Arsenal fans may be understandably worried that Grant Xhaka could end up as Arsenal’s only signing this summer, but not everyone is quite so nervous.
With this season being the last in Wenger’s current contract, the ex-Arsenal striker John Hartson reckons that Le Prof has been saving his pennies to make a big splash this summer and make a real effort to win the title (and a new contract!)
‘They’ve just gone out and bought a good player in Xhaka,’ he said in the Metro. ‘They needed a holding central midfielder and they’ve paid around £30m for him, which is the type of money the Arsenal fans want to see being spent on the best players.
‘I think Arsene Wenger will spend a lot of money this summer. I expect him to spend between £100m and £120m and I think they’ll have a real challenge next season.
‘He’s been holding that money back slightly and been a bit cautious to go and spend it.
‘But after finishing second behind Leicester, the fans will want the title next season and I think he’ll bring in some seriously good players this summer.’
‘They need a centre-forward and a centre-half,’
‘Arsene Wenger has to buy players who can take them forward and enhance the team.
‘They don’t necessarily come cheap but I genuinely feel Arsene Wenger will have a real good go next season and to do that he needs to spend big money.
‘By big money I mean on the top, top strikers around the world and top centre-halves.’
‘Alvaro Morata would be a good signing,’
‘Robert Lewandowski is another one. I think the other one would be Napoli striker Gonzalo Higuain.
‘You’ve got Jamie Vardy and one or two others in the Premier League that could be worth a shout too.
‘Arsenal need to be in the market for these kinds of strikers this month.
‘I think this summer you will see a lot of players coming into the club.
‘It will be a really exciting time for Arsenal and it could be a really big season under Arsene Wenger.’
Well, us poor Gooners could certainly do with an exciting summer for a change. At least if Wenger does splash the cash on the fabled “top striker” then at least that will stave off the WengerOut protests until at least January when we drop out of the title race!
Darren
Morata would not be a good signing And should not be in the Same company as Lewandowski And higuain
Morata is just over rated simply because he’s played for Real Madrid and Juventus
List of desired ST options, in order of preference (i.e. from dream to realistic):
1) Lewandowski
2) Ibrahimovic
3) Aubameyang
4) Higuain
5) Benzema
6) Griezmann
7) Lukaku
8) Lacazette
9) Janssen
10) Morata
Here is how I list them with a bit of reshaping,
Benzema down the order, aubameyang on top
Higuin ahead of Movic (age), jansen and morata ahead of lacazette and Benzema.
1. Aubameyang
2. Lewy
3.Higuin
4. Griezman
5. Movic
6.Lukaku
7. Jansen
8. Morata
9. Benzema and
10. Lacazette.
Lewy
Auby
Higuain
Greizmann
Ibra
Lukaku
Benz
Morata
Lacazette
Janssen
Giroud has a better scoring record than Morata so he’s definitely not the striker we need and is not in the same category as Lewandowski or Higuan who are 30 goals a season strikers!
He is 4-5 years younger than both, and would have resale value/be with us that much longer- he may end up the better player- at 23 he is learning the game.
He’s 23 years old & has already won La Liga once, Serie A twice, won several domestic cups, scored in both legs of a Champions League semi-fina against Real Madridl, scored in the Champions League final against Barcelona, scored the winner in the Italian Cup final. More to his game than Higuain already, even if he isn’t as good a finisher just yet.
When Madrid won la liga he didn’t contribute much even at Juventus he sits on the bench coming on as a sub,yes he may have won but how much has he really contributed in those wins?
He just said if you actually read the fact that he scored the important goals to help his team progress in the competitions. Stop hating.
Not in the leagues is what he said basically. Id say there are some surprising scorers at finals and/or cup games throughout history. It’s the long haul how we evaluate the best players.
There is no debate that he is a better player and would bring more than Giroud. This does not make him the best available striker. Fact is Wenger will not do what it takes to sign the better options (lewdowski, aubamaynag, higuain) so I would be happy with Morata because he would allow more tactical variations and he would allow Ozil and Sanchez to use their entire repertoire of tricks.
