I think the last few weeks of the window will be a hive of scrambled activity. Lots of clubs in Europe are up to their necks in debt because of covid and desperately need to sell someone. They will want the best possible price and the english clubs vying to buy them will want to knock that down - because it seems only english clubs have any money. The end of the window is always a case of who blinks first but this season more than any because there is a much greater need for so many clubs to balance the books.

Few reports saying we have offered Leicester a player plus cash deal for James Maddison. Player supposedly AMN. Leicester have a terrific record of getting top whack for their players and replacing them much more cheaply - or already having that replacement in their squad.

Going back over the big Leicester sales, Kante, Mahrez, Maguire, Chilwell - they've all been a success. (Drinkwater is the outlier) I wouldn't be against the move if the price is sensible and that would mean AMN price in any deal being a minimum £20m.

It does seem like there are similar players available for less on the continent but Arsenal look like their looking at home grown players and premier league experience. Both are useful to have.

One thing Maddison would do is increase the quantity and quality of shots on target from us from that 18-30 yards range - where we are pretty awful

Excellent coach - the boys that have played for England under his guidance speak very highly of him
Hopefully this will help maintain the pipeline of bright young talent flowing into the 1st team

I think he got injured in the preparation for the Brazil Olympic squad. The club are being quite quiet about him which is worrying. He’s the obvious best partner for White we have.

Xhaka set to sign a new contract with us until 2025, I think he had 2 years left on his current deal so effectively adds 2 more years.

If we could have a central midfield of Partey, new CM, Xhaka, Lokonga, Azeez I’d be happy with that.

Kroenke's LA Rams kick off pre season Aug 21 at SoFi Stadium in LA. This is what he's focussed on.

Top Gun hears the news.

Honestly it partially makes sense to me. I’ve read it’s a 12 month extension with another 12 month option for the club so it seems it’s more about preserving a transfer value for next summer and motivating him for the new season. It’s kind of a win win for all parties.

Doesn’t change my opinion though that you’ll never win a premier league title with a midfielder that immobile and one footed in the centre of your pitch.

Looking at Maddison's numbers and stats he solves a big problem for us in terms of creating chances and scoring goals. I don't like the potential price but a midfield 3 behind the main striker from the collection of Saka/Partey/Emile Smith Rowe/Maddison/Martinelli is very strong

Any wage and roster issues with regards to failures Chelsea has is entirely brought on by them. For years when Roman came on, they knowingly overpaid for any promising young player in metro London in part I assume so that no other rival can have them. No sympathy. Eff them. They went about things the wrong way and any 'pain' that has come from it, is just.

As for us, we need a committee to look at our past contract structures and figure out what we are doing wrong and who is doing it. And act accordingly. Some things you can't help. You roll the dice sometimes (Willian). Sometimes a player has a stormer of a season, a break out season and you reward them with a fat contract (Smith Rowe). Everyone expects SR to come good and get better, but there is that chance he doesn't and we'd "stuck" with him. In the here and now, pretty much all contracts can be justified...till they no longer are.

Naming rights for The Rams stadium is $30m a year. Emirates pay us $4m a year for our stadium

You would never be ‘stuck’ with a 21 year old English player on a long contract. They are too high a commodity. It’s the sort of thing we need to be factoring in when signing any player or contract renewal. Asking the question ‘what if the worst happens’ or ‘what is the sales plan’

why did you have to bring this up? I was going to enjoy my day, now it's ruined!

I don't think that there is any players in our current squad who would even make the extended squad we had that year. The football was breath taking. What was interesting was Sol Campbell talking about how most of the squad would stay and practice even after the official training had finished. The end of the Wenger era was distressing but that year - OMG. It is like when you see some of the great pieces of art or classic buildings of the world. It brings tears to your eyes.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer ... -1.4638212

We are going to be subjected to another season of this pointless nonsense.

I believe we have Bergkamp to thank for that. The Romford Pele said the squad couldn't believe he would stay after training and practise. It became a regular thing under Wenger.

I wonder how many of the current squad turn up on time, train giving 100% and then stay to additional training.

