No or Yacine Brahimi either. He’s the guy to transform our future

9 of those have left for a combined fee of £15m. It’s not just the buying we’re doing badly. For 3-5 years we were pretty much the perfect storm of a club doing literally everything wrong, from owner to boardroom, manager, tactics, players, transfers, contracts etc etc

That chart is what Americans call baloney. He has Čech down as maybe. As well as Sokratis. More inbuilt pessimism I fear. Debuchy was actually a very good signing until he got injured. Toreira is a maybe. !!!!!

I think sokratis and Torreira are decent signings.

Čech never really blew me away and was a big fee and wages for someone at the end of his career.

We paid 12 million for debuchy. No matter what happened in his first season he wasn’t a good financial signing

Your right

Basically we made 12 years of excuses for Gazidis and Wenger and now people want Emery booted after 12 months.

Were *%^@**, it’s so Brexit

Look at our board, vinai a numbers man

Sanelhi some exec clearly here for the money. We used to moan about hill wood but now we have zero custodians and we are all over the place.

We had an opportunity to appoint Overmars but chose Edu (probably because he was cheaper) . Fans are getting excited because he’s an ex player but he was hardly a senior

We are just going nowhere rapidly. Nobody is running the club anymore

Sky sports saying we’ve made a £40m bid for Zaha. No doubt it’ll be rejected and no doubt we’ll be criticised for coming in well under Palace’s value (which is absurdly high). I wouldn’t want us to go much higher than £40m for Zaha and certainly not at the expense of getting a top quality CB

Do you really want an ex-player on the board though? I've never really seen the sense in that. I get that an ex player might have some affection for the club but that really doesn't count for much. It's a multi-million pound industry. Players are very talented when it comes to kicking a ball and it stands to reason that some of them would excel at coaching the game. But being adept at the financial aspects of running a football club? There's no corelation there.

That isn't to say that the odd ex-player would not be good at it but not because of being an ex-player.

Wilfried Zaha's brother: "Given all Wilfried has given to Palace I hope they'll be able to see their way to agreeing a deal with Arsenal that allows Wilfried to realise his dream of playing European Football for the club he’s supported since childhood." (Source: SkySports)

Surely 40 million plus chambers is a realistic offer. Maybe some more add ons.

That’s a funny quote from his brother. Seems like he is trying to force through a move however the clubs are miles apart on a valuation.

It’s an odd one this, the club seems to think they can sign him but I’d assume we are going to be miles apart on valuations

Liverpool have sold Danny Ings to Southampton for £20m!!!

They signed him for free i think, he stayed with them for 3 seasons, had a cruciate knee injury and made only 14 appearances but yet they still get £20m.

They did exactly the same with Solanke who they sold to Bournemouth for £19m.

Ings has done absolutely nothing to have any sort of value but yet £20m is a huge boost to Liverpool’s transfer fund.

We have to get better at selling, we’re so far behind. Also look at some of the young players that leave Arsenal, nominal fees or free transfers. We either need to make a decision on them and demand a proper fee or give them some first team exposure to raise the fee.

Jeff reine-Adelaide was recently sold for £1m and is now getting interest after 1 season of first team football with prices of £20m mentioned

Makes a change for someone to be trying to force a move to us!
Usually players hold all the power so hopefully that drives the price down.
£40m plus Chambers would be a good, although I’d rather give them
Jenkinson (they need a RB) and put Chambers our on the open market. Young and English with prem experience usually starts at £20m

He must need his head examined! Does the medical include mental health.

It’s the classic tactic Barca used to extract Cesc isn’t it where they get the player to push for the move from inside. It was probably Sanelhi who did the negotiations for them back then.

It's ok, though, because apparently we have a sell-on clause of 10%. Ten bloody per cent!.

If you give youngsters away for virtually free then at least have the sense to include a lucrative sell-on clause. At least 25%.

Our selling of players over the last few years has been downright embarassing considering how clubs attempt to hold us to ransom when we try and buy a player.

We need to sharpen our act up fast.

I know we've had it done to us many times in the past but it still feels wrong to try and unsettle a player to try and force a move through. I thought Arsenal had a little more class but maybe its a case of "if you can't beat 'em join 'em". If it is true it does have Barca's negotiating tactics written all over it.

