Come on, the headline was fun. I’m just messing around with people. If you want to dedicate your online life to a footballer and you are over the age of 12, that’s totally cool, just accept the banter that comes your way, BECAUSE IT IS WEIRD.
David Ornstein dropped the EXCLUSIVE on Mesut agreeing to terminate his deal with Arsenal. The German is now free to choose which club he heads to next. It’s the clear the player is done with the rigours of modern football and it seems very likely he’s going to take a beach holiday to Fenerbache. Good for him.
Ultimately, re-signing Mesut was the biggest mistake of the Wenger/Gazidas era. The deal was made because Arsene didn’t know what he was doing and Ivan G had an attack of ego and wasn’t prepared to let another star player leave for fuck all after swapping Sanchez for Mikhi.
We have paid the price ever since. Back in the day, we used to keep places free in the squad for players that were always injured (Vermaelen/Diaby/Jack/Robin), the last 4 years have been keeping spaces free in the squad in the naive hope Mesut would find his mojo. He didn’t. His MO, in the end, was about stiffing Arsenal for his own flaws. The whole debacle greatly hamstrung our abilities to effectively build a squad, which wasn’t helped by our unbelievable negligence with the money we did have.
Well, it’s over now. Mikel Arteta was the manager that finally managed to convince the player to leave.
The whole thing is bittersweet. I remember the excitement of him landing on deadline day. I remember speaking with Alex from the podcast. He thought we’d finally landed as a club, I think he may have been the most excited fan on the planet, he may have started Oziltology, no one can be sure. No one could quite believe we’d made the move.
I mean, I literally couldn’t believe the gaps and problems we had in the squad and Wenger answered them with Mesut. We needed to strengthen our midfield with someone like Thomas Partey (or Kante) and there were serious question marks over the quality of our strikers. Our summer started in shambles when we famously tried to activate the Suarez release clause with a £40,000,001 bid, we were told to fuck off (Barca bought him for £64m a season later). We nearly signed Higuain for £23m, but baulked when Madrid asked for another chunk of change, we said no (the player moved to Napoli, then to Juve for £75m a season later). Both players may have shaped our future in a more positive way, and they certainly would have had resale value.
Anyway…
Wenger added creativity to a midfield that had Wilshere, Chamberlain, Cazorla, Diaby, and Rosicky… literally the most Wenger move of all time.
Still, it was hard to argue with early Mesut. The guy was a chance machine. He was special. He helped us break our trophy drought. Things really perked up when he had Alexis Sanchez to play with. Mesut’s creativity combined with the dogged style of Sanchez kept us looking very exciting as an attacking unit.
Things turned sour though. It was clear he was a continuation of our approach to signing players that added flab to our soft underbelly. He would go missing, no doubt. I don’t think he ever recovered after his shocking World Cup and the bad press he thought he didn’t deserve after making besties with a brutal dictator. Germany turned on him, there were certainly undertones of racism, being referred to as ‘Turkish’ in their media was a disgraceful way to treat an icon of immigrant integration. He was never the same after that rejection.
The player just wasn’t interested in Arsenal. Arsene Wenger wrapped him in cotton wool. The player didn’t travel with the squad to difficult away games. According to plenty of people in the know, the player would pick up ‘injuries’ and would cry off with sickness on the regular. He thought his profile was bigger than the club, and he believed he could play by different rules.
He became toxic at about the same time his skillset started to look antiquated. Pep G reinvented creativity in a possession-based system, KDB redefining what influence looked as a chief creator. Jurgen Klopp, on the other side of the fence, eliminated the need of that sort of luxury player with his power and pace model. The Ozil’s of the world found themselves out of fashion, so what did we do during this cultural transformation? We opened the cheque book and trebled his compensation to £350k a week. This wasn’t Mesut at the peak of his powers either, fans were onto him already, no one was calling for that sort of deal, and more importantly, no one club in world football had an offer for him at that level, even on a free transfer.
Well, Wenger’s career careened off a cliff after this. Emery binned him, then brought him back and paid the price by losing the camp for being a wet lettuce. Freddie dropped him. Arteta brought him back in from the cold, then the player started his old tricks again and he had enough, exiting him from the squad in humiliating fashion. Now, I’m not sure I’d have done that because ultimately, Arsenal FC has paid a huge price this season for not having a creative player like Ozil in the side. But it’s done now. He’s gone. Arsenal can start again.
