You would think from the size of the Arsenal squad that a lot of the transfer business that Arsene Wenger is planning to get done between now and the close of the summer transfer window would be to get a few of the lesser used Gunners out the door rather than bring any more in, but the boss has suggested this week that he is hoping to sign another player, but only one and only if he can get someone ‘exceptional’.
As reported by Metro, the Frenchman was open and honest about his need to trim the squad as well, admitting that it was too big right now but also doing his usual thing of saying that it was full of quality so it would need players of a certain very high calibre to improve it.
Wenger said, ‘We are open to an exceptional player. However, just to remind you we have 33 players here and they are all good players.
‘That’s unmanageable so to bring one more player in for the sake of it would be stupid, but if we find an exceptional one, we will do it.’
It may just be me getting the wrong idea, but when I hear him talk about an exceptional player I instantly think of a creative or attacking one. There have been more Arsenal transfer rumours about the Monaco and France winger Thomas Lemar than any other possible Arsenal target this summer but it also looks like his current club are determined not to sell.
Another option and one that Wenger has already said he likes and who we know is available is Riyad Mahrez of tonight’s opponents Leicester City, so do you think it will be one of these two who becomes Arsenal’s final signing of the window?
Bob.
I hope not! Definitely need a DM.
OT – I said Cech isn’t good enough, people scoffed, now re-watch the goals! At fault for the first (completely misjudged the flight of the initial cross), too near his line for the second, better positional, and anticipation, and he could have easily grabbed the cross, and although Vardy had a free header on the last (defence’s fault), but yet again, what on earth was Cech doing? three shots on target, and three goals for Leicester. Remember also last season when Cech was getting beaten for fun at his near post. Time for Ospina!
Don’t get me wrong, the defence in front of Cech was terrible as well, but I blame Wenger more for that. Starting two LB’s, and an inexperienced CB in the back three, was always asking for trouble. Scary to think we had NO CB’s at all after 65 minutes! I’m still a huge fan of three at the back, it was just the wrong personnel today.
After a long break, the first 2 to 3 games of the start of every season are usually getting tuned.
just 1 or 2 errors and the CBs get slated, they did alright though
We will be having 3 more CBs returning
Things may get better
I think you are being harsh on Cech. For the first goal Kolasinac left his posision near the far post to go for an aimless wander across the front of goal leaving a wide open space near the far post for leicester to attack, which is exactly what they did, this drew Cech away from the goal mouth so the header in to the front of goal left Cech stranded and an open goal for leicester to easily score. It was not a case of cech “misjudging the flight of the initial cross ” but more a case of cech being forced to go for the ball because there was no defender there. The post match analysis showed very clearly what happened from the camera behind the goal.
However I do rate Ospina, when we got Cech I said there was no need as we had Ospina and we are very lucky that Ospina has stayed. In his first season for us he played the second half of the season snd our defense was awesome, his stats were the best in the PL by a long way.
So its Wengers fault that Kos got sent off last season, Mert and Gabrial injured and Mustafi not match fit ? These were the only players available to play CB
I agree re Cech.,. I would have preferred though to keep Martinez as I just think Ospina is too short and is not that much better than Cech plus having two guys rotating goalie just to keep them happy makes no sense
I dont know about this guy Seri – a lot of talk – is he a Kante type player who can be the CDM we need ?
Factually wrong @Neil. Chambers was also available, so we could have started with two CB’s. In fact Chambers should be ahead of Holding in all due respect.
Exceptional signings my ass ?? in other words he won’t be making anymore signings, until the so called ‘Good players’ (deadwood) are sold.
Man, did anyone else notice how constipated Wenger looked at 2-3 down? ?? Good old Giroud and Ramsey (laxative) coming to his rescue.
Enjoy Top Spot tonight guys, this is as good as it’s going to get! ???
It is too early in the season for such negative thoughts, attack looked good against a team set up to defend. In defense we had three top players missing so that should improve.
We had 2 fullbacks in CD and an inexperienced Holding against Vardy and Okazaki. Leicester targeted our aerial weakness throughout the match, which we conceded 2 from lost headers, to me it was the defender poor marking especially Elnenys mistime jump. Vardys goal was unstoppable, a great cross, cant really blame the defence.
With Kos, Gabriel, Mustafi, I would think those headers would have gone on Arsenals head, so I wasnt too worried.
With Sanchez likely leaving, Mahrez or Lemar are both superb signing. Cant go wrong with both.
With regard to the second goal, we can blame elneny and xhaka for needlessly losing the ball in a critical area, hence the superb cross and vardy’s goal
Who said Sanchez is leaving? All I have heard repeatedly is that he is not going to be allowed to leave
I would imagine that unless a big star comes in we would not let him leave… its 3 or 4 of the other squad players that need to leave – lets see
Mahrez is not the one we need as we have plenty of attacking players and he is not a world class or standout player
We let in 3 goals last night (albeit with a very makeshift team) and 44 goals last year so its clear what we need to focus on..
It will be Mustafi’s 2nd season plus we have Kolasinac and Holding will come good but wont start … Kos, Mustafi and Monreal are a very experienced back 3 and end of last season played very well together – unless one of those 3 get injured I dont see us buying another defender
So the only position I think Arsene will look at will be either Cazorla type or a tough tackling CDM to replce Elneny in the middle
Kolasnic and Lac still need time to integrate with the team
We need a good DM to focus on the defensive side of Central midfield. This will give Xhaka less pressure to defend. Carvalho, Gueye. If not a DM then a talented box2box player who can also defend like Goretzka.
Wenger may be looking at Seri who is more like Cazorla type of player.
Wenger not taking the defensive side of the ball seriously has cost us and will continue to cost us. United got Matic, Chelsea won with Matic and Kante, City won with Toure and Kompany, we won with VIERA.