People have turned to canabalism in dire enough circumstances. I’m not saying we should eat Mustafi, but did you see Swiss ramble regarding the direction of our ‘finances’ on Twitter?

I've read that the valuate him to be worth 80 million or so. My guess is we won't get him, someone will swoop in and snatch him.

It used to wind me up when wenger sold a young player well below market value seemingly as a favour to the young lad to ensure he got game time.

Those figures really showed what an awful job Gazidis did on the commercial front - in his 10 years we barely moved forward whilst Man U and Chelsea went off in to the distance, city and Liverpool caught us and overtook is and spurs caught us. What on earth was he playing at?
I can understand a tight fisted owner restricting player transfer budget etc but why wouldn’t we be pushing to get the best and more commercial deals. In the last 10 years we have been a club caught sleepwalking as though it is still the 1990’s.

The more I think about it that would seem the ideal solution to get some of these players off the wage bill.

It's a bit concerning that in a summer where we had hopes for a big overhaul of the playing staff we have so far done nothing, in or out, and we are almost back for pre-season training.

Perhaps Sanllehi & co have a grand masterplan which is slowly taking shape......or maybe not.

Because my American friends know I follow English football religiously, they (erroneously) think I know of the socio-political climate as well as all cultural things despite my telling them otherwise. I am asked by a few what is the prevailing political issue of the day and the consensus they all think is Brexit but I have no idea if its that or jobs, or health care or whatever.

Care to opine on that so I can report back?

You poor gullible fool.

Out - no other club will buy (or even loan) the rubbish that Wenger and Gazidis lumbered us with in the final couple of years of their "management"
In - we're bidding relative peanuts (in today's market) for players because of our meagre budget (see Out).

I'm sure Kroenke has lot to answer for but so do the Chuckle Brothers for their absolute incompetence in squandering what money the club did have.

Your right. Do you reckon we can sell Mustafi for 15 million if he’s on a 90k a week contract? (Half of his fee) I don’t

You won’t get anyone in the top 6 touching him with a barge pole cause he’s a liability and the teams lower in the table will be scared off by his wages

We are stuck with him, Özil and Mhikitaryan. Xhaka is slightly different as his shooting and cross field passing may attract a buyer who hasn’t done their due diligence.

It’s going to be tough watching these guys going through the motions next season and emery having to stick up for them and support them despite obviously not rating them.

This Zaha thing makes little sense given our finances unless:

1. We are looking to sell either Aubameyang or Lacazette, which would not surprise me at all.

2. Our reported transfer budget is bollocks (unlikely but you never know).

3. We are using the media frenzy regarding our low bid as a convenient smokescreen to hide our true targets.


4. None of the above and we are just run by a bunch of total incompetents who think that putting in any sort of bid for Zaha, however low, somehow hoodwinks the fans in to thinking we are showing ambition.

#4 obviously..

Emery ain't perfect and let's hope there is a massive improvement in our defensive organisation next season. But he can't be held accountable for being unable to shift the rubbish that those two eejits brought in on massive wages. I'm sure he is frustrated as the rest of us that the 4 above named are still at the club. They'd be my top 4 out the door ASAP in an ideal world.

And the frustrating thing that City, man U and Chelsea have had plenty of exactly this type of player in the last 10 years but simply don't play them, loan them for peanuts and buy a replacement.......which if we'd managed our money more carefully we may have a shout at doing. Mustafi on loan to Turkey and bring in a £25m CB on top of our current budget - not likely - but very easy to do if we'd extracted £50m for Ramsey and £60m for Sanchez and £30m for Szczesny as we should have

I find it ridiculous that people are using the 25% sell on clause Palace agreed with Man U as some sort of reason why Palace should demand a higher fee and Arsenal should pay it. They knew the clause was there, they agreed to it. Just because it is there doesn't mean you can get 125% of what you think the player is worth.

I'm all in for Arsenal doing all the dirty tricks possible to get Zaha for as low a fee as possible - its pointless trying to be the moral guardians of the game when it gets you nowhere. I don't expect Palace to sell him to us at the price we want to pay so for goodness sake line up multiple other options so we aren't left with the same thing that happened with Wenger "we tried so hard to get him.....then there was no time left for another player"

If i had to take a guess Soc i would suggest the reality is a combination of point 2 with minor helpings of point 4.

