I took Avie to the Reign game last night and we came away 1-0 winners over local rivals Portland Thorns. The weather was mild, we shared a hot dog – my half with mustard and hers plain – and ate a pretzel. I think the whole event cost $55 for two tickets and food. You should go.
The football was better than the match I saw a few weeks ago against Chicago Red Stars. Against the Red Stars, Reign tried to play nearly every pass high and wide and their wide forward Onumonu did her best to chase but was pocketed by their defender. Lack of pressure, lack of control in midfield, and long passes out from the back time and again. Chicago controlled the match from start to finish and the 4-0 scoreline was a bit fortunate.
But last night against the Thorns, the Reign showed us what they are really made of. Coming in on the wide right was Shea Groom. Shea added technical ability out wide, crossing, tackling, and beating her opponent on the dribble. Onumonu added similar qualities on the left, plus explosive speed.
In fact, it was Onumonu’s cross, which was redirected back across goal by Groom for White to score, which proved the decisive moment in the match.
From there, Reign locked up shop. There were a few moments when Thorns attackers got past their marker but Casey Murphy was there with a sure set of hands or a good punch to keep the clean sheet. The Thorns best moment of the match came when one of their wide forwards beat one of our defenders and put in a cross right over Murphy to where another Thorn player jumped high unmarked and tried to head the ball into the net. Fortunately she missed and the ball sailed harmlessly out of play.
Sorry if I don’t know all of the player’s names. I’m still learning this league and the players. I only just today discovered that there is a box score and play-by-play available for every match on the NWSL page.
And while I was watching one football, Arsenal were preparing for another football. What has even happened to Arsenal? I really need a few days to catch up. There has been that much activity this summer. Even just trying to recap it all I’ll probably forget something. Let’s see:
- Signed Pepe – the “wide forward” that everyone wanted (even if he’s not the particular one that anyone other than me wanted)
- Signed Saliba – maybe a little disagreement here over whether he should come play now but most folks agree that he’s a good prospect CB
- Signed Tierney – good fullback prospect, not sure when he will be available to play
- Signed David Luiz – he’s better than Mustafi and that’s all he needs to be, better than Mustafi. This is especially true when the market is tighter than a tick’s bum, as evidenced by the fact that United spent more on Maguire than Juve spent to land de Ligt (honestly just want him for his shithousery).
- Loaned in Ceballos – eh, I’d prefer if we bought a midfielder but maybe after all this other spending, this is a pretty good deal (especially if he plays in the tip of the diamond or in the #10 role where he looked incredible so far this season)
So that’s the club pretty much addressing every position that they needed to address this summer (except RB) and we haven’t seen anything like this since the infamous “trolley dash” when Arsenal got Arteta and Mertesacker in the same window.
This is as complete a rebuild of Wenger’s team as you can expect. All the old players are gone. Plenty of new players have come in. And every weakness under Wenger has been addressed – central midfield, defensive midfield, center backs, left back, keeper, and getting in some young attacking players in Pepe and Martinelli – both of whom have a useful dribble.
I don’t know gang. This feels like it should be a fun season. I may be back tomorrow with my season predictions. I need to see where the dust settles after the transfer window snaps shut.
I’m excited. Not cancelling cable. Warming to the idea that we have a plan … beyond just qualifying.
It’s a lot of players to bed, we still need an identity, and Emery still needs to prove himself. The club, though, has invested. .
If you are in the USA, you can get NBC Sports Network through PS Vue or another streaming provider. I have mine through PS Vue, and if it happens to expire during Nationalism Week, I just let it lapse until Arsenal resumes in the EPL.
What is this club masquerading as Arsenal? All our business? Completed? In the summer window? Just freaking weird!
I wonder if we’d made Champions League how different our business would have been? I feel like we addressed all of our needs. Maybe we’d have bought Ceballos? Regardless, I’m excited!
i don’t like the david luiz deal. first, i don’t agree that he only needs to be better than mustafi. for me, he needs to be better than koscielny and i’m pretty sure he isn’t. with that, i’m not even sure he’s better than mustafi.
instead of extending koscielny a single year and with no transfer fee, they went and paid £8 million for a guy who’s worse than koscielny; chelsea’s 6th choice central defender.
Well you can’t fault them for trying to keep Kos but he didn’t want to stay. Luiz can end up being a disaster in some games but we did need an experienced defender there. The nightmare scenario is Xhaka, Luiz and Mustafi in the starting XI.
Koscielny didn’t want to be here anymore though.
I don’t see how you can put this on the club when it was obvious he wanted out because the PL was too much for his body to handle anymore.
No one is over the moon with the Luiz signing but on a short notice it will have to do.
