Ranking Arsenal’s transfer business since 2015

2015/16 – The worst, most shocking, transfer window. Wenger purchased only Petr Cech that summer and sold Podolski. Elneny has turned out to be quite the purchase (he came in January) but at the time we desperately needed a forward to score goals. That was also the year that Cazorla succumbed to infection in his leg. -2/10

2018/19 – Another stinker. Torreira, Sokratis, and Guendouzi have all washed out. We loaned in Denis Suarez and to to top is all off, we paid the Lich to play football for an entire year. Bernd Leno was a good buy and the only thing that saves this season from being worse than 2015/16. 1/10

2017/18 – Bought Lacazette and then needed to turn around and buy Aubameyang. Auba has been great for the club so that adds huge points here but the swap deal for Mkhitaryan and Alexis was just straight up awful. That was also the season we sold Szczesny and Ox. And we also sold Giroud to… Chelsea where he has only gone on to fucking win like every trophy. Giroud would start for Arsenal right now and you all know it. Let’s not forget that this is also the year we gave Ozil that bomb track. Tough one to rank because Auba is so fantastic but most of the rest of the transfers were god awful, I give it 2/10.

2016/17 – Sold Serge Gnabry for.. 4.5m. Bought Xhaka for 41m and Mustafi for 37m. Also finally got a striker who scored goals (Lucas Perez) but then Wenger didn’t play him. Rob Holding was a gem of a find though, at 2.7m. 3/10 just for the fact that Holding is a gem and Xhaka has played so much for the club.

2019/20 – Tierney, great. Martinelli, awesome. Getting 27m for Iwobi? good business. Spending that 27m on Saliba and then loaning him back to St. E? Paying “double” what other teams offered for Pepe? David Luiz? Pablo Mari? Soares? OMG. I’m giving it 4/10 just because Tierney and Martinelli. Plus Pepe and Saliba could turn out to be great.

2020/21 – Hey! Things are looking up! Thomas? Five star signing. Gabriel? Five star signing. Pablo Mari? Ok, I think I get it, he’s left footed. Runar? No stars, astonishingly idiotic signing. Soares? Minus two. Willian? Look, I understand why we signed him (his SCA90 was outstanding last season) but that doesn’t mean it’s been great. Also, the fact that he starts over Pepe is very worrying. 7/10 just for Thomas and Gabriel and not messing things up too badly.

Qq

45 comments

  1. Yes, spot on, think maybe we sold well with the Ox and Theo. Was that 2017 and 40+30=70 millions in which in all likelyhood seems good?

    But darn, theres a lot of poor windows. Both before and after (with reservation for present which looks good so far).

  2. Great post Tim

    IMO. Our inept transfer dealings are the reason we are where we are right now. Arteta has a team without a single champions league team level attacking talent other then Auba and right now Auba is struggling so it’s not a surprise that we are struggling to score.

    The bottom line is we have a poorly constructed squad that will probably have to fight to make it to one of the Europa League spots. The club needs a well thought out coherent long term plan that involves not just the manager but the entire front office and as your post points out that has been absent for much of the previous decade.

    1. “Arteta has a team without a single champions league team level attacking talent…”

      A lot of teams in the Champions League have players like Pepe, Saka, Martinelli and Willian. Not every champions league team has 8 Kylian Mbappes. Morata was a bust here, now he’s at Juventus, and part of the Spain team that demolished Germany last weekend.

      You always reduce a debate to “coach doesnt have X, that why we’re bad.” Well Tuchel had Mbappe, Cavani, Neymar and Di Maria, and he struggled to get them to win when it mattered (outside of League 1).

      A good coach has a team punching above what is perceived to be their collective weight, like Ranieri with Leicester in their championship year. Arteta’s results are mixed. We cant discount that he has beated the big teams in the almost year that he’s been in charge, but his tactics make his attackers look LESS than the sum of their parts.

      “They’re all bad except Auba” is not a conclusion that makes sense to me. Did you watch Saka in the England/Ireland game? He was MOTM.

