Arsenal has been blasted for the quality of player they spend money on as they continue to struggle to break back into the top four.
The club’s fans have been protesting recently that the club’s owner lack of spending on players, among other issues.
Their protests have continued even after they received assurances that the team would receive investment when the transfer window reopens by Josh Kroenke.
While fans are allowed to protest, a look at the last few transfer windows shows that the club has actually been spending money on players to get themselves back in the top four.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Thomas Partey are all big-money arrivals at the club, but not all of them have been repaying the faith shown in them.
Football Insider columnist Kieran Maguire has now blasted their scouting department for the players they have invested in.
He insisted that Arsenal has been strengthening their squad, but these players haven’t been delivering the results expected of them when they joined.
“Arsenal have been spending a lot of money on players,” he told Football Insider.
“In terms of wages, we’ve seen Aubameyang be given a new contract this season, but that’s not turned into gold.
“They are still paying a significant chunk of Mesut Ozil’s wages too even though he’s gone to Turkey.”
“In 2017, they spent £114million on transfers. They spent £106m in 2018. In £2019, £99m. Then in 2020, £182m.
“People talk about net spend but they have a pretty high net spend too.
“It’s not the amount of money that’s being spent that’s the problem, it’s the number of successful signings they’ve made.
“They have had a few duds. You’ve got to look at quality rather than quantity.”
They definitely are not duds, what an idiot. They are not doing it as often as they can or should but that is down to the system and style of football we play. We sign top players and turn them into average Joe’s.
Do we? How many of them are good enough for Man City, Man United, Liverpool and Chelsea, not many. We have an unbalanced mediocre top seven squad. How many top class / world class defenders do we have? We have Tierney, Gabriel has potential but I’m not sure about him either. Saliba is an exciting prospect, but not a proven PL player. What about our engine room? We have Partey, but one swallow does not make a summer…
Luiz, multiple champions league, league, Fa cup, EL, league cup. Partey champions league, league, spanish cup. Willian champions league, league, fa cup, league cup. Pepe 72 million for a reason, lacca 52 million for a reason, pepe, fa cup first season after joining after being in lige one team of the year. Ceballos champion league, spanish cup, Auba french cup, German cup, fa cup, highest goalscorer in bundesleague and england, African player of the year. All players bought recently or loaned, join them with Tierney, Saka, Martinelli, Gabriel and Esr. No we haven’t got an average squad, we get average performances out of a quality bunch of players. Dont be silly people.
Nice to have on the CV or in your scrapbook, but it belongs to the past. Willian is 32, Luiz 34. Auba is 32 in June, but still a good striker. £72 million for Pépé must be a joke, and was the main reason why Raul had to leave in a hurry last summer, still we are missing £20 million from that deal. I like Pépé but he’s not worth £72 million, but we went for him because we could arrange the payment in instalments. We have a few really good players and lots of young talents, but still we have a unbalanced mediocre top seven squad. We should buy quality instead of quantity.
But we aren’t in the top 7 and i think we are top 5 at least.
OH REGGIE! OF COURS WE HAVE HAVE HAD DUDS! How can you possibly not see that ? Mustafi, Sokratis, Xhaka all over £30 mill and all useless.
Pepe way overpriced though not exactly useless. Ozils wages were a long running sick joke that cost the club countless millions to see him coast through his kast five years here with hardly any assits and goals in his latter years.
EVEN OUR OLDER LOAN PLAYERS ARE DUDS; WILLIAN ESP. THEN ELNENY and I have not even mentioned Lichtsteiner and Kolas. Bellerin too has stayed far too long for a man who has not the first clue how to defend.
Our squad has been full of duds for years going back and MA has been battling against the tide to get them out and has not proper money given to replace with top quality. Sometimes your views amaze and astound me!
Jon, i thought we were on about current players in this squad.
And i dont think accepting Arteta has us in 9th 10th is a reflection at all with the potential of this squad. HE IS UNDER ACHIEVING WITH THIS SQUAD.
We have a unbalanced mediocre top seven squad. In a normal season with proper preseason preparations, and not many injuries on key players we could achieved better. Arteta has done lots of mistakes, keep on blaming him. Do you always drive your car with closed eyes 🙂
Thank you Jon, I agree with you, it’s easy if you are able to have some perspective and understanding 👍
How many world class players or center backs have Leicester, West Ham, Aston Villa, Everton and spuds, they all haven’t got a better squad than ours. You talk about age as an excuse, Ronaldo and Messi are 35 so dont talk with fork tongue.
