TRANSFER DEADLINE DAY: HOW THE SEASON SHAPES FROM HERE

by .

Well, the weekend was very interesting.

Spurs lost. Leicester lost. UNITED DROPPED POINTS LOLOLOL. Everton lost.

Project #Top4 Hope continues, even if unlikely.

What has been interesting is reading a whole number of Arsenal fans trying to reframe the last 5 weeks to keep up the pretense that actually, they were right.

Here’s some things we need to deal with.

The Squad

Arteta stumbling on ESR as a creative solution isn’t a problem. In the apocalypse, if you stored canned fruit, no one would say… ‘fuck that guy and his peaches, that was luck.’ Arteta and his backroom staff massively rated ESR, they kept him around when they could have loaned him, so ‘stumbling’ on him is a bit like calling the canned fruit guy a wanker for being well prepared.

Reacting Under Pressure

I’m also seeing a lot of ‘he caved under pressure’ with the kids. Well, sure, he changed tact. But when you cave, you generally don’t do something more risky. Going with youth was always the right thing to do, but let’s not pretend that was easy option. The easy option would have been to bring Mesut back into the mixer. To whine in the press about a lack of talent. To stick with experience. Going with the kids was balls out, especially against Chelsea. Dropping Willian and Luiz was a big move. It worked, thankfully.

Also, we live in this weird world where people think changing strategy is a sign of weakness. NO. Pivoting in the face of new information is the adult thing to do. ‘haha, you changed to get to the right solution’ in any real-world situation would not be something that you’d say… because people would call you a fucking moron.

He was close to the sack

Here’s the big one, ‘he only did it because he was nearing the sack.’ Actually, he wasn’t. Not at any point. Arsenal didn’t flinch. They told the world he was part of the longterm plan. They held their ground. This seemed to have worked.

Chelsea is called elite because they fire loads of managers. I think this is an incorrect assessment. Sacking people isn’t elite, it’s a luxury. Players at that club have a direct line into leadership. When things go south, they whine, they’re listened to, they normally get their way.

We are thankfully not Chelsea. Vinai and Edu stuck to their guns and it paid off. The players found out the hard way that they couldn’t down tools on Arteta. The club shipped out the problem players. They totally backed the manager. This might have been because they didn’t have a plan. It could have been that they worried for their own careers if this decision went down the shitter, but whatever it was, so far, it looks smart.

Aston Villa didn’t fire Dean Smith after a narrow miss last season, that decision looks smart right now.

Southampton didn’t fire Ralph Hassenhutl last season, that looks really smart right now.

Brighton didn’t fire Graham Potter, again, it hasn’t fully paid off, but it looks pretty smart now.

That said, if Arteta had been fired, it would have been fair. You couldn’t have argued it. However, it might have set a Chelsea like precedent with the players.

So, moving on. It’s transfer deadline day. The club is in far better shape than it was. There’s a vision forming and the football is getting better.

Today, I really hope Ben Knapper pulls his finger out and moves on the players we need to move on.

The back half of the season is about preparation for next season, which will look a little more like normality.

Joe Willock and Reiss Nelson made a fuss about not leaving last summer. That ‘we’ll be good’ experiment failed dismally. Time to get some game time into their legs and get them firing. There can be no excuses for them staying. They aren’t going to play and we have no cup games for them.

AMN, a player I really like, needs to find a loan. If his beef with the club is that he wants to play as a midfielder, we need to find him a club that’ll give him midfield minutes. I think I’d prefer to see him at West Brom than Leicester or Southampton. He should go and play for Sam Allardyce and be a star. Keep them up.  Sharpen the concentration. Learn the lessons Serge G did in the midlands. Come back to Arsenal next season a more mature player.

Callum Chambers also needs minutes. He has a 43 year deal with Arsenal, so it’s important he gets back to full fitness. The path is blocked at Arsenal. I think he could be really useful for us and apparently he’s a bit of a gem at the training ground. Get him to a club and develop him. He was doing great things before that horrendous injury.

Then we need to move on Mustafi. Get him out. He’s played 43 minutes for us in the Premier League this season, give him no more. It’s so sad to see a 28-year-old see out his deal for the money. What a waster.

