Is he really what we need if money is tight though?

He’s a silky player with a lovely soft touch and nice passing range but he’s more Özil than Alexis and I want to see more pace, power and dynamism added to the side.

Had a look at some clips of Ruben Neves. A player who takes a couple of touches before distributing. I am not sure he is a quick player. How is this an improvement. Arseblog made a joke about Arteta getting in players that were just like him as a player. Joke or no joke that maybe a truth. Arteta was never more than a very ordinary footballer and one of the reasons we never competed at the highest level.

When he was made manager he was given too much power. The Saliba situation is a case in point. He should have been told, integrate him into the team not decide not to play him. He should say I want a. Restive midfielder and they should come to him with a couple of names but purchase who is right for the future of the club.

On another issue, AMN has said he has not been spoken to at the end of the season. How is that possible. There should have been a total debrief on every player. The transfer window is open - how do players know if they should be negotiating transfers. Arteta’s man management is appalling.

Is he really what we need if money is tight though?

He’s a silky player with a lovely soft touch and nice passing range but he’s more Özil than Alexis and I want to see more pace, power and dynamism added to the side.

Plus he likes to drift to the right and he gets in the way a bit of Pépé or Saka or whoever is playing there.

He’s a top talent, no doubt, but is he what we need at this precise moment in time?

Angus Gunn moving from Southampton back to Norwich for £10m. This is Southampton’s 3rd choice GK for £10m, and we’re potentially selling Xhaka for just £15m.
Arsenal have made some good sales, Iwobi and ox, but we rarely seem to get anything like the market on so many of our sales. It can’t just be down to wages either because other top clubs are extracting proper fees. Ie Tomori going to Milan for £25m

Angus Gunn moving from Southampton back to Norwich for £10m. This is Southampton’s 3rd choice GK for £10m, and we’re potentially selling Xhaka for just £15m.
Arsenal have made some good sales, Iwobi and ox, but we rarely seem to get anything like the market on so many of our sales. It can’t just be down to wages either because other top clubs are extracting proper fees. Ie Tomori going to Milan for £25m

Maybe I'm remembering things differently but I've rarely seen us get full valuation for players, especially the last several years. Our big players would force a sale to be fair but still, peripheral players who are wanted we get less than the reported or suggested valuation prior.

Anelka and one or two others are only ones I recall my raising an eyebrow of how much we got. Really? They are willing to pay that?!

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At the end of the day there must be a reason nobody would take an 18 million punt on a player like this and only one club want him.

At the end of the day there must be a reason nobody would take an 18 million punt on a player like this and only one club want him.

Do you think the fact he single handedly costed his side 9 points last season is attractive to potential buyers.

It’s the housing market right. You can only attain what the property is actually worth.

There have been reports about other clubs being interested in Xhaka, but another way to look at it is that Mourinho is another top manager who rates Xhaka highly. So that's Wenger, Emery, Arteta, Mourinho, and add to that Hitzfeld and Petkovic for the national team. Think there's a fair bit of football knowledge between those six.

Many of those managers inherited him and have to keep nice right they can’t publicly announce they don’t rate him? At the end of the day Arteta is selling him for a knockdown price to the first club coming along. He can’t rate him that highly he is letting him go with Time in his contract!

Current house prices are routinely driven by what the housing market is at the time. A depressed housing market or buyer’s market will mean a property will be worth less than the figure that exactly the same house could have been sold for in a non-depressed or seller’s housing market. This should lead to good bargains being available to buyer’s. The same principle will often apply to the current transfer market in football.

They could do what managers do with players they don't rate; play others instead and try to get rid.

Many of those managers inherited him and have to keep nice right they can’t publicly announce they don’t rate him?

You don't knock him publically but why on earth pick him for every game if you don't rate him? By your logic, Arteta would have picked Özil and Mustafi for every game to 'keep nice right'.

That’s not how the top managers do it though. It’s the Ferguson method right ? Pat them on the back and tell them they did a good job, tell the media they are doing well and there’s no problem (when it’s bloody obvious there is!) then make a note of all their sins and bang they are gone at the first opportunity when someone shows interest.

Cause all our current midfielders are characters off Sesame Street and despite being dire he’s all we have.

