The quality of Arsenal’s signings argument by JA
Hello Gooners. Hope you are fine. I’ve seen recent arguments about the quality of players we sign along the lines of “we are signing average players with hope of them coming good”. People also go on to argue that we should be shopping at the same stall with the big wigs. Here is what I think: We already are shopping at the same stall as the big wigs. Even looking at the sugar daddy clubs that over pay, you rarely find one that goes for broke to make 3 or 4 high profile signings in the same window. now looking at those with realistic pockets, you realise we’re rubbing shoulders. Take for instance. two seasons ago (without much financial leverage) how many clubs do you think wanted Cazorla or Podolski?
As much as news might not have hit the airwaves due to the precision with which the transfers were executed, just imagine how many top clubs would want to have the two (and please don’t give me the “present form” argument, most managers are smarter than that) from two seasons ago. Reliable reports also state that we fought off Bayern and Chelsea for Giroud, although I don’t rate him world class.
We’ve seen top teams fight hard to sign a player only for him to end up average (Baloteli, Sebastian Veron, Robinho, etc) That was two seasons ago. Now last season was disappointing even to me. But for the sake of the shopping argument, which team would not want to have Ozil on their pitch? We ungrateful Arsenal fans are willing to write him off as a flop but do you have any idea how fast other teams would bite your hands off if you put him up for sale? He rarely looks dazzling on the pitch but he does have end product.
People are so stuck with the idea of a good player dwelling on the ball, beating six defenders on the dribble and executing amazing 30yard pile drivers that they think a player who plays the simple way is a flop. now I get frastuated too when he looks uninterested. but in the same games, he often springs to life for a good 15 minutes like to say” alright boys, I’ll give a hand” he turns the game on it’s head – then relaxes again.
This season, we got Alexis Sanchez, Mathieu Debuchy. Both represented their teams at the FIFA World cup and are really good. In addition to them, do you think there’s a team that wouldn’t want to have a Calum Chambers in their squad? Manchester city do have a monster of a squad now, and so do Chelsea, but they didn’t build those squads in a single window. They took the same route we’re taking. both paid top dollar for flops like Torres, super Mario, Mateja Kezman, Kolo Toure and many more along the way to building a formidable squad. Bayern Munich also had to make do with Mario Gomez, then Mario Mandzuckic as they built their squad. Not all these teams build their squads on outright quality. some are hidden gems and they also make the same misjudgments we do but then they also like us, land on a gem at times. John Terry, Frank Lampard, among others. We have to be rational in judgement.
Three seasons ago, we only had Gervinho, RVP and Walcott. If it wasn’t them scoring there was no chance of Arsenal winning. Now we have the luxury of Sanchez, Danny, Alex, Theo, Olivier, Lukas, that can make up any sort of front two, three or four combination. Then there would be the midfield where you have the luxury of Cazorla, Ozil, Ramsey, Wilshere, as opposed to Song and Arteta only a couple of seasons ago. Improvement comes slow but I can see the progress. However the one thing you should know is that with players getting used to each other, there will be a period of re adjustment and poor results and that is why in my article yesterday I proposed we get a defender that is a smaller ego than those we have but still has age on his side. And because we are quite solid on the left we need someone whose career we won’t waste.
In conclusion, I see progress on the transfer front, but what I’m seeing doesn’t look any different from other clubs..
Joe