Qwiss! wrote:
goon wrote:

Agree with your post completely. This is why I wanted to stick with Arteta even during the massive downturn. We need someone to build a team from start to finish.

The problem with that is that if you do it with the wrong manager you spend years building something thats broken from the start. I wouldn't be backing Arteta in the market at the moment, he's shown some worrying traits in player evaluation, particularly in his preference for experience.

On a limited budget he didn't have too many options, particularly if the expectations from the club essentially remained much the same regardless of finances.

Regardless of what we think in terms of rebuild and realistic expectations in doing so, IMO at the core the club and owners still expect us to regain top4 based upon this current squad if for no other reason than the fallacy of quality regarding our transfer spending and wages over the past 3-5 seasons.

That's irrelevant when the experienced option is worse than the younger one.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

That's irrelevant when the experienced option is worse than the younger one.

Not when the younger one was out with a long term injury returning from loan.

I don't think anyone foresaw Willian's rapid demise & most thought he would be at least functional, but not the ideal.  
IIRC most of the debate was regarding the 3rd year on his deal rather than not signing him at all.
IMO that 3rd year is the current club structure's equivalent of the Ozil deal = made from desperation.

Anzac wrote:
Quincy Abeyie wrote:

That's irrelevant when the experienced option is worse than the younger one.

Not when the younger one was out with a long term injury returning from loan.

I don't think anyone foresaw Willian's rapid demise & most thought he would be at least functional, but not the ideal.  
IIRC most of the debate was regarding the 3rd year on his deal rather than not signing him at all.
IMO that 3rd year is the current club structure's equivalent of the Ozil deal = made from desperation.

You don't need to foresee William's demise because it's not about signing him but about playing him. Definitely Pépé and preferably Nelson should've played ahead of him before Martinelli was fit. All three are the younger option compared to Willian. 

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Anzac wrote:

Not when the younger one was out with a long term injury returning from loan.

I don't think anyone foresaw Willian's rapid demise & most thought he would be at least functional, but not the ideal.  
IIRC most of the debate was regarding the 3rd year on his deal rather than not signing him at all.
IMO that 3rd year is the current club structure's equivalent of the Ozil deal = made from desperation.

You don't need to foresee William's demise because it's not about signing him but about playing him. Definitely Pépé and preferably Nelson should've played ahead of him before Martinelli was fit. All three are the younger option compared to Willian. 

Sorry - thought you were referring ESR.

That said if Arteta thought either Pepe or Nelson were up for it then we wouldn't have signed Willian to provide creative input into the front 3.
IMO the objective was to provide creative balance in the final 3rd whilst we were still playing 343.

goon wrote:
Qwiss! wrote:

The problem with that is that if you do it with the wrong manager you spend years building something thats broken from the start. I wouldn't be backing Arteta in the market at the moment, he's shown some worrying traits in player evaluation, particularly in his preference for experience.

On the other hand he also signed Gabriel, Partey and Mari who all look great. Even Cedric looked good tonight.

Everyone is allowed to have a Willian.

Sure you get to sign a Willian but I don't think Arteta was really responsible for Partey and Gabriel, I will give him Mari. As for Cedric I don't he deserves half the stick he gets but that was a ridiculous signing when we had 2 right backs already, then in the summer we wouldn't let any of them go, thats poor squad management.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Anzac wrote:

Not when the younger one was out with a long term injury returning from loan.

I don't think anyone foresaw Willian's rapid demise & most thought he would be at least functional, but not the ideal.  
IIRC most of the debate was regarding the 3rd year on his deal rather than not signing him at all.
IMO that 3rd year is the current club structure's equivalent of the Ozil deal = made from desperation.

You don't need to foresee William's demise because it's not about signing him but about playing him. Definitely Pépé and preferably Nelson should've played ahead of him before Martinelli was fit. All three are the younger option compared to Willian. 

Even if Willian had given us a season of his Chelsea form it would have been a terrible signing. Was a stupid move from the start, his rapid decline just compounds the issue.

Qwiss! wrote:
goon wrote:

On the other hand he also signed Gabriel, Partey and Mari who all look great. Even Cedric looked good tonight.

Everyone is allowed to have a Willian.

Sure you get to sign a Willian but I don't think Arteta was really responsible for Partey and Gabriel, I will give him Mari. As for Cedric I don't he deserves half the stick he gets but that was a ridiculous signing when we had 2 right backs already, then in the summer we wouldn't let any of them go, thats poor squad management.