On the budget I think the club are trying to sign 3 players in the areas we need fullback, wide left and centre half and probably trying to spend around 80 odd million net.

The prominent names being mentioned are Tierney (22m) , Zaha (55 million eventually probably) , Saliba (20million)

so offset with a few sales, Ospina, El Nenny to Fenerbahce for 5 Million and a few others we would have a similar spend to last year. Then loan a few youngsters for reasonable fees too.

If you look at what we are doing it mirrors what typical tactics barca and madrid pursue when chasing their transfer targets. Ie place a reasonable but lowball bid, ramp up the PR, get the player to push for the move and then finally agree something realistic at the end to avoid paying over the odds. Look at the 29 million fee we got for cesc probably about 35% lower than we should have got. It seems this is Sanelhi's approach.

If we can't get the deals done we want done and end up with largely the same squad as last season I'd much rather play more of the youth team that watch the same old overpaid, underperforming players go through the motions and produce mistake after mistake and show zero desire to win.

Ivan just shows how far the gift of the gab can get you. I’ve seen him give numerous talks and Q&As and he really was very impressive. He could talk for ages without saying anything remotely meaningful. I’ve seen quite a few people like that in my own career, as I’m sure many of us have. But Gazidis is quite possibly better at it than anyone I’ve worked with because he’s so good at making little or no positive achievements, or even his own negative performance, sound like he’s doing the best job of all time. Moreover he makes that false impression sound not just believable but factual.

Arsenal were very lucky Milan gave him a job. They were mugs, as we were for employing him for so long.

1st signing over the line - Gabriel Martinelli deal done

How do we feel?

Buying for the long term, although I ABSOLUTELY want the club to do it, feels pretty underwhelming. South American youngsters plus Arsenal doesn’t have the most successful track record. At least he’s here and not stuck in Belgium or where ever waiting for a never arriving work permit. I wish him all the best. Welcome to Arsenal Gabriel - Good luck, you’re going to need it.

I can certainly see the upside, the older players nourishing the hungry youngsters. What was that slogan from the 70s was it? Eat the rich? “Please step into my office Mesut...”

I know what you are saying; but...… people said the same about Guendouzi last summer, and that didn't work out too shabbily.
Fans seem to have got back into the negative mood too quickly.
The mood within the club seems better - I was at the academy earlier today to pick up my new kit etc, and the everything felt really positive; Added bonus is the Adidas gear is definitely of a better quality than the stuff we were given the last couple of years.
Even saw the away kit, which is really nice. Couldn't try it on though as it was the u9's

Apparently that kid had trials at United and Barcelona but they never finalised him cause of the fee and priorities. Surely nothing to be despondent about.

Personally I find signing young players like that far more refreshing than signing names obviously not good enough and here for a salary.

True, it’s intangibles sometimes that make a big difference and I’m glad the mood at the club seems upbeat. The kit is a stonker.

I think it’s hard seeing the big picture when players aren’t going to be starters as I presume Martinelli isn’t. And when Guendouzi was brought in we’d already signed Torreria, but you’re absolutely right, fans want certain things that don’t at all equate to actual success. My secret hope is that clubs touted to do huge things based on good looking signings often fall a bit flat and clubs who aren’t expected to do much can be surprise packages with a settled squad. Ramsey is the major loss re having a settled squad and I guess a signing to add what we’ve lost in him is perhaps what would set the fans at ease rightly or wrongly.

Mostly I want the Tierney signing we’ve got an obvious hole there. Which young player do you think will have the biggest impact over the season? My hopes are on Nelson.

Spurs sign Ndombele for £55-65m. Not really seen him play, just seen a lot of hype and a few YouTube clips.
It’s absolutely a position spurs needed to strengthen and I have to say his raw attributes are something that would seem to suit the English game and should be the attributes we should be looking for in a CM and haven’t had for years.
Tall, strong, physical, quick, dynamic, can change the pace of the game, evade a press with a dribble or pure strength. These players always thrive in the prem. even someone like Dacoure at Watford would improve our midfield.
Our history of CM has always been missing pace and power, it still does. Our CM are dribbled past far too easily