Players in

Unless it’s more loans, I really don’t see the point in spunking money on 30-year-olds. We have cover in most positions. Go with it. No more deals for players fading physically.

New deals

I really, really can’t stand listening to Arteta pump David Luiz the way he does. His one true weakness is a men in their thirties. He CANNOT possibly be considering a new deal for a player that was all over the place earlier in the season. You ‘hope’ it’s just fluff talk to get us to the end of the season, but we’ve seen him double down on his love once before, so who knows. That temptation should be killed.

Same with Lacazette as well. I love what the player has given us, but it’s time for the next plan. We need to be thinking about fresh blood. We have to ship him out.

Summer transfers

The hope is that we’ll make some cash this summer. Covid vaccines are rolling out, which is superb. That’ll mean fans will be back in the ground. That should awaken the markets. Matteo G will fetch a pretty penny, the Fail-Enders who don’t cut it will bring in good fee, and Torreira will have plenty of suiters. If we can rake in £70m, that’ll give us what we need for a world class centre midfielder and the loan fee for Odegaard for next season.

The remainder of this season is low pressure. Rack up points for a speculative run at top 4 (8 points to 4th now). Try and win the Europa League. See how the team handles the next blip that’ll arrive.

All eyes are on next season though… we need to see the project come together for a full 9 months. Fingers crossed, we’re shaping up nicely.

P.S. We dropped an ON THE WHISTLE with Johnny (check out his Youtube), Dom, and Matt. It is a GOOD conversation. Tune in.

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raptora

This winter window was about fixing the summer window incompetence. We would have collected some cash in the Summer for the likes of Mustafi, Kolasinac, Sokratis and Ozil. Instead, we were paying their wages for 6 months when we were basically playing without them for this whole time. The salary we wasted equals to 7.4m pounds without Ozil who was a special case and was always going to leech the club until he decided it’s a good time for him to leave. In the end we started gifting players who are nowhere near close to being this bad. Mustafi is… Read more »

AFC Forever

Marc

“My only question is: did anyone tell Arteta some of his toys were being given away?”

Wow and wow again. In fact add another wow. Don’t tell me you actually typed that without quietly having a giggle to yourself at the sheer ridiculousness of it?

Pierre

The Godfather
“Why all gang ups on Pierre?
Damn y’all got that many cyber-vendettas here?
Smh”

Its water off a ducks back…I

You have to know which buttons to push., it helps to liven things up a little..

Dangle the bait

Marc

AFC

No I was being completely serious – honest I really was.

zacharse

Valentin
What you say may be true, but it doesnt make it right or smart.
I like Athletico Mince’s take on the ‘english managers lunch’ or whatever its called. Pardew, Allardyce, Hodgson, Pulis, Moyes just robbing clubs blind with the sack. We can’t afford that. Makes much more sense to put money towards rebuilding the squad than to hire someone who will demand we rebuild the squad AND compensate them over the odds after we’ve paid off Teta as well.

AFC Forever

Pierre
“It’s water off a ducks back”

Best attitude to have.

The bullying & ganging up is childish, just ignore them.

zacharse

Also re: Pep
he has a way of burning out squads, like bielsa, which makes it a bit more difficult to stay in the same place too long. And really, the man can decide for himself, not a club on the planet that wouldn’t have him

Bojangles

Welcome back Marc. Just need CC to return now.

Mustafi out the door can only be seen in a good light. No loan deal for Nelson doént bode well for him. Not happy about having to go through the rest of the season without a backup left back, especially with Tierny’s ịnury record.

Leedsgunner

A successful transfer window is as much about who you ship out as much as who you ship in.

Although I do find it a bit puzzling that some are celebrating the fact that we got virtually nothing for over getting rid of £100m of talent…

If anything haven’t we just given Kronke even more reason not to support the club?

Maybe that would convince that family to sell up…

Now that would worth celebrating!!!

Leedsgunner

*would be worth

Dissenter

raptora
Good point
PapSok wanted to leave in the summer but we overpriced him.He wasn’t in the same boat as Mustafi or Ozil trying to leech the club.

