A speedy round-up today because not every single post can be 1200 words you total transfer fiends.
There are a few rumours taking my fancy. The main one being Marcel Sabitzer for £15m. What a steal that would be. I think he’d be a nice replacement for Granit Xhaka. He’s more productive in the final third, he’s great at interceptions, and he can do all the long ball progressions and switches that the Swiss offers us. He’s 27 years old, but look, we need to have some experience and at that fee, does it really matter?
There are HOT rumours that we’re also interested in Locattelli. I love this rumour, I love the player, but it’s not going to happen. The only thing that makes this less mayo flavour in spice is that his agent is Kia… or his ‘intermediary’ is the man that brought us the greatest hits like Cedric and Willian. Other than that, it would appear Juve is quite advanced for him. We’ll see though… things are not great in Italy and they went from being a thrifty club to one that spent £400k a week on Ramsey and 31m euros a year on CR7. Not sure how they are escaping the destitution every other Italian club is dealing with but who knows.
Ben White is now attracting interesting from… Manchester City. Obviously, they have more pull, cash, and chance of major trophies than us… but, you’ll also be keeping the bench warm for their more senior centre-backs. I still love the idea of him in our side, he’ll give us something we don’t have now, but obviously, I don’t want us dropping £70m to secure him.
Manchester United finally did a deal for Jadon. £72m is the fee. I only bring that up because it does show you how big of a dent covid has had on valuations. Last summer, Dortmund wanted £90m. A few seasons before that Dembele was going for £120m. Arsenal is terrible at getting fees, but don’t be too shocked when we’re not getting mega-money for duffers this summer.
Ainsley crashed his car. It did not look good. We wish him all the best and hope he’s ok. My question? When you have £50k a week dropping in your bank account, why not get a driver? I would. I’d have a limo as well, because I am a product of the 80s and that is how a gentleman should roll.
The squad list for Arsenal is out on the .com. The only miss seems to be Balogun, I have no idea what that means, why would he not be on the site? Saliba is there… but so is Guendo, Torreira and Willock. So we’ll see how that pans out over the summer.
Right, on that note, check out my first appearance on the very excellent Arsenal Vision podcast.
a lot of leg trembling going on lol
Tom I stick by my wiping out dog kissers they are filthy people at the very least they need to go to a rehab centre and stop that nastiness
Mark
me happy.It’s always the same few who think they are Pedro’s deputies cos they agree with him and drink the kool-ade from Mikel’s arse, who think they can police the blog.It’s an opinion blog feel free to scroll past any posts you want.Nuff said
Nuff said ???are we back in the mid 80s
Messi is a free agent so no transfer fee required. That said his signing on fee and wages would be horrendous and his form will probably drop off the edge of a cliff.
A Lokonga-Partey-Willock midfield sounds dreadful to me. Who are the creative and forward players then? Three out of Saka, ESR, Pepe, Auba and maybe Odegaard? I think I might hate it even more now. Lokonga should be brought in as a backup for Partey only, not as the player to replace Xhaka in the first 11. I also don’t want to see Partey playing more box to box and unleashing those 30 yard rockets towards the fans on a regular basis. Just buy a good number 8. A premier league starting qualify CM. None of these machinations to resolve the… Read more »
May be Arteta is trying to bring in a hybrid CM/AM like Aouar and keep willock. Whenever ESR needs to be rotated, he will play a 433 with two of willock, Aouar and Lokonga with Partey behind them. I wouldn’t mind that if we were skint. But we feel we need a 50 mil CB mors than that.
More*
Danny S
“If Arteta is looking at a 4-3-3, what happens to ESR and why were we trying to buy odegaard.”
Answers on a postcard please.
Shrouded in mystery.
