Morning all.
Leandro Trossard and Yannick Carrasco aren’t names thrown around in the transfers rumours very often. Certainly not when it comes to Arsenal nor any other English team as far as my memory serves me. Both are Belgian internationals. Carrasco has spent time at Monaco and Atletico Madrid before moving to the Chinese League with Dalian Yifang which must be really exciting, not, Trossard is at Genk. Both are wingers, both are valued somewhere between £12-18 million according to transfermarket.com. Apparently Arsenal tried to sign Carrasco back in January but the Chinese club said no, now though the player wants to head back to Europe to be closer to his family. As for Trossard, well we’ve been scouting him all season. Or at least that’s how the story goes.
Ajax rising star Hakim Ziyech is another we’re linked to and guess what? Yep, Arsenal are one of his preferred destinations:
‘’Well, I have two clubs. They are Arsenal and Barcelona. That is my ultimate dream.”
And that was back in 2017 when he expressed great interest in playing alongside Mesut Ozil.
This is what happens during a transfer window. Made up, rehashed, archived interviews, anything goes as far as the media are concerned. We need wingers, we don’t have hundreds of millions to spend so pop a few key words into google and something is bound to pop up. Something almost feasible, certainly the two Belgians. Ziyech is already listed as Utd’s new number 7 on Wikipedia so someone’s been a bit naughty. Lol
Rumours aside, Arsenal really do need a winger, two if Reiss Nelson, Xavier Amaechi or Bukayo Saka aren’t going to be part of Unai Emery’s squad next summer. By that I mean to be awarded some serious playing time and not be like Eddie and just sit on the bench at best for most of the season. They might as well be out on loan rather than waste time being a spectator. Training with the first team has its benefits but game time is crucial at this stage of their career and at a higher level than the under 23’s, or a stronger level is perhaps a better way of putting it. John-Jules is another. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him overtake Eddie in the pecking order. Apparently the club are in talks with both him and Amaechi to extend their contracts which is a smart move even though they don’t expire until 2022.
The players listed above, John-Jules, Nelson, Amaechi, Saka, Eddie and Nelson are aged between 17 and 19 years old. If they were in Germany, there’s a good chance they’d be playing next season, if they’re good enough of course. Both Sancho and to a slightly lesser degree, Nelson have proved that. Bayern are already sniffing around according to the back pages and if they are, other German and European clubs will too.
These guys just want to play and if Arsenal aren’t careful, they’ll be doing just that somewhere else. Like Marcus McGuane who’s expected to be in Barca’s first team next season. Not that we could do with a defensive midfielder eh? Our defensive players are for another day. Maybe tomorrow.
We’re into single figures now. Baku is just nine days away.
Have a good Monday guys…
I think it was a brewery that bought out a series of beer mats in my formative years that made use of play on words. Two I remember and instead of Port and Brandy on the boardroom table they should have been utilised in that wood panelled room just above Highbury’s marble hallway.
The first was be a lert , the country needs lerts in the style of the Kitchener poster and the second said think A Hea with the letter D on the next line.
At Arsenal this has been a problem for longer than Wenger and Gazidis and when Dein’s eye was off the ball the rest were certainly never alert and they never thought ahead they just wandered on and let things look after themselves.
We are in danger of slipping back into that mould because despite our new three amigos upstairs and Emery at the helm the Arsenal ship is still in the hands of the board whose age averages 78 if you take Josh out.
The Arsenal’s history has always been one of peaks and troughs, I can’t talk about the Chapman era but I remember the barren period leading up to Bertie Mee’s surprise team of the late 60’s/70s and then slumber until Georgie came along won things and got his hand caught in the till and we went into decline until stage 1 of the Wenger years . As we all know there followed a period where we clung on by our fingernails but never really looked likely to win titles but a few cups on the way were compensation.
Now we are starting again and a possible cup is on the horizon in this regimes first year but should we win it, we dare not rest on our laurels, we have to be alert and think ahead and tie these kids into our future . A quick buck might appeal across the pond but we have to hope that our octagenarians find the backbone to resist and not sell the family silver a second time.
Nice one Potter.
Agree on the youngsters. As we’ve been saying, we as a club plead poverty so use these young players instead of selling to make a few pounds, pounds that will then be spent on overseas players no doubt or at least some of it. You might occasionally find a guy from overseas who’ll put everything in the club but even the 1998 team needed the English boys…
Good morning Rico another fine post thank you, will you be able to sustain the quality throughout the dog days of summer? 😉
Hearing that some of our youngsters are training with the first team squad worries me a little, will they pick up the flakiness, the laissez-faire attitudes prevalent in some of their older colleagues?
