Hello lovely Arsenal people! So the hot topic man – Alexis Sanchez is back in training and he looked in fine spirits considering all the speculation around him. Reports suggest Arsene has put his foot down and banned any transfer ideas and this time it seems to me like he won’t sell to an EPL rival.
With PSG set to sign Neymar and Bayern signing James Rodriguez, I don’t think he’ll leave. Than again, Arsene has said before certain players won’t leave, but this time it feels like the Frenchman finally manned up to do a bold decision. What will be the impact though?
Sanchez has put up some lame shows before like Swansea away, but I do feel he will play to win every game as that is his style. Besides, he’ll get a free move next summer as I don’t think he’ll sign a contract here, because we haven’t added enough quality to provide a viable platform for success.
We could assume that Alexis will be playing alright, but why is Wenger so adamant not to sell? Lack of quality is a simple answer. We have a big squad full of average players. We have Xhaka and Ramsey in midfield which clearly doesn’t work, we have Ozil who is struggling to find good rhythm and our best player of late – The Ox is in his final year too.
Wenger is on the ropes. He got a new contract, but the sour taste in fans mouths hasn’t washed away. What choice does he have? If those players leave, he’ll face more abuse, not that it’s possible for any force to sack him as we can see, it will still hurt his ego and besides, he believes he still has what it takes, which as recent results have shown is far from the case.
Keeping the players against their will is something that will ease the pressure on him for now, until another season of failure unfolds and he then has a huge problem next summer. See the opposition has improved of late and Arsene is struggling to keep pace, but as always it’s not about the big picture, it’s about doing just enough to milk the Arsenal fans money, before the club throws more dust in our eyes.
The Frenchman’s mountain of trouble is piled up with players refusing to take a pay cut to leave and that is also delaying potential signings. Getting Lemar would be one for the moment and the future, but it’s still uncertain if it is possible to happen. But problems in midfield and defence are yet to be addressed.
So in the end of all this, Wenger desperately needs a good start to the season. Imagine what will be on his head with key players already unwilling to sign new deals if we lose to Chelsea in the Community Shield by a large margin and we fail to beat Leicester and Stoke on day one and two?
The boss has huge problems right now. Delaying them for next summer is a disaster waiting to happen, or is it already happening? Wenger acknowledges that without Sanches we probably won’t get even 5th, so he’s banking all on taking the risk with the final year and hoping we’ll achieve success.
It’s admirable, it’s not typical for us to take risks, but even when we are, there are ways to increase our chances of success like buying good players in positions we’re in obvious need of recruitment. It still hasn’t happened and I feel we might leave it to a bad start to the season for us to wake up.
We’re in a bad situation overall, but what other choice does Wenger have? I agree with him on this one, but ultimately I don’t think we did enough to escape. Hopefully I’m wrong. The season starts very soon and the window ends soon after so by September we may already be seeing part of the picture painted.
Konstantin