If willian was the guy available for a 1 year loan, id actually take him over coutinho any day of the week. He's still pretty sharp. Unfortunately a loan isnt on the table, and a permanent deal would just be a waste of resources

The thing is each of these individual deals for these pensioners on their own look small, but they add and you quickly realise that we have thrown away large wages on the income statement side and added nothing to the balance sheet. It's a disaster! No to Willian. No to Coutinho. And sign Ceballos already.

I struggle to see Willian as a starting player on his wages even as a free agent when we have given Saka #7.

Claudius wrote:

The thing is each of these individual deals for these pensioners on their own look small, but they add and you quickly realise that we have thrown away large wages on the income statement side and added nothing to the balance sheet. It's a disaster! No to Willian. No to Coutinho. And sign Ceballos already.

I don't think we sign any of Coutinho, Willian or Partey without both UEL next season & with PEA/Laca also staying.

Aubameyang is a wide player and he scored 23 goals.

I'm convinced. let's put all our money in the pensioner.
Zlatan is also one of the best strikers in Europe right now. Hopefully, we stick some cash in him too

Klaus wrote:

Aubameyang is a wide player and he scored 23 goals.

Yeah, very convenient to ignore one of our two starting wide players.

Can't see Willian coming here and keeping that level of intensity. More likely to breeze through his stay here en route to retirement. Dont sign him.

He can stay at Chelsea.

Yeah, why would we sign a player from that loser club?

Hmm

Native Portuguese speakers in conversation shocker. Gabi is probably ordering Nando's.

If signing him means we can allocate more funds to signing a CB, DM & CM then I could probably live with it. Don't think we will have enough money to also sign a top wide player as well.

[font=Times New Roman][size=x-small][font=Times New Roman][font=system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont,][size=x-small]Fabrizio Romano[/size][/font]

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[font=Times New Roman][size=medium][font=system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont,][size=xx-large]Willian has refused another bid from Chelsea to extend his contract until June 2022. Still no agreement. Arsenal are now in talks with his representatives to sign him as a free agent - no bids from Barcelona at the moment. [/size]
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[size=xx-large]#AFC[/size] =https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/CFC?src=hashtag_click][size=xx-large]#CFC[/size][/url] [size=xx-large]#transfers[/size][/font][/size][/font]

Its happening. We can't give this guy a multi year deal surely.

Yep...all over the press now. Looks like it will happen, don't like it one bit, at least I hope it's just a 2 year deal.
This means Auba as a striker?

He wants a 3 year deal. We really should not do it.

Probably means we are saving the funds for central midfield and centre back. Which is understandable.

I'm ok with it. Sell Laca, move Auba up top. £40m odd to spend elsewhere.

If Auba moves central, then Saka, Nelson, Pepe and Willian is not a terrible set of wingers, but it's far from great.

Gunner89 wrote:

If we can get willian and another winger while selling Laca then that's great.

Willian is a good experienced pro who still is performing at the top level.

Zaha would be great if he can come cheaper.

I'd prefer zaha too. There was some hint that palace might accept a loan with an obligation to buy, seeing as though his value has declined this season

I do wonder if this deal doesn't happen if martinelli wasnt injured for so long

Willian is an ok stop gap while the youngsters develop further, but just not on a 3 year deal. Theres always a chance youngsters like saka have a sophmore slump next season.

But if we're cutting corners on low hanging fruit like willian and countiho, we better be holding back cash for 1 or 2 prestige buys

I see a lot of fans screaming Kia this Edu that, but honestly I don't for a second believe we'd sign anyone that Arteta isn't fully on board with. He's made it abundantly clear in the press that he has been a leading figure in formulating our plans for the summer.

If we sign either or both of Willian and Coutinho, then it would have almost certainly been as a result of Arteta wanting proven PL quality. All Kia does is provide an easy route to attaining this.

Picked up by everyone now:

EDIT:

wait, reports from Brazil say Barcelona are also interested. They wanted him for a long time, come on guys, go for it.