Ah… is he worse than Kos in current conditions? I don’t think so. Extend Kos? He wanted OUT. And he’s not the 6th CB at Chelsea, Sarri played him as a starter. Actually I’m not sure what the hell Chelsea is thinking, they basically gave us an edge over them, they have zero depth at CB with the transfer ban now.
I like the Luiz deal. I don’t share your assessment of the players, and actually think he may come in as the best of our bunch (Sokratis perhaps on equal footing). You could snicker and say, ‘well that’s not saying much’, but it is saying much. Better is what we need.
I agree with Tim. The market for CB’s was deplorable this summer. £90m for Leipzig’s 20-year-old? That is completely ludicrous. £40m for Rugani? That’s a massive gamble on a player with doubts hanging over him and with no Premier League experience (someone commented the other day asking how many Italian defenders (or players for that matter) succeed in England).
£8m (or I’ve read as high as £12m) for Luiz is, in my opinion, very good business for a lot of reasons.
£90m for Leipzig’s 20-year-old? That is completely ludicrous.
Totally.
Three times his market value too……. and they only payed £10m for him two seasons back.
Makes VVD a bargain of the century.
Another quick note on Luiz. I think the anger from Chelsea fans should tell us something. He improves us and makes them worse. Not hearing much of ‘thank goodness we got shot of that clown’ from their mouths. Quite the opposite, I hear they’re punching Luiz posters! Hahaha!
Josh
It is a question of what you need versus what you want. $8m versus $80m. You have to ask what the value proposition is between buying Magquire for $80m and getting David Luis for a steal?
With the incredible business that has been done this window I would be disappointed if we didn’t finish top 4 this time around.
and aubamayang and laccazette have reportedly extended.
I need to listen to the smiths to come down.
6 PL deals still to be announced iwobi to everton is one of them ..
Guen, Torreira, Leno,Sokratis, Tierney, Luiz, Pepe, and Ceballos ….. that’s eight first team signings in two seasons.
I’m struggling to think of another PL club with a bigger squad reshuffle over a period of two seasons outside of Roman’s 2004-06 Chelsea.
Somewhere Wenger’s head must be spinning at the thought of this many new players being integrated with some sort of cohesion in such a short time , especially when he thought he was leaving behind a good squad in need of some tweaking.
This should be interesting season and the Pepe signing alone is worth renewing my cable subscription ( fcuk direct tv though) lol.
I’m putting money down on Pepe leading the league in nutmegs.
“Guen, Torreira, Leno,Sokratis, Tierney, Luiz, Pepe, and Ceballos ….. that’s eight first team signings in two seasons.
I’m struggling to think of another PL club with a bigger squad reshuffle over a period of two seasons outside of Roman’s 2004-06 Chelsea.”
Guardiola and Klopp in their first 2 summer transfer windows.
Liverpool summer 2016: Mané, Wijnaldum, Matip, Karius, Klavan (and plenty of dead wood cleared). Summer 2017: Salah, Ox, Robertson, Solanke (Van Dijk only in following January).
City summer 2016: Stones, Sane, Gundogan, Bravo, Zinchenko, Nolito (Jesus only in following January). Summer 2017: Bernardo Silva, Ederson, Walker, Danilo, Mendy (Laporte only in following January; also a lot of dead wood cleared).
Stop pissing all over my narrative dude lol.
But seriously, Matip , Karius, Klavan and Solanke were hardly considered starters and you could probably put Ox in there too to a certain extent.
But can’t argue with the City’s example.
“Stop pissing all over my narrative dude lol.”
Sorry, that wasn’t my intent. It was only to put things in context. But I understand why a lot of fans are getting carried away by this transfer window. The club is finally doing what it should have done in the past few seasons. It’s an outstanding transfer window compared to the summer when Arsenal only signed Cech. But it’s just some decent transfer activity compared to what Klopp and Guardiola have been doing in their first 2 seasons in England.
I have not.
I would give us a A- this off season. That’s the highest grade I’ve given us in the last decade and a half. We actually addressed most of our issues. It’s next to impossible to address all of them – there are just too many! Would have definitely wanted a better defender than Luiz but I am willing to give Raul & Co. a pass here given how United inflated the market with Mr. Potato Head and the timing of this whole Kos fiasco.
I suspect we are going to be involved in a few shoot outs this season. Should be fun.
Prediction: 4th
This will now be his team; no excuses. I like the squad, now coyg.us fans included.
Assuming the Luiz thing is done, I’m pretty happy and surprised with how this went. Luiz wouldn’t have been my first choice, but given how tight the market seems to be for CBs, it seems a good deal. The rest of the signings also seem very good, hopefully the Tierney injury issues don’t become a long term problem. Very glad we went for Pepe vs. Zaha.
