Rabiot, Doucoure, Pepe, Konate/Upamecano, Tierney

I’d settle for that.

Claudius wrote:

He has decent numbers. There will be a market. Keep your best assets contracted for long term to protect value.
What we didn’t do with Ramsey and others.

Laca is contracted till he's 31 and reportedly already on a figure over the 140k you mentioned.

Think we could get 20m plus for Chambers, 10m odd for Elneny and 20m odd for Xhaka.

Use that to fund more signings.

Gunner89 wrote:

Claudius wrote:

He has decent numbers. There will be a market. Keep your best assets contracted for long term to protect value.
What we didn’t do with Ramsey and others.

Laca is contracted till he's 31 and reportedly already on a figure over the 140k you mentioned.

Oh. I saw some other sources saying 100k. If it’s 140, then leave it.

This will be one ugly summer, isn't it?

I think we bungled in the January window. Not for the first time. Earlier it has cost us a title or 2. This time it cost us 4th place.

Whatever conclusions we draw about owners, managers, staff, players, during a season, ultimately our incompetence in these windows has led us to where we are.

I would love to know who all have been responsible. Some say Wenger alone was in charge but then some say he didn't want Mustafi and Xhaka. Some say our new structure picked Suarez but hard to believe given his history with Emery.

I don't think we need 100s of millions to get back into the top 4. We need that to compete for titles. But just one good window signing the right players will get us back, with Emery or someone else.

Even before the current TV deal inflated prices we saw all the other top6 spend over 100m net to either get into the top4 or to stay there.
MU have spent about 800m in the 5 seasons post SAF - their bench when we played them at OT was worth more than our starting XI.

TBH I don't see how we can think that we can regain top4 or push for the title without spending.

As badly or worse as/than all summers since 2015.

Rohit wrote:

This will be one ugly summer, isn't it?

I think we bungled in the January window. Not for the first time. Earlier it has cost us a title or 2. This time it cost us 4th place.

Whatever conclusions we draw about owners, managers, staff, players, during a season, ultimately our incompetence in these windows has led us to where we are.

I would love to know who all have been responsible. Some say Wenger alone was in charge but then some say he didn't want Mustafi and Xhaka. Some say our new structure picked Suarez but hard to believe given his history with Emery.

I don't think we need 100s of millions to get back into the top 4. We need that to compete for titles. But just one good window signing the right players will get us back, with Emery or someone else.

That Suarez signing, what a spectacularly bone-headed decision that was in a window where we were crying out for a CB or a speedy winger. 

Our only hope for Top 4 is that Spurs get ravaged by transfers.

Need Eriksen and at least one other key player to leave, and/or Poch

Jed wrote:

Rohit wrote:

This will be one ugly summer, isn't it?

I think we bungled in the January window. Not for the first time. Earlier it has cost us a title or 2. This time it cost us 4th place.

Whatever conclusions we draw about owners, managers, staff, players, during a season, ultimately our incompetence in these windows has led us to where we are.

I would love to know who all have been responsible. Some say Wenger alone was in charge but then some say he didn't want Mustafi and Xhaka. Some say our new structure picked Suarez but hard to believe given his history with Emery.

I don't think we need 100s of millions to get back into the top 4. We need that to compete for titles. But just one good window signing the right players will get us back, with Emery or someone else.

That Suarez signing, what a spectacularly bone-headed decision that was in a window where we were crying out for a CB or a speedy winger. 

We were crying out for a striker as well, this was a year after van Persie left.

Also Suarez went on to be the best player in the league following that.

We were right to go for him.

Think he’s talking the Suarez of lesser repute of Baku advertising board fame.

MistaT wrote:

Our only hope for Top 4 is that Spurs get ravaged by transfers.

Need Eriksen and at least one other key player to leave, and/or Poch

poch has to go. he's the best part of that whole set up. he's shown that as long as he's there, they'll be a problem

Qwiss! wrote:

Anzac wrote:

Even before the current TV deal inflated prices we saw all the other top6 spend over 100m net to either get into the top4 or to stay there.
MU have spent about 800m in the 5 seasons post SAF - their bench when we played them at OT was worth more than our starting XI.

TBH I don't see how we can think that we can regain top4 or push for the title without spending.

We could probably break into the top 4 if we had a good season, we could have this season for instance but the question is what difference would it make long term? I don't really believe we're in a position where we'd use it as a stepping stone to competitiveness.

IMO our prospects re top4 for next season rest with CFC having a transfer ban imposed, TH being cleaned out by RM and not having thee funds to rebuild with like for like quality re their stadium blow out, and MU still being in transition.  Even then we'd still be starting as 6th with the bookies because we still need more work and catching up than any of the others.

Agreed to your point re long term impacts - IMO the only long term impact that matters to this club is revenues v profits.  Success as a football team is simply a possible consequence of what we do rather than the reason for doing it in the first place.  We're seemingly more concerned by being seen as being a successful business enterprise than we are for being a successful and current leading football club and team.  

Gazza M wrote:

MistaT wrote:

Our only hope for Top 4 is that Spurs get ravaged by transfers.

Need Eriksen and at least one other key player to leave, and/or Poch

poch has to go. he's the best part of that whole set up. he's shown that as long as he's there, they'll be a problem

Agreed - although my worst 'fear' is that he leaves TH and goes to MU and sorts their shite out, making top4 a perpetual race for 4th amongst the remaining 3.

We'll know things are getting seriously bad when we start to see the bookies consider us as being part of the best of the rest and referring to a top5.

Well in theory Itbshouldnt take much to improve us and close a small gap to top four.

Even if it’s just bringing in a good centreback and a winger, we’ll be much better than we were this season

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Well in theory Itbshouldnt take much to improve us and close a small gap to top four.

Even if it’s just bringing in a good centreback and a winger, we’ll be much better than we were this season

No disrespect dules but are you Wenger in disguise? ;D 

That's the sort of thinking in increments by AW that landed us in this mess as he'd only look at the gap required to improve this seasons' results v next season's outlay, and totally disregard that the rest of the contenders weren't going to do nothing as required by his theory for it to work.  The classic example was the we only need to improve by 1 point analogy when we dropped out of the top4.

Yes we may improve on this season's results and performances, but so too will the rest, and for us to regain top4/CL it still means that 2 others need to fail when we still have the weakest squad in terms of quality & balance, let alone mental frailty.

Other than that this summer is going to take far too long to get done and over with, with very little to look forward to if we don't get the clear out and rebuild done and dusted.