HomeSteak wrote:

Klaus wrote:

Who the hell is going to buy a 34 year old Willian who's on massive wages? We're going to be stuck with this spanner, just like we're going to be stuck with Cedric for the next three years. He's so obviously not the answer to a single question anyone has ever asked this team. It's a regressive signing seemingly made for all the wrong reasons.

4 year deal for Cedric.

He better be on some dead low wage or something. Fecking mental, worse than giving a 3 year deal to 32 year old Willian

Bruno Vicari is very reliable for Brazilian players.

#AFC are ready to offer a three-year deal for Willian and have discussed potential deal with Kia Joorabchian. The player is confident of securing a rise on his current £120,000 per week wages should he move across London [@AdrianJKajumba - Daily Mail]

Terrible news. Would rather have spent a little more money to bring in Benrahma. Maybe the idea is to shed Lacazette and move Auba into the middle? Why change a formation that's working, i.e. Auba wide left and Pepe on the right with the central striker linking up? The only other thing that comes to mind is Willian in the AdM left midfield role with room to move wide?

Apparently Zaha is available for around £30m. Which do you think is a better use of funds? Free Willy or Zaha for 30?

It hinges on what other business we plan to do. If spending 30m on zaha prevents us from getting partey, then i wouldnt bother

Zaha without a shadow of doubt.

Partey is a must.

If there’s scope to then £30m for Zaha is definitely preferable.

David Ornstein:
NEW: What’s appealing to Willian about Arsenal is Arteta and Edu.

Arteta wants to sign Willian and has asked for him to be signed. He sees him as someone who could bring experience, winning mentality and help mentoring the youth.

Deal is ‘not as lucrative’ as others offering.

Sureee he will sign for us for lower wages, Orny being fed info from our PR machine I see.

Willian to hold talks with Arsenal after Chelsea's season ends

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/08/04/willian-hold-talks-arsenal-chelseas-season-ends/

That's a clear leak from the club but it's reassuring nonetheless and confirms my suspicions.

Since there are a bit of Lacazette rumors, is this deal more agreeable if it is about making Auba our starting striker, Nketiah backup, Willian/Saka and Pepe/Nelson our wings and then free up funds to buy CMs, CB or whatever the hell it is we're going to buy? In my opinion the deal is slightly better if that is the case, but would still rather Coutinho since that would be just one season and Martinelli will be ready by then.

I think it is fine as it is.
If you are positioning him as a transition player because you are quite confident that one of Saka, Martinelli or Joelson will break out and be a a starter with Pep, then you buy yourself a couple of years for one of those guys to become a certified starter at wide forward while Willian absorbs a lot of minutes. You can also pivot Aubameyang into the middle on occasion but I think he is fine where he is primarily.

We have a ton of football next season. 38 premier league games, and a min 6 Europa games and 3 domestic cup games. Plus there's lots of international football starting in the next 4 weeks with little rest. Being able to rest and rotate will be an advantage. Our squad was thin this season

Claudius wrote:

I think it is fine as it is.
If you are positioning him as a transition player because you are quite confident that one of Saka, Martinelli or Joelson will break out and be a a starter with Pep, then you buy yourself a couple of years for one of those guys to become a certified starter at wide forward while Willian absorbs a lot of minutes. You can also pivot Aubameyang into the middle on occasion but I think he is fine where he is primarily.

We have a ton of football next season. 38 premier league games, and a min 6 Europa games and 3 domestic cup games. Plus there's lots of international football starting in the next 4 weeks with little rest. Being able to rest and rotate will be an advantage. Our squad was thin this season

Pepe or Arteta?

Still think Coutinho is very likely.

Pépé.

http://dailycannon.com/2020/08/what-will-willian-bring-to-arsenal/

it's a nothing transfer, very underwhelming ala the Lacazette and Luiz ones. I wonder what role Tet has in mind for him.

Tet actually has a plan. I'm on board with what he OKs.

BWoolley wrote:

Terrible news. Would rather have spent a little more money to bring in Benrahma. Maybe the idea is to shed Lacazette and move Auba into the middle? Why change a formation that's working, i.e. Auba wide left and Pepe on the right with the central striker linking up? The only other thing that comes to mind is Willian in the AdM left midfield role with room to move wide?