They have better squad balance and they haven’t been on a negative trend for several years. They don’t have a hostile atmosphere in their stadiums either. When you start to compare Messi and Ronaldo with our players I rest my case. Next season will be much better for us, I’m sure we will have a better and more balanced squad. Players that aren’t good enough for a top four club should be shipped out 🔴⚪️
Jon, you astound everyone with your views. Who wanted Willian, who wanted Luiz and is first on his teamsheet, who doesn’t play Martinelli, who keeps playing xhaka and made him captain, who sold the best keeper, who plays xhaka at left back, who decided we didn’t need a no9 against Villareal, who kept playing Willian game after game. Who moans about all that Arteta does wrong? You Jon, YOU, but you still refuse to budge on saying Arteta is struggling but you call everything he has done wrong and go round the streets and houses amd avoid telling it how it is and blame every man and his dog when they do.
Xhaka is playing very well this season….
you are going too personal
If you do not like him, then protests heavily and have all his goals, assists and tackle void
give the wins or draws to the opposition teams
I think we sign alot of average players. I mean there is some great players in there. Auba, partey, but only these 2 have come with proven success. The rest pepe, saka, martinelli, KT, ESR. Ther have potential to be great but to be quite frank have poor managers. After that most of the rest of the team is bang average.
In order to compete at the top u need top players all around. City win because for the most part they have quality in every position and in some cases in reserve.
How many arsenal players would get into the city squad or Liverpool squad or even a Chelsea or Leicester squad. Not many of them and that’s why we fail.
When xaka and luiz are who you rely on you ain’t gonna win alot
Give us Tuchel, or Rodgers and give Chelsea or Leicester Arteta, and I bet you would be saying the words words after just one season. We turn super players into average ones. A super example is Torreira (who watched him at the world cup?). You need another example, try W. Saliba.
WE NEED A MANAGER. No club makes giant leap in progress with an Asst. Manager.
Who is responsible for the players brought in for £182 in 2020? Arteta and Edu, they are responsible for recruitment.
We did mostly good business in 2020, what about the players Emery signed? Big stars like Denis Suarez , Stephan Lichtsteiner, Sokratis and Luiz, nice guys but not good enough for a PL team with top four ambitions. Which other team with top four ambitions would have signed them? Some of them used to be good in the past. Seems like most players are using us to sit out their contracts…
Spot on! We have been buying lots of mediocre players not good enough for Arsenal. We started this season with nine CB’s in our squad, but not a single top class / world class CB. We have Saliba an exiting prospect, but not a proven PL player. If we want to compete we do have to buy quality instead of quantity…
We DO buy quality, we just turn them bad.
Yes, players like Sébastien SquillacIi, André Santos, Gabriel Paulista, Stephan Lichtsteiner, Denis Suarez, David Luiz, Mustafi, Sead Kolasinac etc. are really great players, but not good enough for Arsenal. David Luiz are good when he is switched on, but have a concentration problem and do often behave like a loose cannon…
Didrik plehn
Oh I don’t see you mentioning…
Cazorla, Nasri, Sagna, Sanchez, Ozil(before he lose form), Auba, Laca, Arshavin(before he got here).
Now see how biased you are.
And before you start questioning…
Remember you mentioned 8 players from different season cos most of them don’t play together. I did the same, so stop been bias.
Leicester EPL team winner(majority were unknown, and few turn world class later on but the coach(Raneiri) know how to get good play from them.
Kante(signed from Caen that season), Huth( from Stoke that season), Dyer(from Swansea that season), Okazaki(from Mainz that season), Kramaric(from Rijeka that season), Fuchs(from Schalke that season)
Albrighton, Mahrez, Vardy, Morgan etc
Not a group of winner if you ask me but the coach change there mentality when around Sept/Oct asking them to keep a clean sheet, then change there mentality in Dec, telling them they can win the league.
How many times has Wenger top the league till Dec to Feb but lose the league?
Emery has 5 mid-table teams to play but never make top 4.
Arteta won the FA cup in his 1st season but can’t use that to inspire the team.
Now remember Raneiri won the league and take Leicester to Quarter final of CL(don’t remember Arsenal getting to quarter final in our last 5 seasons) in there 1st attempt but was sacked.
So saying Arteta should not be sack because he won the FA cup sounds insane to me. He can come back when he learned well on the job and be a force.
Mourinho was sacked at Chelsea but still went back there to coach.
