Havertz, Timber and Rice all seemingly to be wrapped up in the coming days meaning we will enter pre season with 3 very important signings done at a cost of £200m.
Edu has done his job this summer. Lot of work to be done on outgoings but as far as bringing in the men Arteta clearly wants - job well done.
And futures of Saliba and Saka secured.
Huge job from Edu.
overall the transfer window is great, but Edu definitely needs to work on his negotiating skills.
we are paying premium for Rice and Havertz, not in any discount. We will see how much we pay for Timber.
on selling players… we can’t let people lowballing us.
anyway, good job but there are plenty of room to improve.
Agreed, It’s clear to see Arteta is running the show in terms of actual talent ID.
Edu has proven to be competent in negotiations by getting big deals and contracts done and that’s good, he deserves credit for that but clubs and players absolutely extract alot of value in deals. I wouldn’t go OTT the the praise tbh
if being talkative because of excitement upset anyone here, alright, I just stop posting till tomorrow morning in PST.
No one is upset. I’m just talking too
please allow me to vent…
first time in 12 seasons… this transfer window really gives me the excitement and hope that I have never tasted before, since supporting Arsenal.
Unlike you guys and ladies, won the league, and experienced the invincible season…
If Edu played the long game on Rice and tried to secure him for cheaper at the end of the window people would he complaining he didn’t get the deal done in time
105m sure is a massive bid, but I look at it this way.
We started with 90m, so it is an increase of 15m.
Does 15m worth the wait? it is pretty subjective.
from past experience, we can tell, the longer we wait the less chance the deal will fall through.
for me, I would not lose out my number one target because of that.
we could lose 15m, but we are not afford to lose the player.
eDU oUT
He’s tied down probably the best young Cb in world football, Star Boy and the favela fan favourite. He’s broken our club transfer record by beating off City to a player.
Hard to have a go at Edu to be honest.
Like you said, he’s done half his job this summer. Let’s see how he works actually selling players other teams might want like Tierney or Balogun.
Arteta will always get the credit and criticism. Edu will always just get criticism.
You say this but you’re also criticising our first bids for rice because of the initial price West Ham supposedly set.
What was he supposed to do if your other point is valid? FWIW I agree he needs to work on his negotiating skills but you can’t have it both ways.
Personally I think we should start the bid more than 80+10, but what frustrated me (WH also) was our 2nd bid.
In the end, we bid over 100m and proved I was correct on the total amount. We had to bid 100m to move forward. Playing around with 90m was not going to work.
(@GC-Maniac pointed out in the very beginning the fee was about 70-80 (before summer, probably in January), I read somewhere else saying WH demanded 100m.)
If the amount is not negotiable (we needed to bid 100m minimum to offset the number the installments WH was asking), the 2nd bid looked ugly and unprofessional for me.
He’s been praised heavily in this thread. I’m not sure how you can say he’s only going to get criticized. He probably doesn’t get the recognition outside of Arsenal circles but it seems like general football outlets only really cover DoFs if they’re massively fucking up like Ed Woodward.
But then we’re not paying a premium we’re just paying the price surely?
I just hope either way they get what they think they can out of him for it to be worth going all in.
Happily be called a twat for being against the fee when he’s proven worth it.
Yeah but these premium transfers are basically coin flips in terms of whether or not they’re a success which is kind of scary.
Kepa (72m)
Havertz (72m)
Pepe (72m)
Sancho (73m)
VVD (75m)
Lukaku (75m)
Maguire (80m)
Antony (82.2m)
Pogba (89m)
Lukaku Part Deux (96m)
Grealish (100m)
Enzo (106.8m)
It’s kind of grim reading. You got one absolute home run in VVD. A guy that will probably end up being worthwhile in Grealish, a guy we don’t have enough tape on in Enzo and the rest were absolute flops on those deals.
Edit: To be clear I’m not saying all of those players are awful. Lukaku went on to have success in Italy, Sancho was a very good player in Germany, Pogba’s (second) time with ManU was clouded by injury and some absolutely insane midfield partnerships, there are mitigating factors for a lot of these guys for sure. But I guess if you’re committing a shitload of money you’d want the odds to be better than what they appear to be.
Oh I fully agree with that, I don’t think either rice or caicedo should be commanding near the fees they are and I think we overpaid for Havertz too. Was really just challenging Ronnie’s point on edu.
It’s big bold moves, I like the ambition but I hope they work out because it’s two huge risks.
Timber is a great price and much lesser risk imo.