United and Chelsea look weaker to me than last season. Seems like we should have the team to get into the top 4.
This is by far the best window I have ever seen at Arsenal.
Luiz is a great signing, he played nearly 50 games for Chelsea last season and they had the joint 3rd best defense in the league. He can pass from the back and has a lot of experience, he also very rarely gets injured. We significantly weakened a top 4 rival.
Saliba – Lets see how he develops.
Ceballos – Great talent, can he adapt quickly is the question.
Pepe – He is going to be electric.
Tierney – Proven winner, question marks over the Scottish league but I think he will fit in well.
We have also managed to offload Iwobi for 40m which is a fantastic piece of business, whilst getting fee’s for bit part players (10m for Bielik!!). I would rather of let Mkhi go but his wages are prohibitive.
Its quite incredible really, feels so very un Arsenal. Credit to the new management team because they have played an absolute blinder.
is iwobi gone? if so, we’ll see if that’s good business. £40 million is a ton of money but that kid is only just coming into his own. we may come to regret that move. time will tell.
correct me if i’m wrong but isn’t the reason koscielny left is because he wanted a contract extension going past this season but arsenal didn’t offer him one and bordeaux did? if that’s the case, why not extend koscielny a single season and, if you want, sell him next summer? maybe i’ve got the situation wrong: “all in the kool aid and don’t even know the flavor”.
what fills me with dread is something that used to fill me with glee. that’s david luiz trying to contend with olivier giroud. giroud absolutely owns david luiz; sort of like drogba vs. senderos.
something is telling me that the scottish kid may fail the physical but arsenal will still keep him. we’ll see.
correction, the scottish kid has signed.
Yes, if you have just had double hernia surgery I would guess you’re going to fail your physical.
I thought Kos claims to have had an unofficial agreement that he would be let go this summer to go back to France. That doesn’t sound like someone fishing for an extension.
All told, that was good business getting Kos out and for just a few more dollars getting a younger and less crocked Luiz in. Is he perfect? Hell, no. And I don’t think Giroud is some bogeyman we need to be scared of. If Sokratis can handle Harry Kane, he can handle Olivier Giroud.
welbz signed for watford.
The best window in ten years. Seriously.
1) We signed a young dynamic attacking talent BEFORE he hits his prime years, so there is tremendous sell-on value
2) We signed two young defensive talents with big upside
3) The Ceballos loan is a pretty clever move; low cost, allows Edu time to scout long term midfield options or let Willock develop further and could help us get back into the CL in which case we’d have more funds to spend on a box-to-box midfielder
4) Luiz is a pretty decent stop gap at CB until Holding gets his feet again and buys us a year or two to let Saliba develop
5) We did all of this for 45m! Hilarious. Like feeding hundreds from a single loaf of bread.
It would have been a spectacular window if we’d sold two of Ozil, Myki or Mustafi, but c’est la vie.
I’m fairly confident about Europa League and top 4 now. Don’t mess this up Emery.
“The best window in ten years. Seriously.”
100%
Raul knocked it out of the park.
Over to you, Emery.
Oh, and now Iwobi for 40m!?! That’s fantastic business. One of our complaints through the years is how poorly we sell players, but Iwobi was never going to be a top 4 starter in an attacking midfield role, not enough end product, not enough consistency. Great deal.
Maybe there is something to this qualitative approach to the transfer market and using agents to lubricate deals.
Props to the brain trust. I want to see what they do over the course of 3 or 4 windows, but not bad.
Tottenham also did very well this window, even if they didn’t get the striker they wanted. United and (obviously) Chelsea were the off-season losers.
I’m pretty confident about top four (though ask me again if we start throwing our first round of matches), mainly because I think United and Chelsea have made poor management decisions.
City and Liverpool in the first two places seems like a no-brainer at this stage, I think Tottenham will finish third, and (fingers crossed) we’ll make up the last CL place.
A very good window, provided David Luiz is done, but the Iwobi sale has put a dampener on my enthusiasm. I know, I know. His end product was off. I really think he needed one more season though. Besides, his ball carrying abilities might be missed. A few weeks ago Nelson and Saka were deemed too raw, but now they’ll have to step up. 40m is a decent price, but I’m not too sure it’ll prove to be a great piece of business.
Overall, we’re in good shape. Auba, Laca and Pepe are a devastating front 3, but backups are now Miki, Nelson, and Martinelli. That’s not too bad, as long as injuries don’t bite too hard.
Anyway, massive player turnover. No one seems to have kicked up a fuss about not signing in time for pre-season huh.. The start isn’t that difficult, but Bellerin and Tierney are out. Pepe hasn’t played. Ceballos has barely played. Torreira came back late. Guendouzi too I think. Emery’s got a job to do for Newcastle. Also, watch out for Andy Carroll on corners. (What year is it?)
sky sports reporting iwobi is going for £28 mill…
not such a good deal.
