I know that a lot of Arsenal fans out there are starting to get very worried about the lack of Arsenal transfer action on the striker front, especially with our Premier League rivals Liverpool and Manchester United confirming the transfers of Sadio Mane and Zlatan Ibrahimovic this week.
We also have strong rumours that the Spain international Nolito is set to join Pep Guardiola at Man City while Chelsea have apparently beaten Crystal Palace and others to the Belgium international Michy Batshuayi but this might not be such bad news for Arsenal after all, because according to the football media the striker that Chelsea really wanted to sign was their former youth star Romelu Lukaku and I think the reason they have abandoned the pursuit of the Everton player is because they know he is going elsewhere and that elsewhere could very well be Arsenal.
The Mirror was reporting a few days ago that Lukaku wanted to make the transfer to Arsenal and Arsene Wenger is said to be very keen on the Belgian as he has the combination of Giroud´s hold up ability and power as well as the pace and movement to run in behind.
The problem was thought to be the hefty transfer fee that we would have to pay but we know that Chelsea are happy to cough up huge amounts on players so why have they given up on Lukaku unless they know it is a pointless chase? I might be too optimistic here but I do think that Wenger is determined to go out on a high and is ready to finally get busy with the Arsenal transfer kitty.
Now that Lukaku and Belgium are out of Euro 2016 (massive congratulations to Wales and Ramsey by the way), do you think that Arsenal are about to snap up this Premier League star?
Bob.
Well if it is a good transfer update than atleast we don’t have to look to see being embarrassed on twitter when Wenger is still going after talents in japan rather than established players. Lukaku news is a tough one to consider possible unless a serious bid is being readied by the club.
I don’t rate Lukaku nearly so highly as some people in here do. He needs allot of work on all aspects of his game. His finishing is what people think is his best quality. Will he handle the pressure, when the country is on his back, and our demanding fans start calling for answers. He is hit and miss as a goalscorer, aren’t they all you say, yes but I mean quite literally. For me, his true value is a 20m punt in the hope that he improves. Also I would say he’s a decent second choice striker to bring on. He’s not a first team starter, not at the biggest clubs he’s not. Like how Giroud should be a solid second option, this Lukaku kid is maybe in the same thinking. Except Giroud offers allot more than just his shooting, he’s also a play maker of sorts. I get that choice at the moment is not very high, slim pickings some might say. This is a decision we must get completely right. That sort of outlay, Wenger will not give up easily if or when it all goes tits up.
Ramsey, I read twitter comments going wild with the thought of all our ball playing midfielders. Xhaka, Cazorla, two deep lying play-makers. Ramsey, a cm or box to box play-maker. Ozil, our main man play-maker at no10. I came to the conclusion that this is all great and all. The thing is though, where are the off the ball runners. Because there is one more play maker they never mentioned, Giroud. All these players want the ball at their feet. Alexis even likes the ball at his feet, but at-least he has clever off the ball running including in his abilities. Where are our midfield runners, hope he’s not thinking Theo and Ox. Ramsey is capable, but if he’s alongside Xhaka, well then that is where he’s needed. We lost out on Mkhit, Reus will not be for sale now. Draxler, good dribbler, good ball player, not sure about his running without it though. With all our excellent passers of the ball, it would be a real shame, if we didn’t have people to finish them off.
Excellent point made Trevor!
This is where a Walcott or better yet a Vardy or Lacazette becomes usefull. Their exact specialty is “Run Behind Defence”. Only advantage Lacazette has got over the two is age, technical ability, and consistent/longer track record of goalscoring… and that’s a damn major advantage if you ask me.
If truly there is any truth to the Lacazette stories, then I can understand why Wenger “likes” him: For about the same reason he was comfortable with having Vardy come in.
—–Cazorla——Xhaka——-
Ramsey—-Ozil—-Sanchez
———–Lacazette————-
Five ball-playing playmakers, behind an agile, technical gifted and pacy goal-scorers. Isn’t that SUMPTUOUS?!