Tony

Well, what a window for Le Grovers. Pierre has proved he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s by not only remembering his posts, but finding them too and then telling everyone he’s happy by not being unhappy. Smart guy this Pierre and should be fine once he completes his Ozil PTSD meds. Marc has returned to his rightful home (2nd only to the Tolly/Emirates) lightening up the blog with his dry brand of humour, and Pedro is already frantically ordering extra toilet paper for the ensuing battle. Sadly Pedro’s year is over in February – well actually that might be a blessing if… Read more »

Dissenter

A 1000 “wows” doesn’t undo what Marc wrote.
Willian is one those toys. Arteta called him up thrice to convince hm, even promised him CL final in three years.
He threw away the “non-negotiables” when Willian broke covid regulations and wouldn’t stop playing him until covid intervened

Dissenter

Pedro
Great recruitment doesn’t always translate to great success.You still have to hold them uo to expected standard when they come on board.
I would say Chelsea’s recruitment has been top of the line. Other than Lampard, they’ve always hired top managers but don’t dilly dally when the shit hits the fan.
Their recruitment [bought with crazy money] has transformed them from a cup team to a global club

You forget that Abramovich hired Peter Kenyon as one of his first recruitment.

Leedsgunner

To paraphrase Pedro

“ …spending £100m+ in severance for players is really, really bad recruitment.”

I hope this summer we really show how much we’ve learnt by jettisoning the likes of Willian.

He was a bad hire. Cut our losses sooner rather than later.

Tony

I didn’t get the Martinelli negative comments from the United game. He didn’t get forward like he should have with his usual manic press because of the gaps left behind him by Xhaka. With KT behind him Martinelli has much more freedom to press and attack working in tandem with overlaps from KT. Personally, I’d prefer Martinelli in the CF position, so maybe shared game time with Laca for now or an option to play up front with Laca in a 442 if tactically required. What will be interesting now is if Arteta is going to give Balogun, Azeez and… Read more »

Valentin

Pedro, spending £110m in severance for managers is really, really bad recruitment. Not if you think of that as part of the cost of doing business. Look at ManUtd, Real Madrid, Barcelona even Bayern, Juventus they all have sacked managers and pay huge sum of money as severance package. Do you think that any of those clubs would get the biggest managers if those did not have assurance of a big fat cheque at the end of it? It is the same in every industries. Look at CEOs of FTSE 100 companies. Have you seen or heard any CEO of… Read more »

Tony

Martinelli put in a sound defensive shift for the United game at the expanse of his normal attacking game.

Leedsgunner

Valentin

Excellent post @ 0223.

Dissenter

Valentin’
There a reason why they call it the golden parachute
Better to give a golden parachute than to let a hire send you to the bankruptcy yard.

Valentin

Zacharse,

I make the difference between paying top money for a top manager and paying silly money for a run of the mill journeyman managers.

The issue was always that Old fashion English owners favours the same clique of managers. It was a job for the boys who were all white former players who like a drink and can tell a story at the bar.

Most of them are bottom half managers, dinosaur on their way to extinction. You could put any of those you named in charge of a big club and they would fail.

Leedsgunner

Inter Milan is looking to get rid of Hakimi… for financial reasons.

We should be all over this for the summer if we find a decent price for Bellerin.

HerbsArmy

Pedro

I’m not an advocate of Chelsea’s ,’hire ’em – fire ’em’ philosophy, but apparently, since the time of Roman’s ownership of them, Chelsea are the most successful English club.
They have the same mental attitude of the two Glasgow clubs, failure is not an option.
We’ve needed that level of hunger and ambition at Arsenal for so long it’s beyond funny.
Our owners care about Arsenal about as much as Spud-loving Mike Ashley cares about Newcastle.
As far as American owners go, only Liverpool have hit the jackpot over here.

Valentin

Pedro,

Average CEO tenure of the S&P500 is 5 years.

https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/02/12/ceo-tenure-rates/

Now check the average severance package for CEO who fails and you will find limited difference with those that succeeds.

Why do you think that there is such a fuss made about corporate governance and financial compensation if there was no issue?
That may not be fair nor good management, but right now this is exactly how the business world works.

Dissenter

Pedro
…and in the last decade what exactly have they [Chelsea] won?

I guess they could have just given AVB 5 years to work his magic

Leedsgunner

Apparently Arsenal wanted AMN to go to Southampton because they wanted him to play as a fullback… and the clubs were both willing to talk about an obligation to buy in the summer.

