Morning all.
I watched some of the England Under 21 match last night. It was a toss up between Bukayo Saka or ESR and and Flo Balogun and the latter won. Balogun scored two of the three England goals with one being assisted by ESR. The win ensured England have reached the Euros with two games to spare.
I know Albania are hardly the best footballing nation, just as it’s obvious the level at under 21 is nowhere near the kind of challenge the Premier League offers but for footballers, much of their game is about confidence in their own abilities. We know how good ESR is, yes, I’d prefer him to be Mikel Arteta’s first choice number 10, but Flo Balogun still has it all to do. Scoring for the England Under 21’s is no guarantee for a place in the Arsenal first team, just ask Eddie Nketiah, but with Arsenal back in Europe, there’s a chance he might be involved in the group stages of Europa and the domestic cups. The more he plays and scores for England, the better it is for him and Arsenal in my opinion. Remember last season when he was thrown in at the deep end against Brentford?
Are Arsenal likely to sign two strikers this summer? Probably not in my opinion and if I’m right, we’ll need Eddie Nketiah (if he stays) and Flo Balogun to bulk up the squad. Even Mika Biereth must fancy his chances of making it into the squad at some stage during the season.
That’s harsh reality of not having an owner who’ll invest heavily in the squad. So what that the club spent £150 million on transfers last summer, Chelsea, City and Utd have been doing that for years which is why they have strong and deep squads which can cope with injuries and suspensions. Arsenal lose one, two or three and everything goes belly up.
Even if Stan Kroenke rubber stamped another £150 million budget this summer, would it be enough? How much would Brighton expect us to stump up for Yves Bissouma for example? £40 million? What about a top top striker, £50 million plus? Aaron Hickey, £25 million?
My point is, £150 million doesn’t go very far in football if a club wants to be challenging for trophies. Look at how much City has spent over the years and they still haven’t managed to win the Champions League yet the have the best manager in the game. Allegedly.
The club have a few players to sell of course which will hopefully go towards the budget for new players but history tells us that won’t be much. Probably a strikers right leg. Lol
The idea of signing a top quality striker, let alone two, is in my opinion, fanciful. It’s what we need but not for one minute expect us to get. Same goes for the midfielder the team is crying out for. I expect there’s more chance of Sambi Lokonga stepping up than Yves Bissouma stepping in.
We’ll see I guess but experience tells me to expect very little because at least then, the disappointment is low.
See you in the comments.
Morning News Now’ers, morning Rico.
I don’t want Arsenal paying unsustainable wages to these big timers, it’s why I’m glad we passed up on Dybala, we’ve tried that and it didn’t work, I’m also fed up with agents using our name to jazz up their deals, it’s so transparent and dull.
What we know is, Arsenal are not in the market for the top top players like Haaland and we’re not even nailed on to get the next level because we’ve been burned so often in the past by overpaying for underperforming big timers and the club is trying hard not to get stung again.
The club sometimes reacts to criticism from the fans and overspends to keep us all happy – it’s rarely successful that’s why signings like Bergkamp are so memorable. Therefore I hope that Edu holds his nerve and we do sustainable and cost- effective business, like Hickey and Tielemans if the fees and wages are sensible.
The rest of Europe is skint and they’re looking to rip off English clubs like they’ve never done before, agents are desperate and looking to England as well but there’s a lot of dross out there which we should avoid like the plague like rejects from Barca and Real. Expensive toys that’ll drain your coffers and play up to a half-decent level about 6 times a season. Ouseme Dembele anyone?
Lokonga might return after a year of adapting and maturing and might be exactly what we need and as much as I’d like to see us sign Bissouma I’m not sure that Arsenal value him as highly as Brighton – there is a reason he’s still in Sussex after all.
I’ve got a Vlahovic feeling about Scamacca (?) I don’t think it’ll happen and I think that Arsenal are being played again. It happens to every club it just happens a little too often to us if I’m being honest.
Man City don’t really want to sell Jesus to another English club, even a club like Arsenal that isn’t an immediate threat, but we’re getting closer and they’d rather weaken us by taking our better players than the reverse, so that move seems less likely to me.
Let’s get our better players re-signed and Saliba re-integrated with maybe two or three low-profile Tomiyasu type additions and see where we are when the season kicks off…
I read a great article detailing how English clubs can afford to pay over the odds for players due to the amount of money sloshing about the PL. But these players can’t be moved on when they are surplus to requirements, as few clubs in Europe can afford them.
Either we sell to rivals in the PL for decent fee (do we want to strengthen our direct rivals?) or we accept that we will lose money on payers we signed to stupid deals. How many teams are desperate to sign Pepe, Bellerin, Torreira, Leno etc? None I would argue.
We need to be realistic and expect that as the PL becomes more dominant in Europe we are going to get our fingers burnt.
Bissouma more like 25 Aaron Hickey prob about 25 also then we have 50 budgeted for striker which tbh is reasonable even if we took educated punt on 2 25m strikers chances are 1 would do well enough, then tielemans for 25 with what we have and nketiah I don’t see any issues. We praise Arteta for youthful team but complain about the depth, if we wish to make real use of hale end and creating stars then they have to be our depth.
Morning Kev. Neither do I.
My post is a little tongue in cheek really because why sign Sambi to then sign a worldie instead of him? I’ve accepted the reality which is unless Kroenke sells up, we’ll not likely to go for big names, big transfer fees etc etc.
I certainly don’t expect a big name/fee signed up front.
Nigel, Villa offered Brighton £35m in January according to reports so I can’t see Brighton selling him for anything less.
Totally agree re the academy, let’s use it next season a lot more than last and I’m hoping that’s what being in Europa will lead to.