I generally agree with what you have said and I like your proposed lineup except for including Ramsey on the wing. Thats is not his strength, I think you need a person on the right who can bring Sanchez level quality on that side. Then you have a great attacking lineup. I think Ramsey plays the same position as Cazorla, and I think that Santi is better.
yes I don’t just don’t understand why we do not go for a) a wide player who can create width b) world class talent like Mahrez.
Ramsy clearly isn’t cut out for that role. If creativity is what matters then isn’t Mahrez better than him. Only way I will stick to Ramsey is if he scores enough from that position which we doesn’t. He strength is playing central when he can make late runs into the box. Wenger must sort this out. He is killing both the team and Ramsey by playing him there.
I keep saying this- we need a goal scoring winger even if we are not getting a goal machine. How this point is not covered in any of the discussions makes me go nuts.
How difficult is it? 3 players – 1) Goal scoring winger 2) pacy striker 3) WC CB.
why can’t we sort this out? who will it take to sort this out? All the while all we do this to try fit square pegs into round holes- and this has got us nothing all this while.
Sanchez has shown last season that he’s better on the right. I’ll move Sanchez to the right and play Welbeck (when fit) on the left.
RW: Sanchez, Walcott or Welbeck
LW: Welbeck or Sanchez
AM: Ozil, Cazorla, Wilshere or Ramsey
CM: Any two from Wilshere, Cazorla, Elneny, Ramsey, Coquelin or Xhaka (So many great midfielders – we’re blessed!)
He is clearly worth more than £20 mil, if you have watched the EPL and as many Everton games as some neutrals then you wouldn’t have made the comments you just did.
Lukaku shooting can be a bit hit or miss, to be fair though he hasn’t had a consistent supply and the team hasn’t had the control of the game like Arsenal do. Some of his shots shouldn’t have been chances… yes he can get better but he is young do not forget.
Lets have a look at some basic figures…
Giroud /Lukaku
Goals Scored per 90: 0.59 /0.51 =Giroud
Shot Accuracy per 90: 54%/56% = Lukaku
Successful take ons % per 90: 44%/53.25% =Lukaku
Key Passes per 90: 1.11/1.28 = Lukaku
Chances Created per 90: 1.33/1.45 = Lukaku
Please note that Lukaku is more willing to run at players, nearly 10% more success.
More chances created… Arsenal should have a much better lineup so how can Giroud fail on this, esp as his game is all about the hold up and laying it off for players.
More key passes, Giroud should easily have better figures here as he has better players around him making things happen.
Better shot accuracy.
Oh so Lukaku didn’t score as many goals per 90 mins… Lukaku never had Ozil feeding him! Yet he only just lost out to Giroud who has the best creative midfielder feeding him!!!!
Start watching players you talk about?
From what I have seen of Lukaku for the past couple years shows a player who is clearly better than Giroud and someone who can get much better as well.
“Successful take ons % per 90: 44%/53.25% =Lukaku….
…Please note that Lukaku is more willing to run at players”.
From that stats we can rather infer that Lukaku more often successfully gets past opposition players than Giroud does when they try to dribble past players.
I get your drift though. Romelu Lukaku is the best Arsenal can possibly get from the Premier League. There is just no argument there. Even at that, He is so good a target -I think he will end up in another club willing to spend more cash than us.
“From that stats we can rather infer that Lukaku more often successfully gets past opposition players than Giroud does when they try to dribble past players.”
Fair play, how about I add in the successful take ons along with the %?
Giroud: 0.41 per 90mins
Lukaku: 1.16 per 90 mins.
1.16 was only 53.25%, that means there was 46.75% failed attempts… this will bring the attempted take ons up to about 2 per 90mins.
0.41 was 44%, 6% lower than 50% so we can add that 44% again to get 88% which is 0.82 attempted runs, lets bump it up to 1 attempted run per 90mins to count for the 12%.
Lukaku makes aprox 100% more attempted runs that Giroud per 90 mins.
As for if we get him or not, I do not know, we might be trying to get the cheapest between Lukaku and Lacazette and the staff that deals with transfers are too busy going “Umm, Errmmmm, Ummm….” between the 2 and trying to save as many £ as they can by signing the cheaper option on the last day of the transfer window…
I disagree that Lukaku is worth only £20 million when Benteke went for £30mil. Every club in the world knows we need a CF and they know the EPL have TV money… Price of CF has rocketed up. As you said, other teams will out bid us is a option to consider… and if they perform for that club the Arsenal fans will moan at Wenger for being tight fisted.