Giroud’s or Morata’s scoring rates mean very little. Ibrahimovic played for Juventus at a similar age (as Morata is now) and only scored 10 and 16 goals for Juve and look at what happened to him with more experience. Dennis Bergkamp scored 5 goals for Inter before he cam to us. If people can not see the difference in talent between Morata and Giroud there is very little reason to debate.
I can now see am not the only one who does not believe in this Morata hype. Get us Lukaku,Vardy or Lacazette if we cannot get Higuain,Lewa or Aub.
Money itself will not
win you the league.
I still think the best
Manager wins the league.
Ranieri won the league with the cheapest squad in the top 10.
To be fair Arsenal does not seriously try to win the league.
Top 4 is the goal demanded by Owner, Board, CEO
and Manager, even Wilshere said top 4 is the goal.
85% of the fans do not expect Arsenal to win the league.
To be fair, the manager plays a part, the players play a part, the fans play a part, and the board plays a part. This might be another side to that cohesive theory of Arsene’s.
Money and the ability to sign and pay top players is a very big part as well
Top three net spend on transfers since 2003
Manchester City £669m
Chelsea £580m
Manchester United £412m
We won the PL in 2003/4 before manc big spending commenced and before chelsea spending took full effect. Since then it has been those big spending clubs who have won the PL up until this last season.
Because leicester won this year we think that spending power is not so important. We forget that chelsea was imploded by mourihno, manc were undermined by announcement of new manager, manu have not found their way since fergie left and we just bottled it.
Top manager is vital but so is spending power to get and keep the top players
Davidnz, you are correct, Arsenal does not seriously try to win the league.
Top 4 is the goal demanded by the Owner, even Wilshere said top 4 is the goal. We know this because the owner said he is not “involved” to win championships.
if top four is threatened then the team shows grit, fight and determination. If there is an easy opportunity to get clear ahead at the top of the league they bottle it.
Probably going to be grilled here ,I always read the comments but after this saga with our striker options and the hype behind morata I couldn’t contain myself. Personally I feel morta is NOT the answer to our problem upfront. ..In don’t want to get into analysing his style of plat of lack of goals but rather point out someone in feel we missed out on..loic remy, the man has pace and is a good finisher. .just hasn’t had a decent run in the Chelsea squad. .I was really hoping we would sign hin before he joined chelsea but it didn’t happen. .For 10mill in feel we really missed out. ..It’s no secrete we need a man with pace to play in between and run off the defenders making use of our world class A/M (ozil/Santi )if I look who us available in the striker position the one that stands out is lacazette,he has similar qualities to remy,but has a few more tricks. .good finisher ,has pace and could be versatile if needed .so many of the strikers linked with us in feel is not viable options as either they will cost to much or will never leave their clubs. So lacazette would be perfect for me
It makes me laugh when people still think Wenger will buy an other established player. IMO there is no way we should expect an other player of proven quality to join us this summer.
Xhaka was the one and only. Anyone who believes we spend £120 million has not been an Arsenal fan or perhaps better said, has not followed Wenger’s habits over the past.
By far our biggest need was goals and striker and we have not addressed that need. We are once again dragging our feet on our biggest need and we sign a talented player for a position which was reasonably well covered by Coq and Elneny. Don’t get me wrong Xhaka will improve us but not as much as Higauin would have or Aubamayang or any other proven goal scorer.
To worry we might waste our money on Morata or to dream we might sign him feels like wasted energy. We might at best dream about signing Jansen or an other project. But why have we not even pursued him? He doesn’t play in the Euro’s.
The longer we wait the more time Moureen and Pep and Conte have to buy the best prospects. We should have taken advantage of the situation with City, Man U and Chelsea by acting decisively in the transfer market and get our main priorities signed early (by now) like top teams do.
I don’t see any change at Arsenal to believe this transfer window will be different to the past. We singed a talented player for a big fee (for our standards) but he does not quite fit our biggest need. This is not unlike Ozil and Sanchez. We needed a top striker we were linked to Higuain and others but in both seasons we got talented and expensive players in Ozil and Sanchez but neither replaced RVP or addressed our biggest need.
