Bosscielny wrote:
Big Willie wrote:
Much as I dislike Xhaka, I don't mind him as much as some on here. That said, you'd do well to watch what Arteta does rather than what he says. He seems to always find a space for him to play and like I said previously, only Saka has played more minutes under Arteta since he joined. Also the fact that you say it'd take much more than 10m for him shows how highly he is rated.
Then again if it's only about the fee we would be getting, 10m is still more than we pulled in than every outgoing transfer we've had since Arteta came in aside from  Willock (25m) and Martinez (15-16m). That includes getting 0 for Auba, Chambers, Mkhi, Sokratis, Mustafi, Kolasinac, and 45m brought in during that whole time. All the while being told money isn't an issue and we need to get those players who are not good enough and/or are bad influences out of the club as a priority.Â
If Arteta really did prioritise replacing him last summer, he wouldn't have refused 10-15m or whatever for Xhaka because, as we keep getting told, money wasn't an issue either when it comes to not getting enough from outgoing players or spending big on incoming players as we'd still be able to buy who we wanted with the argument given that we made bids for Locatelli and Vlahovic. Either way, I can't see Arteta thinking "yeah, I need to get rid of this guy and upgrade on him" but believing that Locatelli was the only person better and available last summer, otherwise he'd have done it by now.
Anyways, like I said, I don't mind him as much, but he is definitely not good enough past a sqaud filler role if we are to be serious in the future. This season we just have to make do, but we can't afford to not get a top midfielder in this summer.
Sorry, mate. Don’t agree with any of this.
Everything Arteta has said he would do with the team, he has done. There are interviews from when he was a player, talking about if he were a manager, that tell you exactly what he wants. They’re not hard to find. So thanks for the tip, but that’s probably why i saw things turning out the way they are, and you guys were crying about something new every week and frothing at the mouth over players he inherited or signed for fuck all to make ends meet.
How many players came to the prem this season for 10m that are outperforming Xhaka in his position. I don’t mind waiting for an answer on that one. It’s possible there are one or two, but i’ll let you or someone else name them for me. I bet it won’t be one of the flops that the club got shat on for not signing.
Complaining we didn’t get anything for Auba on 350k, Chambers with 6 months, Mustafi, Sokratis, Mkhi and Kolasinac? You can’t be serious. Give me a break lol. That’s why we ended up having these guys for longer than we should have. If you wanted serious money for those scrubs we’d still have them sitting on the bench.
Don’t even know what point you’re trying to make about the Locatelli stuff. We didn’t hold onto Xhaka because Locatelli was waiting for his club to bend over for Juve. We held onto Xhaka because we weren’t getting an offer worth accepting. It’s looking like the right decision too, isn’t it? Unless you pictured us sitting 4th half way through March. You’re way off base there i reckon.
Mate, you're running around looking for someone to argue with but yeah, go ahead disagree all you want.
At the end of the day you can say what you want but the facts are that Xhaka has played more minutes under Arteta than any other player since he's been here, despite his multiple red cards and missing like 2 months of this season with injury. But yeah, it was a big priority for Arteta to replace him wasn't it, I guess Arteta just failed there didn't he?
Complaining about not getting anything for players? Once again, you're arguing with yourself. I couldn't care less at this point. Once again, we have brought in 45m in player sales since Arteta came in, if a quarter of that for Xhaka was refused then money really isn't an issue for us. And yeah if we "wanted serious money for those scrubs we’d still have them sitting on the bench" but the same thing could be said about Xhaka by the way. Only difference is he's not stuck here sitting on the bench but a mainstay in the starting X1. Yeah, yeah, go and say he's the best option we have and all that, but that's only the case because we never upgraded on him.
Seeing as you like to make all these big generalisations lumping everyone in the same boat, wasn't it you lot who kept going on about how White's signing would have no effect on bringing in a midfielder? And then brough up Locatelli (if you didn't understand) as an example of players we could still have bought because White's transfer did not drain our funds? Why would I be bothered about naming 10m players performing better than Xhaka then? So no, I won't be naming any 10m players because we apparently still had enough funds to buy a replacement for Xhaka if we really wanted. Guess it wasn't as big as a priority for Arteta as you'd like to make out unless you believe we wouldn't be able to upgrade on Xhaka with what we were prepared to spend with that supposed Locatelli bid plus the extra 10m Roma were offering?
Look, either money isn't an issue for us, or it is. If it isn't then there would be no reason to keep Xhaka just because "we weren't getting an offer worth accepting", unless the manager rates him more than you believe he does. If it was as big a priority for Arteta then he'd have been shipped off and replaced long ago. Simple as that.
Seeing as you seem to be struggling to stick to the points and jumping all over the place trying to score points by arguing about things no one is even talking about, how about you answer these two simple questions. Does Xhaka play so much under Arteta because Arteta really rates Xhaka or because he's what's available? Were we unable to replace Xhaka last year because of a lack of funds or because there weren't any better players available?
You keep going on about 10m not being enough for Xhaka but everything circles back to Arteta really rating the guy. Either that or we blew our load last summer and didn't have any more money, contrary to what you'd been claiming.