  3. i concur that your ratings are pretty harsh. for the sake of discussion, i’ll play devil’s advocate and make arguments to every window. with that, i make no promise that all arguments will be legit but i’ll try.

    in 15/16, who else did arsenal need to bring in other than cech? to bring in one player is not necessarily a bad thing. the invincibles only brought in jens lehmann the summer of ’03. arsenal were solid in the summer of 2015 and had depth. unfortunately, in typical arsenal fashion, they had a few big injuries.

    16/17, few arguments here. biggest mistake, wenger was determined to make theo a star. as a result, joel campbell, serge gnabry, and lucas perez couldn’t get game time, although a blind man could see that they were all significantly better than theo. i argued that arsenal overpaid for both mustafi and xhaka. with that, everyone was happy because arsenal spent money. i remember you singing about you want your xhaka and folks were raving about how when mustafi played, arsenal hadn’t lost. ha!

    17/18 is interesting. i argued vehemently that giroud was a significantly better center forward than lacazette but everyone argued that giroud was slow; smh. arsenal should have played laca as a second striker behind giroud. initially, i felt like you about the mkhi/alexis swap. then mkhi came out with his version of “yo pierre, you wanna come out here?” and it all made sense. sorry, tim, but that was a brilliant move that allowed arsenal to move alexis on without missing his goals. lastly, arsenal lost the ox and coquelin.

    18/19, i liked the guendouzi move but hated the others, especially the torreira move. sokratis did better than i thought but it was emery screwing up arsenal in a special way. arsenal lost wilshere, cazorla, and ramsey.

    19/20, tierney and martinelli are much better than i thought. all of the other signings were trash. didn’t understand they hype with pepe and saliba…way too expensive and i still don’t understand the hype. david luiz? nuts! i still can’t appreciate how the club lost koscielny and traded monreal for a ham sandwich.

    20/21, gabriel looks arsenal’s most brilliant defensive signing since sol campbell. thomas is finally the kid i’ve been screaming for since arsenal put their faith in xhaka. no arguments.

    1. a disclaimer, i did argue that there was little difference between iwobi and pepe except the transfer fee. to lose a homegrown player and to overpay for an impending afcon disaster was a bit of bad business.

      i stand by my position that i don’t think pepe is much more effective than iwobi, especially for the money. pepe’s talent is undeniable but, tactically, he’s a baby who doesn’t seem to want to grow up.

      likewise, i said lacazette was loic remy 2.0. well, i’m sorry, laca. you’re far better than remy but still nowhere near giroud.

      1. Pepe had 8 goals and ten assists across all competitions last season which isn’t bad for a first campaign. Iwobi has hardly been pulling up trees since he left us. Forget money, Pepe has contributed far more and has far greater potential.

        1. pepe should have better numbers than iwobi. he cost £72 million for crying out loud! iwobi didn’t cost arsenal a thing.

          i’m not saying iwobi is better than pepe. i’ve already declared him an exceptional talent. likewise, he plays more dead balls than iwobi ever did. i’m asking if you honestly think arsenal play better with pepe on the field than they did with iwobi, because i don’t. if you do believe that, do they play £72 million better? hell, arsenal don’t even attack on the right side anymore as pepe is so predictable and holds the ball so long.

          with that, i’m not saying he’s a bust, but if he were going to improve, i’m thinking that after a year we would see green shoots of his tactical development. i haven’t seen enough to justify that price tag. and i don’t care what pepe does in the mickey mouse cup competitions…it’s all about the premier league, as that’s where the arsenal bread get’s buttered.

          1. So your comeback without any facts or stats is that Pepe cost a lot? Everyone agrees the club overpaid for him but It’s too reductive to keep talking about his transfer fee.

            Arsenal rarely attack on the right regardless of who plays that side – that’s not the fault of a single player. In fact I’d say the best goal we’ve scored in the league was Pepe’s individual goal (on the right) against Sheff Utd.