What? That's a ludicrous admission of bias against Arteta. Partey was the only signing so far under our current structure. Arteta was the guy in all office photos working with staff on pushing it through. You're going to take that away from him for what? Spite? Hard to take you seriously.

Partey had been talking to the club for 2 years.

But yeah you keep freaking out and insulting everyone any time someone says something that isn't total praise for the manager who has us 10th in the league in January.

I think we scout most players for an extensive amount of time before buying. Doesn't make Partey an Emery or Wenger signing, otherwise we would have bought them when they were in charge.

If anything, I think it highlights the issue with recruiting more than anything - why are not signing these players before their value rises?

Managers haven't been making their own signings since Wenger left, certainly not marquee signings like Partey, Pepe, etc You might be able to say I'd like a cheap deal like Mari cos you've worked with him but you don't get a massive deal like Partey done on the managers say so.

Agree on recruiting early though. Look at Leicester they've become masters at it.

We're not really talking about credit in terms of scouting or discovery though, we're simply talking about the decision to actually sign those players.

I think with Emery's era there was a lot more fog surrounding what was down to him and what was not, it sounds like most of our signings were forced on him. With Arteta I get the impression he signed who he wanted to sign, if nothing else the only other person you could say made that decision is Edu, and I don't buy that he's making these decision independent of Mikel.

It works both ways, I never bought the idea that it was Raul and Edu who brought in Cedric and Willian either, I'm almost certain Arteta was happy to take on both.

I'm sure Arteta has a final yes/no at this point but I don't think any manager would say no to Partey, thats a move the club had been working towards for a long time. Raul probably should get some credit there as he was in charge when they got the ball rolling.

Yeah you have a point. Partey literally almost joined us only for us to lose to Chelsea and lose the UCL spot under Emery. It was all agreed

Woah, really? Sad to think about where we could've been now if we signed Partey and got into the CL with one more win in that terrible run at the end of the season.

goon wrote:

We're not really talking about credit in terms of scouting or discovery though, we're simply talking about the decision to actually sign those players.

I think with Emery's era there was a lot more fog surrounding what was down to him and what was not, it sounds like most of our signings were forced on him. With Arteta I get the impression he signed who he wanted to sign, if nothing else the only other person you could say made that decision is Edu, and I don't buy that he's making these decision independent of Mikel.

It works both ways, I never bought the idea that it was Raul and Edu who brought in Cedric and Willian either, I'm almost certain Arteta was happy to take on both.

I think this may be more true now, but I suspect Arteta has had very little decision making in terms of transfer targets prior to this current transfer window.  Yes he was seen to have approved the signings but in reality it was little more than a PR rubber stamp as being the public face of the club at that time despite only being the Head Coach.
Despite his departure in August IMO Sanllehi was still the major player in regards to our summer transfers, both directly and indirectly.  

The decisions re Mavropanos, Cedric, Mari & Luiz(?) were all made prior to Sanllehi's departure whilst Arteta was still Head Coach.
Willian and Gabriel were both signed around the time Sanllehi departed so he would have been involved in both along with Edu, as Arteta wasn't promoted to Manager until September.
Sanllehi would have also been involved in the negotiations re both Partey and Aouar prior to his departure, after which I suspect there was a void that derailed our summer business in terms of the required/intended clear out and rebuild.

The decisions made after Arteta's promotion were Partey and Runarsson incoming, the departure of Martinez and the loans for Torreira and Guendouzi.
I think Arteta would have pushed hard for at least 1 rebuild signing, which saw KSE give approval to activate Partey's release clause at the end of the transfer window.  That said I think both Partey and Runarsson were last minute decisions with the window about to close.  This was due to the initial void following Sanllehi's departure and then the prioritisation of the need to reduce the wages.  Martinez was sold to raise revenues and that general discussion likely began before Sanllehi's departure, whilst Guendouzi and Torreira were loaned out to reduce wages.  I'm not sure if they were loaned as a result of the failure to remove the likes of Ozil, Sokratis, Mustafi etc or if they were simply the only part of the process that was achieved at the time.

Bottom line for me is that our transfers this season have still been primarily reactive rather than proactive.  Whilst Partey has been proactive in terms of quality and the rebuild I still think the way it was eventually done was reactive to the ending of the transfer window.  Likewise I think the current transfer window is all about continuing the failed clear out from the summer & the strategy that was determined prior to Arteta's promotion.
TBH I think much of the summer transfers will still be as much about outgoings and reducing the wages, as it will about any rebuild other than trying to address immediate needs. I don't think Arteta will be in any position to really look for players he WANTS until 2 summers from now UNLESS KSE provides a transfer kitty in the summer for the rebuild.

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