How are the valuations that Guns posted optimstic to say the least? I think they are right on the money. Willock 30M AMN 15M Guen 12 M Nelson 15M Nketiah 15M Torr 15M Sounds about within a small margin of ~10m right imo. That’s still ~100m right there. We’d be stupid not to cash in on the players that Arteta has made it clear he does not fancy. Just sell and bring in a new crop of talents. Their price isn’t going up if Arteta doesn’t play them and with no Europa I can hardly see him use any of… Read more »
Luteo G ” I also don’t want to see Partey playing more box to box and unleashing those 30 yard rockets towards the fans on a regular basis .Just buy a good number 8. A premier league starting qualify CM. None of these machinations to resolve the midfield woes by buying Ben White and painting him into some CB unicorn that can do it all by himself instead. That’s fucking stupid.” This made me laugh but has a ring of truth about it. Partey has neither impressed on the edge of his own penalty area nor on the edge of… Read more »
How many times is Rich going to mention hybrid inverted LBs and RBs
Must be close to a few hundred mentions already.
Now you understand the fear regarding Arteta and the cleverest boy in the room syndrome.
Please Arteta no. It will end in tears again.
Hey Kroenkephobe Elvis Costello was ok, and did a good job producing Madness. I knew Robbo way back when when he owned Stiff records, so all the Stiff acts, such as Ian Dury, madness, Lene Lovich, Wreckless Eric, The Dammed, Lew Lewis Reformer, Racheal Sweet and many more were around the time that Dave Robertson also ran Island Records. If memory serves me right he was Jimi Hendrix guitar roady and lost around 20% of his hearing working with Jimi. At one stage Robbo was going to hire a Jumbo and take all of his Stiff Records artists on a… Read more »
Tony
You mentioned Rachel Sweet.
She had one good voice.
Given weak material to work with though.
One of her best efforts and it was a cover.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VJggSTK-VA
Joke Friday
Spurs
It’s more about what happens to Pepe cause if we bring Odegaard, ESR will probably start on the left wing (not his favorite position), to accomodate Ode, and with Saka a certain starter on the right, the one fucked up in the end will be the good ol’ Pepe – a player Arteta has never made feel like he’s important, trusted and valued. Reminds me of Lukaku and Shaw in Manure with ze special wan. Then again, ESR-Ode-Saka + Auba might be a more rounded front line than Pepe-ESR-Saka + Auba. It’s up to the manager to decide what will… Read more »
Elvis Costello was more than ok but hit his peak around 78/79. So many good songs around that time and a few just before in 77.
He became a bit up his own arse after that though.
Let’s hope Spain trounce Switzerland and we can wrap the Xhaka deal as soon as possible.
TR7
“Let’s hope Spain trounce Switzerland and we can wrap the Xhaka deal as soon as possible.”
I’m hoping to see good things from little Pedri again.
Hey Tony That era was brilliant wasn’t it. Stiff really started something new and helped establish the independent labels that followed. As well as those acts, I also have a lot of time for Graham Parker, Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds who all wrote together and swapped songs. EC was a fantastically clever songwriter but I agree Ish that his powers started to dwindle after he flirted with C&W. Tony – must be time soon for a warts n all memoire of your time in that industry. Rachel Sweet. B A B Y. Lena Lovich and that bald bassist looked… Read more »
Pedri plays a bit like Xavi, absolutely terrific performance against Croatia.
Dave Vanian sorry. David Sylvian was an altogether different kettle of fish. Although I like Japan too.
Ishola70 Going into the season with Smith-Rowe as our only final third midfield technician would be gross negligence Post Xmas in possession, we were doing different variations of this: ……………….…..Leno ….….,,..Holding Gabriel Chambers Partey Xhaka ………Odegaard SR ……Saka………………Tierney ……………..Lacazette 2-3-4-1 Some times we’d mirror that, and instead the left sided midfielder cutting in to create two No8s in possession, it would be Saka, and then the right back would create overloads down the right Then out of possession we’d move to something like this: ………………………..…Leno Chambers Holding Gabriel Tierney Saka Partey Odegaard Xhaka SR ……………………..Lacazette City and Liverpool are the… Read more »
Kroenke
I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass was a top notch track.
Cruel To Be Kind decent as well but the glass track top notch.
But for some reason Rate Your Music users rate Cruel To Be Kind higher than I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass.
The fools.
Ishola70
I’m just trying to rival your obsession with Xhaka, 17 times in 4 sentences is your best effort
I’ll see if I can beat that with 18 inverted full backs in 3 sentences
Rich
You have slaightered me recently in comparison with your inverted obsession lol
Stop giving Teets these ideas.
