Morning all.
Excellent news re Brooke Norton-Cuffy who has signed a new long term contract at Arsenal. If Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli follow suit, happy days. It’s likely they’ll all leave one day purely because the days of a footballer staying at one club for their entire senior career are few and far between. I understand it too because sometimes it’s little more to it than needing a new challenge. But, the important part is whenever one of our players get itchy feet, they have more than one year left on their contract. This time next year, both Reiss Nelson and AMN can walk away from the club for free and that’s not ideal. The year after, it could be Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and William Saliba walking away for nothing. I’m sure the club are doing everything it can to prevent it happening.
Lucas Torreira has gone so good luck to him in Turkey. I think he’ll need it but he’s not our problem anymore. Just Alex Runasson, Hector Bellerin and Pablo Mari to go now, Maitland-Niles, Nicolas Pepe and Nelson too if none of the three are in Mikel Arteta’s plans.
Arsenal have 14 players out on loan right now, most of which are youngsters. Nuno Tavares is the oldest I believe and he kick started his season in France with a goal for Marseille. To say I was surprised is an understatement as he could barely get a shot on target at Arsenal, let alone find the back of the net. Still, left-backs aren’t known for their goals, it’s his defensive work which needs improving and hopefully it will. Flo Balogun also scored in game but sadly for him, Reims lost the game 4-1. By all accounts, Aaron Trusty had another good game for Birmingham. The others on loan all had playing time albeit a few from the bench. Mika Biereth was the only one who didn’t but hopefully that will soon change as it’s important our loanees are actually playing.
The Mail report this morning that Arsenal could be set to land another summer signing after the club met with AC Milan officials to discuss a possible transfer for Sandro Tonali. Guess what? I’ve never heard of him before today but Wiki describes his as being “in terms of his movement, coordination, appearance, technical qualities, position, and playing style. A strong, fast, energetic, elegant, and creative midfielder, with excellent vision and an ability to read the game, Tonali usually plays in a central or defensive midfield role as deep-lying playmaker in a 4–3–3 formation and shows maturity and character beyond his young age.” He’s 22 years old.
The same paper, well, a journalist of theirs has a grand headline about how Arsenal were foolish to loan out William Saliba for so long. I strongly suspect that had Saliba stayed and made a few errors early in his Arsenal career, the same journalist would be writing about how he was error prone and a liability. The fact that walked into the first eleven and performed so well, might just be because he matured on loan and gained a lot of self confidence. Didn’t he read about Saliba’s personal circumstances I wonder because if he did, maybe, just maybe he’d know that it might have been the players choice to be in France. I don’t know of course, but that might have been part of the reason.
See you in the comments.
Hello everyone. Good post.
Tonali is a an absolute class act and I would be over the moon if we got him. Trust me when I say that it would be quite a signal of intent if we got him. I’ve always seen him as one of the best young CDMs in the world.
A deep lying midfielder is what we have all wanted but a word of caution apparently he hobbled off with what was thought to be a muscle tear on the weekend . They are saying it’s not too serious but we’ve been down this street before
He would be the deep lying playmaker we have been looking for, i have no doubt about that. He is not an injury prone player. Only 45 days of absence because of injury since february 2020. In comparison Partey has been absent 217 days in the same period.
Thanks Adk.
I read a headline on NN, I know, which suggested a midfielder isn’t on the agenda. Has to be surely.
I cannot say a bad word about Tonali, as I don’t know him either.
But I would rather go for Teun Koopmeiners if we need a technical guy and Ibrahim Sangaré if we need a brute at midfield.
But most of all I would not go for a DM at all, as we already have Partey, Xhaka (yes, he is considered a DM despite regularly stepping forward to support the attacks) and Elneny (whom we just extended the contract with). Therefore I don’t see the need for a further defensive/holding midfielder. Maybe a classic CM (like Neves or Tielemans), as we have only Lokonga and AMN for the role, and the latter is one foot out of the door. But as long as we would rather see Vieira in a central midfield role we probably should buy any midfielder at all.