            As for Iwobi just ask any Everton fan if they think he was a good buy? Selling him was possibly one of the shrewdest pieces of business we’ve done in recent years.

          2. what facts are you looking for, mattb? it’s a blog. we’re opining.

            the thread is about ranking arsenal’s transfer business so you can’t simply dismiss how much arsenal paid for pepe. likewise, my point is not to cry about how much arsenal paid for him but how good of a business deal it was; that’s the theme of the thread.

            when the pepe and iwobi deals initially happened, i made a comparative analysis between the two. i’m merely revisiting that. i wanted to see if these transfers would facilitate arsenal playing significantly better football. my opinion is that the superior talent of pepe doesn’t translate into superior play from arsenal. pepe is technically exceptional with the ball at his feet and clinical striking a dead ball. however, his link-up play is trash and not improving significantly. iwobi is not as technically gifted but his link play is much stronger. ultimately, football is a team sport. i’m simply asking is pepe merely a talented player or actually a good player. the jury’s still out.

      2. My ratings aren’t harsh enough. I’m still seething over that 2015/16 transfer window. The club should have fired Wenger that summer.

    2. 2015/2016: We should have kept Schezney and with a goal scoring striker and a good midfielder could have won back to back titles (with an emphasis on ‘good midfielder’ seeing as both those titles were basically won by Kante).

      Granted I can understand why Wenger loaned/sold Schezney after reading what really went down over that cigarette incident in Wenger’s book, the epic ten page description of the naked fistfight in the shower and subsequent passionate love-making, you have to maintain boundaries. Still would have kept him mind, but I’m good at blanking stuff like that out.

      1. arsenal had a very deep midfield consisting of mesut, ramsey, cazorla, coquelin, ox, jack, rosicky, and arteta (off the top of my head). coqzorla went into the 15/16 season playing a blinder. everyone was fit that summer. what midfielder should arsenal have brought in and for who?

        arsenal had a great striker in 15/16. alexis was the best player in the league.

    3. 15/16 – we most definitely did not recreate the invincibles. in fact, it was a disaster season. Cech, it turns out, actually cost us that season because he couldn’t save shots from outside the 18 yard box (we allowed more goals from distance than any team).

      17/18 – I’m not sure we watched the same season. Mkhitaryan was an abject failure, we lost out on 50m+ we could have gotten in summer by selling Alexis, our shots per game started to crater, Arsenal finished 6th, Wenger was fired, Ozil quit football, and the only reason we scored 70+ goals was because we overperformed xG by 10+ goals. If you thought that was a good season, well, that’s an odd thought.

      1. i’m not saying arsenal were trying to recreate the invincibles in 2015. i’m saying that arsenal were better on paper than their finish that campaign. there was plenty of talent in that side…and, in typical arsenal fashion, there were plenty of injuries; namely cazorla’s knee injury. other than theo, where did arsenal need a significant upgrade?

        likewise, if you watch many of the goals cech conceded, he actually saved many of them from distance. it was the rebounds where arsenal conceded. cech can’t make the save and clear the ball. that’s on his team mates. cech didn’t give up bad rebounds, arsenal just failed to follow the shots and get the ball out.

        as for the alexis/mkhi swap: first, i didn’t want to lose alexis. he was the best player in the league. second, if mkhi doesn’t come to arsenal, there’s no way arsenal sign aubameyang. you even posted a video of a kid asking auba if he was coming to arsenal and auba laughed at the kid.

        the mkhi deal was brilliant because it facilitated the aubameyang move. as for mkhi, as a player, i advised the 7am fellowship, when he was still at dortmund, that mkhitaryan wasn’t suited for the premier league and that i had no interest in seeing him in arsenal red. once i heard the “yo, pierre” piece, the mkhitaryan deal made sense.

  4. Your scores suggest there is an inverse relationship between strength of TW and subsequent league position. Maybe it’s not just about having the bestest shiniest players?!

