Good chance Zubimendi isn’t quite what is required either, he’ll have a lot to prove
Very poor use of funds
I couldn’t disagree with you more when it comes to our midfield signings.
Rice has been a transformational signing for us and the best is still to come. He can play 6 or 8 and as a box-to-box. Excellent with corners and set pieces. An excellent leader both on and off the pitch too.
Zubimendi will be an excellent signing for us. He will dictate our game from deep and set the tempo. Either as a 6 or in a double pivot with Rice. I really don’t get the negativity around us signing him.
Merino is a squad player. We need strength and depth and have no issues with the money we paid for him.
Havertz has been an excellent signing. Maybe not as a left-8 as originally intended, but as a false 9 he has done well. He’ll give us depth upfront even when we sign a striker in the summer.
Xhaka may have improved under Arteta and had a good final season for us, but let’s not overlook the fact that Wenger should have used the money to buy N’Golo Kante instead!
Yeah I think it just doesn’t elevate our midfield and means another year at least with a very similar setup.
Won’t be awful but it will be like having a mobile Jorginho imo.
Took a season with the right manager.
Agreed and I don’t even think he’s on Jorgi’s level on the ball either
Maybe he surprises us lol
did you give Xhaka too much credit to be frank?
Yes, he had a great season, so does other players on that team.
We can say Xhaka and the team had a great chemistry that season and all performed on a very high level, TOGETHER.
Xhaka was part of a good team, but not the sole and main reason why we played good.
When everything ticks, everyone looks good.
Not disputing the overall point but is 30m that expensive nowadays for a versatile Spanish international at his peak?
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You can look at it that way or Arteta came in and got the best out of him in a system where he really flourished. He then signed for another club, winning major golden trophy.
We haven’t found effective player as Xhaka in that role - tried and tested many.
Arteta’s talent ID can be questioned too - especially in midfield area. It’s been poor. It will be interesting to see how effective Declan is under Tuchel (who also wanted him for Bayern) vs Under Arteta.
It is when that should’ve been used on a striker instead and he was signed to perform immediately 
I am looking at it that way. Xhaka had one excellent season for us, he took at least 3 seasons to justify his fee yet players like Merino and Rice are questioned when they have two seasons under their belts between them.
The claim that Arteta’s midfield signings haven’t been good is also utter toss. Jorginho cost peanuts and has been a reliable squad player with bags of invaluable experience.
Odegaard, yes having his worst season for us in terms of goals, performances and injuries, but £30m? What a waste of money.
Merino, missed pre-season, then asked to play up front. He’s not set the world on fire yet but he’s a solid, cheap signing in an area of the pitch that needs numbers as well as quality. We’d do well to remember how utterly out of his depth Xhaka looked in his first season with us.
Rice had a choice between us and Man City. He chose us and he has at times carried our team. We still don’t know where his best position is because he’s diligently playing a different role every week.
Havertz was a weird one but this happens in football. Turns out he was a good forward after all, perhaps not the no.9 I agree we desperately need but a disrupter who made room for our other attackers. A couple of months ago we were all hoping he stayed fit until May. Still our top scorer, not bad for a failure.
Now lets look at who we should have signed for our midfield over the last 3 seasons for the same outlay. Over to you…
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We have good midfield options and are defensively solid. When watching Arsenal, I’m rarely blown away by the midfield though. It is missing something but it’s hard to say what.
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3 seasons and nobody questioned rice. Read what I said, he’s not a 100m #8 and the point was about the way we’re continually shuffling and not playing players where they’re intended. I’ve mentioned many times I actually like rice at 8 but it looks completely uncoordinated to sign him then Kai in the same summer.
Spending 260m to have rice at 8, Zubi worse than Partey, Kai up front and merino on the bench. All while we haven’t signed a striker or wide player in the last couple of years.
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An expense we can’t afford when we sign Sterling as the only attacker in a summer window in which not even bare minimum was done
That window was absolute trash and the Jan one was malpractice
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This signing is in the bag. Absolutely nothing can go wrong. May the timeline be altered so that Bukayo Saka was out long term injured this season rather than leading us to gloriously overturn Liverpool’s lead as he has.
Now we are coming to the end of the season, the malpractice would have been to waste some of our summer transfer funds on a bang average player in January which limited what we can do in the summer. Until we know who we have bought in the summer, I’m still not sure we can judge.
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We very much can
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We could have loaned players, we didn’t have to make permanent signings
So nah, still malpractice
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But people think we’re better than we were before? Looks like a decline in quality year over year tbh.
I think our squad is better than it was previously but I don’t think the money has been spent as well as it could’ve been.
We’ve not really lost any quality from the 22/23 season barring Xhaka and we’ve added a bunch more pieces but we’ve not added the best pieces we possibly could’ve. Seems we’ve signed 3 players for the same LCM role at a cost of 200m+
We should’ve just gone for Rice for 100m ish as we did, then put at least 50m on a striker that same window. Now two years later we finally will.
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In terms of players yeah.
In terms of performance not yet.
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