We do have to make some things clear here.
There is simply no way that Mesut Ozil is losing out financially here. The cult is trying to spin a story that Ozil, after 4 years of playing like a bum, is somehow doing this for football reasons and the good of Arsenal. No chance. He’ll have cut a deal that means all the money he’s losing with Fener over the next 5 months is supplemented by Arsenal.
The player was binned for footballing reasons. His comments on the Uighur Muslims were fair and just. Arsenal isn’t a political body. We didn’t drop him for hanging with a human rights abuser and we didn’t drop him for making the righteous case for human rights in China.
It was the football. If you couldn’t see it in his performances, that’s on you. If you look at the evidence of 4 coaches on the bounce, and you still can’t see it, maybe you don’t want to? If you can’t see it by looking where he’s ended up at 32 years of age, again, I can’t help you. But know this… he’s leaving because of footballing reasons and there is no one at Arsenal that will be sad to see him go (outside his mates).
Now the question focuses on what we do next? I suspect we’ll go for a loan. I’m not sure there’s a lot of value in the market right now, and losing Ozil money doesn’t really solve the fact we have very little cash to play with. It’s not a good look to borrow money from a covid relief fund, then drop £40m on a player. In fact, that’s an awful look. It was shocking we moved on Willian after making 50+ people redundant in the summer, I can’t imagine we’ll be making another PR error like that any time soon.
The most important signing is a back-up goalkeeper. If we lose Leno, we will sink in the table. If something exciting comes up for a loan, we should do it. But I think the focus should continue to be about moving players on. The squad is bloated beyond belief. We should sell players that aren’t going to play. We should do deals with players that are toxic. We should start lining up buyers for players that just aren’t good enough… like our record signing.
This summer should be focused on ageing down the squad and accepting reality… the only way back to the top is the hard way. That’s good coaching. Growing young players. Outsmarting the market. Having a disciplined approach to our vision (we should also, you know, formulate a vision).
Maybe that’s already started. We’ve hired Richard Garlic to replace Huss Fahmy. Richard spent 8 years at West Brom as a Director of Football Admin, which sounds about as unsexy a job title as they come. He then moved to the Premier League where he was a Director of Football.
What insight do I have into this guy? None.
He’s taking over as Director of Football Operations. That sounds mighty similar to what Raul was supposed to do, but according to Ornstein, the role is closer to what Huss Fahmy was supposed to be doing. What do we want from this job?
Actual rigour to the contracts process. The problems we’re dealing with at the moment, with a group of players with 6 months on their deals needs to stop happening. The two-year rule needs to be enforced. We have no discipline there.
Normalisation of financial compensation. Again, there is no rhyme or reason to how we pay players. We get this badly wrong time and time again and it costs us. Mesut Ozil was offered £350k a week in a market that likely wouldn’t have given him £200k a week. Willian told the world he wanted to stay in London, Chelsea offered £120k a week on 2 years, we offered a double your money deal and an extra year. That’s fucking stupid on so many levels. We need a process and a formula to pay that we stick to. We need paygrades, we need career plans for the kids, and we need someone with the gravitas to ensure we don’t make special cases that break the system.
Ethical leadership. I don’t want to see the extent of our scouting process being a phone call to Kia J. I don’t want to find out we took a punt on the second string keeper at 17th place Dijon who had the worst save percentage in the league because of a keeping coaches recommendation. All the deals that cross his table should have a business case attached to it. Players should sit in a particular age profile, they should have resale value, proposed wages should marry to reality, scouting reports should be extensive, and agents fees should be deeply examined. No more fuckery.
Can this guy deliver that? I have no idea. I find it odd that Arteta is talking about the man. He doesn’t know what is good for that role. I hope this isn’t another case of blind recruiting the blind, but we’ll see. Good luck Richard, I hope you’re better than what has gone before.
