Gazidis – Arsenal will buy to raise the level of the squad

Good old Ivan Gazidis has come in for a lot of stick from Arsenal fans over the years, especially when he has made claims of Arsenal spending fortunes when we were actually selling our best players. On Friday Gazidis attended the annual meeting with Supporters groups and it seemed to have been very civilized….

Times have changed and now that Arsenal really have money to invest, the Gunners Chief is not so slapdash with his statements. In fact he seems a bit circumspect and makes the point that it is a lot harder for the club to improve a squad that is already very good, but he does seem confident that this can be done this summer.

Ivan was quoted as saying on the Arseblog: “… the thing everyone wants to talk about, is what’s happening at the tip of the iceberg with the first team and we’ve built quietly and without a lot of fanfare a good and deep squad.

“Now this summer is quite a delicate one for us, because it’s easy to improve when you’ve got obvious weaknesses, but I feel we’ve got a very good and strong squad across all positions. We’ve got a very healthy age profile, it’s a young squad and we’re in great contract positions as well, lots of long contracts, not too many people we have many issues with contract wise.

“The challenge for us, and what a great challenge to have, is how you improve that. You’re right, we have to do that but it’s actually not very easy when you’ve got a very good squad. Because when you bring somebody in, you’re pushing somebody else down, so you’ve got to be sure that when you add someone, you’re really raising the level of the squad.

“That’s our challenge this summer and I’m convinced we’ll be up to it, as we have been for the last couple of years.”

So that sounds promising from the CEO, and it does imply that anyone we do buy will be much better than our current players.

Fingers crossed!

Tags Gazidis

40 Comments

  1. OT: “Reports from Turkey suggest Fenerbache are preparing a 3mil bid to sign Ospina” ……. Crap!…. Why are there no reports from England as well?

      1. People make it sound as if we have some Real madrid Barcelona squad. Our targets are going one after the other. Why? because we are thinking we are strong enough. I know i will get loads of thump down but I want to remind everyone that we finish 12 points behind Chelsea.

        People are saying Man City are shit ???? hahahaha a Shit man city stilled finished above the so call best Arsenal squad in 10 years. lets keep on overating our team. Thats how Monaco knocked us out in the champions league in the first place.

        Conclusion. Mr Gladis we need more players. This team is clearly not a finish material. This team cannot win the league. cazorla and sanchez have asked for more players. excuses excuses. Same old Arsenal.

        1. Sorry for the off topic. But Rosisky just welcome CECH to Arsenal on his Instergram. Its happening people. Cech Rosisky out on his Instergram. i can open a beer now.

        2. Completely agree, this is a poor statement from Gazidis. I get you don’t completely undress the squad in the media, but to come out and say it’s tough to improve what we have is just complete nonsense. We aren’t Barca, we got pumped out the CL and finished more than 10 points off the top spot in our domestic league.

          Be diplomatic of course, but don’t come out with this garb and expect fans to lap it up. We have obvious deficiencies in the squad so just say we’re going to assess the areas we can improve and make the necessary changes/additions.

    1. breaking news Kongdobia agree to go to Inter de milan. According to sky Italia. he rejected Milan Juventus and Spurs. Arsenal didn’t even make a bid. lol Wow what a window. Hope we know what we are doing.

        1. This is a fked up news, we didn’t even go for kondogbia. Maybe Wenger doesn’t rate him. Maybe Wenger is after carvalho. Lots of thoughts on my fkin mind. I hope Wenger does realise lecoq alone won’t be enough, its too much to ask from lecoq. As galen mentioned our targets going different directions day by day…fuk this

  2. OT. Man I wouldn’t want Ospina to leave. I Ve been watching hm in Copa America and even the most skeptical journalists are praising him.

    I like what gazidis said. It’s actually true. It’s not an easy task. But you can start that task by…..not letting anyone go!! Even less Ospina!!!!

    1. Ospina is too good to be benched. He won’t play as number two to cech. He would want to play games and keep his starting spot in the national team. So its either we get Cech and lose ospina or we just stick to what we got and buy kondogbia and Martinez

      1. Ospina 26 Cech 34.
        If I’m in a band and they bring Clapton to do the lead guitar I’d be happy to play rythm

    1. Wisely spoken Ivan, this also could mean that we won’t sign anyone, an early excuse. We are well aware that we need to improve our striking options. So why the wait? We need a DM, kondogbia could be snapped soon. We have to be a little quicker. I’m just afraid that this theory of having a good squad means their will be no buying

      1. @Seancali
        Thanks bro. Am just happy somebody shares my opinion. Ouir targets are going one after the other to other clubs.
        Our best squad in 10 years finished behind a shit Mancity.

        We Finished 12 points behind Chelsea. What great squad is everyone talking about? We need more players to stand a chance.

        1. @galen
          Thanks buddy, I’m happy too that someone understands me. I’m just tired of the same crap every year,we have a good squad we have a young team we have a team capable of winning and bla bla bla….our rivals all have good squads but they are still bringing in stars every season and improve their team, we are virtually 3 signings away from having one of the best teams in our history, and again they talk about having a good squad, we need an upgrade in goal, ospina is solid but when someone like cech is available you go for him, we need a DM to share the duties with lecoq, and we for sure need a new world class striker, and yet we wait and all our targets are heading in different direction. Sad to see this really

        2. Our targets? Yours, the papers or another fans, more like it.

          This is the perennial problem with the transfer window. Every fan and every journalist talks up every quality player in every position as an AFC target.

