I've said it in another thread before, but this window all our signings were top notch and we made the right decisions over different choices.
Odegaard > Maddison/Buendia/Bissouma (though Maddison is still class)
Tomi > Emerson
Ramsdale > Onana
Then Tavares who was signed as backup has managed to keep KT out of the side for a few weeks, and Sambi clearly has good upside.
All these signings in 1 window alone is enough for me to fully trust Arteta with his transfer targets
Not an arsenal fan but was just passing by onh this sub. I love what arteta is doing, and although Vlahovic has insane stats, he could just not turn out to be good because Serie A players often tend to not impress as much outside italy. That said, even if you guys do buy him. He will be an upgrade on Nketiah and auba.
You guys definitely lose money, but its not too terrible. A formidable no. 9 is all thats needed with a better Xhaka replacement.
Also, Do you all want xhaka gone too? Because as a pool fan i wanted to watch city drop points and xhaka got a red again.. he seems to do this every major game. And he is a senior player as well. Makes me wanna slap him to knock some sense into him haha
> Do you all want xhaka gone too
We want him replaced, but he's still better than Elneny, AMN, Lokonga in that midfield role so we don't want him gone RIGHT NOW.
Who is this āWeā and where can I find him so I can kick him in the shins.
I never want to see him play for us again. He brings me no joy. Just pain. Hurtful pain.
Yea Iād rather watch Patino make rookie mistakes cause heās young that cost us pointsā¦.. than watch xhaka make rookie mistakes cause heās xhaka that cost us points.
Yes but at least we know thereās a chance he will grow and cut out the errors.
With xhaka itās the opposite, the unforced errors are guaranteed to come, itās just a matter of waiting till the next huge game so he can leave us with another 10v11 game or donate a free penalty because heās xhaka and thatās what he does
He's a very good player with some pretty unfortunate weaknesses athletically.
I used to hate him but I think he has been decent and he seems to be a player that despite his big mistakes strengthens the team around him when he's there.
But when you start having these big mistakes this frequently questions are going to be rightfully asked.
We need a replacement, but I don't agree with the fan narrative of getting rid, for both him and lacazette. I think they are fantastic backup/squad players for any team and if we can keep them to the end of there top flight careers as depth players we would be foolish not to.
Thats a fair assessment. Also lacazatee? I thought he has been playing really well recently. Not a goal machine but he is the focal point of your press up the field currently
Yeah the common sentiment is we shouldn't renew because we have a history of poor final contracts for players, but this is a completely situation for a player we would want as a squad player not on mega money.
He's been a very good player across his career for us and is a top professional with a great attitude. I think characters like his and Xhakas will benefit the team by having them around.
I've wanted him gone for years. He's not good enough to be a starter for a cl team in England. Maybe a bench option, but he doesn't provide dynamism to turn a game around offensively. I feel we're a bit screwed in that regard, because partey is the only other player who starts that's over 25 so we need an experienced player in the side who knows the team and can keep us calm.
Hardly ridiculous. This season he has 17 goals (just one penalty) from 15 appearances in Bundesliga - better than Haaland and only bettered by Lewandowski.
We've seen plenty of players do that for one season then disappear into mediocrity. I'm not saying Vlahovic is the answer or is better, but he has been more consistent over a sustained period of time
If either of you are patrons of the Arsenal Vision Podcast, they did a scouting video that showed very clearly how Vlahovic's link up is exactly what we want Laca to do, but better, because he's able to turn around and bust into the box to get on the end of moves.
All of these strikers score loads of goals, but so much of that is down to how the team plays. Vlahovic looks like how *he* plays is the perfect fit for us. The goals will come if the player's style fits the team's style.
Bundesliga is very risky though. It's such an attacking league with most teams playing high lines. We've seen a lot of prolific bundi players struggle in the prem in recent years.
We used to be good at selling players (yea im being ironic here), but over the last few years he got pretty bad at it, like letting Ramsey go for free.
It would be an easy decision to have extended Ramsey, but he hasn't been great for Juve and he would have been on a big wage on a long contract. It might have worked out, but also a good chance it wouldn't have.
I think a large part of that was because many of us thought Odegaard was simply unobtainable. So we had started looking elsewhere. Then Edu worked his magic and BAM, Martin was a permanent gunner.
To be fair, I still rate Maddison more than Odegaard (I know it's unpopular but fuck it). But he's a bit more injury prone and costs a fuck ton more and Odegaard is definitely the better deal for us.
English tax is the real cultrpint here, and Maddision hasnt featured much in the English national team too. If it's a 70m price tag, id atleast expect him to feature as a regular too in the NT.
Pepe was also 70m, but he already got caps or the national team too.
Absolutely.
Just remember how everyone wanks off Liverpools transfers but they paid Ā£35m for Mane, Ā£30m for Salah and inbetween paid Ā£32m for Ox. One of these is not like the other and that's even accounting for the extra 'premier league ready' they added on to Mane.
English tax is the culprit, but England is not the same as Ivory Coast. And England haven't played with an #10 or #8 in 3 4 years I suppose. Playing with Kane means that he drops deeper and enables the pacy wingers or wing backs. Maddison really hasn't had much of a sniff with all this and his recent injury issues.