I would say most, if not all of them. Players are in better physical shape than they were 20 years ago. You can't be in that physical condition without putting in the commitment in training.

City are about to wrap up Grealish for maybe £100m. If they get Kane for north of £100m as well it seems pretty impossible anyone will stop them.
Kane, Jesus, Grealish, Mahrez, Foden, Sterling, Silva, Gundogun, Torres, De Bruyne, Rodri, Fernadinho. 12 players for 6 positions in the team

So where do we stand as a squad compared to how we finished last season.

White 'should' be an upgrade on Luiz. Definitely a long term upgrade, has more pace, similar or better range of passing and dribbling and hopefully less propensity to shoot the team in the foot

Lokonga I think is an upgrade on Ceballos. Much better profile for our midfield and the league

Tavares is an upgrade on Kolasinac.

We lost Ryan and currently have no back up GK worth the shirt
We lost Ødegaard and currently haven't bought anyone in to replace him

Currently we've also gained back AMN and Willock to the squad from their loans.

Overall the squad is stronger but not as much of a change as it needs to be and not enough in my view to take us any higher than 6th

Liverpool have their work cut out for them for sure. Still happier to see Grealish and Kane go to City than any other team - they would benefit Chelsea and Man Utd a lot more in my opinion.

We are not finishing in the top 4 for a long time. The money being spent by clubs ahead of us is astronomical and we can’t offload our deadwood. We are a top 8 side and that’s where we’re staying until we join the craziness of what is becoming a football freak show. Yes, Kroenke could bankroll signings but what’s the point? We’re selling Saka within the next 24 months, I guarantee it.

To paraphrase, the gap is getting bigger and it feels like the current top four are pulling away far quicker than we can close the gap.

Challenging for the league is a long way off, but I don't think top four is as set in stone as it's being made out to be.

Looking at the teams ahead of us, City and Liverpool are obviously miles away. It'll be extremely hard to compete with Chelsea now too, but their somewhat flukey CL win aside, they haven't looked world class under Tuchel yet. Man Utd took advantage of a disastrous Liverpool season to end up 2nd, they need to improve a lot if they want to be close to Liverpool and City again.

Then we have West Ham and Leicester who let's face it are punching above their weight. Tottenham have been trending downards for a while now, and I'm not sure they'll be able to stop that trend even with the money they'll get for Kane.

We need to improve a lot, there's no doubt about that, and I'm far from convinced the signings we've made this summer is enough, or that Arteta is the guy to do it. But I definitely see the top tier of the league - bar City, Liverpool, and maybe Chelsea - as more of an open field than most.

I hope you’re right Haz, but I think Utd, Chelsea, City and Liverpool are ahead of us. I think we’re EL at best.

Btw, I’m currently in your homeland. Heading back to Stockholm today from Gävle. Staying in Gamla Stan for a couple of nights, was in Södermalm over the weekend. First time to Sweden. I think it’s a great place.

Saka’s current contract expires in 2024, so in three years time. Arsenal will not want to lose him on a free then, considering his financial value. So sadly I don’t think what you said there is impossible.

Yeah, they're definitely ahead of us, and I'm not really saying we'll challenge for top 4 this season because I don't think we will. But I watched a lot of Man Utd games last season, and they never really looked that impressive. They have some great attacking players who consistently bailed them out, and they're very good at getting wins against lesser teams (something we need to do a lot better), but they don't look like a title contender to me. There's definitely a good opportunity to move up the table if we make the right improvements.

Stockholm is great in the summer. Weather was a bit better two weeks ago, but you definitely picked the right time of year to visit.

Well that’s cheered me up (not).

If only it wasn’t true.

Willock could be off.

https://newsjust24all.com/newcastle-agr ... L2wp_WOC9s

Making a big mistake if we sell Wilock.
He has gone out on loan and shown he can cut it.
Natural next step is to give the boy a chance to see if he can replicate it for us
Not like we have an abundance of goalscoring midfielders!
Just dont understand Arteta.
Most managers would be chomping at the bit to get the kid back , integrate him into the squad and give him minutes. Let's see that elite coaching in practice he is supposedly so good at.
No Arteta happy to sell him.
Depressing.
At least give him a chance to show what he can do.

