At no point was his talent underestimated at Arsenal.

And by Arsenal, I mean the club, not the fans.

Capi, what is frustrating is that we lost so many good players (Gnabry, Malen, Bennacer, JRA, etc) at a time when we were buying old men and had no real identity.

Contrast with City. Although Angelino is an excellent fullback, I understand why he is not a City player. He does not fit the athletic mould required for the Txiki/Pep style. A clear playing style enables better recruitment and team building decision-making. We ended up with Ramsey and Ox in 5 positions, and buying Lacazette and Aubameyang in the same season because we lacked a clear philosophy. And I think the same issue has affected all those kids. How can we judge and develop them when we do not know what we are evaluating against?

City lost Sancho for free, Claude.

I don't think anyone's disputing it's frustrating to lose talents, but you can't generalise the reason across several years and generations of players. There are individual differences in each and every case. What happened with Gnabry is honestly so well-documented by now that it just seems silly for people to attempt to rewrite history. We didn't want to let him go, Wenger rated the hell out of him, and he was being fast-tracked into the first team since he was 16. He was younger than Wilshere by several years when he started playing back-to-back league games for us.

The biggest factor everyone ignores is that it's not like he went to some mid table side to get more mins, he was tapped up by arguably THE best team in Europe at the time in his native country.

Klaus wrote:

City lost Sancho for free, Claude.

I don't think anyone's disputing it's frustrating to lose talents, but you can't generalise the reason across several years and generations of players. There are individual differences in each and every case. What happened with Gnabry is honestly so well-documented by now that it just seems silly for people to attempt to rewrite history. We didn't want to let him go, Wenger rated the hell out of him, and he was being fast-tracked into the first team since he was 16. He was younger than Wilshere by several years when he started playing back-to-back league games for us.

On City - I mentioned it in another thread - they lost Sancho and went on to post 100 points. It's a very different situation.

On us, I think it's important to piece these threads together because otherwise we lose sight of the wide issues at the club. I don't think losing these players, throwing away Ramsey's career, filling the club with retirees for years, all while having the 3rd highest net spend in the past decade are disconnected. It speaks to a club that has a very poorly defined strategy. 

With City it's as simple as Pep/Txiki saying "We want to implement the Ajax system with a high press". From there, it is easy to define the requirements for every position and that directs all player strategy. What is the Arsenal style? What are the players required for it? 

people can have all the talk about wenger rating him and the club valuing him all they want, but there is ONE fact that proves both didn't give a shit: they loaned him to tony pulis. no player with ambition is going to take that slight lightly, they are going to look for a better parent club. offering him a contract extension doesn't mean we valued him, it means we were hedging our bets like we've done with many other young players we didn't really value "ehhh let's see if he turns into something." well this one turned into something alright.

Players have a say in loans too you know, if he didn't want to play for Tony Pulis (to a PL club) he didn't have to. I think you're projecting there.

That being said, I was reading something yesterday about how much we've revamped our loan system after a series of bad loan deals etc. It's much more rigorous now both in the initial decision process, the conditions attached as well as active management during the loan period (speak to the players themselves on a regular basis). That whole period was just too laid back.

We didn't send him to West Brom, he chose to go there. There were a few clubs interested and he decided to go there. He was struggling to get over his bad injury and needed a loan to get back to fitness.

Wenger rated him though and wanted to keep him. Gnabry I believe told him he would extend but when he realised Bayern were interested he went back on his word.

It's not like Pulis loaned Gnabry and then benched him just to spite Arsenal either. It was a commitment to a player from a club that didn't have many resources and tried to scrape together what they could. If he could have been of help to them he would have played. I think Gnabry himself admitted he couldn't reach the necessary level after the injury.

We should probably have loaned him to a club on a lower level in retrospect, and pressed harder for a contract extension first. Shit happens though. I just think it's something fans should be a little more humble about, because the people most eager to bash the club for losing a player they wanted to keep in Gnabry are usually the same ones who thought we spent years longer than necessary on guys like Wilshere and Chamberlain.

Klaus wrote:

We should probably have loaned him to a club on a lower level in retrospect, and pressed harder for a contract extension first. Shit happens though.

Exactly, that is our biggest fault here. Another player we let slip through because of how poor we were/are at extending contracts. Always leaving things late and then letting players go, absolutely scandalous and amateurish really.

Klaus wrote:

I just think it's something fans should be a little more humble about, because the people most eager to bash the club for losing a player they wanted to keep in Gnabry are usually the same ones who thought we spent years longer than necessary on guys like Wilshere and Chamberlain.

I'm not those people, but wouldn't they be right in all three cases? If want to make your case then Wilshere and Chamberlain need to be successes that we're sorry to have lost.

No, I don't think they would be correct.

The point is a lot of fans are smart after the fact when it comes to young players. They'll say bin Nelson now and yet if he ends up a success they'll be the same ones to make loads of noise.

You talking in general or from here? Not going to bother checking, but I think the people on this forum who say they were always fans of Gnabry were in fact that.