Yet WBA offered to play AMN in midfield so the player chose them instead.

If, and, it’s a big if these rumours are true… I fully expect AMN to be sold in the summer. It’s clear the player and the club have different visions on the way forward.

HerbsArmy

Liverpool have always been elite, not structurally bigger than Arsenal, just far more ambitious, far more professional, and far more intelligent.

China1

Marc you and Charlie both disappeared at the same time

Coincidence????

Make up your own minds grovers…

My theory is they’re not the same person but they may well both be CNUTS

😎

China1

Not all those names are that bad Pedro Lampard got 4th with kids in his first season Rafa has had a solid if not spectacular career Hiddink has had a good career iirc Not all the appointments have worked out but they haven’t had many *bad* ones. And it’s not really fair to say ‘not the Steve Jobs’ because who are the Steve Jobs of football in Abramovic’s era? Wenger – ties to arsenal by the hip Fergie- tied to Utd at the hip Mourinho – done that. Twice. Worked both times Pep – fair enough they missed out on… Read more »

China1

I guess you can add Zidane as a possible generational manager for his CL exploits

Bojanglesi

China

“Marc you and Charlie both disappeared at the same time”

Sorry mate, CC left a few weeks before Marc. Need a rethink there but agree, they are definitely not the same poster.

Guns of SF

wassup

MD-Gunner

Reading the various comments about the January transfer window here is from ESPN the grading of Arsenal’s January transfer window business:
Mustafi
Arsenal grade: D-
Schalke grade: B

Odegaard
Real Madrid grade: C
Arsenal grade: B+

Ozil
Arsenal grade: D
Fenerbahce grade: A

Ryan
Brighton grade: C
Arsenal grade: A

Kolasinac
Arsenal: C
Schalke: B+

Which leaves Socratis where Arsenal terminated his contract which should either give Arsenal a C or D Not very good results from a business aspect.

Steveyg87

Great window for us. Happy my boy AMN is going to get some minutes, hope he proves all his doubters wrong.

Steveyg87

Willock on the other hand will struggle for minutes at Newcastle

Bojanglesi

SteveyG

AMN will certainly get minutes but playing mf for fat Sam he’s not going to be getting on the ball much. Be more watching the ball flying overhead.

Zacharse

Valentin
Says everything that chelsea is yr example of success. They are literally a money laundering operation for one thing. Second their football has been garbage most of the time playing ugly fucking smash n grab. Di matteo winning the CL by having drogba and hazard. Lol. No one wants to hear about it. Youre just wrong

Crimson

We have a good squad. All fresh and clean. Time to get into the top 4

Mysticleaves

Seems like Edu finally given the power by Vinai to put Arteta in his place. Hopefully that’s the case. Or that Arteta himself has started learning. Good window overall. Cleared everyone bar Xhaka. Kola still returning but maybe Edu can find a club for him by summer.

Well done Edu.

Sid

Marc was serving 14 day sentence for masturbation

‘it is an offence for anyone to “wilfully and indecently” expose his “person” in a street or public place to the obstruction, annoyance or danger of residents or passengers’

Im telling you for free!

MD-Gunner

Next season perhaps at this moment 9 points off top 4 with 17 games to go and tough opposition between 10th and 4th place. Sorry not this season. UEL if really lucky only UCL if Arsenal win the UEL good luck with that by just looking at the teams still in the competition. Tottenham, Man. United, Leicester above Arsenal in the EPL. Bevfica next opponent in 4th place of the Portuguese league. Never mind the rest of the Italian, La Liga and Bundesliga competition a HUGE BIG IF!

MD-Gunner

8 not 9 points off.

I hate Green Bay

Don’t think Isco or Eriksen went anywhere. That is indicative of the lack of money in the game, can’t even loan players.

