goon wrote:

Emi was down to the last 10 months of his deal, the idea that Arteta could keep both if he wanted obviously isn't true given Emi's demands of being undisputed No.1

Yup we even offered Emi a new contract. We simply chose the wrong one. Tell Emi he is the new number one, sign the new contract. Case closed.

They probably already had doubts about Leno, but Emi wanted out and had an offer. Player power is potent.

It was bad timing but that's also what you get when squad building and recruitment is as haphazard as it's been for the last decade and a half.

Ifs and buts. Leno doesn't get injured and Martinez never gets his chance to show his sudden maturity. This one looks really poor in hindsight but I don't think the club could do much. Leno had been one of our players of the seasons for two years in a row.

Coombs wrote:

They probably already had doubts about Leno, but Emi wanted out and had an offer. Player power is potent.

If they had doubts about Leno it was a huge fuck up. I don't think they did though. I think they kept who they felt was better. Leno has looked off for a while though and clearly isn't happy at the club. So its less a question of ability between the 2 but of Leno not being content, confident, etc

They must've had doubts if he wasn't signing a new contract, no? I didn't mean about his ability, I meant doubts about him being our keeper for too much longer. You'd figure this summer's keeper signing was already on the horizon.

this signing is either a colossal disaster or merely a gross misappropriation of resources

if leno is pushing for an exit, we needed a replacement. i have a hard time believing ramsdale is the best option to replace him, especially when we're unlikely to get £25m+ for leno, especially now. most teams that he'd want to go to probably didn't leave their starting GK position to be filled until the end of the transfer window.

if we do sell leno, we're probably taking a net loss on our goalkeeper swap, with the only benefit of ramsdale being he is homegrown.

if leno stays this season, then we've spent £25m on a backup goalkeeper who will sit on the bench for most of the season, in a season where because of the lack of fixture congestion, we have very little need for an expensive backup. this season, because of our lack of european competition, represented the best chance we have had recently of getting back to the top 4.

which brings me to the bizarre misuse of funds. we are not an oil club, and it seems hard to believe that kroenke has now decided to just spend £200m per transfer window. we've made pennies on sales, and we spent £50m on a CB, which was the area of the club that had the most depth. we are woefully lacking at CM, and it appears we now do not have a striker, since arteta has humiliated/exiled our two very expensive senior strikers. but we just went and spent £25m on a backup goalkeeper. was there no one available for £5m who could be counted on to play 2 or 3 FA cup games this season?

maybe edu and arteta are playing 5d chess and we're going to see lots of sales and more additions before the window closes. but revenues still seem way down across europe and teams generally arent just spending like idiots. the players we want to sell either have no pedigree/luster, or they are on huge wages, which will make it harder for other teams.

i just simply cannot understand our strategy, assuming we have one

Coombs wrote:

They must've had doubts if he wasn't signing a new contract, no? I didn't mean about his ability, I meant doubts about him being our keeper for too much longer. You'd figure this summer's keeper signing was already on the horizon.

Again if they had doubts about that they should have held on to Martinez and tried to move Leno.

If you think about last summer they pushed hard for Raya, now they have gone even harder for Ramsdale, similar profile players. Maybe they always planned to transition away from Leno. But if thats the case why not just keep home grown Martinez when he was in good form. I mean he's only 28. Just seems like they keep creating work they don't need to. Everything is very inefficient about the way the clubs run.

I don't think keeping Martinez was much of an option. He wasn't happy enough starting the first game of the season, wasn't signing a new deal, and wanted the move + there was a buyer. Those are very difficult circumstances to keep a player in, if not impossible.

Don Pacifico wrote:

AAStyle- wrote:

Wenger had faith in Martinez, that is worth noting. Who is behind this signing? The guy that just let go Martinez, hired Willian on a 3 year contract and couldnt handle Saliba? Oh yeah, I am sure this signing will be a success

How do you make that out?

Martinez said it several times in interviews.

Barely gave him any game time though...? Actions/words etc.

Heard earlier in the summer Leno has no intension of signing a new contract so we will probably lose him soon so I can understand

I don't know too much about this guy but a lot of the feedback doesn't seem too good! One thing I have heard he is decent in the air which Leno is piss poor at. We saw with Emi how much pressure that relieves off your backline because he would dominate the box.

I have no doubt we're going to let Leno go if Ramsdale comes in, although there might not be enough time to do it this summer. The calculation of Ramsdale's transfer fee is probably based on recuperating at least 10-15 millions from selling Leno though.

Nah. Leno will stay and I could even bet that he will be on the starting XI at the beginning of the season. Remember we have cone boy as coach

Klaus wrote:

I have no doubt we're going to let Leno go if Ramsdale comes in, although there might not be enough time to do it this summer. The calculation of Ramsdale's transfer fee is probably based on recuperating at least 10-15 millions from selling Leno though.

we paid like £23m for leno, and will probably get £10m for him. we are paying 24m for ramsdale, and i think we'll be lucky to get 6m for him when hes sold in 2 years.

jesus christ

Barca aside, are we the worst run club in the world?

Letting Martinez go was so so stupid. He's better than both these jokers.

The stupid thing is majority of the people here saw that coming and predicted we will regret big time letting the better keeper go. If we can't foresee this trajectory at least it's understandable.

Making the wrong call on Martinez, renewing Aubameyang and retaining Xhaka, are three decisions that I think call into question Arteta's potential as an elite manager, that's if you make allowances for the struggles we've had on the pitch (which I do).

We as fans can have our opinions and hindsight is a wonderful thing, but Arteta was there in training, he knew where Martinez was at in terms of confidence and readiness, and he simply made the wrong call. No ifs or buts, he fucked up. A very costly mistake.

And it's the same with Auba. He's not the right fit for the football Arteta wants to play. He can't play up front in the way Arteta wants him to, and he's a very limited dribbler when shunted out wide. Arteta knew the direction he wanted to take the team in the season after he counter-attacked his way to the FA Cup, and he must have known Auba wouldn't thrive in that set-up (even if no one could have predicted how low Auba has sunk). He should have let him go. The fans would have gone crazy, other fans and pundits would have ridiculed the club, but he would have been proven right, if he had taken the money and invested in quality players that fit exactly with the way he wanted to set up the team. Similar to Guardiola ousting Ronaldinho and Eto'o in his first year at Barcelona.

And Arteta's done it again with Xhaka. Okay, so we didn't sell a pretty decent player for a packet of crisps to a low-balling Mourinho, but now we have a guy that is as leaden footed in body as he is in mind when it comes to seeing an incisive pass, who at the same time is also by far the biggest personality in the squad - it's play him or suffer big disruption in my opinion.

All of this is not to say Arteta isn't a good coach, and can't go on to become a very good one - Guardiola is a genius, and I rarely ever use that word, nobody else would have done what he did at Barcelona, so the comparison is wildly unfair - but, Arteta has made some very big errors already that have cost us badly. I have no doubt at all that if he could turn back the clock he would immediately transfer list Bernd Leno and let Auba go for free, and I think the same will apply to his decision to keep Xhaka

A case can be made that the right decision was made at the time and in the circumstances, but the very best are one step ahead, 2 or 3 steps even. Hopefully he'll learn from it in the long-run and we see the benefit of that.