I’m with the minority here, I genuinely cannot believe how aggy we are getting over this.
Gnabry may have potential yes, but he’s being very overrated here. He’s literally yet to do anything of note in his entire career apart from a goal against Swansea. You can’t say he’s better than the Ox or Theo till he proves otherwise.
Remember how Fran Merida was supposed to be the next Cesc. Got too excited and flopped incredibly at Atletico. Literally have to google where he is now.
Hleb had some of the best close control I’ve ever witnessed on a football pitch, the ball would stick to his feet like glue. And his first touch was absolutely sublime. King of the pre-assist before that became a thing.
I’d rank him as one of the most technically gifted footballers that Wenger has ever had.
It gets glossed over because of the manner of his departure and the way his career tanked afterwards, but Hleb is right up there with the most technically gifted players in a Wenger team.
I think you can justifiably criticise Wenger for a poor choice of loan move, and also of course Pubis for not playing him. Then again, both men are in the results business and Gnabry wasn’t a gamble either was prepared to take.
I think the dismay is going a little overboard here, the Olympics thing was a good sign but it’s not set in stone he would’ve replicated that back here. Also I’ve never seen him as a Wengerboy.
Pretty inevitable that Gnabry and Campbell are being moved on: limited opportunities for them and they can’t be wasting their careers any longer. Have they been blocked by inferior talents in Walcott and Chamberlain? Very much so in the case of Walcott, i seem to rate Chamberlain a bit higher than a lot of you, I think he has plenty of time to come good.
Ultimately Iwobi and Reine-Adelaide are the next Gnabry/Campbell in the queue, so we reset and start over again.
I’m not saying my preferred move wouldn’t be to bin off Walcott with immediate effect and promoted one of the aforementioned two, it’s just Wenger’s never going to make that move realistically, so Gnabry/Campbell leaving is just an inevitable conclusion I can just accept pretty easily. Certainly don’t really see how it leaves us short of cover. Perez can play wide too btw
Shit like that is against the integrity of the game in my opinion. The Morata deal comes to mind.
I don’t like seeing promising players handcuffed to bigger clubs. Gnabry should be the master of his own destiny and if he’s good enough that any club should need to spend 80 million to buy him back then so be it.
I always refer back to that 2006 CL Final, as that’s the moment I became a fan of Arsenal. The way Hleb was bossing Barcelona in that match has a lot to do with why I’m an Arsenal fan today.
I don’t think buy back clauses really do handcuff promising players to big clubs. If the big club decide to activate a buy back clause the player always has the option to reject the move back. A buy back clause only places an obligation on the club to sell at a certain price, the player isn’t obliged to go anywhere.
I’m suspecting who behind Bremen there are Bayern Munich. The first will buy Serge but will sell to them next year because probably Arsène refused to sell them the player.