There was always a sense that Arsenal is outside the Top 4 as a temporary lapse rather than a permanency, because other clubs like Chelsea, United etc have always bounced back into Top 4.
We have now firmly established ourselves in a long transition period where any semblance of CL football will take minimum of two seasons.
We can still get players but at an inflated cost with tons of exit clauses embedded which will hamper us financially in an already hampered finances.
I am afraid we are in a very sticky position now with incompetent bunch of executives in charge to create some genius.
I think the difference is we were signing these kinds of players (throw Auba in there too) with the idea that we were still in touching distance of the CL and just needed the extra boost that players like this would give to get us back there. People were even tipping us for top 4 shout last year with our new found winning mentality and a manager who could win in big games. Nobody is going to be tipping us for that this time around.
Right now we’re not on the cusp of being a CL team and there’s no reason to believe in this club other than on past reputation which is getting further and further away.
We may have got Partey last year, but all he really showed was that joining Arsenal is a mistake.
I agree, I don’t know what Arteta does that puts good players off but he either falls out with them or turns them into average players.
Partey and Gabriel looked decent when they first arrived but as soon as Arteta got his hands on them they lost form.
Being mid table is bad enough but watching boring, predictable football, while ruining talented players careers, is something else.
How is he going to attract any top level player here?
Any potential player who we’re after is going avoid coming here after seeing so many players lose form under Arteta.
It’s very hard to see even if we have a decent season next season and make a couple of good additions as to how we’ll come above either Manchester, a better Liverpool and Chelsea next season.
Well, it looks like there’s an actual fire sale going on at the club so I’m sure it got some thinking of how many players we will sell and how much we can make out of them.
Gonna put some names from the senior team here that could potentially leave.
I will list if I would keep/sell/loan. You can put a potential fee for them if you want.
You can use the list as a template to post yours.
GKs:
Leno : Sell : 25m
Runarsson : Loan
Defenders:
Bellerin : Sell : 15m
Holding : Keep
Mari : Sell : 10m
Chambers : Keep
Cedric : Sell : 5m
Saliba : Keep
Mavropanos : Sell : 10m
Kolasinac : Sell : 5m
Midfielders:
Elneny : Keep
Xhaka : Sell : 20m
Guendouzi : Sell : 15m
Torreira : Sell : 10m
Maitland-Niles : Sell : 15m
Willock : Keep
Forwards:
Lacazette : Sell : 10m
Pepe : Keep
Willian : Sell : Free
Nketiah : Sell : 10m
Nelson : Loan
=> 150m made in sales.
Doubt I’ve seen a club sell in such volume and make such profit before but who knows. Maybe we’ll pull it off.
I agree with most of those but if we’re getting a quality replacement for Bellerin, I would keep Cedric because Chambers is better as cover for CB but is still useful for RB as well.
I would sell Holding, Mari and Mavro because we have enough average CB’s and we need quality rather than quality.
If we’re only getting 10m for Lacazette, it might be worth keeping hold of him for this season and then getting a decent striker when he leaves.
I would definitely keep Leno, if he wants to stay, and sell Runarsesen.
There’s 21 players there average as fuck. You don’t have to be pro Arteta to see it’s woeful and fanciful thinking the depths was there for top 4 this season.
Yeah the first 14 games were fucked up. No I don’t buy every aspect of the Christmas form either.
It’s undeniable looking at this lot and yeah some are on loan that we have or had a chance with this shower.
We won’t get a transfer fee for Kola, just a free and the relief of his wages cleared. Also think Mari and Cedric are staying cause of the long term deals they signed fairly recently.
I’d sell Willock whilst his value his high, and AMN too unless he wanted to give RB another go. Torreira is 99% gone surely.
I’d rather keep Guen and sort the differences out than sell him for a shitty fee tbh, he still has talent but obviously his attitude is shitty; it’s also the reason we were able to get him cheaply in the first place, now it’s backfiring against us.
Xhaka stays unless we get north of 20m and have a good replacement lined up.
It really does. Which is why taking a risk on a couple of gems won’t cut it.
I was watching this before the final, coincidentally they did a similar thing to what I did and it can really depress you about the state of this club,
Really, a window of Aarons, Bissouma, Buendia and Edouard won’t cut it.
Maybe Buendia has a masterclass of a season, but will that be enough?
Precisely why we need ready made world-class signings at RB, RCB and CM, or at least in 2 of those positions.
You see, the difference between Arsenal and the other teams above us is that they’re signing players to push them on to win the league or Champions league.
We’re signing players and hope we somehow make it back to the Champions League.
I don’t have a huge amount of faith in Edu/Arteta to sign the right players but at the very least they recognize that the squad is full of mediocrity and seem intent on trying to turn it over.
I wanted us to make the Europe last week but I’m now coming around to the idea that a year out will be a good thing. Cull the crap from the squad as much as possible, try to bring in a few quality additions that you can add to the core, and just focus on the league with a trimmed down squad.
I think we are being a bit bleak here, not that we don’t have a right to be after the season of utter dog shite we’ve seen. However if we are being impartial our squad isn’t that bad, with a few good additions and some depth we could easily finish in the top six and with some luck maybe displace one of the current top 4. We just need Arteta to go back to how he we was when he first arrived and drop the anti football crap. There is more than enough talent in our squad to beat the majority of teams in the league and outside of city beat the top 3 (which we have managed to do).
I’m going to be positive and just hope we make a few good additions to the squad, move on some of the crap and start how we intended to at the end of our FA cup final victory last year.
I just don’t see things as binary as that anymore, competition at the top is high so teams placing will be fluid and margins will be tight. There’s no real dead certs for top 4 anymore
Only team I fear H2H is City, beyond that we can compete with anybody home or away even more so if we can get quality in this summer.
For starters we need top 4 and looking at it from that angle, its looking difficult. Banking on Chelsea and Liverpool having bad seasons again is a hard sell, never mind we couldn’t capitalise on it this season anyway. United is stable even if their not high performers. Leicester will be thereabouts.
Top 6 is such a non-achievement that still gets us nowhere. I can easily see us placing 6th or 5th…but then it’s…so what?