I get the point, but it's weird to use "The people who wanted to keep this player who turned out to be fantastic are the same people who thought we should get rid of those two guys who didn't turn into anything" against them.

Funnily enough I raised this last time, I distinctly remember arguing with a few people on here about why Gnabry was worth persisting with (this was before he tore it up at the Olympics or U20s or w/e it was) but apparently everyone always rated him and thought he was great 😆

I couldn't be bothered to try and track it down.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

I get the point, but it's weird to use "The people who wanted to keep this player who turned out to be fantastic are the same people who thought we should get rid of those two guys who didn't turn into anything" against them.

Three massive talents who all suffered the sort of injuries that can - and in two of the cases did - wreck careers. I don't think it's much of a stretch to compare them. The club showed a big belief in all three and committed to them from a young age. They didn't leave because we shoved them out the door.

goon wrote:

Funnily enough I raised this last time, I distinctly remember arguing with a few people on here about why Gnabry was worth persisting with (this was before he tore it up at the Olympics or U20s or w/e it was) but apparently everyone always rated him and thought he was great 😆

I couldn't be bothered to try and track it down.

Don't remember you being in this camp, distinctively remember it was me and jones against the world at that time. 😆 It was so hard to stem against everyone who is adamant Ox is 3 times the player with long essays and we have nothing but just talent without minutes to fight on.

JazzG wrote:

We didn't send him to West Brom, he chose to go there. There were a few clubs interested and he decided to go there. He was struggling to get over his bad injury and needed a loan to get back to fitness.

Wenger rated him though and wanted to keep him. Gnabry I believe told him he would extend but when he realised Bayern were interested he went back on his word.

I just researched on your first point and actually you are correct. We didn't fucked his loan up, we wanted to loan him to Brighton in the championship and he chose to go to Pulis.

Second point was what Wenger claimed after that. Gnabry didn't want to renew because he was not given game time and didn't believe he would have had game time ahead of the shitsters. We just didn't value him early enough before his standout performances in the Olympics.

Gnabry returned to Arsenal in the summer of 2016 facing an uncertain future. He was out of contract the next year, and the club had made no serious attempts to sign him to a new deal.

Determined to prove his worth, the forward sought advice from Mertesacker. The Arsenal skipper told him to do extra shifts, working on his core stability and also to work on his mentality, to push himself further in training. “He was a great help, as were Mesut (Ozil) and Lukas (Podolski). They encouraged me by telling me about their problems and giving useful advice. I was lucky that I could learn from them.” Bould also proved influential in those days. He sat Gnabry down and told him to be more aggressive in his game, to develop a ruthless streak, to be seen as a more serious player.

A breakthrough of sorts arrived courtesy of that summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Gnabry was a last-minute addition to Horst Hrubesch’s squad and scored six goals to lead Germany to a silver medal in Brazil. Arsenal were now much more eager to extend his contract but with six or seven players still ahead of him in the pecking order, he decided that a step down was necessary to move ahead.

“As much as I loved Arsenal and being in London, I realised that I needed to play regularly,” he says.

goon wrote:

The biggest factor everyone ignores is that it's not like he went to some mid table side to get more mins, he was tapped up by arguably THE best team in Europe at the time in his native country.

Yeah, it's clear that Bayern wanted him no matter what his form was at that time. Look what happened to City and Sane, they couldn't keep him after Bayern tapped him up badly and sold him for a "cheap" deal. 

Ricky1985 wrote:
otfgoon wrote:

He is good enough to start for them, or at least get game time for them. Pulis is a dinosaur though so he doesn't get  a look in, I'd be willing to bet a 17yr old Fabregas would have hardly featured either under him.

He did pretty well here a couple of years ago as an 18 yr old so he'd definitely be a useful option off the bench in the short term. Can then loan him out again in January to a team that will actually play him regularly. 

Don't really agree with that. Pulis is a good manager and if Gnabry was good enough to contribute, I think he'd pick him.

Gnabry spent 14 months out injured and it's going to be a long road back for him, losing that time has probably already cost him the chance of making it at Arsenal and I reckon starting in the Premier League is still a year or so of playing regularly somewhere away from him.

goon wrote:

Point taken Ricky, but I just don't trust Pulis.

Klaus wrote:

I don't think he is. Gnabry is one of the weirdest Arsenal hypes in a long time. He did reasonably well for us when he was asked to fill in, but the bloke has no outstanding qualities. He's the typical player who gets game time at Arsenal because we can afford it, but at a club where they're fighting tooth and nail for every point he's not going to be on the pitch unless he contributes.

I'm puzzled over why we loaned Gnabry to a Premier League club to begin with. The club should have realised that it's above his current level.

Think you're being harsh there, the lad showed loads of promise at youth level and unlike many others, was actually able to transfer some of that to the first team. They also seem to rate him highly in the German set up, he a regular with the U21's and Lowe has mentioned him a couple of times too. More to the point though, have you see who West Brom have been playing? They might not have to fight tooth and nail for every point if they had players who were actually good going forward.

Sorry Klaus, you are collateral damage here. But vindication for myself backing Gnabry in his darkest moment.