With two Arsenal striker targets likely to fall what’s the plan? by KM
Hello to all of you fine people reading this forum. Straight to the Arsenal news or lack thereof. We had a major attempt to sign Jamie Vardy, a move which a lot of people agree would’ve thought strange thanks to difference in playing style of Leicester where he was so effective and Arsenal.
But the move would’ve surely pleased some fans, because the lack of Arsenal transfer activity of late is really depressing, and we’ve suffered things like having the entire summer with only one transfer of a goalkeeper. So outside of Vardy, rumours were that we were in for Spain’s main striker Alvaro Morata.
The kid just rocks the Euros, scoring again in Spain’s defeat to Croatia and Real Madrid activated his buyback clause and slapped a 60 million price tag on him. Arsene will never pay such money for any player, but the summer is turning out to be difficult. Man United tabled an improved offer for Mikhitaryan if you believe the papers, Nolito is close to joining Man City and Chelsea is yet to make their stand on the transfer window, although they are odds on to get Lukaku back.
We need to put our sights on new targets and table offers. Icardi anyone? Or somebody else, that’s why we have a scouting network. We signed that scout from Leicester to find the next Vardy and Mahrez, are they looking hard enough?
My fear of the transfer window is genuine considering we have Arsene in charge, but the Euroes make the situation a lot more difficult as I fear the boss will wait until it’s over and by then player prices will skyrocket!
As ever though, all we can do is hope Arsene has a plan…
Konstantin
if we cannot purchase Aubumoyang or Lewendobski then next options: Lacassette!!! NO 12(+3euro) GOALS MORATA!!!!!
Judging by the way he has been performing at the Euro’s,
I think the correct spelling is LewanTOSSki?? ??
If there was an award for the funniest name at Euro’s, the Russian manager would get my vote. … SLUTSKI ??
Yes just 1,677 hours left
in the transfer window.
We really do need to panic.
Don’t worry DavidN?
Wenger only needs the last 7 hours! to do his panicking??
Davidnz, the problem is that we have been waiting 35,040 hours for wenger to sign a top striker and there are only 1,670 hours left to do it.
This is how long since we sold RVP. Giroud was bought to play alongside RVP not replace him.
Giroud has a better record
in the EPL than RVP.
Giroud succeded 4 years in a row.
RVP had 2 good seasons in ten.
Davidnz
I think you mean two exceptional seasons, there were a number of good seasons. A few points
1. 30 PL goals in a seasom
2. Hat trick for us against chelsea at stamford bridge
3. PL player of the year
4. On 10 man shortlist for european player of the year.
5. Fired manu to the PL title
If RVP had stayed fit for most of his career he would have been one of the all time greats.
With giroud you have a point in that he is relatively injury free. I regularly defend him on here. But he is an 11 to 16 goal a season player in the PL. He will never score anywhere near 30 goals in the PL in a season or come near being player of the year. And somehow he cannot inspire the team and crowd like van persie could. Remember being 2-0 down to tottenham at home, van persie set about them, got one goal back and inspired the team to a 5-2 win.
agreed jonm. With Henry and RVP we had two exceptional strikers and with Suarez we would have had an other.
I am happy to accept we will not go for strikers in that caliber if they are even around (Lewondowski, Higauin, Aubamayng, Aguero?). But I do think we need to upgrade the position to more speed and better finishing.
I would have been happy to see how Vardy would have done because he is faster and appears a good finsiher. Maybe Lacazette? I just don’t think Wenger will go for a replacement for Giroud. IMO he is more likely to go for yet an other project who will mostly warm the bench.
Even if Wenger himself acknowledged that the game has evolved towards faster strikers and faster defenders. (which would seem makes it hard for him to keep Giroud and Mert as key players the spine of his team).
I must have missed Giroud’s 4 good seasons. I remember only last season and that was a disaster with him going missing during the most crucial part of the season.
In fact had he been injured for the games he went missing we might have won the PL as a result of Wenger having been forced to give someone else a chance.
@ davidnz – just checked and even with all his injuries RVP’s scoring rate was 10% better than Giourd’s. RVP scored 0.4765 goals per appearance and Giroud only 0.4362.
You think you have been waiting 35040 hours for Wenger to sign a top CF…
I bet Wenger is thinking “I have been waiting over 35k hours for a decent CF!!!”
