Gooooood morning from sunny Paris! It’s so nice to be back in Europe, feeling thoroughly unloved by the locals.
So, what have we today?
Well, we didn’t speak about the fabulous news about our new kit supplier. Adidas has only gone and won the right to sell us that bruised banana kit, haven’t they!
Arsenal rocked a mega-deal that isn’t quite as good as United or Barca, but pretty damn close to what Chelsea are making. You can’t argue with £60m a year up from £30m. Especially when you’ve been utter dross for 10 years. That money can be put towards new players, an Arsene Wenger bust, or maybe another crazy contract if Ramsey keeps scoring wild goals like the one he did at the weekend.
I really, really, really hope Adidas take some liberties with our shirt. Do something iconic. Bring the fans something quality. Don’t play it safe. Also, get Rhianna back in the mixer, Ozil plays better when she’s around.
There’s been a barrage of positivity after our 9th straight win. Rightly so, it feels good to be competing. It also feels good for many to feel absolutely vindicated in wanting a managerial change. As I’ve said countless times before, regardless of what happens this season, sacking Wenger was the right thing to do (10 years to late). However, I do think some might be going a touch overboard, I read someone complaining that it was unfair we’d not been considered title contenders. We’re not title contenders. We’re doing well points-wise, but let’s not pretend this 9 game streak has been pretty to watch, or without major flaws.
The real opportunity is going to be 4th. Arsenal are going to have some dark times ahead. Our defence is still very worrying, and we have a nightmare schedule coming up. However, I do think we’ve seen enough to say that the strategy of hiring in experience and a dash of youth might be enough to put us in front of a very flat Spurs and a United that will have to change manager at some point this season.
I’m really looking forward to having Koscielny back in the side, we’ve missed his composure and quiet leadership at the back. It’ll be great to see him pair up with Sokratis. You’d hope that’d bring a bit more sturdiness to the backline as we move forward through the season. It’s such a shame the Frenchman is 33. We’ll need to replace him with some top class this summer, hopefully, we can do that with Champions League cash money.
There was a little bit of noise around the Ramsey celebration in which it looked like he was making a point about his deal. I don’t really get it, he scored a worldie against a shite side, that doesn’t make him a £350k a week player. I’ve no doubt he’ll end up somewhere half decent, but the club already made a shocking mistake by propping up Ozil’s retirement fund when it was clear no one wanted him. We can’t make the same mistake twice. We can replace Ramsey with two younger options and still have change to spare out of the money he wants.
This is why Champions League football is so important. We’re now in a situation where we have to pay players a premium to join us. Ideally, a club like us should get away with paying less because we’re a huge stepping stone. I’d love us to become a more elite Dortmund (who by the way, are back to their most exciting). A few more signings like Torreira and Guendouzi and we’ll be well on our way!
Right, that’s me done, see you in the comments. x
Pierre
The departure of Ramsey is not an issue providing that we replace him with
an equivalent player or upgrade.
However, I doubt that Arsenal have £50 million to spend in transfer market this side of summer transfer window. Taking £20 million in January is not going to compensate for weakening our squad.
Welbeck is a different situation, because he is a third string striker in our squad as opposed to Ramsey who would be considered first choice.
Sometimes posters on here need to look at the priorities and selling Ramsey
without adequate replacement is not one of them.
Emirates
Assuming our transfer budget is £70 (similar to last summer), selling Ramsey fir £20 milllion to add to that budget makes a different.
90 milllion budget is a lot different from a 70 million.
What are we going to use to buy these replacement for Ramsey?
Why is that we dither so much?
Do you really think he will sacrifice himself so much knowing that he’s out of contract in a few months.
He’s leaving anyways so get what we can and do it on our own terms.
Unless you agree a fee of £40 Million and give them £20 Million in January you make from Ramsey and then £20 Million in the summer.
Selling Ramsey in January makes the most sense if we can.
Why are we acting like we don’t have any money in January?
Added sponsorship revenues will add another 40-50m in the summer, if we get CL it’s another 25m.
That’s on top of the regular budget so if we get CL we should have 140m to spend in the summer.
Makes sense spending some of that in January to strengthen our chances of getting top 4 no?
If we can get 30m for Ramsey and Welbeck combined it would be stupid not to take it. None of them are irreplaceable.
Dissenter The budget next summer will be most probably north of £100 million with the Adidas sponsorship coming on stream. As I said the focus now must be a top four finish this season so that we qualify for CL and not destabilising the current squad. Qualification for CL adds at least £25 million to budget and progression beyond pools adds even more. There is plenty of time to upgrade our squad, but it should be done at right time and not just for sake of it. As I said previously if you find in January a genuine proven upgrade… Read more »
“If Ramsey leaves either in January or Summer we will most definitely need a
star quality replacement in central midfield.”
If all our players are fit as is, Ramsey doesn’t even start. We don’t even need to replace him directly.
ES – Ramsey problem i bit deeper than Welbz .
He didnt play shit bar “dat goal”. He sulks when being subbed. Him him being senior first team player in this contract situation is not healthy for team.
To add insult to injury he is highly replaceable so selling in jan might be good for team morale more than financial gain.