Not sure NT has much to do with it tbh, different systems/chemistry etc can keep players out of the national team for a long time. Pepe doesnāt start for ic either
Maddison is arguably better now, but not significantly, on pretty much every metric Odegaard seems the better deal. Maddison would probably have cost twice as much, for fee and wages and his temperament, professionalism and injury record look to be problematic. Odegaard seems professional, hard working, humble and a leader.
Odegaard is also two years younger, I can imagine Odegaard improving a lot. I'm not sure Maddison will improve much more.
Sambi has been very meh for me so far, we'll see how he develops but I wouldn't call it successful yet but given the relatively low transfer tag it may be a worthwhile investment
Totally agree with the rest though, class, the whole lot of em
Sambi too many mental lapses for me, but one thing I like is how comfortable he looks passing with both feet and under pressure, which is definitely a useful quality for central midfield.
I was extremely low on Tavares during pre-season. I felt like he was simply a great athlete with weak footballing skills, but his stint at LB this season shut me the fuck up very quickly.
Sambi just sometimes lack urgency. He's never going to be an energizer bunny type of player. But he needs to up his urgency and hustle just a bit, while retaining the rest of his calm.
Tbf to him, I thought Sambi was quietly excellent against Liverpool. He was literally the only midfielder on the pitch, and he managed to prevent us from getting overrun.
1 window cannot be enough to undo some of the tragedies we've had. I'd rather wait and see if Arteta is consistent in finding good signings before getting that happy about it.
Tomiyasu exceeded expectations at arsenal but tbf he wasnt some random bum in serie A like most people in this sub thought at the time
Most fans of the league rated him highly and thought he could do better, some of my friends were even happy for him because he seemed to work really hard at bologne and deserved a top club
"The transfers of Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale in the summer were both pushed over the line despite their premium fees, in large part on Artetaās insistence."
https://twitter.com/ltarsenal/status/1482265931443478528?t=WJF8NQLEWogHEMzK7s6f9w&s=19
Tottenhamās recruitment has been absolutely dire in the last few years. Replacing aurier with Emerson, then potentially Emerson with Adama Traore indicates their drift.
Ndombele, Royal, Bergwijn, Moura, Lo Celso, Sessegnon, Doherty, Sanchez etc. They've all pretty much been somewhere on the scale of underwhelming to disaster IMO.
I'd say HĆøjbjerg has been there only really good signing in recent years.
Well it's too early to say about Romero, same with Reguilon too. They've had loads of really bad ones in the last five / six years and some of those been moved on since.
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Yeouchā¦ this article lowkey rips into Tottenham haha glad we went with Tomi rather than making a Royal mistake
āā¦this is perhaps the sharpest point of contrast between the north London rivals. Increasingly, it is Arsenal who are prepared to take the hard choices; Tottenham the club addicted to shock treatments, knee-jerk reactions and short-term fixes.ā
tbf we're extremely desperate for a midfielder. it could still be an edu special (as i too suspect) but arteta only signed off on it cus we're in such dire need of literally anyone
And he said yes to Willian. First time manager. He's living and learning.
If ppl are saying signing a 31 yo winger on a 3 yr way past sale by date was good signing you are just having a fucking laugh for no reason
And we're no where closer to selling Pepe. Why would we get a player who played for Chelsea the previous season only because they couldn't sign new players. If I remember, he wasn't even that good. Moreover, I'd not have had too much of an issue if he were just a backup. As shit as Pepe is, I'd have preferred to have gotten our money's worth from him rather than start Willian for 3 months.
With Willian my problem isn't the transfer itself but the fact Arteta kept playing him after so many terrible performances when he had eager youngsters on the bench
Because you don't perma bench a highly paid senior player that could still turn it around. The odds of our youth players turning out so good and ready for PL level first team action were actually very slim compared to a veteran hitting good form.
Arteta backs players when they are going through bad patches. He gave Auba a lot more chances than Willian.
>Arteta backs players when they are going through bad patches
*Pepe has left the chat*
Seriously though, Arteta backs
*his favourites* when they are going through rough patches. Pepe barely got half the chances Willian and Auba got but at least he makes things happen in his worst spells. Every single time he'd hit form he'd be yanked out of the team.
>How many times did he play and not impact the match?
A lot less than Willian. Pepe got 15 more goals and but two assists less, but was dropped instead.
Dude Willian only played 37 times in the same period Pepe played 47. Doesn't sound like Pepe was backed less.
Also, Willian is a proven EPL player and there was always the hope that he could turn it around. He didn't, and that episode is over, but we can see the logic behind the decision making.
I still believe Willian was an intelligent decision in terms of the development of our young players and club culture.
The team was at its lowest point then, Arteta was at the foot of the mountain looking up.
He needed an experienced/relatively reliable player that he could use to rotate/compete/as an example to the young squad.
I fully believe the intention was having someone who could take the heat during our worst period to avoid risking the relationship between the younger players (ESR, Saka and Pepe) and fans as they developed.
Do I think David Luiz was a good stopgap? Yea, because he brought a mentality and dressing room personality that was beneficial for the youth. Do I think Willian was viewed exactly the same, and was very cheap? Easy stopgap no?
As well as also having someone who could be a reasonable alternative when Arteta needed to make a statement in dropping someoneā¦ Thinking more Pepe with this. At the time Pepe was still considered redeemable but I think it was clear he had attitude issues and a lethargy about his press. I feel Artetaās stubbornness with dropping Willian was more to do with him making the point to Pepe that if you donāt play as I ask Iāll simply play the alternative option, even if everyone outside looking in mocks me for it.
