Good to see people coming around to the idea of Mount. We are struggling to tie down Saliba, Edu wouldn’t be able to get a Mount deal done.
Nah there was definitely an interview a while back where Edu was fully taking the credit for it. These are the quotes I’m talking about from when he was initially signed and what Edu told Mikel about the player. If Mikel was the one chasing him down I don’t think he’d need Edu to explain what type of player he was. I remember these quotes because even back then people didn’t know if he was an Edu or an Arteta buy.
Like I say the goal was clearly to bring in a player of his ilk but I very much doubt it was a case of bring me this random bloke who’s barely playing in Portugal or else
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You’re right I haven’t.
First of all my primary priority isn’t business but how well our squad is constructed. Our basis for success will depend on that.
In which I’d say what more could he do? Better than a small squad would be a nice start. Twice in a row it’s cost us. We’re essentially running a First XI or bust. That ain’t good squad building. Part of this is down to bums like Lokonga and Vieira becoming bloat. Wasting time extending Elneny is another.
I think we’ve could’ve been way more aggressive in January, no one expected us to be in the position we were come the World Cup that is fair to acknowledge. But…that was where we were. Top of the league. Needed to take advantage of that more than we did.
I just think he’s doing an okay job not a fantastic one.
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They did two interviews for that one, one with Arteta and other one with Edu. I remember Arteta saying in his interview that he is a player he’s watched a lot and that he “loves”. I’ll see if I can find it.
I haven’t heard that one but the Edu one certainly sticks out in my mind. City were pretty heavily linked to him or so a mate of mine told me so I’m sure Mikel probably was well aware of him. He just doesn’t strike me as someone Mikel was really the driving force behind ala Odegaard. It makes sense that Edu is our driving force in regard to both Brazilian and Portuguese signings. And both Tavares and Vieira have been a total case of outsmarting ourselves in the market.
I don’t even get the sense this season Mikel particularly enjoys the project of developing Vieira which if he went to bat to sign him doesn’t make sense. I’m reading between the lines a touch here but I guess we’ll see how much Mikel rates the lad by how long we keep him in our camp.
I don’t think there’s room for both ESR and Vieira right now and I reckon one is gone this summer
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Please don’t be a flimsy guy this summer.
Bum.
We really do need to address were this small squad size thing comes from.
It’s a glaring oversight or is it out of choice. Two seasons on the bounce demands some scrutiny.
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Give Arteta all the tools he needs.
He likes the first 11. But never rotates.
Some of that is him being stubborn. Some of it is not trusting all his options.
Give him options he can trust edu.
It’s the same squad size as City. I don’t think size is the issue, quality is though.
Too many passengers in this team. People give Arteta shit for not rotating enough. I swear every time we tried to rotate our drop-off was monumental. Will never forget how we struggled against Oxford Utd in the FA Cup. As soon as Xhaka and Zinchenko came we blew them away.
These have been some of our squad options this season:
- Cedric
- Holding
- Whatever is left of Tierney
- Whatever is left of Tomiyasu
- Lokonga
- Whatever is left of Jorginho
- Elneny
- Nelson
- Marquinhos
- Vieira
- Whatever is left of Smith Rowe
- Nketiah
How many of these guys can we say have come in and done well? How many of these make it to the City team? Hell, how many of these make it to Man Utd or Liverpool?
That’s 12 players right there, and almost all of them have failed to contribute. Honestly, only Jorginho, Nelson and Nketiah could have a claim at contributing somewhat to our season. Rest have been absolute dross.
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Yeah agree. Mostly though they were known as passengers.
We all pretty much knew how many players of use we had.
If we knew it those in charge did. Again I’m asking was it our choice to go small.
I think it all comes down to the rebuild. I think ideally we would have cleaned house within 2-3 transfer windows, starting from summer of 2021.
Unfortunately, it does take longer when you don’t have unlimited resources, time and have the ability to poach the right talent in.
I think we’re here now. This is where it should all come together. Majority of the deadwood needs to go out now. Standards have been raised.
It’s a big summer for Edu. We’ll see now if he can bring the #1 targets, we’ll see if he can make good money off our sellable assets.
It’s also really hard to “clean house” in football. You can’t cut or waive a player, you can’t amnesty their contract. They have to want to leave as well.
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Not offering contracts to players like Elneny would help too.
Could of done without renewing Nketiah too honestly.
I don’t think that was necessarily a bad move. For a Top 4 chase, Nketiah as backup with the form that he’s on made sense.
He’s one of our actual sellable assets too.
There is a strong argument about whether he’s good for a team that challenges for both CL and PL though.
I didn’t love the move when we did it but he scored some important goals for us when Jesus was injured and I wanted Richarlison here which turned out to be a bad idea. Wouldn’t be fair for me to criticize the move now. He was useful this season. Doesn’t mean he’s off limits for a transfer or anything.
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This is the project. Look at the squad that Arteta and Edu inherited. It has taken time to get a decent squad together and clear out the deadwood. Now it is all about building the quality and signing several transformational players to push us to the next level to challenge City, and consolidate our place in the top 4. With the signings we have made and the contract renewals we have done, we’re finally acting like a big club again.
Elneny is just a squad player to make up the numbers. Nketiah scored some important goals for us this season and last, and as @GC-Maniac says, we have preserved his value by giving him a new contract. If he stays for next season, he either needs to improve or it is a position we need to upgrade next summer.
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Disagree, at the time some of us believed we needed 2 forwards. I think that was still the correct analysis.
He chipped in but he didn’t do enough for me. Part of that is not being trusted, but a problem with this squad building is Arteta seemingly having all these players he can’t count on.
This accountancy sale value stuff is whatever. Couldn’t get rid of him then but now we can. Trying to make sense of that hurts. To bad the season is over.
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He was on a free last season summer right? So it was more about him walking away than anything else.
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Excuse my Thornton Heath upbringing but this is how this wasteman has gotten his last 2 extensions. We need contributors.
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