Issue I see with Rice is I wouldn’t want him to play as a lone #6, beside Zubimendi fine but without him? It isn’t really for me and it doesn’t seem like it’s for Arteta either.
MLS should be getting moved to midfield anyways but in that case I’d want us to sign a conventional LB to rotate with Calafiori
Clearly they envisioned a squad with both Partey and Zubimendi both in it, obviously the latter would move to be the first option but we’re esentially losing two players and replacing with one, who is also not in the same mould as well. It could backfire.
IMO, Zubimendi is going to be a significant improvement on Partey. Much better defensively, better at carrying the ball, and I think he’s just a more intelligent controller of the game. We always needed to move the LB into midfield alongside Partey to really have control and I think that might not be true with Zubimendi, which will open up different things. Obviously its all speculation but I think there is at least a real upside case there. Others may disagree.
Kepa over Neto is definitely an upgrade, just at a position that hopefully never really matters.
Norgaard is probably an uprade over the absolutely roasted version of Jorginho we had this year. I don’t think he is an upgrade over the version we got initially when he signed.
We’ll see what happens. I think Zubimendi will open up things for us that Partey couldn’t. He is super comfortable playing as a lone six in midfield in ways that Partey has never been, that’s the job he has done nearly his whole career at both club and international level. Partey developed as a footballer playing in a double pivot his whole career, came to Arsenal and was thrust into the lone six role for a bit, and then we eventually created a de facto new double pivot arrangement for him with the LB moving into midfield. For the last couple years he has really been a right sided deeper midfielder, not a traditional lone six.
Am not sure what to make of this. We need someone to replace Partey and Norgaard is decent but I would have imagined we would go for someone younger. Perhaps this was the best option available.
Whatever it takes for us to not spend too much time and money on finding a Partey replacement.
This is obviously not a signing that makes a difference to our starting 11.
This post describes Arsenal Twitter in a nutshell.
They’ve been complaining about Partey for years, pretending he’s a bad player and using it as an excuse to criticise the club and now the club will finally replace him and they’re still complaining.
What do these people want exactly? Us to spend 100m to replace him with Camavinga or Baleba when we’ve already signed the best defensive midfielder available in the market?
People hammer us for poor squad building and Arteta for not rotating enough, but apparently don’t expect us to ever actually make those signings that would help with that issue? It’s bizarre, it’s only June still folks…
Takes a bit of pressure off Zubimendi in my opinion. The “experience” relates to being used to the pace of the EPL and knowing most of the players that he’ll come up against. Zubi won’t have either to start with.
Most players coming to the EPL need some time to get used to it. Some of us will remember the toxic, media-led campaign against that utter waste of money called… (and it was a long time so I hope I can remember how to spell it)… Dennis Bergkamp when he took a couple of months or so to get into his groove.
There’s already talk of Kai starting up front in August while our new striker settles in. Again, a sensible strategy because it feels like the whole football community (and some of our Twitter fans) can’t wait for Arsenal and Arteta to fail.
