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