Any great coach needs a few players to lean on for their character and commitment as well as their talent, which must be absolutely world class. Even if Arteta is a great coach, we won't get to know if we don't radically adjust our squad makeup.
I can see the transfer team is trying to make wholesale changes, but when they blow 72 million on Pepe, who is a cherry-on-top kind of a player, it really makes you wonder. I like him and I think he's got a big upside, but you can't build a team around him any more than you could around Kanu, for example.
I'm not sure who the right people are these days, or what the right people even look like. I don't think Mslintat was it at all, nor do I think Raul is the one either, necessarily. It has to come from an executive team that fully supports the coach, not their own ideas. That seems clear to me. Pep and Klopp need that as much as anyone, it can't be expected to work the other way around.
Honestly, when you look out across the football landscape, it's hard to see who these potential generational players are at the moment. It's mostly fading glory and money-grubbing kids. Liverpool is, annoyingly, an exception. PSG is such a joke, I can't take any of them seriously. There are a few out there but everyone knows them, is there anyone yet to be unearthed? Is it possible to work that way as a club anymore? It feels like if you do, you will spike up and down the table one year to the next, and I'm not sure I want that for Arsenal, nor do I think it should be our lot, really.
If we are going to play with 3 midfielders (crazy not to), we need to sign players like Partey, van de Beek, Grealish, and Skriniar all at once, while keeping Auba and the current loaners. I could accept an Upamecano or one of Dula's picks at CB I guess, and Sabitzer and David would be a decent signings as well.
Xhaka, Laca, Mikhi, Kola, Sok, Elneny, AMN, Ozil, Mavropanos, and Mustafi should all leave permanently. Holding can leave or stay, depending on what it's looking like. Chambers should've been sold when his stock was high, another bad move.
------------------Leno
Bellerin---Saliba---Skriniar---Tierney
----van de Beek------Partey
Pepe-----------Grealish--------Martinelli
---------------Aubameyang
So easily shifts into a 442 with Grealish out on the left, or drops into a 433 for the buildup with wingers holding their width (can use Nelson and Saka out wide as well). Nketiah is an able deputy, and Auba can still play out wide when needed. There's leadership here throughout the spine and in both fullback positions.
This is what our squad has to look like, if not the exact names. Guys like Luiz and Mari able to rotate in. Prospects like Saka, Nelson, Nketiah and co. trying to knock the door down. Torreira, Ceballos, and Guendouzi competing for midfield spots.
Wishlist...
It's always like this with us, but the truth is that when you have big personalities and big talents in the team, they pull everyone else up and make them look better than they are, and you can then go out and sell your duds for big money instead of cranking up their wages and getting stuck with them. Not all clubs have the platform to do that. Arsenal had and still have it, but we squander it year after year.
