What does Eze do that excites anyone? I really don’t get it.
Olise was the one.
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We need a man to beat the defender/fullback, and can Nico do it?
Yes, he can, and can do it good. His high can be high as we saw him in the Euro.
We are not talking about 100m here. His release clause is like 50/60m?
This is the investment Arsenal usually would look into… the resale value.
Isak had at least one impressive season with 17 goals in 34 at age 20, the following season was disappointing with made people question on whether he could replicate that performance.
With Williams we are talking about a decent fee for someone who doesn’t have really impressive numbers or underlying numbers and who’s total output isn’t much better than Martinelli.
Isn’t Williams on 200k a week at Bilbao?
And rumoured to want around 300k, wages that would put him in line with the top earners at Arsenal. So this would be a £100m transfer.
Not trying to be a prick here, but do we need our winger to be able to go past a full back or do we need them to be a match winner. The obvious answer is both, but I just want proven quality on the wing.
Williams is a good dribbler, but at a release fee and a big salary, he doesn’t stand out at all for me. If he did come here and do well, Barca would try and lowball us for him and pay in installments. Harsh, but you could say he’d be an expensive risk.
I do agree that another ball carrier would be a necessary weapon for us to have, but Williams isn’t scaring anybody.
Williams notched 5 goals and 14 assists in 31 appearances (2,282 mins) in 23/24, which is the same G+A total as Isak’s 17 goals and 2 assists in 34 appearances (2,356 mins)
Output wise, it’s equally impressive on the surface.
But I don’t want to get into a debate about who had a more impressive season there as I watched precisely zero of those 4.5k minutes of action they both racked up lol.
Even if it is not a perfect comparison between the two players, which I didn’t mean to present it as, I think the broad points made in my post stand.
Plenty of gooners would have been expressing concerns about splashing 60m on Isak based on how he’d performed statistically in the season that had just passed. If I could be arsed, I’d bet I could actually find people literally saying that about Isak a few years ago on here lol. Yet now we desperately want him and would likely have to pay at least double what Newcastle did a few years ago to get him.
I have no idea if Williams will be a success if we sign him, but I do think that we should pause before dismissing the idea of doing so simply based on his numbers this season.
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Assists are the original bullshit stat, don’t you know. ;).
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The comparison between Isak and Williams is not the same. When we’re linked to Isak, we were trying to get back into the Champions League and had Lacazette and Nketiah as options. Doubt many would have been anti Isak as part of a rebuild. Hell, Sesko is comparable in many ways and is being linked to is after the rebuild. Ditto with player like Williams 3,summers ago.
We are a team aiming for league and Champions League glory now.
That said, I didn’t want Marmoush but he’d be super useful to have available right now!
Looking at posts around January and February of 2022, people were turning their noses up at Isak because of his poor output, and a post saying Arsenal didn’t trigger his release clause because they felt it was above market value got 10 likes. So I think it is the case that people had reservations about spending big money on him due in part to his output.
Granted, that was apparently more like 90m release clause, not the 60m people seem to be saying for Williams, so it was more money. Like I said, it was never intended as a perfect comparison. But even as part of a rebuild, not as title challengers as we are now, there were reservations about spending big on Isak back then.
The issue with Williams is that the Euros gave people a false image of him. That was a glimpse of what he could become in a unique sample size of 7 games in a much different setting than Bilbao.
For what is worth, if the rumours are true about his massive wage demands then I get why teams are turned off by it. While I do believe he’s got huge potential, he’s still a fairly raw player.
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It was not a false image, just the sample size was small.
He showed the world what he can do and showed his potentials.
This kid has a high ceiling.
Well, it is false because every fan whose team was looking at a forward thought he’s the saviour they needed.
He’s not that guy yet, and there’s no guarantees he’ll become that.
no one said guarantee… even Isak is not a guarantee.
nobody can guarantee anything.
I just see him as an upgrade of Martinelli, that’s it.
The cost of a squad player for title chasing EPL team these days is roughly £40-£60m if we can get Williams in for a little more than that I’ll be happy. He’ll be better than Nelson or Sterling coming off the bench to give Saka, Nwaneri and Martinelli a rest and I fear Trossard is in decline.
But time waits for no-one and there are probably smarter, cheaper options out there.
The problem is though is we do not need more squad players. All of our forwards bar Saka are probably good squad does now for one reason or another.
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Yeah, imho Havertz, Trossard and Martinelli should be the new squad players.
We need 2 brand new, starting-ballers who come into this side and take us to the next level.
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Like?
We’ll always need back-ups, but I prefer buying young to get ahead of the competition. Lets see how Martinelli looks when he returns, he’s still my first choice on the LW despite his dip in form this season.
I’d suggest some cover on the RW too but I guess if Ethan gets an injury Saka’s pretty good on that side.
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