After the fixtures of the last 16 finished in the Champions League last night, there were plenty of talking points about English clubs. With City crashing out, they follow Arsenal in falling out of the Champions League for this season, whilst Leicester remain the only English side still in the competition.
It was a strong Monaco performance in which they not only pulled back a two goal deficit from the first leg, but they then hit back at City when the Blues scored late on in the game. One of the star players was Monaco’s Kylian Mbappe, who scored the first goal last night. Arsenal have been rumoured to be interested in young Mbappe, and it has been suggested that apparently former player and current Arsenal scout, Giles Grimandi was sent to the game by Arsene Wenger, for the purpose of watching the player.
Mbappe has been in fine form this season, with 11 goals in his last 11 appearances at the Stade Louis II. It was also previously revealed that Arsenal had their approach for the player turned down last summer, with the Vice-President of Monaco soon announcing that the club has no intention of selling the young Frenchman.
Monaco are keen to hold onto the talent, especially since Mbappe has been compared to a young Thierry Henry, who of course was also at Monaco at the start of his career. He’s got strength, pace and has shown that despite only being 18, he has no issue with facing some of the biggest names and talents in European football. Mbappe follows the string of young French strikers coming through the ranks, with Anthony Martial also making a big money move to Manchester United after few years back. It seems that Monaco seem to be good at finding striking talent and with the strong association between Arsene Wenger, Arsenal and Monaco, I think the Gunners would be in a better position then most to sign the 18 year old.
Mbappe is very unlikely to come cheap and I’ve always thought the Gunners should look to sign an experience striker rather than yet another future star. But with limited numbers available, should the Gunners consider making a big offer for Mbappe?
By AH
Apparently our scout was there to watch Mendy lol ?
The way Mbappe is banging in the goals, his valuation is reportedly going to be around the £70 million mark… So that puts us out of the equation.
I must admit that Monaco have got a few decent young players, it would be a dream if we could snap them all up.?
Not a chance we get mbappe.
Or bakayoko or any of them youngsters.
Europe knows about them now
We would be outbid by teams that are not stagnating.
It’s irritating being linked to players.
Wenger needs to come.clean on his plans
It looks like!
Thank you!
Chorus: “Wenger almost singed him”
excuse ma english i guess its *signed hehe
As much as we would all love for him to come, just put in to consideration. Would Henry come to Arsenal in it’s current state, with the addition of bigger teams chasing his signature. At this moment Monaco are a bigger team than Arsenal
He might have not even come to the old Arsenal if he hadn’t of flopped in Italy. He prob would have went straight from Italy to Barcelona or Madrid.
Flopped in italy?
He scored 3 goals in 16 league games in Italy, that is settling into a new country and league as well as moving abroad for the 1st time.
Put this into contrast, he scored 1 goal in 13 games for Monaco in the same seasonal year.
The season before that he played 30 league games and scored only 4 goals.
Arsenal Media documentary, ‘Arsenal Legends’, Henry said: ‘After Juve’s last game of the season, I went back to Paris, and who was on the plane? The boss was on the plane.
‘That’s when I told him I’d love to join Arsenal and that’s what happened.”
TH14 didn’t flop, he wanted to play for Wenger and as such became unsettled in Italy.
When you watch this kid you can’t help but remember Henry. He has the pure athlete physique, but whether he turns with Henry’s physique who in my opinion looked like a gods gift, we’ll see, he looks like becoming the part all the same. Then he even has good looks like Henry has.. Then the speed and movement, but again maybe not quite Henry but considering his age he may well turn out to be the closest to Henry yet. Him being French and starting with Monaco. People will not sit by and watch us grab another Henry, we were the envy with Henry in his pomp. He shredded teams on his own allot of the time. I wish we could get this kid but the big teams in the CL are gonna want him too.
He will cost upward of £50 million and won’t want to come to Arsenal. He is going to win the French league, Monaco are still going in the CL, why would he change that for Arsenal?
I suspect if this kid is allowed to leave Monaco he will go to one of the big clubs, Bayern, Juventus, Real, Barca, Man U, City, Chelsea, PSG not to Arsenal.
There is also no way Arsene would pay what it takes to get this player.
Think for yourself…
Look at the politics of AFC if you wish to comprehend how the club works in greater detail.
Dein was the man who made transfers happen when Wenger 1st arrived and the club has never replaced him, well they got Gazidis but all he has done is focus on profit.
Wenger was never a god in making transfers happen.
When he 1st came and we was winning, all Wenger did was point at who he wanted and Dein was the one who done the magic to get them in.
How is it Wengers fault that the board has not got someone in to replace Dein and to make sure they get the managers targets?
Rumors are now we are looking at the Monchi for the Sporting Director role… That is a BUSINESS DECISION and as such the BOARD should have started this as soon as Dein left.