The only problem with your thesis is that Xhaka is not a defensive midfielder , He is better in more advanced roles but should be playing against others for his place. He is more accomplished playing as the forward member of a double pivot which means as we have Lokonga and Vieira there as well , that it’s cover for Partey and Elneny we need.
You have a point, Potter.
Based on the TransferMarkt statistics Xhaka played DM 285 time compared to his 116 CM appearances and 10 LB cameos, but that could be well in the past if he is being transitioned into a central or even a box-to-box midfielder.
But again, I find Zinchenko more of a player completing Xhaka than replacing, as one can support the attacks while the other can close the counterattacking trajectories on the left. And they can switch these roles to confuse the opponents. I don’t see this flexibility with Partey.
Spot on Potter, we need a b2b/dm because if Partey suffers injury or worse still, he is the guy much speculated about, we’re snookered imo.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/08/09/arsenals-40m-bid-for-yeremy-pino-set-to-be-accepted-by-villarreal-17155761/
😂
According to Daily Mail, Granit Xhaka is under investigation by England’s National Crime Agency due to a possible match-fixing in the game against Leeds United in 2021. The Arsenal midfielder was, supposedly, looking forward to getting a yellow card and some suspiciously high-stake bets were placed on him getting booked.
During that match, where Arsenal won 1-4 in Elland Road, Granit performed some typical tricks of faking several times before taking a free-kick. This exhausted the referee’s patience and he had no other option rather than showing the yellow card to the Swiss midfielder.
The National Crime Agency in England is investigating this situation as more than 60,000 euros were placed on bets for Granit Xhaka getting a yellow card in the last 10 minutes of the game, a very odd bet for this match.
Xhaka under scrutiny for match fixing and Partey not yet cleared of the charges rumoured to being levelled against him. We could find ourselves with Elneny alone to hold the defensive midfield In the words of Jim Davidson .It’s too risky
It’s a pity that the National Crime Agency doesn’t throw it full weight behind investigating the gangs of men who prey on young girls in Oldham, Rotherham and Telford etc and why local police, politicians and social services have turned a blind eye to it?
I think that most people are with you on that Kev . It’s like universities curtailing availability to certain books that might offend , if things are suppressed then in their minds , it never happened.
Yes, Universities used to be about opening minds, no so anymore, it’s all about the ‘message’…
The woke nonsense goes on, at a theme park oop north, York actually, parents are demanding the name of one of the attractions be changed as they consider it rude. It’s all about the legendary highwayman Dick Turpin. If the parents believe the word “Dick” is rude it’s only in their own sad minds.
God only knows what they would make of him riding Black Bess !!!!!!!!!!
Have these people got nothing else to worry about ?
I’m obviously slightly biased towards Xhaka, but (therefore?) I find the accusation quite ridiculous.
He makes 100k a week. And while there is a long list of shady things I’ll be tempted to consider doing for £20k (which is about half of the bets placed due to the different foreign exchanges) I doubt if Granit would be similarly tempted for a figure he makes in a single day.
And I’m not worried about Partey, either. The case against him is (reported to be) paper thin, and looks sheer manipulation.
Two tickets block 10 lower tier near the back going on exchange
At least they would be if the club’s computers had not gone down.
Morning all must be a quiet day in the media as they are now saying that Fulham are interested in buying ex Chelsea and Arsenal player Willian he is 34 years old, If true Fulham must be watching youtube videos of his early days and his time at Arsenal
Geoff, if Fulham watch videos of Willian’s time at Arsenal they won’t touch him with a barge pole. Just another of a string of flops we wasted good money on. 😕
Willian should read Not his time at Arsenal.
Signing Willian didn’t work but I understood at the time why Arsenal signed him. Before the rebuild I think we needed stability. The important thing imo is that he and club parted ways once both knew it hadn’t been a good move.
New post up now