Having to sell our best players because of stadium debt has had a debilitating effect on Arsenal and it’s ability to complete sensible transfer business.
I think it affected both Wenger and Gazidis towards the end of their time at the club which probably continued to be an issue into this past summer despite the new regime.
Being known as a selling club during a period when we had to sell Fabregas, Nasri, Adebayor, Clichy, Van Persie and a host of others, left the club oversensitive to selling to competitors and has without doubt cost us around £110m in lost revenue concerning Alexis Sanchez and Aaron Ramsey.
Liverpool have been far more efficient in this regard, selling big and reinvesting big in defence. They’ve also managed to sell big to foreign clubs so the spectre of an old favourite returning to haunt you was lessened. It wasn’t so much of an issue to Arsenal when we were selling to Barcelona and Real Madrid, but Man City and Man Utd?
That really hurt…
At least Raul Sanllehi isn’t going to come out with daft PR statements about war chests and matching up with Bayern Munich, he’s been very smart in dampening expectations for January whilst leaving Mislintat to work his magic. We don’t have to fill our team with £50m footballers to be able to compete, not if we do our business intelligently.
This summer Arsenal have five players whose contracts expire, Ramsey, Welbeck, Lichtsteiner, Monreal and Cech. The media of course will have you believe that that is proof yet again that Arsenal are still a club in crisis, whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that Tottenham also have five players out of contract this summer. No crisis there, no constant reminder of how many years since Tottenham lifted a trophy or that Pocchetino has yet to win anything in his career of course not…
But looking beyond North London and Middlesex let’s look at the others in the top six.
Liverpool have four players out of contract, Man City have three, over at Chelsea it’s a worrying seven and the winner is Man Utd with ten. Not that we hear much about them either…
Bearing that in mind, how many of the Arsenal five would you re-sign and do any of the available free transfers from our competitors make good business sense to consider?
At Man City it’s Mangala, Kompany and young prospect Diaz.
Liverpool have Sturridge, Milner, Moreno and Markovic out of contract.
For Chelsea it’s oldies but goodies like Fabregas, Green, Cabellero, Giroud, Cahill, Luiz and Piazon.
Tottenham have some interesting names, Dembele, Llorente, Vorm, Vertonghen and the excellent Alderweireld.
But the specialists in free transfers are up in Salford where Smalling, Jones, Pereira, Mata, Valencia, Young, Herrera, Darmian, Martial and crucially David de Gea are out of contract.
How many, if any of those, would you like to see in an Arsenal shirt next summer?
By Allezkev..
Good morning Kev, an interesting one.
You ask which of our out of contract players I think should be resigned, for me only Lichtsteiner.
Of City’s three, none. Liverpool, none. Chelsea, until Holding showed such a sudden improvement I was in favour of Cahill, but now none. From Tottenham, we could bolster our bench with Alderweireld, but none of the others. From United, Martial and if Cech leaves, de Gea would make an adequate back up for Leno.
Morning all. Give me Kompany, Martial, Luiz and De Gea and you have your new title winners 🙂
Or maybe Aldeweireld instead of Luiz 🙂
Cicero, you’re joking, right? I mean regarding De Gea and Aldeweireld? He’s much better than Mustafi! And De Gea is one of the best in the world!
I’m not unduly worried about buying in players, I am more concerned wth balancing our squad . Currently our problems are largely at the back and in my opinion a winger. Looking at the lists of players possibly getting discarded by the others don’t really have better options in the places we need.
I would rather see our current squad supplememted by the return of Nelson from Germany and with AMN and Smith Rowe coming through to greater prominence.
It may well be that we lose Cech but Emery is always quick to mention Martinez when he talks about his keepers and Macey is nobodies fool. I think that we are well set up .
There are a couple of players there but the only ones that stand out for me are Sturridge ( always injured ). and Alderweireld but do we need another centre back unless Mustafi is to go ?
Thankfully it’s not my problem but unless something really special comes along , I am reasonably happy with what we have.
Good day everyone… Martial is one player that has been grossly underestimated and insulted by Morinho.. he is just a lazy ass coach I must say, or to be fair he has suddenly become lazy. I will take Martial and I actually would love to see Giroud back…
DK, joking? Me? Never….
Morning all and thanks Adonis Kev.
I doubt we will get any, just a gut feeling !.
However if we could it would be Martial, De Gea, Alderweireld and Diaz………………….I have seen Diaz against Arsenal U23`s and he was stand out, very Davis Silva……ish, but I wanted Jaden Sancho for free and we let Dortmund get him………….yes lets blame Wenger for that one, I remember the likes of Nelson(his best mate) and Eddie begging us to get him !
