Joao Felix: Page 4 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Joao Felix

Clrnc

Don Pacifico But are you sure Nelson and Nketiah is enough? If not you take the chance to improve the team.

Don Pacifico

It's enough to get us CL football and honestly, that's still my primary objective mentally.

Regarding squad balance, I go back to what I've said elsewhere on Nketiah - you don't give him the contract we have done if you're going to go out and buy another player as soon as Jesus is injured. We've invested that money and we owe it to Eddie as much a our long-term plan to stick with it.

Think Nelson is a bit of a red herring as signing Mudryk covers his squad place.

Claudius

Coombs
They probably won’t do that. They are pushing the expense of paying off his insane transfer fee to us. If you look at the numbers I ran, the transfer fee they quoted is them basically asking us to pay for the cost of owing him. They’re not doing anything funny. They’re just saying this guy is super expensive, if you want him, pay for him.

We should wait this one out to the end of the window and see how they feel. Focus on nailing Mudryk this week

Clrnc

Claudius I do agree with your last sentence.

Big Willie

Burnwinter Klopp's Pool are a great example.

Here's a list of best ever Premier League season starts after matchday 16.

You'll notice we're at 21st place on 37 points with the Invincibles in 18th place on 38.

Of the 20 season starts ahead of our start this year, 16 are in the "post-Mourinho" era.

Klopp's Pool have two entries, one from the year they won (18–19) and one from last year when they got pipped (21–22).

In this era, you've usually got to be as perfect as we are this season (or better) to win the league. So you have to strike on the rare occasions you get the chance. Klopp's Pool prove the point: an impeccable side for years and years that only ever won the league once—and that squad's now finished.

There's no "fervour or desperation" about it, in fact that amounts to fear of success. Even the amounts of money involved (Félix's mooted €15m loan fee, or paying 30% more than expected for Mudryk etc) are modest compared to the financial benefits of victory, let alone that this Arsenal squad should be here to win the league …

Whilst I agree with your point on the whole, and agreed it will be difficult to get this chance again, your point would be even more emphasised if the numbers were correct in that list. We have 43 points from 16 games, meaning we are joint 3rd on the list with only Liverpool 19/20 and City 17/18 ahead of us on that list. For some reason they've counted our points after only 14 games.

Burnwinter

Big Willie Hmm, thanks: how weird. I was thinking we were doing better than that, but credulously believed the data! 🙃

However, to me it just says: don't fuck this up, don't skimp and save at this point.

RowJimmy

Big Willie It's "after game week 16." Not so much wrong as a pointless way to set a data cut-off point.

Pepe LeFrits

Felix doesn't strike me as someone who'll do much in his first six months in the PL. I'd still like to get him if the price is right, but mainly as it'd give us a chance to look at him more closely and strengthen our bargaining position in the summer if we want to go for a permanent move. Even if we got him now I'd still expect Eddie to start most of the games while Jesus is out; I think he'd used mostly off the bench and we'd be doing well if we got a couple of telling moments between now and May.

Coombs

Pepe LeFrits Even if we got him now I'd still expect Eddie to start most of the games while Jesus is out;

Absolutely. What someone like Felix gets us is control late on in games we are winning, or stability in games that are slipping away. For all of Eddie's abilities, keeping possession is not one of them. We need an option like that, especially if we get to a point this season where simply not losing could push us over the line.
Even if Felix doesn't pan out long term, he's guaranteed to at least help us keep possession higher up the pitch in a few games this season.

Big Willie

Burnwinter honestly as soon as I was reading your post and saw 21 teams have bettered out start this season I was quite shocked. There are only 2 possible ways our results could have been bettered. With 14 wins and 2 draws or with 16 wins. I struggled to believe there were 20 other side's who did that since the PL. Low and behold it's true.

Looks like 2 games are missing but seem to be from earlier in the season somewhere as even at 14 game mark, they have us down as 10 wins 1 draw and 1 loss.

