If we sell Xhaka though we are going to need at least two centre midfielders in the summer…for arguments sake if we did get Saul, who is the second one that you would opt for?
Partey, Saul, Willock, Elneny and Azeez would be my choices for the pivot.
Chambers can fill in there if need be too.
You see I would sell Willock and Xhaka to fund Saul…we will never get a better offer for Willock and I remain to be convinced that he can play in a 4-2-3-1 effectively. I don’t see him playing in the pivot and I don’t think he starts over Saka, Martinelli, Pepe, Buendia or ESR in the attacking forward three…
I can’t see us selling Willock now.
I assume we’ll be selling all of Xhaka, Torreira, Guendouzi and Maitland-Niles.
Willock has earned another opportunity. He can make an impact from the bench as well. Keep. Let him take Dani’s minutes.
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Isn’t Hakimi off to PSG?
Shame as I don’t think he will fit well in the system here and is value is as high as it’ll ever be at imo
I think he earned a preseason at the very least. Personally, I liked what I saw last season from him in the cup competitions and advocated for him to get a chance in the PL during that terrible run in November.
I expected him to have a good loan at Newcastle but the impact he made was astonishing.
I say give him a chance in preseason, see if he has actually improved and decide from there. Personally, I don’t mind having a goalscoring midfielder as an option.
Apparently PSG have agreed personal terms with him and they’re now negotiating with Inter who are asking for 60m.
We need a goalscoring midfielder absolutely, I just am of the belief we need one that can also contribute more with ball retention and combination play.
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We’d be an absolute fool not to sell Willock now, put in a buy back or some massive sell on fee that lets you decide your own fate should he keep up the impressive performances. I very much doubt we would ever want to activate them anyway to bring him back.
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And you have midfielders in exactly that mold like Aouar, Neuhaus, Ruiz, Locatelli who are rumored to be going for 25-35m.
Keeping Willock instead of selling him and using the money to buy one of those guys would be immensely stupid.
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Adam Hlozek
I mentioned it in the Odegaard thread but here is an example.
It really is crazy how low our fans set the bar.
I’ve seen countless permutations of Aarons, Bissouma and one of Odegaard/Buendia/Aouar branded as the perfect/dream window. 
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I do get it tbh, raising the bar only ends in disappointment/frustration here.
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This is what the board set out to do and that’s exactly what they’ve got.
This is the lowest expectation level from supporters most of us will have seen/
The board no full well that next season, anything in the top six will be seen as a success.
Then Arteta will be given a new contract and our spending will be the bare minimum to keep us hovering just above mid table.
As long as the supporters keep paying, while tolerating this nonsense, the board will keep delivering us mediocrity.
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West Brom supporters would have a more exciting wish list than Bissouma and Aarons and they’ve just been relegated.
I don’t know who “now.arsenal” is or who wrote it but it must be a spurs supporter on a wind up.
I think fans many just say “Aarons” because he is young and has been the subject of transfer speculation for a while. Also, there really aren’t a lot of premium RB targets that jump out right now, other than Hakimi, who we don’t have a prayer of signing. When they say Aarons they really mean “A new RB, I don’t really have a fucking clue who though.”
Assuming that we will sign two new CMs if Xhaka goes, I don’t have a problem if one of them is Bissouma as long as the other one has more goals and attacking intent in him.
I’d love Grealish to be the CAM target but Buendia/Odegaard seem more realistic.
Dream-but-not-totally-farfetched window for me is now like:
-Buendia/Odegaard (35m)
-Bissouma (30m)
-Aouar/Locatelli/Ruiz/Neuhaus (30m)
-Tapsoba (45m)
-A new RB (20m)
Plus, fucking off a ton of players and wasters to generate like 120m in sales and end up with a net spend in the 40-50m range.
Obviously it won’t happen like this.
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That would be a very good haul, but all the while Arteta is here, it is a total waste of time…
Grealish would be at the top of my list but I’m surprised we haven’t been linked with St-Maxime from Newcastle and if we’re after a CB, why hasn’t Arteta gone for Laporte?
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Why would Laporte want to join this disaster class of a club lol. Be realistic