As I said a couple of weeks ago, all those fans who were proclaiming this to be the greatest transfer window ever based on nothing more than links with quality players needed to take a breath. Links mean nothing until you actually get a deal over the line.

Looks like we’re out of Raphinha and Martinez. It is a tough one for the club because I’ve seen criticism that we didn’t just go in with a big serious bid but those same people would criticise the club for overpaying. Raphinha wanted Barca then Chelsea as his back up. Martinez with Ten Hag connections and Van Der Saar as the Ajax technical director wanting to help Man U rather than us meant they were both going to be difficult to do. We can only find that out by making those bids. You could say we’ve at least forced the others to pay too whack for them.

What we have seen is the club are willing to commit close to £100m on a left centre back and a winger.

We’ve found out pretty early in the window we can’t get those 2, we’ve already bagged 2 of our first choice targets and have plenty of time to get some more in.

I wonder if we might go back for Hickey or Zinchenko. On the right there are links to Gnabry (!), the closest player to Raphinha would be Diaby

The only concern I have is if the club don’t get their targets and fail to move some players on then whilst we might have taken a step forward with the squad there would still be pretty big weaknesses that could make it feel like another semi-transitional season until we can fill those gaps

I don’t understand how Barcelona are able to afford any players at all. They want Raphinha, Kounde and Lewandowski, that’s £150m. They are totally busy. I know they sold a portion of the tv money. Any smaller club would have been allowed to go to the wall with the terrible finances Barca have

After the Agbonlahor outburst, yet more criticism of White. This time on talkSPORT. They were discussing Manchester United and there was someone (sounded like a celebrity fan but no idea who it was, or even if it was) being interviewed. They asked him what the big priorities were for them this window.

He said two new central defenders as Maguire and Varane are both rubbish (or whatever words he used). He qualified that by saying Varane could be decent alongside a dominant centre half. To which the talkSPORT presenter or interviewer said ‘not Ben White then?’

Of course talksport employs pundits based on their willingness to bait large fan bases. I also think we’re often fair game because you’d get shot down or look a bit of an idiot trying to criticise Liverpool or Man City right now.
Spurs are given a light ride because historically they are not a successful club. What doesn’t make sense is how Man U and Chelsea aren’t slaughtered so much more.
Can you imagine if we’d bought a £100m striker and sent him back to his previous club on loan the very next season, or lost our best CB on a free transfer. Not really heard a peep of criticism in the media for either of those Chelsea mistakes. And don’t even get started on the shocking mess Man U have been in for years.
Arsenal are taking an approach with young players, many of them English and many of them from the academy, plus a rookie manager and we try to play entertaining attacking football - you’d have thought we’d have been cut a bit more slack in some parts of the media.

To be fair Rich, with football inflation wasn’t Lacazette a comparable outlay to Chelsea’s last year on Lukaku when he joined? £52.7m in 2017 according to the Guardian (link below)? If not the expenditure was much closer than the cash terms. How about the £72m we paid for Pépé? I’d say Lukaku has had just as much coverage as them. On talkSPORT from what I hear of it, I’d say more. A lot more.

You mentioned Tottenham but I must admit,I’m struggling to remember too many massively expensive waste of money signings lately. I’m not saying there haven’t been any. But recent and comparable to Lukaku and Pépé? If there are any they’ve slipped my mind.

In short I don’t think Arsenal are singled out any more or less than other comparable clubs. The very mild White dig today (Agbonlohor’s was much heavier but that’s his own subjective viewpoint and we all have them), came from Maguire and Varane being slaughtered for being expensive rubbish (another subjective view).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... ecord-lyon

Spurs have £60m Ndombele, and Bryan Gil (£25m plus lamella) who were both shipped off on loan very quickly.
I think if you get your expensive flop out on loan people forget them more than of they’re sat on your bench each week!

Also if you have a long list of expensive flops and big money signings I think the media give less attention to it than a club like Srsenal who spend big far less often, so perhaps it’s more obvious when a big signing fails. For example, how often do we hear about £70m Arrizabalaga, £40m Bakayoko, £30m drinkwater….or the fact Chelsea are struggling for CB and just got rid of two of England’s best young CB in Tomori and Guehi?

Lyon apparently have a buy back clause for Ndimbele of €65m. Not quite the same is it? To be honest I think you’re making it a bit too much of an issue. I’ve heard plenty of Chelsea losing Rudiger, as I have of them releasing Salah and De Bruyne for peanuts. Tomori and Guehi? I think they have a long way to go before they show Chelsea shouldn’t have got rid of them. Aren’t they supposed to have some sort of buy back arrangement for Guehi anyway?

My baseline point is that the Lukaku situation has attracted way more coverage than, for example, Pépé.

Do you think Lyon will exercise that €65m buy back for Ndombele? I can’t see Spurs getting any more for him than we’d get for Pépé. At least Pépé won a trophy, assisting the winner in the final.

I suppose we can see what happens this year. We were constantly reminded we spent the most of any club in Europe last year. Spurs will be spending north of £160m if they make their two loan signings permanent.

Personally I think Tuchel and Chelsea have had a really easy ride from the media, especially on the Lukaku issue. They were expected to challenge for the title last year and flopped massively.

Trying to read the tea leaves here…is there any significance in the appearance yesterday of Mari,Bellerin,AMN,Pépé and Nelson.
Do they have a future with us or was it a shop window display?

Trying to read the tea leaves here…is there any significance in the appearance yesterday of Mari,Bellerin,AMN,Pépé and Nelson.
Do they have a future with us or was it a shop window display?