I listed to the Guardian Science Weekly episode “Looking up in wonder” (Part 2) and one of the presenters said in passing that “if NASA had remained funded at peak levels after the moon landing, we would have had manned missions to Mars in the 80s.” That got me thinking! What would have happened if we had kept the funding going? What if we had landed on Mars in, say 1995? That might make a cool short story.
I started doing some research and it turns out that a lot of folks have already written about this topic. There were a series of papers written in 1981 by Robert Parkinson (literally a rocket scientist) called “Mars in 1995!” that has since become quite famous among alternative timeline nerds. You can read a breakdown of Parkinson’s plan on the blog No Shortage of Dreams by David S.F. Portree.
And the speculative fiction of a Mars landing doesn’t stop with rocket scientists and space buffs: Stephen Baxter, whom I know from his work with Terry Pratchett on a series called “The Long Earth”, wrote a book called Voyage (and two other books set in the same timeline) about just this idea of an alternative timeline in which humans landed on Mars in 1986.
Back in our timeline, it was powerful Democratic senators like Walter Mondale and Teddy Kennedy who killed NASA’s Mars missions in order to shift funding toward “The War on Poverty”. In an opinion piece for The Hill, Mark Whittington suggests that spending money on NASA would have been a better anti-poverty program than what the dems dreamt up.
I read the plot synopsis of Voyage and it’s not how I would have written this alternative timeline. But reading the details he goes into reminds me that I know “fuck all” about space travel and that whatever I wrote would probably be worthless trash. Unless I did a mountain of research. Or maybe I go the Vonnegut route and make it less about the science and more about the people. I don’t know, it’s just an idea right now.
Back here in our timeline we have a few bits of Arsenal news this morning. The club has availed itself of a £120m COVID loan from the Bank of England to help with cashflow problems and cover the losses that the club are experiencing right now. The loan is due in May (with interest) and it’s important to remember that Kroenke isn’t going to open his wallet to pay back that interest, we are. In general, the quicker you wrap your head around this fact, the better. You (the fans) will be paying for everything at this club. Kroenke will never put a dime of his own money in. So, that interest is going to be wrapped into whatever expenses the club has which are balanced out by ticket prices, merch, and the growing cost of streaming Arsenal matches. All of which are paid for by us.
Arteta has also suggested that Ozil might be gone in the next few weeks, though, there too I see some odd statements from Arsenal and Arteta. The Guardian is reporting that Ozil is in talks with Fenerbahce to go to Turkey on a half-season loan. It’s worth remembering that Arsenal still owe Ozil something around £9m for the remainder of this season. According to the Guardian, Fener doesn’t want to pay full price and Arsenal have stated that it’s full price or nothing.
I hope this is just posturing on our part because if not, then it’s yet another example of how stupid this club is in transfers. Imagine if they stuck to this? Let’s say Fener offer £5m of Ozil’s salary and instead of taking that FREE MONEY they said “no, we want the 9 or we walk” and then Fener walk? Lol. Like I said, this had better be posturing. The funny thing is that we have been exactly this dumb recently so I expect these ding dongs to donk this up.
For example.. Runnar Runninghismouthson. What a fucking mess. Multiple reports are surfacing that Arsenal are trying to loan this guy out and get in another keeper. I get why we want to get rid, he is the worst keeper I’ve ever seen in an Arsenal shirt. But that there is yet another £2m just thrown away. And let’s not forget that this dud took up a squad spot for the last 6 months.
What a shambles we are at the moment. Everyone at the club should be pulling together to make Arteta’s job easier but so many things are going sideways at admin level that they are making things worse.
Not everything is going sideways. Arsenal did manage to sign Rob Holding today and that’s a good deal. I have seen some folks complaining about this frankly, I can’t understand some fans. He’s a great squad player who has done a good job as a starter this season. He’s 25, he’s English, and he is an underrated passer. I noticed his long ball percentages today, he completed 76% of his long passes at a clip of 12/16 per game. I get it that he makes mistakes, and he’s far from perfect or the most progressive of Arsenal’s defenders (that honor goes to Mustafi) but like I said, he’s an excellent squad player: someone who can step in an be virtually as good as the starter. The exact kind of player that a club like Arsenal need.
And! THIS IS THE KIND OF GOOD VALUE ARSENAL NEED TO BE RECRUITING!!! We paid £3.5m for him or something and he’s been on one of the lowest wage packets in the club. Let’s say we want to sell him in a year or two? Even if we can “only” get £10m for him, it’s money in the bank.
I swear that some of our fans are lunatics. Ok, that’s all from me today. I need to walk the dog and count some birbs.
