I was talking about the first half of his last season here. Once he was going to City and Cesc returned from injury he couldn't be bothered after Jan. But he did have that half a great season.

I was just posting my opinion on Nasri and not really disagreeing with you.
I marvelled at him when he first broke into the Marseille team that i started following after the 1990 WC as they played some of the best football in Europe. He came in after the Tapie scandals so immediately shone as they had lost all their stars but, for some reason, i never really warmed to him at Arsenal.

I see a lot of talk about wingers here. However, when I watch football, I see very little use of them. I think stats have killed them. They’re an inefficient way to attack. We might want a scoring attacking kid in the vein of a Sane or Sterling, but wingers would be a waste.

Bold Tone wrote:

One could say those 5 months were how long it took for our coaches to wean him off shooting in favour of recycling the ball.
That would not be entirely true, however, as anybody coming in after Hleb would definitely be shooting more.
One of my issues with Nasri is that brainless mentality many wingers have of always trying to dribble to beat their markers when a pass or cross (see Beckham) would help the team more.

e: As for Denis Suarez, nothing special and it feels like we are only interested because Barca want rid.
I would be happier with a loan till the end of the season with an option to buy if he proves his worth.

How often did you see him play to make that claim he's nothing special?

Winger is just a word for a wide man. Salah is a winger, or used to be at least. Pires, Freddie, both wingers. Felipe Anderson is tearing teams apart singlehandedly this season from a wing position.

I absolutely think you need wingers in football. Wenger's downfall was partly connected to not using them anymore. We played the narrowest horseshit football in Europe during his last two seasons.

Claudius wrote:

He’s very effective at beating defenders one-on-one. He’s not a traditional English winger. More a better version of Iwobi.  Will be dependent on Kola for width

I don't think he's any better than Iwobi. 

jones wrote:

Bold Tone wrote:

One could say those 5 months were how long it took for our coaches to wean him off shooting in favour of recycling the ball.
That would not be entirely true, however, as anybody coming in after Hleb would definitely be shooting more.
One of my issues with Nasri is that brainless mentality many wingers have of always trying to dribble to beat their markers when a pass or cross (see Beckham) would help the team more.

e: As for Denis Suarez, nothing special and it feels like we are only interested because Barca want rid.
I would be happier with a loan till the end of the season with an option to buy if he proves his worth.

How often did you see him play to make that claim he's nothing special?

I don't need to see him week in week out to form an opinion.
In any case, his coaches who see him week in week out every training session (i can safely assume you don't) do not deem him good enough to play week in week out.

So we're basically signing a younger version of nasri from the looks of it and playing him on the wing? No real pace, good dribbling, sucks at finishing. Sounds about right. Definitely a tiny step towards getting back into cl, definitely not a league winning signing. But honestly, isn't this the type of signing (cheap and good but not amazing) we need right now? It's basically a Liverpool type signing from 2-4 years ago. Baby steps

Bold Tone wrote:

jones wrote:

How often did you see him play to make that claim he's nothing special?

In any case, his coaches who see him week in week out every training session (i can safely assume you don't) do not deem him good enough to play week in week out.

By that logic we shouldn't buy any player that a club wishes to sell. 

May be alright under Emery. At least he'll have decent resale value, assuming he comes cheap.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Bold Tone wrote:

In any case, his coaches who see him week in week out every training session (i can safely assume you don't) do not deem him good enough to play week in week out.

By that logic we shouldn't buy any player that a club wishes to sell. 

I know you are trying to make an argument by quoting a sentence out of context but, little advice, leave out the "In any case" bit which highlights the fact that it was an aside added to the general point of the post.
No need to thank me!

speedy wrote:

Nasri and no spine or balls at all. It was a dam miracle he could get around the pitch. He had a spell for 5 months where he took the initiative to make things happen. And spend the rest of it just being a comfortable passanger with bags of talent. He should have been like Kevin at city.

Definitely. Surprised to see people still rating Nasri's Arsenal days. He was fucking coward most of the time. Was the epitome of our pussyball those days

Bold Tone wrote:

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

By that logic we shouldn't buy any player that a club wishes to sell. 

I know you are trying to make an argument by quoting a sentence out of context but, little advice, leave out the "In any case" bit which highlights the fact that it was an aside added to the general point of the post.
No need to thank me!

That wasn't my intention, and you shouldn't assume that it is. The part I left out doesn't change anything about what I said or answered to, which is why it was left out. 

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Bold Tone wrote:

I know you are trying to make an argument by quoting a sentence out of context but, little advice, leave out the "In any case" bit which highlights the fact that it was an aside added to the general point of the post.
No need to thank me!

That wasn't my intention, and you shouldn't assume that it is. The part I left out doesn't change anything about what I said or answered to, which is why it was left out. 

This is what you chopped off.

"I don't need to see him week in week out to form an opinion."

How can that not change anything?

That you don't think you have to see a player week in week out to form an opinion of him is kind of a given when you say that the coaches can do the job for you.

Not to mention that I don't see why it should matter if he isn't good enough for a club that has ambitions of winning the Champions League, when our ambitions are to qualify for it.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

That you don't  think you have to see a player week in week out to form an opinion of him is kind of a given when you say that the coaches can do the job for you.

Not to mention that I don't see why it should matter if he isn't good enough for a club that has ambitions of winning the Champions League, when our ambitions are to qualify for it.