Watched Benrhama yesterday and he’s shit

Sicario wrote:

BWoolley wrote:

Terrible news. Would rather have spent a little more money to bring in Benrahma. Maybe the idea is to shed Lacazette and move Auba into the middle? Why change a formation that's working, i.e. Auba wide left and Pepe on the right with the central striker linking up? The only other thing that comes to mind is Willian in the AdM left midfield role with room to move wide?

Watched Benrhama yesterday and he’s shit

If the choice is between Willian and Benrhama it’s too easy. I’ll grab Willy with both hands.

what is the choice?

About fivehundred different players who are on the market, give or take a few. It's not a binary pick between two piles of shit.

You think he’s that bad?

I’ve never been a fan of his but personally I think it’s clear to see what he’d add, and he’d do it without costing the Earth and allow is to focus on more pressing matters. Even someone average like Benrahma you’re talking about £30m+ transfer fee and a salary that isn’t too far off.

Signing Willian will be like signing Mhki. Only older.

That's exactly it, Qwiss.

I don't think he's useless, but I think he's well pointless. All our other forwards and attacking midfielders combined scored less league goals than Aubameyang did this season, and we're going to add a 32 year old bloke who almost never nets outside penalties and the early rounds of the FA Cup? I can think of at least three young players I'd rather give those minutes to in the current squad.

We're at a point where we either back the youth or we add genuine quality. What we don't need is in-between transfers that leave us stuck with unattractive old players on big wages for the next 3-4 years. It's so typical Arsenal to not commit to doing either thing properly.

Klaus wrote:

About fivehundred different players who are on the market, give or take a few. It's not a binary pick between two piles of shit.

I can sit here and Wishlist tons of players who aren't Willian. Hell, wide forward wasn't even one of the positions I had though we would be looking at. But I'm also a realist. Covid-19 has smacked us upside the head and we aren't in the Champions League, so we are going to see changes that deviate significantly from wish lists. 

Qwiss! wrote:

Signing Willian will be like signing Mhki. Only older.

To be honest I think we’ve missed Mkhi at times this season. Willian is a more consistent performer though. He’s a 5-7/10 performer every game. Mkhi is a 2-7/10 sort of guy.

Don't agree at all with that 5-7 thing, the guy goes missing for months at a time. I think a decent post covid spell has people thinking he's something he's not. Add to that we are talking about a 32 year old and I just don't see how people think this is a good move.

I've always liked Willian. Great player at times. Not sure what he's like these days though.

Qwiss! wrote:

Don't agree at all with that 5-7 thing, the guy goes missing for months at a time. I think a decent post covid spell has people thinking he's something he's not. Add to that we are talking about a 32 year old and I just don't see how people think this is a good move.

Him going missing and shying away from responsibility has been my main criticism of him because he has terrific ability and often uses it for the bare minimum. But at his worst he's still a functioning player in the team who does the basics effortlessly. Contrast that with Mkhi who'll range from world class passing ability to messing up a square 5 yard pass min to min within any given game. 

He's like rosicky in that he's an accelerator of the game, moves the ball quickly, or carries it forward quickly, but his input won't really show up on the stat sheet.

Until we get big revenue rolling again, i think there will be 1-2 deals in each window where we cut corners. Thats what ceballos was last summer, a shrewd cheap deal aimed at targeting a problem area.

The chronology is important to perception as well. If we do a deal for willian, but then sign gabriel, partey, extend auba, people won't be as miffed as they are now

100k is better, still not on board with this.

Expected more, this isn't that bad.

100k for 2 years would've been decent. Seems like he's taken a pay cut to get that 3rd year when he'll probably be useless

Am sure Roma will take him on a subsidised loan deal in year three if needed. In all seriousness though, that's a decent wage and not as bad as I thought it would be.

Gazza M wrote:

100k for 2 years would've been decent. Seems like he's taken a pay cut to get that 3rd year when he'll probably be useless

Pretty much, £100k for 2 years would be a good deal.

I say we convert him into a fullback like Pool did with Milner

This means it would have been 15 M to sign him outright, without talking about wages. So while I'm not a big fan of this signing, it's a very shrewd move by us financially.