U21`s tonight away to Forest Green in the Checkatrade Trophy.
Other than our “rivals” I wonder how many other teams in this league have players coming to end of contracts and who are they ?
Not forgetting players from other leagues and abroad !
Nice tekkers !………………..
https://twitter.com/ArsenalAcademy/status/1059154369889910784
Morning all
Having real trouble loading the site again. I blame Bristol St Rust boxes!
Like Potter I don’t much fancy any of the upcoming freebies, except perhaps Martial. Diaz too I think has potential but our youngsters, if they’re given a chance may well prove to BR like shopping in Poundland but winning the lottery at the same time. ( if that makes sense).
No, I can’t see much January activity. Ramsey will stay and leave on a free, to the club he has already agreed to join. No, I don’t know which club but I believe the deal was done a long time ago! Of the rest on your list Kev I reckon Monreal may stay as Lichsteiner too, although he may well make the leap to the coaching staff. Cech will leave or retire. As for the rest I don’t we shall see them in an arsenal shirt after June.
Bright, sunshine and breeze here. Not bad but a bit cool.
Afternoon Rico and all.
Excellent post Mr Allezkev.
Afternoon Gooners
Afternoon Rico, thanks for the edit.
I see that a tentative approach for Danny Welbeck could be on the cards from C.Palace for a reported £10m. Maybe their interest might flush out other interested clubs and push up the price for Danny in January? But would he want to stay in London if Everton are keen?
We got him for £16m so with 6 months left on his contract, getting £10m might be good business as he can walk for nowt in the summer. Arsenal need to up their game in the market of selling players at the right time and for a good price.
It doesn’t seem as if Arsenal have made Danny an offer of a new contract, as far as we know, but losing him in January would leave our attacking options a bit thin unless Mislintat has some solutions in that area?
Is Eddie Nketiah really at the right level to replace Welbeck yet or would the club consider recalling Reiss Nelson? I’d be more in favour of leaving Nelson where he is as he’s developing nicely and has the Champions League to play in. Although if Hoffenheim dropped into the Europa, what would the situation be then?
Thank you Adam, would you like us to sign Alderweireld?
Cicero, like you I’d give Lichtsteiner another 1 year contract, I think he’s a good influence around the club and who knows how much of the improvement to Bellerin is down to having him around, passing on advice?
I’d also like to see Nacho Monreal stay, but would he sign a 1/2 year contract or would he be tempted at 33 with a return to Spain? He’s a great professional with a previously excellent fitness record, but it’s a difficult decision financially for Arsenal who must budget carefully with so little coming into the club from sales.
Alberto Moreno, 26, left back, out of contract in the summer from Liverpool, used to play for Seville, when Emery was there so he’ll know all about him.
He’s got 4 caps for Spain.
Currently he’s on £60k pw at Anfield, could be worth a punt?
I did read somewhere last week that Barcelona wanted to take Koscielny, since they are heavily in debt they might have a player or two they could swap. Kos might welcome the chance to join up with his old mucker Tomas Vermaerlen.
He’s been a great player for us Cicero, I wouldn’t begrudge him a swan song at Barcelona.
Wavy, I don’t reckon that Cech will retire, I think he’s still got 2 or 3 years left in him, but only with a club that doesn’t build from the back.
Is Martinez good enough to be our No.2 goalkeeper?
Probably yes as long as Leno stays fit…
Cocker, Declan Rice at West Ham is out of contract this summer.
Declan Rice :- Young and a defensive midfielder standing just over 6 foot. Would make a lot of sense .
Declan Rice has been getting a lot of good reports………………….make it so !
How I greet Jehovah Witnesses and Tottnumb supporters !
https://giphy.com/gifs/cat-funny-lol-OjaweVS8cyVPi/fullscreen
U21`s won 3-1 and are in the next round of The Checkatrade Trophy……………………..the quintuple is still on !
Morning all.
Seems there are players everywhere leaving on frees at seasons end.
It is good to know it’s just not us, but while I can almost accept the reasoning behind letting Ramsey go, I don’t get Welbeck being on the outer.
He’s a hard working, honest professional who always give his all and I’d keep him.
I was told early in the year we’d be chasing Alderweild.
Kozzer to Barca is an interesting one.
Morning Scott and all.
Good post Kev, sorr6 I was awol for the day…
I’d keep Lichtsteiner, Welbeck and Nacho. As for the freebies elsewhere, Martial would be great signing, Toby too and de Gea but can’t see us getting any really. If we could only get one, then Martial.
New post up now.