That wouldnāt have been possible without Willian because at times without him Pepe would have been the only option. As the other alternative, Nelson, clearly was never one to begin with. The guy simply wonāt make it at the top level. Even Willian was better than him by a distance.
I think this is further proven by the fact we havenāt seen Pepe since and even Nketiah is ahead of him.
That year was about finding out who was an Arteta player. Unfortunately though, it turned out Willian was more emotionally and physically retired than Arteta had probably hopedā¦
He still largely served the aforementioned purpose but we looked overall much worse than the original intention of the signing.
This is the risk signing a first-time manager. I find it interesting that fans understand that players have trajectory and arcs and can learn and grow but when it comes to managers ā especially young, first-time managers ā fans donāt think that can make mistakes, learn and improve their craft as well.
I think most fans are aware of this, but probably felt that Arsenal was too big of a challenge for him given the tough period the club is going through
Reiss looked awful in just about every appearance for us. Being āpotentialā doesnāt entitle you to games whether you rate him above Willian or not
He wasnāt all awful. He had plenty of decent games - a goal (and an assist?) in a game against Liverool come to mind. He just did not get consistent game time - you canāt judge anyone from sporadic appearances.
if the club that knows him best and owe him some loyalty only wanted to keep him for 2years. Essentially, they are saying they think he is only good for 1 more year, and were just throwing in a 2nd year, out of loyalty.
Instead we offered him 3 years. That's just stupidity.
The deal was bad but him as a player made some sense. Experienced PL winger coming off a pretty good season. Obviously didn't work out and thankfully he decided to leave. But if it were a 1+1 deal, I think the reception would have been much better. Why we agreed to 3 years, who knows.
Lots of people said āitās a bad signingā in every transfer. Including some of ones that turned out good. So I donāt see how thatās a point to mention to support anything.
No I mean lots of people, not just a small minority. You can't just rewrite history because it makes Arteta look better. It's fine if he made mistakes, he's doing better now. Don't need to pretend Willian was a great idea at the time.
There were a lot saying that it was a smart move too. I would say there were as many if not more saying that Tavares, Odegaard and White were bad deals. There was definitely far more people saying that Tomiyasu and Ramsdale were bad deals.
I'm sure lots said it was a smart move but that's not the same as saying "it was a good signing at the time" because a) it wasn't and b) plenty of people saw that.
Saying it was a good move at the time is not saying it was a good move.
It's clear it wasn't a good move in retrospect, but at the time it wasn't cut and dry. Sometimes things just don't work out which you can't predict. Look at Hazard who moved from Chelsea after an unbelievable season for Ā£100M and has been next to useless for Madrid.
Willian was off of a really good season, he'd been voted Chelsea's players' player of the year twice. So it wasn't to be expected that he would just fall off a cliff. He had zero history of injuries so a three year deal was not so much of a risk (especially with advances with conditioning) and him being 34 at the end of the deal wasn't what once would have been.
Donāt rewrite history. It was clearly a terrible signing at the time - he was coming off a comically bad season at Chelsea, was clearly on the decline, and the financials were horrible for us.
The one thing we can say is that weāre very very lucky he was so honourable about giving up his contract - if heād decided to do as was his right and sit around collecting his wages until the end, weād be struggling to make at least one of our key signings during the summer. Hopefully Arteta and Edu learned from it because it was a catastrophic mistake from them.
> he was coming off a comically bad season at Chelsea
It was arguably his best season for Chelsea other than maybe 15/16 when he was banging in free-kicks all the time.
Willian came off a really good season at Chelsea actually, so much so, they made an exception to their one year policy for a 30+ player and offered him a 2 year contract. He wanted three.
Ah the irony. You're re writing history here. Willian had one of his best runs of form after the covid restart. Chelsea tried to give him a new contract.
youāre telling people not to rewrite history and then saying willian had a comically bad season at chelsea lmao? it was literally his best ever league season in terms of goals
Can't speak for everyone, but I hated the signing even at the time. Especially when we knew going into the season that we need an AM. Our season didn't come alive until ESR played as #10.
Willian was the right profile and he played well for Chelsea in his last season.
No guarantee that he would have signed Willian that summer if he was given a proper budget
Looks like Hector really needed a change of scenery and to play in a league where you get a bit more time on the ball as a defender to think through your decisions. I've watched him in a few matches and while his pace will never go back to what it was pre-injury, it's his decision making that's standing out right now as his most notable improvement. La Liga seems to suit him better for the type of player he is now. Would also probably look good in Serie A.
I think the analytical approach has a huge part to play in the game but I still think the the eye test is still extremely important.
As an example, I never really thought Fernando Torres was *that* good. He was good and the system at Liverpool milked everything from him, but he never really passed the eye test for me. The biggest problem was that his technique looked really sloppy. Whatās interesting is that I saw a video of carragher confirming that, saying that Torres was technically poor.
I think a player can pass the eye test and improve on stats but I donāt think a player who has great stats can pass the eye test and become world class. For example, I think Christiano passed the eye test but his play and stats were a bit terrible. Then he upped it and he became world class. Sure, there are many players who easily passed the eye test and were mediocre but I think itās important in football to never neglect the eye test and that seems to have been behind the decision here with Royal.