Weird that Delli Alli didn’t move, so they have an unhappy player who has fallen out with the manager, and a manager who has fallen out with the player. Excellent news

Leftside

We’re defo in with a shout if we can keep our essential players fit for the majority of the season (barring Tierney as he just has to look at a pitch and be injured)

Leftside

Mystic,

We gotta hope that Kola pulls up trees on his loan so they’ll be compelled to make his move permanent.

raptora

Kola’s contract is over in the Summer. We have nothing to do with Kola anymore and how his loan turns out is of zero importance to Arsenal.

raptora

Nevermind, Kolasinac is till 2022, I misread it on transfermarkt. Well another case where we are prolonging the inevitable. Sell him for 3-5m. Get some money at least. Wtf is wrong with our directors? Mustafi, Sokratis, Kolasinac are all very capable, very good players. They are not top 4 team material, but someone like Mustafi would have done well in say West Ham or Villa. Kolasinac was in team of the season in Germany. We are not dealing with horrible players, just with players that didn’t work for us. How we are not able to get any money for them… Read more »

raptora

27 and 28 years of old Kolasinac and Mustafi. Both have 5 years of football left in them and we can’t cash in on them… Someone is not doing their job.

Samesong

AMN and Guendouzi are still good players I wouldn’t count them as wrong uns.

Leedsgunner

27 and 28 years of old Kolasinac and Mustafi. Both have 5 years of football left in them and we can’t cash in on them… Someone is not doing their job. This. We should have sold them long before this window. The problem is we paid them too much and potential suitors couldn’t match it and so we were stuck with them. We need to go back to a wage structure that makes sense… not just paying players silly money as if they are doing the club a favour playing for the shirt. On that note, no matter how talented… Read more »

Mysticleaves

Leftside Then let’s pray Schalke escapes the drop. As it is now they are the favourites to go down. Can’t pick a win from anywhere ATM. Leeds I am not sure Balogun delay is about wages. Just like Saka’s delay wasn’t about wages. Whatever it is I think the agent recognises that if he moves away from Arsenal it’s going to be a step down for him (as the caliber of teams coming for him has shown) and he probably might not go to an environment that will allow him to fulfill his obvious talents. Arsenal will serve him the… Read more »

Valentin

Pedro, You started by stating that the CEO tenure was 15 years, I pointed you an article stating that it was 5 years. From the WSJ: The average S&P 500 CEO tenure as of 2018 was 10.2 years on the job, up from an average tenure of 7.2 years in 2009. CEO tenure statistics can vary from year to year and across analytical methods. Now if you had read the WSJ article you quote, you would have seen that they caveat those 10 years with the fact that S&P500 has some outliers that have been in the job for multiple… Read more »

Mysticleaves

Is not about wages*

Mysticleaves

Forget my auto correct correction lol. I got it the first time. Pedro town for a delete button perhaps. Lols. And an occasional pool. Just to spice the place up. You could then know for a fact the percentage of people that want Mourinho as manager

Mb

We lost to Burnley & Wolves. We drew with Leeds & Southampton.

That’s 10 points lost before the kids took over.

We would have been sitting in top4 comfortably atm. Just because Arteta learnt from his mistakes, doesn’t prove he didn’t make those mistakes!

Valentin

Zacharse,

You may not like the football Chelsea plays or how they go about their business, but they are successful.
Playing attractive football was not part of the initial discussion.
I don’t like how Chelsea conduct themselves, nor the kind of football they promote, but I can’t deny that they DID won titles.

Sid

If the club was succesful and with players full of talent, charismatic manager,
It would be easier convincing younger players with talent to sign.
Right now, cash is the only way to convince players to sign

Mb

Sid

Odegaard came just because of Arteta 😉

Pierre

I hate green bay “Weird that Delli Alli didn’t move, so they have an unhappy player who has fallen out with the manager, and a manager who has fallen out with the player. Excellent news” I shouldn’t gloat too much , we have/had about 8 of them at the last count . Guendouzi Saliba Torreira Ozil Kolasinac Mustafi AMN Sokratis Arteta really needs to improve his man management skills . To fall out with 8 players in 8 months is worrying.. Hopefully this will be the end of it and he may have learnt his lesson as it has cost… Read more »

Pierre

Unless I’m mistaken , it looks like many are not celebrating the incompetence of the last 8 months…

Valentin

Leeds, If you are Balogun’s agent and you see how Arteta has treated Saliba, AMN, Willock and even ESR (until it was obvious even to a blind man that he was the real deal), you would not recommend your client to sign for Arsenal without iron cast guarantee. I am willing to bet that those are the issues: training with the 1st team, game time, possibility to go on loan if the game time target is not achieved, cheap fixed release clause to avoid Arsenal keeping him against his will whilst not playing him. Right now rather than money, Balogun… Read more »

Sid

We dump our crap players to the Schalkes of this world, top clubs dump their unconvicing players to Arsenal Willian, Luiz, Ceb, Ode etc
It very demeaning

Im telling you for free!

