Most of the players that Mikel Arteta has signed as Arsenal manager have been in fine form.
The Gunners’ manager has consistently shown that he can perform well in the transfer market, making the most of the resources available to him. Arsenal remains one of the biggest clubs in the world, with an outstanding backroom staff dedicated to identifying the right talents who fit into the squad. This ability to recruit top players is essential for achieving the club’s goals, especially as they continue to challenge for major honours.
However, despite these positive aspects, Arsenal has struggled in recent years to sign the right players for the squad. While some signings have proven to be successful, others have not lived up to expectations. In fact, a few high-profile signings have ended up being flops.
One example of such a signing is Oleksandr Zinchenko. While Zinchenko arrived with great promise, his performances have not always lived up to the hype. Alongside him, Raheem Sterling, who joined Arsenal with much anticipation, has also failed to meet expectations. Both players were brought in with Arteta’s approval, but neither has made the immediate impact that was anticipated. These signings have raised questions about Arteta’s decision-making in the transfer market.
The pressure on Arteta is growing. With each passing season, the manager is under increasing scrutiny, especially as the club is yet to secure major silverware under his guidance. Arteta knows that, given the resources at his disposal and the stature of the club, he can no longer afford to make such mistakes in the transfer market. The time has come for him to sign players who will immediately improve the team and help them compete at the highest level.
In the next transfer window, every addition to the squad must be carefully considered. Arsenal cannot afford to repeat the mistakes made with Raheem Sterling or Willian. Arteta’s future at the club could depend on his ability to sign the perfect players who will take Arsenal to the next level. If he fails to do so, he may have to accept that he is simply not the right manager for the Arsenal job.
ADMIN COMMENT
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We all know Arteta is heavily involved (probably has the final say) in who comes or goes.
But in the right order if things, the Sporting Director should be held more accountable…that would be Edu Gasper
dg8xt,
I’m afraid I can’t agree with you on this issue. For me the manager needs the final say on said player. And it’s down to the Director of Football to try and get said player.
If I’m the manager, I want to live or die on my decisions and the players I choose. As after all, it’s my head on the chopping block should I fail. But at least I would have failed with the players that I chose and not the Director of football. 👍
Working within whatever financial constraints I agree. I believe it was in the Amazon doc that Edu was saying that himself, MA, and I believe Garlick would all have to come to essentially a meeting of the minds regarding transfers and that each of them would have absolute veto power over any moves.
Thus, like you, while I believe the manager should have full control (again within financial constraints), I’m unsure that this situation exists within the Arsenal. Interesting to note that Edu is no longer in the club and I doubt if we really know his and/or the ownership’s reasons why.
Gooner k where does your information come from.can you please name the source. Thanks.
I am not sure where your information is coming from but Zinny had a great two years and did the job ask of him. Needs have changed and the team has moved past him, but he is not a bust under any circumstances. Sterling was a complete bust and a last minute signing when everything else fell apart. Sterling is more on Edu and the Kroenke’s.
Arteta is not under any pressure right now
How do you value or rate a signing?
Willian was a disaster and fortunately he moved on quickly. Sterling was a last minute loan that hasn’t come off but at the time could have been worth it
You can move on to how much the transfer cost and decide that way if the player flopped or not. Zinchenko, who had been part of the successful City team hasn’t been a flop as such but neither a roaring success. His £28/30m transfer fee hasn’t been money down the drain. That will be tested on what his resale price is when sold. I considered £50m for Ben White to be a bit steep but he’s been a success. The £30m for Odegaard is cheap at the price. Moving on to Vieira at over £30m I’d say that’s been a flop/waste of money. At £25m ish Trossard hasn’t been. The list goes on.
I thought Havertz at £65m was a lot, he doesn’t deserve the flak that comes his way – we certainly miss him right now and for a non striker and all round hard worker it’s not money wasted
Sambi & Tavares are 2 flop signings. Imo. Sambi cost close to £20m and although Tavares was less than £10m neither have worked out. Runarsson gets trotted out as an Arteta flop but cost less than £2m thankfully
Every team will have transfers that don’t work out. Both Rice and Grealish cost similar amounts but one by comparison to the other would be classed as a success and the other a failure based on how their arrivals have impacted both clubs – one an ever present fixture in the team and the other not. It’s not an exact science
On your Havertz paragraph, I will say that £65m was much. But much worse is the £280k p/w. That’s absolutely insane given he flopped at Chelsea for 3 years and yet we immediately doubled his wages.
My grievance with Havertz is that he’s not performing well as a midfielder which if we’re being honest, that’s where he was brought in to play. But as a striker, he’s done tremendously well given that HE’S NOT A STRIKER and yet has been so consistent since January last season. Strikers miss sitters. How much more a midfielder drafted in? He already surpassed his entire last seasons tally before his injury and the truth is that we miss him more than we miss Saka because there’s no replacement.
I only blame Arteta for the Havertz chaos, not Havertz himself.
I’m certainly not disputing your point of view but I can’t classify Havertz as a flop ( I know you haven’t either). He was signed and gets a start pretty much every game and impacts the team favourably imo which is all the club can expect Others may disagree but that’s my opinion
The Vieira’s of this world were not cheap purchases and he in particular hasn’t been worth the fee. A lot of money to then be sent out on loan.
My point overall was what constitutes a flop? Tavares at about £8/9m, Jesus at close to £50m or Kiwior at about £18m
I don’t look at transfer fees to judge if players are flops or not. If two players are signed and one is a free transfer and the other an expensive signing, both playing badly means there’s both flops. The only thing is that fans will naturally be more aggrieved with the expensive player due to the amount invested but that doesn’t mean the other free transfer player isn’t a flop.