This is the stupidest take. We have no idea how Emerson would have done at Arsenal and to Edu's credit he has trusted the scouting and analytics team to give him the right recommendations (which has for the most part been right).
Edu wanted Neto as backup after Sheffield wanted 40m for Ramsdale. We want back in for Ramsdale after Sheffield lowered their price to 24m. Edu and Arteta both agreed that Ramsdale was first choice but Edu was not prepared to pay 40m for him.
How do you get to pick which ones are Arteta's and which are Edu's or Raul's? Arteta doesn't have his own team choosing targets that doesn't go through Edu.
Partey rumours started before Arteta was even our manager. While every signing made while Edu was reporting to Raul should be null and void since Raul was using agents rather that the scouting network and analytics to do many of the deals.
there are few articles including one from Ornstein that explained the key pushers of specific transfers. of course all the major players still had to agree.
Tomi and Ramsdale were Arteta pushes, both against alternative that Edu brought up. White was a strong Arteta push too.
Sambi and Tavares were stats buys. Ode was a consensus push.
Weāve picked up too many bum squad players from his āconvenient contactsā in recent years. The credit of building our current 11 Iāll give to the manager
You're mixing up Raul and Edu. Edu has overhauled the scouting and analytics department to support decision making in transfers (even Mertesacker has talked about this).
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Ultimately the manager has to be happy with the transfer as he picks and plays the team. The whole director of football job is pointless if you buy players who your manager doesn't want.
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Chad Arteta vs virgin stats
Stats are for mugs.
How many mugs do I own How frequently do I use them Ratio of capacity to girth Average temperature drop per second
wtf
šļøšļøšļø (Poor man's gold)
Arteta stars in: "Reverse Moneyball"
"When all the stats tell him to go ahead, one man stands against reductionism in sports. Mikel Arteta stars in SOFT FACTORS: THE TOMIYASU STORY"
Applause for an under appreciated effort.
I've said it in another thread before, but this window all our signings were top notch and we made the right decisions over different choices. Odegaard > Maddison/Buendia/Bissouma (though Maddison is still class) Tomi > Emerson Ramsdale > Onana Then Tavares who was signed as backup has managed to keep KT out of the side for a few weeks, and Sambi clearly has good upside. All these signings in 1 window alone is enough for me to fully trust Arteta with his transfer targets
We were linked with Ryan Bertrand before Tavares.
And hes since been crap at leciester
What Iām taking from this is weāre going to miss out on vlahovic but get someone even better for Ā£20m
This is the way.
Uow
This is the way.
Not an arsenal fan but was just passing by onh this sub. I love what arteta is doing, and although Vlahovic has insane stats, he could just not turn out to be good because Serie A players often tend to not impress as much outside italy. That said, even if you guys do buy him. He will be an upgrade on Nketiah and auba. You guys definitely lose money, but its not too terrible. A formidable no. 9 is all thats needed with a better Xhaka replacement. Also, Do you all want xhaka gone too? Because as a pool fan i wanted to watch city drop points and xhaka got a red again.. he seems to do this every major game. And he is a senior player as well. Makes me wanna slap him to knock some sense into him haha
> Do you all want xhaka gone too We want him replaced, but he's still better than Elneny, AMN, Lokonga in that midfield role so we don't want him gone RIGHT NOW.
Who is this āWeā and where can I find him so I can kick him in the shins. I never want to see him play for us again. He brings me no joy. Just pain. Hurtful pain.
Yea Iād rather watch Patino make rookie mistakes cause heās young that cost us pointsā¦.. than watch xhaka make rookie mistakes cause heās xhaka that cost us points.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yes but at least we know thereās a chance he will grow and cut out the errors. With xhaka itās the opposite, the unforced errors are guaranteed to come, itās just a matter of waiting till the next huge game so he can leave us with another 10v11 game or donate a free penalty because heās xhaka and thatās what he does
Yep, but i meant replaced as well actually. You guys have been linked with arthur it seems. Would be great if yall get him.
Yeah, idk if he should play with this team again tbh, let us down one too many times
"We? š" - Uncle Phil
Apart from the game against City, he has also been better than Partey
He's a very good player with some pretty unfortunate weaknesses athletically. I used to hate him but I think he has been decent and he seems to be a player that despite his big mistakes strengthens the team around him when he's there. But when you start having these big mistakes this frequently questions are going to be rightfully asked. We need a replacement, but I don't agree with the fan narrative of getting rid, for both him and lacazette. I think they are fantastic backup/squad players for any team and if we can keep them to the end of there top flight careers as depth players we would be foolish not to.
Thats a fair assessment. Also lacazatee? I thought he has been playing really well recently. Not a goal machine but he is the focal point of your press up the field currently
Yeah the common sentiment is we shouldn't renew because we have a history of poor final contracts for players, but this is a completely situation for a player we would want as a squad player not on mega money. He's been a very good player across his career for us and is a top professional with a great attitude. I think characters like his and Xhakas will benefit the team by having them around.
I've wanted him gone for years. He's not good enough to be a starter for a cl team in England. Maybe a bench option, but he doesn't provide dynamism to turn a game around offensively. I feel we're a bit screwed in that regard, because partey is the only other player who starts that's over 25 so we need an experienced player in the side who knows the team and can keep us calm.