We had RvP and Giroud was bought as cover, not as a rep. RvP refused to renew and so he was sold. Only Giles said OG was bought to replace RvP while I do believe RvPs health was mentioned as a reason we needed another top CF, RvP could get injured and we needed a goalscorer to cover.
12 months later Arsenal go for Suarez, shame it was Gazidis and not an experienced man like Dein who done it, that turned into a joke of a transfer bid. We did get Ozil that year, at least 1 of the issues was resolved. That being get some creativity back into the team after selling Cesc, Nasri and RvP so close together.
12 months later. Wenger still wanted a CF and he also identified the need for speed upfront, with Theo out it cost us a lot of pace in the team. We got Alexis who the fans love, if it wasn’t for Wenger he could be playing for Liverpool now! Plus we got him for a bargain. Wenger still wanted a CF though and he was given Welbroke by the board, Wenger said that Welbroke wouldn’t be here now if he had stayed at home. Sounds like Wenger had his eye on someone else so the real question comes “Why doesn’t Wenger get the player he wanted and instead why did the board feel they knew better and bought a plyer which isn’t good enough?”
12 months later Arsenal have a tight year in spending, they had spent close to £100 mil in the previous season so Arsenal only got Cech. Wenger did speak to Xhaka though and Xhaka has been a top target for Wenger since so I can only assume the board didn’t allow the funds to be available so we had to find a bargain and got one with Elneny.
12 months later and here we are today.
You have been waiting for a CF… So has our manager.
The difference is the real Arsenal fans will know the timeline and will not jump on Wengers back like a child, politics within Arsenal have cost us more than Wenger has cost us, unfortunatly fans seem to think anything that happens from the politics of the sport must be Wengers fault….
@midkemma
Interesting angle you post there. I never saw Wenger as the victim of a greedy board. Both Wenger and the board including Gazidiz put Wenger forward as the man who decides all transfer targets. I always, and to some extend, still believe Wenger is the man in charge and Gazidas is his secretary. In fact to me Dein was the only guy to show some authority over Wenger and the transfer market activities.
What makes you so sure Wenger is helpless against the board?
Midkemma, what a good well reasoned comment. I know that last summer when we bought cech that arsenal made a half year loss due to deferred payments, basically payments to existing players old clubs.
My only disagreement is about welbeck, wenger was at a charity event in rome on the last day of the transfer window and being criticised for being away. His comments are difficult to understand but i think more to do with getting up early and realising that manu had signed falcao and would be selling someone. I do not think the board took the opportunity of wenger being away for a day to sign a player wenger did not want.
Wenger is Scared to spend big on a top class striker. Wenger will not sign a Top Class striker in this window .He will buy a token Striker and tell the Fans that its hard to find a Top Class Striker.
All the Top Clubs have no such Problem. Open the Cheque Book Mr Wenger.
How do you know what Wenger will or will not do?
You speak to him on the phone? Chat over dinner about who should or shouldn’t be bought? Lovers pillow talk?
Wenger was quick to go for Vardy and meet the min release, Wenger now appears to have given up on him due to Vardy taking his time to decide. Does this mean Wenger has given up on a CF? Or is it more likely that Wenger is just trying to keep any deal as quiet as he can?
That is all we know so far for this transfer window.
As for top class…
Was Henry a top class CF when we bought him?
Was Anelka a top class Cf when we bought him?
Was RvP top class before we bought him?
Even if we end up with some unkown player, you should give that player the chance, he could be the best thing since TH14!
The only problem with this is Arsene’s record with unknown strikers since. For every Adebayor, there is a Chamakh, Bendtner, Gervinho, and Sanogo.
So maybe – at a point when a 19 year old Martial goes for 30m – it’s time to recognize things have changed and start buying proven goal scorers as all our major competitors are. You can’t walk into a gunfight with a knife…or a 3D printer.
IMO we needed a capable, speedy, natural finisher of a striker even before Welbeck got injured.
Welbeck is speedy but not a natural finisher and Wenger seems to prefer Giroud when are both healthy. Giroud is neither speedy nor a natural finisher and really only has his link-up play going for him. Between the two I prefer Welbeck. Welbeck can more or less forget about playing an important role for next season as a result of his injury.
I believe Wenger is happy to go with Giroud as his nr 1 guy next season, and will dip into the transfer market only to look for a decent (and not top quality) striker as back-up to replace Welbeck.