Arsenal’s transfer workings the past few seasons has been poor, but on the keeper – a) perhaps give the guy a bit more time, and b) transfer dealings never have a 100% success rate. Even Liverpool has brought in some duds during the Klopp era and I think they’re generally acknowledged as having done the best job in the transfer market the past 3-4 years.
In fact they lost a CL final because of a backup GK! Not sure if that’s ever happened before.
Arteta’s comments on Runarsson are interesting. He basically says, look, we needed something quickly so it made sense at the time, but after we signed him we saw that this guy isn’t really up to it, so we’retrying to really figure it out now. I appreciate that honesty. Runar seems like a nice guy but his level is probably in a Scandinavian league, not with us.
Question for the accountants out there – is the interest paid on the loan a write-off for taxation purposes? I’d think so and if that’s the case, the loan makes great business sense even if it wasn’t a necessity to keep the lights on.
Taxable income is calculated after interest is paid for a corporation, so yes. But very seldom is the reduction in tax more than the increase in loan interest.
If someone offers you a cheap loan from a reputable lender, just take it. All companies should maintain a healthy level of leverage. In finance, we view unleveraged companies as unambitious and with no growth prospects.
I wonder about the simple “pass it on to the fans” motif. Not that Kroeber wouldn’t do it, but at the interest rate they’re paying it is free money—take that 120 million (or “another” 120 million from the same company) and sit it in a safe investment place until May and you will have made 4-6% on it. I’m sure there are checks to keep people from doing this too much but I also see Kroenke as one who is able to get around those checks by shifting money into/out of liquidity. He’s doing it to make free money; I think it likely has little to do with Arsenal other than demonstrating to the Bank that we really are in a poor cash flow state. Arsenal once more being used by a rich investor to become a richer investor—now through its poverty rather than its riches. (But I’m also a deeply skeptical person about such wealthy persons…)
No idea why it corrected Kroenke to Kroeber…
Here’s the check:
You tell me what “safe” investment is returning 6% (hell, even 4-6%)? The 10yr Treasury is 1.144% FFS! 😂😂😂
It’s a working capital loan. Pretty certain the amount can’t be used for anything else but paying wages and keeping the lights on.
It’s always interesting to watch the games before I come here and then read the commentary. I often get a very different impression and that was certainly the case for Willian’s performance in that cup tie.
I didn’t think Willian was bad against Newcastle! Scott Willis’ statistics will back me up here insofar as single game statistics are useful at all. In general I thought our attacking play was pretty good and if they weren’t it wasn’t because of him. I thought our attacks died more with poor passing and poor touches elsewhere, notably at the feet of a painfully one footed Reiss Nelson deployed as a left winger. Willian has become a lightning rod of sorts, and there always has to be one I suppose. I think the idea behind the transfer was sound even if the value of it, thus far, has not been good. People will say it was predictable, doomed to fail, etc., but I don’t believe in simple explanations like that. I also know better than to think quality footballers can become completely worthless overnight. It hasn’t worked for him at Arsenal and it may never work, but the idea of signing a player with that type of resume on a free transfer with qualities of need (progressive passing, set pieces, dribbling) is defensible. I will also point out he has been a model professional thus far and didn’t sign himself to that contract. I don’t think he deserves any “personal” acrimony, even if his form has been terrible this season.
I love that Smith-Rowe has emerged so quickly and won our hearts over. I think he should be starting over Willian right now, but I also know the season is long and young players often come crashing back to earth after a hot start. Teams sniff out tendencies, weaknesses, and can make young hotshots look mortal in short order. Maybe he’s a generational talent and will become one of the best attacking central midfielders in the world. More likely than not though, we will be glad of the experienced quality that Willian has, which is quite a nice luxury to have in reserve.
Which stats made Willian look good?
Your old by the numbers column on arseblog https://arseblog.news/2021/01/arsenal-2-0-newcastle-by-the-numbers-2/
To be fair he said he didn’t watch the game and “make of it what you will” when compared to ESR
Yes I enjoyed that artful hedge. He ducked behind the parapet lest he say something nice about an unpopular player 😀
There are lies, damned lies, and, then, there are statistics.
Willian didn’t just turn bad this year. His decline been a work in progress.
Currently, Willian is where our attack goes to die.
Yes and no, he used to be a dribbly winger, but he can’t do that any more because he’s lost some pace. Decline! So instead we bought him to use him as a forward who comes inside and helps with the build-up, and maybe even as a number 10 (although I think the physicality of the number 10 position was underestimated, and you need more legs in there, hence the success of ESR).
