My life is coronavirus roulette at the moment, I am on a plane again keeping a VERY close eye on anyone sniffling. I’m also not happy about the ‘too good to share your air’ crew with their statement face masks. I have substantial doubts that a $1 mask you bought for $50 on eBay is saving you from this.
So what do we have for you today?
KIKE MARIN DROPPED A BIG HINT THAT ARSENAL HAVE SEALED DEALS FOR TWO PLAYERS.
He responded to an AFTV tweet and said we’ve made moves already, and they are good players. For reference, his taste levels are that Cedric and Mari are not Arsenal level. So hopefully that means the names we have lined up are absolutely a-grade prime meat.
Now, I’m not one for idle speculation, but one would imagine we’ve either sealed deals for players with buyout clauses, or players that have limited months left on their contracts. Upemacano seems like it could be a thing, then I wonder if maybe we’ve signed Timo Werner. The Timo thing is just because I think he’s a good striker and I hear he has a reasonably low buyout. Total speculation on my part, but his game would suit Mikel.
One thing is for sure, the club has to move fast so we don’t get caught in the Euro 2020, ‘the player can’t talk until after they see if their value spikes to unreasonable levels of hypeflation.’
To live in a more grounded world, the positives that we can take from this is that Arteta is more than aware of what he needs to do this summer, and he’s in lockstep with Edu. I hope Arsenal is as aggressive at moving players in as they are at moving them out. I wonder whether part of the deal he had with certain players centered around the quid pro quo of: ‘You stay with me for 5 months, I’ll get you playing better and help you find a better club this summer.’
I struggle to see Auba staying on another year. Not so much because I worry about his age, more because I see him as one of the few genuine bartering chips we have this summer. We could land £50-60m for him, or we could use him as a bartering chip for someone like Coutinho.
Lacazette will still have appeal, regardless of his form. The guy has a solid track record of scoring and I wouldn’t be shocked to see a club from Spain or France come knocking for his services again. Fee is debatable, but if we can get £40m for Iwobi, at a minimum we should be recouping our outlay. I mean Spurs dropped nearly £60m on Ndombele and he still doesn’t have the right level of fitness and we’re in February. There is more than enough money flowing in the world of football to get what we need out of this summer. Then it’s about how we spend it, keep the wage bill sensible, and pray to the footballing gods Arteta can gel them in time for next season.
We should be competing for top 4 next season. Chelsea aren’t that much better than us and I don’t think Lampard is elite. City are in a bit of a mess with the very real potential of losing Pepe. United are looking at replacing Ole with Southgate, need I say more? Spurs will go the way all Jose teams do, but faster. So that creates an opening for us to scrape 4th.
All dependent on how effective our summer is… we have 14 players with question marks over their heads. Quite astonishing how we keep landing ourselves here. At least we have clear leadership in the dugout now.
Right, short post today, see you in the comments. x
