It’s very tough to take too much stock in Boxing day or New Years day games. I know the players aren’t out until 5 in the morning licking lamp posts, but there’s always a weird flat vibe around the stadium on the day, and quite often, our play on the pitch is flaccid.
We weren’t at our best yesterday, but we bulldozed through with an on-paper spanking that’s tough to moan about. Fulham gave it some in the first 45 minutes and cut us open far too easily. We were literally being shoved about and stretched by the second worst team in the Premier League. However, we at least had enough about our game to take our second lead into halftime. Granit Xhaka of all people ghosting into the Fulham box to pick up a nicely worked Iwobi cross, which he chested down and guided into the bottom corner.
We doubled that lead in the second half, with more good work down the left from Kola, Auba and Iwobi, the decisive pass found Laca with space in the box which he calmly took with a canon of a shot down the middle of the goal.
We of course took time out to concede, a car crash pass to Torriera freed up the ball in midfield, Fulham made it all the way to our goal with Kamara breezing inside Kola to tap in.
Emery reacted tactically, bringing off Lacazette for Ramsey. The crowd booed the move, which seemed really odd if I’m honest. Lacazette made a bit of a scene out of that, obviously feeling very awkward his teammate was not getting a good reception.
Anyway, Rambo had the last laugh. Within 4 minutes he’d found himself in the right place when a Auba shot struck the post, his tight control and quick shot lifted the score to 3-1. Well done him.
Final goal of the day fell to Auba, he took a simple pass in space from Kola and lashed his shot in off a Fulham shin to make the game a rout.
So how much analysis can you put into a game like this? We put in a shift. We didn’t play well. We came away with a win and ramped out our goal difference.
A few things did spring to mind. I think Arsenal fans are growing a bit tired of the shabby performances. We’re 6 months into this project now, and outside the mega run, which was fun but heavily pumped up by a lot of luck, it feels like we’re yet to see a real game of Emery football.
I mean, that’s the only excuse I can see for the fans grumbling all game, and oddly booing a perfectly reasonable sub (hardly Eboue vs Wigan, right?).
The game lacked intensity for me. We are still incredibly sloppy at the back. Conceding 4 BIG chances to Fulham at home is embarrassing when you’re dominating possession. The coaching staff hasn’t moved the defence forward, and though people keep highlighting individual errors, it seems clear that the problem is structural. The coaching needs to improve. Absolute basics like failing to track runners isn’t acceptable. Even that pass from Koscielny was outrageous (for their goal). Do we need to be playing passes of that length from the back to a player under pressure?
I also think something that likely irks fans is my view of our play is that Arsenal play like they’re nursing a hangover. We are consistently ok. Each game is a chopped up version of: A very slow start, some intermittent nice attacking football, some shocking defensive errors, half-arsed pressing, extreme efficiency in front of goal.
We haven’t seen many showpiece games. The football is hard to fall in love with because I don’t believe we’ve had enough “OH MY I SEE WHAT THIS IS’ types of games. Early days Klopp and Pep might have been inconsistent, but at least you were given a taste of what the good life could be. Emery has yet to pitch the fans the vision of the future, and I think that’s why you’re seeing empty seats in the ground. It’s boring football.
Just a few other pointers before we go. It was sad to see Aaron Ramsey bang in a goal again. Our midfield really could do with a focused him. He’s not a £300k a week footballer and never will be, we can’t afford him, but right now, he looks like a prime bit of well-cooked steak on a plate when he’s running around on the pitch.
The e-mail that Arseblog has been sharing around which is a plea from the club to make cost savings is an absolute hoot. It’s a shame we don’t have specifics, but when a company as rich as us is making statements like that, it’s a worry. What sort of expenses could the general soldiers be running up that could make any sort of meaningful impact on a club that splashes our over £200m on salaries? Also, football clubs are supposed to project power. Asking Sally in accounts to wash her hands once a day reeks of smalltime mentality.
I also think all this news about our future transfer policy is scary, David Ornstein telling the world is loans this January. People asked why I wasn’t keen on Pulisic the other day. Now, I think the player is fantastic, well done Chelsea. But if we’re to follow my post from the other day, as a club, we have to be realistic about who we really are.
We. Are. Skint.