Wenger had a massive say over players he bought because he was manager and he rightly got relieved of his job. Emery had no say over the players brought in, he was a coach and people above him did, he took us to 8th and rightly sacked. Arteta has power on who he brings in, he is manager and in charge of coaching, players brought in by him and i believe there are 12 under his reign, we have got worse and he is ultimately responsible, nobody else. We are currently 9th. He will be sacked if we dont get EL, im sure.
Probably some of the players
i think theres an article in the media
he gave recommendation and refers to the list of players he wish to have
However players signing has to go according to the budget like every other club apart from Chelsea and City
Since Dein left, not many of his top choices or wanted list have been signed
We have had many good players after David Dein left, but he was a genius and very instrumental. Dein was vice-chairman of Arsenal between 1983, and 2007. During that period we won the league in 1989, 1991, 1998, 2002 and 2004. 🔴⚪️
I don’t know if writer of this negative article ever watch some of this players in their former clubs respectively. Auba was one of the best strikers in the world at Dortmund, Lacazette was a hot cake at Lyon and we all know what Thomas Patey has been doing at Athletico. The problem of these players is simply the terrible contagious lack of ambition that flows from the Kroenke family to the board and to the coaching crew, and to the players even to some of the fans. No matter how good players are before they get to Arsenal the moment they arrive, they bring down their work rate and aspirations because they know at Arsenal trophies are not that important to the owner but money, that is why you can see a player collecting 300k every week without kicking a ball for a whole season. If Arsenal football club are serious, firstly Arteta will not be our coach. Secondly we will not be buying outdated payers from rival clubs like Luiz, Willian and others. When we have ambitious owner then players will die on the field to win matches. The list of players who are supposed to be playing at clubs below Arsenal are
Xhaka
Leno
Bellerin
Ceballos
Elneny
Nketiah
willian
Luiz
Pepe
Holding
Cedric and Arteta the coach.
Chelsea bought Thiago Silver. How far?
Keep Holding but get rid of the rest, Adega.
Incredible to read what some ppl say above. We do have some average players in some positions who weaken the the chain to breaking point. Partey has xhacka who is not good at anything and Ceballos is definitely weak in many ways. Then you have the English CB who is very average. These are targeted by any opponent which is why you see us conceding goals early like recently against Villareal. Opponents attack weak points and this cause us problems. Weak players disrupt the strong one in that they do double work to cover weak colleagues thereby leaving gaps that are exploited.
Football is a game of 11 vs 11. Any weakness anywhere will cause weaknesses in the tea team.
I don’t know which team you have been watching but its obviously not Arsenal !
The problem about many Arsenal fans is been obsessed with what the media says about our players or been blinded by hate for some players.
People saying none of our players can start for any big clubs as if those other players in big club can perform under our managers with there style and mentality.
Now let take a look at this players of other team before they get to there various teams and a look at our players before they got here.
Xhaka is a better footballer than Fred, Henderson and Fabinho before they were signed up and before he got here(He was credited for been a good technical player and a born leader) he was better than pogba at the beginning of his career here, but you can’t say the same now.
Laca is a proven goalscorer than Aguero, G.Jesus, Salah, Mane, Firminho, Rashford, Martial, Werner etc before they were signed up and before he got here but see what happens.
Auba was better than all of the strikers/wingers put together before they were signed up and before he got here, look at him now.
Partey was better than all DM and Box 2 Box midfielder before they were signed up and before he got here, see what he’s playing now.
Pepe was a proven goal scorer than Martial, Bernardo Silva, Sterling, before they were signed up and before he got here, see what happens.
Willian(been old) still better last season than Mahrez, Martial, Bernardo Silva etc but what happened to him here?
Bellerin breakthrough season was like Trent Arnold but bettered Arnold by been in PFA TOTY the 2nd season but see what he’s become.
David Luiz, nothing to say about him cos he was better than all the CB (maybe with the exception of Van Dirk) before they were signed up.
Tierney is better than Mendy, Robertson, Alonso, Emerson, Telles before they were signed up and before he got here.
Even our Ex player Ozil was better than any players in his position before he got here.
That is Nine of our players been better than the current big 6 players before they were signed up by their diff clubs but they were made a better players by there coaches but ours were getting worse. Why?
Another player benefiting from coach is Harvert. So poor under Lampard
Moses saw no game time under Mourinho but was a key player under Conte.
Mata was Chelsea POTS in 3 consecutive years but was nobody to Mourinho.
Even Ronaldo would be playing like current Auba with our style of play.
So I don’t believe our players are DUDS, only the way they were applied to play.
