Arteta’s project has started bearing fruit. The Gunners managing to dominate the league last season, though not winning after a loss of concentration towards the end of the season, shows the progress Arsenal have made under Arteta, who took over at the Emirates when all they could aim for was finishing in the top 6.
Some bold decisions have helped Arsenal get where they are. These include clearing out the deadwood like Mesut Ozil, Pierre-Emerick Aubamayeng, Bernd Leno, and Alexander Lacazette, et al.
This summer, as much as top players are tipped to join, the clearing out needs to continue, but it will be a different clearing out in the sense that this time around, Arsenal could be offloading some quality players who could leave for reasonable fees.
Edu has a big task in front of him, unlike the previous exit deals for Aubamayeng, Ozil, and Lacazette, for which Arsenal didn’t pocket anything. He has a chance to start making some profit from the Arsenal player’s exits. Kieran Tierney, Granit Xhaka, Folarin Balogun, and Nuno Tavares could all leave for reasonable offers.
The fees from their exits could be reinvested in their squad to make it stronger.
Although Arsenal shouldn’t turn into a selling club, they need to return to making reasonable sales, like Man City, who sold the Gunners Oleks Zinchenko for 35m and Gabriel Jesus for £45 million, and that should be Edu’s next big task so that Arteta can use the funds to buy even better players that fit Arsenal’s tactical plans.
Sam P
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The exit of Martinez to Aston Villa for a peanut in preference for unsustained preference for ‘deadwood’ Leno still asks questions. We must be clear-eyed in this Summer transfer window about those we allow to move out especially Thierney and Balogun.
I attribute Emi’s departure mainly to his unwillingness to stay and fight for the title. 6 more months he stayed he would become our number 1 for sure. I agree that a. fee paid by him was a trifle, but I myself believed that Leno could be better than Emi… I was wrong….. (sorry for the mistakes, I’m using the online translator)
Why should he stay, he played so well won us a trophy only to be told he will be relegated for the anointed one in Leno, Leno should be made to fight his way back not relegating someone who did so well, same happened to trossart and Jesus
👍Gun down, I agree that selection based on performance should be front snd centre, particularly when a player is returning from injury or suspension. This past season, failure to do this cost Arsenal points in the decline at the end of the srason.
I hope so. If Arsenal and Saliba can’t find an agreement over his salary this month, they’d better sell him as soon as possible
Gai,
I think Arsenal should do their best to keep Saliba it makes their season preparation easier than integrating someone new without Epl experience. But if the player is unwilling to sign he should be sold than keeping a non patriotic player.
Saliba must’ve known he could easily get more than £130k per week from other EPL club, because of his age, achievement and homegrown status
GAI – No sh*t, Sherlock.
It will really amount to huge distraction if the Saliba representatives are still refusing Saliba’s parent-club give-and-take submission. This recreates the scenario in which Guondouzi was asking the player after his loan spell to remain with Marsaille. We wouldn’t want to believe there’s a dangerous linkage politics here.
We shall see if Era is over.
Pepe likely to have contract terminated and paid off.
Balogun rumor of 30-35 million is measly and way undervalued.
Xhaka for 15 million? If they sell Tierney how much over 25 million for a proven and productive LB?
I have zero faith in Edu and cast for getting good value in sales.
We have shown a willingness to get mugged to get players off the books. Precedent has been set already, hard to convince buyers to pay up.
My concern too, Durand.
All this mess is because of Arteta and Edu. They were supposed to guarantee Martinez a starting spot by mouth and the let him compete with Leno. Martinez was going to win the battle and he would be still with us. Biggest problem with Arteta is that he wants his own players even at the expense of good players. Mari, Pepe and Lacazette are players who could have helped us win the league. Selling and releasing players is only wise if you are replacing them with better players.
Watching yesterday’s West Ham game i could see that Rice is overpriced and over hyped. He is not at the level Partey is by a big margin. Better to spend the funds on Amrabat to partner Partey. As long as we don’t play our players we will sell them for peanuts. To sell Tierney for around 30mil and buy Cancelo for 60 70mil is pure madness.
Arteta lacks man management skills. He also lacks coaching skills as I haven’t seen many players improve around him even the ones he has bought.
We might need another coach midway through the next season
I missed the Hammers match ,but I take it you were not impressed by Rice?In what ways did he fail to meet your expectations and do you feel he is worth say 70m max which is in line with my own thoughts?
Maybe around 50mil just look at how much we paid for Ben White and the fee looks over the top. Over priced English players.
Rice is over hyped,over rated and over prised
Grandad, my only concern with Rice (which is already indemic at Arsenal) was an inability to put shots on target snd make the goal keeper save.
@Simba
Are you for real? We’ve had our best season in 20 years and you think we need to get rid of the people that got us there?
Sounds like a troll to me…..
