Well, West Ham’s Conference League quest is over, they won a trophy after 58 years. And I’m pretty sure Daniel Levy would have got David Moyes at Spu*s if they already haven’t appointed a manager. Talk about the best club in north London, eh?
Anyways, talk of the town is, Arsenal have the bid ready for Declan Rice. West Ham chairman Sullivan confirmed Rice will leave them as part of a gentlemen’s agreement. Rice is pretty insistent on leaving, rejecting their 200k/week wages 18 months back. Player want to leave, club do not want to hold him ransom and there’s a club in the same city offering good money and wages. Mostly, it gets done. Sometimes, Mudryk happens.
What does it mean to us?
First, we need a better midfield. We are going to play in Champions League and except Partey, no one else’s absence would make any significance difference. Rice is an automatic starter if he joins us. With two competitions, ideally we need a Partey back up (Caicedo?), and a Xhaka’s replacement (Rice? if he can play the advanced no. 8 role). We would have Jorginho in the mix to rest any of these three. We need to forget about Elneny and Lokonga.
At the very least, we need these 2 additions. I don’t mind if we get one of these and a cheaper option. Mind you, we got Partey in 45million.
Second, Fabrizio reports that Xhaka’s move to Leverkusen is apparently done and is waiting for Arsenal to bring in a midfielder. Who deputises him? Vieira? I don’t see him doing what Xhaka does and trust me, I’m not really a fan of Xhaka. Lokonga will be back from loan but I doubt he will make it at Arsenal anymore. He had bad games, went on loan, didn’t really impress anyone and now coming back in a team which is much better and competitive than he left. Patino and Azeez? Arteta doesn’t really believe in grooming youngsters so let’s leave it at that.
Third, with over 80m pounds each for 2 players, our chances of getting a goal-scoring poacher at CF will be gone. I would keep Balogun to compete with Eddie and Jesus and pick the best of the 3 for the 2 competitions we are in. Both Trossard and Martinelli can play up top so it’s not really a burning problem as of now.
And at last, bringing Rice and/or Caicedo puts us in the same bracket for which we have been criticizing others. We are buying players for 100m pounds, offering 21 years old salaries in the range of 200k-300k/week. Only thing that differentiates us, will be the 115 charges not put on us. It’s a change that’s against the Arsene Wenger’s principles but we haven’t really won much on those principles lately, have we? I’m taking the bitter pill and ignoring the money we are spending, if it means we win something. Let the Brightonians and Dortmund do the grooming part and we concentrate on winning.
Bonus – this should be a result oriented season. No nonsense of not defining the targets, no crying about money and players, no complaints about who didn’t water their ground. Arteta is in his 4th full season, and coming up short by 8 points won’t going to be a valid excuse. Pochettino was a great manager at Spu*s but he won fuck all and lost in a Champions League final. He was sacked.
If I was Stan, I will give the bag of money and hope Edu and Arteta returns it back with a trophy in it.
Marc
It was just an example, may be a wrong one in current scenario but this ESR non-sense is just a sensationalize news.
ESR is not going anywhere, not for 35m.
Selling Partey would have been a better example.
Ambarish-first and foremost, Partey wouldn’t have fit this particular script…I get that many people, like myself, were talking about the possibility of ESR leaving in this window, so it could been viewed as easy fodder for clickbait “journalists”…I likewise get that our club and it’s manager appeared to suggest that this wasn’t on the table, but maybe just maybe they’ve learned from their past mistakes, in that they’ve hurt players’ market values by airing their dirty laundry or future plans in the public sphere…this would make total sense with ESR as his value has clearly taken a hit due to his glaring lack of minutes and/or production, so it would be in their best interests to dispute any such notion…just saying
Morning all
Every year I say I won’t let the transfer window bullshit wind me up and every year I get wound up by it.
If its going to happen the Rice deal should now be able to happen quite quickly, we start screwing about and letting it drag on and we all know what that means for our summer.
Marc
Amen to that.
Saliba clearly sees a great future at Arsenal! Wonderful news, now get Caceido and Rice in and let the fun begin.
It’ll be intimidating in the tunnel lining up against us, just like the ‘good old days’ with Vieira et al!
Bob,
I am celebrating that with new post 😉