My guess is Ivan toney is the backup the board has in mind.
Might aswell just keep Laca then
He wants a 3 year deal though and we know how that goes...
Patrick Schick of Leverkusen is as good as Vlahster but without the baggage
Don't be ridiculous, vlahovic was outscored in the calendar year 2021 by only lewandowski.
Hardly ridiculous. This season he has 17 goals (just one penalty) from 15 appearances in Bundesliga - better than Haaland and only bettered by Lewandowski.
We've seen plenty of players do that for one season then disappear into mediocrity. I'm not saying Vlahovic is the answer or is better, but he has been more consistent over a sustained period of time
If either of you are patrons of the Arsenal Vision Podcast, they did a scouting video that showed very clearly how Vlahovic's link up is exactly what we want Laca to do, but better, because he's able to turn around and bust into the box to get on the end of moves. All of these strikers score loads of goals, but so much of that is down to how the team plays. Vlahovic looks like how *he* plays is the perfect fit for us. The goals will come if the player's style fits the team's style.
Schick was insane for 3-4 games and scored like 8 goals. Other than that period he's been good but nothing close to Vlahovic.
Bundesliga is very risky though. It's such an attacking league with most teams playing high lines. We've seen a lot of prolific bundi players struggle in the prem in recent years.
Schick is a known commodity. Not good enough
If you actually watch all his goals from this season, it's not that impressive. 4 penalties. And he looks very slow. I'm not convinced.
Haven't we failed to score like 4 of our last 5 penalties?
No, we're getting Vlahovic who is going to be better than Haland!
Thatās one of the least shocking thing Iāve ever heard tbh
And this sub was furious we let Leicester get him, absolutely raging lol
> Odegaard > Maddison/Buendia/Bissouma haha I remember this whole sub was like, lets pay 70m for him. and as pay whatever it was for Buendia
Insane to me that Willock was 25m pounds and Odegaard cost less than 30m.
Odegaard cost 35ish, didn't he? Or do I have the currencies mixed up?
Ode is 35m euros, Willock was 29.4m euros Edit: Source, transfermarkt.com
Robbery by us
We used to be good at selling players (yea im being ironic here), but over the last few years he got pretty bad at it, like letting Ramsey go for free.
It would be an easy decision to have extended Ramsey, but he hasn't been great for Juve and he would have been on a big wage on a long contract. It might have worked out, but also a good chance it wouldn't have.
The English tax helps
I think a large part of that was because many of us thought Odegaard was simply unobtainable. So we had started looking elsewhere. Then Edu worked his magic and BAM, Martin was a permanent gunner.
To be fair, I still rate Maddison more than Odegaard (I know it's unpopular but fuck it). But he's a bit more injury prone and costs a fuck ton more and Odegaard is definitely the better deal for us.
English tax is the real cultrpint here, and Maddision hasnt featured much in the English national team too. If it's a 70m price tag, id atleast expect him to feature as a regular too in the NT. Pepe was also 70m, but he already got caps or the national team too.
Absolutely. Just remember how everyone wanks off Liverpools transfers but they paid Ā£35m for Mane, Ā£30m for Salah and inbetween paid Ā£32m for Ox. One of these is not like the other and that's even accounting for the extra 'premier league ready' they added on to Mane.
Harry Maguire might the only anomaly here, really huge English tax, but iirc, he was already a mainstay for the NT anyways.
English tax is the culprit, but England is not the same as Ivory Coast. And England haven't played with an #10 or #8 in 3 4 years I suppose. Playing with Kane means that he drops deeper and enables the pacy wingers or wing backs. Maddison really hasn't had much of a sniff with all this and his recent injury issues.
Not sure NT has much to do with it tbh, different systems/chemistry etc can keep players out of the national team for a long time. Pepe doesnāt start for ic either
Taking Odegaard leaves money on the table to get Tomiyasu.
Yep, which is why he's the better deal.
Maddison is arguably better now, but not significantly, on pretty much every metric Odegaard seems the better deal. Maddison would probably have cost twice as much, for fee and wages and his temperament, professionalism and injury record look to be problematic. Odegaard seems professional, hard working, humble and a leader. Odegaard is also two years younger, I can imagine Odegaard improving a lot. I'm not sure Maddison will improve much more.
Bissouma is class too, but might also be a rapist so...dodged that one.
Yup, defo dodged the bullet on that one.
Bissouma isn't really an Am do not the same category. We should go for him again in the summer if he doesn't go prison
Sambi has been very meh for me so far, we'll see how he develops but I wouldn't call it successful yet but given the relatively low transfer tag it may be a worthwhile investment Totally agree with the rest though, class, the whole lot of em
Sambi too many mental lapses for me, but one thing I like is how comfortable he looks passing with both feet and under pressure, which is definitely a useful quality for central midfield. I was extremely low on Tavares during pre-season. I felt like he was simply a great athlete with weak footballing skills, but his stint at LB this season shut me the fuck up very quickly.
Sambi just sometimes lack urgency. He's never going to be an energizer bunny type of player. But he needs to up his urgency and hustle just a bit, while retaining the rest of his calm.
I'd reverse that and say Tavares is the problem child, and Lokonga will turn into an excellent player, he just needs a little more time.