We can’t go out and spend huge sums on players Dortmund want rid of anymore (also, let’s leave them be and craft our own path). We have to be taking the earlier punts. We have to be digging out the players where the value is. We should be sniffing around the same markets as Dortmund and Atleti. We need to be growing £60m players. We cannot be the 3rd highest net spenders in the league in 5 years time. We should not have a higher net spend than Real Madrid over 10 years (we do). We need to find better efficiencies with our confused transfer strategy. More Torriera’s and MG’s. Less Mikhi and Mesut’s moving forward.
I really, really hope we take a hacksaw to the squad in the summer. Ship out all the old players on big contracts, move on the failures and replace average squad players with young upstarts who have a high ceiling, and lower our crazy wage bill to something that frees up cash.
We have to start again, that’s not going to be with £60m players, unfortunately.
DM
2
Bankz is here for the Tr4phy again
Tr4phy
4
4th
Chelsea not messing about or is that them signing Hazard’s replacement?
If Emery was a big man, He would take stock- and admit he was wrong about Ramsey. And he would restate him as Captain- and get the contract re-issued pronto, But, I fear he is not. I fear he will continue to be petty, and closed minded with his flawed footballing views. Remember, he hooked Ramsey – first game against Man City after 54 mins. Ramsey was poor that day. But he was playing as virtual centre forward. Ramsey was then dropped second game against Chelsea Emery had already made his mind about him, Ozil and indeed Lacactte ( all… Read more »
Every big team needs and has stars and winners. Without Mesut Özil in the squad, who is that at Arsenal? Buying young players and developing them is a good idea but if you only do that, you are a small club. The problem at Arsenal isn’t the developing young players part but more about how things are run really. On the other hand, I would love to see Özil leave Arsenal, I am a PSG fan and think that he is being wasted there playing in Europa surrounded by, well, the Arsenal squad.
Agree about the comments about Emeryball, and sorry to say that it doesn’t really get better as a long suffering PSG fan
Radio Was reading yesterday it may well be that they are anticipating a transfer ban but the same article is that at least five PL clubs are fanning similar bans, and yes one of those it thought to be Arsenal. Is it a sign that Hazard is on his way? Love them or hate them they are very very unlikely to allow him enter the last year of his contract if he signs an extension then for me that signals they will be reverting to a smaller more mobile front three irrespective it does show that Chelsea are working on… Read more »
Terraloon, cannot believe we’re getting banned for being shit at transfers
I do not buy the argument that Arsenal are more restricted than other clubs, because of the lack of commercial revenue. Arsenal’s annual turnover rose last year despite loss of Champions League Football. For a start our sponsorship with Emirates rose £10 million despite previous gloomy forecasts that they would be pulling out of sponsoring club. Then we received a sleeve sponsorship from Rwanda Tourism also reputed to be £10 million. TV Revenues have also been rising over last 2 years. Next season we will have a new kit sponsor with Adidas increasing the payment to £60 million [as opposed… Read more »
Terraloon
Precisely, there’s a plan they are implementing. I think Hazard leaves irrespective of whether he extends his contract or not.
Bringing it to Arsenal, I thought we did our business well in the transfer market last summer. We were fast and decisive. And of the players signed Lichsteiner is only one, arguably, underperforming. Although, I doubt he was expected to play this many matches
Stan really has allowed Wenger and Ivan to kill , or at least seriously wound this club.
We now know at least one reason why Ivan left, I cannot get beyond comparing him with David Cameron’s cowardly exit to his millions.
I hope that is a lesson Stan doesn’t forget.
Emery needs to build his proper team, somehow.
With or without Unai Emery, it will be a few tough years, as other clubs than the traditional rich list become much better funded than we are.
I think that’s part of Emery’s remit – to ‘grow £60m players’. If Torreira recovers his form he could be worth that, Bellerin continues the progress he’d made before injury he could be another, Lacazette? Guendouzi has, at least, already double in value. Emery has a record of doing this in his time at Valencia and Sevilla. Obvious corollary to this is that we are prepared to lose one or two of these players when their stock is high. Then sign suitable replacements that improve the squad. Liverpool have been somewhat lucky in how they’ve applied this, we’ll have to… Read more »
Pedro I dont think our defensive malaise is structural at all…..
When you have a 32 year old Laurent Koscielny making a suicide pass in the middle of the park to the only defensive midfielder we have surrounded by two opposition players (a tactic employed by most managers facing us) then you know its obviously one of the PERSONNEL and no amount of coaching or defensive set up will give him some football intelligence not to make such passes.
