A Campbell situation could occur, where Arsene is forced to play him because of lack of options. I’m sure he’ll do fine, but I doubt Wenger rates him either. Rinse and repeat.
Campbell? Joel Campbell?!
A player who failed in Spain and Portugal?! Really?!
Perez? Lucas Perez?
A player who failed in England?! Really?!
I just recall folk thinking he had a good run for us and then being dropped. I personally didn’t rate him.
The problem with rating any one AW transfer window is that it leaves us short, regardless how good it is in isolation because of the totality of weaknesses (previous windows and development failures). The blessing we have had has been low-mid 70’s was all we needed for top 4 - that could be changing by a few points, enough to make it tricky.
Good window/bad window, to me all that I see atm is a pretty solid squad that will be hurt by the loss of Sanchez (probably some overrate the loss, others underrate)… and then there is the issue of CM…
Xhaka (still unproven to me, but I have turned optimistic), Ramsey (really still relying on him?), Wilshere (are you having a laugh?), El Neny (solid enough depth), Le Coq (time to move on to France/Italy and can be solid mid-table team there)…
Ouch… seriously, objectively, that is painful to look at… not one WC and a bunch of question marks. ATM I have hoping and praying that an AMN breaks in and that is saying something. I really think we will be operating with massive handicap next season if that is the state of things in the middle.
It’s just weird to me how coming in 5th has ‘changed the policy’ or ‘unlocked the beast’ (read that one on reddit, not here). Whilst we’re not doing anything different. Lacazette btw was available. He was heading to Atletico before their ban was enforced 
. I think breaking the transfer record was more necessity than anything else because clubs know there is more money in the Premier League and in football in general. Not so much a change of policy. Everton and Bournemouth broke their transfer record too f.e. Manchester United is going to break theirs with the arrival of Lukaku. Chelsea might do the same if they are going to sign their striker, if Costa leaves.
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“Cheap and easily available” as in players both of those things, not just either one.
The second part of the other post referred to the ‘cheap’ part . Maybe it’s all perspective again I guess. For me it doesn’t feel like actual change of policy. You could argue today’s 50 million is ‘cheap’ compared to the fees of Lukaku, Higuain etc.
I’d say that cheap is signing someone like Lucas Perez for £17m. I know it’s to be expected that transfer fees will increase and that’s what we’re seeing, but I just don’t think our record signing can be called cheap, it’s somewhat contradictory.
I want another big signing NOW
Mbappe it is then…we will get him tomorrow!
If we get 50m for Sanchez that means we will spend about 90m.
If you believe Wenger, he was willing to spend 125 on Mbappe, so what’s the problem?
Think he is referring to your choice of “adequate” for that outlay… the bottom line is we won’t be challenging for title again and are certainly going to be one or two players short… again.
Laca is a good start and if Lemar comes, great. But if Sanchez leaves and we don’t get top qualitteeee in the middle, I see us fighting for 4th/5th again.
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I think if we signed Lemar and kept Sanchez we would have a very good and deep squad, even after selling the likes of Walcott, Lucas, Gibbs, and a few more. A title challenge would likely be undone by Wenger and his tactics in some way but I would back us to finish 2nd-4th and to compete seriously for the Europa League.
CF: Laca (Giroud)
AM: Sanchez, Ozil (Lemar, Welbz, Iwobi)
LWB: Kolasinac (Monreal)
CM: Ramsey, Xhaka (Wilshere, Elneny, Coq, Cazorla maybe)
RWB: Bellerin (Ox)
CB: Kos, Mustafi Holding (Chambers, Mertesacker, Gabriel)
GK: Cech (Martinez)
Ideally, we’d add another more reliable top class CM to this team but there really aren’t many holes. Lemar could also play the LWB and perhaps CM roles in some matches so I think he’d be a starter more often than not and would be a key contributor.
The problem is really selling Alexis and keeping Walcott or Lucas, which I suspect is Wenger’s plan. Do that and all of a sudden this team lacks true quality up front and likely struggles for goals.
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My guess is that our league campaign will be hurt by our midfield, Ramsey dropping is inevitable and there’s a massive dip in suitability & quality after him.
Another guess though I’m not as confident on this one is that we’ll start to see the beginning of the end of Koscielny.
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Spot on, although I think we see at least another year+ of top Kosc… he has had injury issues, but isn’t that old yet and seems to have his head on right.
I have zero expectations of anything else, whatever moves we make.
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I don’t either really, but the premier league has shown itself to be pretty unpredictable, and we actually have a decent squad. If we keep the stars and get a top CM and winger to go along with Laca and Kola, only thing keeping us back is AW at that point.
Center midfield would certainly be our biggest hole in the squad, although it would be a bit less of an issue in the 3-4-3 as I think the formation puts a bit less responsibility on those players to do certain things like handle high pressure and maintain defensive shape.
I suspect that Wenger will take the first opportunity to go back to 4-2-3-1 though. This old dog doesn’t like new tricks.
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Agree with your post, the problems will be Wenger selling Sanchez and also when Rambo gets his injuries/ form slump Jack and Cazorla will be also injured, we will be stuck watching regular minutes of Elneny and Coq.
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