  5. re 16/17: I too will never understand how we got tricked so bad on Xhake and Mustafi. Now, I kinda like Xhaka because at least he’s got some attitude and against the right teams, he does control the pace of the game. Better teams know how to exploit his lack of pace, that’s why Arteta like to play him as far back as possible. Good coaches try to cover up any weaknesses. Still, we overpaid by about 20m on him.

    re 17/18: Nothing to add on Auba, I love him as a player. Laca was very good initially, but I think he might be past it already. I always liked Giroud and will never understand why we sold him (much less to a rival). He has his flaws, yes, but he also has a clear purpose and role in a team and plays that to great effect. We really could’ve used him in so many games. Never tried to replace him either, Laca tries his best to hold up the ball but he’s 1,75m so he’s not very good at that. But just imagine a front two with Giroud holding up and feeding balls to Auba. Oh well.
    About the Sanchez-Mkhi deal: yikes! I get that Sanchez wanted to leave but who thought it’d be a good idea to get Mkhi in?! He’d been bad since he switched to the PL so what were we smoking?
    Oh yes, the Ozil deal. Honestly I would have rather seen him leave and invest the money in an actual midfielder. Literally anyone putting on a shift would’ve been fine.

    re 18/19: Leno was the best deal we made in a while. Sokratis came and did what he was asked: defend without nonsense. He’s not a ballplaying defender though, which was his downfall. Quite how anyone thought Torreira was gonna make it is beyond me, the dude’s smaller than my girlfriend, for frick’s sake. Just because Kanté can somehow make up for his lack of height, doesn’t say every little man can. Guendouzi looked good in my opinion, I hope he gets his s*** together. A midfield consisting of him and Partey would be very nice. No words on Suarez.

    re 19/20: I love Tierney and I love Martinelli, really good business on either. Mixed feeling about Iwobi, though. Granted, he doesn’t have good end product, but as a ball carrier he was important to the team. I would prefer him over Willian any day! Salibe could become good enough to be worth that year of waiting. Pepe is amazingly good with ball, no discussion. I think he’s just a guy that needs some hugs and a lot of confidence. Oh, and also he needs to play closer to the goal. Inside-right, that’s where he needs to be on the ball. Mari is literally only in the team because he has a left foot. Gabriel makes him obsolete now. I think Luiz was a decent deal. He’s error prone, but he communicates in the defence and he can pass the ball. And Cedric, well.. must have been tough to find a player willing to only play backup because Bellerin ain’t losing his place anytime soon.

    re 19/20: Gabriel and Thomas are amazing. Runar is the same thing as Soares, he’s willing to only be the backup to Leno and he was cheap. Willian could have worked out, but he seems to have lost his motivation for football alltogether. The less he plays, the better. Plus that deal damaged Pepe’s fragile ego.

  6. sidebar: anyone see germany get slapped by spain? what an incredibly poor performance by the germans. in fairness, most saw this coming from a mile away.

    i place all of this on joachim low and always have. he won the world cup by inheriting the personnel and strategy put in place by klinsmann but, as players aged out, he’s failed to implement a sound new strategy with the new players. despite all the efforts by folks trying to make excuses for germany’s last world cup performance (blaming ozil), this beating has been on the books for a while. the only surprise is that it’s taken so long.

    there’s no reason for germany to get thrown that type of beating with all the talent they have. low should have been sacked after the last world cup and he certainly needs the sack now. i’d love to hear what the german media has to say about him now, especially that rummenigge clown.

  7. A bit harsh on Saliba, it’s been widely reported his Mother died in May,I hear his Father has died also.Devasting at any age,I reckon he deserves patience.

    1. harsh to mention that we paid 27m for a player who hasn’t played for Arsenal? I’m empathetic to his loss but from a business standpoint this was a terrible deal. It was terrible to loan him back to France in the first place. What has transpired since then is beyond our control but it’s far from a great transfer at this moment.