Ok, that’s me done, see you in the comments. x
Arsenal have been in a downward spiral for a long time and it needs to clear the decks before we start seeing an upturn. It is blindingly obvious that the club has made some seriously poor decisions in the latter years of Wenger’s stewardship of club and those who ran the club afterwards. Whether those who are now running the club are equipped to perform better remains to be seen. One of the positives of what is going on is that the club is beginning to clear the decks of unwanted players and hopefully will in due course make the… Read more »
Rodgers >>>> Arteta
Ozil really was an incredibly talented player and has a whole host of amazing moments in his career, but there’s also a huge share of stat padding in there. A huge number of his assists came in situations where the logical choice was to shoot and he insisted on squaring it for a tap in. Most of his assists were not glorious, genius through balls of magic, but rather relatively simple pull backs for Ronaldo to tap in. He had his share of incredible ones too, don’t get me wrong – but he was overrated. Compare him with DB10 who… Read more »
ET we spent all summer chasing Aouar and Partey
Arteta has very expensive taste and appears to be a bit of a cheque book manager.
I would guess his plan is to buy in another 40m player in midfield when enough money is made from sales (like in the summer).
Finally…but sadly the saga continues with the ultra pathetic contract given to Willian. One would always like to believe that lessons were learned with the crippling Ozil contract, but not really – Willian ‘s deal is the next albatross and it has Arteta ‘s fingerprinting all over it.
Not much changes as Arteta looks for his epiphany moment that has yet to arrive. Oh but to be an Arsenal supporter!
Here is my take on Özil. In all walks of life if you are given a raise it comes with extra responsibilty. While I agree that initially the club were at fault for handing Özil the huge contract and nobody can blame him for accepting it but once he put his signature to it, it was on him to take on the extra responsibilty that comes with being the highest paid player, something he did not accept. Arsenal would have rightly expected more from him but received less. Now that it seems certain that Özil is moving to Fenerbahce, the… Read more »
Genuinely elite talent doesn’t have to constantly get prefaced with an asterisk and an ‘on his day’ comment
DB shits all over mesut is every footballing aspect. Perhaps Dennis should’ve spent more time on stat padding…
Ozils talent is unquestionable, his weaknesses are also crystal clear, it up to any manager to have a plan to work with both sides.
Ozil, Carz, Sanchez with Coq as DM was decent.
Then we started making signings like Xhakalson, Elneny
Only a charlatan would convince you Willian is an upgrade on Ozil.
Im telling you for free!
Anyone who feels pity for money grabbing ozil is out of his mind. That man should have gone three years ago.
Mike Penry. What frustrates me most about the Ozil signing was that the season before Cazor.la was probably the best midfielder in the league and I think scored around 12 league goals. He was then moved out of position to accommodate Ozil and even lost his place at one stage. Ozil was a completely unnecessary signing and was indeed a vanity signing by Wenget. 100% on the money. We bought Ozil because Wenger was a ditherer. No proactive coach would have had 40 million to play with at the last hours of transfer window when Madrid decided they wanted to… Read more »
glorious post!
BB Mesut. Huge hope and even bigger disappointment.
sid last year he was
Ozil has played 92 games for the Germany NT. He looked much better playing for Germany than for Arsenal. There is a reason why he was selected 4 times as Germany player of the year. He didn’t contribute as much for Arsenal. Our team just wasn’t very good. Sanchez has also decided that he couldn’t win with Arsenal and has decided to quit.
As long as KSE is the owner, I can’t see Arsenal can win the league no matter who is the coach.
Ozil with Germany and Madrid displayed him in a different light. Those teams were far superior to Arsenal.
However, his first year at Arsenal he did very well. I thought wow, we have something here…
However, he dipped and dipped after that. Seems he was too preoccupied with his London lifestyle, and brand…
I am finally thankful this is over. All this ozil talk is like hitting your head with a hammer for fun…
Finally good riddance and good luck Ozil
I wonder if Ozil ever read this blog…
Guns, I expect that he had one of his PR people read the blogs and other press for him as part of their brand management duties.
In typical Le Grove fashion, we have posters questioning the decision to play Cazorla and Ozil together. The fact that up until cazorla’s injury, (which wasn’t Ozil’s fault) we were playing the best and most productive football in the last 12 years or so , shows their lack of football intelligence for even doubting for one second that both shouldn’t be on the same pitch. Ozil and Cazorla were a match made in heaven , they were the perfect partnership and were on the same wave length ,it is no coincidencethat Ozil’s numbers reduced when Cazorla was injured . Ramsey… Read more »
‘Ozil and Cazorla were a match made in heaven , they were the perfect partnership and were on the same wave length ,it is no coincidencethat Ozil’s numbers reduced when Cazorla was injured’
This!
