Claudius wrote:

ohboy!!! wrote:

 Great post.

The problem is, we realistically have 4-5 players who may be part of the answer, but where do we get the other 10-12 players?

I know it is an unpopular view, but if you were to offer me another top CB, I would take it now. The more spine players we get, the better. 

This also raises another issue, is Arteta the man to develop those players? I really like who he and Edu identified in the summer (apart from Willian), but do we entrust this process to him?

While the idea of an 11 is not actually real - the football schedule is too tough for you to send out the same 11 players day-in and day-out, what really matters is having difference makers. You don't really think about the difference that Reyes, Cygan, Clichy and Wiltord made on that squad. But you remember all the immense contributions made by the guys like Henry in his 37 league games, or Pires, Campbell, etc. That team is only special because of the first 5 or 6 players, not the next 10. You want to focus on strength at the top. This is why our recruiting efforts have to be on (potential) superstars as much as possible.

It just makes sense to orientate the club toward hitting a peak in 5 years. Martinelli and Saka will both be 24, Tierney and Gabriel will be 28 and Leno will be 33. In the meantime, focus all our resources on cycling through young talent in that age bracket till we find 3-4 that shine the same way they did. 

If we shop in the Martinelli (£6m), Tierney (£25m), Gabriel (£27m), Leno (£22m) bracket we can quite easily just take a trial and error approach, where we can protect ourselves from the long term damage we've seen from the Pepe, Xhaka, Mustafi, Lacazette types.

I doubt it could happen, as any manager would not want to risk their job on the backs of 20-23 year olds, but as we saw yesterday it can't be worse then the half-hearted seniors we've seen take us to the bottom half of the table.

Klaus wrote:

There was a stat recently that what's commonly accepted as the Invincibles XI only ever played five-six games together. There was another stat about how Alex Ferguson never started the same team twice in 200+ games. I recently rewatched the 5-1 Inter game, and we arrived at San Siro with Cygan, Parlour, Edu and Kanu in the starting eleven. Three bit players and a backup striker who, for the entirety of the 2000s, was as useful as Yaya Sanogo. We also had the best player in the world on that day, and that's what made the difference in the scoreline, but the lack of depth is why we never won Champions League despite being the best in Europe.

Teams so rarely start a full eleven that you have to have a full squad, especially nowadays when the game is more demanding and there are more cups than ever. This is how Ferguson won half of his trophies. His teams were rarely as good as Wenger's in terms of extreme end quality but he had unlimited pockets and paid millions to class players who were willing to sit on the bench for a paycheck.

Whilst I may agree to a certain extent, it is also true that AW's philosophy was to select his best available starting XI until players were no longer available, and in often cases he was forced into rotation due to injuries more often than any intent for actual squad rotation.  IMO it was injuries via player burn out that had the major impacts to the latter part of our seasons, that then exposed the lack of quality depth.  We were particularly bad when it came to the knockout stages on the UCL if we were still fighting for top4 and had 3 games in a week.  AW would start as many of the same players who were fit enough to do so, particularly if we played against top4 contenders on the w/end fixture.

That lack of depth was also part of AW's squad building philosophy, where he said his ideal 25 man squad was to have 1-2 elite players supplemented by experience and developing players to fill out the 18 player match day squad, and then to use the remaining positions to promote youngsters to train with the senior players (even though they didn't need to be registered to do so).

Temo wrote:

Claudius wrote:

While the idea of an 11 is not actually real - the football schedule is too tough for you to send out the same 11 players day-in and day-out, what really matters is having difference makers. You don't really think about the difference that Reyes, Cygan, Clichy and Wiltord made on that squad. But you remember all the immense contributions made by the guys like Henry in his 37 league games, or Pires, Campbell, etc. That team is only special because of the first 5 or 6 players, not the next 10. You want to focus on strength at the top. This is why our recruiting efforts have to be on (potential) superstars as much as possible.

It just makes sense to orientate the club toward hitting a peak in 5 years. Martinelli and Saka will both be 24, Tierney and Gabriel will be 28 and Leno will be 33. In the meantime, focus all our resources on cycling through young talent in that age bracket till we find 3-4 that shine the same way they did. 