Koscielnys game has always been weak IMO, and that pass reeked of cowardice and shirking responsibility –
Pedro
That’s insightful and blunt.
We are restricted and have to take a different path.
I have just examined the balance sheets published for financial year June 2017 for the top 6 clubs in EPL. Much has been written on Le Grove about Arsenal’s lack of performance when discussing commercial revenues. Well for the record in year 2016-17 the revenues were £116.5million compared with Chelsea just under £108 million and Spurs just under £73 million. Man Utd, Man City and Liverpool do generate as we know more. Man Utd is a larger global brand so you would expect higher revenue. Man City’s brand is inflated by the financial support they receive from Abu Dhabi, which… Read more »
I am still confused by this STCC rule.
“Using their previous year’s wage bill as a baseline, those clubs are prohibited from raising wages by more than £7m per year.”
That means those two Manchester clubs will be allowed to continue outspent their wage bill as compared to the other EPL clubs. I prefer the North American salary Cap rule.
I also think we are restricted by what wages we can offer because we are very close to exceeding the cap.
There’s an interesting post from “Arsenal truth” about this. I believe it was Marko who provided the link initially.
http://arsenaltruth.squarespace.com/arsenal-truth/2019/1/1/why-kroenke-cannot-invest-big-money.html
I was at the game yesterday and the booing was more in regards to it being lacazette coming off again as he was our most dangerous player.
Agree with Pedro though that all fans are starting to feel frustrated at the lack of identity. No one knows what we are trying to do and our defence is equally, if not worse, than before. Which is pretty hard to believe was even possible.
I don’t understand how we are skint? What happened to our huge cash reserves near on £200 mil?
What about our annual income from sponsorship, advertising and tv deals?
And as for us facing a transfer ban because of FFP how the fucking hell has that happened? We haven’t cooked the books and given ourselves over inflated sponsorship deals like City did with Etihad and we haven’t spent more than we earn – quite the opposite.
So what the fuck is going on???
Not forgetting we also have the most expensive ticket prices.
How have Chelsea managed to spunk £57 mil on Pullisic??
Emirates
“However, when you factor in ticket sales and combine this with commercial
our revenue exceeds Liverpool‘
Yes
Liverpool also have other income that we’ve shut ourselves out of. They’ve been making good upward transfers. We missed out on a payday with Sanchez, everything went downhill afterwards.
We should have sold Sanchez for £60 mil to City when we had the chance. Fucking joke.
bennydevito
We are not, and never have been, “skint”.
Just spin.
Every club would love to be ‘Arsenal skint’.
Our club is a shell of what it once was.
Shite on and off the field.
Arsenal are a right old snoozefest.
How wrong would it be to want a relegation battle? At least it would be something to focus on.
Graham62
Agreed, it must be. But if the problem is to do with our wage bill then we have to sell Ozil this January for whatever we can get and we need to move on the dead wood, injury prone and just not good enough immediately too.
I wonder how much Liverpool have made on shirt sales the past twelve months?
Saleh, Mane, Firmino, VVD, Allison.
I would say a fair bit.
Dolomite, see your point, but we’ve been awful regardless of personnel all season
Clubs can no longer depend on just commercial revenue with the exception of United. That’s the ew reality in light of all the spending restrictions.
The last two seasons of Wenger and Gazidis were very damaging for the club. We made bad mistakes and compounded them with worse fixes.
Just getting rid of Ozil and Ramsey alone will free up £24 mil a year so it has to be done. Welbeck, Koz, Ospina, Monreal and Licht need to be moved on or released too which would significantly reduce our wage bill and allow us to sign the players we need if wage bill limits to income is the problem.
What is more important than all this discussion about financial rules imposed by UEFA and EPL is the club’s audited balance sheet. When you compare Arsenal with Liverpool you see very quickly that the former’s financial position is significantly more healthy than the latter. Liverpool’s Cash balance in year ending June 2017 was just over £4 million compared with Arsenal £180 million. Their net assets [excluding player valuations] is £98.5 million, which is a fraction of what Arsenal’s net assets are worth. Arsenal’s training ground alone is probably worth more than half that figure. There are of course fundamental weaknesses… Read more »
Liverpool also reached the final of the CL which is worth at least £60-75 miilon.
