The thing is, athleticism, timing and positioning can be attributes of taller forwards and central defenders going up for free kicks and corners too. A 5ft 9in Martinez with timing, athleticism and positioning against six foot plus opponents with timing, athleticism and positioning will be at a disadvantage.

Mind you, according to Darren’s post about Ornstein’s comments, it’s probably all academic anyway. I guess with ten Hag, Manchester United were always going to have the advantage getting Martinez. As Darren implied, with Raphina also likely to go elsewhere (everything I’ve read suggests we were o better than third in his preferred destinations behind Barcelona and Chelsea), two of our alleged big targets won’t be recruited.

Myself, I think the last two months of the transfer window are vital for Arsenal. That’s regardless of Jesus arriving, which I firmly expect him to. As things stand, we’re not only miles behind City and Liverpool, but I have little or no confidence of matching Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester United. If Kroenke has made the funds to buy all these targets available, then I reckon Edu and Arteta May well have some questions to answer.

Things can certainly change over the reminder of the transfer window. For us I think they have to.

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

Different words Rich, but I can’t see a huge difference between your last post and my one before it.

Hi Rich,

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.

Like you, I wouldn't mind seeing Zaha coming in. OK, so he's nearly 30 and doesn't fit the age profile but he's quality PL proven and players are increasingly playing into their mid 30s these days.

I've read that the Tielemans deal has stalled because we are offering £25m and Leicester want £40-45m.

Raphina always felt opportunistic as his preferences were clear.

Martinez feels a bit different, maybe we could have got closer to their asking price quicker. Who knows how it played out. Was Edu too slow or was it just a deal Man U were always going to do because of the Ten Hag connection.

I just hope we have other quality targets to bring in.

Like we discussed all those players were never all coming. Not bothered about Martinez as I couldn’t honestly see where we were going to play him which probably is the reason why we didn’t meet their asking price which is a lot for a player with no obvious spot.

On wingers keep an eye on Pedro Neto at wolves. Shares the same agent as Fabio Vieira and we tried to sign him before when he was at braga.

Tielemans you must be right on. No way would that have been done by now if the fee is only 25. No brainier. That will go to the end of the window Leicester won’t sell their best player for that amount.

Rich was slightly less pessimistic Bernard.

Fair point, though I did say not a ‘huge difference’ (imagine a smiley here). You used the word ‘slightly’ after all (imagine another smiley).

So it looks like united are spending over 100 million on de jong, Martinez and the other guy. Pretty big spending.

I know literally nothing about de jong and if he moves the needle for them.

De Jong is an excellent player and there's no way Barcelona would be selling him if they didn't have financial problems. He is certainly streets ahead of McTominay and Fred. How he would fit with Fernandes remains to be seen. There's also the Man U factor. So many good players simply don't work out there.

It might all change after the world cup. Brazil have a very good team this time around and while Neymar might phone in performances for PSG, he won't do that in a world cup for Brazil. It is an opportunity for redemption is a way. Whatever we think about him, he is outrageously talented.

This is true, but it also works the opposite way. People who spend their days following transfer links get a skewed sense of reality in a way. Strong links to a player possibly moving to their club and they immeadiately start seeing new starting lineups, their team reaching the next level etc. And then the links break down and it's a disaster, the club is going nowhere and so on.

Personally, I don't see it as anything worth getting too worked up about. The important thing to me is that we're obviously looking to seriously strengthening the team - being prepared to pay 85-90m for Raphinha and Martinez on top of what we've already spent is a clear indication of that, and if we don't get those two particular players there are others out there. It would be a completely different thing if we miss out on them and end up signing nobody, but I would be very surprised if that happened.

Thanks Haz. You’ve cheered me up a bit there with your perspective.

I do hope that incomings are sorted out in time for the early start to the season though.

True. I sometimes log in and post without catching up on what I’ve missed.

Every big team is signing players but it must be a huge statistical improbability that every single one of them improves.

in terms of moving the dial I would say Arsenal, Spurs and Man U will probably be doing that more than City, Liverpool and Chelsea come the end of the summer. Mainly due to the obvious gaps in each of our squads.

If you look at the existing players in the squad you’d be able to make a good case for our players having greater potential to move the dial than any of the other top 6 because of their age and because so many of our starting 11 were new to the club last year or year before. Think how many of our current best 11 were in the definite first 11 for us 2 years ago, not many!