Tbf to him, I thought Sambi was quietly excellent against Liverpool. He was literally the only midfielder on the pitch, and he managed to prevent us from getting overrun.
1 window cannot be enough to undo some of the tragedies we've had. I'd rather wait and see if Arteta is consistent in finding good signings before getting that happy about it.
If Arteta doesnāt make it as a manager he can at least fall back on being a world class talent scout
Honestly if the choice is either Ode or Maddison, I pick Maddison
Ngl this makes me think Vlahovic is a mistake
Tomiyasu exceeded expectations at arsenal but tbf he wasnt some random bum in serie A like most people in this sub thought at the time Most fans of the league rated him highly and thought he could do better, some of my friends were even happy for him because he seemed to work really hard at bologne and deserved a top club
Heās a beast in my Football Manager 21 save, so thereās that
I just got Barnet promoted to the premier League and played Spurs for the first time. Tomi came on as a sub for them , yuck!
It sounds really impressive what you did with Barnet, and it must've taken a lot of work. But delete the game, you can't do that to Tomi
Hahaha imagine. 10 seasons in, "this game is fucking silly, I'm out"
I mean, that's how my saves end up once City and United start buying Mbappe, Halaand and Dybala
"Establish a relationship" "Hey hun, Edu from Arsenal here, looking to establish a relationship with you, tb xx"
āU up?ā
āUr place tonite?ā
"Wad dat mouth do?"
Emerson is absolutely shit. Can't defend in a back 4 and can't attack in a back 3. Useless.
Arteta agrees!:)
Bullet dodged, he's just a shit Carl jenkinson
So was Cafu to be fair
"The transfers of Ben White and Aaron Ramsdale in the summer were both pushed over the line despite their premium fees, in large part on Artetaās insistence." https://twitter.com/ltarsenal/status/1482265931443478528?t=WJF8NQLEWogHEMzK7s6f9w&s=19
He has a knack for seeing talents. Respect!
similar to what people said about wenger
I think it likely has a lot to do with intangibles like personality and attitude
Ramsdale has proven to be an absolute snip. He's made some amazing saves, is English, a great presence and influence and his distribution is probably third best in the league(?). I think White would get a lot more credit / buzz if he moved from Benfica or somewhere. RubĆ©n Dias was more expensive and a risk, so I don't think White's price was that crazy, then when you compare that we paid just Ā£10M more than Man City paid for Nathan AkĆ©.
Tottenhamās recruitment has been absolutely dire in the last few years. Replacing aurier with Emerson, then potentially Emerson with Adama Traore indicates their drift.
The Everton of London
Nketiah and Elneny gonna rock up there for Ā£50m
Dier indeed.
Ndombele, Royal, Bergwijn, Moura, Lo Celso, Sessegnon, Doherty, Sanchez etc. They've all pretty much been somewhere on the scale of underwhelming to disaster IMO. I'd say HĆøjbjerg has been there only really good signing in recent years.
Potential for Romero to be a good signing too. Bale on loan was ok for them but yea pretty much no out and out successes
Well it's too early to say about Romero, same with Reguilon too. They've had loads of really bad ones in the last five / six years and some of those been moved on since.
Yes. And a lot of players that looked as if they had potential to begin with faded away pretty much
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Don't forget Doherty
Hahahahaha oh yea
Yeouchā¦ this article lowkey rips into Tottenham haha glad we went with Tomi rather than making a Royal mistake āā¦this is perhaps the sharpest point of contrast between the north London rivals. Increasingly, it is Arsenal who are prepared to take the hard choices; Tottenham the club addicted to shock treatments, knee-jerk reactions and short-term fixes.ā
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tbf we're extremely desperate for a midfielder. it could still be an edu special (as i too suspect) but arteta only signed off on it cus we're in such dire need of literally anyone
My manager!
And he said yes to Willian. First time manager. He's living and learning. If ppl are saying signing a 31 yo winger on a 3 yr way past sale by date was good signing you are just having a fucking laugh for no reason
Yes. A free stop gap signing.
Iām new to Reddit and this sub. Are we saying Willian was a good signing now? Just trying to catch up.
No, we are saying it was a poor signing but it was only ever meant to be a short term fix which didnāt work out and he moved on.
That played a key role in throwing our season off the rails.
Because the alternative was Pepe
And we're no where closer to selling Pepe. Why would we get a player who played for Chelsea the previous season only because they couldn't sign new players. If I remember, he wasn't even that good. Moreover, I'd not have had too much of an issue if he were just a backup. As shit as Pepe is, I'd have preferred to have gotten our money's worth from him rather than start Willian for 3 months.
For the millionth time, Willian was a good signing at the time. He just doesn't look great in hindsight.
With Willian my problem isn't the transfer itself but the fact Arteta kept playing him after so many terrible performances when he had eager youngsters on the bench
Because you don't perma bench a highly paid senior player that could still turn it around. The odds of our youth players turning out so good and ready for PL level first team action were actually very slim compared to a veteran hitting good form. Arteta backs players when they are going through bad patches. He gave Auba a lot more chances than Willian.
>Arteta backs players when they are going through bad patches *Pepe has left the chat* Seriously though, Arteta backs *his favourites* when they are going through rough patches. Pepe barely got half the chances Willian and Auba got but at least he makes things happen in his worst spells. Every single time he'd hit form he'd be yanked out of the team.