They are set to get the biggest it deal in footballing history to exceed the United off their recent successes.
Graham62,
I don’t think it works like that with shirt sales does it? Don’t the manufacturer NB in Liverpool’s case give Liverpool a lu.p sum per year as the deal and then the manufacturer gets the money from shirt sales no?
Bennievito
“And as for us facing a transfer ban because of FFP how the fucking hell has that happened”
Well ,we have had a net spend of 45 million the last 2 seasons …that equates to the colossal sum of 22.5 million a season..
So what would go you expect .
Official club merchandise still has massive financial benefits.
Raul and Sven are trying to clear out the books so they can have room to really rebuild.The Ramsey deal would have been more of the same; deals forced on us by trying to salvage what’s left of a bad situation.
Their planning landscape is restricted by all the recent bad deals which is why short term loans will make sense this January.
The Gary Cahill deal makes sense in that context. He’s not club tied for Europa league.
I think that was the point things got seriously bad for us, the Sanchez and Ozil decision we essentially lost out on £60-80 Million. Having said that who would be spending it at that point?
Though I did say back then just to sell and bank the money for when Wenger had gone.
All of that was then made worse but our decisions with them and our 6th placed finish.
The Liverpool kit deal with new balance.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-6526719/Liverpool-talks-new-balance-record-kit-deal-2020-21-season.html
Our bloated wage bill has always been an absolute abomination, and never more than right now.
Mercifully, we should be cutting the following from our weekly wages by the summer without impacting the 1st team at all (shame about Ramsey..):
Ramsey £110k
Cech £100k
Lich £90k
Kos £75k
Welb £70k
Nacho £65k
Elneny £55k
Jenk £45k !!!!!!!
Chambers £25k
Ospina £40k
Also, Ozil + Mkhi £530k !!!!!
Frees up over £1m a week in wages, or 25% of our total wage bill. Insanity. Says nothing of our need to get rid of Xhaka and Mustafi, saving another £9m a year.
Pierre are you being sarcastic? I can’t tell. Surely that net spend is balanced by our revenue income no?
I’d like to believe that the cause for the bland football we’ve been watching under Emery, and under Wenger in his last 5-6 years, is that we stopped having flair players, or if we had, it was just 1 player at a time. Last time we had several flair players playing for us at the same time was in 2007/2008 with Cesc, Rosicky, Hleb, RvP and Eduardo to an extend. Not a coincidence that it was the last time we had a real title challenge although it did die prematurely in March or so. Since 2008 how many class flair… Read more »
“When you have a 32 year old Laurent Koscielny making a suicide pass in the middle of the park to the only defensive midfielder we have surrounded by two opposition players (a tactic employed by most managers facing us) then you know its obviously one of the PERSONNEL and no amount of coaching or defensive set up will give him some football intelligence not to make such passes.“ The point about structure is that pass wouldn’t be on with better shape and tactics, Kos would have better progressive options. Yes, loony pass, but the players are given a remit by… Read more »
Jamie
I agree
Next summer TW will be about using a machete to clear out the squad.
Next summer TW will be the first with the RaulSven combo running the show.
Dissenter –
Honestly, I’m less concerned with where in the table we finish this season, and far more concerned with how the [absolutely necessary] rebuild is organised.
We’ll never progress if we keep paying astronomical wages for perfectly average players. As a marker, Mkhi earns almost four times what Torreira earns. Ozil, seven times! Mind-boggling. 11 Torreiras or Ozil & Mkhi. Mismanagement of the highest order, and needs to be addressed immediately before we start talking about CL qualification.
To continue my theory: Look at City and Pool’s flair players. City has Sane, both Silvas, KdB, Mahrez, even Gundogan who would be the most technically gifted player if he was playing for us. Pool has speed and quality in abundance in Salah, Mane, Shaqiri. Firmino even though he isn’t one of the flair players manages to gel and combine with them very well. Both teams have speed in excess in addition to technique. Spending so much money on Ozil and Mikki’s salaries we needed them to be flair players. Or at least speed merchants. They aren’t. So our options… Read more »
Bennydevito
Yes I was .
Jamie
The club should increase Torriera an Guendouzi wages asap…..
it feels like we’re yet to see a real game of Emery football
We haven’t seen many showpiece games.
