Haven’t you heard? We’re signing Ben White! The most exciting English CB who isn’t already playing for a top six club and I’m so thrilled to have him and really excited the club have dedicated such a large portion of our (alleged) budget on him at the expense of not spending on attackers.
200k/w and a possible £60m fee for a guy who couldn’t even get into the England squad.
He’s a good player but he isn’t worth those numbers.
I’m really not sure how I feel about this one purely because of the money we’d need to spend.
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Do you buy into the argument that Arsenal have to basically “pay a penalty” for being so poorly run over the last five years and being out of Europe? So it means we are targeting and overpaying for English players (White, Maddison, Ramsdale) who may still think of Arsenal as an attractive move and guys like Nuno and Lokanga who are young and see Arsenal as a clear step up from Portugal and Belgium.
Targeting overpriced English players kind of reminds me of a Liverpool’s strategy a decade ago when they were ailing, Carroll and Downing spring to mind.
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There was that phase and then their second phase.
Henderson
Adams
Ings
Moreno
Lovren
Sturidge
I realize they’re not all English but you can see the upgrade in players during that next phase. Then they got serious, hired Rodgers, got even more serious, hired Klopp and then hit it big with a series of transfers.
All to say that maybe Arsenal are trying to do something similar.
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Maddison is a really classy player, he’s not exactly the AM equivalent of Andy Carroll or Ricky Lambert lol.
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I do get his point though, spunking over £100mil on Maddison and White?
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To me it just says we have pretty much zero faith in our scouting network to spend that much on those two players.
Good players but not X factor game changes you’d hope for that sort of outlay.
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And if they improve us then it’s absolutely worth it is it not? I’m not entirely sure about White but I know I’ve seen enough of Maddison to recognize he’s the real deal.
We spent around 100m on Mustafi, Xhaka and Perez and it took us backwards, I’d like to think our scouting has improved since then and I have no problem with spending a little bit more to shop in our domestic league.
Also some serious disrespect to Maddison, the blokes only 24 and he for me is one of the best attacking midfielders in outside the top 3
If that’s our strategy it suggests Arteta and Edu are willing to pay a premium for the lower variance of PL proven talent. With smaller buys they seem happy to roll the dice on players like Lokonga but aren’t willing to be as risky with bigger outlays.
The pessimistic interpretation on this is that they are trying to save their jobs and so they’re prioritizing players that have high floors and can hit the ground running over players with higher ceilings who might take longer to adapt. Mismatch between the short term incentives of the manager and the longer term interests of the club.
The optimistic interpretation would be that we already have a number of young and fairly inexperienced players with very high ceilings but also a lot of potential variance in their performance (Martinelli, Saka, ESR, Gabriel, Lokonga), and to get the best out of those players we need to build a steadier platform around them and guys like White and Maddison could help provide that while also being still relatively young themselves and therefore able to grow into their prime at the same time as these other guys develop.
Could be a little of the first, a little of the second.
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I mean personally I feel like both suggest a logical and pragmatic approach to squad building and refinement and all in all it would represent a really good summer for us if we brought in White, Maddison and the young Belgium lad.
Club can’t win at times though, people cry about spending money/premier league proven etc etc and the minute we look to do that we’re spending too much money and should be shopping in the bargin bin from overseas leagues.
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Do we have any left?
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I think that’s part of it. It just seems so obvious and not in a good way.
Paying a premium for low variance on talent is paying a boatload of money for Jack Grealish. I’m not sure that paying a boatload of money for Ben White is in the same category.
Tbh though there’s 2 international tournaments going on here, how many quality players or x factor players are we seeing right now.
Talent pools right down in the game and unfortunately it’s harder than ever on replacements.
We should just be glad we can take a top rival player and have the funds. Maddison would be a quality edition. If we don’t land him now, it’ll be a lesser player coming in imo.
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Given the profile we seem to be targeting, I think that’s very true.
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Bit funny those Leicester fans aren’t they?
Many of them got mad at Arsenal fans for not snobbing on Maddison when it first broke out and that we shouldn’t even be talking about it because it ain’t happening as we’re broke and a joke of a club.
Once they learned that the rumour has legs they changed up the tune and now they’re saying he’s not even that good, that his injury is bigger than expected, their club is looking to stop using a #10 and other excuses. 
I’m still not super high on Maddison but he definitely improves the team and that’s all that matters at the end of the day, I just really want us to sign him to rile up Leicester fans now.
And you know what will make it sweeter? Leicester losing out on Top 4 to Arsenal in the last few games just like they did to Man Utd when they sold Maguire and Chelsea when sold Chilwell.
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We’ve been exactly the same with a number of players we’ve not wanted to sell and then been about to sell tbh. Football fans are the same all over.
Giving a wholly independent example, Liverpool fans followed the same “change cycle” that Leicester fans are now during Torres’ projected move to Chelsea.
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Don’t think this is necessarily true to be honest. Like you said White and Maddison at 23 and 24 are still young. Those are signings for the longer term. How far ahead should they look at?
The biggest (and maybe only?) worry is that White and Maddison are not going to justify the potential outlay for them.
A little bit simplistic when we’re currently in a golden generation and he’s still one of the best CAMs in the PL. He’s probably the best CAM we can get. I reckon he’ll make more of a difference than Partey who cost similar in 1 cash payment and was older.
My main concern is are we getting the best talent we possibly can get. I don’t think we can get better than Maddison right now
Yeah I think Maddison comfortably makes the England squad if he’d not just come off the back of an injury-ravaged season