Klaus wrote:

If we can bid for Zaha this summer we could have bid for Ndombele too if we wanted to. What it comes down to is priorities from the club. They value our current midfielders higher than we do.

We could have bid for Ndombele, perhaps even we did or at least made an enquiry? But why would he come to Arsenal when there was interest from a team that has played Champions League 5 years in a row now and got to the final last season?

We might even have been in the early running for De Ligt. It's rumoured we're one of a few clubs that have approached Nicolas Pepe. Players of that calibre just have better offers than we can make right now and there's nothing we can do about it in the present. We've got to make sure that when the next De Ligt, Ndombele or Pepe comes to the fore we're much better placed as a club to make them an offer.

The market for Laca was basically Barcelona and Atletico and both will have signed a striker for £100m+ once Griezmann finally joins Barca.

I wouldn't sell Auba though. You're talking about someone who in theory should be able to give us 30+ goals over the next 2-3 seasons and that will be invaluable to getting us back up to the right level. Starting from a completely clean slate won't work either.

Tam wrote:

Klaus wrote:

If we can bid for Zaha this summer we could have bid for Ndombele too if we wanted to. What it comes down to is priorities from the club. They value our current midfielders higher than we do.

Or maybe they sounded it out and were told Ndombele didn't want to come here under any circumstances. From what I've read he could have had his pick of top tier clubs (and Spurs). 

Zaha's opportunities and motives are very different. 

It's possible, Tam, but I doubt it. Only one club ever lodged a bid. Juventus are stacked on midfielders because we gave them our best one for free, and all the Spanish clubs are busy buying up forwards.

It's only worth selling Lacazette or Aubameyang if you're able to sign the sort of young players that are worth rebuilding with.

I'm sure Sanllehi would have sold Lacazette for £70m without blinking if a) that money was actually offered and b) De Ligt, Ndombele, Pepe etc., were actually attainable with the proceeds. He'd be mad not to.

Ricky1985 wrote:

Klaus wrote:

If we can bid for Zaha this summer we could have bid for Ndombele too if we wanted to. What it comes down to is priorities from the club. They value our current midfielders higher than we do.

We could have bid for Ndombele, perhaps even we did or at least made an enquiry? But why would he come to Arsenal when there was interest from a team that has played Champions League 5 years in a row now and got to the final last season?

Money. We can pay better than Spurs, although we've been working on minimising that advantage too over the last year.

At surface level there isn't a great deal of difference between them and us right now, but if a club like Arsenal were interested and willing to spend big I would advise the player to go there every time if I were an agent, just like I'd advise anyone to pick United and Chelsea ahead of us.

If we pull our head out of our ass there's a far better chance of something happening at Arsenal over the next few years that will result in big trophies than something happening at Spurs. That's why someone like Auba chose to come here.

We've had two non-top 4 finishes since Aubameyang chose to come here. Wenger has also departed, and he unquestionably gave us extra pulling power. The truth is our stock has fallen lower in the space of just 18 months.

I refuse to believe that Arsenal weren't interested in De Ligt, Ferland Mendy, Ndombele, Nicolas Pepe, Joao Felix: These are the best up and coming players in their respective positions. The same way I'm sure Man United would sign each and every one of them if they could too.

They, even with all their money, can't sign these players and we, in just as desperate a state only minus the riches, definitely can't.

goon wrote:

This is a guy who's been fought over by the likes of PSG, Barca, Juve etc and has snubbed United. The idea that we even have a slither of a chance is a bigger fantasy than GoT.

I think that's complete bollocks to be honest. Players dont always choose the most obvious option there are loads of factors other than short term success such as wages, living conditions ie London, selling a project with assurances the player can move on to bigger things, even history etc etc. We're not Swindon fucking Town exactly.

The way some of you lot are acting is like nothing ever changes. Liverpool went from 8th to 97 points and a CL title in a couple seasons and contrary to popular belief they didn't do it with just cheap signings. Spurs have been dogshit for ages and struck gold with a couple players, Ndombele was supposed to go to Juve or Madrid instead hes with them now. Theres no fucking reason except our own ineptitude and owner's stinginess why we shouldn't be able to at least compete for de Ligts signature.