Dude Pepe was also backed. How many times did he play and not impact the match? Last season he played 47 matches. This season he has played 12.
>How many times did he play and not impact the match? A lot less than Willian. Pepe got 15 more goals and but two assists less, but was dropped instead.
Dude Willian only played 37 times in the same period Pepe played 47. Doesn't sound like Pepe was backed less. Also, Willian is a proven EPL player and there was always the hope that he could turn it around. He didn't, and that episode is over, but we can see the logic behind the decision making.
Maybe Pepe trains shit too
I still believe Willian was an intelligent decision in terms of the development of our young players and club culture. The team was at its lowest point then, Arteta was at the foot of the mountain looking up. He needed an experienced/relatively reliable player that he could use to rotate/compete/as an example to the young squad. I fully believe the intention was having someone who could take the heat during our worst period to avoid risking the relationship between the younger players (ESR, Saka and Pepe) and fans as they developed. Do I think David Luiz was a good stopgap? Yea, because he brought a mentality and dressing room personality that was beneficial for the youth. Do I think Willian was viewed exactly the same, and was very cheap? Easy stopgap no? As well as also having someone who could be a reasonable alternative when Arteta needed to make a statement in dropping someoneā¦ Thinking more Pepe with this. At the time Pepe was still considered redeemable but I think it was clear he had attitude issues and a lethargy about his press. I feel Artetaās stubbornness with dropping Willian was more to do with him making the point to Pepe that if you donāt play as I ask Iāll simply play the alternative option, even if everyone outside looking in mocks me for it. That wouldnāt have been possible without Willian because at times without him Pepe would have been the only option. As the other alternative, Nelson, clearly was never one to begin with. The guy simply wonāt make it at the top level. Even Willian was better than him by a distance. I think this is further proven by the fact we havenāt seen Pepe since and even Nketiah is ahead of him. That year was about finding out who was an Arteta player. Unfortunately though, it turned out Willian was more emotionally and physically retired than Arteta had probably hopedā¦ He still largely served the aforementioned purpose but we looked overall much worse than the original intention of the signing.
I think some times things just don't work out which people seem to ignore.
This is the risk signing a first-time manager. I find it interesting that fans understand that players have trajectory and arcs and can learn and grow but when it comes to managers ā especially young, first-time managers ā fans donāt think that can make mistakes, learn and improve their craft as well.
Completely agree with this, thankfully the club seems to get it.
I think most fans are aware of this, but probably felt that Arsenal was too big of a challenge for him given the tough period the club is going through
Yeah, you often wonder if Reiss would have been in a different place in his career if he were given 50% of the opportunity Willian was.
Reiss looked awful in just about every appearance for us. Being āpotentialā doesnāt entitle you to games whether you rate him above Willian or not
He wasnāt all awful. He had plenty of decent games - a goal (and an assist?) in a game against Liverool come to mind. He just did not get consistent game time - you canāt judge anyone from sporadic appearances.
He played him like 30 games. 29 too many.
28 tbf his debut was class
Nah fam that's revisionist. Plenty of us groaned when he signed especially on a 3 year deal at 31.
Theres a reason chelsea wanted to keep him though. For 2 yrs not 3 but still thats not the point
if the club that knows him best and owe him some loyalty only wanted to keep him for 2years. Essentially, they are saying they think he is only good for 1 more year, and were just throwing in a 2nd year, out of loyalty. Instead we offered him 3 years. That's just stupidity.
The deal was bad but him as a player made some sense. Experienced PL winger coming off a pretty good season. Obviously didn't work out and thankfully he decided to leave. But if it were a 1+1 deal, I think the reception would have been much better. Why we agreed to 3 years, who knows.
For the millionth time, lots of people said he was a bad signing at the time and it's very easy to check to confirm that!
Lots of people said āitās a bad signingā in every transfer. Including some of ones that turned out good. So I donāt see how thatās a point to mention to support anything.
No I mean lots of people, not just a small minority. You can't just rewrite history because it makes Arteta look better. It's fine if he made mistakes, he's doing better now. Don't need to pretend Willian was a great idea at the time.
There were a lot saying that it was a smart move too. I would say there were as many if not more saying that Tavares, Odegaard and White were bad deals. There was definitely far more people saying that Tomiyasu and Ramsdale were bad deals.
I'm sure lots said it was a smart move but that's not the same as saying "it was a good signing at the time" because a) it wasn't and b) plenty of people saw that.
Saying it was a good move at the time is not saying it was a good move. It's clear it wasn't a good move in retrospect, but at the time it wasn't cut and dry. Sometimes things just don't work out which you can't predict. Look at Hazard who moved from Chelsea after an unbelievable season for Ā£100M and has been next to useless for Madrid. Willian was off of a really good season, he'd been voted Chelsea's players' player of the year twice. So it wasn't to be expected that he would just fall off a cliff. He had zero history of injuries so a three year deal was not so much of a risk (especially with advances with conditioning) and him being 34 at the end of the deal wasn't what once would have been.
Do you want me to find the transfer threads for White, Ramsdale, Tavares?
If you like, what has that got to do with Willian?
The majority of mongs on here were screaming all of those were bad signings at the time as well.
Most Chelsea fans said it was dumb to sign Willian on 3 year contract given his decline. So no, it was a debatable signing at the time.