Pete, or do as Edu and Arteta seem to be doing. Buy cheaper and young but then sell at the right time. It’s the only way a club like Arsenal will make money to reinvest imo. I know I keep harping on about Liverpool’s model but they probably sold one f their better players in order to kick start their reform. It worked.
I’m sure Pete that Arsenal don’t really want to sell Pepe to another English club in case he rips it up (I know that that’s a stretch) and makes us look stupid but it seems that unless PSG come in or we do a swap that we’re gonna lose a fortune on him, £25m might even be optimistic…
During the Brexit debates it was widely reported that the E.U’s nickname for Britain was Treasure Island and it would appear that as far as football is concerned that is still the case.
We demand the best to sell our Premier League to television stations throughout the world and in return the rest of the world make sure that we pay through the nose for it.
Without the TV money our whole system is unsustainable ,We are in a trap and it is impossible to get out .
We have imported money that has given us a league that appears somewhat different to those in other European countries because as here it is widely trumpeted that there are no easy games and that anyone can beat anyone it is only largely true from about the top three down Those clubs are pretty much out there on their own defined by their financial capacity but the rest feed off the scraps from their tables.
As Rico has often said Liverpool bucked the trend by selling Coutinho and investing wisely on their team whereas we sold Highbury and built a new stadium and invested in Real Estate.
We now have to spend money to try and catch up but the advantage that having an increase of 22.000 fans every match day doesn’t cover the necessary funds required.
Other teams have caught up and new ones look to overtake us. Our only salvation is coming from our youth project and we need to make certain that Hale End is not cherry picked and that the ones that have already broken through are secured long term and if we find that our results do not meet their ambitions we must ensure that we too get the sort of money for them that can finance the squad that will help us get over our angst about them going.
We have been treading water for a long time ,fiddling whilst Rome burned . we are a there or thereabouts team and until something dramatic changes our only hopes can come from within . Wenger said that he had to sell a player a year to balance the books , I doubt much has changed for Arteta either.
The problem, Potter, with relying on the Hale End players coming through to help our finances is that if they are not good enough for our first team squad they are not going to be attractive to the better off clubs, so their sell on value will be relatively low.
Without significant investment by our owners we are going to be compelled to sell our best young players just as they are developing into top grade professionals. I can see the likes of Saka and ESR leaving, not because they want to, but for the club’s financial stability.
And yet the PL wages table, with the delicious exception of Man Utd, closely mirrors the PL season itself. The more money you spend, the better you might do. Unhealthy really.
Totally agree to sell to make money we will need to tie players into contracts and then sell. As you say if they are not Saka, ESR class then we have to accrue little and often . What we can’t keep doing is let them walk for nothing.
Yes Kev I agree. I’d be over the moon if we get anything like £25m for Pepe. He’s a dud that some shysters made a lot of money from.
Maybe Everton will do us a favour like paying £30m for Iwobi. Another mysterious transaction.
@Potter I think you have hit the nail on the head there. The PL is in a faustian pact with Sky and TV. They need each other to survive.
Outside the PL there are few teams that can match the transfer fees and wages:
Real Madrid – local council gives them £500m for a car park to fill up the coffers
Barcelona – massive debt problems
Juventus – massive debt problems
PSG – Run by a terrorist funding outfit
B Munich – Well run. Heavily backed by adidas
No wonder they want the super league.
Hi Rico
Yes Liverpool did great business with Coutinho. Buying Salah, Mane & Van Dyke with the proceeds worked wonders. Were they lucky? Possibly. Will they be able to repeat that trick? Unlikely.
I think they are going to have a tricky time soon. Mane is expected to replace Lewandowski at B Munich. He only has a year on contract so he will not be expensive, They already bought Diaz as a replacement.
Salah is in the same boat. 1 year left. Does he sign on or walk for free? Madrid want a cf. PSG too if Mbappe goes to Madrid.
Not easy to replace these type of players. When Van Dyke was out last season Liverpool struggled.
I think Liverpool may have peaked.
Afternoon all.
So it goes back to the question Adam asked the other day about the ownership. If we can beat the rich owned clubs, do we hope we join them?
Apparently there’s a meeting today about Saudi style ownership and trying to stop them.
Hi Pete, I reckon you might be right about Liverpool. A lot of their key players are getting on a bit now. Not many will have enormous sell on value to reinvest.
Afternoon Rico. I sense a Euro Super League on the horizon if the mega-rich clubs are either sanctioned or criticised. The poor dears.
Instead of praising Man City and Pep or Chelsea and the skull, the question should be, with all these unfair advantages you have, why aren’t you doing better?
Afternoon Adam. I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Good question, Utd too really with the amount they spend on transfers.
Pete, it’s not just Pepe and Arsenal, look at United with Pogba, what a staggering waste of money and then there’s the Pensioners and that overrated bum Lukaku, I so want Arsenal to avoid those kinds of disasters. I mean think about the attack we supposedly had with Aubameyang, Lacazette and Pepe, it should have been full of goals but what kind of return did Arsenal really get for laying out, with transfer fees, agent fees and signing on fees the best part of what £180m? Maybe more?
And when you take into account the salaries Arsenal have paid them it’s just depressing…
Why didn’t we buy a striker in January. Did Arteta and Edu not find some one available or did they just keep the money and pray that we still finished around 5th so they can add the money to this transfer market to get a better striker, who knows but one thing for sure they can’t make any mistakes with who they buy.
As for how much clubs spend on players the PL and co need to take full responsibility for not punishing the club who broke FFP rules. It’s no good just fining them, they need to dock the team heavy and by heavy I mean make them start next season on minus 15 points then lets see how many teams take the gamble of braking the rules.
Probably because the prices are even more inflated in January.
Kev, you certainly know how to depress an Arsenal fan. 😜
New post up now
Sorry Rico 😉