Pierre

Shòuld Balogun be added to the list …

Sid

Martinellis playing style will collide with diet Peps ways

Leedsgunner

The agent representing Balogun also represents Nketiah and Nelson, I believe. It doesn’t take a genius to see that he has a fundamental conflict of interest in this particular case. It is in the agent’s interest to get Balogun off to another club because if he stays one of his clients lose out. Another independent agent would have told Balogun, something like this… “Listen, you have nothing to lose by signing this contract. You have a chance to learn from Lacazette and PEA, two very very good strikers. Why not take it? Nketiah hasn’t nailed down his spot, so there’s… Read more »

Kroenkephobe

Guendouzi
Saliba
Torreira
Ozil
Kolasinac
Mustafi
AMN
Sokratis

Pierre, I question your claim that ALL of these players fell out with Arteta. Guendouzi, Ozil and Saliba yes, but do you have evidence of the others?

Mysticleaves

Forget my auto correct correction lol. I got it the first time. Pedro time for a delete button perhaps. Lols. And an occasional pool. Just to spice the place up. You could then know for a fact the percentage of people that want Mourinho as manager

Gbat

How have Maitland-Niles, Willock and Smith-Rowe been treated badly?

Samesong

Martinelli is young but being taken off at half tine will have knocked his confidence , and he is a confidence player..

Pierre I was reading Arteta comments about this. And i think your right. Arteta stated that he took him off because of tactical reasons and that he wanted a more aggressive approach with Willian on.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-mikel-arteta-willian-martinelli-23415997

Leedsgunner

Valentin No club who has any self respect is going to give an unproven 19 year an iron clad guarantee of playing time… if this is indeed what the kid is looking for. If he wants an such a iron clad guarantee do you think it will flow both ways? If he gets injured badly and he will be unable to play for a long time do you think he would be happy for the club to not to pay him? Of course not. In my opinion, Arsenal is the best for a young striker like Balogun to develop and… Read more »

Leedsgunner

“ Arteta really needs to improve his man management skills .
To fall out with 8 players in 8 months is worrying..”

I’ve been saying the same for ages. He needs to learn a thing or two from Mertesacker who has done exact opposite. I had my doubts when he was initially appointed but he has really changed my mind. He is an excellent academy manager and has engendered respect from people all over… and delivered results.

Time Up

Bally,

Saliba, LT, Balo and AMN are non Muslim, so does that make Christians causing trouble or you’re just another right wing idiot like TR7 trying to bring religion into football.

We’d so many Muslim, Christian and Jewish players representing Arsenal without anyone pointing out their religion part from idiots like you. And Mane and Salah are Muslims and doing fine.

Kroenkephobe

The Muslim Germanic clique was causing disruption in the squad.

Bally
What the actual fuck does someone’s faith or nationality have to do with their inclination (or not) to buy into the team ethic? I’d expect to read that in the Daily Mail or Ron Atkinson’s autobiography. You do realise that people of faith read Le Grove I assume?

Dissenter

It’s obvious that Leeds gunner isn’t good enough to represent his breakfast, talk less of a football player

‘ Listen, you have nothing to lose by signing this contract.’
How do you know that when you have no idea what the other contracts on the table are?
You’re clouded by your bias towards Arsenal.

Time Up

Pierre,

“I have a worry for Martinelli, as I have a feeling he will go down the pecking order.
Arteta is desperate for one of his signings to work so Willian will be given every opportunity to play his way into form..“

I agree,

I’ve been saying Arteta vision is quick fix and move to a bigger job, nothing to do with developing young players and building for the future. It’s obvious, I’m surprised Pedro and Arteta’s fan club can’t see it.

