It is certainly going to a very interesting transfer window for the Gunners this summer, not just because of the financial uncertainty caused by the pandemic lockdown, but because we expect Mikel Arteta to try and stamp his authority on the team and dispense with our underperformers.
There will also be much business forced upon us, with six players entering the last year of their contracts in just ten days time, and Alexandre Lacazette six months later. I have very strong doubts that Arsenal will be able to sell some of our deadwood, but we can live in hope.
So, Mikel Arteta has been talking about our transfer strategy, and he sounds very positive although he is preaching caution until our financial position has been analysed. “I think there is a lot of uncertainty in how the transfer market is going to look.”Arteta said in the Express.
“You hear very different things and people are going to go all in, clubs are already spending a lot of money and others may be much more conservative and wait to assess the situation before they move.
“Our position at the moment is that we have to see and be cautious.
“Our ambition is still intact and I know from the owners that their ambition is still intact as well.
“We will try and do our best to improve the squad, maintain the players we want to maintain and move forward.”
“The demands of this football club are huge and we cannot stay still,”
“We have to change things, we have to improve them.
“But the most important thing is not about keeping, it is about improving the players that we have right now, convince them of what we are trying to do and get them performing and winning football matches.”
But one other interesting comment from the boss, which seemed to confirm what we reported earlier about Pablo Mari definitely joining us from Flamengo, was this. “What happens in the summer will happen. This cannot be affected just because a player gets injured doing his job and defending our club.”
So, it looks like Arsenal’s transfer season has already started with the Pablo Mari deal, so we could still be in for an exciting summer….
Admin,
I don’t know if I am the only one, but the article about where does the club go from here has nowhere to leave a reply
SueP Same old story SueP we cannot compete with the big boys anymore how can you bring dead wood back to life if we put them on the transfer market who will buy them
“Our position at the moment is that we have to see and be cautious.”
Is arsenal playing waiting game? Wait until all good guys has been picked and d unwanted one becomes available? That’s to me shows lack of ambition.
But the most important thing is not about keeping, it is about improving the players that we have right now, convince them of what we are trying to do and get them performing and winning football matches.”- this sounds as if the players are been treated as toddlers /spoonfeed. MA needs to be ruthless, this ego romancing approach wouldn’t work with this players. They needs serious reality check, let them be reminded of how much they earn, big pay means big responsibility and if anyone fails he will be on the bench, let them know they have to fight for the shirt. It seems to me as our players think they are better than everyone else, this shows in Nuel yesterday comment about them
Ambitious but cautious…. oh dear!
I’ve just been reading about how Liverpool will look to sell so they can bring in Mbappe …. Mane to RM a d PSG was also mentioned. Wow, how many of our players would walk into RM or Barca? We can’t even give some of our players away! Let the decent ones leave for nowt and will probably look to bring in more washed up has beens from that team in West London.
I’ve given up with the hope of signing Partey and am just bracing myself for more heartbreak..
Sue, it so bad that none of our players is wanted by any big team, none can fetch us 50million. I have said this several times, if we are to put our players and other ‘big teams’player up for sale, we can get max 40million while others get at least 80million
Spur – Kane, Dele/Son
United-Rashford, Pogba/De gea or Maguire
Leicester – Chiwel, and others
Chelsea, city, Liverpool, how useless are our players in this team
Bruno Fernandes too… he’s at the heart of everything for the Mancs.
We’re miles behind…..
We are facing the problem of buying players who are surplus to requirement yet our opponents buy quality players to compete with us even the adms know this very well. they will wake up when Arsenal is heading to relegation for the first time in history.
Sue , If , you are honest , as I always am, you will easily see that the main problems at Arsenal are two. First, the dreadful Kroenke. Second , the appalling “me first and the team second” selfish culture which is a decade long pandemic at our club and needs to be swept aside. Honest clubs like Burnley , Brighton and Sheff Utd, FULL OF LESSER BUT WHOLEHEARTED TRYERS, would not want most of our players, even for free. Anyone who canput aside our natural fan bias and properly analyse our problems can see where the REAL problems lie. The owner and the culture! Both need to be changed! Today!
Can someone tell us, the current valuation of Lewis Dunk? Can it be more than 30million? Do we have a better defender? Why looking for defenders that only know how to ‘play from behind ‘ but can’t defend?
Can only agree, I have been saying for ages we should go for Dunk, an experienced and good Premiership defender rather than these hit or miss foreign players we always seem to sign.
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We are finished as a so called big club.