If Carz is Rosiky, Ozil was Hleb, we needed to sign Athletic CMs to support this, instead went for Xhakalson, we needed to sign a fast CF since teams had figured a high line would nullify Giroud instead we went for Welbeck.
Anyone would down tools if your co workers are Xhakalson, Mustafinovs, Kola, Elneny, fuckn Ceballos etc.
Pierre excellent point about Ozil/Caz but I’ll just like to say you have it wrong on Ramsey, he wasn’t as technical as them two so you can’t expect the same link up and all but he complemented them with his running and aggressive style coupled with the fact that Caz and Ozil didn’t score much I’ll also say his goals helped
Sid stick to sarcasm your knowledge of football is sarcastic at best
Fuck off, Ozil. I hope I never have to see you again.
If we play you in Europe, I’d hope Tierney puts you out for the season but that would be exactly what you wanted.
“ I wonder if Ozil ever read this blog…”
Too busy wanking over a mirror, mate.
Excellent post Pedro. Im mightily relieved we have shifted him .I suspect he has been a malignant influence on the squad. You destroy any team spirit if you have a player who dances to a different tune. All those cry offs and judicious injuries.. the players know he is faking it. The fact the Wenger indulged him was a clear sign he had lost it. There was no doubting his talent but his on field work ethic was piss poor.
You can’t play the modern game and carry a passenger.
Raulishuss During the Cazorla/Ozil partnership , Ramsey played on the right regularly , and his desire to get in the box complimented the Ozil//Cazorla partnership….. When Cazorla was injured and was replaced by Ramsey in the middle and then xhaka came in, the balance in midfield wasn’t there and hasnt really been there since the day Cazorla played his last game. I liked the Cazorla/coquelin partnership, coquelin also suffered without Cazorla pulling the strings in the middle and he was replaced by Xhaka , which i thought was a mistake at the time. Coquelin would win the ball and give… Read more »
The Ozil and Cazorla combination was indeed dazzling and it was at this time that Ozil was producing his best form for Arsenal. A mixture of Cazorla’s injury, Giroud’s profligacy in front of goal and our Feb/March poor run of form cost us a genuine shot at the title in 15/16. After that mistakes were made in recruitment and contract renewals and we began to slip downwards. I also agree Ramsey complimented Ozil and Cazorla well, and also hard to believe along with Sanchez, we have received next to nothing in transfer fees for them. We got a good fee… Read more »
The Bard
“You can’t play the modern game and carry a passenger.”
Arsenal’s league standing dropped to 15 and is currently at the 11 spot. Arsenal is not very good even without this “passenger”
I genuinely fancy Sheff Utd to get something from the game today with Spurs, especially if Mourinho doesn’t change up his approach. Wilder has gone back to his trusted players in midfield and they have a little bit of confidence back with a couple of wins under their belts.
Strange how you never hear that a team are carrying a player if he runs around all over the pitch like a headless chicken and squanders possession.
Yet we had a player who has created more chances than any other and passes ro his own team mates, and apparently we can’t afford to carry that player.
Will just add that as we discovered in the previous 6 months, that without that creative player the team will find it difficult to score.
13 hours without a goal from open play is confirmation of this.
Ozil and Carz were not a match made in heaven. It’s all revisionist Bs. Cazorla was playing withdrawn and practically had to kill all of his attacking instincts to accommodate a less productive player. And ya’al that keeps saying Ozil dip when Caz was injured, Ozil dipped when Sanchez was sold, etc don’t get the point. Those players practically made Ozil’s Arsenal career look far better than it should have been. Sanchez is an animal Ozil or no Ozil he would still play his hearts out and harass defence for fun, Caz was mercurial, he carried this team on his… Read more »
You are as oblivious as you are blind to reality, Pierre. Must be an incredible feeling being that “high” without actually being on something.
Hope the club fought him for every penny and didn’t give an inch but truly given the incompetence at every level of the club in decision making I’d be surprised if it wasn’t the other way round. Ozil was not any sort of servant to Arsenal, solely a servant to himself. Don’t think I’ve ever disliked a player more, even anelka and adebayor are more of an Arsenal legend than ozil, at least they showed some ambition. Hope we get to play fenerbache in europa and humiliate this cunt and his new team but otherwise will be happy not to… Read more »
Sanchez career was made better playing with Carz and Ozil,
i will agree Carz was mercurial
“Arsenal’s league standing dropped to 15 and is currently at the 11 spot. Arsenal is not very good even without this “passenger””
Haha Nelson, we just replaced ozil with Willian/Pepe.
