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.

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.

This is going to please so many people

[Twitter]

Kolasinac is his only goal threat, no wonder he’s desperate to keep him

Might as well give him the 10 shirt ffs.

Seriously how messed up is this club

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Seriously how messed up is this club

We’re a self sufficient club that lets our best players leave on free transfers.

Says it all I think.

Shambolic. When was the last time we got rid of a player easily that needs to be got rid of?

Useless, and thanks Emery for making him so crucial to your philosophy!

Just deleted my arsenal podcasts. Doubt I want a blow by blow of Arsenal this summer. I’ll see the end result. When you’re in the weeds it’s hard to see the bigger picture also easy to take on the burden of Arsenal stress which is really not worth carrying since we aren’t making the decisions (apart from launching a protest to tell Josh to fuck off and take his dad with him). How many times does £40m go into Pepe? How many times does Fraser go into £40m? Of course £40m is a bullshit number, so why am I even doing this calculus?

Claudius wrote:

Just deleted my arsenal podcasts. Doubt I want a blow by blow of Arsenal this summer. I’ll see the end result. When you’re in the weeds it’s hard to see the bigger picture also easy to take on the burden of Arsenal stress which is really not worth carrying since we aren’t making the decisions (apart from launching a protest to tell Josh to fuck off and take his dad with him). How many times does £40m go into Pepe? How many times does Fraser go into £40m? Of course £40m is a bullshit number, so why am I even doing this calculus?

40m is less than our new kit deal pays per year.
The only reason as to why they would use a figure below our new deal is so they can recoup their losses to break even - they have to maintain the façade that we are well run and profitable.

https://arseblog.com/2019/06/the-great-summer-rebuild-part-1-goalkeeper-and-defence/

https://arseblog.com/2019/06/the-great-summer-rebuild-part-2-midfield-and-attack/

Claudius wrote:

Just deleted my arsenal podcasts. Doubt I want a blow by blow of Arsenal this summer. I’ll see the end result. When you’re in the weeds it’s hard to see the bigger picture also easy to take on the burden of Arsenal stress which is really not worth carrying since we aren’t making the decisions (apart from launching a protest to tell Josh to fuck off and take his dad with him). How many times does £40m go into Pepe? How many times does Fraser go into £40m? Of course £40m is a bullshit number, so why am I even doing this calculus?

LOLing at this post now. Apparently £40m does go into Pépé.

Despite Pepe and Saliba I still think it largely depends on what happens in the next 4 days. At a minimum I wan't Tierny done, but a quality centre back would make it perfect.

Another CM would make it perfect.

I’m fine with midfield and attack. We desperately need to solve defense. Right now we are fielding a single top 4 quality defender. That scares me. Would be advantageous if we had a quality CB like Ndicka or Mukiele who is also very comfortable filling in at fullback as needed.

What is our fascination with dribbling out from a packed penalty area or passing into crowds? Are these guys high?

Ainsley certainly looked high out there

My opinion is that they were under instruction to play out of the back all the time. What i think the coaches were trying to do is put the players through was a pressure situation that cannot be replicated on the training pitch. The reasoning would be that if they were able to do it against Barca in the Nou Camp, they should have confidence to do it anywhere. I say this as they know playing out from the back is a tactic used to force teams out of their defensive shells which is never going to be the case when the team is Barcelona and they are 1-nil down at home.

That is absolutely what's happening, Tone. What better way to train for that sort of thing? It makes good sense.

Yup, and they have to figure it out. However there has to be a set pattern or go to option(s) in terms of which of the midfielders or strikers would drop in to receive the ball. That’s where coaching has to work better - getting the passer open men and movement ahead of them. No point giving me instructions to pass it out when I have no options to pass it to.

Yeah Tierney is the minimum we should be looking at, but if no CB comes in we will be looking to play a 3 ideally again with Chambers Sokratis and Holding. Either 2 of those pairing will be a bit weak for my liking

flobaba wrote:

Yup, and they have to figure it out. However there has to be a set pattern or go to option(s) in terms of which of the midfielders or strikers would drop in to receive the ball. That’s where coaching has to work better - getting the passer open men and movement ahead of them. No point giving me instructions to pass it out when I have no options to pass it to.

There is a long way to go. We didn't seem to make it easy by opening passing lanes. It all seemed so panicked. I feel like you need to both create the options and have folks who have the passing ability and composure to make this happen. The guys in our backline yesterday do not possess the latter quality. They were a bundle of nerves.