Pepe is a natural talent and has bags of potential. We’ve got a shit team that tries to play a style of football not suited to our players especially our forwards. If Pepe were playing for Liverpool guy would be hitting the numbers we all expected of him. As it stands we’re not going to get fuck all from him or any of our other top players.
If Arteta wants to play a pressing game he should try and emulate Klopp and not Guardiola, we neither have the technical ability in midfield or the type of forwards who can build up slowly but we do have 3 of the fastest attackers in Pepe, Auba and Nketiah and should really be looking to take advantage of their pace. Can’t even count the number of times every game, where one of the three is clearly open with bags of space to run on to and they never get the ball played to them.
Laca was hot property at the period we signed him. There was also a massive lack of available strikers at the time. We tried to sign Vardy and that fell through. Laca was the only real option at the time.
I was never keen on Laca. But like you said, there wasn’t much in the market at the time. We weren’t in a position to try an go after and almost impossible deal.
His relationship with the club had broken down before summer 2017 and he was looking for a move.
We could have unsettled him further with a major bid that summer, Wenger lacked the imagination and aggressiveness to force a deal until the season went tits up and he got desperate to save his skin
You’re right, there wasn’t much on the market in that window, but we had several windows before that were we could have had a decent striker but stuck with Giroud.
Like most of our transfer dealings and the way the club is run.
I’d say no. Leicester were inspired that season. We beat Leicester in Feb only to go to Old Tartford and lose to a bunch of kids (their worst side in years) 3-2.
There seemed to be that mental fragility about us all the time. Auba wouldn’t have made much difference (He’s not a good “pressure” player)
Tough to tell, but just brining in a player of Auba’s quality could’ve lifted the squad. Sure we needed a MF, but Auba’s pace and quality could’ve been just what we needed.
I think we would have.
Giroud wasted too many chances and Aubameyang, playing in front of Ozil and Sanchez, who were in form then, would have scored a lot of the chances we missed.
It would have also meant that Giroud could have been used as an impact striker, which he is pretty good at.
Aubameyang is a top striker and was at his peak then so could have turned draws into wins and would have inspired the players around him.
Having Giroud upfront often had the opposite effect, especially for our midfielders, who’s chances he regularly wasted.
We have had so many seasons thrown away for the sake of just one or two top signings.