I am not saying Lukaku is perfect, just that he is worth more than £20mil and anybody who watched more than just his highlights will most likely agree that he is worth more than £20mil. I would be disappointed if we bid only £20mil and didn’t up the offer after it was laughed out… and we ended up missing out on a CF.
I have to commend United getting both Mkhitaryan and Ibrahimovic
Yes there is always a possibility that they won’t cope in the PL but I have a feeling that these two transfers will be PL winning transfers (like Costa and Fabregas were for Chelsea last yea
All I can say is that Lukaku is,better than Giroud And a proven 20 plus goals scorer. With Ozil and Alexis servicing him ge could be even better
But I feel that’s not enough
We need to fill in the gaps
I think we have three gaps:
1. Over 20 goals CF
2. Top RW
3. A good reliable CB
Manchester United scares the ish outta me. But this is by no means the first time (post-Fergie) they’ve gone all the way. They are desperate to win. With Moyes, they spent and failed. With Van Gall they were even more desperate, but look how that turned out for them -1 FA cup to show in 2 years.
However, why am I having this funny feeling that things will be quite different under this time under Mourinho? Is it because the signings make more sense in comparison to what they did previous 3 years? Ibrahimovich, for me, has been the overall greatest CF the past decade -not even Falcao comes close. Mhikitaryan was, for me, Europe’s most effective midfielder last season.
Even after all that happened at Chelsea last year, many will argue that Mourinho still looks like a man who most often than not knows what he is doing!
We at the Emirates.. we better know what we’re doing.
If you notice all our discussions zeroes down to our failed transfer policy and the crazy market is not always to blame. quick points
1- Does Juventus have more money than us? How come they make excellent transfers with a lesser budget than we do ? Where were we when they snapped up Pogba and Dybala. We definitely could have competed for them but we didn’t.
2- What about Dortmund? How do they get their transfers right and we don’t ? where were we when they got Auba? Oh yes we were buying Sanogo.
3- Why did we not bid for Hummels. Yes he is injury prone but do you realize the level he would have brought to this team if he remained injury free. He is just a class CB who a) would have fit seamlessly into our system b) actually wanted to come to us.
3- If you look around the successful clubs are the ones who get their transfers right. Bayern, Roma and Juventus are examples. It is not always about the big bucks. The reality is that we have miserably failed over the last decade when it came to transfers- and the buck has to stop with wenger.
Bellerin and the Boss are the only exceptions and that’s just not good enough. Alexis and Ozil came to us just because their clubs didn’t want them.
My comment is not to bash wenger but let’s think of it in a unbiased way- we need fresh and creative thinking in the club; As long as wenger stays nothing is going to change and the changes we need to be successful and sustain that success is a lot more than
buying a couple of players.
I feel for the players- can you imagine their confidence levels when they see world class players going to rival teams. Do you think their is ambition. For me Bayern exemplifies ambition.
Talking about “the drive to be successful” is one thing and actually doing something about it is another. We clearly need a man who can walk the talk.
As far as I am concerned, I have lost hope. Year after year the same frailties coming back to haunt us frustrating. I myself don’t see light at the end of the tunnel unless Wenger leaves.
The man has done us a lot of good over the years- one last thing we need from him is to not sign a new contract next year and walk out and let someone else carry the mantle.
The money and the time us fans spend, we deserve someone who atleast will go down “trying”.
@rd-gunner
You really need to get out more. Or at least learn to use google right…
1
2
3
3
Nice counting.
Vardy didn’t come as stated in the press cos Wenger wouldn’t promise to play him in position all the time.
Wenger is the problem. Players talk, and the sooner he leaves the sooner players of quality will arrive
For me, United’s signings of Ibra and Mkhit underlines our own poor transfer market handling. If we are intend on signing a top quality striker there seems to be no good reason why we have not yet singed our player. I fear it is a result of indecisiveness, low ball offers or in fact no serious intention of signing a proven striker. Deeply frustrating.
