I don't think the problem is identifying good talent per se, I think it's increasingly becoming difficult to identify talent that hasn't already been swooped up by a major club. Have a look at our greatest players over the past 25 years, almost to a man came from a similar or bigger club than ours. Go through the whole list. That's not really a market you can rely on.

The big clubs are hoovering up talent right across the age groups, so a club like ours who doesn't have a financial or reputational edge, signings those players who make the difference between second and first is increasingly difficult. We've been in this situation before with Wenger where we were 1-2 elite attackers away from getting over the line.

    daredevil I'd say this is just reflective of player price inflation. If you look at our current squad and look at the best players therein, they all came from "smaller" clubs. Saliba, Gabriel, Timber, Raya, Rice... Basically our entire starting line-up other than Odegaard and Havertz are either from smaller clubs or homegrown. Same holds true for Liverpool - Alisson, Salah, van Dijk, Diaz, Gakpo, Jota....basically everyone except Gravenberch. I think you are referring to Henry, Vieira, Bergkamp etc being signed from Italy but I think that was an exception rather than the rule. Since then, the only really successful transfer I can think of from a "similar" club is Aubameyang (briefly) and Partey (briefly). The bigger issue I think is that the difference between first and second is often idiosyncratic (Salah having a stormer and VVD's resurgence) or extreme financial might (City) - hard to put a point on it. If Liverpool's creaky defense had played like they did last season (41 GA), even Salah may not have been sufficient to get them to where they are now.

        Qwiss we build up and find space mostly through the wings?

          Bernard Woolley

          It's more an issue to find elite attackers, the one's that make the difference, than defenders and midfielders where the talent pool is relatively bigger. For example, there's a whole bunch of good French defenders out there and it seems like everyone has one (Saliba, Konate, Kounde) but French attackers? Not many. It's a similar theme in other countries.

          Don't forget Ozil and Sanchez.

          Liverpool are a good example, they've picked up Suarez, Salah, Mane and Diaz in the past 15 years all of whom are top quality and were from smaller clubs. So there's definitely something to be learned from them.

            Claudius I think there's probably a difference between what is difficult/challenging work, and what is generally understood to be hard work.

            It's funny because I'm actually hiring right now. The hard part is the fact that our shit pay scale results in a candidate pool that reflects it almost perfectly. I can point to a dozen people I'd love to give the job to, but they'd never take it. I have no power or authority to change that, though. I wouldn't call it hard work. I'd say it's difficult for me to do much of anything at all. Hilariously, we're in desperate need of this hire, but the likely outcome is a failed search and we keep picking up our own slack until circumstances change.

            My suspicion is that its not much different at Arsenal. You make your pitch, to your execs and to the desired player(s), and that's pretty much that. Move on to other projects.

              • Panda

              • Post #363

              Yes please to Lee Kang-In and Nico Williams.

              Bring them both in and ease the pressure on the summer.

                Panda We need more ruthless ball strikers across the team and Lee Kang-In really showed me something in our game against them. I haven't watched enough of him to know his total game but he can definitely put his foot through the ball.

                    Also being linked to Damsgaard

                    Appalling hair but decent playmaker - could play a Rosicky or Benayoun type role for us

                    lorddulaarsenal I don't know if Arteta would but I sure would! To me, our lack of great ball striking across the squad is the biggest difference between us and teams like City in past years (Rodri, KDB, Mahrez, Gundogan) and current Liverpool (Salah, Gakpo, Mac Allister, TAA, Szoboszlai). That ability allows them to pull something out of nothing time and time again and I'd love to have a few players outside of Saka who are willing and able to take a crack at net from distance or odd angles.

                      • Qwiss

                      • Post #368

                      HomeSteak Mainoo would be stupid to move to Chelsea now. Should stay at United for now.

                          • naz

                          • Post #370

                          Is Williams going to fix our scoring situation. I'm not convinced

                          He’ll score enough here but he’ll make us a threat on both sides of the attack.

                          • MistaT

                          • Post #372

                          Qwiss -- I think he'd be decent for us at left 8

                            Good thing Mudryk got suspended or you just know we would have been all over that.

                            They need that 100% profit

                            How is Leao?

                            United’s situation is what you get when you spend like a drunk sailor even when you’re the richest. It’s such a farce. We should take Mainoo off them.

                              • Qwiss

                              • Post #375

                              Claudius why would we want Mainoo? What can he offer us right now that we don't have? He's a promising player but far from what we need.

                                  Qwiss he wouldn’t be my priority in January but if he is still around in the summer and we need to replace to CMs, yeah.
                                  For now, you know my main priority

                                      It always works like this, after we lose a few games, or fail in our target of winning, the league, top 4 etc what ever it is. On point, the articles about us going huge in the summer come out lol. Then comes the summer, we fail to get in our main targets and life goes on.