There’s some odd news doing the rounds that suggests Barcelona are interested in taking Arteta to the Camp Nou as part of Joan Laporta’s promise to ‘bring joy’ back the fans of the Catalan giant. Henk Ten Cate said the interest is real.
Barcelona is without doubt one of the worst run clubs in the world. They are the archetypal rich kid in the playground. Arteta is certainly the best coach on their list. Other names being pushed around include Xavi and Jordi Cruyff who is managing in China.
Arteta is a La Masia kid, I’ve no doubt that the option would be deeply appealing, but my word would it be a gamble for anyone to take that role. Coaches like Pep, Enrique and Valverde always had a peak Messi to cover up any lapses they had in their game. The next coach in there is going to have to bring through whatever the next generation is… and so far, it doesn’t look like they’re bubbling on that front.
I’m also not sure you want to leave your first job because you’re mates with Laporta and Pep G. Not that many Arsenal fans would shed a tear at the minute. The current Barcelona job has a 95% chance of eating most managers alive, the best move would be to give yourself record of achievement before you take a crazy leap like that.
There were a few rumblings Edu and Arteta might be under threat this summer. This one is certainly way off the mark when it comes to Arteta, and unless the ESPN Brazil story moved KSE, I highly doubt they are willing wreck the summer plans he’s co-sponsored. If you’re going to move on either of them, you do it with enough time to bring in someone new so they can assess the squad and the market. The only way we’re firing anyone is if something Don Raul-ish popped up over the weekend.
Dani Ceballos bid fair well to Arsenal. Not sure where he’s off to next, rumours are that it might be Sevilla for a season. Always looked like he could be a good player, but far too one-paced, and extremely inconsistent. We certainly have to improve on him next season. We aren’t one new midfielder away from being comfortable next season, we’re a few.
Martin Odegaard is going to be the priority for Arsenal this summer from an Arsenal perspective. He’s well-liked at the club, he’s bought into the Arteta vision, and I think the ‘he’s the future’ is just bluster from a Madrid that want us to pay a lot for him. Hopefully, we can make a deal with them, preferably permanent. He’s a star in the making, I really rate him.
Mat Ryan also said goodbye. I don’t know if we’ll make a deal for him. He certainly didn’t do himself any hard when he joined the club. As free transfers go, he’d be a sound deal in my opinion. I’m also quite interested to see how Arthur Okonkwo develops, he’s been training with the first team. He certainly has the height, boasting an Emi Martinez frame.
Short one today, check out the latest podcast I did with Johnny. We talk about my propaganda, the Hale-Enders, and hopes for next season. A good one to jump on. Enjoy, rate it 5*, and tell me you like the colour of my eyes even though you can’t see them.
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play | ACAST
It’s okay to know Ral for many things but the thinking behind signing Saliba was solid; get in a highly rated young defender and build around him for the next 5 years.
It’s unfortunate that there’s no continuity in the club, unless it’s regarding Chelsea oldies.
Pedro
What some of us are worried about re Saliba is not him going in a first choice choice next season but Arteta pushing him out the club. Of course with Arteta’s diabolical performance this season we won’t even have EL to blood Saliba in so he’ll be restricted in what matches he can be used in – what 2 or 3 League Cup matches and a couple of FA Cup matches.
We put him out on loan again and that’s a signal he’ll be gone if Arteta remains.
gambon
Do you think Fofana is good enough for the premier league?
Careful with the answer because it answers a lot of the points you’re raising.
TR7
Agree and a midfield that performed would be a massive help to defence as well.
Marc
I don’t understand why people keep railing that Saliba isn’t ready when they continue to deny him the opportunity to prove himself …and get himself in pole position to be ready in the near future.
Danny, he played 45mins in the 9 games prior to that. Take a look at those games and get back to me.
Why the fuck would Grealish sign for Arsenal? Aside there’s no way we can afford him we can’t even offer Europa Conference football.
We keep yapping about that we don’t have enough transfer funds yet we are happy to keep loaning out a highly rated 30 million acquisition without giving him the opportunity to sink or swim.
Bob N16 All the big clubs play a high line, with effectively a back 2 when in possession. Arsenal have been playing a back 3 in possession (Chambers or Xhaka dropping in). This is because our defenders are so limited, so poor 1 vs 1, and so slow, that they cant be trusted in a 2. Until this changes, this team is stuck. By having 2 proper athletes at the back, we can push the extra man into midfield (2-3-5), which means suddenly we wont be getting out competed constantly in central MF, we will be able to get the… Read more »
Jesus fuck so after signing a highly rated teenager CB for 28mn ! We are back to now slagging him off ? Wow . Wesley Fofana made it at Leicester . And since when did David Luiz became our best CB ? The revisionism on here is absolutely insane . The most error prone defender left the club even Pedro was rejoicing , now he is the best .
