Absolutely no point sheltering another senior center back in decline. We should have gone for Boateng in 2016 when he was suffering racial abuse and Guardiola was out of the picture. Stalwart or bust. It’s up to Edu and Raul to deliver because it does sound Arteta is keen for the reinforcement. Personally Mavro, Mustafi and Holding have my trust. Mavro is a crock but I’m backing Holding to be fit.

Agree with Speedy, if its a loan that gets us to summer where we can sign a proper player then I'm ok with it.

Figured out what I don’t like about Aarons. He’s a lil fella. Not talented enough to justify his size. AMN is the right size. I want a brute.

Taller than Cole or Sagna. Does look small though and TBh just doesn't look like an Arsenal player.

Seen some weak links to Daniele Rugani surface again, most recent one from The Telegraph. My heart sinks every time.

Hopefully, we’d gone to look at Demiral. Arteta has exiled Mustafi. He won’t be sanctioning Rugani.

I’ve seen light links to Soumare (Lille). Would be a good young addition. But I really want a young powerful, skilled AM like Szoboszlai. He would really add a new dimension to our attack.

Conte specifically wanted Ashley Young and is now getting him. Perfect for his 352 formation then

Lingard has hired Mino Raiola as an agent and the latter is fixing up a move to Milan apparently 😆 talk about stomping the shit out of a man when he's done

We should throw in a 18 month loan +15m buy option offer for Paqueta. Looked a bit shit for a while but clearly a massive talent and would fit well in our future Brarsenal team

Should we make a move for Piatek? Apparently available for £30 million and Spuds are sniffing around as well. If we are to move one of our strikers on in the summer he would be a good pick. Grab him in January and bed him in.

GooneriC wrote:

Should we make a move for Piatek? Apparently available for £30 million and Spuds are sniffing around as well. If we are to move one of our strikers on in the summer he would be a good pick. Grab him in January and bed him in.

I think he's a risky player to pay 30m pounds for. 

He did have a great start playing for Milan but it's been very south since then. 18 games, 4 goals (3 of them penalties).

People have attributed this to a lack of service (crappy wingers; their fans whine a lot about how bad Suso is) and his teammates disliking him (due to his attitude, often dives, etc.). 

I'd rather put that amount of money into the player that Jones mentioned (De Paul), but there are Italian teams chasing him. 

Been linked another Brazil U-17 player, Yan Couto. 

That kid is rapid. Sign him up

Imagine Piatek and Jovic both struggling. They both looked so deadly in front of goal over a year ago.

I really think we should try to get Jovic if we let one of our two strikers go. That'd also mean having a better age profile, as we now have two strikers at ish 30 years old.

GooneriC wrote:

That kid is rapid. Sign him up

Noooo!

Murderer!

GooneriC wrote:

Imagine Piatek and Jovic both struggling. They both looked so deadly in front of goal over a year ago.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

I really think we should try to get Jovic if we let one of our two strikers go. That'd also mean having a better age profile, as we now have two strikers at ish 30 years old.

I'd take either of them. Suspect Piatek is a little easier to get. From what I've seen he started to struggle at Milan after Giampaolo started telling him to play with his back towards goal. He's not that type of player. Milan had an all around terrible support last year too. Signing him and Paqueta for £70 million in January only to play a system that doesn't fit either of them says pretty much everything you need to know about the state of that club.

And now a 38 year old Ibrahimovic is practically guaranteed minutes ahead of Piatek. I do think Zlatan is going to do well in Serie A despite his age; Toni was the same age when he won his final golden boot and Zlatan is five times the player, but you can't argue it's good business for Milan in the long run. Especially not if they end up losing the young players because of it.

Either way I don't think we need strikers who play facing the wrong way, and I'm a fan of Piatek. It feels like a good opportunity. I'd be tempted to take a punt, especially if we could get him on loan first.

I'd take either as well, but I do think Jovic has the higher potential, and Real Madrid are famous for giving up on signings that don't pan out immediately. I like Laca a lot, but Auba and Jovic (who just turned 22) would be very perfect age-wise in that we could fade out Auba as he ages while Jovic takes over.

A player whose name comes up as possible my available is Donny van de Beek of Ajax. I would love him in our midfield. Still only 22, he would be a good Ozil replacement. He’s a great midfielder for a pass and move system. He passes exceptionally quickly after receiving and with precision, and is constantly looking to advance the ball. He’s also great running with the ball and beating men, and a really hard worker who regularly runs 10+ km.

