Morning all.

Well well, Everton dealt Liverpool a big blow to their league title chase last night. A 2-0 win for Dyche’s side means Liverpool need us to lose at least one game and Man City to lose two if they’re to win one last trophy under Klopp. That’s assuming Liverpool can win their remaining four fixtures which is far from being a certainty.

There is no certainty for any club in football, especially at this stage of the season when players are virtually running on empty, certainly those who’ve played many many minutes in the last nine months. For a while, adrenaline can carry them through, especially when there’s something left to fight for but when that ends, a body can give in both mentally and physically.

It would have been so easy for Arsenal to collapse after being beaten at home by Aston Villa and then losing to Bayern Munich but the players bounced back to beat Wolves away and then thrash Chelsea on Tuesday. One might be tempted to suggest Arsenal ‘should’ have won both games anyway but I don’t believe that to be true. I think it took passion, dedication and determination. Everything Arsenal lacked in the late Arsene Wenger and Unai Emery days. That’s not meant as a criticism of either manager but the club for the kind of players we signed. How many times when we went a goal down did we see players heads drop, almost like they accepted defeat at that very moment? On other occasions players would have a mini tantrum, seemingly blaming anyone other than themselves for something which had gone wrong. The one which almost made me laugh is when a player would be directing his teammates to mark someone yet do nothing himself.

What a contrast to where we are now as we play as a team rather than a team full of individuals.

Regardless of what happens over the next few weeks, the upcoming summer is likely to be another busy one for our transfer team. No great club stands still and nor should it because the only way to improve on this season is by adding quality to what is already a mighty fine squad. Depth in strength is what’s missing though because with both, Mikel Arteta will be more confident about rotating his squad.

Like it or not, I think we’ll be saying goodbye to a number of academy players. ESR, who I love, could be one who moves on for a fee similar to Joe Willock if not more. Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson could join him, both for a fair amount of money I’m sure. All three should bring in enough money to sign at least one top notch player. There or thereabouts anyway. Their wages together, should be more than enough to cover the wages of one player too, with some left over perhaps.

Cedric Soares, Mo Elneny, Jorginho and Thomas Partey – all of whom are probable departures, will free up even more cash as far as their wages go and we can add a few quid to that because two of the three still have a year left on their contract. According to TransferMarket, Partey is valued around €20m, Jorginho €15m. We might scoff at the values but age and fitness isn’t really on their side, certainly not for Partey. TransferMarket have Nketiah valued at €30m but I think we’d get more than that for him. Same goes for the €25m rated ESR and €15m rated Nelson. (TransferMarket uses Euros)

We’ll all have our own ideas of what position needs attention this summer and who we should buy but the latter in my opinion is a waste of time guessing as Mikel Arteta and the transfer team around him, will already have their targets and they are likely to be very different to the names written on blogs and social media. A good job too otherwise we might have Mudryk and Caicedo in the squad whereas thankfully, we have Trossard and Rice who have had a fantastic for the club. I know I’m guilty of criticising Havertz and Raya but I look a bit foolish now. I don’t mind though because Arsenal come first when it comes to being right or not. Jesus and Zinchenko might not be everyone’s favourites now but when they arrived, I don’t recall anyone being disappointed and let’s not forget, we need a squad and not just a top 12/15. Surely Arsenal need to sell who Mikel Arteta doesn’t play, not who he doesn’t?

For what it’s worth, I think we need a strong and solid midfielder in the mould of Partey or Gilberto, a winger to give Saka a breather and a striker. Maybe a right back too and, and, and….  I could go on really but football doesn’t work like that, not really. A, there’s the financial side of things, B, there’s the homegrown rule and C, any player(s) we sign, have to be as good as our best, if not better. There’s the profile of a player to consider too which is hugely important and I don’t mean his stats, I mean his personality. Look at the Chelsea team we thrashed, who was metaphorically rolling up his sleeves and fighting for the team and his teammates?

Spending money is the easy part, spending it on the right player is a totally different matter.

I’ve gone on a bit….

Catch up in the comments.

 

 

 

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