Dissenter, Gabriel, who had great numbers in Ligue 1 has been a mess a lot of this season. Don’t point at Fofana, just look at what we have already.
Dissenter
You and I both know that he should have been used in last (this?) seasons EL and LC matches, once we got to Jan we could then have said opportunities are going to be limited go on loan for 6 months if he’d struggled.
Instead we’ve got a player with huge potential who can’t be picked because he’s never played for us. Welcome to the world of Arteta logic.
For me our MF absolutely needs to be addressed this summer.
The number of times teams just walked through it was hard to watch at times.
I understand strengthening our defence. But if we sort our MF out, this should help the defence be far less under pressure.
Evening Gambon, Good to see you back. We were one goal away from the final, had 20 odd minutes in the first leg and 90 minutes in the second leg and still couldn’t score. We don’t have the players to play artetas way consistently, so change the system to fit the players we do have. We have no European football next season so have the joy of playing in the second round of the league cup. Go out of that and the fa cup early and its 40 plus game season. Cull the squad, We have 4-5 players out already… Read more »
Dissenter
Yes, Fofana is quality.
However, our ambitions shouldnt be to finish 5th.
We need to think about how we can compete with City, Liverpool and UTD – not Leicester and West Ham.
The fact that Luiz was out best defender speaks to how horrible we’ve been. A better defender has always had to hold his hands in every successful arrangement he’s been involved with.
Luiz has NEVER been the best defender in any club or national team arrangement that he’s ever been involved with.
Not Benfica of 2008-2011, not with any of the Chelsea team, not with PSG and certainly not with Brazil.
Why ay one would lose sleep over losing Luiz? I don’t know.
Look at our central midfield – Partey is the only one who is a real quality player.
Xhaka is Xhaka, Elneny a back up at best, Ceballos not suited to the league and now leaving, Odegaard is not a game changer, a steady player most of the time and ESR is still a kid.
If we don’t add two quality midfielders we will yet again have a terrible season and even more so under Arteta. Adding a new center back is not going to move the needle.
“I understand strengthening our defence. But if we sort our MF out, this should help the defence be far less under pressure.”
Buying a top class CB immediately improves our MF.
“The fiercest critics of Arteta are advocating he put his future on a 19-year old playing for a League 1 side.”
Pedro when did you become so conservative? When did you lose your longstanding faith in Project Youth? Didn’t Brendan Rogers, derided as a David Brent figure on here, put his faith on Saliba’s equally youthful teammate?
The trouble with Arteta is his football is middle management risk-free stuff, both in terms of team selection and in terms of tactics.
He is the true David Brent/Claude Puel hybrid of football management.
*Why any one would lose sleep over losing Luiz? I don’t know.
We are talking CBs, but creativity and goal scoring is the key issue.
Saka and Smith Rowe have become first choice players in 18 months. Pépé has scored double the amount of goals of Saka in 1000 less PL minutes. Willian, Nelson, Martinelli have not been productive. Odegaard is not certain to come back
Ole is prioritising the signing of Sancho. If they pay up, he’s theirs. How are we going to improve at wide forward and #10???
Saliba only needs to start the season as understudy to Holding, not replace him straight away. .
And Gambon – Luiz was not our best CB – he was a massive liability who occasionally played well . Getting in the off great game is not enough to rank as ‘best’
i agree with TR7 – CBs are not a priority. To upgrade to get someone like Kanate would mean an outlay of 40m+
That money and energy and time required to sign him is needed elsewhere
Saliba is heading into his 3rd year with us. Added to the fact that we spent £30m on him. I can understand bringing in a cheap Luiz replacement on low wages but this shouldn’t be priority. If we’re talking about bringing in another marquee CB because Saliba is not ready then we might as well just sell him. This is just a continuation of bad business and mismanagement.
* odd
Words, I want to see us move up a level. I’ve never advocated for 19-year-old centre backs taking over. It’d be suicide. Shocked that so many critics of Arteta are suggesting such a move.
All of Gambon’s points are on the money.