If we start with Giroud as our nr 1 striker we can write of next season in terms of expectations. It is unfair to expect Giroud to gain speed and to become a natural game winning striker who will score 20-25 PL goals.
I find our style with Giroud as striker so frustrating, his lack of pace forcing us into to a rather hopeless passing game around a well organized defense, that I can not bare the thought of an other season of that and him missing too many sitters. I would prefer a project like trying to turn Sanchez into an Aguiro then an other season of Giroud.
The problem is IMO Wenger would not give Sanchez enough time to get used to being the nr1 central striker. A winger having to learn the central striking position needs a guaranteed season of being the go to guy. That is not Wenger’s style.
With both Welbeck and Walcott they never got an endorsement to being our go to guy. New strikers need that for confidence. How many games did a fit Walcott or Welbeck get at the striker position before being benched for Giroud?
I am afraid Vardy is as high as Wenger wanted to reach and he probably tried to tell him he would play on the wing with Giroud in the middle, or he refused to make him feel warm and fuzzy over his chances to get games. You want a new striker? Make him feel warm and fuzzy about his expected game time.
For me the minimum caliber player that I believe would be in our budget might be Lacazette although I would prefer Lukaku but he seems outside of what Wenger is willing to pay. I don’t care about us singing a striker who is of the caliber that he spend half or more of the season on the bench.
Ozil and Sanchez were of the type of caliber that you knew they were not brought in to sit on the bench.
This teams needs goals and I don’t Xhaka was bought to address that need. Leave the starting strikers/wingers unchanged and how can we expect more goals?
Leicester scored 3 goals
more than Arsenal
and our goals conceded
was the same as Leicester.
So perhaps we really “do not need” another striker or CB.
One more goal each from Giroud Sanchez Walcott Campbell
Ramsey Chamberlain Iwobi Ozil Cazorla Xhaka Wilshere
would mean another 11 EPL goals and the title.
@david – with that type of logic we might as well keep Mert and not look to improve our CD options either. In fact why did we even buy Xhaka? After all, bar 1 goal, we conceded the fewest goals in PL and the same amount as goals as the Champions.
We were so close, only three goals (and 10 points),
“I believe Wenger is happy to go with Giroud as his nr 1 guy next season, and will dip into the transfer market only to look for a decent (and not top quality) striker as back-up to replace Welbeck.”
Wenger has not appeared happy with Giroud as main CF since we bought him, he has how-ever appeared to be the best of the rest in Wengers eyes. Every year we have looked at other CF… Let us not forget that the CF has to want to come to us as well. If Suarez had wanted to come to us he could have forced the move, he could have told his agent to seek legal action if there was the min release (which the Liverpool owner admitted to)… He didn’t want to come to us.
Aub has said he doesn’t want to come to us.
How many others do not want to come?
It isn’t just the case of throwing money at the transfer deal, obviously that helps but the player has to want to come as well and if they heard our owner say we are not interested in titles… It just makes the job harder for Wenger and Gazidis.
This leads me to Lukaku from your post, he appears an outside bet BUT it does feel that it can become more and more likely if other teams keep pricing their CF high and the TOP CF want to go to a club that shows more ambition.
Lukaku may have scored for Belgium but the game previous he was kinda… well… Performances like he shown would only have a negative affect on his price tag, we know how he can perform in the EPL though and that is the bigger part IMO. Also we would have OG to step in if Lukaku had a bad game, we all know OG steps his game up when his place in the team is under threat, part of the reason he performs just before transfer windows isn’t it 😛
As for getting Lukaku to want to join us, that shouldn’t be as hard as convincing Aub to join us 😛 We can offer him a payrise along with CL football and a great opportunity to establish himself as 1st choice CF for a CL club.
We wouldn’t have to lie to him… Which then brings me to the part where you said;
“You want a new striker? Make him feel warm and fuzzy about his expected game time.”
I don’t disagree but you can not lie to the player, what if Vardy was told that he could become 1st choice but had to earn it and Vardy wanted to hear that he would be a starter no matter what? Then what happens if the player becomes unhappy in our dressing room because the promises that made him warm and fuzzy wasn’t being met?
I do not disagree with making a special player feel warm and fuzzy but I would hope that honesty is put first. Look at Chavski and how they performed this year when unhappy at the beginning, it changed when the players was happier under a new manager.
