Saw that Tah was mentioned, surprised to see we haven't been linked to him. He would be a great addition in my opinion. He had a 25m euro release clause in January but I think it's now gone after he signed a new contract w/ Bayer.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos
Tah would be brilliant. Proper giant of a CB
Can’t be all that if he’s behind Rudiger for the NT.
Löw picks his favourites regardless of form or quality, anyone who plays or has played for Stuttgart or is from that area is guaranteed 20 caps for the national team. Tah is a lot better than Rüdiger already, brilliant centre half but I don't like how he's had a number of muscular injuries at 22 already.
@lorddulaarsenal wrote:Who in their right mind would sign Mustafi?
Inter wanted him last season
Ah cool. Fingers crossed they didn’t watch any of our games this season
Klaus wrote:We need one cheap and one expensive defender this summer.
Agreed but Sokratis at like £15m would be one hell of an underwhelming signing! He's not a terrible defender but he is 29 and had all sorts of injury problems. I'd rather we look at someone like Lewis Dunk who might be available for that kind of money. Then if we can offload Mustafi then try to spend a bit bigger on another.
Okay, yeah. I didn't realise the quoted price was that high. I thought he was a free agent.
Jonny Evans then. Let's swap up that little prick in all his manc glory before someone else gets to him. That £3 million clause is the biggest bargain we're gonna get in this window.
klaus id rather you play CB for us than jonny fucking evans
I thought Sokratis was free as well...Twitter nonsense probably. That changes things.
mdgoonah41 wrote:klaus id rather you play CB for us than jonny fucking evans
He's a huge upgrade on Mustafi for a start though.
Yeah, but so is Klaus.
Bild: Sokratis to #AFC is likely to happen for a fee €20m and a contract that runs for two years.
Meh?
We probably have an option to extend for one year.
I thought Sokratis looked very good a couple of years ago, but haven't watched much Dortmund after that. €20m out of our £50m budget seems like a lot based on what you guys are saying about him. Also, I don't see how our budget is that small just because we lost out on Champions League. Every mid table club spends more than that nowadays.
It's probably limited because our wage bill is so large. It's the one leverage we still have over a lot of competing clubs to be fair.
4 days later
Lets put it this way, Dortmund fans are quite happy to sell Sokratis for 20m for his age 29 season. He isn't any better than Mustafi and he has no resale value. Definitely don't want, and I hope it's just more lazy rumour-mongering from the shit UK press.
Too often, we fail to factor in resale value - expensive transfer fees for young players often end up being cheap or even profitable, and inexpensive fees for older players end up being money down the drain.
The £50m thing is misleading, remember?
kamikaze wrote:Lets put it this way, Dortmund fans are quite happy to sell Sokratis for 20m for his age 29 season. He isn't any better than Mustafi and he has no resale value. Definitely don't want, and I hope it's just more lazy rumour-mongering from the shit UK press.
Too often, we fail to factor in resale value - expensive transfer fees for young players often end up being cheap or even profitable, and inexpensive fees for older players end up being money down the drain.
What Dortmund fan is happy to lose him?
I can't say I follow Sokratis closely over the past couple of years, however our defence needs some leadership and guidance on the pitch as well as individual talent and Sokratis certainly fits that role.
I'm comfortable if Sokratis can do what Mertesacker did when he first turned up.
We do need to find an outstanding CB to partner him though
Reports from Germany that Mourinho has phoned Sokratis personally to get him to Old Trafford.
Fucking voyeur, constantly biting on Arsenal transfer targets because to him the football world's a zero sum game.
kamikaze wrote:Lets put it this way, Dortmund fans are quite happy to sell Sokratis for 20m for his age 29 season. He isn't any better than Mustafi and he has no resale value. Definitely don't want, and I hope it's just more lazy rumour-mongering from the shit UK press.
Too often, we fail to factor in resale value - expensive transfer fees for young players often end up being cheap or even profitable, and inexpensive fees for older players end up being money down the drain.
He's not top but he is miles better than Mustafi. Not even close
Kicker say it's nearly done. We've offered €15m and they want €18m.
€10 million it is then, knowing Dortmund.
Some people on twitter saying we haven't offered 15m Euros but that is what we probably will offer.
Looks like this one is close, I am all for signing more experienced players but not sure if this is the guy I'd have in mind. We better follow this up with a good young defender as well.
Sokratis and then Lichtsteiner next? Someone at Arsenal hell bent on getting the average age of the squad up!
“Ready made players” is absolutely not the right way to go. We need to get young talents and mould them, that is the only way we will acquire world class talent in the foreseeable future.
I agree Ohboy but when it comes to defence we desperately need some experience with Koscielny out injured and Mustafi clowning about.
Such a meh signing. Hopefully we're more adventurous with signings in the final third of the pitch.
ohboy!!! wrote:“Ready made players” is absolutely not the right way to go. We need to get young talents and mould them, that is the only way we will acquire world class talent in the foreseeable future.
I think you need both - the world class talent route has more variables when it comes to realising that talent and we've tried that approach 10 years ago with mixed results. Ultimately the club's priority is to get back in the top four next season which does require ready made players or at least a spine of those type of players
I think we have invested in youth and that's precisely why we're going for a Kos replacement now. We have Chambers, Holding and Mavropanos in the squad. All of them are bit-part players rather than starters. Mustafi is the only experienced older head, and he needs to be binned. Try to solve that equation while you're on a budget.
Think Sokratis is intended to be a stop-gap until one of the three youngsters is ready to step up.
It definitely looks that way.
Klaus wrote:I think we have invested in youth and that's precisely why we're going for a Kos replacement now. We have Chambers, Holding and Mavropanos in the squad. All of them are bit-part players rather than starters. Mustafi is the only experienced older head, and he needs to be binned. Try to solve that equation while you're on a budget.
Yeah, think that's exactly it. Makes sense.
Amazing how years of Wenger recruitment has warped our perception of what a transfer policy looks like - people always used to complain that we always brought too many youngsters in and not enough experience. When we do bring in senior pros, people complain that we need to bring in more youth!
I hope we are signing him because we have left all our other budget for a world class keeper or a world class attacking mid.
Is this guy any good? Never heard of him or seen him play.
No way are we bringing in another young defender, we’ve got 6 defenders on the books as it stands for two positions. We’d need to see at least two go in order for that to happen.
I wonder if we’re putting all our eggs in the Mavropanos basket. I’d imagine he’d benefit playing alongside this chap more than any other.
That was one of the point brought up by the guy who broke this story. He claims they share the same agent and he will help Mavropanos bed in. Apparently Emery thinks highly of our young greek.
AMN and Marv have been name checked a couple of times by Gazidis and Emery this week.