I'd say Wenger is cheaping out yet again, and using public opinion that is heavily biased in favor of Vardy at this moment in time to his advantage in doing so.

He may score a trillion goals for us and lead us to the title, and I'd love it, and he'd become an absolute legend of English football and Ian Wright would be doing backflips of joy week in and week out. In such a case, then Wenger would just have actually gotten away with it for once.

IMO this signing is very much AW finally addressing the NOW as opposed to the future.

It may well be that he thinks that this season will indeed be the last opportunity to win the title for some time once the BIG boys get themselves sorted, and he may intend to spend to both challenge for the title and then go into another conservative period ahead of a potential last contract before he departs and the squad needs rebuilding.

Personally not sure on this transfer don't think it's the right fit for us. Vardy's success was built on a team that was not dominating games. At Arsenal it will be very different and Vardy will have to play a totally different style and one that we don't know if he's capable of.

How is paying 20m for a 29yr old on 100k plus cheaping out? Wenger cheaping out is when he doesn't sign players like this under the guise of waiting for a sure thing like Suarez. Don't want to potentially waste money.

mdgoonah41 wrote:

part of the problem is that every signing the club makes comes with incomplete information. we have no idea how the player will be utilized, how he will settle with his teammates, etc. we only know what the player did for his old team, what his form has been like the last few years, and what kind of player he is.

if you look at leicester last season and compare them to arsenal last season (and the last few seasons), they are two polar opposite teams. leicester played with 2 strikers and played very direct. we played with one striker and played much slower, deliberate build-up style football.

vardy has never played european football and has never played under the scrutiny of a huge transfer fee/wages. it is impossible to really know how he will adapt to arsenal the club as well as how he will adapt to playing in a completely different style of team.

Well that completely different style has failed utterly for the last 10 years so I'm hoping it will be discarded, and the signing of Xhaka and the possible signing of Vardy only makes sense if this is to be the case.
Xhaka seems like the typical adaptable intelligent footballer that can play in any system but as I said if Wenger has just bought Vardy to get him away from Leicester and stop other top sides getting him only to use him as a squad make weight in his failed shit brand of possession football he can fuck right off again.

Anzac wrote:

IMO this signing is very much AW finally addressing the NOW as opposed to the future.

He;s tried that before with suarez.

Btw, what are the steps now? What happens after we trigger somebody's clause? Everyone talking like we've already signed Vardy. 

He's in for his medical tomorrow.

wow, i feel like we missed a couple of steps. First we had to bid cheap, then be ridiculed, then buy a second tier player from a bullshit league. Looks like this thread is gonna close soon eh?

Coombs wrote:

I'd say Wenger is cheaping out yet again, and using public opinion that is heavily biased in favor of Vardy at this moment in time to his advantage in doing so.

He may score a trillion goals for us and lead us to the title, and I'd love it, and he'd become an absolute legend of English football and Ian Wright would be doing backflips of joy week in and week out. In such a case, then Wenger would just have actually gotten away with it for once.

I thought nobody was more cynical about Wenger and his motives than me. 😆

Look, you may be right and he'll play us the fools again and I'll feel worse for being sucked in at a time when I was detaching myself from this cul-de-sac.
But this signing (if it goes through) will be so stunningly anti-Wengerish that we must conclude that something new is up as regards his approach.

arsedoc md wrote:

wow, i feel like we missed a couple of steps. First we had to bid cheap, then be ridiculed, then buy a second tier player from a bullshit league. Looks like this thread is gonna close soon eh?

😆  Don't worry Arsedoc, we're all trying to keep up and figure this one out.

England fly out tomorrow so if this doesn't get sorted today we might miss out and end up looking like fools again.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
mdgoonah41 wrote:

that type of logic doesn't work for me. comparing him to a bad signing in the past doesn't mean he'll be a good signing. podolski, giroud and welbeck dont look like great signings now and they didn't look particularly great when we signed them.

I'm not talking about how they turned out or that he'll be a good signing. I'm asking you why this signing is unbelievable when the strikers we have recently signed have all been a level below.

ah okay, i misunderstood

All the speculation about Wenger's motives is a bit mind-boggling. If he's signing Vardy for £20m it's not exactly rocket science, the main thing is he's signing someone with demonstrated great movement and finishing ability.

I'm glad if there's any added urgency, because Blind Freddy (and one would hope Wenger) can see we need to try to capitalise on this generation of our squad before it dissolves.

I'm not 100% convinced Vardy is the kind of striker we really need, but it's a fucking relief to see Wenger making early transfer moves rather than dithering like an old fool.

Agree with Daz n awooga.

Vardy is the last person I'd have thought would've been on a Wenger shortlist, but he's better than no one (or Welbeck), so hey.

goon wrote:

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.

Is anybody still doubting whether this is true at the moment? 😆

I don't understand the concern that Vardy isn't the CF we need, and I think people are getting too hung up on the relative styles of play and aren't seeing the forest for the trees.

In many ways I suspect that Vardy is being signed for similar reasons as to Ozil. Most thought/think of Ozil for his assists, but I don't think AW has ever talked about this other than in terms of our lack of efficiency. IIRC AW talked of Ozil in terms of his efficiency with the ball in the final 3rd and his technical abilities on the ball as an ability to help retain control and possession.

Similary with Vardy everyone is thinking of how Leicester played compared to our style last summer, and not of the attributes of Vardy as a player = pace, directness, movement, determination, work rate and finishing. If Giroud was essentially signed as a Plan B option, then Vardy is a combination of the best attributes of the players AW has looked at to become the Plan A options - Podolski, Walcott & Welbeck. As such I suspect that Vardy is very much the style of CF AW has wanted for Plan A since RVP departed, and we may be about to see what the Plan A was intended to be for the first time since RVP's departure.

I also note that we have been linked to several Plan B types in Janssen, Slimani and Colak, and I wonder if AW will enable Giroud to depart to play as the Plan A at another club.

goon wrote:

How is paying 20m for a 29yr old on 100k plus cheaping out? Wenger cheaping out is when he doesn't sign players like this under the guise of waiting for a sure thing like Suarez. Don't want to potentially waste money.

Because 20m is nothing in today's market, and the real top strikers out there will likely go for much, much more. If they go, that is. Still fair to say that this might be a great bit of business depending on how the rest of the window goes and who moves where. Just feels like Vardy for 20 million, considering the current state of things, will be a disappointment if someone like, say, Aubameyang or Benzema, goes to a rival. 

Sure it doesn't look likely that something like that would happen. But this deal for Vardy, if it goes through, isn't going to make me lay back and relax while the rest of 'em get their business done.

Now if Wenger went out and got James on top of Vardy, then I'd say we had an unbelievable summer. Vardy as our only attacking signing is underwhelming, though.

arsedoc md wrote:
Anzac wrote:

IMO this signing is very much AW finally addressing the NOW as opposed to the future.

He;s tried that before with suarez.

Btw, what are the steps now? What happens after we trigger somebody's clause? Everyone talking like we've already signed Vardy. 

Normally if a club triggers a release clause then the next step is usually to speak to the player to agree terms.
That said AW's usual strategy is to enquire if a player is available and then to seek permission to speak with the player to agree terms before a bid is made.
If Vardy is en route for a medical then it would suggest that terms have been agreed - possibly before the bid was made to activate the release clause.