Qwiss hopefully our new DoF hates barbecues and can get work done.

Qwiss last summer was pretty much a wasted window. I love Calafiori but he really shouldn't have been a priority.

I think we can survive another season without a new DM and with Jorginho still playing.

Priority must be a LW, and then a striker

Clrnc Partey is gone in the summer isn't he? We need a signing there and Jorginho kept as back up.

Clrnc Calafiori was a priority. Just go to last season and see the constant complaints about Zinchenko. If folks had to watch Zinchenko most weeks cos there is no Calafiori, this place would collapse from calls for Arteta’s head on a spike.

Claudius but you would be happy with Zinchenko most weeks and therefor not making Calafiori a priority, wouldn't you? I don't think you were among those constant complaints.

Clrnc this is a misunderstanding of how Arteta recruits players. He’s not looking at positions. He’s looking at attributes. He put this guy in at fullback because he’s a progressive beast. He was the most progressive defender in Europe last year. Thats the attribute we wanted to make us more direct. You don’t take that and put it at centre back in our system because the center backs have a clear role at the back to hold the shape and manage distribution.
Whereas in his previous club, Calafiori could constantly leave his centre back role and get cover.

QuincyAbeyie I am fine with Zinchenko. He doesn’t agitate me at all. But as I have said often, you want better players where possible, and I think both Timber and Calafiori make us harder to defend than Zinchenko does

Let me put it this way, Calafiori won't win us any trophies this year. Isak, Marmoush, Kvarat, Gyokeres or any LW/Striker upgrade would.

I mean you guys are assuming that Calafiori prevented a far more expensive forward signing because the defence was prioritised. Considering we tried to sign Sesko right at the start of the summer well before Calafiori that seems unlikely.

Either we didn't fancy the names listed, they didn't fancy us, they were too expensive or we're keeping our powder dry for someone we have our eye on feel like more likely explanations.

goon most people have said buying one person typically doesn’t prevent others coming in. That the drivers of these deals coming through is usually issues of player availability, player desire to join Arsenal, and intensity of competition for his signature. Those 3 factors drive the speed at which deals are done - versus some general interest in getting the deal done by the team.

goon I don't assume that but I think it's clear where our priorities lie.

I mean, we paid an absolute fortune for Calafiori and Merino, and I don't mean together, I mean individually. I would argue that both cost "over the odds" in weird football parlance. For whatever reason, paying over the odds for an attacker is abhorrent, but doing so for journeyman midfield backups is acceptable. Its just bad squad building, end of story.

Coombs Calafiori and Merino are not journeymen. LOL

Claudius Merino absolutely is a journeyman. His picture is right next to the encyclopedia entry. I never said Calafiori was, but we certainly paid a pretty penny for a guy with known injury concerns.

I can see the logic for buying Calafiori. Kiwior wasn't good enough to play there, Tomiyasu was right footed and a crock, Zinchenko is also a crock and not very good. We did need a left back. I have to think Calafiori's physical attributes dappled any of Edu and Arteta's concerns of his injury record.

Merino is a head scratcher though. He doesn't excel in any of the areas Jorginho and Partey excel at and is certainly not an upgrade on either.

We should go for Lookman

Dom I can see the logic for buying Calafiori.

Absolutely. He's an excellent footballer. Very classy, great forward drive, charismatic, strong, etc. But we paid for that, it wasn't like we unearthed some kind of bargain on the cheap. It was big money, and we knew he had a massive injury and that playing in the PL is just different than playing in Italy, especially at the volume we'd hope for. I think people forget how young he is, and how little football he's played - he hadn't even made 100 professional appearances in his whole career, or something like that. 42m is quite a significant gamble, and its the kind of gamble that we seem totally unwilling to make for the forward line - even when the odds are much better.