How confident should we be that Monchi is happening?

I don't think we need to be worried about it. If it happens it happens.

ohboy!!! wrote:

Meatwad wrote:

we don't need to buy two wingers. one is more than enough plus reiss. and we need an elite CB (or one that will be viewed as such after a season with us), not two "good" CBs, we already have two good ones.

For me one incredible CB, plus a winger and if possible a full back, preferably LB

Let us see how much money we will have in the summer.

Why do we need a LB? Did you not see how bloody brilliant Monreal was at the weekend? Also Kolasinac has been one of our best players this season.

I think we need an LB because Kolasinac can't defend and Monreal is on his last legs. They may have a few good performances each in them, but I don't think they are reliable through the season. Having said that, I think it's lowest priority. My prioritization would be LW, CB, RB, CM (assuming we sell Xhaka), RW, LB - in that order.

CB for me. if we had to blow our whole pre-sales budget on one i'd be fine with it. the youth need a chance and all our promising ones are wingers.

BWoolley wrote:

I think we need an LB because Kolasinac can't defend and Monreal is on his last legs. They may have a few good performances each in them, but I don't think they are reliable through the season. Having said that, I think it's lowest priority. My prioritization would be LW, CB, RB, CM (assuming we sell Xhaka), RW, LB - in that order.

I think the whole Kolasinac can't defend talk is exaggerated, and Monreal may be getting on but he's still a mother fucking don.

Meatwad wrote:

CB for me. if we had to blow our whole pre-sales budget on one i'd be fine with it. the youth need a chance and all our promising ones are wingers.

If so then does this mean a vote for Overmars and for him to bring de Ligt,
as opposed to Monchi and for him to bring Under?

I don't see why De Ligt would choose us just because of Overmars.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

I don't see why De Ligt would choose us just because of Overmars.

Yeah, going by that logic we'll be able to shift Mustafi off to Milan in the summer. 

De Ligt and Under will end up with whoever offers most money to their respective clubs and agents. Having Overmars or Monchi might facilitate a bit of a better relationship but if we don't pony up the cash it will count for nothing. 

The thing about De Ligt is that unless clubs are really in need of a CB and sorted elsewhere they rarely spend big on centre halves. Look at how long it took for someone to sign VVD. Now is the time to at least try for De Ligt, if someone richer or bigger comes in so be it but we may as well try for guys like this. No doubt you'd make a tidy profit too. Plus at 19 he may not want to go straight to a Barca, Real, etc

Given his age it wouldn't be a huge investment either. He either stays through his career of 14 years or so which means £50m odd works out to be pennies, or he leaves in the next 4-8 years and you probably make your money back.

Qwiss! wrote:

The thing about De Ligt is that unless clubs are really in need of a CB and sorted elsewhere they rarely spend big on centre halves. Look at how long it took for someone to sign VVD. Now is the time to at least try for De Ligt, if someone richer or bigger comes in so be it but we may as well try for guys like this. No doubt you'd make a tidy profit too. Plus at 19 he may not want to go straight to a Barca, Real, etc

This! Go all in. 50-70m is fine. He's got 12 years, is already captain of his team. This is one of the few players I would be happy to outbid others on. And do it by selling folks. If we need to sell a Mustafi here and a Chambers there, fine. 

Yeah, De Ligt barring a serious injury, is destined for the very top. Worth going all in.

Leno

Bellerin Sokratis De Ligt Kolasinac

Tasty.

De Ligt would be amazing.

Wan Bissaka would also be incredible.

Those two would transform our defence.

Sell everything you can and then try to get a winger, and Rabiot on a free

Qwiss! wrote:

The thing about De Ligt is that unless clubs are really in need of a CB and sorted elsewhere they rarely spend big on centre halves. Look at how long it took for someone to sign VVD. Now is the time to at least try for De Ligt, if someone richer or bigger comes in so be it but we may as well try for guys like this. No doubt you'd make a tidy profit too. Plus at 19 he may not want to go straight to a Barca, Real, etc

Agree. VVD is abit of a weird case anyway, people knew he was good but nobody seriously rated him to be 75m worth. We were laughing our ass off that price and now he is easily the best defender in the world at present moment.

Meanwhile in the real world

We are not getting De Ligt people. His profile is already beyond our current situation.

looks likes this might happen on the cheap. a few italian sources are reporting he will terminate his contract with roma in the next week, citing the losses to porto and lazio being the spark for a clear-out at the top of the club

Let’s hope his spell at Roma was a one off.

As for signings, I doubt we’ll sign anybody for more than £30m, there’s simply too much to do.

More Torreira like bargains I suspect, Fornals is one for that AM position I reckon.

