I think its just a balance. I’m all for buying the right player if he is available or getting someone in on loan to help us. But the worst thing we could do is spend a huge amount of money on the wrong player just to bring somebody in or, even worse, to make a big social media splash or appease the supporters. That’s how struggling clubs stay bad in the long term.
We probably have like a 25% chance of making top four if everything stays the same. What are our chances of making top four if we buy Ivan Toney or somebody like that? I don’t think they really go up very much. Maybe 30% at best? I don’t want to screw up the long term just for a very marginal increase in our chances at top four this season. The plan should be to construct a team that is a very strong contender for top four every season and I think we’re on the way there, but we badly need to get the striker piece right.
I don’t disagree with your first paragraph but I’d like to think the club have a list of players they’d want in the summer which should really be obtainable now.
We’re seeing Bruno go to Newcastle, Vlahovic to Juventus so it’s clear that two of our alleged targets were obtainable this January. So I’d like to believe that it Isak or David are our second choice, that we’d be negotiating to sign them now and not wait until the summer where we might save £5-10m on the fee.
Fully agreed. The best option is clearly to move a summer striker deal up to this window but its not all in our control. If I’m Isak’s agent, for example, I’m planning to wait until the summer to move the player, when more (potentially bigger) clubs will be interested and I can start a bidding war on wages among them, and it would take a lot of convincing to get me to change that plan.
Wenger made Europa with that mess, wasn’t far off the CL spots, and only had Auba for 3 months. Emery missed top 4 by one point with this ‘Wenger’ mess of a terrible team. Even if you don’t count Pepe we’ve had 200m of upgrades and added experienced players like Thomas Partey. Why buy him if our only goal was to clear out dead wood? Btw Pablo Mari, Cedric, Willian, and more are all dead wood of Arteta’s making too. Lmao bruh wtf u talking about, has the propaganda really gotten to you that u think the 8th most expensive team in the world has no chance of making the CL?
This is a ruderless fucking ship that doesn’t have much of a plan whatsoever, but even then should be doing so much better with what we already have. Nobody forced Arteta to keep Xhaka and ship off a better midfielder in Guendo for example. Ineptitude of the highest order from most everyone employed by Arsenal and the ownership to boot.
Im not saying splash top dollar but we are way short now and it will only take a modicum of organisation by United to seal that spot.
This growing a team is all nice in theory but your open to bigger and better continually taking your players each season.
we have been on the end of this before. You should take your chance when it presents itself. Your going too be if everything works out next season with new players wanting to be in this exact position.
Again nobody is waiting round for Arsenal to get their shit together. We have had Leicester finish above us twice in two seasons.
West Ham did last season and fancy their chances again. We simply cant keep stalling. Tomorrow never comes here.
They club had a list. But maybe not a long enough list.
The Dušan thing looked DOA pretty early.
We know Isak has a release clause, the club doesn’t want to pay it, and maybe for good reason.
I’m not up on David’s contract situation but Lille may just simply refuse to sell midseason.
DCL, Watkins, Toney all seem a little fanciful midseason unless you really spend big.
And all of those guys play different games imo. So it’s concerning the club spent weeks, chasing a big No9 but are still apparently looking at Isak who seems a little noodley to me from a physical standpoint.
So I understand striker has a shallow talent pool at top tier, but what about midfield? What about wide forwards? We need goals.
It seems like the club is gun shy about making a big investment and getting it wrong. I can appreciate it but also it’s annoying because top four feels very achievable with the right boost, and I have so many doubts about Arteta as a coach that I only see that boost coming from adding talent he can’t fuck up.
Maybe our players have realised that all you need to do is turn up late for training once and call Arteta’s dog a cunt and then you’ll be straight on that transfer list and getting your move away.
It certainly the case with unwanted players like Kolasinac who have realized that if they played the game long enough, Edu will bend over and take the hit of terminating the contract.
