Theo Walcott: Page 70 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Theo Walcott

asajoseph

If he won't sign I don't really care if he leaves in January or May.

We may get a little money in January, but there's a smaller pool of 'available' players, so it's really a case of 6 of one....

yuv

otfgoon wrote:
Claudius wrote:
Asa, this is true.
I'm in two minds about this.
1) Walcott is one of our better players. I do not want us to sell our better players.
2) Walcott is actually not a very good player. I would rather we sold such players and brought in better quality.

Why not keep such players and still bring in better quality?

But there's no dilemma, even if otf's suggestion falls for spending limit: the matter is settled with the quality of replacement available. It is that simple in this case. If we get a better replacement - rejoice. If none available (within our spending range, etc.) - keep. No two minds here.

It only starts looking complicated when we factor in the fact the we don't trust our transfer policy, or sincere intention to replace. But that should just point at the latter option: no replacement - keep.
Which is what we should really do.

Claudius

Yuv, that is the logical thing: we should keep Walcott because we are unlikely to bring in a better replacement.
But that just points to an illogical underlying transfer policy. 3 years ago if you'd told me that Walcott would be one of the more important 'veterans' on the squad, I'd have told you to lay off the crack. But it has come to pass

yuv

That is also why we suspect the transfer policy so much that it seems to baffle us - though we see where it has brought us, we are no longer happy ourselves to do the optimal thing (it's a bit of a "stockholm syndrome" - we endorse the routine that highjacked us). Even stranger is that it actually starts making sense - letting all our best players go leaves the Walcott type on top, and now it just doesn't make sense to let him go (improve from the top, not bottom).

Sounds (and is) crazy, but there's little logical confusion: in the end what we want, and what we should do given the real options is not so confusing. The crazy shit is really just determining what our real options are (cos we can't make up simple things like how much we want to spend; what we really want to achieve, what's the plan, etc. - stuff that usually are beyond debate and more or less common knowledge).

goon

Claudius wrote:
Yuv, that is the logical thing: we should keep Walcott because we are unlikely to bring in a better replacement.
But that just points to an illogical underlying transfer policy. 3 years ago if you'd told me that Walcott would be one of the more important 'veterans' on the squad, I'd have told you to lay off the crack. But it has come to pass

3 years ago his competition on the wing was Eboue. The only thing that's changed is he's gotten better since then. But relative to his position, his value to the squad hasn't really changed.

Claudius

I'm talking relative to the squad as a whole when there were significantly better players on our roster.

goon

Irrelevant when in comes to whether or not we can let a player of his quality go. Don't think we had significantly better players back then either. van Persie probably the biggest difference and even he wasn't the player he is today.

Claudius

We probably did not have many more players back then who were better than Walcott. The difference is we had van Persie and Fabregas, the pair of whom fetched us over 60 million pounds on the market

I guess right now, an honest assessment is that Wilshere, Mertesacker, Arteta, Sagna and Cazorla are definitely better than Walcott. But none of them are in the Fabregas / van Persie class, so Walcott becomes relatively more important

banduan

If United do get Theo, I'm not sure what I'd think. Probably would have something to do with the look on Lagos face. What would it be like?

Biggus

You'd imagine the new manager would want to do a clean out anyway.

Burnwinter

If we change manager there will be a number of players who've been protected under Wenger who would be "transitioned" out of the club.

Bit like what's happening at Pool. Excruciating process that takes a season or more where you still have to watch half of them running around proving anew that they're a bit shit.

Bold Tone

How many Wengsters are there in our first team squad that most new managers would turf out asap!

Burnwinter

Bradford match day squad ...

Keep:
Wojciech Szczesny
Per Mertesacker
Kieran Gibbs
Jack Wilshere
Santi Cazorla
Mikel Arteta
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Bin:
Marouane Chamakh
Sebastien Squillaci
Vito Mannone
Yao Kouassi Gervinho

Question marks:
Francis Coquelin
Carl Jenkinson
Aaron Ramsey
Thomas Vermaelen
Lukas Podolski

Getting too old / probably leaving:
Bacary Sagna
Tomas Rosicky

MuswellHillGooner

That is too drastic. I would add Sagna, Podolski, Jenks, Ramsey, Coquelin and Mannone to the "keep" list and dump the rest including Diaby who got a "3 week injury" in September and is still not back in December

Burnwinter

Sure - the presumption is the "Question Marks" list includes a few you'd certainly keep, but some Wenger successors probably wouldn't persist with all of them depending on their outlook.

I think pretty much any manager without an infinite bankroll would at least begin by pencilling in that "Keep" list.

I'd keep Sagna, but I think he's 90% likely to be off. Not on the merch calendar, panned the management, repeatedly spoken of as a concern by Wenger. Less likely to stay at Arsenal than Theo in my opinion.

Looking at that list (and considering our other players) the most obvious thing is that we have a gaping defect in the forward three at the moment. Not a single dependable forward who wants to stay at the club. Strongly hope for a serious forward signing in winter.

Claudius

Made one or two changes, increasing the trash pile.

Keep:
Wojciech Szczesny
Per Mertesacker
Kieran Gibbs
Jack Wilshere
Santi Cazorla
Mikel Arteta
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Bacary Sagna

Bin:
Marouane Chamakh
Sebastien Squillaci
Vito Mannone
Yao Kouassi Gervinho
Francis Coquelin
Thomas Vermaelen

Question marks:
Carl Jenkinson
Aaron Ramsey
Lukas Podolski

Getting too old / probably leaving:
Tomas Rosicky

Burnwinter

Yeah, don't think I'd trash Vermaelen personally. He's pretty disastrous on a regular basis at the moment, but could easily flourish under a new manager.

Not too keen on Coquelin but it's too early to write him off, surely.

Claudius

We can keep him around as squad depth.
My big concern about Vermaelen is that he is captain and largely rubbish in his games. Of course, like Podolski, Ramsey and others, he can play better and maybe a new manager can assist him in that regard

Burnwinter

We all know there's a better player than "largely rubbish" there when it comes to Vermaelen. He's underperforming at the moment and it needs fixing.

Claudius

Wenger has killed the team's confidence. So many players are playing with no belief whatsoever.

We can complain all we want about the transfer market, but a lot of our games this season have nothing to do with our spending. All the games in which we have failed to score against minor teams in the Premier League. This week's Carling Cup clash. Those games are not about squad quality. They're about coaching - tactics, man management, etc.

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