£34m on BBC
“Everton had an initial bid of £30m turned down but their improved offer – reported to be an initial £28m, rising to £34m with potential add-ons – has been accepted by Arsenal.”
Ornstein on the byline – https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/49282957
nyc/Tom/Bun/Jack,
The thing that gives me confidence about Arsenal is the willingness to walk away from bad deals and hyper valuations. It’s why neither Zaha or the Leipzig guy is in our squad today. Is passing on Upamencano a gamble? Sure. Barcelona could buy him off Leipzig for 100m next summer, after we had helped alert the world about how good he is. Some deals you make a killing on (Guendouzi), some you get killed on. Sometimes you have to go with the over-valuation, but Im not mad at Raul for not doing so in this case.
If Im a major shareholder at Crystal Palace, I’d be questioning why they turned down very good bids for a player who has the potential to be disruptive in the dressing room.
You can quibble about the individual merits of a player, but I can sense from this distance that Arsenal is more decisive on transfers, in a window that is 3 weeks shorter than in the past.
Luiz, I dont know, but Im not terribly unhappy. If Im coach — something no one in their right mind would let happen — I’d play him in the Xhaka role. FAR more D and tackling, plus energy, ball progression and good distribution.
Chelsea fans will insist that we got a past it player, but read this, from March.
https://thisisfutbol.com/2019/03/blogs/chelsea-fans-swoon-over-david-luiz/
I see a good ball-playing central defender who is fast, has good energy, progresses the ball well, but sometime takes too many attacking chances and gets caught out. A kind of Vermaelen with hair. But he’s a decent player. He improved Chelsea when they brought him back from PSG (where he played under Emery). I see him playing with Sokratis, with Sokratis sitting deep.
And here I thought petitions were silly.
I’m excited to be cancelling cable and super excited to have renewed Premier League pass.
luiz.. done deal. wow.
Yeah, we got them all.
Well, Tim, are all your holes filled now, or what?
😳
(oh filter, where are thou to perform your act of mercy on Bunburyist )
Harrrrrrrr!!! No shame.
Nearly. I think Arsenal could have pushed a little further.
I’m jealous of Ndombele. I want a big brain in a strong body to control the midfield.
But everything else is looking in very good shape.
In Tierney we might now have the fast, strong and scary left back I’ve wanted for years.
Luiz is a great signing, and the mutual respect between him and Emery is potentially priceless. You need your CB to really get your manager. Her could even turn out to be the leader we need. Ferguson always said that Keane was his manager on the pitch, we need that character.
Ok. At full strength, 4231….
Leno
Hector – Luiz or Holding – Sokratis -Monreal
Torreira – Ceballos
Lacazette – Ozil – Pepe
Aubameyang
Bench
Luiz or Holding, Reese, Xhaka, Guendouzi, Tierney, AMN, Martinez
Not even getting on the bench
Mustafi, Kolasinac, Martinelli, Elneny, ESR, Saka, Willock (whom I really like)
I can totally see why they sold Iwobi. And why the Coutinho rumours were not true. On Iwobi, as Arsene would say, he’d reached a stage where he needs to play.
I dont see Tierney IMMEDIATELY displacing Nacho. Maybe by Christmas.
I left out Mkhitaryan. And therefore I’d have to take Reiss Nelson out of the 7 on the bench. We seem to have absurd depth. Or is it more a case of quantity? I mean injuries will give everyone a chance (as well as cup comps), but in the unlikely event that we are ever at full strength, Emery is going to have to disappoint some people.
I think Mustafi (Somewhere in France) & Elneny (Galatasaray) will be sold/loaned out as well as ESR on loan to the Bundesliga.
I don’t foresee the brain trust keeping 3 LB’s by the end of the month either so Kola out? Depending on Tierney’s timeline to get fit
Martinelli & Saka will be w/ Bouldy & the U-23 called up for Cup games & Europa League. Saka only turns 18 on Sept 1st!
So about a 20 man squad. Emery should be able to manage
I can see Kolasinac getting sold. We got him on a free, so making money on him would be seen as good business (provided his wages can be matched). Though, mind you, Nacho has ONE Arsenal season left in him at the most, I reckon. Interesting call.
I say keep Kolasinac. Monreal is finished after this season, we’ll need back-up for Tierney (who is, apparently, injury-prone, but I haven’t looked into his record), and Kolasinac is useful as a wing-back whenever we decide to use the back three.
Also, Tierney can play RB. So if Bellerin’s out, we might need both Tierney and Kolasinac to play.
