He's got this technique to win penalties.

It works most of the time until he got sent off.

We need more cynicism in our front line too. Far too often we get fouled and don't do enough to get the penalty. Time for that to change.

Vardy and Xhaka? Not exactly what I hoped for, but I guess they will improve (slightly) our first team.

Not seen enough of Xhaka, but Vardy will improve our frontline immediately and considerably.

In England it's not like you need to play good football to win the league. The more goalscorers in your team, the better. That's how Ferguson won all those titles at United.

innervisionscm wrote:

In England it's not like you need to play good football to win the league. The more goalscorers in your team, the better. That's how Ferguson won all those titles at United.

Yep. Midfield is overrated. Good defenders and strikers are more important.

We have been calling out for a proper striker for 4 fucking seasons now. And now we are signing the reigning writers poty and top scorer in the league. Can't be bad. Those being put off by his age also need to realise most top strikers are around this age now as well.

I feel more excited about this than any other signing since Ozil.

His age is less of an issue because we have a solid Giroud anyway. Its not like we need to play Vardy in every single game for 90 minutes. He didn't slow down much this season anyway, plenty of stamina.

Hope it does get wrapped up in the next few days now as has been predicted. It'll be a bit annoying if this drags on through the week, and dramatically annoying if it somehow falls through.

Ozil must be licking his lips at this prospect, someone to finish a good percentage of his chances created.

Need to jettison Walcott somehow, we've had him for long enough now.

If vardy doesn't knuckle down hell be injured in no time. To play a game every 3 days you have to be a world class athlete. Pissheads just don't recover between games and break down.

He won't be playing every game, there's plenty of situations where Giroud is a better choice as a starter.

He quit drinking according to the guy who said he turned up to training drunk. Basically he couldn't handle the jump from non-league to Championship and having all that money.

speedy wrote:

If vardy doesn't knuckle down hell be injured in no time. To play a game every 3 days you have to be a world class athlete. Pissheads just don't recover between games and break down.

No way he's still drinking a lot, his fitness was fantastic, always kept running and fighting 

The white Ian Wright !

Segway wrote:

The comparison to Ian Wright seems so apt. Chance = goal.

MD you forgot the most important stat: Goals scored.

goals was the first stat in the graphic, check again. they actually had similar per 90 rates, and vardy's rate of goals from penalties was much higher.

look, if we are ultimately paying £20m or less here and we can get 3 great seasons out of him, then of course im happy to do this. however, he has exactly 1 good season at the top level and there is a big difference between playing in a team like leicester, which set up to just counter and sit back, and playing in a team like arsenal where you are going to be going against 8-9 guys behind the ball at all times with no space to move into. he also played in a 4-4-2 last season, and playing with a strike partner has its definite advantages. here, if we persist with our dogshit formation/tactics, he'll be leading the line and have 2 CBs draped all over him for 90 minutes every week. hopefully he is up to the task, though i have my reservations.

Leicester didn't sit back all season. They did later on but in the first few months they played a more expansive style and Vardy was scoring plenty.

The issue with Vardy is that he can't really hold up play for us up front. We can't boot the ball up to him, which is why I think we'd need to play three central midfielders and four ball-playing defenders in order to accommodate him up front. We'd have to be able to deliberately build from the back on a consistent basis, and hit long balls to Alexis on the left.

Vardy's movement is excellent for our system though, I'm not sure where the concern on that front is coming from. He's a version of Walcott with better mentality, fitness, and finishing.

You still need to get behind a defense that sits back, it just requires sharper, more intelligent movement. And we counter all the time.

Don't get this version of Waclott thing at all. Walcott has proven he's not a striker and Vardy is very much a striker. Vardy doesn't go missing or get bullied out of games. They're both fast and English but thats about it.

I'm talking more in terms of keeping possession and building play before you play a final ball. We've relied heavily on Giroud and van Persie in the buildup in recent years.

We've got this guy called Ozil who I dunno seems half decent at building up play.

Just means you need to transition into a quicker more direct attack.

El Genio de Oviedo wrote:

speedy wrote:

If vardy doesn't knuckle down hell be injured in no time. To play a game every 3 days you have to be a world class athlete. Pissheads just don't recover between games and break down.

No way he's still drinking a lot, his fitness was fantastic, always kept running and fighting 

He's a piss head but he had 2 days off after every game/drinking session then back into training for the next game.

2 games a week is more than twice as tough as one game every 7 days.

innervisionscm wrote:

The issue with Vardy is that he can't really hold up play for us up front. We can't boot the ball up to him, which is why I think we'd need to play three central midfielders and four ball-playing defenders in order to accommodate him up front. We'd have to be able to deliberately build from the back on a consistent basis, and hit long balls to Alexis on the left.

Vardy's movement is excellent for our system though, I'm not sure where the concern on that front is coming from. He's a version of Walcott with better mentality, fitness, and finishing.

That is one thing we most certainly can do. Just keep booting it up there and he will chase it all day and sooner or later make something out of one of those hoofs.

Wenger doesn't sign players like that. If Vardy was that bad then people at Arsenal would know about it.

And we rarely boot it up to the guy up front anyway, Leicester have done it a lot more often so if anything he'll be a better fit if we really tried it.

Very excited about the news, big fan of Vardy. Hope he'll turn out better than the last English CF Wenger bought

est wrote:

The last couple of seconds 

Costa in 2 minds wether to continue his act or get up.

jones wrote:

And we rarely boot it up to the guy up front anyway, Leicester have done it a lot more often so if anything he'll be a better fit if we really tried it.

Very excited about the news, big fan of Vardy. Hope he'll turn out better than the last English CF Wenger bought

It'd be a massive failure if he's not better than Welbeck.

Don't think Welbeck really counts as a centre forward, which makes the last English CF Wenger bought the one and only Franny 'fox in the box' Jeffers. He kicked Phil Neville which makes him a hard act to follow.

Be just as big a failure if he's as bad as Jeffers

Apparently Ranieri has confirmed it is true we have activated the clause. Wow.

Apparently there's nothing on the site that everyone is crediting for the original source of the Ranieri quote. Regardless, it's pretty obvious that it's true at this point.

Who's Welbeck?

The most exciting part about all this for me is that we might be changing the way we play.
No more nonsense of holding the ball for the opposition until they decide to.take it from us and score.
I confess I haven't seen much of Shaka but by his own account this player also seems to have a very different attitude to the players "with potential" Wenger usually signs.
Hopefully these two add up to a new approach.

Yeah I was talking about Jeffers.

Very excited about this transfer. Won't post on here until it's signed, sealed and delivered.

Sicario wrote:

Won't post on here until it's signed, sealed and delivered.

I hope this transfer falls through.