He’s been decent in linking up play and retaining posession, and I think it’s fairly obvious he’s been asked by Arteta to slow things down when required and look after the ball first and foremost – i.e. to take fewer risks.
When you look around the rest of our midfield, which is full of either inexperience or lack of creativity, he’s a great profile for our squad.
There are obvious parallels with Arteta himself after we bought him from Everton when his legs were starting to go and found a new role for him further back. The idea is that quality players will always be quality players, and like Arteta Willian has always been widely admired for his work rate, quality and professionalism.
He’s been poor no doubt, even by his own standards I would guess, but also the whole team has been poor and he’s not even been the worst culprit (Aubameyang is paid a lot more and has contributed less).
On top of that, if everyone was expecting a dribbly winger with lots of firepower who would burn defenders and score a lot of goals, well no wonder people are disappointed with him.
Good comment!
Ok, I see. “Presented without comment because I think watching this with one’s eyes would be very important.”
Note that there’s no mention of the goal. LOL, probably the most important stat of the game.
Also, the massive difference in Arsenal’s speed of attack when Smith-Rowe came on. No “number of touches in the box” is going to convince me that Willian had a good game.
Agreed
Yes, I too prefer ESR. I just don’t think we necessarily have to pile on Willian.
The stats do make him look OKish. And I’ll concede the point that he was playing with Nelson and Pepe rather than Saka and Laca, as ESR was later.
But I did watch, and certainly wouldn’t have said he played well. OK…at best. He slows things down at least as much as Xhaka, and looks even slower.
This would be one of those cases where the stats don’t tell the story.
He broke Covid protocols and went to Dubai to party with Salt Bae. He got away without visible punishment too, starting the next game. Welcome to Kroenke & Kia FC.
Good points on Holding. An English journeyman and solid player. Aways liked him and he’s tall-ish, which we need.
Our GK situation had me thinking about our many bad transfers. Let’s just look at players under the letter “S”: Sanogo, Santos, Squillaci to name just a few. Kallstrom, whose name starts with a “K” but is pronounced as “Sh”. A player we knew had a broken back when we bought him. Hilarious.
I’m really enthused about the job Mertesacker is doing with the Arsenal academy. We’ve got some studs already in the first team and the pipeline is still deep with good talent. That is the future of this club.
Signing Holding is a good move. If Saliba comes back fit and ready to go, we’ll have to make a call on Chambers’ future depending on whether Rekik or another youngster is ready to be 5th choice CB. My guess is we’ll sell as he’ll be in the last year of his contract.
I hope we can rehabilitate Guendouzi as he can fill the Ceballos’ role and with Xhaka, Partey, Elneny and Willock should form a decent midfield.
If we buy an AM to replace Ozil and a backup to Tierney, and renew Leno, Bellerin and Lacazette (we won’t upgrade on him) and keep one of Nketiah or Balogun I’d be satisfied with that going into next season.
I don’t trust Edu, but on account of Hale End and the wages that will be freed up soon, it shouldn’t be a task beyond him.
Oops. Wasn’t meant as a reply to you.
Correct on Rob Holding, Tim.
Arsene was too…
“Unfortunately no one speaks about the performance of Rob Holding. You should be happy, he is English and 20 years old. I am sorry he didn’t cost £55 million, so he can’t be good.”
Arsene was bemoaning fans and reporters’ obsession with transfer fee. He makes mistakes, but for what he cost, he is of irreplaceable value in this market. He looks to have forged a good CB understanding with Pablo Mari. Long may that continue.
We also have to make the Guendouzi transfer work. He’s a 40m player who cost us one-fifth of that, he’s 20, and a senior French international squad player, he’s got plenty of upside.
Unpopular opinion… Pepe had a decent game against Newcastle. His coach said as much, while kind of damning him with faint praise
Nico tried. He tried all the game and had some really good moments – moments where he could have scored two or three goals.
And Tim, you called it on Matt Macey. He’s off.
But Hibs in the SPL? Maybe that’s why we went looking.
Total agrteement about Holding, Tim. I’m very pleased we re-upped. He has done an admirable job in a very difficult time for the team. He passes well and has leadership qualities, is young and can attract a buyer later. And those Bobby Sacramento posts…
That got me to thinking – It bears reviewing our moves of the last couple of years to put things in perspective in terms of transfers. Below is my humble take – I’ve tried to assess the signing itself vs. our subsequent management of the signing. (See Saliba below, e.g.) I left out previous signings to simplfy as well, esp. older, deadweight players – Ozil, Musti, Xhaka, Kola, to limit it to a couple of years of recruitment and signings. Feel free to have at it and challenge this. I hope I haven’t overstepped, Tim!
