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.

Fact is we have marginal players on high wages and trying offload such players often if not usually ends up with us being stuck with a player on high wages and him knowing he's not wanted.

It may be best to bite the bullet, sell at whatever we can get, get there wages off the books, take a loss and on a go forward basis make a better effort of offering 'smarter' wages. The time to sell 120k a week Bellerin was a few years ago.

It is a difficult position and not one uncommon to other clubs, one look at Chelsea's expanded squad list at the weekend shows you they have an even bigger list of failed signings on big wages that they can't shift. Man U are similar. The difference for those clubs is they can afford to dump these players on loan or keep them well away from the first team without getting any revenue from them and without it effecting their transfer plans to strengthen the squad.

Each case needs to be looked at in isolation and on its own merits.

For example, selling Xhaka for £12m now and only having that money to spend on a replacement will make us weaker next year. However, if we only had £23m left in our budget and our primary midfield target was going to cost us £35m then accepting a low offer for Xhaka to facilitate the move for the main improvement we want in midfield would be worth it.

It also applies to players like Lacazette with only 1 year left on their deal. Lets say we're only being offered £10m for Lacazette, for me I would forego the £10m and keep Lacazette and let him leave for free next year because having him contribute for 1 more year is worth more to us than having £10m in the bank.

So to call it early, If Partey is out injured for a period of time I think this will be our starting 11 for the first day of the season:
Leno, Chambers, White, Mari, Tierney, Elneny, Xhaka, Pépé, Smith-Rowe, Aubameyang, Lacazette

If it is I'll find it pretty underwhelming because for whatever reason it won't have addressed the main weaknesses or balance in the side.

I must admit I hadn’t been anticipating a Elneny Xhaka partnership to kickstart our new season after all the supposed activity.

Nor for that matter a Lacazette Aubameyang partnership.

Where’s Gabriel?

It feels like this transfer window is beginning to fizzle out. Lots of encouraging links with quality players but no real substance to the rumours and we can’t shift anyone making it incredibly difficult both economically and numerically to bring any targets in.

We have put a number of players up for sale but there is no money in Europe or the PL and the best we can realistically do is to drop the asking price so low as to make it a no-brainer for potential buyers or send them on loan and pay a large chunk of their wages.

The other side of the coin is that those who do have money and don’t need to sell before buying are in a great position to buy players who may normally be out of their reach and/or shop around for bargains.

Spurs and Villa could do a lot of damage in this market if they get £100m for Kane and Grealish.

That would be a very underwhelming first 11, not least because it's obvious to the world and his wife that Lacazette and Aubameyang in the same team, with Aubameyang out on the left, does not work.

I've made a short video explaining the new time limit feature here - Hope it's helpful:

https://youtu.be/RXJKdh1KZ0w?t=44

Great post

Interesting to hear that side fumbling has been effectively reduced. I'd never have thought that possible.

Very strange.
The squad has clearly been updated as it shows White , Tavares and Lokonga but Balogun is not showing as being in first team squad.
He has clearly been promoted so why still show him in the academy??

LTG did point out yesterday he was slightly off the radar.
I really hope he gets chances this season to really push Lacazette and Aubameyang.
Sounds crazy but was really expecting more movement with Lacazette and Eddie gone to open the door a bit more ajar for Balogun and freshen up our striking options a bit. Just seems a bit stale.
Have really high hopes for Balogun and really don't want Abraham anywhere near Arsenal if it means it blocks Balogun's progress.
I hope Arteta is fair and gives him minutes if the senior strikers are not doing it.

Frustrating the likes of Kolasinac and Bellerin are still here.
I can deal with Xhaka not going because he does give us something but those two need to go.
Really need a good keeper to challenge Leno as well.
Was hoping for more of a refresh but what can you do if there are no buyers

The bloke might just as well have been speaking in Russian for all the sense it made to me.

Is it okay to now be worried about our failure to significantly improve the squad or is it still plenty of time to the start of the season and Arteta has it under control. I still expect another attacking midfielder but it’s starting to be tight on time to get them playing with the team.

Given that it seems to take about 3 weeks from a player being spoken of us ‘definitely coming’ to their actual arrival I hold out no hope.

So far this transfer window has been immensely disappointing and offers little hope for the season to come. More of the same looks to be the order of the day.

It’s a quite simple problem really.

The club only has about 70 to 100 million to spend each summer but probably needs to spend 250 million to get the team competing at the highest level again.

It’s not going to happen and *%^@ me it’s depressing. There are too many problems to fix.

You can debate the fine details of it all and attribute blame if your frustrated which is understandable but I doubt our fortunes will turn around until a new owner arrives. I mean *%^@*** hell We are about to start another premier league campaign without a backup keeper or competent right back never mind midfield.

Just watched a 30 minute program on the undefeated season. I feel like weeping about our current team.