Eh?
You have me lost as i don't see how all this leads to you to post the below statement.

 "[font=Source Sans Pro]By that logic we shouldn't buy any player that a club wishes to sell. "[/font]

[font=Arial]To help you, i refer you to my initial post on the subject for you to internet-analyse my logic.[/font]

[font=Arial][font=Source Sans Pro]"As for Denis Suarez, nothing special and it feels like we are only interested because Barca want rid.[/font]

[font=Source Sans Pro]I would be happier with a loan till the end of the season with an option to buy if he proves his worth."[/font]
[/font]

Not what we need. Should get a proper winger. Pace , power , directness and goals.

we need to rebuild our squad, desperately, and one player isnt going to do that.

suarez is a decent replacement for ramsey, based on what ive seen. he seems to be a very good dribbler/technical player. can he defend? does he track back? i dont know.

the big question i have right now is what emery's vision is for our formation and shape. hes been playing all these weird lineups because of our injuries. where does suarez fit? i want to play 4-4-2, so he probably wouldnt fit in that formation. in a 4-2-3-1, is he the #10? in a 4-3-3 with one deep CM and two box to box guys, he'd obviously fit there. as a tucked in attacking mid in some sort of weird 4-3-2-1, he would probably fit.

for £15m, given his technical ability and his youth, it seems worthwhile, especially since he already has a big club/league pedigree. no clue how he'll adapt here, obviously. barcelona have let go of top talent before for bizarre reasons, so i wouldnt assume them letting him go means they think hes shit.

Apparently he is reliable for Barca news and has broken news of transfers in the past. He states that we cannot afford to buy him at this moment. It's either we get him on loan or he stays at Barca.

You'd think they could cut us some slack considering it took them like eight years to pay us for Henry.

We cannot afford? What does that mean? What if he can be the difference between 5th and 4th?

I think they are still negotiating, and if we think he can do a job we will get him. Again, it’s obvious that we are probably going to get fleeced on any already established or close to established names as our needs are glaring to all.

Pathetic if this is true. We behave like fucking Huddersfield.

now that the club is private, we'll probably never get another accounting of our finances, cash reserves, etc. so no one will have any idea what kind of money we really have to spend

Willock >>>

No seriously, this guy just seems like a meh signing. We need a winger/wide forward. We've got a surplus of central midfield players and fuck all wingers.

We were broke at the start of the season, we're broke now.

Quelle surprise.

Wenger stuffed that cash pile he had been sitting on for the last decade in a sack and took it with him when he left.

He blew it on Lacazette, Aubameyang, Xhaka and Ozil more like!

Don’t forget Mustafi and Perez.

mdgoonah41 wrote:

now that the club is private, we'll probably never get another accounting of our finances, cash reserves, etc. so no one will have any idea what kind of money we really have to spend

UK law stipulates that every company (public or private) in the UK has to publish their financial accounts at least once per year. I think they have given us a 6 month grace period about posting them after the club became private, so they have until May. 

Last post was on Dec 2017: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00109244/filing-history 

Found it very interesting in the comment from Emery in another thread that he said Suarez was a winger for him when he had him previously.

So

Iwobi--Aubameyang--Suarez

?

Don’t see the goals. You need to find a way to accommodate both our strikers. I guess this is why MD is always pushing for 442. Only way to get the goals unless we get a goal-scoring wide forward a la Ousmane Dembele

I was thinking we needed goals to, probably more so with Ramsey heading off. I checked Ramseys prem stats. Over the pass 5 years he's averaged 4 prem goals a season. I would have guessed higher.

He probably isn't a stat player since many described him as Iniesta esque but if we are intending to play him as CM or WF those graphs are shocking. Need to be AM for us, number 10

Reeks of a Europa League signing. Having said that, Coutinho played in the Liverpool front 3 without being overly productive so maybe Suarez can be similar for us. Hope he develops similarly for us.

Remember seeing him play for Villarreal a few seasons back.
He’s fiesty and has a competitive nature

Bold Tone wrote:

jones wrote:

How often did you see him play to make that claim he's nothing special?

I don't need to see him week in week out to form an opinion.
In any case, his coaches who see him week in week out every training session (i can safely assume you don't) do not deem him good enough to play week in week out.

By the same token Barcelona's scouts have seen him often enough and they deemed him good enough to have signed him not once but twice. Barcas squad management is notoriously poor, plus Valverde is a manager who barely rotates. Before recent months Dembele barely got any minutes and hasn't had any for a season and a half, would you have passed up on him too by that logic?

BWoolley wrote:

Reeks of a Europa League signing.

Buddy, I've got some news to share. You might want to sit down for this...

Clrnc wrote:

speedy wrote:

Nasri and no spine or balls at all. It was a dam miracle he could get around the pitch. He had a spell for 5 months where he took the initiative to make things happen. And spend the rest of it just being a comfortable passanger with bags of talent. He should have been like Kevin at city.

Definitely. Surprised to see people still rating Nasri's Arsenal days. He was fucking coward most of the time. Was the epitome of our pussyball those days

Nasri is literally the only Arsenal player I hated watching at the club. Such a waste of talent, no willingness to use his abilities to hurt the opposition. Absolutely the epitome of ‘all fart no poo’ (Dula quote?).