I think Manolas was the biggest miss last summer. That was our Kos replacement. We're not going to find anyone even remotely that good in the next couple of years. Roma ended up selling him cheap too. He signed a pre-contract with Inter in January for €21 million, and they're a direct rival. You'd have to think the £35 million we paid for Mustafi would have gotten the deal done 6 months prior.

We could still get him Klaus, I don't think the Inter deal is locked in. They're looking at Rudinger and other young CBs right now.

Koscielny's ankle is fucked. So we better be looking around for a replacement already. Especially if we plan to continue with 3 CBs.

speedy wrote:

Anzac wrote:

It also depends on your strategy in the market - AW has said more than once that he will not bid for a player who is not available either by his club or via a release clause.

We're are to nice but Valencia really didn't seem to want to sell mustafi but we kept at it. 

It's the other way round actually, we just didn't match their valuation and when we got desperate, we just paid what they wanted and got the deal done.

Peter Lim admitted as much he was looking to sell him.

We had to pay a crazy fee for him and we did. Everybody is available for a crazy fee this time we agreed to pay it for me that's the difference.

Looks like City has signed Bernardo Silva for 81m plus future add ons

£60m

Just £10m more than what Ozil cost 4 years ago. Pretty cheap.

If throwing out the deadweight that was Sagna and Clichy means also buying new fullbacks, they're looking great.

Clichy has been nicking a living for a decade. This guy is Bournemouth quality.

How good is Bernardo Silva then? Didn't really see much from him at all in the CL games.

Really? He looked pretty damn good in most of the games apart from the juve ones. Pretty much has all you'd ask for in a number 10.

Monaco showing how to operate getting tielemans in early as a replacement

Thought he was going to Yanited? I guess Greaseman it is for them.

I guess he's the replacement of the old Silva.

If there was anyone they desperately needed from Monaco, it's Fabinho. Apparently he wants to play right back again as well.

Bryant wrote:

I guess he's the replacement of the old Silva.

If there was anyone they desperately needed from Monaco, it's Fabinho. Apparently he wants to play right back again as well.

don't you think we should be signing Fabinho? A Xhaka, Fabinho, Ramsey, El Neny rotation should be good for the 3 4 3. I could live with that. 

I'd love him here Cluade. But Man City, Man Utd, and Juventus are after him and I don't think it's going to be an easy transfer.

Our owner needs to come out from behind his mustache and show some cojones. If he was committed, he'd just go out, get a Fabinho (60m) and a James (70m), and call it a day. And then send Keown and Lauren to scare Ozil and Sanchez into renewals. That's all we need right now.

I'd rather get Fabinho and Auba. An elite striker will go a long way towards papering over the Wenger shaped crack on this club.

Bernardo Silva's a great signing, he's going to be fantastic

True that - Morata -> AC Milan apparently. Seems like we will come up empty again. Who knows - maybe Henry Onyekuru will save us in 2025.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

If throwing out the deadweight that was Sagna and Clichy means also buying new fullbacks, they're looking great.

They have basically discarded all their useless players on high wages, moved some first teamers to become fringe players (Yaya, Kolarov etc). Funny whoever we sold them are all duds basically, none performed for them at all.

Don't even know where does this leave Aguero, Sterling. Won't be automatic starters. Bernardo Silva will be absolutely top class, plays like a young David Silva, only better.

BWoolley wrote:

True that - Morata -> AC Milan apparently. Seems like we will come up empty again. Who knows - maybe Henry Onyekuru will save us in 2025.

If that happens while we fiddle with Giroubeck, I'll just quit watching. 

We probably still need to solve this Wenger issue. If he goes, then we get a new manager and DoF. If he stays, we still need to solve the DoF issue.

Things are set up for a busy August of picking up more Perezes.

I genuinely can't see us signing anyone of note this summer. We'll keep one of Özil and Sanchez and that will be our big coup.

The fees that these Monaco players are starting to go for are so way out of our ballpark that it isn't funny.

Bryant wrote:

City having to spend €45m on Mendy because we beat them to the signing of Kolasinac can only be a good thing.

Kolasinac named in the Bundesliga Team of the season btw:

Lemar, Fabinho, Bakayoko won't come cheap too.

Just drop 150m for Fabinho and Mbappe for them.

That's the dream, Clrnc!

I can take or leave all of their other players. Good though some of them are.

Lots of rumours around that they're going to announce Kyle Walker and Fabinho tomorrow as well.

Heard Walker is pretty much done. No idea about Fabinho. They are very close to Mendy as well.

Have to give it to Pep, ruthless to clear the deadwood and signed players right after the season ended. Probably started all these in the midst of the season. That's what you call forward planning.

It's not really Pep, it's the whole team they've bought to put around him. Half of Barcelona's backroom team now work for Man City.

And of course they have money to burn, which helps.

They have as much money as us. Just more organized. Wenger is like a prison ball and chain, slowing us down. This summer promises to be the worst yet.

They have a lot more money than us. Obviously.

That doesn't mean we can't get some good players in though. It's going to be difficult to beat them in many head-to-heads through the summer though.

Ricky1985 wrote:

They have a lot more money than us. Obviously.

That doesn't mean we can't get some good players in though. It's going to be difficult to beat them in many head-to-heads through the summer though.

It's not about the money, talking more about the swiftness in concluding and targeting deals. The amount of early signings we did under Wenger, we can count with both hands. We often prefer to leave it to the last day as Wenger admitted as much to get what he perceived is a fair deal. He is always willing to scrimp on a little, to the detriment of our results before the window ends.

Yep we'll end up with a couple of scrubs late on in the window

Clrnc wrote:

Ricky1985 wrote:

They have a lot more money than us. Obviously.

That doesn't mean we can't get some good players in though. It's going to be difficult to beat them in many head-to-heads through the summer though.

It's not about the money, talking more about the swiftness in concluding and targeting deals. The amount of early signings we did under Wenger, we can count with both hands. We often prefer to leave it to the last day as Wenger admitted as much to get what he perceived is a fair deal. He is always willing to scrimp on a little, to the detriment of our results before the window ends.

And yet with our finances we don't need to do so,.
AW's willingness to sacrifice the football in order to hold out for a possible bargain signing means it's no wonder the team & squad lacks balance.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Yep we'll end up with a couple of scrubs late on in the window

We tend to talk the talk but are not prepared to pay market values,
and in holding out for a bargain we miss signing players than could actually resolve some of the issues,
because we have delusions of grandeur as to the type of quality player we should be signing.
I'd rather sign 2nd tier players who address the team issues, than sign a top class bargain that only improves the level of quality and yet doesn't resolve / address the issues.

Reminds me of that "we'll only sign top top quality" BS. Yeah ok so where are they then?