Preferred it when I just read up to here
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This whole deal is very sus to meā¦ The rush to get him for top dollar when nobody else was in for him.
Arletaās eye for talent needs some serious work. He is batting way below average regarding signings at the moment.
That being said. I like Kai as person and a player. A lot of talent there and still relatively young, but wrong move at the wrong time for the club. That money could have been better spent elsewhere.
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Howās he batting below average? Most of our signings have banged, just Kai and Raya whoāve played enough and not been worth it so far. Kiwior on the fence given he hasnāt played much at CB.
Nahā¦ Just Ode when heās in form. They havenāt been banging anything this season. No signings that have elevated our squad and pushed us towards competing for honors. Kiwior,Havertz,Raya,Fabio etc ā¦ Nothing from themā¦ the other signings have dropped off massively as well.
Iām hopeful but based on the eye test, last season seems like a purple patch and he has spent a lot of money on the squad just for us to be worse than last season. Deserves some criticism IMO.
Good:
Odegaard
Partey
Rice
Ben White
Tomiyasu
Zinchenko
Jesus
Gabriel
Ramsdale
Bad:
Pablo Mari
Willian (although this was a punt before the rebuild)
Havertz (so far)
As far as talent ID goes theyāve done great so far. Some have been more injury prone than weād have hoped for but thatās got nothing to do with talent ID and can be unfortunate. You could even lean towards Trossard and Jorginho being on the good list too.
What about Cedric, Tavares, Lokonga, Ceballos(second loan), Runarsdon among others?
Is Havertz in there purely off of what we paid for?
All the players you listed good, only Gabriel is actually good, with Saliba.
Saka is okay because of his numbers.
One slight āargumentā (for want of a better word) against this is that I did expect teams to come back harder and win against us this season, irrespective of the team/squad we had going into games.
Itās not possible to expect us to do the double over the likes of Chelsea, Spurs, Fulham and Villa for example season upon season.
Even after the Invincibles season, we lost 5 games in the next full PL campaign. Sometimes these things are just out of our control and part of the ebb and flow of football.
(Itās worked for us as well when we think of that long awaited win against Man City and the win away at Everton)
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Also one thingā¦
It is possible that our opponents āimproveā more than us, and makes it look like we regress.
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Shouldāve won the league last season when we had the chance. At least if we were gonna fall off the pace this season, thereād be some consolation in the fact that we were champions.
Feels like weāre going through a rebuild already after just 1 very good league campaign.
Tbf forgot some of them as it was like 2am when I was replying to mostly show the point that thereās been a lot of good signings 
Cedric - left off on purpose I donāt think heās been a terrible backup player tbh
Tavares - shite and irrelevant, forgot him but yes bad.
Lokonga - as above
Runarsson - apparently was the decision of gk coach no?
Havertz - yeah the price makes a big influence
@ronniec disagree massively, people need to remember where we came from when Mikel took over and that those signings may not all be title winning moves but all have provided great value in getting us back into the CL, a big title charge last year and still remaining solid and involved this year. People seem to forget we were top about 2 weeks ago, just cos we lost 2 games doesnāt make everyone shit or Arsenalās title run over.
And to reiterate the original comment was about talent ID, you tell me all those players are shite? Come on. At least being up Mudryk or something to question their talent ID.
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True, was saying last year that it was a huge opportunity and we donāt know when weāll get one again. I remember @Aussiegooner being very much on that line as well. Shame we couldnāt take the chance.
False, what part of our season feels like a rebuild? Are you not satisfied that we have shown to still be a contender and last season was not a fluke? Yeah itās not as sexy this season but weāre still competing at the top level. Weāve gone to anfield and drawn, weāve beaten city twice (incl comm shield) and whilst everyone is crying about the West Ham and Fulham games, before that we were top and looking good.
All these reactions are such short term views imo, your comment above that I agreed with proves it. You agree last season was a huge chance and itās hard to come back and do it again.
So bigger picture, us getting CL again this year, while hopefully giving a good run for the title, is still a good outcome. Weāve clawed our way back into the CL ONCE and we sound like weāre entitled to it and a title charge every year all of a sudden? 
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I thought you were talking about the performance this seasonā¦
Nope I responded to a post doubting Mikelās (and by proxy Eduās) talent identification 
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it will be on another level if Arteta does spend a fortune on Toney
If all our scouting and analysis somehow leads to 100m spent on Ivan Toney Iāve got questions.
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With the signings of Havertz and Raya being unconvincing will make Arteta think twice about spending a massive amount of our budget on a player that hasnāt played for so long.
But anything more than 50m then leave it to Chelsea to waste their money on him.
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Be honest, Kai was on the right track for more than a month till missing chances in last game, a position he only played once for us against City in the Community Shield and that was 4 months ago.
Raya starting to be more solid as well.
Hard to believe Arteta has lost confidence or in any doubt on both of them.
Tbh I think youāre right.
It feels like a rebuild cause Arteta changed too many pieces to a team that was within touching distance of winning the league.
Replaced Ramsdale with someone whoās not an improvement, arguably worse in some areas.
Got Kai who isnāt an improvement, arguably worse than our previous option, however Iāll give him credit - as Kai is much younger and could turn it around.
Looking at replacing our strikers and CDM options. Admittedly they need to be replaced though so I canāt argue too much.
Maybe itās not a rebuild at all, and weāre near the tail end of Artetaās Arsenal v1.0.
Yeah I mean you wouldnāt even mention the word rebuild if Partey and Timber were fit. Now unfortunately weāve lost almost 1 of Parteyās last good years and do need to look to the next CM, which wouldāve happened this summer anyway. His injury is just highlighting it.
I think given the underperformances this season, signing Kai to fill that 8 slot (hasnāt worked yet) AND the big injuries weāve had is what may make you feel like itās more drastic than it really is.
I think generally now weāll see 2-3 signings every summer and not much in the Jan windows.
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