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