That’s rich coming from you. Gnabry only went to the Olympics because we allowed him to, and he could’ve come back and played directly after…talk about circular logic.
If I were the manager I would give the minutes to the player who has talent, not to the poor man’s Andros Townsend, who shouldn’t even be with the club.
re: Wenger persisting with Theo, he’s a far better player than Ox, so it’s more understandable, and he’s also not a similar player to Ox/Gnabry/Iwobi, so the two are compatible in the same team really.
Maybe Bayern were involved before the summer…either way, I feel that if you take care of your young players and give them a feeling that there’s a legitimate future for them, they tend to stay. At a club like Madrid or Barça it’s understandable when you’ve got Benzema/Ronaldo/Bale or Messi/Suárez/Neymar ahead of young players, for us not so much.
Iwobi playing suggests that Wenger would have given Gnabry his chance this season, just as he has with countless other players. However there are outside factors to consider that we simply won’t be privy to and can only speculate on.
It’s plausible Wenger fucked up, that’s something he, like any manager, is prone to doing. However it’s equally as plausible that Gnabry just wasn’t good enough, or lacked something(s).
At the end of the day, he isn’t good enough to be our first choice, and unless I am mistaken he wasn’t going to settle for a squad role. So that’s that.
Ofcourse we allowed him to. Disallowing him would have pissed him off, and then you would have been here moaning about that.
So you would have given preseason minutes to the player who would have been at Olympics, unavailable potentially upto 20th August & some more due to rest after long tournament?
I’m not happy about the Gnabry situation at all but I think there is a lot that we don’t know as supporters, which makes it hard to fully draw conclusions. He essentially missed 18 months with a never very clearly specified knee injury. What happened during that time, whether he worked hard enough to come back, whether he maintained fitness and complied with other aspects of his training regimen, etc are pretty unknown to us. Loaning him to Pulis was obviously a mistake and many people said that when it happened. But I’m not sure Gnabry did himself any favors in that loan spell. Some of Wenger’s comments made it seem like his attitude wasn’t the best.
The biggest mistake was not signing him to a new five year contract after his breakout in the 13-14 season. If we had done that, instead of giving him a three year contract at the time, then he would have been able to just keep him this year or loan him again.
The Olympics was a pre-season tournament, running parallel to the pre-season preparations of clubs. It was consistent with him coming back and playing directly after. The plan when we let him go was certainly not to sell him after, but incorporate him into the first-team or loan him.
The issue at hand here is that Gnabry likely saw his path blocked, rightly, by a number of options ahead of him. And that, while I agree that it’s hypothetical, if we had been quicker to move on crap players instead of blindly investing major amounts of faith in them (Ox), and had done a better job of sitting down with Gnabry and convincing him he was an important part of our plans here this season, then we likely could’ve convinced him to stay. It’s not really a complicated argument.
I’ve said previously in this thread, Gnabry going to the Olympics was an indication of where Gnabry’s role in the squad was in Wenger’s mind. Iwobi was definitely considered an important first team player, he was blocked from going despite wanting to.
Personally, I think Wenger wanted to renew & loan him out again and I can understand Gnabry wanting to settle somewhere after the big knee injury followed by a disastrous loan to Tony fucking Pulis. The frustrating thing about this situation is that we’ve seen a very good talent move on whilst we’ve got an absolute shambles in Oxlade still at the club.
Really what should have happened is Oxlade was sold, we reinvest that money and then Gnabry moving on is just unfortunate but not too frustrating.
Ofcourse that would be the case as one has not played for Arsenal for 2 consecutive seasons & other was quite crucial for us in latter part of last season.
Wenger would have more of a plan for latter than the former.
That doesn’t mean Gnabry can’t land minutes during the season.
Honestly though, he was good but not great, a bit overrated. He has never done anything of notice, he was sold as a kid for peanuts and not wonderkid money, he didn’t play much for us because he was not good enough yet, then he was injured nearly a whole season, then he was loaned out and couldn’t even take a place with the Baggies, came back and he was not good enough here so we sold him.
I really liked the kid and I always hoped he would make it but he couldn’t challenge for his spot here, simple as. Hopefully he can restart in Germany and maybe he’s a player who will come good later, given the right conditions. But his spell in England came to a perfectly natural end as far as I’m concerned.
We’re also shrinking the ratio of prospects from way too many to a healthy amount nowadays, which is exactly what we should do. You have a few promising kids, not half the squad, and I think that unfortunately forced his situation a bit and helped whoever was currently the hotter prospect (Iwobi for example).
Hope he has a good career, but I honestly don’t give a damn that we sold him. If he turns out to be a great player, then good for him, but in terms of Arsenal, I was never sure he was going to form much of a career with us. I hold no sentimentality towards him. A fuss is being made about it by some simply due to the lack of quality on the right wing right now. If we actually ever address it, he wouldn’t get a look in anyways.
Had a few decent games with us a few seasons ago, got injured, went on loan and that’s about it.
Don’t really understand this attitude, @Mysty . Even Madridistas are not indifferent when they lost Morata or Jesé. It’s not only about the lack of quality on the right wing, but about losing/failing to develop a player that had the potential to be a very good player for us. It is very rare you can develop a player good enough for a top club from within, and when you can, and don’t, it’s quite understandable to be aggrieved as fans. Especially when it’s one of the areas we need to be beating other clubs in/is key to our supposed philosophy or model. And especially when he profiles as precisely the type of winger/attacker that we need: one that combines well, and has end product.
That’s the thing though AC, it’s all what ifs. The reality is, how many players over the last decade have come out of our youth system or we bought young, have gone on to become top class and sustain it over many seasons?
Some might say Wilshere for example, but even he’s failed to deliver on that amazing promise he had 5/6 years ago. Ramsey has his moments, but seems to be more with Wales these days, than us. Ox bursted out of the blocks first season, and has some how got worse over time, instead of improving.
Then there’s all the countless youths we’ve let go and I can barely think of anyone thats made us think “Hmmm, we shouldn’t have sold him”. I think we overhype too many young players before they’ve had the chance to do anything truly worth while over a length period of time.
That Cesc broke out way before the Emirates era I mentioned?
Joking aside, Cesc is the only one who maintained his consistency during his time with us. I put that down to working alongside some of the all time greats at the club when he was breaking through into the first team. Once they all went, we’ve hardly had anyone to inspire or teach the next bunch of kids in the team.