  8. Ratings are subjective, and I have no issue with any of Tim’s. The main point is that we do not seem to have a settled philosophy or approach to transfers… maybe the frequent personnel changes at scouting and at coaching have muddled things. A stronger operation would have told the coach that Guendouzi is a long term investment, he’s going nowhere, make it work. Maybe he’ll come back with an improved game like Elneny did, but it seemed clear to me that he had a higher ceiling than both the Egyptian and Xhaka. The essence of good coaching is to nurture that talent.

    Which brings me to Saliba. Nothing Arteta or Arsenal have said about his situation makes sense, and the most logical conclusion is that the coach doesn’t want or rate him, and perhaps we’ve blown 27m. Hope I’m wrong about the last part. We couldn’t wait to get him here, and he arrived with decent English, having put in the tuition work, seemingly eager to hook up with the strong Francophone core that includes the captain. Then he was homesick, we were told, and we AFC were looking to send him back to France on loan, but no one pursued it with any vigor before the window shut. Then he was to be loaned out to the Championship, which made a lie of the homesick claim (if you couldn’t send him back to France, the best place was his club). Then back at Arsenal, he was STILLL not named to any squad, and then he was sent with the B team, where he is playing now. And all the while his St Etienne former partner Wesley Fofana is prospering at Leicester.

    We have been and continue to be a shambles when it comes to transfers. Who has the final call? Arteta or Edu? Mari was clearly an Edu purchase. Did the coach agree? I asked because we added another left footed central defender, to an already overcrowded CB roster.

    1. Fofana’s introduction has really shone a light on the Saliba affair. Saliba was touted as THE hot prospect and it was seen as quite a coup to sign him. Time will tell whether Fofana is the better prospect but the fact Saliba isn’t playing first team football is gross negligence.

      We’re suffering from management churn at the moment. We need a couple of seasons of a settled leadership team. Trouble is neither Edu or Arteta have done the job before so there’s no body of work to take comfort from. Combined with the frustration of the Emery hire not working out and some dubious decisions this past twelve months. No wonder we’re all questioning the club.

      Your point about transfer strategy is so on point. We’re not Dortmund or RB Salzburg (could also include Chelsea) who buy young and cheap in the hope one or two make it. And let’s be honest Aouar and Szoboszlai were identified far too late for us to be competing for their signature. We’re still buying ready made talent at top drawer prices and sometimes paying over the odds for talent on the way down. There’s nothing since Edu joined that hints at what we’re trying to do. A perfect example is that in the last two years we’ve sold loads of attacking dribblers and ball carriers and now only really have Ceballos and Pepe with those skills.

      To finish on a positive the academy is delivering some great potential. Trouble is can they see a route to the first team or do we lose them like Gnabry and Jeff to flourish elsewhere?

      1. “We’re still buying ready made talent at top drawer prices and sometimes paying over the odds for talent on the way down.”

        This.

        It’s harder to unearth young, uncut gems like Arsene used to in the early part of his reign. Not talking about Vieira… but players like Ramsey and Adebayor. Guendouzi is far from being the finished article, but he’s a pretty good footballer for a 20 year old, who made a decent go of things in a difficult first season under Emery. Tossed (at least for now). It’s all muddled and confusing.

        You sometimes need to buy experience, yes, but how much is too much? Luiz, Willian and Cech before them seem to have an uncomfortably common thread. Cant put my finger on it… 🙄

        Willock is tearing the place up in the EL, but cant make a squad in the EPL. AMN started like a train, and even made the England squad. Things are a bit fits and starts for him at the moment.

        Part of the fault lies with us, the fans. Are we patient enough to see a young investment make his mistakes and develop? Wenger used to justify not making a particular transfer, because it would “kill” X or Y. Yes, his abilities deteriorated, (and he himself started buying old and ready-made) but he had a clear philosophy.

        1. Claude, there’s a ‘Team of the season’ article today on the Guardian site. Names Fofana and Barkley in the eleven with substitute mentions for Martinez, James and Hojbjerg. That’s a lot of talent who switched clubs this Summer. Funnily enough the only one associated with Arsenal was the keeper we sold SMH.