You can’t underestimate how poorly our recruitment has been over the years 😂
Pierre, we haven’t been able to carry that player.
We have been on a decade (+) long decline, yet have actually got worse at recruitment since ozil signed to go from 4th to 11th in the matter of 4 seasons.
Or 5th and one point off 4th (and Europa final) to 8th to now languishing in the bottom half of the table in just under a season and a half.
I’d like to correct myself, 2nd to 11th after 4 (and a half) seasons
ES One of the positives of what is going on is that the club is beginning to clear the decks of unwanted players and hopefully will in due course make the playing staff better value for money, hungrier and more balanced. But this is just not the case though is it. Offering PEA a vast new contract at his age replicates the Ozil mistake but then you add on the Willian to and it’s pretty clear that nothing has changed. My take on the Ozil thing is that the club is 90% to blame. Clearly his representatives held a gun… Read more »
Sid.
How many times did you hear people say here ‘Where would we be without Sanchez’. That guy practically carried us. He was a one man army. People only hide under that to say Ozil also had a good game. Or put this way,how many times did Sanchez have a stinker and Ozil was amazing? Same for Caz.
London gunner
You know what I like about Rodgers ..
He learns from his mistakes .
Got hounded out of pool.
Mainly by fans.
Stuck by his principles , tinkled a few things. And got a system that suits players.
Chris …
Medication time..
Goobergooner
We also carry this Rúnar Alex Rúnarsson for our cup games. LOL!.
Sid. How many times did you hear people say here ‘Where would we be without Sanchez’. I prefer to make my own judgement, not what people say. Sanchez career hasnt been great since he left and at Barca he wasnt as effective as Arsenal, meaning the team was set up to bring the best out of him. Ade, Hleb are similar cases. We failed to replace Sanchez, Carz and improve on Coq,get a plan A CF have Giroud as plan B, get a decent LB, NOT even DB10/Cesc can carry a team of Xhakalson, Mustafinovs, Kola, some WW2 vet at… Read more »
Terraloon
The contracts with Aubameyang and Willian were negotiated and agreed when Raul was still in the job.
I doubt that such contracts will be negotiated in the future. I suspect that purse strings will be tightened and contracts better scrutinised in future following arrival of Lewis and Garlick.
Ozil has always played better when he has a player that aggressively hunts the ball in front of him, i.e Sanchez and CR7. I could get assists playing in the no.10 role with CR7
Sanchez though in his last season went way of by his standards. He stopped trusting the ready of the team and as a result gave the ball away a lot. Can’t remember the figures but it was 30-40 times a game I think? He also had beef with Ramsey which didn’t help.
Mikel Arteta was the manager that finally managed to convince the player to leave.
Arteta has done the impossible, he deserves a champions league winner’s medal
It’ll be interesting to watch the Liverpool v MU game later.
Can MU make a statement?
Also, will SU give Spuds a run for their money after beating Newcastle.
Time will tell.
Sigh, the Rams let me down ☹
Vickingz
A massive weight of the clubs shoulders.
Watched the Leicester and Southampton game last night and the intensity from both teams was incredible. They don’t even both have as good players as we do but each time you watch Arsenal, it’s pedestrian ad painfully slow.
Good couple of results before the draw thursday but i still don’t believe Arteta is the manage to take us foward
I dont think Arteta did anything to convince him to leave. More of the fact that he’s out of a contract in 6 months & was never going to get an extension! Also funny how no big clubs were dying to sign him – says it all about a supposed “elite player”
If we end up signing an Eriksen or Isco on another stupid mega deal this winter then I’d just about give up on the club. Only way those deals would make sense would be if they were loans.
We have to be much much smarter in the transfer market moving forward
Why don’t we try a short term loan for Ødegaard? He could help us while also regaining some form.
United in first, Leicester in second, Arsenal in 11th.
Bamford 1,000
@LeGrove 0
#afc #legrove
Bamford for y’all
Bamford is an epic cunt.
Imagine gloating about Utd being top of the table and Arsenal being in 11th.
That fat fuck spent years trying to convince folk he was a genuine Arsenal supporter. What a bum.
