My favourite evolution at Arsenal since Dec 2019, by far, is that Arteta just comes out and says:
GIVE ME PLAYERS
None of this ‘special talent’ nonsense. He wants bodies. He wants them yesterday.
I also like that he engineers the situation so he gets nicer things.
Ains in midfield? Sorry… he’s gone.
Jack Wilshere as a stop-gap? Sounds a bit poverty…
Auba second chance? Eddie minutes? Give Flo a go? Nahhh…
He wants new bodies because we’re short on his say so.
I don’t know where Arsenal keep pulling this money from, but who cares, if it’s there, let’s hope we spend it well.
The hottest of leads is Dusan Vlahovic. Italian media is reporting that Juventus is out of the race, outside that, there’s no one bigger than us that needs a striker, and there’s no one smaller than us that has the money.
It’s interesting to read the commentary on him, there’s a grubby trend online where people give defacto analysis on a player just based on data, without ever having watched the player. I saw a journo get his arse handed to him yesterday because he’d lazily looked at penalty stats to make an ill-informed generalization that the player is just another Nicolas Pepe. He was slammed by an actual analyst that has watched him a lot.
Data is only useful if you understand all the variables that go into it. Aaron Ramsdale didn’t register as an elite passer of the ball at Sheff U because he spent most of his time hoofing the ball. But Chris Wilder didn’t buy him to do that, but he couldn’t get his best defenders fit, so playing out the back fell to pieces. Good scouting fills in the data blanks. Similar thing happened with Ben White at Brighton, a cursory glance at basic data indicated he was small and not good in the air… but good scouting would have picked up that being false in the Championship when he played for Leeds. Clubs don’t sign players based on free public data and Youtube comps.
Arsenal will likely be in the business for a striker sub-24 years old. That means we’re signing someone to develop. Dusan is 21 years old, he’s far from the complete package, but the fact he’s breaking CR7 records so young says you have a talent on your hands if you can land him. He’s powerful, he works relentlessly, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest he can link play, and he’d certainly give us a power dynamic upfront we haven’t had since Adebayor left us way back when.
What I like is that the alternatives seem to be DCL and Isak. Similar frames, similar skills, similar age. We have a profile and it’s quite clear what Arteta thinks he lacks.
To land Dusan in January would be a massive coup for this season, but really, it just means that we hit the ground running for next season. I think that’s the reason we’re looking to buy a midfielder rather than sign Jack to a temp deal. We’re not going to be signing 100m ready-made midfielders, we’ll likely be picking someone up that’s been well scouted, that means we’ll need to coach them, and they’ll need to adapt. Arteta would prefer to have those players now, so next season, we go hard at our goals from day one.
I’d be very interested to know how much of this desire is grounded in reality versus Arteta pushing the board to make things happen for him. He wanted Tammy in the summer and wasn’t happy when that didn’t happen, and I’m still struggling a bit with the mechanics needed to make all this happen. Are we sell to buy? Is this another Josh K ‘gift’? What has to happen to get a decent midfielder and a player valued at £50m?
Anyway… as Josh would say, be excited. x
Bob – I agree. Eddies recent hatrick really helped the spotlight factor and kindled a lot of interest in him. Playing him today and a goal from him could easily be worth £10m + to us.
A lot of anti Arsenal comments emerging from the Vlahovic camp. It could be gamesmanship but Im really not sure we should be pursuing him with those views. I hope the link with Isak has more substance and we will probably get a much better deal there than Vlahovic or Ollie Watkins, a prospect that doesnt really excite me at all.
ManCity have been ‘keeping tabs’ on both Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta and Crystal Palace’s Patrick Vieira, with both managers ‘in their thoughts’ as a potential successor to Pep Guardiola if and when the time comes.
[via @TheAthleticUK]
Bob
My gut feeling is that a Brazilian CM would sit nicely with Edu on hand and our two Gabriel’s.
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Arsenal submit €25m transfer offer for Palmeiras’ Danilo.
I don’t think we should be buying Serbs. It’s just a whole lot of problems with the nationalist and racist shit. Look at the Djokavic controversy now.
As a club that is proudly and successfully diverse, the last thing Arsenal needs is this guy.
Isak injured his foot pretty badly in yesterdays game, think that rules him out as a signing this month atleast.
nice one Luteo, that was funny.
are Serbs known for being racist then Moray? if so some one will have to stage a hit on him and get Saka and the rest of the man dem to save his life.
It’s interesting that we have an obvious profile in mind for our new striker, yet we’re seemingly still pushing to keep Nketiah, who is the complete opposite?
Odegaard taking Patino under his wing, I like that.
So to answer your question, you could argue that a good performance today might tip the balance for a PL club to pay say £8m for him this month, compared to Arsenal potentially receiving nothing in the summer- therefore £8m!,
Bob
Fair point well made. Maybe a goal today would tip the scales in favour of an immediate sale but anyone looking to take him would already know his skills and worth and in my view would already be very very close to parting with that money but I do take your point. A goal today could seal the deal
Kolasinac is a Serb. Never had any issues with him off the forked that weren’t utterly heroic.
I think the only club spending this window will be Newcastle. I remember we did very well selling our old players off to City when they came into money. Their defence was the AFC retirement home for a while.. I wonder if we could do the same with Newcastle?
Kola is a case in point. He was involved in the Ozil, Mustafi cabal that had to be torn out.
I want to respond to the usual critics of my posts. Yesterday I suggested that Arsenal’s fixture list post January will be mainly one game each week unless games are postponed due to Covid and/or injuries. I made the case that we could offload a small number of unwanted players. Points to consider are: 1. We are and have been playing in recent times with a fairly settled starting team. 2. Smith-Rowe who is sitting at the moment on bench is taking up one of sub places. 3. We are therefore playing with a maximum of two additional sub options.… Read more »
Personally.gut feeling is forget the Serb.His entourage appear to be a bit mercenary & clearly think they’re going to get a bigger club & maybe by playing hardball will get Juventus( vlahovic) choice.who Fiorentina hate & don’t want to deal with.
I’d go with Issac.But priority is the midfield which Arteta himself has identified.Agree with Tony’s assessment.Bruno would be a better fit & price & more to his game.Lets hope he is the no1 target now.
Watching Danilos comp on YouTube makes it looks like the blokes playing and running on quicksand..so excruciatingly and frustatingly slow..hope we dont get anywhere near him
Awaiting moderation? Why?
Forget Vlahovic Him & his advisers clearly think they can do better & are playing hardball trying to force through the Juve transfer.Fiorentina don’t want Juve who they hate.
Isak a far better fit for our system as is Bruno Guimares for CM as per Tony’s assessment which is spot on.
absolute priority at present is a CM.And Buzzy is correct.Stay well away from Danilo.Deckchair Denilson vibes.
Kola is Bosnian and muslim, Serbs are orthodox. Hence the clashes between them
For all the arm chair scouts, there were many slating Tierney white and ramsdale beifre you’d ever really watched them play so id advise giving some time on the links with lads like Danilo before wrtingthem off completely, for your own sake.
I’ve finally contracted Covid. It isn’t the Omicron but Delta, hiding out in my room – atleast the match tonight will keep me entertained.
Strange that I’ve exact same symptoms of I had when I was vaccinated.