—————————————————
Pedro, what about:
Vs Leicester?
Vs The Scum?
So in terms of kit deals the club only make money from the deal and shirt sales go to the kit maker so it makes no difference to Liverpool how many Salah shirts they sell as that money goes to NB correct? However, Liverpool we be able to factor those shirt sales into a new kit deal hence them wanting to go from £40 mil a season with NB to a new deal of £75 mil plus and if NB don’t pay it one of their rivals will. So having world class marquee signings doesn’t impact on shirt sales to… Read more »
Didn’t one of the papers report yesterday that Juve were offering Ramsey £138,000 per week. If true then that could do us a huge favour in the long term, getting average players to realise the wages sugar fairy has left the Emirates and wages will be in line with ability & performance.
“Seeing as we’re about to get £300 mil from Adidas this summer what’s preventing us from using all of that on players to then make sure in 5 years time we can rival man u and Liverpool kit deals and get back in the champs league?”
Strange comment as what do you think the club is going to do with the money?
To be honest ,it was a foul on.Torriera prior to the Fulham goal ..the ref obviously thought that Torriera dived.
We seem to be getting the rough end of the stick at the moment regarding decisions ….
The 2 pens against us v Liverpool were debatable ,Lacazette was brought down v Liverpool and Fulham …nothing given …
The results were not affected but Sean Dyche’s comments a few weeks back regarding our supposed diving has had the desired effect….
Salah and Kane are habitual divers and the referee buy it has nearly every time.
Pierre
If the FA had any balls Salah would have been suspended for the game vs us after diving for a pen in their previous match.
Problem is the minute you start saying we’re hard done by you’re accused of all sorts.
Marc
I believe Italian clubs salaries are net figures. Ramsey will also recieve a signing on bonus in addition to his salary. Great deal for him
“So having world class marquee signings doesn’t impact on shirt sales to the club but gives the club the cards to negotiate higher value kit deals.” In a nutshell. The kit maker takes the lion’s share of the revenue. I think clubs typically receive 10-15%. Marquee players help increase the value of the football club’s brand for sure. Domestic and international accolades help too; playing in the CL late stages during prime time would also increase marketability. The £300m Adidas deal isn’t paid out in full on day 1. They’re annual payments. We could never spend more than £150m net… Read more »
Dream10
You’re right I’d forgotten that in Italy the figures quoted are net.
Pieere,
“Jamie
The club should increase Torriera an Guendouzi wages asap…..”
Nope. Their wages are what they deserve right now.
We have them on long term contracts [I hope] and is any clubs wants them then they have to pay an astronomical fee to have them.
We have to restore our wages to match the reality of out situation. Europa league clubs running on “self-sufficiency” shouldn’t be paying players 350k weekly.
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11670/11596869/juventus-interested-in-signing-aaron-ramsey-says-sporting-director-fabio-paratici
“Yes, we are interested in Aaron Ramsey,” Paratici told Sky in Italy.
“He’s a great midfielder but at the moment he’s an Arsenal player. We will see.”
Pierre,
Tell me which big club has spoken openly about their interest in Ozil from 2017 till now when he could have easily changed clubs? It would appear that Ramsey is a more desired player than Ozil, don’t you think, Pierre?
The point about structure is that pass wouldn’t be on with better shape and tactics, Kos would have better progressive options So we’re blaming Emery for defenders making blunders now? I suppose it was also his fault Koscielny couldn’t get off the ground for two of Southampton’s goals. That Lichtsteiner kicked a ball off a player into the path of Firmino to score. I suppose everytime Kolasinac is caught ball watching and not marking his man that’s on the manager too. By that logic in the league Cup final against Birmingham City the mistake that cost us the final wasn’t… Read more »
CC, “Basically the “individual mistakes” cries don’t make up the difference. We have a defensive issue that extends beyond the bogus claim of error-prone players. Another thing to note, players make more errors when they’re in a system that exposes them. We have a new manager and some new defensive players, we shouldn’t be delivering the defensive numbers we are.’ You’ re right on principle. The players haven’t been drilled into a proper defensive system. It’s hard to disagree on that point. It’s just that it’s difficult to have a meaningful system when you have so many players out injured… Read more »
Pedro, putting your piece simply, fans are falling out of love with the Club. You ask yourself why, and come to various conclusions, such as it’s Emery or the boring football or bad tactics or lack of money or poor personnel, and on and on, all of them true to a degree, But there is a much simpler explanation for the end of a love affair if we are honest: the object of our affection does not love us back. We can never give up our allegiance, that goes without saying. It’s a life-long passion, and the thought of another… Read more »
Marko
“So we’re blaming Emery for defenders making blunders now?”