Saw a rumour that Emery stopped the team from selling Nelson for £20m last summer before we shifted Iwobi. Good move by him. He will be worth double that by this summer.

Still rumours about Upamecano being on our radar but hearing a lot of mixed reports about his form this season. Some comparing him to Mustafi in how rash he has been!

Upamecano has had some pretty good form lately:

Still not seen him play myself, but he seems to have struggled with injuries for the first part of the season.

The only time I've seen Upamecano play this season was the 3-3 with Dortmund a few weeks back, and the less said about that performance the better. It really was a horror show from him.

Klaus wrote:

Upamecano has had some pretty good form lately:

Still not seen him play myself, but he seems to have struggled with injuries for the first part of the season.

And that's just December. He's been playing a bit longer. He's actually had a better season this year than his stablemate Konate (who has played less due to injury). The one concern with a bid now is Konate has been injured since October and will only return when the winter break ends. If he's fit, maybe RB would be willing to let Upamecano go, but when they are both fit, they often play in a 3 with Mukiele. Fuck it, get all 3. 

[Twitter]

That's a strange agreement without even an option to buy.

They probably just want him off their books.

KingslandBarge wrote:

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/dayot-upamecano/verletzungen/spieler/344695

This guy's knees will not hold up I fear. Ball playing CB sounds great in theory, but we can't afford another crock defender on the register.

I think that is a slightly unfair characterisation. If I remember correctly at the beginning of 2019 he had a major knee injury in training, probably a cruciate. That kept him out for most of the end of last season. And then, like Holding or Bellerin etc, he's had some stalled recoveries at the end of last year and beginning of this year on the same knee. But since his return around October this year he has looked the business. He's holding up alright, tackling, jumping, accelerating etc. There are no other major injuries that I know of.

Fair enough! Looking forward to watching him in the two leg matchup against Spurs.

By the end of the season, he will have had the equivalent of 2 top class years starting at centre back. That's more than our other hopefuls like Chambers, Holding and Mavropanos; and will include Champions League action as well. I'd be happy for him to be the anchor with one of Saliba, Chambers, Holding, Luis or Sokratis fighting it out for his partner. Not even sure who I would want. What I know from the Dortmund experience is we probably don't want just a bunch of kids at centre back.

upa has looked rough this season on the 3-4 times i've watched him. not sure if his head is turned or the injuries are taking their toll

so ive been kind of tuned out, lots of other stuff happening...we're not signing anyone in january, right?

the leipzig CB that i prefer is konate.

Meatwad wrote:

the leipzig CB that i prefer is konate.

I think that's also the CB that Leipzig prefers to keep 🙂

Eddie being linked to Villa and Norwich.

Personally I think it would be a mistake to loan him there, not because he's not good enough to play but because he probably won't. You don't come into a Premier League side in January from the Championship and start pulling up trees, and both of those clubs are going to be involved in the relegation battle too. He won't get any time to adjust. It'll be another six months wasted.

I think he could get decent playing time at those clubs to be honest, both lack a goalscorer (since Pukki stopped scoring). Clubs down the bottom, especially a side like Norwich, will be looking to get any sort of boost they can, so they might look at a goalscorer like Eddie as a potential x factor in the fight to stay up. If he can at least get a few starts and off the bench every game it'll still be a great experience.

Do you really reckon Eddie will start ahead of Pukki? He's struggling a bit with his hamstring at the moment, but by the time Eddie has signed Pukki will be good to go again.

Decent as Pukki is, Norwich are crying out for a bit of speed, so I think he'd get chances there.

Villa's only real striker, Wesley, snapped his ACL two weeks ago, so Nketiah would certainly have the opportinity to stake a claim there.

The only other striker they currently have is an 18 year old American kid, and he didn't look anything special when he came on against Leicester on Wednesday night. I was watching said game wondering why Villa, and the other teams down the bottom of the PL, weren't trying to snap up Nketiah.

Didn't know Wesley did his ACL. I still think it's a big step up physically to ask of Eddie after riding the bench in the Championship for half a season though. He won't have months to adjust because the season will be over in 17 games, and Villa can't afford to give him any leeway.

It could still work out of course, I just think the circumstances are stacked against it being a successful loan. Virtually the only thing that should matter right now is for him to get 15-20 starts before the season is over. Otherwise we might as well keep him.