A+ Gabriel, Martinelli, Tierney, Saka –
Younger player, relatively inexpensive and big upside – the right profile for us. Excellent signings all.
B/B+ Holding Mari, Partey, Guendouzi, Auba –
Mari has been a guy who can push for serious time, and be a strong backup to Gabriel – not a superstar, but solid, and inexpensive. Partey could easily be A+, and I assume he will, but we haven’t seen enough yet, and he’s a bit older, so not perfect. Guen has been difficult, but we should be able to get money for him as a transfer, and he’s young. Flashes of brilliance, but inconsistent. Some would argue Arteta hans’r managed him well. I’ve gone on record saying Auba is not the right age profile, and the price is high, but I will be hopeful that he’s the exception, recent form notwithstanding.
C – Luiz, Torreira, Saliba, Dani
Luiz is too old but ok for squad purposes, has had some nice performances and some disasters – high price tag so this is generous. Torreira is young, but never fit in, and we may not be able to get much for him. Saliba may come good – his age, athleticism etc are the right kind of signing. How we’ve handled him since signing may be the issure more than the signing itself. Dani as a loan has been ok. Not a big commitment, and he’s had some good performances. Might be closer to B.
D – Pepe, Cedric
Pepe-There’s a ton of talent there, and he may still come good. But no way will he ever be a 72 million man. Impossible to get the value for this. Cedric is barely serviceable, and that’s generous. A bit too old. Price ridiculous. But he does eat up EL minutes.
F – Willian – Wrong age, wrong price, poor performer. The terrible trifecta.
The takeaway is that we have actually done much better with our signings that I had really believed. 4 stars/super-talented youngsters – that’s actually quite good for any team in a 2 year stretch. If Partey gets healthy, that’s 5 big contributors. Good business
Most of these guys have contributed and SHOULD (big if there) at least bring us value on selling. At best, contribute to better results.
We have 2 awful albatrosses in Willian and probably Pepe. Cedric cost more than he should have, and we didn’t need Luiz. If Auba starts to decline we could be back in Ozil-land.
Transfers are very tricky. You will always get some wrong. The saelling part is where we have failed, and I hope we learn a lesson. But we are mostly making smarter moves. And Covid has made this very tricky. What do others think?
I’d mostly agree with this. Guendouzi is too high based on his performance for us. Maybe he rates that high if we get a good fee for him.
Partey…it’s just too early to tell. He could be really good, and completely justify the fee, or meh, and it wasn’t worth it. I wouldn’t be willing to grade him at all based on the small sample size.
Cedric is pretty average. He’s not awful, but unlikely also to ever be great. And we didn’t pay an enormous amount for him, either in transfer or salary. And we did need a back-up to Bellerin. So I can’t quite say he’s been a disaster, unless you think he’s kept AMN out of the team there and you think AMN has a future as a right back.
Pepe, as you say…it’s all about the cost. If we’d paid 20-30M, I don’t think anyone would be upset with where he is. But it’s hard to get past the 72M. We should sue Sanhelli to recoup some of that.
Yeah – the saving grace of Cedric is the price tag wasn’t bad. Could easily be a C. I think Guen still hasn’t hit his ceiling – and we got him for nothing. If not for Covid, he would be fetching a good-sized fee. We will still make a profit, even if he doesn’t have a future, so that’s a good deal, imo.
Sorry, should have read this conversation before I also mentioned Cedric
I like this analysis, with a couple of caveats.
First Soares: Why do you think he is expensive? I can’t find reliable info, but the loan cost around 2m, Ornstein claimed it would cost 5m so there are probably a lot of fees involved. But then we signed gratis him on a free. Meanwhile, Transfermarkt had his market value as 7m, dropping to 3m to reflect roughly what we actually paid for him.
Arsenal have got themselves a 28 year-old, good, reliable, athletic, experienced international RB as back-up to Bellerin for max 5m and something like 65k a week? He’s also coming back from injury and will get better. I don’t see why this is a bad deal, unless you think we didn’t need the cover with AMN playing well?
Second Willian, I’m getting to be a bore… let’s just say I don’t agree he’s remotely the catastrophe that people are saying. I do think he is a bit expensive, but the amount we overpaid in transfer fees for Pepe alone approaches what we are paying for Willian in total, and with Willian we actually get a whole other player for that money.
Pepe’s transfer and Auba’s new contract are objectively the biggest wastes of money in our current squad right now. That said I like them a lot as players and there is still plenty of time for them to earn the money.