Klaus wrote:

Ricky1985 wrote:

We could have bid for Ndombele, perhaps even we did or at least made an enquiry? But why would he come to Arsenal when there was interest from a team that has played Champions League 5 years in a row now and got to the final last season?

Money. We can pay better than Spurs, although we've been working on minimising that advantage too over the last year.

At surface level there isn't a great deal of difference between them and us right now, but if a club like Arsenal were interested and willing to spend big I would advise the player to go there every time if I were an agent, just like I'd advise anyone to pick United and Chelsea ahead of us.

If we pull our head out of our ass there's a far better chance of something happening at Arsenal over the next few years that will result in big trophies than something happening at Spurs. That's why someone like Auba chose to come here.

Exactly. Why do people think Liverpool were able to come back from mid table instead of Evertom who were actually better for a bunch of years? Name ambition and the correlated financial potency go a long way. We're not talking about Liam Brady or Herbert Chapman history either every current football player knows the Invincibles.

Frankfurt e.g. signed 22 year old highly rated B2B midfielder Djibril Sow for 10m recently from Switzerland. When he was asked who his favourite player is he started raving about Henry and how he adored him since childhood. We absolutely still can capitalise on that sentiment for another few years we just need management that'll pull their collective fucking finger out.

Madrid didn't bid for Ndombele. Given the number of midfielders they have, I have serious doubts Juve ever bid either, and if they did they opted for Rabiot when he picked them.

We'd win a battle on some players with Spurs, but why kid ourselves? Most players are picking them over us right now.

jones wrote:

goon wrote:

This is a guy who's been fought over by the likes of PSG, Barca, Juve etc and has snubbed United. The idea that we even have a slither of a chance is a bigger fantasy than GoT.

I think that's complete bollocks to be honest. Players dont always choose the most obvious option there are loads of factors other than short term success such as wages, living conditions ie London, selling a project with assurances the player can move on to bigger things, even history etc etc. We're not Swindon fucking Town exactly.

The way some of you lot are acting is like nothing ever changes. Liverpool went from 8th to 97 points and a CL title in a couple seasons and contrary to popular belief they didn't do it with just cheap signings. Spurs have been dogshit for ages and struck gold with a couple players, Ndombele was supposed to go to Juve or Madrid instead hes with them now. Theres no fucking reason except our own ineptitude and owner's stinginess why we shouldn't be able to at least compete for de Ligts signature.

Of course there's exceptions, it's why I actually held out some hope of us signing Mbappe a couple of seasons ago before it become evident how utterly hopeless our cause was. But it's still an exception. We're not Swindon Town but we don't offer the best money, our last big trophy was in 2004 so we don't offer the best chance of success, we can't offer CL football and these days we can't even be considered the best stepping stone. 

Liverpool's accent was gradual. They didn't start off buying guys like Allison and van Dijk. Before van Dijk their biggest signings under Klopp were Ox, Salah, Roberton, Mane, Wijnaldum and Karius. Before the Klopp era it was players of the same middle of the road profile. 

We need to improve our appeal. The first step is showing young players that this is the place to boost their career, the second is getting back in the CL and then being seen to compete in those big stages. Once we do that, then maybe we can start to think about competing seriously for the likes of De Ligt on a consistent basis. It shouldn't really take more than a season or two with the right manager and management.

Ricky1985 wrote:

Madrid didn't bid for Ndombele. Given the number of midfielders they have, I have serious doubts Juve ever bid either, and if they did they opted for Rabiot when he picked them.

We'd win a battle on some players with Spurs, but why kid ourselves? Most players are picking them over us right now.

Stop it Ricky, the truth is very depressing. We need to cheat the market with some brilliant players nobody has unearthed, or value for money established signing that no other top clubs go for. Like the LB Atletico just signed

I have to agree with Ricky when i only see Martinelli (a virtual unknown) signed and we appear to be struggling to get Saliba and Zaha who many people don't rate.
That said, i think we are on the right path as we need to gamble on youth to get de Ligts and Ndombeles of the future as we are, imo, a tier 4 club for top prospects.

