The Wishlist: Page 629 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

The Wishlist

Klaus

We also have to consider the economic hit that football clubs are taking right now. We might have to keep everyone simply because we can neither sell them nor afford to buy anyone new.

Qwiss

If only we had a billionaire owner who could bail us out

Claudius

That fool will probably be sunk by corona. It’s bad enough that he’s significantly over budget on his stadium. Now he will probably have to de-mob his construction crews for at least 3 months. Given his run rates, that could be another $100-300m of cost he wasn’t planning on

lorddulaarsenal

—————-Leno
Dumfries-Saliba-Gabriel-Saka
————-Partey
——-Sabitzer—Kokcu
Pepe———————Barnes
———-Auba/Martinelli

Anzac

with the talk of Coutinho and Griezmann being offered on loan...

433
Edouard
Griezmann - Pepe
Coutinho - Sabitzer
Chambers
Tierney - Mari - Luiz - Bellerin
Leno

4231
Edouard
Griezmann - Coutinho - Pepe
Sabitzer - Chambers
Tierney - Mari - Luiz - Bellerin
Leno

Klaus

Wouldn't touch either of them with a stick. They're old, overrated and expensive. Spending any kind of money on them is so much worse than just giving Aubameyang the pay bump he wants.

MistaT

Topped off by having Chambers as a DM, in a Wishlist of all places 😆

That would hardly cure the Xhaka blues.

Qwiss

Klaus wrote:
Wouldn't touch either of them with a stick. They're old, overrated and expensive. Spending any kind of money on them is so much worse than just giving Aubameyang the pay bump he wants.

If Auba will take a pay bump then give him the pay bump. Unfortunately I don't think he will take it.

Claudius

Klaus wrote:
Wouldn't touch either of them with a stick. They're old, overrated and expensive. Spending any kind of money on them is so much worse than just giving Aubameyang the pay bump he wants.

Isn’t Raul responsible for lumbering Barcelona with these ill-fitting players, Griezmanna and Coutinho. There was absolutely no strategy, no plan to fit these guys next to Messi and Suarez, along with Dembele. Raul is the kind of guy who walks into the club and gets the best table with the most bottles, just to attract attention from potential partners.

We need Edu and Arteta to describe a perfect team, have statDNA figure out how we deviate from this perfect team, have the scouts shortlist ideal players, and then send Raul to go find them. No more nonsense.

jones

Sanllehi was already here when those two signed for Barcelona. He might have been involved for Coutinho but it's not too likely, also he wasn't in charge of identifying targets anyway he was supposed to close the deals.

Wasn't it you who said the other day "people believe what they want to believe"? 😉

Claudius

jones wrote:
Sanllehi was already here when those two signed for Barcelona. He might have been involved for Coutinho but it's not too likely, also he wasn't in charge of identifying targets anyway he was supposed to close the deals.

Wasn't it you who said the other day "people believe what they want to believe"? 😉

I distinctly remember Raul leading Coutinho negotiations. This was a marquee deal for him.
You are right about Griezmann. I had just erroneously lumped it in based on his track record there. Happy?

Klaus

He was definitely involved in the Coutinho deal. I remember Barca fans goading us for giving him a job after that one. He sanctioned a £150 million transfer for that scrub. One of the worst deals in the history of football.

jones

Klaus wrote:
He was definitely involved in the Coutinho deal. I remember Barca fans goading us for giving him a job after that one.

What Barcelona fans? The decision to buy Coutinho was clearly made by his bosses.

The one Barcelona fan I know thought he's one of the very few capable people on their board in the last decade. Apparently he was key to getting Neymar in 2013 and was also key to Neymar not leaving for PSG in 2016 already, that's also what I found in Spanish sports outlets.

Claudius

I’m looking at Transfermakt. In 2016 after their transfer ban, Barcelona lost Neymar. Just as Raul had done well to bring him in (while making off book payments), he got a good £200m off PSG.

But then he went on a spending streak that would make you blush, blowing 2.5x that on players like Coutinho, Dembele, Digne, Turan, Vidal, Gomes, Semedo and Paulinho. Dembele can blame injuries and ill-discipline for failing to pan out but even his purchase fee was at least 50% over valued. And the rest, maybe you can explain where the ROI was in that transfer spree.

jones

Again, why do you think it's Sanllehi who decides what players to buy?

Neymar left Barcelona in 2017. The Marca article I was talking about is also available in English

https://www.marca.com/en/football/barcelona/2017/07/24/5976454dca4741747f8b45f4.html

Who knows how much of that is true anyway. Sanllehi himself deciding to spend hundreds of millions on poor signings definitely doesn't look like it is at least to me.

Claudius

anyone who knows the Barcelona structure knows that he was not responsible for picking the players. The technical guys made the recommendations to him. So guys like Txiki would’ve played more of the technical role of liaising with the manager to align on strategy and targets. And then Raul was charged with completing the deals. And he came back with lots of terrible deals in both directions during that period.

You can’t absolve him of responsibility for bad deals because technical recommendations were made by 3rd parties. Everybody has to deliver value in a well-functioning system.

Klaus

I'm not going to pretend that I know a lot about Barcelona's organisational structure, but Coutinho was a stinking piece of business and everyone could see it before he had kicked a ball at Camp Nou. They bought a £30 million player for five times the fee.

The fact that Raul was so integral to the Neymar deal which was laden with corruption everywhere doesn't reflect well on him either in my opinion.

lorddulaarsenal

Just wishing that we’ll see a transfer window somewhere in the not too distant future

Claudius

Klaus wrote:
I'm not going to pretend that I know a lot about Barcelona's organisational structure, but Coutinho was a stinking piece of business and everyone could see it before he had kicked a ball at Camp Nou. They bought a £30 million player for five times the fee.

The fact that Raul was so integral to the Neymar deal which was laden with corruption everywhere doesn't reflect well on him either in my opinion.

Yup. I’m still annoyed that Gazidis somehow got Raul and Sven into a tangle. For our growth phase, the guy we really needed was Sven. If he had time to organize his principles, integrate the analytics guys, improve how we work the scouting network etc, I think we’d be getting bang for buck. Then you can always fill the gaps with one or two £70m signings.

Anzac

Qwiss! wrote:
Klaus wrote:
Wouldn't touch either of them with a stick. They're old, overrated and expensive. Spending any kind of money on them is so much worse than just giving Aubameyang the pay bump he wants.

If Auba will take a pay bump then give him the pay bump. Unfortunately I don't think he will take it.

I've seen articles saying he/his agent wants 300k/week.
Also read that he's our only player of any decent value atm, and it may be the greater good to sell and rebuild - provided we do it effectively (in which case I'd hope they work very closely to Arteta re what he needs).

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