For me, thus far, it looks like the same old story all over again. Deeply frustrated we have not signed and goals (Jansen, Higauin, Lukaku, Morata – I don’t care any of these will give me hope). The big clubs will buy the Higauins and Aubamayngs and Lukaku’s, the smart but poor clubs will gamble on the Jansens and we will likely be left with a very small pool to choose from in the last week of the transfer window when any new signing will have lost the benefit to train with his new teammates during pre-seaon and when Wenger will decide to start the season with Giroud because the new striker has to get used to the Arsenal way, Giroud will score a few goals and the new “project” will never get a fair chance.
Same old story. There is no excuse in my mind, especially after Welbeck, to not have signed a striker.
talking about wining the league,, I have long given up on wenger winning us any major trophy bcos he nd his boys are too relax, that’s why a fighter may not want to work under him. sometimes I see sanchez fightin nd I feel sorry for him. however for wenger to win he must
1. change the thinking of his boys and challenge them. nobody must stroll into team evry matchday except he had truely work his ass out last time
2. address the cause of incessant injuries to his players. best players don’t get injured usually. teams that win leagues have almost 6regulars who plays over 30 epl matches. how many of our players have played over 30epl matches in recent yrs
Vardy is a bit of a one trick pony who would give us a few goals, but nowhere near what he has managed for Leicester with their hoof it forward to the galloping striker tactic.
It’s the same way he won’t work for England unless we end up hoofing it forward. He’ll get the odd poachers goal but not be as prolific unless you play to HIS strengths.
I’m interested to see who we sign as a forward (if anyone) and hope it would be an established goalscorer. That said, I’m not against Morata, but not for silly money. As if AW would spend silly money anyway…
Aren’t we currently playing to Giroud’s strengths? Its not like the lamp post has that many tricks up his sleeve. Its flick to sanchez here and ramsey there and try to header in a set piece cross. Vardy will be a much better choice than Giroud. I only dislike Vardy for one thing, he’s a diver .
No Pogba recently put a beauty of a cross in. Something that Santi or Ozil very very seldom do. So no we have never crossed the ball well. Crosses come in and OG scores.
Vardy may be a diver bur leicester were awarded 13 penalties in the PL compared to our 2 pemalties.
Yes you are right. Morata is just with a great potential and better than Giroud but not a finished product like Lewandowski, Aubameyang, Higuan etc. We should go for the finished one as far we can afford the money to be spent.
People expect an excellent player somewhere, will be the exact level elsewhere … what about Falcao? Di Maria? Alot of the players being mentioned are around 30 and unproven in the premier league, and I hope we avoid that … with Ibrahimovic being the exception 🙂
I’m not all for Morata, but for sure he would offer us something different. He can hold the ball like Giroud, but has a bit of pace unlike Giroud, can actually take on players unlike Giroud and can finish. There is a reason that top clubs in various countries are after him, and that he is in the Spain squad. We need someone new up front with a bit of threat about them, I like the sound of Lukaku, Auba, Morata, or Ibra …. others not so much.
why none is speaking about “Arkadiusz Milik”
we must go for vincent janssen or Arkadiusz Milik or Lukaku or Michy
Lukaku top target… but Janssen milik Michy looks Realistic…
Def Koulibaly
and get a perfect young Gk for future ” Dragowski ” let him grow under peter..
If we are unable to replace flamini and thomas from our academy players just go for
“Walace silva” A perfect player and he is gonna represent brazil now!!
According to rumours if we are gonna buy Lb, “Ricardo” is good but look out for “Kieran Tierney”
Cheers
Look at us fans. So hopeful and full of anticipation. Hhhhmmm!! What if Wenger hasn’t changed. We usually get what we don’t want. I’m not too optimistic about this window and I won’t bet on amazing signings just yet. Let’s all relax with the Copa America and Euros. Cos we all know 99% of Arsenal rumours don’t happen. ARSENE!! Pls prove me wrong. I’d take that.
Aim of the club is top four. Any more signings will be to achieve this. Manu, manc and chelsea will go on a spending spree. West Ham have money from sale of stadium plus increased season ticket sales from new stadium so will probably be spending. Everton are reported to be spending £100m in addition to sale of Lukaku.
So the question is, do we have enough to achieve top four. Probably not so we need more signings. Wenger has said three, lets hope that one is a top striker or two