Fine but even regular 27-year-old RBs go for a minimum of 7-8m.
The market is not as dull as you are making out.
Fiorentina shelled out 9m pounds for a GK, shelled out 15m for a complete flop in Jovic but they can’t fork out 11m for Torreira?
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There is no way that Betis couldn’t pay a fee for Bellerin. They paid 9m for a 30 year old striker and are heavily linked to Aouar.
Pisstake.
27 isn’t old for a full back either.
Pisstake.
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27-28 year old right backs who don’t earn £110k a week and aren’t clearly way past their physical primes.
This is already offset by not paying the usual market rate of 15-16m for players of this profile.
You cannot convince me that Bellerin can’t fetch 5m
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Bellerin is not a £15-16m player without his wages he’s finished at the age of 27.
I’m not denying he’s worth £5-6m probably as much as £10m but he’s shit and he earns loads of money and nobody really cares about him anymore.
Relevo(Matteo Moretto) confirming the news. Betis trying to get Bellerin at the lowest possible cost, even for free.
There are other interested teams but his wages are a problem.
He can take a paycut if he is that desperate to join Betis. Easy.
5m transfer fee and 50k a week.
See ya
Nabil Fekir is 28 and on 135k euros a week. They can fuck off.
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At this point I just want players off of our wage bill. If they have to go for free, then so be it.
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Steady. He was an excellent runner pre-injury. I think without that injury and some better coaching he would have really hit the heights we all thought he could when he first broke through.
The coaching thing is something we could have addressed but the injury was a career ender imo.
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I never thought he’d hit the heights some people did. Always a below average defender who only really had recovery pace. Wasn’t anything special going forward either his actual end product was average.
People lived in a fantasy world with Hector his talent was never anything special.
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He was very good in 2016/17.
Honestly, the thought of selling him for north of £40mil was upsetting a lot of Gooners.
It’s amazing how badly full-backs regress here. First Clichy and now this. I hope Tierney and Tomiyasu don’t follow suit.
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Agreed. I think he had various periods where he was really good but ultimately I was never really convinced about him. Offensively his delivery could have been better, defensively he was often saved by his pace and often Mertesacker.
Once Mertesacker was done and his speed wasn’t the same he pretty much fell off a cliff.
I do think with better coaching as @Stroller pointed out he would have been a better player overall.
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I think that’s a bit harsh. You can’t teach pace like that, you either have it or don’t. What you can teach is better positioning and delivery. That’s why people were so high on him. We assumed he’d get better at those things while maintaining his pace. Instead he lost his pace and never really worked on (or was coached to be better at) defending, delivery or positioning.
I have a lot of time for him as a person too which probably clouds my judgement. But I really do remember being pleased that he signed an extension when he did. It looked like he could be a really effective attacking outlet and there were rumors about Barcelona and Man City. It obviously didn’t work out the way anyone wanted to, but I think you’re selling him a bit short in terms of how good he was.
@DavidHillier It’s not even that the fullbacks regress. They fall apart physically! Bellerin, Debuchy, Tierney and maybe Tomiyasu. In hindsight, we didn’t know how good we had it with Nacho Monreal. Guy was a solid defender, didn’t break down, could play centerback and scored the occasional goal.
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Nothing harsh about calling someone who wasn’t ever very good exactly that. Being fast is nice but not being good at anything else is bad. He couldn’t cross, he wasn’t very technically strong, he wasn’t a great passer, he was an awful 1v1 defender, he was awful positionally and wasn’t a strong tackler.
He gave us good games and had good spells. I actually thought his best form came under Emery in season 1 before the injury.
He’s lost his pace and had plenty of time to learn how to be a better player and he’s just never really done that so it’s not a case of just coaching. Bellerin and as a fast full back who wasn’t very good at actually doing most things in football
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Does anyone remember in the City doc, when they played us they specifically targeted Bellerin. I believe it was either in the final or the follow up game.
I think we lost both games by 3 goals.
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Yes I do. I honestly believe he would of been targeted in a lot of opposition team talks as a weak link.
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His game like Walcott was based entirely of his natural pace. Once that was gone there wasn’t much else on offer.
Football ability needs to be start being weighted just as much as physical capabilities tbh. These players rely on it too much like a bad habit.
I didn’t mind him in the end though. But it was ultimately a downgrade on Sagna.
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Unless Mustafi or Xhaka were playing in the same team. 
The fault partly should go to the player, and partly go to the coach.
It is really up to the player if they want to get out of their comfort zone and make himself a better player; but the coach should also help developing the player throughout the years. I don’t believe anyone is not coachable, and Wenger should have done a better job to make Bellerin a better defender.
A defender that should have good positioning, defensive skills such as tackles, one v one battle, risk taking (decision making), crossing, etc.
Unfortunately, Bellerin relied too much on his speed, and never really developed.
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