There is a tendency to snowball our situation into absolute despair. In the last two days I have seen - we absolutely cannot sign any top players, and finishing 1 point off 4th and in the Europa final means that we have no chance of competing this season. We really seem to be taking a glass half empty approach.

On the transfers, I would treat Ndombele and De Ligt differently. De Ligt is the hottest transfer in town, seen as a once in a generation defender. A number of top teams (PSG, Barca, Juventus, Liverpool, United) have made him first choice and the choice is in his hands. We stand no chance when there are so many clubs that can all offer more money and Champions League (the facts bear this out).

Ndombele, on the other hand, was billed as a top prospect but did not have the same competitive market. Barcelona went for a once in a generation midfielder from Ajax; Juventus went for 2 free CMs to position themselves for De Ligt. And Madrid drew up a priority list of midfielders that placed him at best 3rd. The Madrid situation has tied up United as well. Liverpool's midfield is stocked and City specifically needed a Fernandinho replacement, with Ndombele not having the refined passing yet for their system. This opened up a path for Spurs to chase him alone all May/June.

I agree with Klaus that we could have gone after Ndombele if we had the ambition. De Ligt, however, was out of the question.

We're not broke - we've been sitting on a mountain of money in our Cash Reserves for the best part of a frakking decade. The new kit deal basically doubles what we got with Puma and the new TV deals are going to have a similar impact to the TV money.

There is no longer any STCC to restrict our spending re wages. We wouldn't breach FFP unless we were non-compliant after 3 seasons and even then we wouldn't have to be in the black to achieve compliance. Even if we didn't the penalties handed to other clubs are no more than we've done to ourselves under the bull shit financial model that we have. The model is ok in principle but not the way we have applied it.

There is nothing to stop us going hard in the market other than our own lack of appetite to do so. I am worried less about any regrets not to sell Lacazette, as I am in our tightening the financial belt with no STCC to stop those clubs with more ambition to out spend us and build a squad capable to mount a genuine challenge for UEFA places in the next 2-3 seasons. LFC have already proved that it can be done.

Anzac, the reason I thought we should sell Lacazette is that the media would have us believe that there is a healthy appetite in the market for him at £60-70m. If you took that and our alleged £40m pounds, that gives you £110m. Already, you could easily be talking of a haul of three guys Tierney, Ndicka, Under and still have change early in the summer. Then you can start thinking about some moves for another striker or a Zaha etc once you move a deadwood.

All of a sudden you're rebuilding. Or you move him and put most of the money into an Ndombele, bring in Tierney and start wheeling and dealing from there. Either way, you've made the team younger and increased value. Now you just need to address the goals

Anzac wrote:

We're not broke - we've been sitting on a mountain of money in our Cash Reserves for the best part of a frakking decade.  The new kit deal basically doubles what we got with Puma and the new TV deals are going to have a similar impact to the TV money.

There is no longer any STCC to restrict our spending re wages.  We wouldn't breach FFP unless we were non-compliant after 3 seasons and even then we wouldn't have to be in the black to achieve compliance.  Even if we didn't the penalties handed to other clubs are no more than we've done to ourselves under the bull shit financial model that we have.  The model is ok in principle but not the way we have applied it.

There is nothing to stop us going hard in the market other than our own lack of appetite to do so.  I am worried less about any regrets not to sell Lacazette, as I am in our tightening the financial belt with no STCC to stop those clubs with more ambition to out spend us and build a squad capable to mount a genuine challenge for UEFA places in the next 2-3 seasons. LFC have already proved that it can be done.

That will have been largely eroded by the losses we've made, I'm not up to date on exactly how much by, but it won't be the headline figures we're used to seeing when the 'warchest' chat has been floated in the past. 

We're going to post a rather large operating loss this year, the first loss of any amount since 2002. Money isn't flowing.

Ricky1985 wrote:

We're going to post a rather large operating loss this year, the first loss of any amount since 2002. Money isn't flowing.

And this a club that still has a massive debt balloon looming in the future. If we are making large losses we can't eat away at that balloon  . Fun times at Ashburton Grove

Rememeber when all those folks wanted us to finish outside the top 4, mockingly and relentlessly referring to the achievement as 'The Prize'? Well, this current situation we find ourselves in is your prize.