We’ve spent 77 million. I’m not sure the money is there to sign the players we need, 100 million for another 2 midfielders ? Surely that requires players leaving.

We don't need two, but if money is the reason we can't get one more in we simply haven't prioritized correctly. As much as I'm excited about White signing and I do think he'll improve our starting eleven, midfield was more important going into the summer. In fact, I'd be okay with us only signing one more player this season if it's a central midfielder.

We do need 2 midfielders, a right back and competent back up keeper. Encouraged by the white signing but concerned generally more of the same is about to follow if we don’t see movement. If you disagree fair enough.

The fact that we've spend 77 million suggests to me that there is more to come, not that we are done. It's already more than I (and I imagine also you) expected!

It looks to me that Arteta is buying with a clear purpose in mind. He really does want to get the right profile of player in. Filling squad holes with journeymen does not seem to be the plan, and thank goodness for that. For what its worth I reckon we'll see one more very nice signing.

Central midfield is more important than right back, and a backup keeper doesn't have to cost much if anything at all. The point is we could've signed another central midfielder if we wanted to, it has nothing to do with being unable to ship out Xhaka or Elneny.

The suggestion being made is we only have another 40 million to spend want Maddison but can’t afford him without sales. Our budget isn’t infinite. If you think our inability to shift these mediocre players isn’t hurting us your kidding yourself.

Central midfield is a priority.

I hope your right but with 2 weeks till the season starts I can’t help but feel slightly (but not overly) concerned

Even if that figure is true 40m could get us an excellent central midfielder to compliment Partey, Xhaka and Lokonga. When Arteta and Edu arrived they had a mountain of work ahead of them to get the squad balance in order, but that excuse can't last forever. Going into the season with Elneny as one of our four options would be a choice, not something we're forced to do.

That's very justifiable. I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised, and am more hopeful than if we hadn't already splashed out. The fact that the purse doesn't seem to be welded shut is encouraging.

Apparently a Dr Rajpal Brar, who is called a ‘medical expert’, has said: “Found the specific mechanism of injury for Partey. This is typically indicative of a 'high ankle sprain' aka syndesmotic tear. These typically come with a 4-6 week return timeline if a grade 1 injury.”

I’ve never heard of Dr Rajpal Brar before, but assuming he is a medical expert and knows what he’s talking about, the best we can hope for is Partey being out for four weeks which is 29th August. If he’s out for six weeks, that takes us to 12th September.

One assumes a period of rehabilitation or getting back to full fitness will be required after the injury heals, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the earliest we can expect to see Partey back for is Burnley away on 18th September. If so, that would mean him missing the following games: Brentford away, Chelsea home, Manchester City away, Norwich home.

The unknown factor remains as to whether it is only a grade one injury.

That’s a good point. Although having said that, which way does the grading scale go? Is grade 1 the lightest or the worst form of the injury?

Having seen this on a local level only, we rate it 1-5. With 5 the worst. The same scales apply to other medical things in Australia as cancers are rated on a similar scale. I have assumed grade 1 is at the lower end because his recovery time is not that long.

Thanks, that’s helpful.

That is Elneny's sole role (capability) in the Arsenal team. Provide some resistance to the opposition. A very limited role and he should only be a squad player to come on when we are defending a lead.

And for my money should only have that place on the bench if we’re allowed 9 subs next year not the usual 7.

With Willock, Nketiah, Nelson and AMN, to me it seems pointless to keep Nketiah and Nelson as a starting point, I think both are in their last year so the club may decide to keep them if they don’t receive a good enough offer but I can’t see how either get any minutes if everyone else stays.
Willock and AMN have longer contracts so we don’t have to accept poor offers and in Willock’s case he could get some minutes with the squad as it currently stands

Finally got to see the extended highlights of yesterday’s game. It was more concerning than I had anticipated. The defence looked all over the place, verging on absent, in the bits that were shown. Is that a consequence of a high press? One shouldn’t read too much into pre-season games with lots of player rotation but the league starts in 11 days time and it would be nice to see us building some form.

That’s what I said about Nketiah and Nelson in post 533641. Even if they stay, how many minutes will they get? The best thing for them, career wise, is probably to move on. I wouldn’t have thought their wages were so high they couldn’t earn similar elsewhere. Mind you, after seeing details of Nelson’s house (or mansion) here a couple of weeks or so back, maybe I’m wrong?

With only a month left of the window it is hard to see how we are going to get all the players we want out of the door, bar virtually giving them away or sending them out on loan whilst paying a large chunk of their wages.

I don't blame Edu either, what's he supposed to do. Trying to get a decent fee for average players on very high wages in a depressed market. Not an easy thing to do.

Hi Bernard,

I've got mixed feelings about selling Willock and Nketiah, both are homegrown and seem to be making strides forward in their careers. Both looked far more lively than either Aubameyang or Lacazette yesterday. Nketiah, in particular, looked much better in terms of his all round game than he has done in the past. His touch and hold-up play was more assured. Willock is always on the move and always a goal threat.

Seems like we will have to sacrifice some of the kids because nobody wants our established donkeys.

Is that you trying to get around the time limit on replies by posting in the future?

After I saw that mistake by Bellerin and Parteys injury it filled me with dread yesterday.

If the manager keeps playing Elneny, Bellerin and Xhaka then he will be sacked by Christmas. However what’s the alternative. The club needs to find a way of financing new players without too many sales and just freeze them out by leaving them out of the side. I do wonder if you might see some loans coming in.