Pedro Last game he played we shipped 3 goals to West Ham yeah? Then we had a couple of games (barring Liverpool) where we drew or lost, conceding single goals. Villarreal is 100% on Artetas total and utter shit tactics. You basically will not support or endorse saliba because you desperately don’t want your man to be proven to be totally wrong on him. That’s blatant to see. Luiz is shit, he can be replaced internally. Unless Arteta is actually trying to make the CB the main creative outlet in which we are fucked anyway. It wasn’t long ago you… Read more »
Its the same thing that went with Pepe . We slag off our own signings call them bang average , while people like Klopp And Rodgers use players like Luke Thomas, Fofana and Rhys Williams Nat Phillips and make them look good .
Danny, you have a limited grasp of what’s going on at Arsenal if you think David Luiz wasn’t our best defender last season.
Even more depressing that you think Saliba as his RPL is the option, especially when you talk about bad decision making from Arteta.
Pedro
You are in fierce competition with ES when it comes to flip flopping. You opinion on players change within a week, you shouldn’t be so knee jerk.
If Arteta had picked Saliba for every match we played this season and we’d been relegated because of his mistakes Pedro would be telling us it’s part of the parcel in developing young players and trust the process.
Pedro,
As,you yourself have pointed out many many times, we have the third best defence in the league.
And that has been due to the efforts of Gabriel, Holding and Mari just as much as it has been on Luiz.
Salina will be on his 3rdyear and is 20 years old. He can rotate with Holdign and if necessary Chambers.
Buying yet another centre back is madness when the midfield lacks drive and the attack lacks guile and goals.
Pedro
Bring me the stats. Show me the figures that show Luiz makes the difference.
Saka and ESR (teenagers) saved Arteta’s job and here you are Pedro suggesting starting with a young player like Saliba will be suicidal. Not saying Saliba is the next Maldini but he shouldn’t be written off just because of his age.
All of Gambon’s points are on the money.
I actually agree especially with how bad of a manager he thinks Arteta is
I think a lot of people dont seem to understand why CB is such a problem. Firstly, you have to understand the system Arteta plays. Its exactly the same system Pep plays, we just dont have the players. In possession the big teams all play roughly a 2-3-5. Forget 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, thats all bollocks. In game, its a 2-3-5. Liverpools midfield 3 is their 3 CMs, Man Citys midfield 3 is Rodri with the 2 inverted full backs. Now Arsenal have been playing a 3-2-5 all season, because Arteta doesnt trust the ability of this team to defend. Our… Read more »
So its ok for a multi million pound.org. The Arsenal
to have an inexperienced manager, inexperienced technical director, inexperinced CEO ,and Josh Kronk but its not ok to have a 19 year center back in the first team….
because he is inexperienced?
The ultimate irony, off course an experienced manager would have played Saliba, Balogun Willock Azeez to see if they were good enough for season 21/22.
But off course no ones know , because ‘Barca bound Mikel didnt blood them in these recent dead rubbers.
Clueless, the whole lot of them.
.
Good job Pedro wasn’t about when Adams was first on the scene. 17 years old? He’d have been loaned out for 9 years till he was ready.
Pedro
So at the end of season 19-20 Shkodran Mustafi was our best CB and at the end of 20-21 David Luiz is the best CB . Cant make this shit up . If Arteta was smart he would have given Mustafi’s squad place to Saliba and then we could have a conversation of what type of a player he is . But we all know he rates player like Mustafi and Xhaka so yeah Arteta rocks.
TR7
We paid almost £30 million for Saliba – I don’t expect him to be an instant hit at his age but we’re going to lose this guy taking a heavy loss on him only to see him nailing it at a big club in a year or 2.
CG,
The irony is that Saliba (to take just one young player as an example) is by now much more experienced as a centre-back than Arteta was when he rocked up to Arsenal.
“Firstly, you have to understand the system Arteta plays.”
Arteta doesn’t understand the system he plays fuck knows how anyone else is supposed to.
WOAB
Comment of the season and it doesn’t start till September!
Jules Kounde who arsenal are apparently after according to ornstein has Zero cap for France at this present moment and he is worth £50 million plus, if Arteta wasn’t a fool, he would have given Saliba the Soyoncu treatment Leceister city did when Maguire was there.
I agree that our current CB’s are quite serviceable. But why all the hope about Saliba, has anyone actually seen him play? Granted that he cost a lot of money but is that what everyone is getting excited about? Why is Chambers not given a chance at CB? That is how he was purchased all that time ago. Chelsea interested in Willian? Although the weather would say otherwise April 1 passed nearly two months ago. Our only hope with him is that we subsidise approx 80% of his salary and get him out so that Arteta cannot be tempted to… Read more »
Marc
Arteta doesn’t understand the system he plays fuck knows how anyone else is supposed to.