So, that's the vibe among fans? Wow! I certainly wasn't thinking that but it seems some of us are possibly overoptimistic in my humble opinion.

That's how it is with the transfer window. Wild rumors. I have bought into that mania more than once so I can't be too harsh or be a hypocrite.

I would have been happy with a Bissouma and a very good striker who can give us minimally 15 EPL goals. But I am easy to please these days.

The Bologna left back hickey is going to Brentford. We were being linked with him so another one off the list.

Aaron Hickey to Brentford, £14m plus add ons. Remarkable, earlier in the window there was talk of £20-25m.

At that price and Brentford getting him you really have to believe that we’re not interested.

Part of the problem is we have all these players who we literally can’t sell for love nor money so we don’t know how much budget we can spare. I think the loan system devalues the player when they leave making virtually impossible to move them after. These clubs like Roma and Fiorentina are literally borrowing players they have no intention of buying

Surely ainsleys worth a punt at 10 million. Leno definitely worth 10 how has nobody snapped him up yet. Even Mari at 6 million euros is surely worth somebody taking a punt on. A serie A club can’t afford 4 million quid. What’s going on.

Apparently with Martinez Man U see him as a CB but Arsenal see him as a left back. He plays almost exclusively as a CB for Ajax and Argentina

On the plus side at least it will be them trying to play in the Premier League with a midget centre half.

Arsenal played a behind closed doors friendly v Ipswich this afternoon, we won 5-1, Nketiah (3), Nelson and Balogun with the goals

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?’

Defies belief.

Barca president Joan Laporta revealed in August 2021, shortly after Messi’s emotional departure to Paris Saint-Germain, that the club’s debts had risen to €1.35 billion (£1.13bn/$1.42bn).


https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/how-muc ... f3b65ee387

Arsenal first-half team: Bernd Leno, Hector Bellerin, Ben White, Pablo Mari, Cédric, Thomas Partey, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Sambi Lokonga, Nicolas Pépé, Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson. 4-0 up at half time

Second half team all youngsters

So, revenge for the '78 FA cup final disguised as a friendly then? Genius. Pure genius.

The same way America was able to afford 20 trillion on 2 wars over 20 years. Borrowed money.

Is Barca too big to fail? There are certian countries, companies that for whatever reason the powers that be won't let fail. Perhaps in football there some clubs that the league, UEFA or whomever, behind the scenes, deem too important/big to fail? Something is worked out behind the scenes.

Sounds a bit mad but it exists in other institutions.

So ronaldo met with the chelsea owner and has now put in a transfer request 2 weeks later, he’s 38 in February

Football is ridiculous and he’s a massive Bellend. Only cares about himself

Does he have a point or is it more complicated than that?

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.

I’d love to see the squad wages of Man U compared to us. I don’t think it would be too far off to say Man U’s top 5/6 earners might earn more than our entire squad. Ronaldo £500k per week, Sancho, de Gea, Varane all at £350k

We’re shifting more big earners hopefully, Leno, Bellerin, Mari. Need to use that money to tie down Saka, Saliba and Martinelli on new deals

No I don’t think Lyon will but who’s to say he won’t return to Tottenham and be a success?

You’ve said before, quite often, how well you think Chelsea manipulate the transfer market with their young players and how we should aim to do the same. Now you’re slagging them off for letting Tomori and Guehi go.

If you can find the highlights from yesterdays friendly win (I had them but lost them) there are a couple of wonderful through balls from Partey, to set up two of the goals. Another from Matt Smith to set up Balogun’s goal.

When we think about a teams most important player it is a combination of the best player and the one without a replacement. To that end a fit and firing Partey is so key for us. Elneny does an ok job screening, and not giving away the ball but he’s relatively non existent in cutting ball progression and turning and dribbling in tight areas.

In fact once you solve the main gap in our first 11 of a striker then you just need to go through the best 11 and likely replacements to see easily where we need to strengthen.

Vieira is a good signing for his similarity to Ødegaard as I don’t think we have anyone who can do what Ødegaard does. Then you’re looking at Partey, Tierney, Tomiyasu and Saka needing better competition.

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?

Your guess would be as good as that of the any of the rest of us.

My guess is that none of those 5 will feature for Arsenal in the coming season. The outside bet there I suppose would be Nelson but he hasn’t yet nailed down his several chances in his career so far.