In fairness, we used to blame Wenger for defender’s individual errors. So we need to apply the same standard to Emery shambolic defense.
I just want to talk about the defense. 1. our defense is borderline garbage with all members fit. 2. our backup options are woefully short of quality bar maybe sokra. 3. it is folly expecting emery to train the inherited defense to world class level, pep didn’t train mangala or Joe Hart he just replaced them. give emery a summer, if he doesn’t find suitable recruits for the defense then we can ask questions about his recruitment. if we see his acquired defenders regress… well we all know what will be called for then. as for Ramsey, clubs want him,… Read more »
How quickly people forget duffing up Spurs this season in the premiere league and looking much more capable at home against the ‘top 4 teams’….Even winning some away games too!
That along with much more of a converted overall effort and graft, which although originally called for, is now deflected as Arsenal having no ‘style’ or character about them 🤦🏽♂️
“Pierre,
Tell me which big club has spoken openly about their interest in Ozil from 2017 till now when he could have easily changed clubs? It would appear that Ramsey is a more desired player than Ozil, don’t you think, Pierre?”
I’ll answer that – No one.
Always said Ramsey was the better player overall and proven right.
No one was even interested in the fraud back in 2013.
In fairness, we used to blame Wenger for defender’s individual errors.
I think you’ll find bar the occasional insane fan like Joe that’s not the case. I never blamed Wenger for example whenever Xhaka made an error that nearly cost us or in his case did many times. Instead I blamed Wenger for not replacing him or for his signing in the first place. It’s a major stretch to blame any coach for a players individual mistake.
Dissenter: “we used to blame Wenger for defender’s individual errors. So we need to apply the same standard to Emery shambolic defense.”
Cause Wenger had handpicked all of his defenders. Cannot say the same about Emery. Out of the 6 CBs and 4 Full Backs we have, during his reign we’ve bought a cheap 30 yo CB and a free veteran backup RB. It’s not the same.
Pedro
As ever a good article. The crowd were annoyed that Laca was hooked again instead of Iwobi to be clear…. it was not a reflection of Ramsey coming on.
What is the common denominator in Wengers and Emery’s shambolic defense?
Oh yes, Steve Bould.
One of the most interesting recent news was Declan Rice being signed up by West Ham for four years at 45k per week. The only player at Arsenal on such a ‘low’ salary is Jenkinson.
Secondly how come we have this new ‘legal sports expert’ who forgets to insert an option in loan contracts to call back players in January ie Chambers and Nelson.
Club is a shambles from the top down !
Max Meyer not getting much playing time at Palace.
Remember he had quite a few fans here.
How much do we think we can raise from existing players who we either want to move on / could replace for less money etc. All amounts are me stick an imaginary tale on a fictitious donkey please feel free to add suggest other amounts. Kolasinac – £10 – £15 million Chambers – £20 million Elneny – £10 – 15 million Mustafi – £20 – £25 million Xhaka – £25 million Iwobi – £25 million Mkhitaryan – £25 million (looking at Dortmund maybe taking him back) Ozil £? I’m not putting Jenkinson is as he’ll go on a free once… Read more »
JamesH I believe they can bring back some of the loan players but they’re wisely choosing not to.
Raptora and Paulinho “Tell me which big club has spoken openly about their interest in Ozil from 2017 till now when he could have easily changed clubs? It would appear that Ramsey is a more desired player than Ozil, don’t you think, Pierre” Have you ever thought that ozil never changed clubs because Arsenal wanted to keep him , unlike Ramsey…..hence why they offered him such a large contract that he couldn’t refuse ….. let’s Look at it logically…if no one wanted ozil ,Arsenal could have offered him a quarter of the salary he received and he would have taken… Read more »
Chelsea has landed Pulisic for 58 million, if you believe the tabloids.
They have a contingency plan for Hazard’s exit, that’s how you run a football club.
Hazard’s exit will give them resources to rebuild a better squad.