Thats the beauty of it dont you see ? Nobody can predict our starting XI ever , thats the sauce we wanted xD
Words
“”””CG, The irony is that Saliba (to take just one young player as an example) is by now “””
Willlock under Bruce has gone from an inexperinced midfielder to an experinced one in 10 games
we send our kids to war at 16/17/18: if they are good enough- they are good enough.
(People are so negative and cautious on here.)
Saliba, Willock and Balogun; x 3 starters for the first game of the season for me.
” But why all the hope about Saliba”
Because he’s an Arsenal player, simple as that.
He simply must be the best CB of all time, and he should not have to compete for a spot in the team.
We wasted a squad place on Mustafi and half a year of William Saliba’s development because our manager was scared to play him in defense .
I have never laughed so loud………Arteta to Barca….he’d F#@k their under 10s for sure..
Sorry …… what was that…! The first team ! Are you sure 🤣🤭🤣😂😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🥴
gambon,
No one is saying he shouldn’t compete for a spot as CB.
What we are saying is that he should be given the chance to compete for a CB spot.
Spot the difference
Good summing up Gambon, more athleticism both in midfield and defence.
If we had a top quality LCB, Saliba would be my choice at RCB. Hopefully Saliba ( if he’s not sold this summer!)and Gabriel could be our clear first choice the season after next. If we get our midfield sorted and a. KT equivalent at RB then we might get away with not going big on a top quality CB this window.
Who gets all the presents on the Xmas list anyway? A shiny new CB might have to wait!
WOAB
So whats the problem is Arsenal signing a top CB?
If Saliba is so brilliant he will be in the team.
Look I’ve always been of the opinion that I’d happily get rid of Luiz Holding and Chambers for an upgrade at CB. In saying all that Saliba should be given opportunities next season he’s highly rated I’ve never for a second bought the excuses offered up for Arteta’s incompetence in not using the player. He’s too young he’s inexperienced meanwhile Wesley Fofana is on 3300 mins on the season impressing for Leicester. Then he goes to nice and impresses which just shows how bad a decision it was from Arteta
If Arsenal are signing a Cb, all well and good signing an experienced player, no to Kounde regardless of how good he is since he is young and short (1.78m).
And he reason that Saliba has not been given a chance to compete for a spot is either:
a) Arteta is a megalomaniac who has taken a dislike to him, or
b) Arteta, as a novice manager, is insecure and risk-averse.
gambon,
The problem is that the primary issue with Arsenal is chance creation and not defence.
“The problem is that the primary issue with Arsenal is chance creation and not defence.”
They are both problems.
You think we sign Grealish and win the league by 20 points next season?
Liverpool are in 3rd while they played without Van Dijk and Joe Gomez . Guess who they played in some games , highly inexperienced teenagers, Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams. But yeah lets make more excuses for Arteta instead .
Of course hoping Saliba is the next big thing is wishful but I’ve watched him a lot and he looks like he has all the attributes to be a dominant CB. Apart from his pace and his passing, statistically he rarely gets beaten one-on- one and his athleticism is of someone who’s 5ft 10in not 6ft 4in. He shows signs of being a leader too.
For what it’s worth, he was placed in the top ten most promising teenagers in European football( Saka and Martinelli were in there too).
Here’s hoping…..
gambon,
I’d love Grealish, and he’d definitely help, but my fear is that the rigidity and conservatism of Arteta’s brand of football would reduce his effectiveness
Saliba should at least be in the first team squad next season, new centre back signed also or not. We paid the best part of £30 million for this guy, he needs to be playing games to see what he can do. He is generally highly regarded and rated, I am unsure as to why people are so cautious about him playing games and why it would be a ‘disaster’. Wenger always used to play the youngsters, thinking along the lines of ‘if hey don’t play, we are wasting our time with them, how can we know how good they… Read more »
DivineSherlock
So you just admitted that playing young CBs was detrimental to Liverpool.
You want Arsenal to finish lower down the league just to develop your favourite kid CB?
Agree about the lack of quality at centre back. Outside Gabriel, they aren’t good enough to defend the spaces. They also aren’t particularly confident on the ball. Struggle to pass it forward or carry it out.