Our best season in 20 years when the majority of the top clubs really performed poorly and we gifted City the league. How can it be the best when we didn’t win any cup. I would take Man Us Carabao cup and fourth place finish because they managed to get silverware and that really counts. West Ham won a European cup yesterday which we have failed to do. Second play with no domestic title is as good as 3rd or 4th place finish because all the teams qualify for the CL. Can you really say the just ended season was better than 2014/2015 season when we finished third and won the FA cup? For me all the years that we won the FA cup are better finishing second with no silverware as we would have managed to win a competition during the season. I would take the several Europa league titles Sevilla has won over finishing second in the league and just participating in UCL and not winning it.
Calm doe this is a discussion that will go in circles as you are either Arteta brigade or a whining fan who wants instance success
Maybe its you who must calm down, I am saying my opinions. Just say your views.
Cannot agree with you on this one I’m afraid. Yes we may have won silverware in 2015 but it does not compare to this season for this simple reason. 2015 gave us no belief what so ever. This season we as a fan base had a belief that we could actually win it. We dominated the league for most of the season. There was belief that even if we went behind we would still come back and win the game.
None of this was present in 2015. So personally I think this is the best season I have witnessed for 20 years I genuinely looked forward to every game with excitement and belief rather than hope. That makes it a better season than silverware in my book.
Admin Pat, it could be argued that Arsenal’s onfield performances were despite some of the off field shortcomings.
I wouldn’t replace partey with rice, I’d replace xhaka with rice, if we are going to sign him. Partey’s skillset is very different – he’s much more of a playmaker, who’s brilliant for helping us pass out from defence, like jorginho. Rice is a generalist support player, more like xhaka.
Rice can’t even lace party’s boat
Rice is a more skillful, and better ball carrier version of xhaka
@Simba, to say Arteta is blame for Martinez departure, I think is wrong, he was impatient and since he won the FA, became anxious to make demands, no player is bigger than the club,
To say we haven’t improved under Arteta isn’t true, only Man City beat us this time, yes Arteta is learning but he’s doing it fast,
I 100% agree with you Rice is a 100% hyped, I would take Pasqueta any day any time, he’s the best replacement for Xhaka,
I wasn’t to believe Rice is smokescreen,
It seems to me the English FA and media agree every year to promote one English player apart from the outstanding ones.
Rice is no where what we need.
We should sell Patino, Holding, exchange Tierney/Nketiah for Pasqueta, send Smith-rowe and Odegaard to the gym, loan Viera, Marquinhos, duberry, Integrate Azeez, Balogun and Norton into the team.
I wasn’t to believe Rice is smokescreen,
Arteta is to blame for Martinez
@longbenark Arteta is to blame as he told Martinez that Leno was gonna be the first choice. He has made several mistakes that are difficult to take like refusing to sell AMN and then let him go for free whilst not playing him. We had an opportunity to win the league this year because apart from City all the title contenders were not up to it. We really messed up and for that this season has been a flop also considering where we were with a few games to go. If Arteta was at Real Madrid, Bayern, Chelsea, Barca, and PSG he would have been fired for blowing up such a lead. He might not get such an opportunity again.
The Conference cup, Carabo cup & EUROPA cup are all 2nd & 3rd tier competitions.I would never gloat after winning any of the 3. Maybe my level of prestige is just high.
Arteta is building a team that will be capable of winning the UCL & similtanuosly be competitive in the league. The team’s consitency & level of play is higher then previous years as evident with our points tally.
So i think the main objective is to win UCL as Arsenal has already set the benchmark in the 2 MAIN cups domestically ie. most FA cups & only INVINCIBLES.
ALWAYS FORWARD!!
BangBang, tell Manchester City, Manchester United, West Ham United and their supporters that the cups they won were unimportant.
I do not think they would agree with you!
Are you saying its prestigious to come second place than win the Europa?
@ Ozziegunner
You are right im sure the vast majority of them would not, especially teams who didn’t win a trophy for ages. However the big difference in prize money for those competitions & the level of competion suggests otherwise.
@ Ozziegunner
I didnt say it was unimportant as any trophy boosts morale & confidence. i was just putting those cups in its proper perspective wrt prestige & status
You are right im sure the vast majority of them would not agree with me, especially teams who didn’t win a trophy for ages.
However the big difference in prize money for those competitions & the level of competion proves otherwise.
@ Simba.
I already answered that question. If winning it isnt as prestigious as the UCL then coming 2nd is even less. When we tried to win it was because of the automatic UCL ticket-entry that was on offer.
Our club’s persistent fielding of ‘fringe’ players in the 2nd tier competitions validates my point.
@ Simba.
Most certainly it is. Every team that automatically qualifies in their respective leagues for UCL is part of an elite group of teams. Those teams did it over the course of almost 40 games. Whereas the Europa winners gain entry through the back door over the course of 10 games. You could compare them to a +1 on a guests list.
Setting the level of competition aside bt just the timescale & endurance should be compelling enough.
its only recently that Europa winners are given a ticket to UCL. In the past it wasnt deemed worthy.
@ simba
SORRY I MISUNDERSTOOD UR QUESTION INITIALLY. Thought u meant 2nd in Europa