Rex wrote:

Götze came to prominence at Dortmund. The same Dortmund side which was a breath of fresh air in Europe at the time because of their mad pressing and quick, counter attack football. Götze was an integral player in that side. To say that he is a passing drone only suited for possession football is well wide of the mark.

None of which is currently relevant to the way we play at AFC, and Gotze will not change that unless we sign a CF like Vardy which was my point about balance & capability/options.

When used as CF Gotze plays more like a false9/deep forward rather then looking to make runs off the ball and exploit space.
He's only hit double figures in the league 2 seasons and is basically a 1 in 4 - 1 in 3 goal scorer, which is not really good enough in a front4 when you don't bring anything different to what we already have on the table.

Yes he's an upgrade in quality but he's not anything different.  IMO Gotze is more of the likes of Cazorla or Wilshere than Rambo or Walcott / Ox, let alone a genuine goal scorer like Sanchez.
If he's going to be signed to improve the quality then sell whomever he replaces and bring in someone who provides something different.

TBH I think I'd rather have Turan.

Turan averages like 3 league goals per season as an attacking mid (maybe that was your point).

A 1 in 3 goalscorer who brings the team up a level in terms of passing in the final third would be a dream right now. We really need someone accomplished on the wing who can put a ball with the right weight to the right address under pressure, who can provide more passing angles for his teammates, and is technically good enough to win challenges.

People have been laying into our defence, but the way our forwards annoyingly keep losing the ball in that vital moment when the rest of the team pushes forward is our single biggest flaw. We're exposing ourselves to a dozen counters per game or so, and without checking I bet we're near the top of such statistics in Premier League. The solution isn't just to get better defenders. It's part of it, but the biggest improvement is to stop misplacing the bloody ball when opponents are trying to close you down. You need players who are comfortable in congested spaces. Only two players at Arsenal fit that description last season, and one of them didn't have the legs anymore to play higher up the field.

Not disputing any of that, just that I'd prefer someone who offers something different as opposed to an improvement on more of the same of what we already have available.

Don't get me wrong I rate Gotze however atm IMO he's a luxury upgrade on Cazorla & Wilshere that should see both benched and/or sold. Likewise he doesn't improve our goal scoring numbers, pace or directness unlike either Mkhitaryan or Mahrez.

Gotze improves the quality of what we already do, but he doesn't bring anything new or different and nor does he replace the likes of Walcott / Ox. As such he does not improve the team in any position, role or capability that needs to be prioritised.

I don't get it, frankly. If you disregard this season, which is fair enough considering Götze has hardly played, this is a guy who has scored 10, 10 and 9 league goals in his 3 seasons prior to this one. In the same time frame he has 19 league assists. Predominantly from the wing. I don't know what kind of expectations you have, but that is a very good return from a wing player in my book, and especially so from a player who turned 24 a few months ago. On top of that he is a proper footballer. I'd take Götze over Mkhitaryan every day of the week tbh.

Still think he's end up at Arsenal. Raiola is just playing games...

Di Marzio saying deal to Man Utd is close now.

fits the joe cole/willian mould of a grafting, transitional attacking mid. unfortunately i think he'll be a solid signing for them

Yeah - am a huge fan. Don't know if we were just priced out or AW doesn't like this kind of player. Maybe the latter.

will be an unfortunate miss this. we better have a decent AM up our sleeves.

Fuck

We don't need him. We have Ramsey.

BWoolley wrote:

Yeah - am a huge fan. Don't know if we were just priced out or AW doesn't like this kind of player. Maybe the latter.

Talk of him having a much better contract offer than what we offered. Man Utd are desperate so they will be throwing around money to sign players.

This window starting to get the usual vibe to it.

goon wrote:

This window starting to get the usual vibe to it.

Especially when it's Mourinho stealing both the 1st choice AND the most likely replacement.

Don't know how much truth is in this. but twitter claims he is getting 2,00,000 pound a week at Utd. AFC offer was 100,000 a week

EDIT: Maybe that is why Dortmund are playing hardball. There were earlier prepared to let him go for much less..

According to "Sky Sources" a fee of 26M has been agreed between United and Dortmund. So much for this transfer.

Kagawa MK2

That's a decent fee, but no way we would pay this guy 200k a week (if that figure is true).