Nicolo Barella: Page 2 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Nicolo Barella

BWoolley

I think we need wingers first and CM second, since our aspirations are more top 4 than title wins. Yes, a high quality CM would enhance the squad, but upgrading our WFs from Iwobi and Mkhi is the lowest lying fruit (after CB upgrade from Kos) in the squad. Will at least improve us against 18 teams in the league, if not Man City. The other option is to buy another striker and play 4-3-1-2, in which case a midfielder is key for sure - maybe even 2. Our attack just doesn't have enough goalscorers in it for the moment and neither of our goalscorers are good WFs.

Klaus

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
I think that's unfair. If we sign a brilliant CM and still don't win the league against City, that doesn't prove anything either. It's just that City have great players everywhere.

Yes, but that was exactly my point. You need good players all over the pitch, not just in attack. It is not a coincidence that Liverpool sold an attacking mid and then spent £150 million on the best goalkeeper and centreback they could find when they needed to go up a level, and then splashed another £80 million on two of the biggest midfield talents around.

QuincyAbeyie

Right now you do because the best team in the country has that, but I don't agree if you're saying that every year there's a team with great players all over the pitch. Ferguson won many times without such a team.

Klaus

I don't think he did. I think he won most of his league titles precisely because he had the best and most expensive squads. Modern football is a bit more extreme, but the same general principle applies. There's no such thing as an unimportant midfielder.

Bryant

Gurgen wrote:
Klaus wrote:
He's an oldschool midfielder in the sense that he plays where you tell him to play. He has the ability to do it all.

FM2018 agrees with this. Legendary bargain this guy.

He's not going to be a bargain to anyone. His team knows they can get at least 50m euros for him.

I think he'd choose an Italian team over a foreign team if given a choice. Inter (who is his childhood team) and Napoli are very interested in him.

banduan

I feel we need a non-CF with goals in him. CM, AM or winger doesn't matter. We need the goals.

Gurgen

Bryant wrote:
Gurgen wrote:
FM2018 agrees with this. Legendary bargain this guy.

He's not going to be a bargain to anyone. His team knows they can get at least 50m euros for him.

I think he'd choose an Italian team over a foreign team if given a choice. Inter (who is his childhood team) and Napoli are very interested in him.

I mean in the game 😉

Anzac

Klaus wrote:
I think the opposite was true personally. Cazorla was overrated as a central midfielder. Or rather, that midfield setup was terribly overrated. It left us with the absolute necessity of having a poverty player like Coquelin in there too, and then the wings didn't work properly because we punted Ramsey out there, or sometimes Özil, which just created a whole new set of problems up the field. That midfield was one big patchwork mess brought on by our unwillingness to replace Arteta properly.

Our midfield has been a mess for a decade after 07/08.
Far too often we made compromises upon compromises instead of directly addressing the actual need. Neither Arteta nor Cazorla were actually what was needed any more than Xhaka, they just had better quality around them.

Anzac

BWoolley wrote:
I think we need wingers first and CM second, since our aspirations are more top 4 than title wins. Yes, a high quality CM would enhance the squad, but upgrading our WFs from Iwobi and Mkhi is the lowest lying fruit (after CB upgrade from Kos) in the squad. Will at least improve us against 18 teams in the league, if not Man City. The other option is to buy another striker and play 4-3-1-2, in which case a midfielder is key for sure - maybe even 2. Our attack just doesn't have enough goalscorers in it for the moment and neither of our goalscorers are good WFs.

Which is not Emery's preferred style, but is probably a better fit to this current squad that is still dominated by AW's style with everyone wanting to play through the middle and make the assist.

Another point re genuine wide-men, what positions had the most impact v RM in the UCL & where do teams like MC & LFC tend to dominate? Who are the most important attackers for PSG?
Seems to me that the top teams have top wide-men who provide both penetration on their own and also end product both in terms of goals and assists.

Rohit

We needed Arteta and he was a top signing, just a couple of seasons too late.

And we need a player like Xhaka too. It's not the quality around him but his own and his inability to adapt to the pace of the League.

Anzac

Rohit wrote:
We needed Arteta and he was a top signing, just a couple of seasons too late.

And we need a player like Xhaka too. It's not the quality around him but his own and his inability to adapt to the pace of the League.

Problem being that we needed them to make up for other deficiencies, and then they were also deficient in other areas as well = compromises on compromises.

Bryant

Tielemans is doing quite well for Leceister at the moment; he's another young CM that we should look at.

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