Full report on Arsenal’s window – Busy last day ends with 3 IN and 13 OUT

This was certainly one of Arsenal’s most interesting winter transfer windows ever, and as usual the Gunners leave most of the business until the final hours of the last day. But we finally got Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang over the line, which allowed Olivier Giroud to leave for Chelsea. We also managed to get rid of Mathieu Debuchy (at last) to St. Etienne.

So here is the full roundup of Arsenal’s January transfer dealings….

IN
Konstantinos Mavropanos PAS Giannina £1.8m. 04 Jan, 2018
Henrikh Mkhitaryan….. Man Utd Swap 22 Jan, 2018
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang B Dortmund £56m 31 Jan, 2018

OUT
Francis Coquelin……. Valencia £12m 11 Jan, 2018
Theo Walcott……….. Everton £20m 17 Jan, 2018
Alexis Sanchez……… Man Utd Swap 22 Jan, 2018
Marcus McGuane……… Barcelona Undisc
Mathieu Debuchy…….. St-Etienne Free 31 Jan, 2018
Olivier Giroud……… Chelsea £18m 31 Jan, 2018

OUT ON LOAN
Jeff-Reine Adelaide (Angers)
Chuba Akpom (Sint-Truidense)
Krystian Bielik (Walsall)
Stephy Mavididi (Charlton Athletic)
Tafari Moore (Wycombe Wanderers)
Julio Pleguezuelo (Gimnastic de Tarragona)
Ben Sheaf (Stevenage)

That looks like very good transfer business for us as we got rid of sulky Sanchez and got two very talented players in return, and Coquelin, Walcott, Giroud and Debuchy hardly got a game for our first team anyway, so we have saved quite a lump off our wage bill as well which will help pay Mesut Ozil’s improved wages!

We also sent quite a few of our promising young stars out on loan, and I don’t think we will see Chuba Akpom return to Arsenal ever again….

So do we all agree that all-in-all, the transfer window has been a success for a change?

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42 Comments

  1. Why did Barcelona take Marcus McGuane? He did not even show up with our first team players in this season.

    Did Barcelona see something that Arsenal could not see in him? Arsenal should protect their hot prospects like Maitland-Niles and Nelson, before the other clubs snatch them.

      1. I don’t blame him for leaving, he wasn’t playing. Looks weird seeing him in blue…
        Good luck to him, he scored a fair few goals for us. Cheers Oli!

        1. And unlike Weed Walcott, Giroud always played his heart out for our shirt. THAT is why he will always be given a warm welcome when he visits us and Walcott won’t.

  2. Brilliant window- very good business all round. Would of preferred we kept Giroud but I am just happy sulky Alexi has gone.

    Would of been good if we would of got Manolas from Roma but still.

    Apparently Song is back in training with us- wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t pop up somewhere in our plans- as Flamini did that time.

  3. Still not addressed the main areas were we are weak namely quality defender/s including a goalkeeper and a defensive midfielder. I think Wengers criticism of the defence after Tuesday night was hypocritical since he had opportunity to buy quality replacements during the transfer window which opens on 1st January he had 31 days to address this issue but he has failed again so he should be more critical of his own performance.

      1. Are those two paltry words ALL your vocabulary can muster to explain why you think Wenger is doing well and we should not moan? Or to put it in a positive way, do our best to rid our club of Wenger so that we can begin the decade long overdue cure. Being positive about negativity, as you appear to be, is downright stupid and uneducated. Accepting and rejoicing in mediocrity is not for us realists, but enjoy your “positve ” acceptance of it anyway.

    1. gooner4life i don’t think individually our defenders are all that bad its just that the whole team is strongly encouraged to play offensive game and it looks great to watch and gets us plenty of live games on TV which means extra cash but no one is left to guard the fort on counter attack’s,

      i noticed we attract a lot of players that like that we play offensive game which if you think about it must be most players dream

  4. I am still worried about the defensive side of our game. The keepers look shaky, the defence looks abysmal and the defensive midfielders are basically non existent.
    I can’t help wondering if it’s time to give kolasinac a chance in the DM role. He played it a number of times for schalke and certainly has the muscle for it.
    If you look at our best “front 5” aubameyang lacazette mkhitaryan ozil and Wilshire That is really strong, I would certainly think that the summer focus will be on keepers, defence and DM.

    1. Play ospina
      Cech has been inconsistent this season
      Wenger needs to show bottle here

      Xhaka should be punished with a long stay on the bench for the amount of points he costs us .

      But he starts every game

      1. Ospina’s reach is about 15 -20 cm less than Cech’s due to Ospina being shorter than top goalkeepers. So Ospina is not the answer. Too short, again the same problem as Lacazette – all-round excellent attacker, but not strong, not fast, not tall = problems in the Premier League.

        Agreed about Xhaka. His defending is worse than any of our other players, including attackers!!

        Wenger loves Xhaka and Ramsey, so it will be a conundrum for him to keep Jack on the bench even if better than those two. (though, at least Ramsey does some defending).

          1. Agreed Iwobi and Xhaka have shown nothing to merit a stay in Arsenal, not even on the bench.
            We have AMN that can play Xhaka’s position better than him and if we needed a left sided attacker I think Jeff Adeleide is better than Iwobi and needs more chances.

    2. Atid I agree with your comments, particularly in regards to Kolasinac as a potential DM.
      The issue with Arsenal’s defense is primarily the lack of coaching in defensive techniques, tactics, organization and discipline. What do Arsenal pay Steve Bould for?
      I agree that Mustafi and particularly Kos (with his achilles injury), given their ages are no longer reliable; however it doesn’t help that Wenger constantly tinkers with the combinations of defenders. When Arsenal had great defenses they were based on retaining consistent complements to build teamwork.