Kolasinac makes the bench because, if we’re behind in a game he’s an offensive threat. You don’t have Mykhitarayan listed anywhere. On his wages, he’s going to be on the bench.
That said, I think from your list we still have time to sell Elneny to Turkey and loan out ESR to another German team. And Ozil to DC United.
Re Mhki, seems you took a while to type this 🙂 (see follow up)
Emery’s going to play a back 4, (he says) so LB is s straight shootout between Nacho, Tierney and Kola. We did not buy the Scottish lad for big bucks to make him 3rd choice. Plus, he carries plenty of offensive threat. Plus he’s a better defender and more orthodox LB.
He’s not match sharp and integrated yet, so we dont have that problem for now, but assuming everyone is fully fit and available for selection, he’s ahead of of Kola, in my view, but not quite experienced enough to oust Monreal. Unless Emery goes back 3 a lot, AMN and Kola are not going to get games when everyone is available.
Kola might also play LW
“assuming everyone is fully fit”
Ay, there’s the rub!
Looks like Iwobi and Luiz are done. And the other leagues mostly still have a couple weeks of open window, so we could yet get rid of Mkhi or Mustafi. Having sold Iwobi, I don’t think I’d get rid of both Mkhi and Ozil. That would leave us a little of more experienced attacking midfielders.
But very pleased with this.
Iwobi just paid for Luiz and Tierney. What a Gooner!
He seemed like a wonderful kid, and you could never doubt that he gave his all, but he frustrated a lot of attacks in his time at the club, and, after the last campaign especially, I never thought he had the quality for us or our ambitions. £34m is a very good deal for us.
Well, I disagree. It’s an awful deal and we will rue the day we made it.
Nah. Bet you a bowl of gelato we’ll be fine.
What a difference a few weeks makes. After the Europa league final and our reported ‘transfer kitty’ of 45 mil, the goonerverse was as depressed as I’d ever seen. Fans seemed disconnected from the club and resigned to another summer of transfer doldrums. I, personally, tuned out of all things football. Then out of nowhere we signed Pepe and that was the spark we needed. It has been one surprise after next since that signing. For the first time in a long time, I see a clear direction from this club. Despair has turned to hope. Can’t wait for the season to start.
This has to be the best and most impactful transfer window in more then a decade. No way Wenger/Gazidis could have pulled off anything like this. Its only one window but I think we may have to reevaluate and much more favorable grades to Josh Kronke and his new front office braintrust.
how many sendings off will we see from our centre haves this year?
luiz is not going to get away with what he did at chelsea in a red and white shirt mustafi and sokrates.
and with var.. god help us.
Am I the only one who is choking on the thought of seeing David Luiz in an Arsenal shirt? The most despicable player (after JT left) on the second (third?)-most despised team in the EPL? Good business, maybe, and probably will even improve our defense… but it feels like we’ve made a pact with the devil. Still, desperate times, desperate measures, win at all costs, eh what?
Bummed to see Iwobi leave. Tons of potential and still young enough to realize it. Time will tell on this one. I can see Everton finishing above United this season. Now there’s the silver lining…
if the glove was on the other foot and we bought iwobi for a possible (with add ons haha) £34 million would we think ofvthat as a good deal?
we already stiched them up with walcott.
emery gave him the best chance possible last season and made a decision.. arsene might not have been so decisive and got critisised.
Not that long ago we sold Serge Gnabry, a better player than Iwobi with a higher ceiling, for less than 5m GBP. In that context, 34/35m for Iwobi is one of those things I dont have strong feelings about either way. I’d have been happy if we kept him… I’m not too bothered that we sold him.
I do feel a bit wistful about what might have been. Can he, as some people feel, develop into a powerful ball-carrying midfielder? I have always felt that he lacked too much. Finishing we’ve talked about, but for a big lad, he wasn’t particularly physical, nor was he a good tackler or good on the defensive side of the game.
He did not have Wilshere’s or Rosicky’s trickery. He seemed to run hard at the defence, then lose a few seconds trying to figure out what to do once he got to the box. And it seemed too late in life to teach him trickery and dribbling fundamentals. Ox was a much better player, for whom Liverpool paid about the same money.
And yet, players like Adebayor made the leap from undeveloped to very good, so who knows with Iwobi? ‘d have preferred that we sold Mkhitaryan. There’s a good player in there in Iwobi, but Everton were very interested, Arsenal had players in the pipeline, and they had to make a choice. I hope he develops into a monster player. But even if he does, I’ll still think we made the right call on selling this summer.
I’ll be the first to say it: if you offered me a choice of Upa for 70m, Rugani for 40m and Luiz for 8m it would be Luiz every time. Every single time.