How has Manolas been doing this season? He was really good a couple of seasons ago, have't really watched him since.

Monchis days in Rome are definitely numbered, he even got into an argument with some fans where allegedly (he denies it) he said he'd take them on 1v1 come summer

Dimarzio suggesting that Monchi will terminate his contract today. Could he join us immediately?

BWoolley wrote:

Dimarzio suggesting that Monchi will terminate his contract today. Could he join us immediately?

If they terminate his contract then yeah, if they put him on gardening leave then not so much. 

It doesn't really make much sense for Roma to keep him around if he's planning to leave in the summer anyway. There's just no way to execute his role without the conflict of interest coming into play. If they want to rebuild for next season then they need someone else to come in now. From our perspective, we're going to have a busy summer and we need him working towards that from now, whether it's in an official capacity or not.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-given-major-boost-monchi-14105162

Looks like he is off after Roma’s coach was dissmissed

Mutual termination

Roma fans delighted with this. A quick look at the replies on twitter shows how many of their fans hate his signings.

Hopefully he will be back to his Sevilla form soon

On paper he went for the right profile of talent. Shick and kluivert had shown alot of promise prior to joining roma, but they just haven't panned out.

Yeah, we're not a rich club, but we have way more money than Roma. He should be able to choose higher up from the talent shelf. Even getting Kluivert and Shick to join them is good work.

Clrnc wrote:

Roma fans delighted with this. A quick look at the replies on twitter shows how many of their fans hate his signings.

Hopefully he will be back to his Sevilla form soon

I dont think his signings were that poor, some of them simply didn't work out a lot of that being down to EDF not properly utilising the squad. Couldn't name a single bigger transfer which was poor from the beginning bar Defrel who they overpaid for.

Whatever they say about Monchi, in Zaniolo, Under and Kluivert they’ll make a profit on the money they spent under him.

Hunter wrote:

Whatever they say about Monchi, in Zaniolo, Under and Kluivert they’ll make a profit on the money they spent under him.

Exactly, if Monchi did that alone for us, at least he would be reversing the trend of seemly losing money on every player we have

Did they really just appoint Ranieri?

jones wrote:

Clrnc wrote:

Roma fans delighted with this. A quick look at the replies on twitter shows how many of their fans hate his signings.

Hopefully he will be back to his Sevilla form soon

I dont think his signings were that poor, some of them simply didn't work out a lot of that being down to EDF not properly utilising the squad. Couldn't name a single bigger transfer which was poor from the beginning bar Defrel who they overpaid for.

I can see where the Roma fans are coming from. They were close to buying Mahrez and Malcom, but ended up with N'Zonzi and Pastore, who have been flops for them. 

The same could be said about Shick, who's not lived up to his promise (4 Serie A goals in 2 years) and he's going to cost them 40m+ euros. 

What was Monchi supposed to do about those two exactly? Mahrez wanted to come and even blamed Leicester publicly for continuously raising the fee they asked for, he eventually joined City for a price which Roma wont be able to pay for another 20 years. Malcom was a done deal by all accounts until Barcelona hijacked the deal last minute, what Technical Director has enough sway to parry an offer from a club like that?

Nzonzi has been rock solid for years, plenty wanted him here last summer. And Pastore seemed like a good idea too, always looked like a player who never fulfilled his potential at PSG and one with plenty of talent anyway. Same with Schick although he still has time to fix that, not going to happen though with him on the wing punting crosses to Dzeko. It doesn't seem like there's too much planning involved in the squad building but then again when you have to replace players literally every position you have to start buying in bulk.

I agree with you that Monchi probably did not have much to do with the Mahrez and Malcom situation, but I can see why Roma fans were happy to see Monchi leave.

It's always interesting look at the reaction of the deals when they happened and now. No one could forecast how valuable Zaniolo would become in that Nainggolan trade.

I don't know if he had any say in the fees for Salah for Allison; that was another contentious point that Roma fans raised about him.

They had a problem with the fee they got for Allison "The world's most expensive GK" Becker?

Complaining about the Alisson fee would be ridiculous. Pool paid a massive amount and that shouldn’t be clouded by the lunacy of Chelsea shelling out more for Kepa. The Salah fee was the problematic one. English teams were getting similar wingers at 15-20m pounds more, and very few predicted that he would explode as he did, even with his prior 12 month record in Serie A. That’s like Lorient fans saying “oh, we should’ve gotten £25m for Guendouzi because he’s a starter for Arsenal!”

Agree with Jones generally on Pastore, Nzonzi and where blame lies for Mahrez/Malcom. Let’s bring him in. I think our Spanish connection can do something.

But we also need to be patient. The team is a mess and this isn’t Football Manager.