We’re being linked with Tapsoba who I think is just what were looking for. Pace, excellent passing and confident on the ball.
””In possession the big teams all play roughly a 2-3-5. Forget 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, thats all bollocks””
Chelsea, Man u, leicester Do Not play anything like this.
Yes City the only team which play 2-3-5 and they can afford to do so because their midfielders keep lion share of the possession and rarely lose the ball.
Gambon
What are you smoking ? Liverpool without their first choice CBs were in the danger of finishing outside CL spots. Their best run of games came in when they played with young CBs . For your kind enlightenment Liverpool were thrashed 7-2 by Aston Villa when Van dijk and Joe Gomez played . Go watch some games before commenting like an elite expert.
Arteta would have sent Wayne Roonie’s of the world on loan after making them train with u23.
It’s not like Saliba and/or Martinelli are next Roonies and Ronaldo, but you will never know if you don’t play them.
What’s wrong with everyone! Do you think the same for Saka & ESR? Coz Arteta did till he ran out of option in Dec
WOAB
“And he reason that Saliba has not been given a chance to compete for a spot is either:
a) Arteta is a megalomaniac who has taken a dislike to him, or
b) Arteta, as a novice manager, is insecure and risk-averse.”
Or of course:
c) Arteta is a megalomaniac who has taken a dislike to him and as a novice manager, is insecure and risk-averse
My money’s on C.
The thing is with Saliba is that we missed the opportunity to assess whether or not he is good enough due to the failure to include him in any squad before the season started. Even if he was included only in the europa squad, it would have given us a good idea of his capabilities. Basically it is a lost/wasted year for Saliba and the fault lies with Arsenal football club. He could have been integrated into the squad and ready to step up for regular first team football next season. Instead , the same questions are being asked as… Read more »
Nobody is suggesting Saliba is world class and should instantly play in Arsenal line up . The false notion that you and Pedro want to spread is that a young CB cant play for a club like Arsenal is just getting busted thats all . Lets just play Mustafi then , I hear he is a free agent and we all know Arteta rates him.
Danny S, yeah, let’s talk about players that were drinking pints before elite level games 30 years ago as a comparison to 2021.
Pierre
Can’t argue with you we’re going to look back in a few years as Saliba lifts the CL trophy after we sold him at a loss.
Gnat
“Agree about the lack of quality at centre back. Outside Gabriel, they aren’t good enough to defend the spaces. They also aren’t particularly confident on the ball.”
Gabriel is far from confident on the ball . Holding i rate higher in that respect.
Mari is our most accomplished centre back on the ball, also Saliba looks to be very good on the ball.
Defensive wise, with centre backs it’s more about the partnership and Arteta needs to decide on his best partnership and stick with it, whoever they are.
l remember those same young CBs weren’t even tested by us when we played Liverpool.
I’m not sure I’m well. Found myself nodding in agreement as I read Gambons posts. Very interesting to see how this summer window pans out.
“I think he will be gone, same as I think Guendouzi will be gone, same as I think willock will be gone , same as I think Eddie will be gone….”
Given the current manager’s handling of younger players, one would have to stand out in a remarkable way to get such opportunities. It seems that a reliance on older and more experienced players is the preferred method at the moment..
Perhaps now that there is no Europe involvement, they may now be getting such opportunities?
Good points being discussed tonight.
Holding and Chambers are not good enough for the modern game.
All winning sides have a world class CB and strong CM.
We don’t have either.
I will volunteer to drive Arteta to Barcelona, I have done it many times so know the way well.
Auba will go to Chelsea that’s why he has sulked recently he wants a trophy and is a friend of Tuchel.
If Arteta thinks we can play like City he (and anyone else who thinks that) is mental. Is that the ‘project’? Where is the £1Billion plus he’s going to need to do it? Not a hope in hell.
Said this the other day but it’s about time we realised that we are The Arsenal, not some knock-off pound-shop version of Barca or now City.
If the best Arteta can do is copy his old pal Pep then he really doesn’t have a single original idea in his head. Have some respect, get an identity that is ours.
Got a feeling Arteta will tell Saliba that he’s a back up option next season and that Saliba will push for a move as he will want to play regular. Hence the strong links to a RCB.
I think Arteta links Saliba in with the guys that tried to assassinate him pre Christmas. (Ozil, Mustafi etc. It’s clear as day that Arteta and Saliba don’t like each other and Arteta will make him pay.
Pedro
Right, so anyway let’s go by your metric of our post Xmas table in which we have the second best defence and we are second or whatever in the table.