Who is Upamenaco? 70+m, are you kidding me? I unde why they quoted us that price – late in the window, Kos gone etc. But we’d be mad to pay it for such a young player not even close to first choice at his club. Pure late window inflation.
Rugani sounds good on paper, but so did Mustafi. The latter came with people saying be cautious, and they were right. Rugani sounds similar. Look how Mustafi turned out, and now we’re stuck with him.
Luiz is a known quality, and 8m is nothing considering we got 5m for Kos. So we paid 3m for a defender of a similar level of quality (albeit different style), and for an extra year. Meanwhile it gives us a year to scout a replacement like Upa (or another) without the crazy end of window prices, and bring in Saliba next season to start to phase out either Luis or Sokratis.
Like, it makes far, far too much sense. Most sensical deal of our summer!
Also, anyone have any thoughts on who got the better LB, us or Spurs? Both young, similar prices, same position, but we were never after Sessegnon and Spurs were never after Tierney. Why?
Agree with you on the CB situation. The Maguire deal skewed the entire market for CBs, and this is not the right window to be shopping for them. Defence, particular Central Defence, is the most “trainable” positions in football. With enough drills and proper defensive organization, it’s not impossible to polish diamonds from turds. Take the Keown 2005 Champions League run for example.
David Luiz is an excellent stopgap central defender until we either develop someone like Medley in-house, fix Mustafi, or do a Rob Holding-style opportunistic buy.
As for why we didn’t go for Sessegnon. Simple: Emery wants a flat 4 LB. Pochetinno wants a wingback LB who can operate in a back 5. Tierney and Sessegnon are both completely different players who suits both clubs differing needs. Sessegnon would be a good buy if we were replacing Kolasinac.
Both went for GBP25m, showing that the price for unproven but talented full-backs is half the price for a PROVEN talented fullback like AWB. Being “proven” adds double the price, showing how risky a deal like Upamecano would be versus Luiz. Brain Trust priced their bids smartly this time round.
I still can’t believe we’ve got Pepe though. A high-octane flair dribbler with a natural finish, to complement Auba’s poaching, Laca’s hold-up play. If Ozil can’t get double digit assists from this bunch…
Would be nice to have kept Nketiah though. Who is going to be playing CF during the League Cup and Europa League dead rubbers now? I suspect we are going to play Lacazette into the ground this season.
I hear you about Nketiah, but playing a full season at Leeds should help. For the dead rubbers we have John-Jules. Or Martinelli. Plus, if we’re rotating intelligently among Laca, Auba and Pepe, we should have enough.
Cheers bud. Makes sense on the LBs.
i really hate to see iwobi leave. when you think of how much he’s improved since last summer, it’s clear to see that the sky’s the limit. equally clear is the track of his development. he was a constant attacking threat; a scary proposition with his ability to easily go by defenders and collapse a defense. he knew how to create space for an overlapping left back. lastly, his defensive positioning has improved dramatically.
i just feel that his best is coming. he’s in a category of players like ox and coquelin who have great pedigree and potential. if not for ox’s injuries, i believe he’s part and parcel of that champions league winning liverpool side but i digress. iwobi’s best is yet to come and i wish him all the best going forward.
i believe pepe will do well but i hope he’s considerably better than iwobi. it may seem laughable but you can’t compare what he did in france to what he’ll do in england. plenty have balled out in france but stunk up the joint in the prem. like i said, i believe pepe will do well. i just hope he’s as good as we’re hoping. we’ll see.
I think it’s worth suggesting that Arsenal fans had better get used to selling our young unrealized talent more often – it seems like we’re going to focus on buying late-teen/early-20’s prospects… a lot of them will get sold on. I get the apprehension about selling Iwobi. But chances are good that if they become successes we might sell Pepe in a few years, Reiss-Nelson, Joe Willock, Martinelli… so long as there’s an academy pipeline behind them. And it appears that we’ve gotten way way better at selling players. Bielek went for 10m… a few years ago Wenger/Gazidis would have gotten maybe 2-3m for him. Iwobi for 34m is great business.
Selling Iowbi for 35 million is heck of a lot better than selling Gnabry for less than 5.
Selling Iwobi was the right thing to do. With the self-sustaining model, and still with Xhaka/Mustafi/Elneny/Mkhi/Ozil around, Arsenal don’t have the luxury of keeping a squad player when an offer of £35 million comes in. I
In Martinelli and Nelson we have ready-made replacements for Iwobi – who was not a nailed-on starter – both of whom will see their value double or triple with decent game time over the coming season.
I don’t care if Iwobi excelled in some baloney, made-up stats to do with expected goals. His actual return of goals and assists was underwhelming, and eyeball evidence ranks him as yet another frustrating underperformer with inadequate end product.
