Gelson Martins

Gunner89

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11670/11403258/arsenal-target-gelson-martins-and-bernd-leno

Jed

Gelson on a free would be a massive coup.

Ray

He reminds me a little of Walcott. The way he runs, his push and run dribble style.

Clrnc

He's very powerful, very similar to a more technical Yannick Bolasie. It's a no brainer on a free really.

Jed

Ray wrote:
He reminds me a little of Walcott. The way he runs, his push and run dribble style.

He's a much better dribbler and way more technically gifted.

MistaT

Meh, not terribly excited by him.

Don't think he's what you need as a winger to get the most out of Ozil or Ramsey.

Klaus

I have no clue what Gelson Martins is like on club level, but you have to think a free 23 year old Portuguese who's a regular for his national team is a pretty good deal. At worst he's squad filling and then we'll sell him for £15-20 million in a year or two.

Mirth

Hmm dunno, it was this sort of bargain hunting that cost Wenger.

Jed

His buyout clause is 60m euros. Mad that Sporting are losing him for nothing.

Klaus

Mirth wrote:
Hmm dunno, it was this sort of bargain hunting that cost Wenger.

To clarify, he's not free because he didn't get a new contract. He's free because Sporting have failed to pay out wages, and then their players got assaulted by the fans at the training centre last month. Martins, Bruno Fernandes and William Carvalho requested to have their contracts terminated. Martins was one of their highest rated players and Sporting were trying to increase his release clause from €60 million to €100 million with a new contract. This is probably gonna have to be settled in court.

BWoolley

You would think that Sporting would do a reasonable deal without having to go to court and risk getting nothing. Having said that, football is never rational.

jones

If there was even a single rational cell in Bruno de Carvalho's body Sporting would never have gotten into this clusterfuck in the first place.

Sporting were in a good place couple months back, fighting in all four competitions when they lost 2-0 at Atletico without even playing that badly. BdC's response was getting hospitalised because of a slight heart attack then publicly blaming the players for it. When the squad responded that him calling them primadonnas and a disgrace was maybe a bit much his reaction was to suspend like 90% of the squad and staff. After a while they came back but the performances have started taking a nosedive culminating in him publicly calling out the players on Facebook mostly.

After their hard fought 1-0 win vs Atletico which proved ultimately too little there was a chance to reunite the team with the board but not with BdC, he slammed everyone again and asked the fans why the squad don't love the club like he does. Shortly thereafter the training ground fiasco happened where more and more evidence starts to point in the direction that at least some of the club's staff knew about the impending attack of the ultras. Two weeks later and a good chunk of the squad have terminated their contracts and the latest development today seems that the Supervisory Board of Sporting tried sacking him which he responded that he doesn't even know who this alleged board is.

So yeah, difficult to see anything reasonable happening at that club in a while!

lorddulaarsenal

I’m not keen. Looks limited

Gazza M

even on a free? if his prime function is to beat his man and bullet in crosses for auba, i think he ticks the box

Anzac

13 goals and 13 assists from a more traditional winger type than the WF types we see is an excellent return & a better total than anything we got from Walcott IIRC.

Claudius

It’s probably in line with Walcott’s output. As frustrating as he was, Walcott could put up raw numbers in his prime.

Anzac

Claudius wrote:
It’s probably in line with Walcott’s output. As frustrating as he was, Walcott could put up raw numbers in his prime.

Close enough I guess - Walcott's best season was in 2012/13 with 14 goals and 10 assists for a combined total of 24.
Considering he was usually our 2nd goal threat other than when Sanchez joined, I'd think that Martin's numbers would indicate he's as good a goal threat as Walcott, and better than Rambo.
I think we need more genuine goal threats as opposed to players who can/may score and who are perhaps more recognised as a creative player rather than as a goal threat.

Bold Tone

I heard about him when he was a prospect but not in recent years.
Checked out a highlight video of his and was astonished at how bad his final ball is.
That said, we are beggars in this situation as we possess zero wingers/dribblers of his ilk so getting him on a free is, indeed, a no-brainer.

Gunner89

Anzac wrote:
Claudius wrote:
It’s probably in line with Walcott’s output. As frustrating as he was, Walcott could put up raw numbers in his prime.

Close enough I guess - Walcott's best season was in 2012/13 with 14 goals and 10 assists for a combined total of 24.
Considering he was usually our 2nd goal threat other than when Sanchez joined, I'd think that Martin's numbers would indicate he's as good a goal threat as Walcott, and better than Rambo.
I think we need more genuine goal threats as opposed to players who can/may score and who are perhaps more recognised as a creative player rather than as a goal threat.

I don't understand why you are comparing Walcott's numbers solely from the league to Gelson Martin's numbers in overall competitions.

Rohit

The Premier League is also another level altogether.