He can fuck it up all on his own without help from you.
With Everton trying to beat Arsenal to Ben White’s signature, those same fans against us spending 50mill on him are going to lose it if Everton eventually wins the race.. Me included. Considering the fact we already lost Buendia to Aston Villa. I don’t give an eff if he wasn’t our first choice CAM target in the first place.
3 things: – Sabitzer plays slightly further forward than Xhaka. Comparing attacking stats means shit then. It also means Partey would def play as a pure DM next to him – For the millionth time: Aaron Ramsey earns £187,000 per week, not 400K – The reason Sancho’s valuation went down is because he’s had a mediocre season (as I had predicted a year ago he peaked very early like lots of English players): Bundesliga stats: 18/19: 12 goals, 18 assists 19/20: 17, 17 20/21: 8, 12 So 72 M seems reasonable. He’s not far behind Ousmane, but would still rather… Read more »
Ishola “Elvis Costello was more than ok but hit his peak around 78/79. So many good songs around that time and a few just before in 77. He became a bit up his own arse after that though” Agree. Generally, the earlier stuff was probably better. He became too obsessed with getting his political views across in his music, I beleive. Very talented bloke though, singer/songwriter/producer. Wrote a couple of movie tracks, including ‘God give me strength” with Burt Bacharach, great song but recent events mean I can’t play it, too upsetting. New Amsterdam, Oliver’s Army, Every day I Write… Read more »
Ishola70 There’s no way my inverted right back obsession can rival your Xhaka one, Xhaka has seriously scarred you, you’ll need years of therapy, even after he’s gone….. On a more serious note, I’m not suggest we play this way, but this is the system we’ve been using since Xmas City, Liverpool, Brighton, Tuchel, Poch when he was at Spurs, have all used different variations of this system, to try and get 5 players into the opponents final third, this isn’t some clever dick Arteta move, he certainly didn’t invent it, nor is he trying to do something innovate that… Read more »
Sabitzer is not a swashbuckling flair player, he is tidy and hard working a bit like Henderson probably. Only if the price is right will signing him make sense.
Diet pep prefers the football to be played on the flanks where he can back orders.
He is anal obsessive
Do Not expect midfield Wengerball. Forget the Locatellis, Buendia
Expect Fellaini types in midfield, Longkongas
Im telling you for free
Sabitzer would be a great signing.
Liverpools midfield(Firminho included) is about winning the ball as fast as possible.
Man c midfield is about starving the opponents possesion
Diet Peps midfield is a hodge podge
“Then again, ESR-Ode-Saka + Auba might be a more rounded front line than Pepe-ESR-Saka + Auba. It’s up to the manager to decide what will be the best for our team.” The problem there would be a lack of reliable goal scorers. Bar Auba i wouldn’t bank on any of Saka,ESR or Ode to hit over 10 league goals next season. Possible, but i wouldn’t risk it. Too big a burden on Auba. It’s also why i’d prefer the RW position to be Pepe’s to lose going into the new season. Give him a strong run of games. Because despite… Read more »
Kroekephobe/Ishola Just wrote a lengthy reply only to be lost to I assume a banned word as we have to use guesswork to circumnavigate. I normally write a longer post in Word but wasn’t planning on this post being as long as it turned out. Ishola Rachael Sweet was managed by her over protective father; hence the choice of songs and producers. Kroenkephobe you’re right so much of the music scene – not just the indie private side, but Robbo and all connected to Stiff records created an incestuous contacts’ tendrils’ pathway throughout the industry in the UK and USA… Read more »
Allbutt- boyo longkonga
The name speaks volumes
Rich “We definitely need an attacking midfielder in the mould of Odegaard, but the idea we can’t attack better by improving our defence, stands up to no real type of scrutiny” This. As I said the other day people either don’t understand this point or choose not to. Some people see a centre back as a centre back and nothing else. We saw that with the ridiculous efforts to find a negative with White’s height, arguing about whether he was 6ft, 6ft 1 or 6ft half a frigging inch. Sometimes you have to just shake your head. We play slowly… Read more »
Sounds like Locatelli would prefer the old boiler, oops I mean Old Lady to The Arse ):
I dont remember Senderos being good on the ball, but we didnt have any problem playing from the back.