Claudius

I was a bit surprised as well to see us so slow given that we’ve had one draw and one loss. We are having an incredible season , better even the Invincibles, save for the whole invincible thing. Definitely must bring forward investment and lock down this title. Who knows what Pep and the Saudis will do next year

Big Willie

RowJimmy so until we play the games from those exact weeks it doesn't count in that table? Even if we have played 2 extra games from round 17 and 18 bringing us to 16 games? Pretty stupid way of tabulating that rather than just saying after X number of games if you ask me.

Burnwinter

RowJimmy Yeah that's fuckin' stupid. @Big Willie

RowJimmy

Big Willie It's like saying "On Jan 1st," which you see all the time. Different teams have played different numbers of days. I agree it's stupid. Jan 1st is clearly arbitrary, everyone knows it. This makes it sound like it's removing the arbitrary character, but really it's not.

RowJimmy

I don't think that we should be buying someone to replace Jesus. We should be buying players who we want as part of the team going forward, looking to play CL and compete for the league title again next year. Even for a loan for Felix I think that's the criterion. The point of bringing him in on loan is less this spring (it may help but I suspect he'll take time to work out his role in our system) than the sort of extended date we had with Ødegaard. FWIW, I think he'd fit in well long term because he could play in any of the front 4 positions. But I think we'd have to insist that the loan fee counts toward eventual purchase fee.

Big Willie

RowJimmy probably even worse than that though because it says matchday until matchday 16, and we had a couple games postponed during that period but still we've played more games in the meantime. So even though we played 16 games, like mostly everyone else, the system says "nope, can't count those last two games because they were part of GW17 and GW18, we'll add them back when you have played both your double game weeks".

Clrnc

Don Pacifico I think that's where the argument ends, me and some others are talking about title chances not top 4. If we are happy with top 4 then sure, don't need to sign anyone else.

Don Pacifico

Clrnc

Sure - but as I said, I think the benefits of this strategy in the long-term, outweigh the short-term benefits of bringing Felix in. Simple as that for me.

QuincyAbeyie

The long-term would have to be winning the league then - that not loaning Felix increases our chances of having a league title within a few years. I don't see what else there is.

Coombs

QuincyAbeyie Exactly. Long term is a red herring, you need to take your chances when you get them, there's nothing out there beyond winning the league.

goon

Sometimes you need to be able to hold your nerve and trust that making good decisions, the ones that got you here, will give you the best chance of both seeing it through and maintaining this. I don't want a one off title challenge and then go back to doing stupid shit that sees us fall away. We're not City, United or Chelsea, we need to make sure that everything we put in goes towards longevity. I don't mind over spending, paying a £20m premium to bring Mudryk or someone else we feel will contribute long term or even Felix if we have a buy option at least, hell give that 20m to Saka, Martinelli and Saliba.

But we're going around in circles. I suspect Arteta agrees with you guys so maybe you'll get your wish, but hopefully at a much lower loan fee.

Burnwinter

goon Sometimes you need to be able to hold your nerve and trust that making good decisions, the ones that got you here, will give you the best chance of both seeing it through and maintaining this. I don't want a one off title challenge and then go back to doing stupid shit that sees us fall away.

Again, I just can't fathom your attitude here. We have spent to get where we are. The idea that there is another £150m sitting in the bank to spend in summer (our "measured strategy" over the last couple of windows), but not £20m now to put us in sight of an actual title which would set this squad up for genuine sustained success is bizarre to me.

The only thing I agree with here is that Félix might not be a decisive signing. But if there is one to be hand, we should be all in for £20m, £60m, £100m. Just in the last few hours we arguably dropped two points from being short one elite striker.

I think the reasoning here is a classic example of "stadium era" penny wisdom, pound folly that has little to do with the historically heavy spending that has rebuilt our squad and put us on top of the league, and that has been responsible for nearly every league victory since 03–04. Failing to go big in this window wouldn't be holding our nerve—it'd be losing it.

Since the Invincibles there has never been a league challenge we've had where leaving money on the table in winter was the right decision.

But either way, it is a moot point because we're apparently balking at Félix's loan fee …

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