Bukayo signs, but what will the squad be like next season? by Konstantin Mitov
Hello lovely Arsenal people! This week has been more positive about Arsenal. We managed to scrape through to the semi-final of the FA cup, we thrashed a suicidal Norwich team, but the best news is Bukayo Saka signed a new deal.
Finally a player who has deserved his contract and signed. It would be incredible if Auba signed too. He got the fastest to 50 goals for us and if he signs this means he believes in something. And if we add the two goalkeepers, Martinelli and maybe Pepe and Tierney, that would be all the players who I’d keep in the squad.
I’m pretty sure Auba will not sign anything until he sees heavy intentions to invest in the squad. The summer will be massive. Saliba will join us after the pathetic way the Board denied him a chance to play in a Cup Final. This will welcome him with a sour taste in his mouth, and makes me think we won’t sign a new CB – which seems like a massive mistake.
We shouldn’t have given Luiz a new deal in the first place. We should get rid of Mustafi, which isn’t likely happening, and that still leaves us with Sokratis and Holding. We have a lot of CB’s, just none is good enough. Something about Thiago Silva was flowing in some die hard click-bait media’s, but this really makes no sense at all. We have enough aging CBs way past their best to spend huge money on a salary for another one.
We need to invest heavily in midfield. Ceballos won’t be really missed. Xhaka is here only because of a lack of alternatives. Guendouzi has character problems that don’t go well with the manager, but it’s not like he really offers much to the side.
Thomas Partey will be a welcome start to our midfield reconstruction. But at 44 million pounds it’s a difficult buy. We won’t have champions league football to offer, and we’d need to splash massively on a contract.
Hopefully Ozil will be a free agent this summer and it’s likely we’d be able to swap/sell Mikhi. Those two players are old, on enormous wages and aren’t really the way forward.
Apart from 2 central midfielders, we could use another winger, because we only have Pepe. We’re slipping Auba on the wing for that matter. Instead we should sell Laca, buy a decent winger, and put our goal machine in the middle.
A backup striker would be nice too, although we’ll likely put a lot of faith in Eddie. It’s not that youngsters can’t carry us forward. It happened after our 2004 senior players got replaced one by one. But back then, we still had quality players and a much more solid reputation. Teams still feared us. Now nobody is afraid of us. We have to build from the ground up.
But back to strikers, there’s a link to this Wolfsburg striker Weghorst. He has 16 goals and 3 assists and he stands tall at 6.4 feet. I haven’t really seen him play, but I am interested in the profile of players we’d like to sign.
We lack a real system. Back in the day, we were extremely predictable, but we’ve moved to the other extreme. Arteta did come in midseason, and those players are an inherited burden to say the least. The whole covid-19 situation doesn’t make it any easier.
Anyway, we have a few PL games left and we’re going away to Wolves who have 6 points more than us. It’d be really nice to go and win, but our away performances aren’t really convincing.
I think they will be more motivated and produce the better football. Their midfield is in my opinion better. How we lack a creative midfielder like Moutinho for example. Their strike partnership is deadly and they actually have something to play for.
The league is dead for us. We still have Leicester, Liverpool and an Aston Villa side fighting relegation after Wolves. Even if we win all 6 games remaining which would be a minor miracle, we’d still need another one to hope of getting 5th place (hoping City’s ban is upheld). The Europa league doesn’t really appeal to me.
It’s only filler games for youngsters as I don’t see us winning it. I’d rather spare spursday night football and go big next season. Speaking of it, Tottenham’s greatest ever side in 50 years, with Mourinho in charge, lost 3-1 to Sheffield and now we’ve leapfrogged them with our worst side in 30 years. It’s funny, and it probably won’t last long, but I’m taking this one little opportunity to feel happy on other people misery and I’ll not feel guilty one bit!
Enjoy the final workday and hopefully the weekend will bring a pleasant surprise.
Konstantin
We will not be seeing Partey or Thiago here at Arsenal all the time Kroenke is owner these players will demand high wages,get used to free agents and loanees,we are all dreaming.
We have Pepe, Auba, Laca, Ozil, Xhaka, Tierney , all pretty expensive players on high wages. That seems to defeat your reasoning.
You are full of negativity dude. Who new we would sign Pepe last summer. How many free deals have we gotten?. Try to be positive
Tommogun58 I guess kroenke wasn’t our owner when we bought xhaka for 35 million Mustafi for 35million ozil for 42million Sanchez for 36million Pepe for 72 million Tierney for 28 million, please take your negativity to your loved ones, try to be positive at least a little.
I’d say there’s too much negativity in this article. To be honest, Saliba coming in, with Mari signing pretty much means we’ve already made two center back signings for next season Mustaphi, Holding have proven an ability to be solid if they have the right structure around them. I think adding a senior center back would be a mistake . It would mean that chambers and holding will never get an opportunity to prove themselves and we’ve all seen them show what quality they have. I think now is their time. Besides, why are you convinced Saliba is better than everyone we have? How do we know you won’t just add him to your list of flops next season?