Batistuta “Watched the Leicester and Southampton game last night and the intensity from both teams was incredible. They don’t even both have as good players as we do but each time you watch Arsenal, it’s pedestrian ad painfully slow.” I said it 2 and half years ago and I’ll say it again….it’s pointless trying to play a high intensity pressing game without the players who 1) have the energy to do it. 2) have the hunger and desire that want to do it. We have hired 2 managers that to all intents and purposes want to play a high intesity… Read more »
Arsenal have made FIVE major transfer signings since 2013 costing us £40 million + These were: OZIL [Summer 2013] LACAZETTE [Summer 2017] AUBAMEYANG [January 2018] PEPE [Summer 2019] PARTEY [Summer 2020] Personally I have no issue with four of these transfers. We recruited players in their prime at the time we bought them and their transfer valuations were realistic when we bought them. The one exception to the rule was Pepe a player who may have had potential, but whose transfer fee was grossly inflated when we bought him This player was probably worth half what we spent on him.… Read more »
Jamie
“That fat fuck spent years trying to convince folk he was a genuine Arsenal supporter. What a bum.”
That’s a bit harsh.
I heard he’s lost some weight recently.
In Football365 Ranking Premier League clubs by games missed through injury, Arsenal is 9th. Taking into account that Martinelli (11) and Partey (8) make a large chunk of the missed games (33), Arsenal are doing pretty well.
Like I wrote before, my fear is that we may be stoking problems for the future by rushing players (Partey) and by overplaying a core group of players (Saka, ESR, Lacazette, Tierney) in a very compact season.
I duplicated Willian twice and omitted Kolasinac.
Stroller,
Still think that the money spend for the free meals was money well spend and that it was healthy food?🤐
Valentin
What is the point you are making?
Stroller, if you look beyond the artificial £40m barrier and consider that we paid circa £35m each for Xhaka and Mustafi in 2016 it makes our activities in the market look even worse. While I agree that we can do better on the monetary side even if we do release more funds we would still be handicapped if we continue to buy duds. The only truly successfull major purchase of the last couple of seasons is probably Tierney. We need to have a much higher success rate and if MA and Edu can’t pick a decent player then I’m afraid… Read more »
Andy 1886
The transfer fees paid for Xhaka and Mustafi are what many other top clubs are spending on
bench or squad players.
These are not fees paid for elite players.
Stroller, It is a general issue with the club that we overpay senior players in regard to their ability and worth to the club. Aubameyang signed an extension on extortionate wage, because like with Özil before , the club panicked at the idea of losing a star player for nothing. However I would say that contrarily to Özil at the time, Aubameyang did not have that many options. None of the big clubs already in the Champion’s League were interested in him or could afford the wage that we gave him. He dreamt of joining Real Madrid, but they have… Read more »
Happy to give ARSETETA time he needs to turn around the shit show he INHERITED.However should that not become the case ,the club will need a good Rogering,Brendan Rogers😜
Stroller,
Leicester paid £38 millions for Wesley Fofana and they got an elite player. Arsenal paid £35 millions and they got Mustafi who could not get a buyer at £25 millions.
Lately, the only players we bought cheaply who turn to be success are Martinelli, Holding. Tierney was bought slightly above market because Celtic were desperate to keep him. Everybody else was a bad deal either from a financial perspective and or from a football pov.
Valentin Arsenal have paid grossly inflated wage to many of the players on their books, but I make an exception in the case of Aubameyang. Aubameyang was our top goalscorer since he joined the club and one of the best in EPL. Most top strikers are paid around £200-250 million. I doubt that Aguero at Man City is paid less. Arsenal’s main problems apart from the Ozil saga is that we have paid inflated wages to players coming in on Bosmans. The Kolasinac wage reputed to be £140K pw set a threshold expected by a lot of other players on… Read more »
Bamford almost certainly never really supported Arsenal, just stumbled on here before and found that he enjoyed the blog. To ne fair, you can’t expect a person in their early 30s who has allegedly already been watching the sport for decades (his own words were ‘student of the game’) to suddenly develop a die-hard affinity for a club off the cuff because he likes the colour of their jerseys lol (again his own words) Started following Arsenal in 2006 and is supposedly well into his 40s. Nothing against that per se but come on… combined with all this United and… Read more »
Valentin
I suggest that you take a look at the number of “dud” players bought by Chelsea, Man City and
Man Utd in recent years costing £30 million +.
Xhaka was a highly rated DMF when he arrived at the club and Mustafi was a member of the
German National Team which won World Cup when he joined us.