Meanwhile there is no evidence either way on Saliba although there is massive upside given his age, he could end up being A+; Ceballos has been very useful and is quality on his day, and Mari has been excellent.
So in general I have an even rosier view than you do of the rebuild so far, but that might just be because I had a nice breakfast.
Thanks Greg. I was definitely mistaken above about Cedric. – Hewasn’t super expensive, but I think he’s a redudant backup, as you said, and at best quality for EL qualifiers.
I have been really critical of the Auba signing as well. I adore him, and think he’s a fantastic player. AND – he’s too told to give that much money. What could he have brought us in the summer window? That could have been used to rebuild the midfield, and sign a young striker. Plus, assuming Martinelli returns, we may have a solution on that wing. It’s an investment that will never be recouped, unless we win the EL or get top 4 with him this year.
My problem with Willian is the investment. 30mm for a 32 year old is inexcusable. We will never see that money again. He can’t be sold, and his wages are huge. Wrong profile. A club like Arsenal need to buy younger players, who improve and then get sold to big clubs, so we can reinvest. That’s the model we should be following. His terrible form only compounds the problem. Too old, too expensive and no upside.
But yes, I am pleasantly surprised when I look at the squad. We have done quite well in transfers in the last couple of years, despite the general consensus to the contrary.
Willian was free. 30m IS his wages. 200k per week or £10m per year, around the same as Laca which on paper seems fair given his profile and seniority.
Look, it’s not a steal, but if you want experienced Brazilian forwards. with Premier League title winning experience, that’s how much they get paid.
That still doesn’t mean it was a good idea to buy him, but it puts it in the neighborhood of potentially good ideas.
Amusingly, we had a Donny van de Beek sighting this weekend. He lives! Also, Havertz isn’t exactly taking the league by storm thus far, and the same could be said of Timo Werner. It’s not easy out there and the competition is fierce. The only ones winning consistently are the slimy agents. So, yeah we made mistakes but that’s part of the game. Nobody scores 100%.
Exactly Doc. Manure and Chelsea can weather a costly mistake like that. A blunder like Ozil really damages us. That’s why our transfers and signings have to be more focused on younger players with upside. We’ve been pretty good at those. And the downside is small. The bad moves we’ve made have been buying mid and late career stars on big wages. It’s too risky, especially when we are not contending for top 4. Even the Partey deal is risky. It’s exciting, and I love the guy, but what if this injury is the beginning of the end for him? I doubt it, but it’s more likely at 27 than at 23. I hope we are coming around to this idea.
Don’t think one can really compare Willian to van de Beek, Havertz or Werner. They are all much younger. So at least have some sell-on potential, even if they aren’t quite working out. With the Chinese market apparently going away, the sell-on potential for Willian is very low. I’d be very surprised if we could move him on without paying at least half his wages for the rest of the contract term.
And yes, can’t really compare us to ManU or Chelsea at this point either. ManU has a lot more revenue, and Chelsea has an owner willing to invest substantial amounts of his own funds. They can afford big mistakes. We’ve got a lot less room.
With regard to the Nasa spending stop, I sometimes wonder where we would stand if we had funded cancer research the way with funded corona virus research and if, as a planet, we had had the same manic focus on eradicating cancer?…
Can’t we just fake the Mars landing like we did with the Moon landing and call it a day?
Definitely cheaper………and safer too considering Mars is kind of a di#k planet just waiting to kill you in half a dozen ways when least expected.
What’s the success rate for landing anything on Mars without crashing, about 50% or so?
So right about Holding, Tim.
I take the view that Willian’s performances epitomise Arteta’s preferred style of play, which is defensive boring safety first.
I dare say that he is, in the main, doing what he is told, thus his seeming inability to pass the ball forward or into a dangerous position for another player.
This style may have got us the Cup, but with embarrassing victories where we parked the bus and only won because the opponents were incapable of hitting the target.
When we stole the FA cup from Manure on penalties, how many of us were embarrassed?
Arteta must be finding the ESR/Saka/Laca axis frustrating, simply because they are not doing what he wants. Come the first poor result and Artetaball will be back and ESR will be consigned to the bench again, whilst Willian and Ceballos pass the ball to each other and backwards in the preferred safety first way.
Another top post Tim.
I agree that our transfer business has been mostly a disorganized shambles almost since we bought Alexis Sanchez which is the biggest reason why we have struggled so badly. The last few years of the Arsene era is where the mess started and we have not been able to dig ourselves out. The Kronke’s gave Arsene a complete stranglehold on the football decision making and Arsene left us with a squad whose critical players were mostly in precipitous decline phase of their careers. This meant that Stan and Josh Kronke who are not football people had to completely rebuild both our front office braintrust and rebuild the squad from the bottom up at the same time. Plenty of missteps and mistake were inevitable and we have seen the results on pitch the couple of seasons. Most fans like to blame the managers and I am not suggesting that either Emery or Arteta have been brilliant but to my way of thinking the managers have not been the real problem.