Darren
I hear what you are saying but for the last 2 seasons Leicester would comfortably have finished top 4 if they hadn't bottled it in the run in.
It's possible to compete if you are properly run.
Not like we haven't been shelling the cash recently.
72 on Pépé.
Ridiculous 'free' purchase of Willian.
50 on White.
We have been managed atrociously.
If Leicester can do it why cant we??

David you answered your own question. "It's possible to compete if you are properly run". Arsenal hasn't been, for years. And it's left the club where it is now.

Is it likely we'll be top 4 this season? Not very. Is it likely in the next few years? Hmm...depends on a variety of things but most importantly I think is Mikel's ability to have success with his grand design. Could we use better players? Sure, but I think we have just enough quality to do well if we play with the right tactics. West Ham anyone?

Would we have let in fewer goals had we played Saliba? Who knows. We may not even have had to spend 50 million quid on Ben White if the planets aligned and we played him and he did well. There are a lot of 'what ifs'.
This could be a make or break season for Mikel.

Shocker if so I think at this point, we have to sell him. If we decide to keep him and use him sparsely, it may be the worst thing.

I have a toon supporting friend who has been saying its done and dusted for a while now and asking why is Arsenal delaying things. And peaks on here once in a while to see if we know something

[I know you are reading this buddy....lol... ]

We had 2 very good GKs at one time but had to make a hard choice. Almost like the season we had 3 great defensive/sweeping center mids and after the season lost all of them I think.

Ødegaard we will miss to some extent. We can survive with one quality GK as long as we wrap Leno in bubble wrap. The not so up to snuff back ups can play league cup rounds.

What formation and position would you play Willock in with the current Arsenal team?
One of the big reasons he thrived at Newcastle is they played him in a position and with a set of tactics that absolutely makes the most of his strengths and masks his weaknesses.
If you play 4-2-3-1 then Willock either plays as one of the 2 central mids, or plays as the most advanced mid
Willock is not suited to being the No.10 position with how we play because we need huge creativity from that position because our wide men are finishers and not creators and our central mids tend to stay deeper and try to dictate play from there.
Then you have to ask can we play Willock alongside Partey with Emile Smith Rowe in front of them both in that formation? Which is effectively a bit like playing........4-3-3...... then Willock can be one of 3 central mids, usually 1 holding and 2 'No. 8' types who are box to box. The role might suit him but does it suit Arsenal to try to set up like Man City? I think we'd be too exposed.

At Newcastle Willock was given licence to break forward from a midfield 3 but didn't have to shoulder the creative burden because Newcastle didn't face packed defences they had to break down. Newcastle were based around counter attacks, crosses, set pieces where Willock could arrive late at the right time and place

An interesting read.

I find the examples of mismanagement used here a little harsh. White ? I mean he’s not kicked a ball yet and highly rated. Pépé whilst expensive is a good player and Willian was a bit of a punt. Admittedly a bad one.

If you want real examples if mis management I refer you to our ridiculous summer of 2016 when we spent 90 million quid on absolutely bog average players. I mean to provide some perspective, mustafi is currently a free agent after his spell at Schalke. People on this forum thought he was great! Complete delusion

You can’t simply sign such crap players. Would any other club offer Kolasinac 100 grand a week. 23 million quid on Torreira? (Will we get even half of that back)

Hi Rich,

I think Willock is a great player to have in any squad, particularly ours, because he adds something different, namely an energy and a goal threat from central midfield. He's actually a throwback to the days of goalscoring central midfielders like Lampard and Scholes. He's not as good as two obviously but he has that uncanny knack and willingness to arrive in the box and get on the end of things.

A great option to have from the bench when needing a goal or needing to inject some added energy and box-to-box capability.

I'd keep him but it looks like we may have no choice but to sell as he's one of the few players we have who are in demand at a decent fee.

Lukaku to Chelsea for £100m looks like its going to happen. Wow.

On the bright side, at least it gives us a free run at Haaland