Mislintat’s exit hasn’t stopped Dortmund from bossing transfers. I’m beginning to think that it’s the Director of football at Dortmund, Michael Zorc who was behind all the deals they were pulling off.
Some spin that Pierre.
Dissenter
I don’t think it’s a contingency plan I think it’s proof Hazard is off in the summer.
Hi Marko
Yeah I take your point but if we were desperate to get Chambers back we have to pay Fulham a fee now. It’s these simple fuck ups which have polluted the club for over 10 years.
Can just see raptora’s gormless expression as he reads my comment and the realisation sinks in …..
I’m beginning to think that it’s the Director of football at Dortmund, Michael Zorc who was behind all the deals they were pulling off.
Then that would make you one of the more obvious geniuses the world has ever seen. A director of football overseeing the actual transfers of players and not the head scout? Well I’m glad someone finally got it
“Have you ever thought that ozil never changed clubs because Arsenal wanted to keep him” Yes, but that is beside the point. Arsenal were wrong (not exactly a first) Ornstein said they regretted it a few days ago. Arsenal are full of social-media driven tits,and that partly led to him caving in for Ozil. Also,the hoopla at the time was Arsenal wouldn’t be seen as big club if they lost both Sanchez and Ozil. Perfect storm for people who obviously don’t understand football. Hopefully they are gone now but we don’t know exactly who was behind it. Not convinced by… Read more »
Ozil’s contract or rather the size of it is a pure sign of panic by Gazidis, the club is negotiating a record new shirt deal and were at risk of losing their 2 biggest marquee signings over 6 months.
Ozil’s agent played a blinder and then some. If Pierre is correct and there are clubs interested in him we’ll be able to sell relatively easily for a decent fee.
Marko
” spin “…
for what other reason would Arsenal offer Ozil such a ludicrous contract other than the fact he would sign for another club ….
Even Gazidis and kronke can’t be that stupid .
Marc
Not with that weekly salary …
Pierre
You can’t have it both ways. If he’s a great / amazing player then these clubs would cough up the money.
Pierre I’d say it was more of a case that we wanted to keep Sanchez more but he wanted out no matter what because of the direction of the club and because he had actual interest in him. I’m sure at the time Wenger wanted to keep Ozil it keeps in line with his failing actions of the last few years and it absolutely helped that not one single club tried to sign up the German. You must remember he only signed up in February and that means during the whole month of January clubs were free to speak to… Read more »
I think Adidas must be kicking themselves by signing this deal with us. According to the fans, the cup should replace most of its players. It will be an unknown how this affects the shirt sale.
Dortmund have sold Dembele, Aubameyang and Pulisic for a total of more than £200m. That’s a tidy sum.
We could have probably asked for 25/30 million this time last year….not now.
We have either got to get him playing(when fit ) which is my preference, or basically give him away which will be a decision the club has to make…..
It’s a cock up whichever way you look at it .
other than the fact he would sign for another club …. But no club tried to sign him. It’s not like him refusing a new contract at Arsenal was anything new he had refused contracts before and neither in the summer or in January when he could have been negotiated with did anyone try for him. You think 5th place Arsenal was the biggest club trying for his signature at the time? They were the only club stupid enough. What I don’t get is why a superfan like you is supporting someone like Özil who clearly doesn’t care about Arsenal.… Read more »
Marc
He’s the best we got at what he does but nowhere near worth that sort of contract.
Maybe one day we will find out the truth as to who came up with the bright idea to offer him the contract and then who agreed it especially as it has now supposedly affecting our ability to buy new players which I’m not sure is totally true.
I somehow think it’s just another stick to beat ozil with.
Arsenal going hard??
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8102080/arsenal-55m-bid-for-cengiz-under-rejected-as-emery-replace-aaron-ramsey/
Marko
If you actually believe what you are writing then why would the club offer him such a contract if no one wanted him …..you’re not making sense.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/sport/row-zed/1-per-second-crazy-numbers-9492520.amp
Even the notion of interest from China (just his agent has ever said that) or that we offered him a better deal than another club is ludicrous considering some of the wages being paid over there
The only way Kroenke could put money in is to buy out the stadium loan. That would free up something like £13m a year and is ideal from a footballing perspective.
He won’t do that because it would cost him cash and the penalties for paying the loan off early whilst easily affordable don’t make sense from a financial perspective.
Drey
Let’s hope so!