Wenger was happy to spend money when Dein was doing it and he was happy to spend money prior to Gazidis so… Something changed because now people think HE is unhappy at spending when that was never the issue prior to Gazidis.
We here it being said often enough, I looked at him, or we tried to sign him, usually before they hit the big time, but said after they hit it. Aubameyang, Mbappe, younger Ozil, Martial, Cahill, Kante, the list could go on, and on. This could point to being evidence of what you say Midkemma. That Arsene has not got capable deal makers making thing’s happen.
Dein was terrific, but it’s so long ago now that people don’t want excuses. Arsene, if he really did keep on missing out on all those players he mentions, he should of asked for help instead of trying to validate his own eye for spotting talent. Also, why does he keep saying I wanted this guy and we tried for x y and b. That would mean this current line-up isn’t the one he wanted, but there are many players here for over five seasons, so either he wanted different players or else this is his best ever squad like said mentioned (which is it Arsene?).
Nice post ^.^
I would guess that there are players in the current squad that he didn’t want but now he has them, he has to make the best out of the situation… Or at least that is how hindsight appears to me.
Sales firstly, if Wenger was solely responsible then do you think Jenks would still be here considering how he has been frozen out the team? Nasri came out and said it was the board that sold him after Wenger said he wouldn’t be sold. Now with the volume of deadwood… it is a big pile and too much for our clubs piddly little support staff to handle.
1 thing I do blame Wenger on is the wage structure, that doesn’t help anyone to sell a player who sees a move as too much of a financial loss…
Buying.
Welbeck was bought but Wenger only wanted to loan him, he got injured within the 1st 12 months and we may not have him on a perm basis, how-ever now we have him.
I honestly do not know how much Wenger wanted Chambers but he was loaned out in favor of Holding who Wenger did speak about before signing him, was that another player we spent money on and could have pooled it together to make 1 big signing?
Please keep in mind that Wenger was at the World Cup that year and from rumors he was also heavily influential in Alexis joining us over Liverpool.
ElNeny is liked by us fans but look how low down the pecking order he is when the squad is fit, Xhaka was bought and ahead of him now and we all read about how Wenger spoke to him 12 months prior…
I honestly do not think it is a case of Wenger going into the negotiation with the opposite club but Gazidis, Wenger may have a hand in convincing the players themselves but convincing a player is not convincing the club to sell.
I will now ask for you to look at when we tried to sign Cazorla 12 months prior to when we did sign him, rumors was we missed out at the time due to a couple million difference in valuation and offer… Keep this in mind and now look at the purchase of Nasri. Nasri signed a new contract to bump up his value and Arsenal paid it without too much haggling. This was after Dein and before Gazidis.
The difference in actions coinciding with the time that the board was doing actions to increase share prices, such as a pact that was never kept and the pride of us not having a majority share owner who was foreign… and then the ongoing good accounting each year… Along with a manager as loyal (and maybe as stupid at times) as a dog.
Bit of potentially good news towards transfers is that the rumors are indicating that the board have finally woken up to common sense and will be looking to hire someone to take more charge of that area.
According to rumors the board isn’t happy with Wengers support in transfers that they are looking at a sporting director, Monchi has been rumored and TBH… That guy has got some good talent in while making a profit, seems just ideal for Silent Stan.
Part of our problem is volume of players at club that shouldn’t.
Sell some of them and we will be in dire need of replacements, we should have the funds if we can get some players sold ontop of what AFC has made as a business. Just think about the volume of players that could be sold if we had enough support in the club to make those sales happen…
I think we can say for a start that we would sell at least… 2 strikers (Giroud and Perez) a couple CM (Ramsey and Wilshere), at least 1 LB (Gibbs or Monreal) and a Keeper (Ospina) along with 2 RB (Debuchy and Jenks) and 1 CB (Gabs)…
If we could raise enough cash and it was fully reinvested in the squad then we could force players like Iwobi to go out on loan and get that last bit of development they need while not hurting us.
We need people at Arsenal that focus on nothing but transfers though as guess what… You wouldn’t see RM leaving things like this to people not good enough to make it happen.
good news but only if the old man leaves us alone, the new guy can work with new manager to change this club around. presence of Wenger could make this change to be useless as he’ll wanna be the main actor in everything done
I have said it for years (and recently Wenger in his own words has proven me right when he has gone on record and stated that he has unsuccessfully bid for certain players), that the reason why we have missed many of the targets that we have gone for is not solely down to money, but the lack of belief the prospective players have in Wenger.
Arsenal’s squad needs major surgery. At the moment we are so far off the pace of the elite European clubs that it is not funny. However whilst Wenger remains our manager, we are more likely to lose key players than to sign key players.