  5. Definitely the best January window we ever had innit
    Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan especially are much needed but also Ozil signing a new contract is brilliant. I hope Mavropanos turns out to be a Top CB someday.
    Now in the summer we need to sort out defense and central midfield. Particularly centre backs and defensive midfielder

    I am curious how Wenger will handle playing both Auby and Lacazette. 442 or play in different position?

  6. So for the Europa league we have ..
    Danny welbeck and lacazette that’s it lol

    Manolas release clause was 32 million..he’s 26 .
    Max Meyer is free in summer but loads will jump on a freebie of that level …20mill for 22 ur old is hardly expensive

    I do not understand how wenger is consistently allowing xhaka mustafi to literally ruin our season …

    Aubameyang will get goals in pl and help in carabao Final
    But we have 13 games to cut the 9 points deficit to get into 4th an we still have to play at Trafford Wembley man city ..
    With this backline …I don’t see it

    On paper this is was an a gD window
    But I can see us in Europa again next year

    1. we have great fire power with probably the 2nd best creative attacking midfield in the EPL now the problem is that if we get congested in every game just outside the oppositions box there is no way we can score goals with 15 to 18 players in and around you, we need to change the way we play we cannot play the million passing the ball game outside the box, we have to draw out the opposition to half way to be able to get behind their deference

    2. This times 2.

      So we spent £8 millions.

      Why weren’t we after Meyer earlier in the window? Or Manolas? The latter one is one of the best CB’s in the world but underbid for him, of course. De Vrij will be a free agent next summer as well so he could’ve arrived next to nothing.

      I think we got our signings spot on and I 100% believe none of them were Wenger’s signings. Song resigning next week will be.

      1. In the last two windows, we are still in the plus for money, we have made money not spent it. we have a decent front 4 then we are fked. our midfield is shocking
        wilshire is the best and AMN
        Xhaka and Elneny would not get in any of the top 10 sides and for me, they have to both go ASAP

        we need spend big on at least 3 players a DM, CB and GK

    3. We could have gotten Manolas for about 13 or 14 mill pounds some 5 years ago, but Roma (!) beat us.

      Then 2 years later we offered more than 35 mill. to Roma and they, of course, declined.

      Arsenal way of doing business.

  7. At last! A clearout of our deadwood…this new club setup seems to be making progress. I predict next season will be a very good one for us. With a few defensively minded additions in the summer we could be sitting pretty.

    1. During the summer we began low down with the clear out. But these ones higher up are getting more to the purpose. What we need to see next is if we make a mistake on new signings, not to keep them around afraid to admit failure. All clubs have hit and misses, but we do be a bit in denial with our misses. Auba six months after Lac signing is something we haven’t seen in a long time.

      1. Good point and as an example of hits or misses, I put forward the abysmal Xhaka who should have been already moved on by a with it manager, who would have righted the mistakes he-and other managers- make. ALL managers sign failures, even Guardiola but the great managers quickly put these mistakes right. Wenger does the very opposite. Virtually 100% of Gooners think Xhaka is rubbish and we are not all wrong and Wenger alone is right, even though Wenger, being the arrogant man he is, thinks differently.

  8. To properly gauge successful / failure as a window, we need to wait a bit and see how it pans out. I don’t just mean a month or two either. I fully expect P-E A to be trouble sometime down the line. A leopard never changes it’s spots and NO other top club competed for him , despite his impressive goal tally and ratio. You need to wonder why! But I CAN and DO applaud the long overdue ridding us of the abysmal weed Walcott who has been sponging off us for the last decade. Many people still like him purely because he is personable , polite and not a trouble maker. But I FOUND HIM FAR TOO TIMID, WEEDY, FRAIL, INJURY PRONE AND JUST PLAIN INEFFECTIVE FOR MOST OF HIS GROSSLY PAID CAREER HERE TO EVER MOURN HIM GOING.

    1. Lets be honest and say that we need to replace well over half our first team squad with better players. Cech, Bellerin, Monreal, all the 4 CB’s bar none,(plus Merts , were he not retiring) Xhaka, Welbeck, Ramsey, Elneny. Thats eleven out and would have been more had we not already cleared out some rubbish this window. Imagine what proper replacements would cost! I would start AM–N as DM regularly, play Ospina and give him a proper try before deciding either way. Wilshere should be captain and a regular starter on a new, INCREASED and long term salary. I also would NOT have sold SZCZESNY but that ship has sailed, thanks to Wengers idiocy. So major surgery but with a new, hungry and sane manager in charge(which will be a novelty after all the Wenger years) we can quickly regain ground.

  9. Don’t know why we didn’t use the OG situation to try and get David Luiz – yes I know he can be a loose cannon, but he’s out of favour, and would be looking for a move for the World Cup, and he’d be better in defence than 17m…

  10. Need to do what pep did and sort the back out. Let’s face it we have only spent 11 millions because of the players we sold this month and summer 2017

  11. Manolas and De Vrij would be excellent acquisitions as would young Tierney of Celtic leaving only a need for a defensive mid and goalkeeper.Rutland or Oblak would be an upgrade on Czec and Nditi of Leicester is a possible solution to our long running DM problem. Ship out the likes of Mustafi ,xhaka and perhaps Kolasinac who has flattered to receive and you have makings of a squad which could perhaps challenge Man City . Simple!

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