That season was one of his best seasons wearing a blue shirt. There weren't much of a decline - he just weren't happy here.
He was 32 years old and given a 3 year contract. Donāt kid yourself saying it was a good signing.
How was he a good signing at the time lmao
Donāt rewrite history. It was clearly a terrible signing at the time - he was coming off a comically bad season at Chelsea, was clearly on the decline, and the financials were horrible for us. The one thing we can say is that weāre very very lucky he was so honourable about giving up his contract - if heād decided to do as was his right and sit around collecting his wages until the end, weād be struggling to make at least one of our key signings during the summer. Hopefully Arteta and Edu learned from it because it was a catastrophic mistake from them.
> he was coming off a comically bad season at Chelsea It was arguably his best season for Chelsea other than maybe 15/16 when he was banging in free-kicks all the time.
Willian came off a really good season at Chelsea actually, so much so, they made an exception to their one year policy for a 30+ player and offered him a 2 year contract. He wanted three.
Ah the irony. You're re writing history here. Willian had one of his best runs of form after the covid restart. Chelsea tried to give him a new contract.
youāre telling people not to rewrite history and then saying willian had a comically bad season at chelsea lmao? it was literally his best ever league season in terms of goals
Can't speak for everyone, but I hated the signing even at the time. Especially when we knew going into the season that we need an AM. Our season didn't come alive until ESR played as #10.
Willian was the right profile and he played well for Chelsea in his last season. No guarantee that he would have signed Willian that summer if he was given a proper budget
I think skykaveh or wtv his name is was talking about Emerson not Tomi
On another note, why does it look like Sambi just backhanded Martinelli in that thumbnail lol
Isn't that shot moments after Arteta did the mind meld on Gabi? There were some pics of it yesterday on here.
Emerson wasn't even good enough for the worst Barca team in years. That alone was a red flag.
For what it's worth I think Emerson would look a much better player in our system. Still think we did by far the better deal with Tomi though
Tomiyasu is better.
Arteta is stamping his authority all over this football club and Iām here for it
Real Betis managed to upgrade with a player that was out of favour with us
Looks like Hector really needed a change of scenery and to play in a league where you get a bit more time on the ball as a defender to think through your decisions. I've watched him in a few matches and while his pace will never go back to what it was pre-injury, it's his decision making that's standing out right now as his most notable improvement. La Liga seems to suit him better for the type of player he is now. Would also probably look good in Serie A.
He's even worse than AWB, and shouldn't even be compared to Tomi.
Arteta has that Wenger eye. And he's just getting better at it. Pretty exciting.
I think the analytical approach has a huge part to play in the game but I still think the the eye test is still extremely important. As an example, I never really thought Fernando Torres was *that* good. He was good and the system at Liverpool milked everything from him, but he never really passed the eye test for me. The biggest problem was that his technique looked really sloppy. Whatās interesting is that I saw a video of carragher confirming that, saying that Torres was technically poor. I think a player can pass the eye test and improve on stats but I donāt think a player who has great stats can pass the eye test and become world class. For example, I think Christiano passed the eye test but his play and stats were a bit terrible. Then he upped it and he became world class. Sure, there are many players who easily passed the eye test and were mediocre but I think itās important in football to never neglect the eye test and that seems to have been behind the decision here with Royal.
That miss vs United
I'd like to know what the analytics team thought of Tomi
Mikel is god
Jury still out on Edu over here
This is the stupidest take. We have no idea how Emerson would have done at Arsenal and to Edu's credit he has trusted the scouting and analytics team to give him the right recommendations (which has for the most part been right).
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Edu wanted Neto as backup after Sheffield wanted 40m for Ramsdale. We want back in for Ramsdale after Sheffield lowered their price to 24m. Edu and Arteta both agreed that Ramsdale was first choice but Edu was not prepared to pay 40m for him.
White, Ćdegaard, Partey, Tierney, Saliba, Gabriel or do those signings not count because they are good?
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How do you get to pick which ones are Arteta's and which are Edu's or Raul's? Arteta doesn't have his own team choosing targets that doesn't go through Edu. Partey rumours started before Arteta was even our manager. While every signing made while Edu was reporting to Raul should be null and void since Raul was using agents rather that the scouting network and analytics to do many of the deals.
there are few articles including one from Ornstein that explained the key pushers of specific transfers. of course all the major players still had to agree. Tomi and Ramsdale were Arteta pushes, both against alternative that Edu brought up. White was a strong Arteta push too. Sambi and Tavares were stats buys. Ode was a consensus push.
Weāve picked up too many bum squad players from his āconvenient contactsā in recent years. The credit of building our current 11 Iāll give to the manager
You're mixing up Raul and Edu. Edu has overhauled the scouting and analytics department to support decision making in transfers (even Mertesacker has talked about this).
Artetalytics
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Ultimately the manager has to be happy with the transfer as he picks and plays the team. The whole director of football job is pointless if you buy players who your manager doesn't want.
Interestingly enough, Aaron Ramsdale refused to play for Sheffield United after they refused one of the latter bids. He wanted his move.
He looks awful, the same goes for that guy Bryan Gil who was supposed to be so good.
Arteta confirmed dat boy nice watcher
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Arteta really has had some diamond hands on the transfer market.
Arteta wins again
Good decision tbf