What about the Croatian striker Ivan Perisic ? He looked good
Perisic has always been an attacking midfielder/wing sir not a center forward. Good player though and only 26 I expected him to be older, feels like’s been around forever
Don’t worry Arsenal fans, we will now start up the pursuit of….. Chicharito Hernandez
check back on this in a week time 😉
Arsenal are supposedly in talks with Lukaku but I doubt that it would be a long conversation, with the reported £31 million offered ?? As that certainly wouldn’t be enough to buy his ‘arm and a leg’ ?
Juventus are stepping up their interest in Sanchez, now that Morata has returned to Real Madrid.
Reports claim that the Italian Giants are set to offer a player plus cash (£25 million) deal.?
Offer them Sanogo.
Oh but you say 25 mill.
Deal off then. Sanogo
is worth 70 mill at least.
Yeah, I do get a bit frustrated with the constant low prices for initial bids, when does that work in getting your top target?
How much was our initial bid for Xhaka? I’m glad they quickly upped that as he is looking like a bargain from what I have seen in the Euros so far, on youtube before the euros he looked impressive but always good to see some games.
I do hope that Arsenal will go in with a higher bid quickly WHEN they reject the £31mil, like they did with Xhaka…
Didn’t you even joke about the low price in one of the articles on here and insinuated we wouldn’t get him?
Shock horror, even the great FBG can be wrong 😛
Here we go again.. I dont even read the article but am still gonna comment because all this guy does is moan moan moan moan about any any and everything.. guys remember that it’s footballers we talking about and not items that are sold at walmart target McDonalds etc so plz be understanding and dont swayed by the opinions of ppl who have nothing but negativity to contribute because they dont like the manager.
We got Sanogo at Walmart
and Flamini from Target.
Think we might need to sell
Wellbeck at Poundland.
You’re worried, now??
I’ve been concerned for years..
I believe our illustrious manager is obsessed with proving to the world that you can win the EPL/CL on a budget. For that reason alone, we won’t sign a top drawer striker, because to Arsene, one £30-40 million signing a season is quite enough thank you very much..!
So I expect a £10-15 (maybe a bit more..) million striker to be brought in as cover….if that.
P.S. He didn’t get the memo that said spend big to win big.
He didn’t get a memo saying spend big and win, he got his usual memo of stay in the top 4 and qualify to the last 16 of the CL.
Even Silent Stan has said championships are not our target.
As for Wenger never spending big…
Funny how Arsenal broke their own transfer record while having stadium debt before Gazidis arrives and since he came we just didn’t compete and even missed out on getting Cazorla 12 months earlier because of a couple million…
Before Gazidis, Wenger splashed the cash on Arshavin and he also got Nasri just before, Nasri had signed a contract extension as he wanted to make sure his old club got as much as they could… Things like that haven’t happened since Gazidis. TBH I am hard pressed to hear of Arsenal being stingy in the transfer market to this degree prior to Gazidis arrival, yes we always liked a bargain but we payed (when we could) to get player in. GG did to get the defense, Rioch did to get Bergkamp, Wenger used to prior to Dein leaving and Gazidis arriving.
You carry on blindly blaming Wenger…
Wenger isn’t the final say on transfers, if he was then Welbeck wouldn’t be an Arsenal player, you can find Wenger saying so himself on a vid interview if you care to look.
It’s an open secret that Wenger likes a bargain, so that fits with his reluctance to spend big on more than one player per season.
We are playing constant catch up with squad quality, precisely because we don’t spend enough cash.
I don’t like having to spend, but it does increase the chances of winning and winning big.
Lastly, if he really wanted to spend and was being held back, we would know about it, or he would leave due to being restricted.
So please don’t patronise me with your condescending manner.
It is possible to have differing views without resorting to put downs.
Your not the only one who is worried!
I really hope that after Granit he will follow it up with a big name up top and if selling Walcott can help achieve that goal than so be it!
At one point you have to stop gambling and go for a sure thing: Higuain, Aubameyang and probably Lukkaku to a lesser degree are the 3 names that comes to mind.
The other ones though cheaper are GAMBLES and the pay off could be huge but at the same time we might be stuck again! And no matter how great our midfield is if we don’t have someone up top who can convert those chances created consistently over the course of a season across competitions than all bets are off…and so does gunning for the title!