How many games did Luiz, our best defender play? 11.
Not even half of the games. He won 6, drew 4 lost one. That was all our draws.
So really, in our most purple patch of the season, weather we had Luiz or not we did ok.
Luiz being our best CB is utter rubbish.
Holding was more present in that run.
It’s a bit rich slaging off the quality of our CB’s when Arteta signed two of them (Mari and Gabriel) plus our reserve full back who has dissapeared into a black hole. Doesn’t say much for his judgement when it comes to players does it.
We can surely all ageee by now that at the very least forking out 30m for Saliba was madness when he has been here for 2 full seasons now without a sniff of the first team.
And people are still talking about him being nowhere near ready for the XI.
I remember people getting up in arms on here over the reservations that myself and a few others expressed over paying so much money for such a green player.
Would love to see Mr Ambitious Arteta go to Barca and tank that team within a few months. I would have a major respect for him. I mean, taking down Barca- what can be better from a true Arsenal legend.
Player acquisition is not all about Arteta’s judgement, if it is then what’s the point of Edu?
andy
“It’s a bit rich slaging off the quality of our CB’s when Arteta signed two of them (Mari and Gabriel) ”
We don’t mention that.
SF
The Barca fans threw a pigs head at Figo I reckon they’d end up throwing Arteta’s head at Laporta for bringing him in.
I really think Pedro is floundering a bit on Saliba. On yesterday’s podcast he was saying we should bring in a ball-playing replacement for Luis and that is was instead an opportunity to start Saliba. He also said he might struggle early but then could hit is stride later in the season.
Now he’s mocking posters for suggesting exactly the same thing.
Truly bizarre.
*typo-Pedro said we should not bring in a ball-playing replacement for Luiz.
Here pissing myself as well at the image of Ishola’s head gradually reddening into a tomato as he scrolls down and sees so many labelling David Luiz as our ‘best CB’.
On Luiz, maybe we could agree that we were a more dangerous side with him in the team, but that applies both in an attacking and defensive sense.
Bacary
Yeah I’ll go fir that. It was always teetering on the sublime or the obscene with Luiz.
Bacray
We need a ball playing CB ..playing in a 3 at back..
Even tho I wobbled on art.. I think he is going right way.
Don’t want Aaron’s
Don’t want aquar
Don’t want bisouma
We can do better
I don’t know why I bothered putting my post about our last 23 games together. Pedro will ignore it I expect as it doesn’t do his agenda any good.
There’s no doubt that signing a world-class CB to lead our back lime would make the biggest difference to our fortunes. Unfortunately we don’t have 80m to spare on that luxury when we have more pressing concerns.
Instead, we should start with Holding and Gabriel next season with Saliva and Mark challenging them. I have a feeling that Saliba and Mari will prove to be the stronger pairing next season. The dream scenario for at least 2022-23 season is that Saliba and Gabriel will dominate as a CB pair.
Chambers should stay as our utility RB/CB defender.
Bacary
I’ll agree with that.
If you want to take our last 23 games as the marker, it wasn’t the defence that let us down but the centre midfield and striker.
Put all our money into improving those areas and we will be much stronger next season. We don’t need to waste millions on a CB.
We ne
Andy This is the issue, it won’t matter how much KSE are prepared to invest, if the people allocating those funds are utterly incompetent Maybe a top right sided centre back should be a priority, and would improve us, this team needs so much surgery though, it’s difficult to pinpoint where to start Does anyone outside KSE trust Edu + Arteta to identify that player Why are we trusting the architects of Willian, Runarsson + Soares with anymore funds We lost Mustafi + Sokratis in January, we had to pay them to leave, they cost £50million+ between them, we spend… Read more »
If people are so set on a new marquee CB, what do you do with our others?
As it stands on the books we have Holding, Mari, Gabriel, Saliba, Mavropanos and Chambers.
Would bring us up to 7 CBs in the squad which is far too many. Playing 2 at the back we only need 5 max.
Oh and a RB. Definitely need a rb.
R.S.P.C
I actually said earlier this season that a ball-playing RCB should be our main priority but next season without Europe might be the perfect opportunity to get Salova up to speed with more training sessions etc. I don’t expect him to start immediately though.
Holding was actually showing greater passing range as the season wore on but he really struggles against high-quality pressing sides. The alternative would be to sell Holding and invest in the ball-playing replacement for Luis. Just don’t see it happening.
*Saliba