Cart and horse is the phrase
Im telling you for free!
I hope Belgium belt the living crap out of the boring Italians. I’d rather watch paint dry than Italian footie. Yawn Central!!!
The sins of King Leopold will Not let my conscience support Belgium
Last season Arsenal offloaded players in the squad who were paid “inflated wages” ie Mkhitaryan, Ozil, Sokratis, Mustafi and Kolasinac. None of these players generated transfer fees as a consequence of their wages. This season I expect that process to continue following departure of Luiz and almost certainly Bellerin and Xhaka. In addition Arsenal will offload other unwanted players such as Torreira, Guendouzi, Maitland-Niles. Arsenal will land up with a squad which is leaner, more balanced, fit for purpose and cost effective. This leaves four players remaining on the books who are being paid wages out of sync with rest… Read more »
Daily Mail ( I know) reporting that we’ve made an offer of £40 million for Ramsdale which had been rejected.
Surely, we can’t do that business a year after letting Emi go for what, £15 million. That would be an absolute shocker, in quite a long list of shockers.
gnarleygeorge9 Mate, I don’t think this Italian team is boring at all. They no longer play the traditional Catenaccio style, they play a higher defensive line. Mancini came in to fix the outdated tactics and he has done a great job. They play with a high defensive line (compared to the traditional catenaccio style) with aggressive high-energy pressing & quick counter-pressing on transitions. In possession, they switch to three at the back, pushing an extra player into midfield. They start in a 4-3-3 formation but it is more of a 3-2-4-1 when attacking. It really isn’t boring. The game with… Read more »
Sid The game has changed, even Wenger moved to a back 3 after twenty years to combat this issue Emery moved to a back 3 for the first time in his career at Arsenal When we had Cazorla or Wilshere was fit, it wasn’t so much of an issue, because they’d drop deep, beat the press, and get us into the opponents half Xhaka can get us into the opponents half, but he’s not press resistant, once the opponents man marks Xhaka + Luiz, they force us to go long If we want to play in the opponents half, then… Read more »
Matt, it’s okay we had the Metro being quoted yesterday. These guys are desperate for clicks, take everything you read with a huge pinch of salt. These are professional liars trying their best to rile everyone. Once people stop biting they may start behaving better.
AFC Forever
You’re right. Football has changed. Centre backs now have a huge responsibility in progressing the ball especially with the new goal kick rule.
Tony
We should probably save this for another time, but it also resonated with me what you wrote about Ian Dury. Another genius songwriter. There’s so many good tunes but if ever I need cheering up I always put ‘this is what we find’ from the DIY album, or ‘there ain’t half been some clever b’stards’ on the hifi. Musical poetry. RIP
Pedro
Use to read Yankee gunner back in the day so naturally I’ve been tuned into AV for some time now. Real good look getting on there and if you could somehow dislodge Paul from his spot that would be fantastic lol.
if not Locatelli, kessie? rumours kinda quiet on midfielders, all at the euro’s? ok.
can England just win it already ffs
Sabitzer is a bit meh.Doesn’t exactly set the world alight.as TR 7 described.A bit of a Henderson.Still it takes all sorts.Would he be a hacker replacement?
AFCF – An issue for me was that we were led to believe that we were getting a coach that would set trends, not follow them. Copying others will only lead us to arriving at that particular party just as others are moving on. Football goes through fads on a regular basis, in a couple of years there will be a new one and Arsenal as they have done for the last decade will meekly follow that too with the squad rebuilding that this would entail.
Gnarley.As I said Italian players don’t travel much to the prem.Of which the chavs have cornered the market there over the years.What with Vialli,Di Matteo & zola.Camonly think of Ravanelli who rocked up at Boro of all places.Always a non starter with Locatelli.
Wenger moved to a back 3 after losing Carzola in midfield
“”””””The game has changed, even Wenger moved to a back 3 after twenty years to combat this issue”””””
Willian deal is off because of 167 k pounds a week wage !! Who is making these deals at
Arsenal ??!! Fire him at once and the board too if they are at all involved ..
