazy. If nobody wants him then might as well force him to quit by playing him with the academy players.
What a load of bullshit man can read… most of articles, posts, all of it!
Please be realistic cos this is no FIFA game. We have no funds to get rid of everybody and if we replace all of them with our youth we can make a great job for the future but also face a relegation battle next season!
Who can risk that? Maybe only if Kronke promise to Emery that he will give 200 mil for the winter transfer window if things go from bad to worse, or why not give it anyway or RIGHT FRACKING NOW?!
Arsenal had everything in their hands and they failed badly. I am really looking farward to here Ozil’s part of the story (if he leaves) cos when I watched Raul and Vinai’s interview I couldnt help myself not to see and here Gazidis face!
also Emery made great things at Arsenal but I can not forget his time at PSG, his relationship with their star players and loosing against Barca 6:1 after great victory at home.
Future is murky for Arsenal… My great joy of Wenger sucked was first shadowed when Sven Mislintat went out in February… somehow that was a dark sign of shape of things to come.
Kroenke may give 200 million rupees!
People keep quoting PSG’s loss to Barcelona 6-1 without reference to two of the dogiest penalties ever awarded or credit for the home victory.
The Camp Nou is not an easy place to go, especially when the officiating is against you; just ask Arsene Wenger.
Very true.
Relying too heavily on youth will see us fight for mid-table finishes.
We simply cannot afford to make decent wholesale changes.
– Ozil and Mkhi are staying – no one else will pay their unjustified salaries
– Koscielny’s contract is until june 2020 – he’s staying for another year unless a surprising offer comes for him
We need:
1. an RB to replace Lichts
2. a LB if we don’t give Nacho a new contract
3. to sell Mustafi and Xhaka and a buy a replacement for Xhaka plus move AMN to Ramsey’s box-to-box role
4. to buy a fast/dribbling winger to replace Welbeck
5. to play youngsters in all the cups, especially UEL. If we go out, it increases our chances for a fight for top 4
There is a case for unloading all the players you mention and Soratis also comes into this category.B ielik and Chambers should be brought back to provide competition with Holding and Mavroponas at centre back and the acquisition of a quality left back is for me a priority.In practical terms however, Ozil is a major stumbling block and I very much doubt if any of our Management team will be able to persuade him to leave given the lucrative nature of his contract.I’m afraid we will have to soldier on with some of our aging ,inadequate defenders for another season of two unless our absentee Owner changes his attitude towards our Club .
Play him with the U23s and see how long can he take that humiliation.
I honestly believe that AFC should hit the ol
restart button this summer and completely
revamp the entire squad. The Europa final, at
least 2 my eyes proved that far to many of the
first team players at the club are bottle jobs
that have no future at the club and collectively
lack the commitment, talent and drive to close
the gap with the top 2. The following players fall
under this category and should be moved on
Xhaka….£30M
El Neny….£10M
Mustafi….£20M
Miki…£15M
Ozil….loan out contract, subsidize wages
Kolasanic…£15M
Id add Chambers and Monreal to that list, even
though both players have been loyal servants to
the club.
Monreal…£10M
Chambers…£15M
£115M in sales and over £750K in wages.
If and honestly when Kroenke refuses to inject
cash in the club this summer then AFC should
move on Lacazette if Barca register a serious
interest and offer. Pains me to admit this but
the Frenchman deserves better than to continue
his career on a crappy team playing on
Thursday night.
Lacazette….£70M
With £185M added to the supposed £45M
summer kitty AFC could realistically start the
rebuilding project that is paramount to the
future revival of the club. For instance this cash
infusion could allow Arsenal to seriously target
these future stars of the club
A Grimaldo….£30M
H Ziyech….£25M
William Saliba…£30M
B Kamara…£20M
Hasam Aouar….£45M
S Chuckwueze….£25M
Moises Kean…£25M
A Diawara…£15M
Claude Maurice…£10M
I know Arsenal wont sign ALL of these young, prodigous talents but these are the types of
players that imho should be on the clubs
shortlist and could after a few yesrs of EPL
seasoning bring Arsenal back to the pinnacle
of world futbol.
Preach! My thoughts exactly. Getting rid of the expensive deadwood would be a successful season by all means. I couldn’t care less where on the table between 5th and 10th we’ll end up next season as long as I see the backs of the three expensive flops – Mkhi, Ozil, and Mustafi. Their replacements, whoever they’ll be will at least do the same as they did but for significantly lower wages. Two seasons from now, Arsenal might be in a stronger position financially, I just fear they won’t be in a better position in the league.
As sad and foolish as it may sound, we really need to sell our two strikers now that we can get big money from their sell. They are far too wasteful and are arguably the reason why we didn’t qualify for champions league.
A lot of us blame the defence. Yes the defence needs to be seriously worked on but the difference in a match is who put more goals into the opposition’s goal mouth, and our strikers have failed miserably (sorry).
This is the chance we have to do good business and reinvest the money. This opportunity will not come again.
The only article by someone who cares. Why don’t the rest of the ‘ADMIN’ challenge the $8 billion dollar shyster ‘Kroenke’. I really hope that we give the youngsters a chance. The only player besides the kids who seems to care is Matteo Guendouzi, who lives every moment. Kroenke is a lowlife shyster. Point at him and don’t capitulate or brown nose him. He is a lowlife. At least you’ve go some fire and reason left Konstantin.
Kroenke out that’s the first business b4 ligi starts big ozil supporter but need him out of this team yes we had and will continue having differences Emery might not be the right man to take us foward…. But one thing for certain is KROENKE is and will never be the RIGHT Man for AFC period the sooner we realize this the better.
Agreed.