Both may be regarded as disappointments by many supporters, but the fees paid were not
unrealistic at the time.
Stroller, Xhaka cost £40m and was #4 most expensive player that summer while Mustafi cost £37m and was #7 on the list. Not exactly what others were spending on squad or bench players as you claimed. And Wenger didn’t buy him as a DMF, as you may recall he thought he was buying a B2B player…
As has often been mentioned Xhaka cost more than Kante, a far superior player who was PL proven. Really poor judgement.
Stroller, Aguero is said to be on £230kpw which is £20kpw less than Aubameyang. ManCity has more resources than us, yet still pay their top striker less than we do! Also Aguero is a much more rounded player than Aubameyang. A non scoring Aguero still contribute to the team. A non scoring Aubameyang is a passenger. He may have been our main striker, but I would rather have 3 players on 12~16 goal each than 1 striker on 20~23 goals a season, especially if that striker does not contribute at all during his dry spell. When ManUtd sold Ruud Van… Read more »
Stroller, I seem to remember Mustafi’s price was a shock at the time. He had been at Everton and wasn’t very highly rated, unless my memory betrays me.
There was little sign of how shit he would be (maybe some of that is on Arsenal), but I certainly don’t think he was highly rated enough to be in our top 3 or 5 most expensive signings of all time.
Valentin, it’s also about facing the reality that we aren’t rich enough to be having world class players retire at Arsenal. Nor are we in the competitions to make that worth it.
Stroller,
At the beginning of the world Cup, Mustafi was a starter, he finished it on the bench. So he may have been part of German World Cup winning team, but he clearly was not an important cog of it.
As Andy wrote, Mustafi and Xhaka were bought to kick-start a renaissance of the club, not as bench warmer. Instead of propelling us into better thing, they are part of the reason why the club declined.
andy 1886 My recollection when Arsenal bought Xhaka was that he cost around £35 Million [albeit that Transfermarkt suggests otherwise]. Xhaka was highly rated in Europe at the time and considered one of the best DMs Mustafi was not rated highly and yes the transfer fee paid was considered excessive by many at the time. Arsenal’s track record in recruiting CBs has always been abysmal. Transfers are not an exact science. Most clubs who have sold to Arsenal have managed to extract top dollar for their players. That has always been a weakness of our management and negotiating team. The… Read more »
In January 2018 we bought Aubameyang and Mhkitaryan and gave Ozil a new 3 and half year contract, meaning we had 3 very good players going forward but weak from a defensive aspect . Probably fine if Wenger saw out his contract , but he was sacked , which in hindsight has proved to be a poor decision from a football and a financial aspect. What i would like to know is that when discussing the appointment of a new manager, did they take into consideration the 3 players that i have mentioned who were all on massive wages and… Read more »
Pierre, It is clear that the club did not do any homework during their search for a new head coach. Gazidis and Mislintat could not even communicate with Emery, so I doubt they asked him any question about his football philosophy. They got hoodwinked by Raul, because none of them wanted to shatter the facade of unity. He successfully imposed his man, who was not supposed to stay in his lane and never contradict him on player dealings. However by the time Arteta was named, the club was in panic mode. Raul influence was already dwindling. We may not have… Read more »
I think Edu’s agent helps Edu get the Arsenal job. After that Arsenal sign players recommended from said agent. Simples.
But since Arteta droned on about ‘specificity’ of players Edu probably pulled out panini stickers of Kia’s clients with the question,
“Specificity, si or no?”
Arteta clearly said si to Willian, Soares, Mari, Luis (extension)
Yesterday was almost like the day the club announced Wenger would be leaving. Only to a lesser degree. I like that Ozil is leaving now. He can carry his seed of discord away from the club.
For the people saying he was dropped cos he refused a pay cut…let’s put it this way. If Ozil was clocking 10 goals and 17 assists and then refused a pay cut, would be have been dropped? I am sure you know he won’t. Ultimately it was down to his performances and then toxicity. Nothing to do with the pay cut refusal
Valentin, curiously, where do you stand on Arteta as Arsenal coach and Mislintat as a missed opportunity as Arsenal DOF
“Probably fine if Wenger saw out his contract , but he was sacked , which in hindsight has proved to be a poor decision from a football and a financial aspect.” This was actually the one good thing the club did in terms of heading to the future. Where it has gone very wrong is what they have done since. They have zero experience in these areas because it was never a concern as Wenger was fully in charge almost to the very end. You cant start over again when you don’t know how, and every management decision that followed… Read more »
Arteta can’t let go of Mustafi, and says his future is here.
