Ozil likely to stay, but competition for the top 4 will be tougher next year. by Konstantin Mitov
Hello lovely Arsenal people! The latest news is that Mesut Ozil is close to a new Arsenal deal and this is not that big of a surprise. With a lack of top clubs interested in him and his high wage demands, there was hardly much else for him to do. Besides, he loves London, Arsene doesn’t kick him up the backside and Arsenal fans love him. Plus the club can’t allow more major players to leave, because it will cause another fan backlash!
Now we should target the Ox with a new deal and start work with players whose contracts end in 2 years so we don’t repeat this situation. And this is where a director of football could really help. He should identify players who we will use and those who we won’t, so we can sell them while their price is still reasonable.
For example we should’ve sold Wilshere two years ago, because now we can’t get anything for a crooked player in the last year of his deal. We should accept 30 million for Theo, because I don’t think we’ll get a better price for him and I just don’t see him as first choice in the current squad, let alone if we add Lemar or Mahrez.
Gibbs should be sold if West Brom come in with 10 million and if we somehow get rid of Debuchy and sell Chambers and Lucas too plus the money for Szczesny we’ll bag enough cash to buy a player or two who will improve the squad without doing major damage, because we had players with the numbers 1,2,3 and 10 either out of the club or playing less than 10 games last season. Let’s clear those numbers for players who will be important to the club.
I’d like to finish off with a mention of the Bayern game and it was nice not to lose 5:1. That said, in the first half Bayern had a very easy run through our make-shift defence. I hope we don’t start this season like we did last, with not enough defenders. We really need to prepare, because we have a tough start and we must beat Leicester!
But back to the game, James had a freeway on the left and we have to thank Cech, who was man of the match by a mile for the saves he made. Hopefully he’ll carry that form into the season. I just want him to save some penalties though. We give away quite a few and saving one or two wouldn’t hurt. And our reserve keeper Martinez was excellent in that regard on the shootout.
Up front Ozil and Lacazette made some lovely interplay, which sadly didn’t result in a goal, but this is what I want to see more. I’d like Lacazette up front with Sanchez, Ozil and the Ox behind him which is our best attacking side in my opinion. So far, he’s been used with both Giroud and Welbeck and we’re yet to see how we’ll start the season.
The game with Bayern ended on penalties thanks to a lovely interplay between Ramsey and Iwobi with the latter scoring a very nice header. And Alex looked lively since he came on and I liked his celebration too. Monreal scored a screaming penalty and I wonder if we should change the default penalty takers, because we did miss quite a few last season.
We have a game with Chelsea coming up and they did make some decent signings in Rudiger, Bakayoko and Morata, although I don’t know which of these players will feature on Saturday, but Chelsea should not be underestimated even though the media tried to make it look like they are having a bad transfer window.
It is also interesting to note how United beat City who are rebuilding their defence from scratch, but United did look sharp up front with Lukau, Lingard, Mkhitaryan and Rashford they have a lot of pace and next season they could be a threat. Also Everton are the surprise leaders on the market and we should be looking out for them.
I think that Liverpool and Tottenham share the spoils of the worst transfer window out of the top teams. We gifted the Merseyside team our 4th spot, by being not prepared and then not playing our best player against them last season and I still think if we keep Sanchez we are the better team overall, and they didn’t play Europe, so I expect them to drop out of the top 4 this year.
I also think Spurs will suffer the problems of playing Wembley and they haven’t really signed anyone, and with the new stadium I’m not sure they’ll spend too much. Regardless, next year will be very competitive and we cannot afford any slip ups. Beating the smaller teams will be so key with the number of teams trying to push for a top 4 spot.
Hopefully, we’ll make a few more signings and have a real go at the league this time.
Konstantin