They'll announce willian and auba back to back to take the sting out of it

Pro's:

• Already lives in London
• Has played in the prem since 2013, no adjustment needed
• Already good friends with David Luiz from NT and Chelsea. Own an Italian restaurant together in Mayfair called Baddo.
• Is a proven winner, won two premier leagues, an FA Cup and a Europa League as we all know
• 18 in g+a's last season - arguably signing him at his prime
• Willian, Auba, Pepe on paper is awesome.
• We need an out and out winger
• Will allow us to go big on other players as we are getting him on a free
• Can provide leadership and guidance to our younger players
• Relatively good injury record

Cons:

-He is turning 32 next week
-Traditionally, Brazlian players tend to crumble physically after 32/33

• We dont want another Ozil situation in 2 years time
• He will take important playing time from the likes of Saka, Nelson and Martineli
• Our history of signing players from Chelsea has not been great

Conclusion:

7/10 signing but only if Auba stays and we sign two proper signings in CM and CB.

Really don't get this. When we got Sokratis I said we'd regret getting him over the younger defenders we are linked with and within a year that was obvious.

3 year deal on huge wages will set us back quite a bit with fuck all resale value when what we really need now is to build squad value step by step.

Laca to Juve is seriously making the rounds. Why not get Bernadeschi or Douglas Costa from there?

Clrnc wrote:

Really don't get this. When we got Sokratis I said we'd regret getting him over the younger defenders we are linked with and within a year that was obvious.

3 year deal on huge wages will set us back quite a bit with fuck all resale value when what we really need now is to build squad value step by step.

Laca to Juve is seriously making the rounds. Why not get Bernadeschi or Douglas Costa from there?

Maybe the thinking is that in a season or two we will have first team ready options, but they aren't quite there yet. So, for now, to help us move forward we only need a stop gap, rather than a long term signing.

Yeah don't want more players who don't score. Would rather Coutinho on loan than Willian on a three year deal though.

Gunner89 wrote:

A 30 year old who's never played in England. No thanks.

This is the big thing. If you want someone to make an guaranteed instant impact you need someone with PL experience. 

Clrnc wrote:

Really don't get this. When we got Sokratis I said we'd regret getting him over the younger defenders we are linked with and within a year that was obvious.

3 year deal on huge wages will set us back quite a bit with fuck all resale value when what we really need now is to build squad value step by step.

Laca to Juve is seriously making the rounds. Why not get Bernadeschi or Douglas Costa from there?

Honestly, you really want nobody from the Juve squad that played the better part of this season. They're the most oddly built squad in Europe right now. There are only 4 options you might look at, but each have their flaws 

• Demiral is incredible, but is only coming back to training in August from ACL
• Dybala is also incredible but is hard to play in the 433 
• Rabiot. Nuts
• De Ligt. Having some issues adapting to Juve's zonal marking and overall awareness of play. Clearly high potential but little issues you pick up

We should just take the money really, a swap deal feels like it would be a little forced and you'd end up taking someone that wouldn't normally be on your shortlist.

But maybe swap deals are playing a bigger role this summer with everyone being broke, it's perhaps a way to extract a bit more value.

Maybe Willian can be a Ze Roberto type , even now that guy looks fitter than most footballers

goon wrote:

We should just take the money really, a swap deal feels like it would be a little forced and you'd end up taking someone that wouldn't normally be on your shortlist.

But maybe swap deals are playing a bigger role this summer with everyone being broke, it's perhaps a way to extract a bit more value.

Yeah. I think if swap deals are to happen, teams need to look to America for inspiration. There, the agents work overtime to structure 3 or 4 team deals to arrange something that works for everyone. 

Teams are really broke. If Real and Barca are broke, then we are really counting on only Chelsea, City, PSG (and United) to create liquidity in the system. So that might affect transfer activity throughout the entire continent. The whole system needs a push for all the clubs to spend. I feel for the small country and 2nd tier clubs. They're going to see their asses

Only swap I would make with Juve is Guendouzi for Betancur and then we can sell them Lacazette and offload Toreira to someone else.

It's really on. 3 years + 1 more option. Crazy

That's literally 32m outlay on a pensioner. I do rate his current level and its obviously better than our boys but that's 32m we will never see again in a squad we desperately need to have value for sustainable future. There's a better way to spend the money and that's to stop signing pensioners without resale value. We kept doing that past few years and every time we regret it.

These are the sort of moves West Ham used to make to take past it players from top clubs

Imagine if Auba doesn't sign due to disagreements regarding wages. We'll literally have sold Auba and given his wages to Willian.