Samesong

Luiz Suarez smashing it for Athletico. Top of the league and top goal scorer at 34. Meanwhile Barca have Martin Braithwaite lol

Do you think Auba will still be smashing goals in at 34? Time will tell.

IQ

What’s being muslim got to do with anything you fuckwit?

Mysticleaves

Dissenter who and who are offering the contracts? Pound for pound how many clubs offer more lucrative deals than Arsenal in world football? Then how many of those clubs are interested in Balogun?

It’s about the game time and assurances which is conflicting with the agents interests in Eddie. I called this since

Leedsgunner

Dissenter

What are you actually criticising me for? For a talented player to stay with the Arsenal? On an Arsenal blog?

Besides the boy is 19 not 34. He really doesn’t have anything to lose but everything to gain. In a world where millions have been left unemployed and he is being offered a chance to be a millionaire many times over… what is he really losing out? A chance to make a few more millions at another club?

Bergkamp63

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a bit of bias towards Arsenal on an Arsenal Blog site ?

Unless of course you are trolling and not really an Arsenal supporter ?

Valentin

Leeds, Look at what happen to AMN who was on his way to Wolves. Arteta convinced him to stay by telling him porkies. Stay with us Ainsley, I am going to play you. Six month later and AMN is joining WestBrom after hardly played. If I am Balogun’s agent, I want Arteta telling me what is my client’s objective. How many minutes can he realistically expect? How will you achieve that? One meaningless game during the domestic Cup or the last Europa League group stages? I wants SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) targets, otherwise the club can just… Read more »

IQ

I’m not an Arteta fan but its evident he is a very quick learner and I think he has realised his mistakes of the past especially the man-management side. He looks to be taking a softer approach which seems to be working with Pepe at least.

I also think Edu has done a great job and deserves more credit than he gets on here. Let’s see how thing go in the next few weeks.

Gbat

The most recent starting lineup contained 19 year old Martinelli and 20 year old Smith-Rowe. And would have also had 19 year old Saka if he wasn’t injured. Where’s this ‘he doesn’t like youth’ coming from?

Mysticleaves

Martinelli’s hype is actually getting into his head. When he’s on the field he plays like a superstar. He needs to remember that he has alot of things to learn and is in fact a talent. Arteta’s withdrawal of him at halftime is a statement to the fans that Martinelli is not the answer to our problems that they should allow the boy to learn the game and actually contribute to the team. For once I agree with him

Leedsgunner

Valetin

Exit clauses I agree with if the club doesn’t match the player’s expectations is fair enough. I do think in this case Balogun is being represented by an agent who is heavily conflicted.

Mysticleaves

Gbat are you just waking up from a coma?

Bergkamp63

I don’t think any Manager can guarantee minutes to any player, it will simply be down to the player themselves to force their way in via the training ground mostly.

Up 4 grabs now

Pedro, Is this your nah nah nunna nah told you so post? most of us are pleased that arsenals fortunes have changed. and they stopped the death spiral we were stuck in. Through some changes in approach, and yes luck, Arteta has helped turn things around with the players. Its not a case of fans trying to rewrite history, or frame it so we were right. we were in relegation form, if we had lost against Chelsea i’d bet good money we wouldn’t have beat Brighton ( who we hadn’t beaten in the last 4 games)and that would have left… Read more »

Pierre

Samesong I said at the time that Martinelli was taken off for ball watching in his own area on at least 2 occasions, also said that it proved to be the correct decision as we improved as a team when Willian came on.. However, my concern is not him being taken off , it’s more about him being given the opportunities to show his qualities in the future. I’m not sure there is a pathway into the side this season or maybe even next season. I’d prefer to see more of Martinelli , and Balogun really should have been allowed… Read more »

Bergkamp63

I’m not convinced Martinell’s best position is out on the left wing, he looks like he is goalscorer and could benefit being in a slightly more central role, difficult with Auba around currently.

Gbat

Mysticleaves

You tell me how he doesn’t like youth. Let me guess. He doesn’t play Saliba or Balogun?

Graham62

Kroenkephobe

Not the most intelligent communication.

Graham62

Pierre

I agree.

I want to see more of Martinelli and Balogun.

Mysticleaves

18 year old Pedri looks like a 25 year old seasoned professional. Sid normally gets these exclusives but….you heard it here first