We overpay for bang average players and end up being stuck with them. Highest paid players not even getting game time anymore. The recruitment has been appalling for years. Kroenke is never going to be putting his own money into the club 🤣
Saka who has been one of very few positive things this season. We can’t even get him to sign a new deal. The club is officially a laughing stock right now (Top to bottom). What you saw yesterday was how badly we’ve fallen as a club. We all used to moan about just prioritising a top four finish 🤣👍 we’ll be lucky to finish 8th or 9th. Poor Bellerin is never going to get a chance to plant any trees to save the world. Arsenal couldn’t beat an egg right now 🥴🤣
Trees and eggs 😂😂 nice one, Goose!! 👍
The issue is not Kroenke investing his own funds, but how Arsenal’s funds have been spent under the Board and management team he has selected during his ownership tenure.
Where has the 20+ years of Champions League money gone? Arsenal nett funds spent on transfers and the wages bill is comparative to the top 5 clubs, yet Arsenal sits 10th and may fall further. Arsenal is stuck with underperforming players, on high wages such that they can’t be moved on. As jon fox states the culture in the Club is abysmal. Scouting, recruitment and player contract management are at an all time low.
Kroenke’s Board and senior management team have shown absolutely no football or financial nous and the buck should stop with them. Change is desperately needed at the top by Kroenke, otherwise his Arsenal asset will deteriorate further.
Sponsors like Adidas prefer winners.
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MA should address that midfield this summer,
Arsenal front is good, maybe little touch can shoot us into the to.
Our defense, sorting Mari, Luis and Sokratis issue will be okay for now.
Then full attention given to the Middle, Arsenal lack drive, creativity and dribblers in that midfield,
Midfield for now is okay for that team,
I like what MA is saying except one thing,I don’t think we should convince players to stay at the club,once he has explained to them the direction he wants to take the club(transfers,ambitions,football philosophy…)and they still don’t buy into it,they should be sold,we need players who really want to be at the club that includes Auba,you’re either in or out period!!
It is scary the culture we are creating, even the rhetoric is defeatest. We dont even talk like the club are winners anymore and thats what we are getting out of this club. RIP Arsenal. Thanks (not) for the club you have created Kronk.
If we don’t buy a creative player this window the next season will be no different.
You can see Ozil is just happy running down his contract – BOTH Arteta and Emery have frozen him out for the same reasons and that can’t be a coincidence.
We have good attack options with Auba, Laca, Saka, Pepe and Martinelli and our defense with Saliba, Tierney and Holding all coming back in to contention could improve. It’s pretty obvious we need a very good CAM to link the team and supply the attack and if that doesn’t happen you have to wonder what the people in charge are thinking.
Great analysis, in fact spot on and I can tell you that the person in real charge is not Arteta but Kroenke. Simply because in all businesses everything stops with the owner and financial controller.
I love Arteta but recognise he is working with BOTH hands tied behind his back. He cannot afford a top and dynamic midfield creator – and I agree with all you write about Ozil – but he cannot magic a top player out of thin air and needs serious owner interest and investment in the squad.
We have probably at least twelve mainstream players who should leave but with no money to replace them we are doomed while Kroenke stays, even if God Almighty were manager! Or even Klopp or Guardiola for that matter. REALISTS KNOW THIS WELL. Our squd is full of self entitled, ill disciplined dross with only a very few possible diamonds plus Leno as the ONLY current defender of already proven Prem quality and even he is out now, probably for months. I cannot agree with you on Holding though but I hold out hopes for Tierney as future quality. Saliba I discount, as he is not here yet.
Money, isn’t the problem jon, it’s the incompetents Kroenke has managing the scouting, recruitment, player contract and financial management of this once great Club.
One part of one line from Arteta stands out like a sore thumb as a complete lie. “……..and I know from the owners that their ambition is still intact as well.”
Most of us were not born yesterday and know that Arteta had to state this RIDICULOUS lie for reasons of keeping his job. But if anyone at all believes it, then I will promise to sell them London Bridge for a mere tenner, since I am the bridges owner. Oh yes I am!
jon, if the Kroenkes have ambition for Arsenal, the first thing they would do is go through the Board and senior management like a dose of salts and bring in people with football and financial nous.
Get grown men instead of boys who only care about paychecks and living in London. You need to scout leaders and personalities ontop of talent. Liverpool has shown that personality and commitment can be just as essential to success. We are not a Man City. Time to stop pretending we can compete with them financially, probably ever. Arsenal need to buy talented players that have leadership capablities, and young players who are hungry. There are so many players like Lacazette, Ozil, David Luiz, Pepe, who have great stats, but have no strive to be the best, and at the end of the day is fine with an okay season, and a nice paycheck.
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