Zielinski looks good
Sid, correct Wenger copied Conte’s three at the back when it won Chelsea the title back in 2016/17. Didn’t do him much good though.
Looking back the past 5 seasons:
Leicester didn’t copy Chelsea (previous season’s title winners) with their direct counter-attacking game.
Chelsea didn’t copy Leicester when they went to three at the back as mentioned previously.
Pep certainly didn’t copy Conte when City won the next two titles.
And Klopp played a totally different style in winning the league in 2019/20.
Then Pep redefined his system to wrest the title last season.
Conclusion? Winners don’t copy, they innovate.
AFC
I sincerely hope so. That seems like something even we wouldn’t be stupid enough to do. Hopefully we can start getting some actual deals done soon so that we can talk about that rather than the speculation.
Kroenkephobe Gotta release this while it’s relevant! Was reading you,Tony and Ishola talking music this morning, you guys have a level of knowledge that’s pretty intimidating to mere mortals I can tell you! Anyway this one is dedicated to the first piece of Arteta’s puzzle!. ‘Gold Digger’ by Kanye West He takes our money, though we’re in need 200 grand ,every fucking week Oh he’s a crap winger From over town,came from Chelski Now I ain’t saying he’s a gold digger But he ain’t signing for Miami’s Inter No I ain’t saying he’s a gold digger But he ain’t signing… Read more »
Holla, “We want prenup! We want prenup!” (Yeah!)
Almunia,
That shit so hot it burns madafaka! Let’s go!
Gbat
“You’re right. Football has changed. Centre backs now have a huge responsibility in progressing the ball especially with the new goal kick rule”
Yes mate. I can remember even before the latest change when you could pass back to the ‘keeper and he could pick it up. There’s a lot of centre backs from those days who would have kittens now!
Matt, yes absolutely. Getting all het up and angry about something that probably isn’t going to happen is a waste of energy.
I’ve always found the idea of concept albums very appealing but there’s a disappointing lack of them
Best one I’ve ever heard is the sharing of the true by Kevin Gilbert. Absolutely brilliant prog rock from the late 80s or early 90s
What new keeper rule is this people are talking about?
The shaming of the true***
Almunia
Hiya mate. Knowing nothing about Kanye’s body of work, I checked it out on YouTube. You’ve made it a million times better with your willianisation of the lyrics. What a contract that guy’s agent negotiated.
So the rubber is finally hitting the road this weekend. Who are your tips for the semi finals? And no consulting your pet octopus.
For me it’s gotta be Spain, Czech Rep, Ingerland and……. Italy on pens!
Probably the new goal kick rule that teammates can be inside of the penalty area to receive the ball and they can even take the goal kick.
Ffs these ‘songs’ are cringeworthy please stop.
And the but love after is even worse.
You’re grown men, not teen girls on MSN.
Is it just me or nobody here rates Dani Olmo ? we should be going for him for #10 .
AFC Forever
We need better ball players at the back whether that’s Ben White or whoever. The build up has been so slow and a huge part of this has been having a back five that aren’t the most comfortable on the ball and unable to get it forward quickly.
I think Ben White will be a quality signing. Expensive, yes. But that’s the going rate for English players. How much would the other English players in the Euro squad go for? How much would we ask for ESR?
Could well be a great window
DS, I’ve noticed that too. Not highly rated in here. I think he isn’t the finished article. Far from it. He did, however, win them a massive game the other day with his 2 assists. He is lively, smart, he doesn’t hide, he asks the opposition questions, he certainly has the never give up attitude, he can provide assists but he can also score in roughly the same rate. He’d be very pricey. He joined RB Leipzig a year ago for £20m and his release clause is £65m. I’m not sure if they’d be willing to accept less money for… Read more »
Saliba pulled out of Olympics squad
Good one
Not seen anything in olmo that made me say wow so far in the tournament
Gbat
“The build up has been so slow and a huge part of this has been having a back five that aren’t the most comfortable on the ball and unable to get it forward quickly”
Yes, spot on. Watching us play out was scary at times. Speed through transition is essential, no good fixing the midfield areas if we’re still going to be unable to pass it quickly or break the press. It’s the brake & tyre analogy I made earlier.