      2. At this stage I don’t think you can make any judgement on Saliba himself, his talent or his quality, or the decision to buy him. Even loaning him back to St Etienne for more experience was a good idea.

        But everything since then has been strange and amateurish on the club’s part. I think that’s down to inexperience on the part of Arteta and Edu. It has hurt the young man’s career, and might have killed off any ambition he had to play well for Arsenal. We have to hope not, if he’s as good as his potential indicated.

    2. Listening the Arsenal Vision podcast the other day, and Tim Stillman, Clive, Paul, and Elliot were all under the impression that Saliba lost both his parents within the last six months or so. Apparently (and understandably), the player has not given the club permission to share or publicly discuss this personal news.

      He’s a teenager, in a new league, living in a new country, and coping with the grief of an almost unthinkable loss. I think in that context, the decision not to use him right now is actually a sign of good management, not bad. He’s keeping fit in the U23’s (a loan back to France would have been ideal), but obviously the club–and perhaps the player himself–believe that it’s not the right time to be playing in elite competitions, and personally, I think that’s wise.

      1. That is an unimaginable level of grief, which I have never experienced, and which would probably break me.

        That said, here’s the thing… he’s grieving for his parents, so you work hard on a loan to…. Bristol City? He’s grieving for his parents but you cant summon the urgency all summer to do a deal that gets him back close to his family in France, even though SE were willing to have him back? He’s grieving for his parents, but he’s still playing ball… with Tyrese in the reserves, and not PEA and Eddie.

        It makes no logical sense, any of it. But neither does a lot of what Arsenal does these days. We screwed up the lad’s landing, and nothing the club says about his grief quite chimes with the actions theyve undertaken on his behalf.

        1. Yeah, well, in a few years we could be sitting here talking about one of the best defenders in England. I’m not all that wound up about us not playing a 19-year-old, and I think there’s still a long way to go before we start trashing the club for his transfer or mismanagement.

          And I say this as someone who agrees with Tim’s bleak assessment of our transfer business generally.

          1. I’m not nearly as optimistic. I don’t blame the player and like I’ve said many times I empathize with him but it’s fair to point out that we took a massive risk – tying up huge sums of money that we don’t have just lying around – and it’s not even remotely working out. What Arsenal wanted was to get a 100m player for 30m (that’s what they sold us, and frankly what I think you’re buying here) but that was an incredible risk for a club like Arsenal. Not only that but loaning him back to St. E. was absurd – especially at that price. That said, it’s positive that he’s finally working with Arteta and learning English. But then come reports that we want to loan him out again. Man, what a wasted two seasons. And at this point we basically have to sign him to a new deal next summer without seeing him play a single minute of top level football for us because if we don’t we risk one of those Bosman type situations (you need to keep renewing players every two years unless you want them to leave). So, here we are again, with a player who is reportedly going to be the best player in Europe in a few years, with a huge transfer fee tied up in him, with almost no experience in the Premier League, and we aren’t even going to keep him around at the club for training.

            Is it bashing the club to say they took a risk and so far it’s been not great?

          2. I guess there are people who lean into “so far” more than others. My sense is that you and Claude don’t lean into it as much as I do in the case of this transfer. It’s a matter of degree. Like, how big is the Saliba stick that you’re using to beat the club with? My stick is small to non-existent. Which is why I’ve contacted my doctor about ED.

  9. The Saliba situation sure is weird,I seem to remember Real Madrid were linked with him,Zidane was reported to be a fan.He has represented France at various levels so fair to think he has ability.
    Arsenal have a terrible record with transfers,I hope this one works out.

  10. Wenger’s waning powers, short-termism, lack of direction and churn in the management of the club have killed any strategic approach to recruitment for a long time, leading to this litany of errors.

    It comes down to what Arteta said about Liverpool – they have a strategy, a way they want to play, and they recruit the players to fit that, let’s hope Arsenal have got back onto that path.