But a) Özil. b) Your story about Ferguson is pure fantasy. Are you saying he would actually play someone he didn't rate in an important match simply to keep a player in the shop window. He did sing the praises of the likes of Veron and Forlan. They were seriously good player who just didn't fit at United. But there were many other player who turned out to be crap and just disappeared (Djemba Djemba? Tiabi?). He also didn't mind taking a financial loss if a player didn't work out.

It’s not going to be a depressed market this summer though. Expect 100 million transfer for Kane and potentially grealish, rice and others

If Saka was put up for sale what do you reckon he would fetch. 50 or 60 I’d suggest? More ?

Then how can it be depressed if he’s also our player

That’s not how the top managers do it though. It’s the Ferguson method right ? Pat them on the back and tell them they did a good job, tell the media they are doing well and there’s no problem (when it’s bloody obvious there is!) then make a note of all their sins and bang they are gone at the first opportunity when someone shows interest.

Great. So your plan would be to sell now for peanuts, create a huge hole in our squad on the principle that the grass is greener on the other side, and buy later when the big clubs have sprung and the like of W Ham, Spurs and Villa are looking to splurge?

First opportunity? Excluding the January window in 2017 there have been six transfer windows where none of them made any effort whatsoever to get rid of him. Arteta even convinced him to stay when he was desperate to leave. Wenger signed him, Emery made him captain. They all had him as a nailed on starter and any midfield signing we've made during Xhaka's time seem to have been brought in as a partner to him rather than a replacement for him.

It's fair enough not to rate Xhaka based on having seen him play more than 200 games for the club, but it can't be denied his managers rate him highly as a player and professional.

It’s not going to be a depressed market this summer though. Expect 100 million transfer for Kane and potentially grealish, rice and others

If Saka was put up for sale what do you reckon he would fetch. 50 or 60 I’d suggest? More ?

Then how can it be depressed if he’s also our player

If Tottenham get less for Kane than they would have if they’d sold him in a non-depressed transfer market, it surely has to be seen as depressed even if they get a very high fee for him, which they obviously will. The same will apply to any youngster who has just had a breakthrough season, like Saka. A mansion in Hampstead sold during a depressed housing market will still fetch a lot of money. It’ll just be less than the amount it would have presumably been sold for in a non-depressed market.

Current one doesn’t as he wouldn’t be selling him for peanuts slap bang at the start of a transfer window. It’s also not their fault they haven’t been able to sell many of these misfits across multiple windows because they are useless and on huge contracts

We're selling because Xhaka has been pushing for a move. And with every other player you're refering to (Mustafi, Kolasinac, Özil) we tried getting rid of them for a long time before they actually left. There hasn't even been a sniff of such a rumour regarding Xhaka, apart from January 2020 when he himself was desperate to move. If we had tried to sell him but failed you might've had a point, but we simply didn't. Instead we played him for 45 games per year.

No sniff of a rumour Because he’s crap and on a huge 120 k a year contract few would contemplate. We played him because of our midfield options being poverty

All the other players mentioned were underperforming on big contracts, and we tried desperately to get rid of them to the point where we paid teams to take them on. No such effort was made with Xhaka. Again, if we had tried and failed your point would've been more valid. This summer Xhaka is pushing for a move, and we're getting the best deal we can in a difficult market. There's just no evidence at all that supports your view.

Good player: market isn’t depressed

Bad player: the market is depressed this players not an obvious turd !!,,

Funny that

You can only sell if you have a buyer. There have been hardly any and the type of clubs that don’t spend 110k a week easily

:toothy9:
If a good player is sold for for less money than his club could have got for him at another time, that suggests the market is depressed. There are other factors like closeness to his contract expiring, wages and so on. But I think it’s a strange argument to suggest the current transfer market isn’t depressed.

Again, we didn't have any buyers for Mustafi, Kolasinac and Özil. Yet, for several transfer windows there were loads of reports about how we tried and tried to move them on and ended up with deals that gave us absolutely nothing for them. If the managers didn't rate Xhaka at all we would've done the same with him. Instead Emery made him captain (or are you suggesting that was a ploy to increase his value?) and Arteta convinced him to stay when he had one foot out the door.

That’s not my point. My point is merely other teams can’t rate these players as high as our fans do and there must be a reason for that. Probably that some of these players are more gash than the high esteem and regard we seem to hold them in. That indicates something right.

Honestly mate it’s not gonna take too much effort to replace Xhaka, Ce-ball-loss, El Nenny and Guendouzi. Let em go and bring in fresh blood. (I’m loving it)