I will keep an eye out today my kid thinks he is good but he is the FIFA generstion
Gbat
“I think Ben White will be a quality signing. Expensive, yes. But that’s the going rate for English players”.
Again, you are right. You buy what you need and if that type of player commands a higher fee it is what it is. You don’t fix a six-inch square hole with a 6-inch round bung just because you’ve already got five of them.
Raptora
That long pass for the fifth Spain goal ( I think it was 5th ) was pure filth . He Reminds me a bit of Fabregas and Cazorla . Considering his age looks a future Star though. Only 23 .
Mr. Serge
He made the difference against Croatia in ET. He has unbelievable passing range , is a workhorse and good with both feet . I would say he is more similar to ESR and Saka , but with line breaking passes .
Would he cost more than ode ? Divine
Leicester City showing us up in the transfer market by the looks of it
Mr. Serge
Yeah going solely by what Raptora said he has a release clause of £65mn . So yeah would cost more I guess.
Afternoon those of you in the UK and hello all others, Watching Maguire in this tournament — only the one or two games he’s played in — has made me appreciate the importance of a ball-playing centre-half. We can mock the way he looks and the fee of course, but I would gladly have him over any of our current centre-halfs. And that’s the point of Ben White. He gives you a different, more progressive way of playing. None of this tedious, boredom-inducing tippy-tappy bollix in and around our penalty area.. Might not work out, but there’s a plan which… Read more »
“We need better ball players at the back”
Forgive my naivety, but if somebody paid me 50-grand a week to develop or improve a skill I would find a way to achieve it
These are elite athletes pre-disposed to playing football, why is there such limited player development ?
Can’t ball-playing be coached?
And while I’m on my soapbox, why can’t Thomas P find an hour-a-day for shooting practice?
Daka and Soumare – good business by Leicester.
Bertrand not so much.
Ray: Agreed about TP and his shooting, but ball-playing centre-halfs? The old style defender: great at tackling, interceptions, clearances is one thing but to have all that combined with dribbling and passing skills is a very rare thing indeed, hence the price…
Dribbling skills and passing can’t be taught, the former at least, is much more innate
The vision for passing is not something that can be taught (of course passing can!)
Thanks for the feedback Matt…
then I would settle for CBs comfortable on the ball and for team-mates in front of them that don’t hide and make themselves readily accessible as receivers
Ray+in+LA Sorry but you are naive Ray. Coach someone to be another Ronaldo, Messi or VVD if it’s that easy. You want us to turn Maitland Niles into Tierney? So why spend £50m, £75m or £100m on players when a decent coach can turn one they already have into what they want? Blaming the coach because he can’t get a centre back to play through the press and make fast decisions is utter nonsense. You can improve players to a certain extent but you can’t turn Theo Walcott into Theirry Henry if you had twenty years and a bag of… Read more »
Thomas Parteys legs are scrawny, little surface area to connect with the ball, at 27 he will Not become good at it.
Dani Olmo did well in last Spain game. Will keep and eye on him today.
Woke up and reading that Saliba is withdrawing from France Olympics team. Wonder what that means? I hope he fights for his place here and proves Mike wrong
Sid
“Thomas Partey’s legs are scrawny, little surface area to connect with the ball”
Ha, ha.
New post
Guns
For me personally Dani Olmo > Buendia.
AFC Turn anybody into another Messi simply by coaching 🙂 Well, that’s one extreme…here’s the other So none of the players that currently play for Arsenal could be improved even by the best coaching available? I find that also hard to believe Also I think some of the midfield [in particular] hide during games and making themselves better targets to receive the ball would make it easier for the CBs to play out The vids on White emphasise how Phillips and other team mates create space and passing opportunities for him White in our current system would not be an… Read more »
Our first signing…….oh wait…….
https://www.arsenal.com/news/nikita-parris-joins-club
Michael Oliver. Best of British (English to be factual). Had a lot of hope for him at the start but he has turned out to be as bad as the worst of them. That was not a red card offence