Willian has hit the precipitous decline phase of his career and that can happen very quickly with any player in his age range. I fully understand the reason we bought him as a short term bandage to fix a problem. However, a rapid decline in his ability was always a risk. Willian’s situation is similar to Ozil. At this point in their careers neither have the ability to help us much in the short term and neither are part of our longer term future so it would be best if we could move them. However, getting rid of either is clearly much easier said then done.
i’m happy to see holding playing well. i believe wenger, or some other arsenal scout, saw holding playing for england in a u-21 tournament alongside calum chambers; that’s where i first saw him just a couple of weeks before arsenal signed him. i thought he was very solid. wenger has a history of recruiting players from these youth international tournaments. fabregas, senderos, vela, merida, campbell and, i believe diaby, were all captains of their u17championship teams, leading their teams to the finals…i don’t think that’s a coincidence.
pre-injury, holding looked like one of the best english central defenders in the league, destined for an england call-up. injuries suck, especially when you’re playing well. after a major injury, you don’t know when or if you’ll ever come back to your previous level. it’s been a process and processes often take time. with that, i think he’s on the way back to his best. if he can remain fit, i’m hoping he’ll be close to the england team before the end of this year.
I like the way his character and personality are starting to shine through as well. That comment about Adama Traore was good to see.
an aside, i hate schalke 04 just as much as i hate fc bayern and tottenham…but how about matthew hoppe? schalke’s first win in over a year came on the back of a 19-year old yank who gave hoffenheim that work! nicely done to that young man.
The debate over Willian got really weird.
It is possible to both acknowledge that he’s been very poor and hasn’t worked out (Matchday 1 excepted, so far at least), and that we did not expect the second coming of Marc Overmars. Saying that he’s generally been ineffectual, doesnt mean that we harboured stratospheric expectations of him.
I hope he gets better. But the thing about transfers is that they sometimes dont work out. And however you feel about the player, giving a 32 year old a 3 year contract is daft.
I also don’t get the Auba-skepticism. A lot of if seems wise after the event, the event being half a season. Gosh, a transfer of that calibre is 9 figures on the open market. Signing Auba to a contract of his size is good business.
You’re right it did get weird. Willian got called the worst Arsenal signing in over twenty years and functionally useless. He’s clearly neither of those things, so maybe expectations have something to do with it.
I bring up Auba mainly as a comparison point, not because I think we shouldn’t have renewed him. He’s paid more, has performed just as poorly of late, is around the same age, on a longer contract, and keeps Martinelli out of the side: if Willian’s signing is criminally stupid then by the same logic Auba’s is worse.
So we are not perfectly consistent in our criticism, this is not news. Auba has earned our trust, Willian hasn’t. I get it, I just don’t like it when we turn on or own players like that.
I will also acknowledge that this is the internet where hyperbole is the house style and I should probably, like, chill
Willian got called the worst Arsenal signing in over twenty years and functionally useless. He’s clearly neither of those things
I agree with you, Greg… he isn’t, and it’s not even close. And fair points all round.
I don’t know. I wouldn’t call Willian useless. But as far as worst signing…he’s close. We’ve certainly signed worse players that were even less help. But basically all of those were at significantly less salary. There’s only 3 players I think you could arguably put in the same conversation as Willian:
When you say worst signing it’s important to separate value for money and actual performance for the club. Pepe, in terms of value for money, has been a terrible signing. But, he’s already contributed more actual on field product than Lucas Perez, Park Chu Young and Francis Jeffers put together in their entire Arsenal careers. Those are unequivocal busts that have this club no value on the pitch. The Ozil and Auba contracts both rewarded past performance more than future production in hindsight but there was so much emotional baggage tied up with both of those deals. Our reputation as a “big club” or as a destination where top players want to play was in question. I’ll bet if you asked Thomas Partey why he came to Arsenal when he did, Aubameyang would be mentioned. Arsenal would not have been taken seriously by a player like that if it couldn’t even retain its own best player, given a rather checkered history of hanging on to our best players. In both of those deals, the player had all the leverage and the club did what it had to do in the moment. It’s easy to criticize that in hindsight, but imagine the backlash if we had failed to tie Auba down last summer. Plus, as others have said, it’s too early to really judge the deal.