Jesus has been a flop. Kiwior and Tavares can be considered flops although I can’t say if it’s of their own making die to the way they’ve been handled. Lokonga, Runnersson, William, Cedric, Mari, Viera and Tomoyasu are considered flops by me. As for Havertz, no.
Yes, most of the fans don’t give the flak to Havertz personally but to the people who decided to bring him in. We financially crippled ourselves with that buy.
Tavares was a flop at Arsenal but overall I think his transfer deal was a success. He’s being sold to Lazio for £8 million, which is not much, however I read they inserted a 40% sell-on fee. So if he’s sold on for, say, £40 million, our total income from him is £25 million – which is great IMO.
Unfortunately we need 5-6 new players in the summer just to cover up players leaving for free/filling already thin squad. That doesn’t leave room for actually selling players.
My dream buys would be:
Gyökeres/Sesko, Wirtz, Kimmich, Nypan and De Cuyper. Estimated cost 170-180 million quid based on media talk. In addition to bring Karl Hein as back up and Fabio Vieira to beef us up.
And to leave:
Neto, Sterling, Tierney, Zinchenko, Partey/Jorginho, Trossard. Based on paper talk, we could coup up 40-45 millin for them if Trossard goes to Saudi, not counting Sambi or Tavares leaving.
Your post shows how subjective what constitutes a flop really is
Nobody blames a player personally as the transfer is down to the manager and senior club officials
it would be interesting if you clarified what crippling the club means to you. £65m could have bought 2 players or been used as a top up to bring in a more expensive/better player. I’m guessing your opinion of Havertz is that he is more flop than success and Tavares you consider not to be a failure because of sell on clauses but it didn’t happen on the pitch.
Thank you for asking.
What I mean by crippling the club, is that in 2023, third of a budget was used on Havertz while making him the highest paid player on the team.
When you look at performances of a player who’s the top earner at the club, my mind goes to the likes of Saliba or Saka, even if they’re playing different position. But not Havertz.
While we don’t have a wage cap, we cannot pay whatever wages to whomever, and if we already pay Havertz 280k a week and Jesus 250k a week, can we buy much needed forward who will likely command +200k as well?
Then we return to the issue of moving a player. Can we sell Havertz when he’s on 280k a week? Will anyone pay proper fee for him?
My final judgement on Havertz is that he’s a (financial) flop. Not personally his fault, but the club’s fault for paying over 70 million euros and giving him another 75 million in wages. Havertz does not perform like a 15m- a- season player or 75million player. He hasn’t been bad either. He just hasn’t been worth it and him (and Jesus) being paid what they are, might have a costly effect on bringing anyone new in, who could actually justify over 200k weekly wages.
Not so recently we had our painful issues of buying out players contract like we did with Auba and Özil. I cannot see those kinds of transactions having positive effect on budget or anything else financial-related
While we did fairly well, our recruitment for the Arteta seasons seem to have had limitations.
To a very great extent, let’s give these individual players a break for our critical shortcomings at the moment. Our recruitment lacked balance if we seriously intended to challenge for anything.
Bournemouth found Kerkez and Justin Kluivert !! How hard was that ??
Brighton are the blueprint to follow when it comes to successful recruitment.The thing is smaller Clubs, with respect to Brighton and Bournemouth , depend on their transfer business to generate profits to keep them afloat and to enable them to reinvest in so called “lower leagues”Their transfer operations invariably leads to substantial net gains whereas the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd continue to make significant losses despite their costly World wide network.It seems to me that we have failed to tap into a League which is close to hand,and has unearthed some gems during the last 2/3 seasons ,namely our own Championship.Examples which come to mind are Gyokeres, Coventry,Rogers, Middlesborough,and Semenyo, Bristol City, to make but a few.The fact is these three players are no better than they were in the Championship, but are now highly rated because they are now performing in grander theatres which attract larger audiences including a high level of media coverage.
Our recruitment team ,by and large, has done reasonably well ,but I would have expected a far better return , in terms of trophies, after spending around 800m.With regard to the next transfer window, there will be a number of comings and goings for sure but critically for Arteta, he needs to learn from his previous errors of judgement and bring about real balance to his squad.
Grandad
I’m not sure if Arteta considers his squad to be unbalanced.
Perhaps his squad “balance” reflects his philosophy and style of play.
His risk adverse play not to lose Artetaball with 4 DM’S and endless LB’S to invert might seem perfectly balanced to him.
His system tends to undervalue the striker position as we have seen with his selections. Jesus has underperformed when fit, Kai has worked hard to produce in that position.
Unfortunately until we address this issue I believe we will come up short.
You may well be right Durand.I suppose the “left back” position is the one which frustrates me ,and exemplifies the unbalance I mentioned.At present Kwior,Calafiori,MLS, and Zinchenko have all been tried with limited degrees of success, and with our only natural LB on his way back to Celtic, we do not have a quality player who can combat top wingers like Salah..The same Salah, who runs riot in the EPL achieved very little against PSG who do of course have an excellent conventional LB. Add to the fact that we have lacked a natural striker for years and I can understand why fans cannot accept our current injury problems as an excuse for our failure to at least give Liverpool a real run for their money.
@Grandad
Thank you.👍🏾
I think the board will give Arteta one more season to win us the league or Champions league and if we end up with nothing again they will pay up the rest of his contract and get rid of him, I’m not counting the two domestic cups cause Arsenal chuck them every season, they’re only interested in the league or champions league, neither of them Arsenal can win under this manager, I hope I’m wrong but I fear I’ll be proven right this time next year! 😀
The board lost trust in Arteta’s transfers. Think this is obvious and why he wasn’t given funds in January. I wouldn’t either after being in touching distance of City, choosing to sign a LB and a CM and completely ignore our attack for yet another season. The recruitment team better be at 100% this summer. We’re all very tired of the usual games the club plays when it comes to transfers.