The club need to have a re-think about the purpose of the academy. If it is there to supply quality players for the first team, all well and good, or is it to generate cash by selling the best products to more forward thinking clubs? Either way, for whatever reason, we don’t seem to be getting full value from it.
Instead of scrambling around the “Poundland” level of clubs looking for cheap players, Emery must be instructed to make full use of the assets already at his finger tips.
Morning Cicero, thanks and I doubt it. I’m bored already with the transfer stuff and there’s only so many times we can talk about which positions we think need filling or whether Emery is right for Arsenal etc etc.
Perhaps we’ll have a cup to talk about, but I’m not expecting one really.
Oh yea of little faith! 😉
Expect nothing, can’t be disappointed 😜
Baku will be crucial If we win and come to Champions League is one thing; otherwise no trnasfers and ww will loose some important players.
Carrasco again? did you remember him in laste World Cup? Belgium started playing when he left the team….
Jm, I think it’s a win win for us. Win the cup and we have more money. Runners up and the younger players get more playing time which they need.
Afternoon guys, a bit of a grey day here which brightened a bit when I came across a Guardian article on some of the Championship players that might become household names if they are the real deal. Well, the Swansea guy Daniel James looked interesting….?
https://www.theguardian.com/football/football-league-blog/2019/may/20/ten-championship-players-premier-league-clubs-have-on-radar-football
At least these guys would be a cheaper option?
I agree with you Rico, Expect nothing, can’t be disappointed 😜
Oh yes, Valencia made it into the Champions League by claiming 4th place………..C’est la vie!
An excellent Post, Rico, and is illustrative of what we should and should not do with team planning in the future, and Cicero also has it right — the club need to reaffirm what the Academy is about. A feeder system for the first team, or a way of making a few bob in transfers.
I noted that in reports about alleged Arsenal interest in Zaha (not that I believe it) that Nelson is one of three players potentially offered as make-weights in a possible Arsenal transfer.
Wait! — Are they trying to show Cicero is already correct — these kids are just collateral for other ‘star’ players. Bow Locks! How short sighted is that?
Thanks Rico. Fine post. I totally agree about the wingers and I feel it is the main area that we need to sort out before anything else, and has been for some time.
I even feel our lack of these players has had an impact on some of our defensive frailties (but not all). I noticed Potter mentioning about our midfield having a huge say in our defensive woes. While I would not disagree with this, and feel we still need a specialist holding midfielder, like Gilberto, I also feel the lack of attacking wingers / wing forwards means our FB’s (in a back 4) provide almost all of our attacking width and camp way too high, like wingers, leaving us as a back 2 and exposed to a quick counter-attack. A back 3 gives us slightly more stability as you have the extra CD cover if the wing backs push high.
Most of the time the top modern teams play with a front 3 which means these players are part wingers part wing forwards, normally with left footers operating from the right and vice versa on the left. These players allow for the FB’s to overlap and link with them at more specific times, rather than the constant high position you see with our FB’s, because they are more or less our only wide attacking outlet.
It would be nice for us to have the option to play a couple of different formations, but the lack of these winger / wing forward players over the last number of seasons hasn’t allowed us to play with a front 3 effectively. I was always confused about this with Arsene as he seemed to favour the 4-3-3 formation but never recruited or developed those players to make it effective. I always felt it then had a knock on effect back through the team in terms of how it unbalanced our play.
Gerv the swerv was the closest we got to that type of player. AOC looked nailed on to be developed for the left wing forward role but always seemed to be favoured more in a multitude of other positions, almost like an adaptable utility player rather than a specialist in a certain role. I was never quite fully sold on Sanchez wide and felt he wanted to come centrally too much and looked more a number 10.
Man City have 2 top options for both sides in Sterling and Sane left and Bernardo Silva and Mahrez right. Liverpool have Mane left and Salah right and don’t have quite the same quality back up as City but aren’t too bad with Shaquiri being decent on the right and potentially AOC on the left.
We have none, but do have a couple of promising young ones coming through in Nelson and Saka. I would get them in there. There is an argument for still spending big on a top wide player like Zaha or Pepe so that not all our eggs are in the youngster bracket and they have the time to develop still. Not keen on the cut price options that likely don’t have the required top level quality. Either go big on someone or put our faith in total in the youngsters. Also playing with a front 3 generally means that we only play with one of Lacazette or Aubameyeng, so decisions need to be made with that as well.
Thanks Gb, RA.
Wingers are important to this team and we’re seriously lacking but then we are in midfield and defence too. So much needs to be sorted I think.
New post up now.