Wow i wished i could write all that without a bleed. LOL. The Arteta fan boys use it as an excuse and spout all sorts of rubbish to hide his deficienies. You are like me, you come up with facts and there is no argument with that.
Yes, David Luiz was so great that he didn’t play for Chelsea, and they didn’t offer him a new deal, they gave him a less lucrative contract, which means goodbye in most languages. What happened to Bellerin? He got two serious injuries and lost his pace, which happens very often. He looks very stiff compared to the past. A great striker in France can’t be compared with a great striker in Spain, we can’t predict which of them are going to be great in PL. But I’m sure it’s much more easy to be a striker in Man City than Arsenal. ManCity have better players in more or less all positions and have a much better squad than Arsenal. Arsenal should have kept Harry Kane and seen his potential when he was nine haha. Ronaldo would have played like current Auba, nonsense. Auba have had lots of family problems and health issues which have influenced on him this season. You are too biased, no coach can do magic with our unbalanced mediocre squad.
Didrik
I don’t know if you have something against Luiz but David played all through his career for Chelsea and about the contract, he left Chelsea because of rift btw him and Lampard. So you’re wrong about that. And considering what happened to Lampard now, I’m sure he was right to question Lampard.
So you believe Harry Kane will perform to this level if he was at Arsenal?
I’m a Wenger supporter but believe me, Wenger has been losing his touch of handling players for like 5years.
Wenger contributed to Chamark drop in form. He was so much in form till Wenger benched him for Van persie.
There are some players who don’t pick again after they lose the manager’s trust.
And on Auba having problems.
I can see you only started watching football this season when Auba’s mother was sick on Jan 25th and Auba’s malaria on April 13th cos Auba has no problem before then and he has dropped form since after signing his contract in Aug/Sept, so get your fact right.
And if you believe, Salah would have perform exactly the way he did in Liverpool here in Arsenal, then keep deceiving yourself. But believe me, Pepe, Partey, Laca etc would have perform more than what they were doing now if they were in Liverpool or Man city squad.
Biased my foot
Nothing against David Luiz, but he’s a loos cannon making too many silly mistakes.
When Man City needed a CB they bought Laporte £57 million. When they needed another to fix their defensive woes, they bought Diaz £65 million, they do also have Stones £50 million. When Liverpool needed a world class CB they bought Van Dijk £75 million. When ManUnited needed a CB they bought Harry Maguire £80 million.
We started this season with 9 CB’s, not a single top class / world class CB, but we have spent big money on most of them. We are throwing our money away on players we are struggling to sell! If we want to compete we need to buy quality not quantity.
You have lots of opinions which are not possible to discuss, most of them are hypothetical.
What top club doesn’t have duds? How many 100s of millions has pep spent on defenders before getting a solid back line? United throw $50m a summer out at prospects that don’t pan out. Chelsea spent like drunken sailors last summer and which of their new players is showing their value? How many keepers are they going to spend 60 on before they find a proper one? Transfers will always be hit or miss. While I think we can and need to do better, we will always have duds, especially when we can’t pay top dollar. The difference is that big clubs will buy again and cover their mistakes. We won’t
If dud equates to not delivering up to expectations most of the time or not getting into the team and for big-ticket players not make a real difference:
Here are my duds for the period mentioned above:
Mkhitaryan 31 million
Laca 48 million(had his moments but not enough for his price tag)
Auba 57 million (was a dud this season – like him or not)
Toreira 26 million (I like him but we can not say he was money well spend if he is not even at the club)
Pepe 72 million (we can not say he has made a difference most of the time – let’s hope he will going forward)
Saliba 27 million – That money has not done anything for us yet
For me, none of the above players have delivered consistently.
In fact, the only good investments have been;
Thierney – but sadly injured a bit too often
Partey – but injured too often
Gabriel – but really has not shown what he should as of today.
Mari – ok for the money but no game-changer or automatic starter
the year before we also had three duds:
Xhaka (we can argue Xhaka was not a major dud
but in my book he has too many shortcomings to waarent having been our most expensive signing that summer, 41 million)
Mustafi
Perez
Keep Holding but get rid of the rest, Adega.
Yes, Leicester are the showcase example of what a crafty, experienced manager can do with a group of duds when all the stars are aligned. But what duds! Fifteen lion hearted professionals working together, getting the basics right and in Cante, Mahrez and Vardy adding the cream on top. In contrast Arsenal’s duds are a bunch of misfits who simply do not compliment one another.