Without CL to distract us, we will finish third this season. We’ll probably also win the Europa League. Sadly City and Pool will probably mop up all the domestic trophies. But if we’re lucky with injuries we may give Liverpool a run for second.
A few things here.
1) all stats are made up – literally, we define an action (goal, assists, shot (good), shot (bad), pass (good), pass (bad), etc) and then count that action.
2) We then test those stats to see if they are valuable, do they help us to explain the game? Do they help us to understand a player’s value? Do they help us to uncover data that we might have missed because we were blinded by our prejudices? Etc.
3) Expected goals turns out to be a pretty valuable stat to do all of those things. It’s not perfect but it’s really useful.
4) all stats are collected by… the eye! People literally watch games and mark down actions. You should see it in action it’s really cool. So when you say that a player doesn’t pass “the eye test” what you really mean is “I don’t like him” which you are free to do, but let’s not pretend that “the eye test” is anything even remotely objective much less anything “tested”. It’s just you watching him play and saying “I don’t care for what he just did there.” Clearly, Everton think he’s a good player, they just paid 4th most ever for him. And I’m sure they use eye tests, stats tests, physical tests, and probably a bunch of other tests.
And Arsenal felt he did not represent 40 million of value to them.
It’s laughable to compare xG with goals. You know, a statistical abstraction versus things which actually happened. xG don’t win games. Goals win games.
The idea that a manager can radically improve and develop individual players is mostly a fantasy. He can certainly make the team play well together which makes everyone look better but even the worlds greatest manager can’t turn a team of undertalented players into something they are not. I suspect Emery will look a lot smarter with a better group of players.
Pep or Klopp or Pochettino would not have looked very smart with the squad Emery inherited.
If Alex Iwobi isnt saleable, who is?
As a club, we’ve got to be brave in the sale, and Iwobi’s doesn’t strike me as being an especially tough choice. I’d have liked him to stay, mind. But man, he’s not going to get a lot of game time. Shopping for Zaha and Pepe should tell us something about how the coaches regarded his productivity from wide. He played A LOT, and got 3 goals and 6 assists last season.
With minutes reduced on the wing, he wasn’t going to get games in the centre either. Not with Mhiki, Ozil, Ceballos, Xhaka, Torreira, Guendouzi and my favourite Arsenal youngster, Joe Willock. I saw a video last night of his time at Arsenal since he was a boy, and it made me a bit sad. But not for long. Transitions.
This is a good move for him, the club, and hopefully for Everton. I hope he tears it up in the blue half of Liverpool.
Willock really looked like ‘le package totale’ this pre-season. Saka, whenever he was on the pitch, looked dangerous. Both are playing at a level that’s couple of notches beyond their years. I also have high hopes for ESR – his fluid style reminds me of KDB. If these 3 players live upto their promise, we will have a special team in the next couple of seasons.
We spent the entirety of the last two years complaining that Arsenal doesn’t have enough wide forwards and players who can dribble, and then we sell the only player on the team who did both of those. I am of the frame of mind that to build a club you don’t sell.
Iwobi was a wide forward who dribbles. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was always one of the quality of those dribbles, the vision, the speed of thought, the end product, etc. Perhaps he’ll come good. But then, perhaps Nelson will come good. Perhaps Martinelli will come good. Saka. Etc.
That return from Iwobi in terms of goals and assists is all you need to know sadly. We can’t afford that lack of productivity. We upgraded to this Pepe lad, I think that has to be the right call.
Im also not convinced about the noises around Nketiah. If he was as “highly rated” as they say, he’d be the 3rd striker that Welbeck was so good at being till he got injured. Yes, we have 2, but we need a solid third, especially as we will play the 2 together a lot. And though Pepe is a goalscorer, Im not sure he’ll play striker a lot. Clearly Arsenal rate Martinelli higher than Eddie. He’s going to Leeds, in the Championship. Ive seen this movie before, with Chuba Akpom and Jay Emmanuel Thomas. Eddie’s value is being established, I fear, with a view to selling him on. The coaches had a lot of time to look at him and Martinelli in the pre-season. And i think theyve made their choice.
Nketiah is at a point where he needs to play every week to get to the next level. He would have have gotten some cup games at Arsenal but I’m not sure that would have been enough. Pretty sure the player also felt the same way because he preferred going on loan rather than waiting around for the cup games. The only risk is that if one of Laca/ Auba gets a long term injury then we will be a little short. Hopefully the club was smart and put in a recall clause in his loan contract. We have seen them do that before with Coquelin.
Claude – I don’t think you could bring in the Brazilian kid and immediately loan him out. Needed time to bed in with the club and get comfortable with UK. THey want to keep him close. They may be eyeing an Eddie sale, but they may also just be getting him minutes to take him up a level. I think they are seeing a loan spell as part of the growth process for almost all of the players coming through the academy. Makes sense for their growth and maturation.
