Alexis Claude-Maurice: Page 2 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Alexis Claude-Maurice

Coombs

Are people seriously using the "we don't want to kill _______" argument? Stockpile as much talent as we can. We need to sell them at some point, not foolishly bank on 3 or 4 guys going on to spend 14 seasons with us. That's why we failed at this last time.

Bold Tone

Claudius wrote:
I understand what they are saying, Bold Tone. But I also saw a team that was desperately short for attacking mid talent, and none of these are a sure thing. We will only know once they start playing more here or at their loan clubs what they will yield.
And optionality means we do not even have to have them on board. We could, for example, take someone like Claude-Maurice and send him to Lille or similar for the next year to ensure he gets Ligue 1 game time but as our player.

My belief really comes from the need to go after two types of players primarily

the most affordable 'stars' we can get our hands on. If we can afford a Pepe, we should buy him.

cheap high potential players like Guendouzis. Again, if you can get them at 5m before they are worth 30 or 40m in 3 years time, buy them. You have to accept that some of these will flop, but hopefully you're strike rate is good enough to make this more advantageous than buying fully-formed players

TBH i don't know what the best strategy is as we are dealing with potential but we are paying Sanllehi good money to make this decision.
There are merits to both approaches as developing our own helps our "home-grown" quota but is the slower approach. I'm mindful that very few of our youth players have managed to elevate the first team with Iwobi and Bellerin the recent cases only maintaining the status quo at best.
Signing the right player is a shortcut but we should leverage the contracts in a similar way to spuds who pay low rates so they can get rid of non-performers easily.

Ricky1985

Coombs wrote:
Are people seriously using the "we don't want to kill _______" argument? Stockpile as much talent as we can. We need to sell them at some point, not foolishly bank on 3 or 4 guys going on to spend 14 seasons with us. That's why we failed at this last time.

We already have talent in the position Claude-Maurice plays. Two of them have been on loan at clubs challenging for Champions League places in the Bundesliga.

Stockpiling is not the right strategy with our resources. Target exceptional quality: Focus all our money on that. Large squads, made up of middling talents or middling players is what's driven our wage bill up so high. Quality not quantity, I can't stress how important I think this is. If we sign talent from elsewhere then we have to be convinced that if their development goes well they can reach the very top. Otherwise, focus on the best quality developed or near developed players you can attract and bolster the squad with academy players.

If the club think this kid is that good then fine. I don't see it--and that's why I have a problem with it, but Guendouzi is a recent example of it being difficult to judge because it's hard to get a proper look at these players that come from smaller clubs.

lorddulaarsenal

Surprised you don’t see it. He looks just the ticket. Spring healed

lorddulaarsenal

He’s ours

Ricky1985

I've not seen more than a 2 minute clip of him.

I wasn't bowled over by the first couple of clips I saw of Nicolas Pepe but have since aeen a lot more and realised he's phenomenal. So not in a position to judge yet really.

Claudius

We all love Pepe, Ricky. But we can’t hope to survive on buying 6 or 7 Pepes going forward. At £50m or more, only the United clubs can do this. But we have a squad to fill in 2019 and in 2023. If one of these guys turns into a Pepe into 2023, then that’s a good thing. We can sell the rest or send the to the bench.

lorddulaarsenal

Frustrating thing is we were linked to Pepe before he exploded

Gazza M

And lille are looking at this guy to replace pepe. If we hadn't effed our money up so badly we could sign the pepes and zahas pretty easily. For the next couple of seasons we have to identify the right people and recruit them earlier in their development

Anzac

Looks like he plays in the same areas as Fraser so he may be an alternative if Bournemouth stick to their 30m valuation, and perhaps more particularly if we do not regain CL for next season.
So far as our kids are concerned none have played a full season as a starting player at senior level as yet to warrant not making this sort of signing.
Most importantly perhaps the starting XI needs options now, and AC-M could also provide cover at AMC if Mkhi departs.

Ricky1985

Claudius wrote:
We all love Pepe, Ricky. But we can’t hope to survive on buying 6 or 7 Pepes going forward. At £50m or more, only the United clubs can do this. But we have a squad to fill in 2019 and in 2023. If one of these guys turns into a Pepe into 2023, then that’s a good thing. We can sell the rest or send the to the bench.

I suppose transfers like these are so cheap: _£8m fee, _20k/week, 5 year contract. It adds a really small amount to our annual player costs. There's no downside.

I'm not a fan of the scatter gun approach but there's no reason signings like these should impact the costly and important signings.

Just get me a dominant centrehalf, a two-way left back, a proper centre mid and a wide man with pace and goal threat, Arsenal, and you can run wild signing all the kids you want.

goon

I’m not one for a scatter gun approach either, but if you think you’ve got the next Dembele or Pepe in your hands, I would rather we go for it than regret missing out on the £70m player a season or two later.

Anzac

Gazza M wrote:
And lille are looking at this guy to replace pepe. If we hadn't effed our money up so badly we could sign the pepes and zahas pretty easily. For the next couple of seasons we have to identify the right people and recruit them earlier in their development

Most importantly IMO is we need to prioritise the team/squad balance & structure rather than looking to sign the likes of players valued at over 50m such as Pepe or Zaha, unless they are a genuine bargain opportunity.

I recall a comment made some time ago that rather than looking to sign the current bright young things such as Pepe, Malcom, Dembele, Lemar etc, without CL football we should be looking to sign their replacements. Once we regain top4/CL we can then look to upgrade by looking to sign the talent that made the moves but then stalled, such as Malcom or Lemar etc.

Anzac

goon wrote:
I’m not one for a scatter gun approach either, but if you think you’ve got the next Dembele or Pepe in your hands, I would rather we go for it than regret missing out on the £70m player a season or two later.

See IMO we should always be looking to make those sort of signings regardless.
I don't see them as being any conflict of interest in terms of priority even if it means then needing to sell to either raise funds for other signings of to provide playing time.

Coombs

Exactly. We need to sell most of them. Stockpiling is literally the only way to move forward, signing "super quality" isn't going to happen across the whole team.

Klaus

I think stockpiling is how you end up losing De Bruyne and Salah like Chelsea did though.

Gazza M

We're a long way off having first world problems of that ilk though. We don't have anyone as promising as they were in our first team, let alone on the fringes. If we did they'd start easily

lorddulaarsenal

Klaus wrote:
I think stockpiling is how you end up losing De Bruyne and Salah like Chelsea did though.

Nah. Hiring Jose Mourinho is how you end up doing that

Claudius

Klaus wrote:
I think stockpiling is how you end up losing De Bruyne and Salah like Chelsea did though.

Chelsea had two quality elevens of grown men ahead of those kids. That’s how they lost them.

Qwiss

Klaus wrote:
I think stockpiling is how you end up losing De Bruyne and Salah like Chelsea did though.

I think the overall culture at Chelsea is a more of a problem there. There is no room for development at a club that sacks its manager every time he doesn't win the league or Champions League and sometimes even if he does.

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