In the middle, if we can get Partey, a Partey Xhaka partnership would be one of the best in the league. I concur with your opinion on Ceballos, four good games a season doesnt cut it. I don’t know whether Arteta will stick with 3 at the back, but if he does, I wouldn’t care much if we didn’t get an attacking mid. However, of all the rumours floating around, we’ll probably get a winger . If I were to choose, I’d say willian would be great to hold the position as our youngsters develop more. At this point, I’d only want a group of players to offset the responsibility from Martinelli, Saka and Nketiah. For the striking line, if we could keep what we have, that would be great. I struggle to believe that Laca is done for good. It’s just a bad season, but the whole team is struggling. If Auba is to sign, he should. If he don’t intend to, we’ll need to plan a replacement.
My ideal starting 11 for next season would be.
Leno
Mustafi Saliba Holding (I don’t know)
Xhaka Partey
Bellerin. Tierney
Pepe. Willian
Auba
Centerbacks, I say I don’t know because I haven’t extensively watched Mari and Saliba. They could be better than everyone we have, they could be the same.
Xhaka and Partey have a good combination of height and passing range . Partey is an expert at winning back the ball and beating the press, Xhaka is great at progression of the ball .
Willian and Pepe behind Auba could prove pretty lethal.
Willian would only be warming the spot for Saka. Guendouzi, Torreira and willock could provide the extra cover for when Xhaka and Partey are out of it.
I’ve taken into consideration that we might be tight budget wise , and we have some pretty good players who just beginning to show what they are made of. Trust the process.
I honestly don’t know about Holding he has to improve in my eyes to much passing sideways and back reminds me of a crab with his movements
We can’t have all our centebacks being sublime ball playing passers. Holding (from what I’ve seen), has been really solid in the air. I’m not going to complain too much about his ball playing . Mustafi, Mari, Saliba, Luiz and Chambers are all pretty comfortable on the ball , so I’d be fine with a defender that’s simply good at defending. John Terry wasn’t an amazing ball player, neither was Sol Campbell
Willian, no. Milik, no. Partey, YES. “Yes” as in necessary for a REBUILDING at Ashburton Grove. YES.
When all is said and done, this squad needs a complete spine overhaul. From Defence into midfield and in attack. That will not happen in one transfer window. For now, we need I would sell Laca, Ozil, Xhaka and Mustafi. Loan Guendouzi out where he can learn to play and not talk so much. I would have got rid of Luiz but this club has a habit of doing the complete opposite!
I would like to see Pepe improve his game and see much more of Martinelli. These two players have the potential to create a lot of problems together. We need to keep Auba though. No question about that!
I would love to see Partey come in and hopefully another attacking midfielder.
Of course, I doubt much will happen in any case. But I can dream! 🙂
I f you’re a gooner you have to dream of an unrealistic future, or dream of the past. The Highbury days with the French Connection. By the way, I saw that Eddie Howe is interested in Folarin Balogun. Okay. Let’s swap – and get Nathan Ake. That would be a catch. Useful both as CB and RWB. Great player. But I don’t think Eddie Howe would like the idea.
And then you Wake up
..Because a Corn flake hit me on the head?! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Do you think Eddie Howe is a dreamer?
Our spine has got as much strength in it as a cocktail stick 😂😂 Leno, Auba (it’s imperative we keep Auba!) sorted….. but a CB and DM…. come on, needs addressing…. Saliba (I’d like Mings also)…. and Partey…. so we could all ‘partey’ like it’s 1999 🎶 hahaha!!
Cheers, Mam. Or as we say in Sweden: Skål!
😁
I think people are being harsh on Ceballos,he is still only 23 years old,coming from Spain to a new league/country,he was always going to take time to adapt and injuries didn’t help either,the break has done him good,he is now fit and settled and I believe he is going to keep improving from now on and be more consistent!
He was awesome against Norwich… it’ll be great to see a performance like that every match!
He was!he is very positive in his play,always looking to go forward,I am confident we will see more of him!
Neither will come to Arsenal mark my words.
Dude not everything is the board’s fault. St. Ettiene were being unreasonable and actually the board took the right stance. They wanted OUR player to train how they want and for us to pay for it. Really?
We tend to forget that Mavropanos is having a good season where is loaned in Germany.
We have no real need to sign an other CB if we agree that MArteta has that hability to improve players.
We need a proper D6 and a mature winger like Willian or Depay Memphis.
Who else is enjoying the new Arteta’s 3-4-3 tactics. Should he continue with the formation or switch back to the 4-2-3-1 formation.
I feel arsenal need to sign at least 3-4 players in the transfer window. We need an experienced tough defender to improve our defender and lead the defence line, a tough DM that can actually tackle and win ball back, maybe Partey. We need a creative midfielder someone like grealish. We can snach him to save him from relegation. A good Attacker will be an addon.
Martinez
Saliba | New signing | Holding
Bellerin/Cedric | NS Partey | NS Grealish | Tierney
New signing Aubameyang Saka
Some should wake me up later because I know this will never happen.
Cantwell will fit our style… Can play CM/CAM…