Completely agree. That phrase to me is all about the value. Making it just about performance is not terribly meaningful. There’s plenty of players that contributed next to nothing. But most of those also cost next to nothing. So with them, not a lot of lost opportunity cost.
With a Pepe, even though he’s contributed, at least so far, it’s no where near justifying his cost. We could have spent half that amount, probably gotten the same contribution, and had an extra $35M to spend on a midfielder. That’s the lost opportunity cost. And with him, and Ozil…it’s pretty high.
A really good point, Doc. Auba kept us in the conversation as a “big” club, and probably also kept guys like Laca from becoming really disenchanted when he signed this summer. The same was true of the Ozil signing. We had just lost Sanchez, and there was a lot of questioning of whether the club were serious about winning if we didn’t sign Ozil. And I’m sure the same could be said about whether Auba would have come if Ozil weren’t there. Remember our excitement when we imagined Ozil feeding Auba for an endless stream of goals? Now as I think about it, it seems like an endless chain of signings to prove to ourselves and the world that we are a good destination. I suppose a better way would be to perform better, lol!
I think he’s the worst signing simply because of the process of signing him. Sack all your scouts and use your club exec’s agent to find what you can. It’s the sort of stuff I called Raul Sanllehi out for.
Its easy to criticize in player signing in retrospect but there are times when the logical and smart move does not work out. Anyone who watched the last 2 years has to accept that Auba had all of the leverage in the world and we had no other reasonable choice other then resign him. Without him last year we might have ended in the bottom half of the table and no way we win the FA cup and we would be without any Europa league football this year. This season our inability to score and our table position after the first 14 games confirmed just how important his goals were. Unlike Ozil who clearly was starting to fade before he signed the big contract, I don’t think there was any way to predict the current malaise Auba is struggling thru. Hopefully its just a run of bad form that he can recover from rather then the beginning of the downward slope. The fact that signing Auba to a new contract has not worked out so far does not change my belief that prospectively it was a good move and the only realistic option we had.
I think we all agree that Martinelli might turn out to be a regular difference making player someday but he only has scored 3 total league goals in his career so its a bit early to predict greatness and we certainly could not count on him to score goals Over the last 15 years we have had dozens and dozens of players that we thought were surefire prospects who didn’t work out. Additionally he was not ready at the beginning of the year and who knows how quickly he recovers from the ACL tear and how many injury niggles he will struggle thru this season. No way we could have gone into this season counting on Martinelli and we still can’t. Like it or not we need Auba to regain his scoring form if we hope to have any sort of success this season. IMO
Bro, I like you… but sport would be dull if we all thought in binary like you (and carried on about it every other comment).
My first sighting of a teenage Cesc Fabregas — who at that point had accomplished little in the game — left me wowed, and convinced that he was going to be great. Sometimes you can see it. A player does not have to be already great, for one to be convinced that he’s the real deal. Sometimes you get it wrong, but what’s the point of your constantly asserting that “we don’t know that he’s not going to be great, because he hasn’t shown it yet”?
16 year old Pele and Messi excited a lot of people before they’d accomplished anything (this is NOT a comparison between Martinelli and Pele). Yes, sometimes players like Jeremie Aliadiere don’t scale the expected heights, it is true. But no one is “predicting greatness”, as you assert, for Martinelli. We like what we see, and think, ATBE, he’s going to be a super player for Arsenal. He could get derailed — not least through injury — but that’s no reason to exaggerate fan reaction to a superb young player.
jeez, why even follow sport, if we cant get excited about hot young talent?
On Auba, I agree with you on our calculations for re-signing him.
Yeah, going by junior form is not terribly helpful. For every Cesc, there’s no shortage of others. The England under 21 scoring record is now comfortably held by Nketiah. #2 on that list is Shearer. #3 is Jeffers. I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but I’d put money down that Nketiah’s career will be nearer to Jeffers than Shearer.
I’d put money down that Nketiah’s career will be nearer to Jeffers than Shearer.
Yeah, but who’s arguing otherwise? Shearer was one of the greatest players in EPL history, along with others like Thierry. Who, where is arguing that Eddie will end up in this category?
You totally misunderstand the argument, which isn’t about numbers.
Claude
The number of young players that fans (myself included) have suggested are sure fire prospects since the start of project youth around 2005 has easily hit triple digits and the number that have actually become the “real deal” while playing for Arsenal is easily less then 10 and probably less then 5 depending on how you define the real deal. Perhaps you are a lot better at judging talent then 99% of fans and professional talent scouts but the odds of most of us getting it right are have been at best < 10%. How many young players have developed into every ay first 11 players for Arsenal in the last 10 years? Unless you consider players like Kieren Gibbs, Alex song, Ox or Iwobe as the real deal then there has not been very many. Even the professionals who have worked for Arsenal and whose only job is to develop talent and work with these players each and every day including Arsene have been wrong a more then they have been right when trying to to figure out which players can be difference making regular starters. Serge Gnabry is probably the best outfield player to come out of our academy in the last 10 years and we sold him for almost nothing.