Fair points.
Jet is a real shame. Last i saw he was playing in Thailand somewhere smh.
Chuba on the other hand is starting to make some noise w/ PAOK FC. Had links to West Ham this summer. Became a Greek Invincible, Domestic Double winner. Scored 8 goals overall but didn’t make his first league start until the January window.
Currently, 2-2 on aggregate w/ Ajax. Got a goal the other day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVPkSziF5Rk
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I feel that’s a tad harsh on Nketiah. Emery blocked his loan move to the Bundesliga only to barely give him any game time at all. And I think the comparison between the 2 doesn’t take their age into play or frankly what the player wants. Nketiah is 20 now & needs games. Playing a 40+ game season for a big, historic club like Leeds who are one of the favourites for promotion in the Championship under the legendary Marcelo Bielsa could do wonders for him.
I’d be willing to wager that Tyreece John-Jules gets more game time at the 3rd striker role than Martinelli.
I think Iwobi might become an excellent player. But we are getting $30mm-ish for someone who MIGHT be an excellent player. He might also have hit something of a ceiling. Yes, he could become a strong midfielder but that experiment would take two years, and with our newly stocked midfield, where was he going to get the mintues to learn the ropes? Everton is paying for the opportunity to develop him. If it goes well, we get closer to $40mm. We have to start being ok with passing up some players’ potential and start selling a bit more ruthlessly. That is how the game is played now. We will miss out on a few. But on balance, selling helps our buying, and given what we’ve bought this summer, I think we have done well. We have to sell to buy. Welcome to being a modern football club.
We just spent two years complaining that we don’t have enough wide forwards who can dribble and cause chaos and we just sold one of our only two.
Iwobi was also chaotic defensively. Also chaotic in terms of ball possession. Also chaotically missed a good number of sitters in front of net. He was an Arsenal product and for that I’m sorry to see him go, but he was never going to be a key part to a top 4 team, even coming off the bench.
I thought you hated Rosicky? Rosicky brought the same qualities as Iwobi to the team, but was miles better (when healthy). But I seem to remember you dismissing what he added to our team in terms of ball carrying skills and attacking the lines.
I would consider Pepe, Martinelli, Nelson all wide forwards. Mkhi too can be deployed there so we have options. I also think Saka’s upside is higher than Iwobi’s so the sale makes sense to me.
Agreed. Big on Saka long-term.
Based on the two pre-season games, 15 minutes or so of total football. Good call.
This is interesting from Ronay:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/aug/09/getting-david-luiz-wrong-arsenal-barney-ronay
We also spent the last year complaining we needed a cdm and an lb and more help at cb. We addressed those needs AND we got not just a dribbler but a scoring threat from the wing. Thats what we really lacked. We had to give up something. In a perfect world we would keep everyone but this is a much better world than the Gazidis Wenger world of complete inaction and last minute panic buying.
Tim
Iwobe has had 4 years to develop into an effective player. The reason we complained about not having anyone who could dribble and cause chaos was because Iwobe wasn’t doing a good enough job of being that player. Even the bigger teams sometimes need to make sacrifices and sell someone to raise money and unfortunately we cant get rid of Mkhitaryan or Ozil. $38M for Iwobe who at best would probably have been a low impact squad player seems like a fantastic deal.
Ok, now that the transfer window delirium is dying down, I’m looking at our first few fixtures, and returning to earth…
Hearing that Ozil and Kolasinac are ruled out of the Newcastle game. Will Luiz start? I doubt it, so that’s Chambers in defence. Hm. The game comes too soon for the likes of Pepe, Torreira, and Lacazette. Guendouzi also a late returnee so possibly starting on the bench. Tierney out for six weeks.
Good grief! Nerves!
Pffft.
You should have seen our opening 2 fixtures last season.
Ozil and Kolasinac to be left out of the game after further security incidents targeting them.
This is horrible. What is going on? And even at the time it was raised as an issue, ironically even by Sky themselves, asking Ozil if he was afraid he was being followed, as they showed the front of his house on camera.
If it really is a big problem, it might also explain the Ozil to DC United rumours that surfaced recently.
The amount of tax paid by footballers and premier league clubs in this country the police should and should be able to protect the players. if ozil goes to the states because of these incidents this country should be ashamed.
If Ozil comes here to feel safer, he’s not been watching the news.
May I just say what a comfort to find somebody who truly knows what they’re discussing
on the net. You definitely know how to bring a problem
to light and make it important. More and more people
should read this and understand this side of your story. I was
surprised you are not more popular because you certainly have
the gift.