Arsenal Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis has claimed that the club showed ambition by keeping Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil.
The pair are into the final 12 months of their contracts, and look likely to run those deals down and leave by start of the 2018-19 season, but Gazidis is claiming that the club have shown ambition by keeping the pair.
“It was a clear statement of our ambitions and should help refute suggestions we are just about the money.” he said.
“That is simply nonsense.
“At the end of the window, reviewing all activity, we have once again improved the quality and depth of our squad.”
I’m not sure how bringing in two new players, and letting 12 leave the club brings ‘depth’ to our squad, and I’m not even sure that I can agree that keeping Ozil and Sanchez shows ambition…
Alexis showed his true character in the loss to Liverpool in my opinion, and Mesut Ozil has got way too comfortable with his first-team role, leaving us with two top players, who are not performing as desired.
Showing ambition would have been to bring in a top quality replacement, and showing that the club is bigger than Alexis Sanchez especially. The Chilean has made his intentions clear, and we should have stumped up the money much earlier to persuade Lemar to join, but instead we left it too late.
We finished down in fifth place last season, and as if that wasn’t enough to force the club to invest seriously, we also started the new season with two losses from three.
Despite these facts, we bought only one player, while signing Kolasinac on a free transfer also. Our rivals have all spend lavishly, while our club made a profit…
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s exit may have been good business, obtaining £40 Million for a player with only year remaining on his contract, but that money had to be reinvested. He has played a first-team role in each of our four competitive matches this term, and has been a rare fresh of breath air in the past 12 months, and now he has gone without being replaced.
Our club has gone backwards regardless of what Gazidis claims, and the wool won’t be pulled over my eyes.
Does Ivan seriously believe we made improvements overall this window? Does this only highlight how much of a problem the board are becoming?
Pat J