See, this is my thing about your arguments.
Who said that Emile and Martinelli are “surefiire” anything? Nobody.
Often, in order to make your counterpoint, you exaggerate the point you’re contesting. As you did when asserting that folks who like Martinelli were “predicting greatness” for him. No one Ive seen appreciating Martinelli has gone that far.
Look, based on what we’ve seen so far, Martinelli, ESR and Saka give us great hope for the future. So some gooners have been waxing positive about them (in my case with ESR, after initially having doubts, because he has walked the talk of late).
Saka stood out in his first few starts under Emery… his nerveless, and always-sound decision-making for one so young, the way (as I said at the time) he slows the game down in his head. In 2 consecutive games in which he assisted and scored, Emile has shown intelligent movement, and knowing where his teammates (particularly Laca) are.
Yes, those are intangibles, but they matter in assessing a player. It’s still early, but Saka’s trajectory since then showed that those early flashes of class were not flukes.
I promise you, that in waxing positive about our players, that we are not appropriating the role of scouts 🙂
Bill,
Your use of the word “then” in place of the comparative “than” is very confusing and not a little irritating to me, especially when you combine it with the correct usage of “then” as a consequential adverb. I don’t suppose I can persuade you to use the correct “more than” and “less than” rather than (!) “more then” and “less then”, but it would probably make your arguments sound a little more, I don’t know, cultured maybe…
ha! i noticed that too. however, i’m far less troubled than (or is it then) you.
Well, it’s not my most pressing concern…
Early in the project youth era I remember Arsene once said he didn’t want to buy expensive superstar players because he would build his own. He also said that he didn’t want experienced players blocking his prized younger players from developing. In the next roughly 13 years we have seen several dozen young players who seemed to have the potential but not a single player turned into a “superstar in an Arsenal uniform. Anything could happen and it’s great to get excited about young players but focusing long term team building plans around the belief that any group of young players will develop into your core of critical difference making players has proven to be a very low percentage strategy.
wrong. wrong! when wenger said that, he was asked about signing michael owen from real madrid. wenger said that he didn’t want owen to get in the way of robin van persie…who did go on to become a superstar in an arsenal uniform!
Once again, this is just not true. Van Persie, Gibbs, Clichy, Fabregas, Walcott, Song, Adebayor. These were all young players who went on to have great careers and many opportunities at the very top level.
bill, i’m with claude. no one has said any young player would be a “surefire” anything. you simply don’t know with young players. it’s ideal to have young guys prove their worth after coming through the academy…not to mention it’s cost-efficient. but it’s a crap shoot. you can’t always tell that young harry kane would become a top center forward.
with that, some players have certain qualities that excite. personally, i’m more impressed by intelligent young players. fabregas, ramsey, and denílson, to name a few, all excited me because of their sound decision-making despite their age. likewise, a few youngsters i saw in their pre-arsenal days, namely kanu, henry, and van persie also blew my mind with their audacity and boldness.
you concurred with me that we should proceed with caution in our praise for smith-rowe. i remember a young duo, fran merida and jack wilshere, were these young and upcoming hotshots. in a midweek game against west ham, i recall them being given the nod by the boss only to go on and be absolutely destroyed in midfield by scott parker and valon behrami. it was so bad, merida decided to leave england. what made it worse is, despite everyone talking up these young guys, wenger subbed them off for samir nasri and abou diaby, who came on and made west ham’s midfield look like light work. you simply never know with young guys so you have to be patient.
…the point above being the boss will know things about these players that we don’t. i’m sure there’s a reason arteta persists with willian. however, to declare a player as one of the worst transfers in arsenal history because he had a less than stellar game is harsh. he’s only just come back from injury. besides, it’s a cup game; a chance for marginal guys to get a chance to prove their value or regain their best level.
No one is saying he’s one of the worst transfers based on his performance in the last match.
It’s because he’s on a very high salary for 3 years. And aside from the first two matches of the season, has produced next to nothing. And mostly looked not very good doing that. And done things like the Dubai trip that show him prioritizing himself over the team.
That’s why…not performance in any match. If he was on a 1 year contract at a lower salary, I wouldn’t really care. But we didn’t say “worst performers”. It was “worst transfer deals”, and that involves a value component.