2019-2020 Arsenal of Sanllehi, Monchi and Emery by JimBeam
After listening to the Arsecast podcast with Ornstein, I now have a pretty decent idea of where we are headed. From the Trident that was supposed to support Emery, Sven and Ivan are gone and Sanllehi has consolidated power. He seems to be a one man show running Arsenal at the moment, especially considering our absentee landlords are the Kroenkes. He is giving full support to Emery and both of them seem to have Monchi as their ideal target for Technical Director. Considering that all three men are ruthless operators when it comes to under performing players; Here is what I expect from the Summer transfer window.
Players Leaving:
Cech 100K, Monreal 65K, Lichtsteiner 90K, Ramsey 110k, Welbeck 70k: Total savings 435K per week
Players that will be sold:
Ospina 3-5M – wages saved 40K, Jenkinson 2-3M – 45k, Mustafi 15-20M – 90k, Koscielny free – 75k, Elneny 10-15M – 55K, Ozil 15-30M – 350K. Transfer fees 45M – 75M, Wage savings: 705K
If we take the lower end of the transfer fees, we will have about 50M extra to spend and a 1.140M per week almost 60M a year in wage savings.
According to Ornstein we should have about a 100m to spend if we make it to CL, considering that I don’t think we will make it to the CL, I think we will have closer to 50M to spend, add to that the 50M from sales and we should actually have a realistic budget of 100M Pounds.
Obviously that still is not a lot of money in today’s transfer market but if we are smart we can get a few good players.
The one Central Defender that I would go after is Toby Alderweild, obviously it would be a great coup to get a top Spurs player and with a release clause of only 25M he is the best available defender for the price. He is 29 so he has a good 3-4 years at the top level in front of him and at the price I think he is a steal.
Another 25M player is Alex Grimaldo, an ex-Barcelona player playing at Benfica. We seem to be one of the two clubs, along with Atletico Madrid, with the most chance of signing him. A cheaper option would be Kieran Tierney from Celtic at 21. He has a lot to learn, but is extremely talented for around 15M he would be my second choice. I don’t think Leicester would sell Ben Chilwell for less than 30M ,so I don’t really consider him as a viable option and more than likely he will be a City player.
In midfield our best option would be to sign Rabiot on a free transfer. He is an ex-Emery player and everyone in the Arsenal hierarchy seems to have a very high opinion of him. And with our limited transfer budget, we do need to make at least one free transfer to be able to plug all our holes.
This leaves us with around 50M and a winger left to buy. There are obviously many choices out there from Pepe, Bailey, Malcom, Brandt, Draxler, etc… Can any of these or another top name be a realistic candidate? Yes, I think so, specially if we spread the transfer fee over a few years like we did with Torreira, I think we would be able to afford any one of them.
I also think that we could get these four players for about 700K per week on wages leaving another 440K in our wages to help pay future fees.
So what does Arsenal 2019-2020 look like
GK: Leno, Martinez
RB: Bellerin, Chambers, AMN (last two also play in midfield)
LB: Grimaldo, Kolasinac
CB: Alderweild, Sokratis, Holding,Mavropanos
CM: Rabiot, Xhaka, Guendouzi, Torreira,Willock
Wingers: Iwobi, Nelson, Mkhitarian, Pepe, ESR,Saka
Strikers: Auba, Laca, Nketiah
I seriously think this young squad with some of the experienced players is the Arsenal side that will start the onslaught to the top of the division. It might take another transfer window or two but this is definitely a very good starting point to take us back to the top.
JimBeam