He spent 80m on a young GK and CB and 35m on Odegaard from Real Madrid, so they should be at least competent.
He hasn’t plucked them out of the youth team and turned them from obscure unknown youth players into first team players, these were already PL experienced and what about Lokonga and Tavares?
Arteta has done nothing more than any decent manager could have done with the same spending.
Steve Cooper could have done more with our squad than Arteta.
Good to see you’ve come to your senses 
Arteta hasn’t tangibly improved a single player in my opinion. Xhaka is the same Xhaka he’s always been. Saka and Martinelli were arguably utilised better by Emery: Arteta started the foolishness of Saka at LB before burning him out.
Rodgers is far more likely to get the best out of Tielemanns than the dictator.
Odegaard’s best form was at Sociedad.
That’s not to say players haven’t done well here under the dictator, but I’m still waiting to see proof that players don’t improve more by movinh away from Biden. Auba, Saliba, Guendouzi, Bellerin, Nelson and Torreria (harsh) all reached their highest level in years away from cone boy. Even Willock looks useful away from him.
Save yourself Youri.
Arsenal are taking their time in choosing the new midfielder.
Ruben Neves and Arthur Melo have been two names on the list for some time, two very popular players in the club; the priority as of now goes to Youri Tielemans
Arsenal has already started contacts with the player’s camp for weeks and Tielemans is considered an opportunity on the market because he will not sign a new contract with Leicester City. There are two other clubs in contact with his agent, but next week it can be important to really understand if Arsenal is willing to bid for Tielemans or change their strategy. The request is around €35/40m
Tielemanns is a good player, like a really good play. For some reason, I struggle to see him being a success here.
I’m still not completely sure at which type of midfielder he is. A lazy comparison may be Manu Petit, but Tielemans is nowhere near as tenacious and that was a key part of Manu’ game. Tielemans has a good passing range, but he’s no Cesc or Santi. He is tall and robust but no PV or Gilberto.
I feel that we need a specialist rather than a good all rounder. For example, I know exactly what Ndidi and Maddison do in that Leicester midfield, but am not as sure with Tielemans.
Partey, Tielemans, Xhaka, El Nenny, Lokonga still doesn’t tell me that our cm positions can compete.
Where do you put Odegaard? He can also play there.
You do not think this a good midfield?
Tielemans-Partey-Odegaard
I consider Odegaard more as part of our attack to be honest even though he plays in the 3. Maybe signing more CMs allows us to play without Odegaard more often?
Partey, Tielemans and Odegaard represent 3 very good footballers, but I can’t help envisioning Partey being asked to play deeper than what we should be asking him to and Tielemans and Odegaard playing nice stuff but forcing a llt of pressure on Partey.
A bit rich considering I’m an advocate of Aouar, but he is a bit more mobile and much better on the ball.
I think Arteta’s tactical vision is ultimately very similar to Pep’s City. Whether he is just a Pep coypcat or whether he actually helped shape that City team tactically behind the scenes to some degree isn’t clear to me. But it seems like he wants us to play 4-3-3 with a 6 that can basically hold the center of midfield by himself (Partey/Rodri) and two very technical attack oriented 8s pushing relatively high and playing between the lines (KDB/Silva/Odegaard/Tielemans?), then in possession the two fullbacks usually form a line with the 6 so its 2-3-2-3 with one of those fullbacks being pretty defensive (Walker/Tomiyasu) and the other being more involved in the attack (Cancelo/Zinchenko/Tierney/Zinchenko?).
We can debate how far the dime store version of those tactics will get us. But Tielemans makes sense to me if that is the vision. As does Zinchenko.
Isn’t that what he was doing already with Xhaka and Odegaard in front of him?
Hence my issue. I don’t think we need a better version of Xhaka, but a different style of player. Zinchenko, Aouar, Sanches, Neves, Bissouma are all attainable targets. None are definitely better than Tielemans, but all of them excel at something.
He spoke about the 4-3-3 in multiple pressers/interviews before, like it was the end goal and that we don’t have the players to use it.
He tried it last season for certain parts of games but it didn’t quite click with ESR-Partey-Odegaard(West Ham and Villarreal). It kinda worked with Ceballos-Partey-Saka but it was against Sheffield United.
He tried it more this season with ESR-Partey-Odegaard or Lokonga-Partey-Odegaard, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t great either though.
And funnily enough, it finally clicked with Xhaka-Partey-Odegaard.
I agree with you, but if we look at Cities no.8 you’re looking at KDB, Foden or Silva - forget ability level, stylistically Tielemans is nothing like them. Nor is Xhaka.
A Zinchenko, Aouar or even Lemar make far more sense if we are trying to replicate City. I’m not against Partey playing in front of the defence, but I feel it takes away his biggest attribute.
Dunno, Tielemans always screamed City to me.
(And for what is worth, I never really liked him because of his flaws)
I don’t think we have a big enough sample size to say it worked with Partey, Xhaka and Ode, particularly against the better teams.
It worked for 60 minutes vs City and they all started vs Spurs at home right? It’s definitely our best 3, but whilst functional doesn’t replicate the high possession football of City at all.
I hear you. He screams more United or Chelsea to me.
He’s a good player. It depends on how much we or even more importantly Arteta wants a Xhaka type in there.
I think this is the question. Its clear that Xhaka isn’t the right profile for that 4-3-3 setup. But what do you actually want on the other side? Is it it a player like Tielemans that is very technical and creative but not much of a tackler and without much of a physical presence (ie, similar to Odegaard)? Or do you want somebody who contributes a bit less creatively but is still good with the ball and has a bigger engine and more ability to fight in midfield (ie, Sanches if he wasn’t a sick note)?
My gut feeling says the latter (not Sanches specifically but that kind of player) but it feels like Arteta is targeting the former.
It would have to be a specialist for me. I’d take a player with a great engine i.e. Sanches or Sabitzer. I’d be happy with a midfield shield like Bissouma or a technical ball player like Zinchenko, Lemar or Aouar.
Tielemans is great at Leicester because they have specialists. We have Partey who is still yet to fully find his place or form and a playmaker who plays between the lines.
£25m seems a good deal, but it’s John Crust so who knows.
John Cross is one of the worst journalists out there. Maybe it’s just his writing style but it’s so bad.
I remember feeling super smug when someone tweeted that the club were deliberately feeding him false information. Who know if it’s true, but I’d like it to be true.