    It was a bit steep but I don’t mind paying 27 million for Saliba, he’s a long-term investment and that’s the kind of purchase we should be making. But Arsenal’s handling of him since then has been weird, inconsistent and somewhat lacking in empathy. I don’t like the club’s recent tendency to make arbitrary and blunt decisions, that’s a weak person’s idea of what strength looks like.

  11. The 15-16 window and the subsequent season is a half-full / half-empty cup of 100% proof liquid hindsight. You can say that our best finish in the last 15 years proves we didn’t need any major new transfers, or you can say it absolutely proves we needed one more.

    For the record, I remember defending Wenger at the time. Ironically, the position where a new recruit could arguably have made the most difference was held by a player who we all liked and respected, and who is now managing the team.

    1. i agree with your approach. i also try and remember how i felt that summer as assuming the retrospective view is unreasonable. with that, santi did a great job filling in for the oft injured arteta. his replacement came a later in the form of granit xhaka.

      the major step forward would have been buying to replace theo walcott.

      1. Tim thought it was terrible in real time to only buy Cech, so kudos to him on that.

        You’re probably right about Walcott. I thought it made sense to renew him on a deal that ended up being worth about 12 million, given that it would have cost at least double that to get a better replacement. And I thought he complemented Sanchez and Giroud well. But his return was poor.

        I remember all the chat being about DM, and whether Coquelin and an ageing Arteta were up to the job.

        1. To be clear:

          -I predicted that we would only buy Cech (based on there being zero reliable links to other players)
          -I thought it was funny that we would do that but a bad idea
          -I also supported Coquelin and still do and actually muchly dislike folks who bag on him
          -I also love Cazorla
          -I thought we needed a backup striker, like Lucas, to play for Arsenal.

          1. Yep. When I said the chat was about DM, I meant in general, not you. Or me for that matter, I always liked Coq too.

            I get that a back up striker would have been good; I had too much faith in Walcott and Ramsey to get goals I guess.

            I would rank 16-17 worse. At the time I was happy, when new players come in like that you have to have a certain level of faith. But sinking all that money into Xhaka and Mustafi, what should have been our spine for the next 5-6 years, has had a much bigger negative impact.

  12. https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/arsenal-transfer-news-latest-edu-thomas-partey-willian-gabriel-b886315.html

    Saka is a good shout for PFA Young Player of the Year.
    We are 4 points from Top 4 albeit with several very good-to-excellent teams above us, including Chel$ki and Citeh.
    Gabriel and Thomas appear to be decent footballers (that’s supposed to be a humorous understatement).
    I’m not ready to accept another lousy season just yet. Let’s see where we are in the next six weeks. There is the usual crush of fixtures that will determine whether we sink or swim.
    Going down once…going down twice…!

  13. If you look at where we are as club talent wise and its easy to see that Tim’s assessment of our transfer dealings in the last 5 years is spot on, or perhaps even not harsh enough. We can rationalize all we want with regard to the merits of individual deals but we have the overall result of our squad building strategy in the last decade right in front of our eyes every game . We have spent a significant amount of money to build a squad with mid table level talent and that speaks for itself.

  14. Claude @ 9:37 AM

    A lot of champions league teams might have a player like Laca, Willian, Pepe, Saka Elneny, on their squad somewhere but I doubt any team would be in the CL if that group was their critical regular starting attacking players.

  15. The responsibility for making transfer decision has rightfully been diversified between the manager and the front office staff. The situation where Arsene had total and complete control of every facet of the football operations of the club was no longer reasonable. Unfortunately we had to completely rebuild our front office and our football braintrust and its been very hit or miss with a lot of mistakes.

    Arteta has only been involved in 1 transfer window so we certainly can’t blame him for anything that happened before he came. This season Willian was a mistake IMO. However Gabriel and Partey both look pretty good at least so far.

    1. In a hilarious turn of events, Arsenal signed Lacazette so that they could play more countering football and less big man up high, then they turned Lacazette into a false 9 and asked him to win a bunch of high balls, play with his back to goal, and bring everyone into play, which is exactly what Giroud does best.

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