If Wenger doesn’t get a DM or CM then the only thing I can think of is another Top CD.
As far as Lemar and Mahrez goes. I hope we get Lemar but if that falls through then Mahrez will be excellent. He is a good player and won the PL.
Not many quality DMs out there
Bakayoko would be a good quality addition but its too late
we are probably using our remaining budgeted funds for a winger/CM
We NEED a top CM, not DM. Wether we like it not, Coq is great in his defensive duties -very few better than him I’m the EPL in that regard. Xhaka is great on the ball but I worry about his work rate off it, he seemed uninterested in defending, lacks mobility. We need a physical CM who’s box-box, good work rate alongside Xhaka in midfield; or a Santi-dynamic player with his ability to pick a pass, control game tempo, magic feet – alongside Coquelin.
The Santi option might be more difficult as they very very few players comparable to Carzola in my opinion. Maybe just Modric.
top teams can’t have a DM who is just “great in his defensive duties” (unless it’s Kante. he is really great compared to coq). having two one dimensional midfielders, one that defends and one who links defense and attack is good for everton. if we want to be a tpo team we need two top midfielders that can pass and defend.
enough with that small team mentality.
It was generally an “ok” match considering the fact that it is only the first match of the season
Laca, Welbeck and Giroud
All three offers different game plans
just look at Giroud when he plays….he draws 2 to 3 players whenever he gets into the box
leaving other players free to shoot
This is what we need plan A , B and C
Exciting game to watch, obviously some great moments and it’s hard to critique too much when the 3 points are achieved because common sense is oftentimes thrown out the window, as witnessed by the vast majority of posts
almost assuredly the back 3 was chosen for reasons of speed, as Leicester is known for the counterattack, but this was clearly not effective
there was no doubt in my mind, based on the contractual activities of the summer that Ox and Bellerin would need to see the field on Day 1, unfortunately this meant Ox would be placed in an uncomfortable position on the left…this can’t be the plan moving forward, so either they share the right wing-back position or a formation change is needed if both are going to be in the starting 11…strangely enough Bellerin looked far more comfortable than Ox on the left, albeit a smaller sample size
Cech looked atrocious out there tonight, he is no longer an athletic goalkeeper so if he is to be the starter he needs to be technically sound, which was undoubtedly not the case this evening…Ospina is lacking for similar reasons, so although I enjoy his energetic spirit, I’m starting to believe that our future starter isn’t on our squad currently(I would have kept Schez)
Elneny has bags of energy and we’ve seen glimpses, but that simply isn’t enough to justify anything more than a bench role…too many headless chicken moments at both ends…Xhaka disappoints way too often for my liking…it’s a shame because I would love have a long-baller on the squad but he continues to struggle at the simplest of tasks…maybe it’s the fact that teams close-down too quickly in the EPL or maybe it’s because he’s required to play a little too deep, regardless he’s got a long way to go
Ozil needs to be played more centrally if we hope to benefit from his creativity with the ball and Welbeck’s first touch is far too sloppy to be played along side Lacazette…we need to find a formation which allows more service to those making runs from the middle of the pitch…Lacazette can not play so much with his back to goal or we’re simply playing the same unsuccessful offensive scheme we played with Giroud, who is much better in that type of role…I can only hope we keep Sanchez and purchase a true defensive midfielder then switch to a 4-4-1-1, which allows us to have Ozil play more centrally with Sead and Sanchez on the left side and Ox and Bellerin on the right, which would stretch defences so much that we could overwhelm most opponents with both runs in behind and overlapping runs out wide
the lessons learned from tonight are quite simple…Ramsey and Giroud should be largely deployed as subs…if we show the same holes in our defence with our regular starters back Bould should be terminated immediately…we showed great spirit by not giving up on the 3 points and settling for the single, which has happened with Wenger far too many times in the past…that being said, let’s try to remember that we were playing a team that we have never lost to, a team that plays on the counter so possession should always favour us and this was almost an exact replica of the 4-3 win from last year, so let’s not get too much of a fat head…I believe the only reason Wenger made the subs he did and the way he did(Striker for CB then moving Bellerin to the LB and OX to the RB, which he has never done before) is because he was well aware of the fragility surrounding this club and especially himself, so this was a “chips all in” move which we haven’t seen since the formation change last year…I definitely applaud this show of balls, this team needs their coach to show some courage with his decision-making and hopefully that will rub off on the players…I can only hope that this club assumes a similar ballsy approach to the transfer window in the coming weeks because it’s definitely needed if we are going to push on
I think I liked Giroud and Laca on the pitch at the same time. Giroud will always win the high balls and Laca’s positioning and movement is amazing. I am happy we finally got a real striker.
Lemar will mean more
I like a kolasinac, he is a warrior, but was at fault for for first two goals. Czech was also badly position for both. Xhaka hit some sublime passes but at times was a complete liability. Ox and Bell played really well even when they switched flanks, in fact Ox is my MOM. Elneny and Monreal put in good shifts too. The subs won it for us in the end.
Mahrez? Who the fcuk is Mahrez? He was sh1t last night!
What Arsenal is missing is Jean Michael seri & van dyck.simple solutions.but the ditherer will dither….
I have to admit that wasn’t a good performance overall and our back three look shaky, though with Mustafi only on the bench and Koscienly suspended we missed the experience, i hope arsene Wenger keep the three at the back and not go back to a 4-2-3-1 as it didn’t work, i think we need at least three new signings to make us title contenders
Going forward looked good, Defence was poor, But we were missing players, We do not need either of those players we need a box to box player who has pace, our midfield last night was snail pace, For me elneney not good enough, did well in friendlies but they do not count.
for the umpteenth time we don’t need Mahrez in a 3421 formation.
what we need is a CM and a CB