One player who seems to be off the radar is Balogun. I assume that since he didn’t feature in the giant squad of yesterday then he is nowhere near a start.

Of all the players the fans probably want to push out of the club Xhaka would be the one I'm most happy with staying, partly because at the moment there is a necessity to have the bodies in central midfield.

Of course if we can sell Xhaka and upgrade then that is the preference, but on the basis that it is going to be very difficult for us to do all the INs and OUTs we want this summer, selling Xhaka for £12m to Roma is not something we should be doing. 2 years left on his deal, he's easily worth £12m NEXT summer with only a year left. We can't buy a player for £12m who is better than Xhaka.

The difference with someone like Bellerin is we have 2 other RB (3 if you include AMN) and I don't see any drop off in quality of the squad if Bellerin leaves even if we don't sign anyone else.

Priorities with the squad as it stands for incomings in order are:
1: back up GK (one injury to Leno and we have Runnarson and Okonkwo in goal!)
2: creative central midfielder (one injury to Emile Smith Rowe and we lose that player in the 10 position who was so crucial to our turn around in form last year)
3. right back - if Xhaka stays then a top quality right back would do more good for us than another CM I think
4. central mid
5. striker

Picked up an injury aparently

Nketiah has a contract extension on the table. If he's not signed it so far then you have to question his desire to stay. And it would be totally understandable considering he barely saw any action after Christmas.

Thanks.

Arsenal.com has 29 first team players officially listed. For a club with no Europe I'd say that is about 6 too many.

Kolasinac and Torreira are the two most obvious to leave without requiring a need to be replaced. You could also say Nelson, Nketiah and AMN are in the same boat. Then one of the 3 right-backs we have to leave also. That brings the squad down to 23 and broadly speaking is 2 players for every position and 3 GKs which feels about right.
You could probably argue Willian could leave and not need replacing but as the squad stands he's probably the back up No.10 to Emile Smith Rowe.

So based on that 23 and in an ideal world youd have
Willian leaving, new No.10 coming in
Cédric leaving, new RB coming in
Runarsson leaving, new back up GK coming in
Elneny/Xhaka leaving, new CM coming in
and an argument for Lacazette leaving, new striker coming in

Do anything close to that with some good quality coming in a=then Arsenal's transfer window would be a 9 or 10/10 in the circumstances.

good point

But he should take the blame for Willian, squarely on his shoulders, that one

Hi g7,

Was it Edu, though, I read somewhere that it was Arteta who insisted on Willian.

Still got this player on my mind. I’ve just looked on the Arsenal site for the ‘players’. No mention of Balogun at all. He looked like a prospect and Arsenal fought to get him to sign a new deal. So where does he fit in?

Here’s hoping…..

https://newsjust24all.com/arsenal-put-7 ... d-wldkGtpc

But to go back to Socrates point what’s edu supposed to do ? He’s offered an international winger for free and the alternative is signing nobody. It hasn’t worked out but beggars can’t be choosers right ? We seem forced to make decisions out of necessity.

As rich eloquently illustrated in an earlier post we need about 5 new players. 3 desperately too. There’s only so much money.

I think the Willian decision has to be looked in the full cost of his transfer. £0 fee but probably a healthy signing on fee due to player and agent plus £150k a week for 3 years which is probably somewhere in the region of £30m total. Could that have gone on a younger player for £15m fee and half the wages, so the same outlay. Perhaps the club (probably rightly) saw Willian as as much of a guaranteed success as we could find. If he'd done for us last year what he'd done for Chelsea on average over the last 5 then the signing of him would have been fine. The problems come when the age and wage of these players it simple has to work or your stuck. If that was a younger player that didn't work there is an exit strategy

Hi LTG
Balogun is still showing under the Academy list.
You are right we did fight hard to get him to sign a new contract.
What reassures me is there is no way he signs that contract if he doesnt receive certain assurances.
He has definitely been promoted to the first team squad so assuming our website has not been updated yet.
Couldnt understand either the links to Tammy Abraham when we have Balogun waiting in the wings.
If Lacazette leaves then i want a more established striker than Abraham coming in.

I like Xhaka but i was looking forward to a new midfielder coming in to replace him with maybe more mobility and pace.
Happy to keep him but would like to see Azeez promoted to the squad maybe at the expense of Elneny.
I love Elneny's professionalism and attitude but if we can get a fee for him he should be moved on and his spot given to Azeez who is definitely more pregressive playing wise.

As much as Ben White will really add some much needed pace and passing ability from the back the signing I'm more excited about right now is Lokonga. Possibly because we've lacked a player with his skillset (however raw right now) in the central midfield for some time. Whilst we have had players in defence with White's skillset they were just flawed in other ways.

Lokonga has a fluent grasp of English as well which will make the adaption easier. 21 years old, has already been captain of his last club, on the fringe of an excellent national team, physical, quick, mobile, sharp, short and long range passing, head up play and looking to move the ball forward quickly. Love all of this.

Harry Kane was due back at Spurs training today and has not shown up. That is a pretty big and public statement.

We've been here before with players demanding to leave, its not nice as a fan and the club need to make the best long term decision - if there is £100m plus on the table from City then they need to take it and move on. It is something I wished we'd done with Sanchez for example.

Spurs digging their heels in and having an unhappy Kane being forced to stay would be excellent news for us.

Hi Soc, I might have been mistaken. I did read somewhere too that Edu got the deal going. Perhaps I was trying to connect Brazilian to Brazilian. My bad.