Griezman is also younger and could improve. I don't see Vela getting any better at this stage.

I couldn't understand us signing Vela when it looked nailed on. He's just not what we need.

Klaus wrote:

I think Griezmann provides more of what we need personally.

Exactly, while he is a good player signing Vela makes no sense to me. Us threatening to activate his clause was probably just to scare them into coughing up what we want. Even if we did activate it there is no guarantee he would he would even join us especially if the rumours of us wanting to then sell him are true.

It isn't about who the better player is individually but who is the better suited for us. Just like with Fabregas no point bringing back players who represent good value when we don't even need them.

The difference between Griezmann and Vela is minimal, I can understand getting Vela and getting someone capable of playing wide for cheap and save funds for the striker/central midfielder.

We don't need depth out wide, we've got plenty of that. If we're going to sign someone it needs to be real quality or at least potentially that quality. Reus, Hazard, Sanchez, Robben etc who will take our attack to another level. Vela isn't at that level and in reality he'll add little value to the squad unless he's changed a lot more than I'm giving him credit for.

Yeah but wenger is not going to spend the amount to get a Reus, Sanchez etc and a striker of the required quality and a central midfielder which won't cost less than 20m. Wide player will have to be dealt with in January or next summer or a cheap alternative now.

Ideally if Wenger really spends I would go for Di Maria or cuadrado.

Agreed Rayman, Wenger could go out and buy one wc player this season & if a miracle happens he might buy 2... But 3 is pretty impossible. A striker and DM must be priority on that front. Vela could have been a good alternative for cheap price, but hey I'm all for a 30m winger if we get the first 2

Ricky1985 wrote:

Question is, would it have been moral to buy him for the £3.5m buy-out figure and immediately sell him to another club for £20m? Would Vela have even agreed to that? Probably not. Think we've got about as much as we could out of him.

Arseblog reported that the clause states we can't sell him for at least a year if we buy him back which makes sense

Don't need him no more. Got Joel!

Getting 9m extra out of Vela is great business. He wasn't worth much when he first went to Sociedad and he doesn't offer much to improve our current team. Put it all in the Cavani pot.

Ye happy with that. He'd be useful here but its smarter to take the money.

Usually, you'd rather have the money, but not in Wenger's hands. Low hanging fruits spurned: Wenger better have a plan

He is going to play as a striker and be world class.

Judge him at the end of "the" season.

Holding out for more money from Sociedad does suggest he's building a kitty for a major purchase.

It's not great but it's no bad thing if we're up nearly £14m this summer without a single change to our squad. We simply have to spend it now.

What, a kitty on top of the £140m we have in the bank?

We still have the cash from selling Kolo Toure and Adebayor sitting in a bank in london for fuck sakes.

Burnwinter™ wrote:

Holding out for more money from Sociedad does suggest he's building a kitty for a major purchase.

It's not great but it's no bad thing if we're up nearly £14m this summer without a single change to our squad. We simply have to spend it now.

This makes no sense. We supposedly have a massive cash reserve and could spend close to £100 mill on players if we wanted/needed to. I don't think these sales have anything to do with who or when we buy. We're just dithering as usual, while Wenger is waiting for possible bargains...