Well, it’s not going to be a very positive article.
Latest news from the club is that we have let go 13 players, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Matt Smith among them the important ones.
Maitland-Niles has played 132 times for the club. He is 25 year old and is English. It was only a couple years back when Wolves were ready to pay 20m for him, but Edu and Co. rejected it. He spent his last season on loan and now leaving for free.
We bought Nicolas Pepe for a club record fee at that time, he scored few under Emery and Arteta and then faded away. He spent the season on loan to Nice where he scored 6 goals from his 19 games. It’s a decent stat from a winger but the rumours says we are going to terminate his contract this summer. He will leave us on free.
So, we either let go of our players for free, or in some cases, pay for them to leave. We paid Aubameyang to leave, he joined Barcelona who sold him to Chelsea for 15m+ Great Britain Pounds.
This was from the outgoing. Let’s talk about the important part – incomings.
We are in the market for midfielders. West Ham wants more than 100m for Rice. A player no one else want (or can afford). A player who is willing to join us over anyone else. A player who wants to stay in London and we are his best options. Yet, West Ham are lowballing us and we don’t have a way. We can’t force a way like Real Madrid is doing with PSG. We can’t convince a player to join us and have a fight for it (Mudryk, Rice, Caicedo). This is when we finished the season 2nd best and are going to compete for the title this season.
For Havertz, we are ready to spend 60m and put him on a 220k+/week wages. Although Pepe and Kai plays in different positions, there is not much difference between them. Both are lazy, both lack end products and both were bought for a very high fee from their club. Yet, we couldn’t sell Pepe 2 years back for a pack of cigarettes and are ready to buy Havertz for 60m. I understand Arteta prefers him but then he also preferred Runarsson but we didn’t pay such extra-ordinary money for him, right?
We don’t sell well, we don’t buy well.
The only relief is, we have managed to tie down the important players of our playing XI which finished 2nd in the league. Frankly, I’m tired of keeping a check on money we spend, but if we overpay for Rice and Havertz and we miss on Caicedo (or a CF), we would basically have to wait for another bag of money and another transfer window.
We want to see sensible signings like Trossard, and good sales like Iwobi. I’m not complaining about Rice, Caicedo and even Havertz because I’m so desperate to see us fixing that midfield. Xhaka will be gone, Partey can’t keep himself healthy for a match a week, and we have Champions League too this season. We can’t rely on stop gaps like Jorginho and Elneny, Vieira is not the answer against the Citys, Bayerns and Madrids of the world and Arteta didn’t really try to fix it from the academy. But if spending too much on one players costs us an upgrade in the other areas of the pitch, it would be frustrating. How many of us remember that we paid 50m for Ben White when we clearly needed a midfield upgrade and ultimately ran our of money to fix it?
We are in this mud because of our own. At least, the players in question will improve us massively (Caicedo, Rice), or at least match our performance (Xhaka=Havertz). Pay extra like we do, and hope they turn out to be as good as the sum we are spending.
What’s your take on it?
TRVL, don’t follow your ‘logical impetus’! I’m not arguing Partey has had it easy particularly but you turn everything into an Arteta attack. All I’m saying is that your ‘club-related commentaries’ might come across as more reasoned if you changed the record a little. Otherwise for someone like myself, your passionate dislike of Arteta is fairly repetitive and gets in the way of your other views.
One last thing and this might sound really patronising but honestly I don’t mean it to be but your sentences might benefit from being a lot shorter.
TRVL,
Sorry if I missed it, if Partey is leaving, are we going to see Rice + Caicedo and Lavia as a half measure whom we are going to develop? I don’t think Arteta will trust a 19-year old to play in Premier and Champions League, against the likes of City, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Champions League teams.
If that happens, I would take it.. But I am against letting Partey leave, not when we are going into a transition in the midfield.
Bob
Have you ever considered that its very easy to turn everything into an attack on Arteta because he’s shit at his job and lucky to still be in it?
Marc, that’s your view which puts you in the minority of Arsenal supporters. So when you repeatedly attack him, that’s all it is – a repeated attack. It’s easy to turn everything into an attack if you interpret everything through that lens.
I think your criticisms would carry much more weight if you acknowledged him in some way but as you just call him shit, your comments just come across as from someone who has an irrational dislike of someone and become just a diatribe.
We improved by all sorts of metrics but you just think he’s shit and none of the improvements were down to him.
Bob
There’s nothing to acknowledge – he did brilliantly to get in a position (after a few years of complete shit) to win the PL and then bottled it something he has form for.
The difference between us is I judge on “what did he do” and you judge on “he did better than before”.
I notice no mention from Bob about Arteta lucky to still be in the job?
Ambarish-I would gladly take Rice, Caicedo and Lavia, even if it meant Partey was removed for the equation, but we all know that will never happen…Lavia is the cheaper, far less polished Caicedo option, which is likely required if MA is going to pursue another overpriced luxury option like Havertz
Bob-sorry if my responses required you to dig up your old reading ruler, but when one is dealing with highly nuanced scenarios not everything can be reduced to the length of a casual text message…as to your previous response, you seem to actually agree with my Partey sentiments, which, like it or not, means that you too have questioned MA’s tactical approach in regards to this particular player…it’s likewise important to note that I made reference to the fact that Partey’s oft-times mixed reviews aren’t always down to the ineffectual nature of our present manager…just saying
New post.
btw Ambarish I’ve spoken about Partey’s likely exit since the day Jorginho was acquired, as there was no way we agreed to pay his sizeable wage, for an unreasonable term, if he wasn’t given going to be given some significant minutes moving forward…I would go so far as to suggest that one of the main reasons anyone would want to come here presently is the fact that MA has provided players with the kind of assurances they would find difficult to get elsewhere…oft-times when a club is a desired destination such assurances aren’t required and/or expected, but it’s likely imperative with our little project…it also carries considerable weight as MA’s known for his lack of rotation, so if he says your in his future starting 11 plans if would be difficult to not believe and/or be encouraged by the possible prospects of signing on