Add to that the left over funds from last season.

Its pretty much business as usual only we have a bit more to spend. RVP replaced by Giroud. Chamack replaced by Podolski. Walcott by Santi. And possibly Song to be replaced by Sahin.

Song is a dimwit if he thinks hes better of at barca, he likes attacking more than defending. At barca he'll be way back the pitch on the rare occasion he plays. There looking for someone to fill the bench role left by Yaya and Keita.

If Song does want to leave we really should replace him now and let him fight with Sahin for the role.

Wrt the monies, maybe we are a little surprised wenhave brought in a few excellent players. But after the heavy criticism for last year, you might expect the club to react quickly and bring replacements in before we sell.

What's hugely encouraging is that we don't want to sell; we are actually looking to strengthen and keep our best players. If Van Persie didn't feel the club were serious about holding him to his contract, he wouldn't have pushed forward trying to make his position at the club untenable.

Actions do speak louder than words and if we sell to man city now, the extent of the improvement is limited. But hugely encouraging signs that the club is looking to build and have a serious crack at challenging the Manchester clubs. Is it linked to FFP or am expected gain in sponsorship money? I don't know, but there's definitely something strategic about this summer - as if the club were waiting to pounce.

Maybe Wenger finally found the Adebayor and Toure money in a sports bag under his bed or something.

Fantastic.Mr.Fox wrote:

Same with the guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk//football/2012/aug/07/arsenal-arsene-wenger-nuri-sahin?mobile-redirect=false

Turkish football reported the Sahin link way before any of the papers, doubt he is a Song replacement. We were always linked to a more defensive minded midfielder, think it's more of a case of Song being injured/ needing to be rotated than sold.

Read this earlier and I think its just a case adding 2 stories together to have something new to write. Look at the guy who wrote it, who the hell is he? And how does he know what Arsene Wenger is planning.

My opinion is that we are really only getting Podolski and Cazorla because they could be had for extremely decent fees.

I think we have a massive list of players Wenger likes and if any of them come at the right price at the right moment we'll go for them.

Of course. We usually don't have a chance at high profile players like Cazorla and Podolski though. I think those two were pretty high on that list, and we usually have to settle for players a bit further down.

In the case of Cazorla and Podolski we were also tuned into the situations at their respective clubs and made sure we were first line as soon as the opportunity came up. Nicely done!

I think we do often have a decent shot at players of that sort of profile, we just usually dither around for so long that we miss out.

We have a shot at any player in the world!*

*as long as Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan and one or two others are not involved

General Mirth wrote:

We have a shot at any player in the world!*

*as long as Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan and one or two others are not involved

If I take AC Milan out of that list I agree.

Madrid wanted Cazorla, Utd wanted Podolski, Chelsea wanted Giroud etc, etc

Get in early, sell the club to them, get the agent on side and negotiate quickly and aggressively with the players club. Simple formula, just one that we rarely seem to follow.

timBO! wrote:

Masdrid wanted Cazorla, Utd wanted Podolski, Chelsea wanted Giroud etc, etc

Get in early, sell the club to them, get the agent on side and negotiate quickly and aggressively with the players club. Simple formula, just one that we rarely seem to follow.

Well you have to recognise that other clubs are hardly going to sit still in the meanwhile, they're bound to do the same. Particularly for players they're desperate to sign.

they also have the advantage of launching a late bid promising higher wages and fees and completely negate any early bird advantage.

I'm not so sure of that timBO- I look at how the we lose our best players to the likes of Barca, Chelsea, City and now United and it seems to me a fairly clear pointer to the fact that if any of those clubs truly want to gazump us at any stage in our negotiations with another club they could, and would.

We'd probably have a slight edge in some sense with signing younger players given our track record in allowing them playing time with the first team.

Quality players are on the move every transfer window for reasonable fees and wages, and only a few end up at the aforementioned clubs. There are also even fewer players that the aforementioned clubs are willing to go to 'gazumping' lengths for. We are notoriously slow and difficult in the transfer market, and as such miss out on a lot of these players.

I dont see what there is to disagree with.

Right - though I thought you were disagreeing with GM and his theory that we have a shot at signing any player as long as United, City, Chelsea, Barca, Madrid and AC Milan were not interested.

I don't disagree that quality players are available at a reasonable price during every transfer window.

Don't think we are much slower than other clubs in the transfer market. We just pay attention to what happens regarding Arsenal in a way we don't really do with other clubs. Look at Kagawa to Man U, or indeed RVP to Man U...

y va marquer wrote:

Right - though I thought you were disagreeing with GM and his theory that we have a shot at signing any player as long as United, City, Chelsea, Barca, Madrid and AC Milan were not interested.

No, dont disagree with GM on that. The high profile elite players are always going to be incredibly difficult for us simply because of finances. That said, I think we could bag a real elite player in the right circumstances.