Wishlist 2022/2023: Page 88 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Wishlist 2022/2023

Claudius

Burnwinter I also quote the stats having watched a fair amount of Williams both this season and last season. He’s not this automatic scorer. If I wanted a scorer, I’d sooner Diaz from Liverpool for the left flank. He’s less heralded but has a pace, directness and desire you don’t see in the other two. He won’t match Williams for dribbling wizardry and dribbling stats. But he will drive to goal.

I’m actually struggling to think who the standouts are in the league above Martinelli other than Son who’s an all-timer. It’s guys like Doku, Grealish, Rashford, Sancho, Diaz, Mitoma, Ramsey.

Clrnc

Claudius watch 19 year old Fofana of Lyon.

Nusa of RBL also caught my eye

Coombs

Burnwinter There's no guarantee signing Gyökeres or Šeško improves on anyone we have for example.

Signings improve the players you've already got, as well. Or they usurp them. Signing someone (Sterling) that everyone knows threatens nothing is counter productive in that he doesn't improve them team either way.

Our attack is very effective in goldilocks situations. It was the same last season, and we managed to get it just right for that stretch of games after Dubai. It cost us the title, in the end, and now we've regressed. If we couldn't find anyone to replace ESR and Nelson, we shouldn't have let them go.

Burnwinter

Coombs Yes I am not saying there's no point signing Gyökeres or Šeško. What you notice with top clubs is that they quite often sign "flops" but their output remains at a very high level.

Someone like Grealish at City would be an example of this.

Claudius

While we are talking Real Madrid, one more prospect who could be interesting for L8 in future. Nico Paz went to Como and is playing really well there. Great close control. Looks like a Barca mid. Has also already debuted for Argentina at 20

Coombs

Burnwinter Someone like Grealish at City would be an example of this.

Exactly who I had in mind. You need a couple of slightly bitter, high profile, even world class players on the threshold of the core group.

Claudius

Coombs you’d kill Arteta if he blew £100m on a 5 goal guy. Look at how much he’s criticised for retaining Jesus who cost£40m. And all these United forwards for example -, Zirkzee, Hojlund, Antony (and Sancho before). Again, these are all £65-70m guys.

Coombs

Claudius how many goals do you get from Havertz, how badly do you suffer with injuries, how much more strongly can you finish games, how much more flexible in a tight schedule, how many more systems can you play? It's not about 5 goals or 15, it's about having a better team that can compete across all competitions. I'm the last guy that'll kill a manager for spending money.

Also, criticizing retaining a player has nothing to do with their price. Should have sold Jesus, but I'd never say he shouldn't have bought him to begin with.

Clrnc

Claudius that's not the correct thing to judge on. There's no reason why they cannot perform better here. Havertz is the best example.

Look at all the Chelsea players under Maresca. They didn't suddenly all become better overnight

Burnwinter

Jesus's wages are a much bigger problem than his fee. United are terrible in that regard of course—we generally do okay and we only have a couple of millstone fading players like Jesus at the moment.

lorddulaarsenal

Burnwinter I think it’s an unfortunate case with Jesus - injuries are to blame for him tailing off

Qwiss

Burnwinter United make way more money than everyone else so they can afford those wages. They just need to accept that and start eating wages when things don't work out.

Claudius don't think United are wrong to sign players who aren't ready. Thats where they are as a club now. They need to build it up and signing young prospects is a good route for them. No top player is moving to United these days and they're better off with young hopefuls than more Casmeiro, Varane, Mount, etc types.

Claudius

Clrnc Disagree. the players need to be good and ready. In United’s case, they have one player who isn’t very good (Antony), and 2 who aren’t ready to contribute consistently at this level ( Zirkzee and Temu Haaland)

Burnwinter

lorddulaarsenal For sure. Jesus was a great signing, and him being a bit shot shy wasn't at all unexpected (all the analyses said that might be a problem). However him being as ineffective as he has been for a while now is something different, and his wages are too high for him to get a move anywhere.

There is still a player in there, you never know he might be very useful later in the season, doesn't look like it but stranger things have happened.

Clrnc

Claudius they could be ready in our system and training, in a functional team. Who knows? Obviously not Antony but the jury's out on the other 2

Burnwinter

"Temu Haaland" 😆

Still gets me.

goon

Clrnc

Our system does not help the centre forward, it's probably the toughest role in the side. He needs to press, be on point positionally, track back, hold the ball up, link play and still score enough goals, all against deep defences who will always be switched on playing us.

Compare that to the amount of space and freedom those two get at United.

Burnwinter

Qwiss United make way more money than everyone else so they can afford those wages.

The beauty with United is they think the problem is just to be very rich and they've got that solved ... that's why they waste an absurd amount of money every summer. God I love United in this era. Not to be sadistic, but they're like having a little demon in a bottle in your pocket, whose suffering you can enjoy on a whim.

awooga83

Claudius as has been mentioned in this thread, I think that's not a totally fair comparison based on the relative teams/circumstances they are in. Additionally the aspect I liked about Williams was his directness his ability to try and take on and beat defenders to pull them out of their set lines and take some of the attention off the right flank and Saka. I think something like that could be a major uplift even if the goals output from them individually might not always be great.

I'm not saying Williams is a guaranteed thing but your going to have to take a chance on those types of players with the right age profile and assess them to try and mitigate as much as reasonable how you value them but we aren't going to be competing with the top tier "as near guaranteed players" so we will need to do that kind of business.

Looking at martinelli over the past 2 seasons I don't think he would be on the list for players I would feel were going to help us take that step to the title if he wasn't at arsenal.

samthegooner

Thanks all! Missus is doing great and my firstborn is enjoying being an older brother. Even got a little hat tip to Arsenal with my newborns middle name Leo after my wife turned down Thierry, Rocky and Bukayo… Give me a couple more days and I’ll be dreaming up more potential signings (actual players, not anymore kids!).

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