Arteta must make serious additions if Arsenal are going to have any effect on the UCL next season

Jeremie Aliadiere believes Mikel Arteta must make crucial transfer decisions for his team to maintain its dominance and improve next season.

This season, the Gunners seem to have rediscovered their competitive edge. Out of nowhere, they established themselves as serious title challengers. However, the lack of enough options for quality rotations had seen them struggle to maintain efficiency all throughout the season (as seen when they failed to win in four games) through rotation. Aliadiere hopes Arteta adds much-needed quality options to his squad.

“Apart from last night, the previous results show Arsenal are just getting tired, especially Saka and Martinelli,” the Ex-Arsenal striker said on Boyle Sports. “Every time Arsenal conceded, you felt they had that extra gear to pull it back, but lately that hasn’t been the case.

“When we were 2-0 up against Liverpool and then they got back into the game, we had nothing more to give.

‘Because of tiredness, you realise that when you do have one of your starting 11 injured or off-form, you’re looking at the bench and saying, yeah, Trossard is giving you as much as Martinelli and Jesus, but apart from him, unfortunately Smith-Rowe has been out pretty much all season.

“Nketiah and Smith-Rowe are quality but unfortunately haven’t had match fitness. So to bring them in off the bench to offer the same as the starting 11, it’s tough.

‘I feel we need to compete, and we’re going to need to strengthen with the Champions League.

“It’s not like the Europa League, where you can just rotate in the group stage because you’re pretty much guaranteed to stay top.

“Next year they can’t do that or they’ll finish bottom of the group.

“He needs depth in his squad.”

Arteta already has a capable list of targets to take his team to the next level. Declan Rice, Romeo Lavia, Moises Caicedo, Mousa Diaby, Wilfred Zaha, and Marc Guehi are touted as the players wanted at the Emirates ahead of next season, and Arteta is going to need that amount of quality players coming in if we are to have a chance to even qualifying out of the Champions League Group Stage, as well as make another challenge on the League title.

Sam P.


Mikel Arteta buzzing after Newcastle United 0-2 Arsenal – Revenge was very sweet..

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15 Comments

  1. We’ve seen our players struggled to escape from Man City’s high-press, because Ake/ Akanji prevented Saka from receiving Ramsdale’s long passes

    I don’t think adding some of the central midfielders mentioned in the article will help us bypass Man City’s attackers and midfielders

    We need to find someone who can be an alternative option to Saka at receiving Ramsdale’s long distribution

    1. One way around this is to employ a top ball carrier with close control, have seen Bellingham does it with devastating effect.

      Another is very speedy wingers, maybe that’s reason why the gaffer tried to sign Mydryk.

      1. Bellingham would still need to go through the opposition’s midfield and we’ve got central midfielders for that purpose in Partey/ Smith-Rowe

        Partey could do it consistently against mid and lower table teams, but he sometimes struggled to do it against big teams

        Martinelli could also make us escape through the left wing occassionally, but the big boys in EPL seemed to have been prepared for it

    2. I agree with the sentiments for alternative players for every position. However, the manager must also be willing to rotate the squad to give each player to last the season. What we have seen, most players flopped when it matters the most. Even the greatest players do flop if not rested. I watched with disappointment how we failed to utilize our subs this season to effect the game and get results. The utilization of subs at Newcastle was surperb. We fell short often times and it’s essentially down to poor judgment on rotation.

    3. Gai,.
      As good as ManCity are there are weakness to every style of play. It’s up to a coach to do his homework and come up with a winning strategy. We all saw how Everton annihilated Brighton and how Brendflord beat City at Etihad this season even with their high press. A very good experienced midfielder can actually make the work easier plus a tall pacey winker in the mold New Castle Isak.. If Saka has a good well built body frame he would have competed effectively with Akanji and Ake.

      1. Man City can be beaten with well-planned counter-attack. Real Madrid also showed how to do it last night

        However, Arsenal rarely play with that tactic type since Wenger’s era

    4. Your post makes no sense! If city’s players stopped Saka from receiving the ball what would changing the Saka for someone else do?

  2. Guehi – nothing special about him, also will be overpriced
    Zaha – that ship has sailed
    Rice – great player but I’m afraid he’ll be overpriced
    Caicedo – same as above

    Lavia – interesting player, could be a great purchase. Maybe too inexperienced for us though
    Diaby – fantastic player, 50 goals 50 assists since his move to Bayer 4 years ago. Better stats than Son had before he moved to S*uds.

    Diaby – winger
    Vlahovic – striker
    Sutalo? – centre-back
    Ugarte – def midfield
    Veiga/SMS/Mount? – central midfield

    1. Nice breakdown. Only thing I’d say is that I think caicedo might be worth the money, and so not necessarily overpriced (could be wrong of course). I think Vlahovic would be expensive and *could* be overpriced

  3. Not sure who we will sign but i hope they will have as half as much impact on the team S the past signings have had whi h has been pretty good.
    One observation thst I noticed from the last 4 still in the champions league. All 4 teams have a player up top who is good in the air and holds the all up a d brings others in to play
    Do we have anyone like that
    Can GJ do this job for us

  4. One thing I like about Arteta is that he seem to know what he wants in a player and we have seen how the players he bought are doing at least 80% of them are quality additions. If he wants D Rice he surely has his reasons and D Rice has been a regular for England and playing so well at international level. Of course his price by Westham is another thing. But there are other quality midfielders to replace our ageing Pathey, Jorginho and Xhaka.

  5. Will need to buy minimum 5 top quality players and I mean top quality to give ourselves a chance of challenging for the prem league and being very competitive in the champions league not sure we’re ready to seriously be contenders but should at least make quarter finals!

  6. I hope we get our first targets would like to see at least three or four new arrivals. If we get it right, a good window, you’d have to say that we look good for another challenge next season, maybe even on all fronts if we can refresh and prevent burnout/injury

  7. Many top clubs have signed very expensive players and they did wonders in those respective clubs eg
    Virgil van dijk and Alison of Liverpool, Man city, Chelsea,Man United have been doing this so will it be catastrophic if Arsenal sign expensive players no it will not be it will massively improve an Arsenal side which is currently very strong to be even stronger.Arsenal should really bring in both Declan Rice,James Madison and Moises Caicedo to make that CM /CDM even stronger and when it comes to right CB position they should look at Ben Godfrey/James Tarkowsky of Everton or Wout Faes of Leicester those players have got premier League experience and not over priced and with report of Arsenal having more than 150m to bring in new players Arsenal can get those players as long as they are willing to come in

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