I don’t know about Signing Lukaku but apparently Arsenal are preparing to announce the signing of 21 year old Japanese international Striker: Take-ur- ma -As-a- No! ?
(Takuma Asano)
Maybe Asano will link up well with Sanogo ? ? ?
fatboy have you checked out his highlights, he is extremely average in a very average league. make you want to get your money out and buy a ticket.
Hahaha .. No, but it will make alot of Japanese folks get their money out and buy an Arsenal shirt, with his name on it. ?
Yep, the only fool is an arsenal fan for sure. if we don’t sign more top players forget top 4
my top 3 so far (yes i know the transfer window is open for days yet)
Utd
Chels
City
then between us liverpool and totenham plus a surprise for 4th .i know i will get thumbed down by the AKB
Every season someone posts that we won’t make top 4 and here we are. Last season it was said we wouldn’t make top 4 and we finished second. Season before people were saying we wouldn’t even finish fourth And we finished 3rd. A ball hasn’t even been kicked for the prem and people are already saying we won’t even make top for. WTF?
Careful, the AOB will jump on you and moan like the children they are..
If john0711 could predict stuff with so much accuracy then how come we don’t hear about him like a ‘mystic meg of football’? Why isn’t he a rich toff with millions in the bank account from his predictions?
Idiots like that will scream “We wont be in top 4 unless we spend massive and stupidly and the AKB will down thumb this”
Calling fans who with-hold their judgement and not make knee jerk reactions fools is all we need to know about that idiot.
manu gets mikhi and we are odds on to sign the top top top player Japanese phenomenon asaso …. sometimes i am not sure whether wenger is a fool or i am for supporting arsenal
Take-ur- ma -As-a- No
asaso
assassin.. yep!.. that sounds about right. Japanese samurai striker Takuma “the Assassin” Asano!
Am getting nervous already, we need to sign now.
Really would be quite happy to get Lukaku, Lacazette would be another interesting signing, i think something may happen in the coming week, i do not have a problem with us getting Asano either, as long as he is not the forward option we so badly need.
Now arsenal have basically been set up with players we call providers of goal opportunity and it is all well we need a striker which contribute 20 + goals, but what about the players behind the striker, their contribution has to be in the double digits. I am speaking about the 3 players around the striker, the 2 wide players and the player directly behind the striker, must contribute 15 + goals. So also we are dying to get that 20 + goals striker, can not win the league it the 3 players closest to him are not contributing heavily in the goal department
I believe lukaku is better than giroud point blank! He is an established striker in the EPL scoring 20+ goals a season and at only 23. Some say look at his Belgium games ??? The guys is still a kid look at POGBA on France games ? Or better yet the world player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo Portugal games ? With a team of Xhaka , Cazola, Ozil , Sanchez and Ramsey I promise Lukaku will be a golden boot contender and an instant hit !
Lakaku is not bad but if we are looking for that deadly, clinical, 20+ goals a season striker then Lakaku is not the man for the job. Besides his price tag is ridiculous for the quality he has to offer. Lakaku, like some say is a hit and miss striker and we can’t afford that gamble now. If Wenger is in anyway serious about acquiring a top striker this season, he must make a decisive decision now. Quality strikers are scarce and the few ones available are being snaped up by the second. I hear Spurs are going for Icardi and that makes me feel uncomfortable. That boy is good and I believe he is a better and cheaper option to Lukaku. We should go for him or Lacazette since most of us feel the ideal top striker we need (Abumeyang) is beyond our reach, which i think is pure crap. If we put the cash on the table, we will get our man.
For what it’s worth, you may want to know that Dortmund told Arsenal in January that they will only consider 100M euros for Aubameyang (Kike_Marin). Arsenal only put 60M euros on the table. That was the end of that. The reality is that Arsene is not willing to pay what it takes for a premium striker. He will tell you one thing (the player is not available) but the reality is that he cannot cough up the 100M euros plus the salary (off the top of my head: 10M euros/yr). That’s the reality. Make no mistake, this summer window will be the harshest! You will get punished for dilly-dallying, which we are currently doing (again)!
Mata may be available