          Every player we’ve lost I doubt we were ever in for. We’ve made a bid for Carvalho – really who says? I’ve seen no quote from AFC, it’s as likely to be BS as true.

          I think by now everyone knows the last to know will be the fans and the press. Whatever happens will be under the radar till the deal is pretty much done.

          Frustrating for sure, but that’s how it goes. I don’t see it as sad, because atm there are so many options that every possibility for decent additions to every key position is still totally on.

        1. Before opening the website I got all excited and yelled out ‘F**k yeah! I told you plastic mugs cech is coming to a bigger club to all my friends(who all happened to be chelsea supporters)’ and when I did open the page I got ridiculed(justifiably). So yeah screw you m8.

  3. STFU Gazidiz…jst do your job n stop yapping…The very thought of you makes me miss Dein more n more cz u r not competitive enough
    Does these guy have a say in the club when it comes to transfers really????…Does he understand football from a fan point of view???…No matter how much profit u bring the club, without trophys which are brought by top players al never respect you or care about your empty promises..
    i bet you cant even name our starting 11

  4. Like seriously Gazidis…… We’d buy to raise the Level of the squad?……. How bout buying to win the premier/champions League?

  5. If Arsenal are serious about competing we NEED a huge change

    SELL
    Wilshere
    Ramsey
    Oxlade
    Giroud
    Welbeck
    Podolski
    Jenkison
    Sanogo
    Campbell

    Release
    Arteta
    Flamini
    diaby
    rosicky

    BUY
    Hummels
    Howedes
    Kondogbia
    Gundogan
    Reus
    Cavani
    Lacazette

    SIMPLES SIMPLES SIMPLES

    Our sales will more than cover our purchases

    New starring lineup

    Cech
    Bellerin….Hummels…Koscielny…monreal
    Kondogbia
    Gundogan
    Reus…Ozil. Alexis
    Cavani

    Bench: Howedes…Cazorla…Walcott…Lacazette and others.

    1. why moreal and bellerin? let gt rid of them and lahm and jordi alba they’re both available. Just in case your sarcasm meter isn’t on this ain’t FIFA FM.

  6. Actually the Deadwood = Giroud, Welbeck, Sanogo, Wilshere, Ramsey, Oxlade, Podolski, Campbell, Jenkison, chambers, Gnabry, Flamini, Arteta, rosicky. Sell all these for £300 million

    Get
    Pogba, Hummels, Howedes, Kondogbia, Gundogan, Reus, cavani, Lacazette and bale for £300 million

    Job DONE

  7. Spend money on Petr Cech would be a huge mistake (well won’t be surprised if Wenger does it!) as this is a position where we are not in need.

    First thing first, a defensive midfielder of world class status or close to it…
    A world class striker and another CB as I, personally, do not understand why Mertesacker got a 2 years contract extension when he is clearly on his knees (thanks to Koscileny for making him look good).

    Gazidis talks a lot (a usual) and don’t do much… You see all the “suits” after the FA Cup victory… It is embarrassing and just show what kind of mentality the fans have to deal with at the top of the IB hierarchy!!

    A well known club, with a massive history, owned and managed by people who have no clue about football (this is not soccer!) and what it takes to win.

    Win the CL and/or the league will take us massive investment and an Arsene Wenger on top of his game (and I mean tactically flawless… Is it going to happen? Hell NO!!

    So next season, same results (more or less) and same frustrations…

  8. a DM is a must… plus a striker or a LW… nd i wud like 2 see some good young LB coz i think we don’t hav depth dere…
    ne idea on alverez balanta… gr8 player in FM but if its true we shud try signing him…. a cover for LB+CD…

  9. Haha can’t believe the frustration in some of these comments. After all we only spent 90m last season showing a massive lack of ambition and he’s basically said we will be spending again.

    Not to mention it’s only the 20th June and these so called players moving to all the other clubs while we’re not signing anyone. Or wait no ones really signed anyone who we need or that would seriously improve our squad yet.

    1. @ Alan Frank
      Well you are right bro. The think is our board are sounding tooo positive. They give the impression that our team is out of this world. That is simply not true. They say its very difficult to improve this Arsenal team? that is not true as well. Its very difficult to improve Real madrid and barcelona. But Arsenal ????? Come on
      The fans can smell greatness. They know we are are close. Its all about us bn ambitious enough to go out there and pulll the trigger.

      1. I actually agree with him it’s players like Alexis that make the difference there aren’t many players at that level so it is difficult. It’s ok to name players and say we need them but a lot of these players people list in my opinion aren’t that good. You start bringing in these players on 4 year contracts over that period your making the squad worse. Hinder any real squad progression. Like you say we’re close so we need the players that make the difference. The talent pool of players who are on a level we need there aren’t many once you take into account availability, competition from rivals & working within some budget limitations (although I believe we can compete for most players).

  10. Nope. No quality players out there that could improve AFC Ivan the terrible!
    We have the best squad in the world of football and none of our players could be topped.

    What utter bull$hi£ and an echo from years gone buy.

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