On another thread , a sauce allowed to stay too long gets bad . It loses it’s head
For me the major plus about Edu’s appointment was that he had inside knowledge of Brazilian players and, most likely, those of other SA countries. (The way that Wenger knew about French players.) He brought Martinelli along with him, a good start.
Yeah, we’ve added a couple more Brazilians – Luiz and Willian – but they seem like favours to old school chums.
I’ve no doubt that Edu is aware of plenty of brilliant youngsters back there. The question is: what is stopping him?
“I’ve no doubt that Edu is aware of plenty of brilliant youngsters back there. The question is: what is stopping him?”
Maybe because he’s a one hit wonder?
If Martinelli can stay healthy he can be something else, but getting him there is going to be a chore, he’s not exactly emotionally or physically mature at this point.
Arsenal might go in for Barca goalkeeper Neto who has insisted he needs playing time to agree to the move.
Where does it leave us from Martinez same insistence of playing time ?
Guess some Saucers pick up sense only in hindsight
Mystic leaves, I don’t know if you genuinely ask me about it or you are being facetious. My take is that promoting Raul over Sven was an horrible mistake. When you compare what Mislintat did before and since, it is clear he knows how to spot young players with potential and how to build a proper squad. Stuttgart are now vying for European places when everybody expected them to struggle even being promoted back to the Bundesliga when he joined them. He did that under budget as well, lowering both the wage bill and the average age of the squad… Read more »
Can’t see us keeping Mustafi or buying Neto.
“So Yes looking at the current situation of both clubs, I bitterly regret that Raul won his power grab battle.”
A very balanced comment, Valentin.
Ernest Reed
Wenger admitted that he should have probably have left sooner.
He must have known that the systems and infrastructure around him – that he had helped build – were malfunctioning.
He would have also known that the hierarchy were not fit for purpose.
So why did he stay.
Dare I say, he put himself before the club?
“Dare I say, he put himself before the club?”
In my opinion, there is absolutely no doubt this is the case, Graham. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Graham
Being the highest paid Manager in the league probably helped him decide whether to stay or go.
Pierre “I am willing to believe that what we have seen in the last year is Arteta getting the right players in place for him to play the football he believes in..” What does this even mean? That our great generational coach can’t get our team to play his way without buying the necessary players? Or that what we are seeing is what he will give us? You were calling out his bs in the press as much as a lot of other people, if not more. Arteta said we would be playing postive attacking football. I’ve barely seen that.… Read more »
This squad*
Like what is arteta’s style of play? It’s very much to be possession based, I can see that, but it wasn’t even counter attacking when we were playing 3 at the back and sitting deep. We still wanted to play slow build up possession ball out of the back even if he had less possession and on the back foot. Yes some of our best wins of the fa cup came with quick sucker punches, but where has that disappeared to? I am only positive about the youth players ATM. The seniors are letting us all down, and the club… Read more »
We sacked Wenger with no coherent plan Mislintat quit, and KSE trusted a guy who’s background is in marketing, to spunk £140million up against the wall…. We sacked Emery with no coherent plan We left Ljungberg in charge for over 3 weeks, without the necessary tools to do his job. It took us 3 weeks to land on Arteta,which doesn’t suggest we had a coherent plan We sacked Raul, then promoted Arteta to manager, because there was no coherent plan. The club are just winging it. We need to put a competent + experienced DOF in place We need to… Read more »
“we always played that fearful football you’re always on about. ”
That’s what I want to say. People talked a lot about high pressing. The major problem I have with Arteta’s system is after we have the ball back. It always comes back to the CB. Then the defense will pass around before sending a safe forward pass. Arteta said recently that we should not give away the ball easily so that the opponent can start a fast counter. Why don’t we take some risk and start a fast counter????
ES
I doubt that such contracts will be negotiated in the future. I suspect that purse strings will be tightened and contracts better scrutinised in future following arrival of Lewis and Garlick.
Lewis was made a director on 18/6 /2020. The press release advising of the appointment was issued on 1/ 7/2020.
Willian signed on 14/8/2020 and PEAs contract extension was signed in September 2020.