If we shop in the Martinelli (£6m), Tierney (£25m), Gabriel (£27m), Leno (£22m) bracket we can quite easily just take a trial and error approach, where we can protect ourselves from the long term damage we've seen from the Pepe, Xhaka, Mustafi, Lacazette types.

I doubt it could happen, as any manager would not want to risk their job on the backs of 20-23 year olds, but as we saw yesterday it can't be worse then the half-hearted seniors we've seen take us to the bottom half of the table.

This is the biggest issue of this approach = a 5 year game plan that may only start to take effect after 3 years of building.

Firstly most managerial appointments last less than 3 years to begin with regardless of which top flight domestic league you are in.
Secondly top level players are not going to stick around for 5 years before becoming contenders to win titles or silverware, regardless of age.  We know this from experience during AW's tenure when we often saw players leaving to win titles when they were reaching their peak years, after having been at the club as a senior squad player already for 5 or more seasons - particularly if they had started as teens or early 20s.

Temo wrote:

If we can get £30mill for Pepe, get rid and give Nelson his game time instead.

Sell Auba and Lacazette while were at it, and just throw everything at a new striker.

Let's just sell all the goals in the team and hope it somehow works out OK. I'm sure Reiss Nelson will suddenly start scoring even though he's never been prolific. Or magic new striker will score 40 a season no problem.

Qwiss! wrote:

Temo wrote:

If we can get £30mill for Pepe, get rid and give Nelson his game time instead.

Sell Auba and Lacazette while were at it, and just throw everything at a new striker.

Let's just sell all the goals in the team and hope it somehow works out OK. I'm sure Reiss Nelson will suddenly start scoring even though he's never been prolific. Or magic new striker will score 40 a season no problem.

Depends on if you think Pepe should be a starting player on merit or price tag?

IMO we've just replaced his goal scoring as a starting player with Martinelli on merit.
As our record signing I'd rather sell him than sit him on the bench as per Ozil, and then give his minutes as cover/rotation in the match day squad to Nelson to continue his development etc.  
Same also applies to the likes of Willian.  He's done his job providing numbers until the likes of ESR and Martinelli were back available and fit to start, and now he is no longer required as such.  Whether he was a success in that role/requirement is different question/consideration.
 

Depends. If we are stuck with Arteta as manager then he's a starter on merit in the 5-2-3. If we get a new manager then it's the 4 Klaus manager battling it out and rotating. Ozil's not sitting on the bench, he's not even in the squad. Even if he doesn't make the first XI you need good players to bring off the bench. He's saved us off the bench more than once already. Willian certainly hasn't done his job, he's been an ever present disaster.

Qwiss! wrote:

Depends. If we are stuck with Arteta as manager then he's a starter on merit in the 5-2-3. If we get a new manager then it's the 4 Klaus manager battling it out and rotating. Ozil's not sitting on the bench, he's not even in the squad. Even if he doesn't make the first XI you need good players to bring off the bench. He's saved us off the bench more than once already. Willian certainly hasn't done his job, he's been an ever present disaster.

I don't think he is a starter on merit ahead of Martinelli.  IMO Martinelli has shown more merit than Pepe in their time at the club both last season and this.

Ozil is the type of example we want to avoid, not replicate by having our most expensive signing as a bench/impact player.

TBH had Arteta though Pepe was up to scratch then we'd not have signed Willian, let alone started him.

Willian has done his job as providing numbers/options if Arteta still felt starting Willian was better than playing Pepe.  IMO it is significant that Willian was 'dropped' once it was felt Martinelli could start, and not for Pepe to start, and perhaps even more so that both players did not start ahead of Martinelli and Saka.

Anzac wrote:

Qwiss! wrote:

Depends. If we are stuck with Arteta as manager then he's a starter on merit in the 5-2-3. If we get a new manager then it's the 4 Klaus manager battling it out and rotating. Ozil's not sitting on the bench, he's not even in the squad. Even if he doesn't make the first XI you need good players to bring off the bench. He's saved us off the bench more than once already. Willian certainly hasn't done his job, he's been an ever present disaster.

I don't think he is a starter on merit ahead of Martinelli.  IMO Martinelli has shown more merit than Pepe in their time at the club both last season and this.

Ozil is the type of example we want to avoid, not replicate by having our most expensive signing as a bench/impact player.

TBH had Arteta though Pepe was up to scratch then we'd not have signed Willian, let alone started him.

Willian has done his job as providing numbers/options if Arteta still felt starting Willian was better than playing Pepe.  IMO it is significant that Willian was 'dropped' once it was felt Martinelli could start, and not for Pepe to start, and perhaps even more so that both players did not start ahead of Martinelli and Saka.

Exactly. 
Having a situation where we are confused about who our best players are and we typically have really expensive players sitting on the bench does not make footballing or economic sense. 

From an economic perspective, it means you have really expensive assets that are not working, and not because you have given them planned rest. A much better use of your money is to take all of it, and stick it into assets you know will be used as often as possible when they are available (ie. fit and healthy). 

And then from a sporting perspective, putting your money into the top of the team means you are more likely to have a clutch of players who have rare sparkle to their game, versus a long bench of good but unenchanting players. 

Qwiss! wrote:

Temo wrote:

If we can get £30mill for Pepe, get rid and give Nelson his game time instead.

Sell Auba and Lacazette while were at it, and just throw everything at a new striker.

Let's just sell all the goals in the team and hope it somehow works out OK. I'm sure Reiss Nelson will suddenly start scoring even though he's never been prolific. Or magic new striker will score 40 a season no problem.

Pepe scored 5 PL goals in 19/20, 1 was a penalty. And Nelson isn't replacing Pepe's goals, Martinelli/Saka are.

Selling Auba is a hunch to cash out before everyone else realises how poor his performances are. He's scored 3 goals in 13 full PL appearances this season. I don't think we'll see him score 15+ goals again (not an unreasonable expectation for a new, big money striker). And if we don't cash out now, he could well be another Ozil.  

Lacazette's replacement would be Nketiah, their goals per minute this season is pretty much identical. Lacazette will be 30 in a few months with his contract running out at the end of next season.

Plus, the assumption that they should be judged primarily by their goal count is nonsense anyway because it assumes you have a functioning attack, which we don't.

Anyone who could bid for Auba would've realized how poor his performances have been, it's not like we're seeing sonething that's not obvious.

The Auba now that's turning 32 and not scoring goals won't be worth as much as you would like to think Temo.

And if we really want a new striker we don't need to sell him for that

I don’t like how Nketiah has a year and a half to go on his contract and we haven’t done anything about it. If the club have decided he’s not the guy for us moving forward, we should sell him as soon as possible and get maximum value for him before he decides to run his contract down. And then you have the Balogun situation where we’re struggling to tie down an academy kid with 6 months left on his contract, potentially leaving us for nothing next summer. Our asset management is laughable.

Replacing Auba with a striker on 200k a week rather than Auba's 360k a week (expiring summer 2023) would net us £16m alone. Plus a £20m transfer fee, say. Are two years of a 32/33 year old Auba really worth a £36m loss?

Whether anyone would offer us £20m, and Auba 360k a week is a different matter.

It's not really a different matter though is it. Nobody is taking Auba off our hands and right now he's at his nadir since joining us not to say we just extended his contract. I wasn't as high on him as many when he was scoring for fun but talk of replacing him right now is nonsense, we're much better off trying to find a coach who can utilise our talent to stimulate creativity behind him.

Would Leicester be where they are now if they had sold Vardy just because he went on a poor run of form and hit his 30s?

Temo wrote:

Replacing Auba with a striker on 200k a week rather than Auba's 360k a week (expiring summer 2023) would net us £16m alone. Plus a £20m transfer fee, say. Are two years of a 32/33 year old Auba really worth a £36m loss?

Whether anyone would offer us £20m, and Auba 360k a week is a different matter.

One problem with the math there is that you’re failing to account for the fee required for another striker, and golden boot winners generally don’t come cheap, in fact they’re a rare breed to begin with.

Providing this blip in Auba’s goal scoring is over, his goals will be invaluable to us. People asked last year what we would look like without his goals, well we got a glimpse of it this season. We need him.

Give him Christmas break.

Saint Nicklarsenal.

Give him shiny new contract

Give him Christmas break

Give him creative player

Give him a partridge in a pear tree.

And What is he giving us?

The ever reliable cfbayern account says Chelsea will appoint Tuchel as manager if Lampard loses more games this month. Sounds like his time is up soon.