(warning it's a long read!)
Pay an extra 10 to 15 million now or wait till the transfer window actually opens on July 1st.
To the people moaning/panicking about our lack of transfer activity just take a deep breath and relax before you give yourself a hernia!
At the moment deals can only be done with other English clubs and I'm sure we can all see how little you currently get for your money... can't be bothered to name names as it'll just cause a slagging match.
Ideally we need 2-4 quality signings both to improve the squad and get many supporters back on side - The problem is off the pitch we simply don't have the funds to match our top four rivals.
Lets say at best we have £40 million to spend on transfers+wages. That sounds like a hell of a lot and several years ago it would have been but now what would that get you? Two promising yet largely unproven youngsters from the Premier League and that's without including their wages.
Moving on to some Premier League players we've been heavily linked with and whom some supporters are desperate to see at Arsenal.
Samba; Samba's defensive partner has just gone for £16.5m yet Blackburn - who are set up not to concede - had the fifth worst defensive record in the league last season.
Cahill; With a price tag of more than £20m, you get a defender who is fairly young, good on the ball but lacks positional sense and was part of a defence which conceded the second most goals from set-pieces last season, behind West Brom.
Now I'm not saying they're bad players but they're simply not worth the 15-25m price tag their respective clubs have put on them - that is unless you have an owner with a bottomless pit of money.
Wenger looks abroad because it offers far better value for money and as one of few self sustaining clubs left we need to stretch our funds as far as possible in order to stay in the Champions League places. As I'm sure you know most clubs in the Premier League are bankrolled by wealthy owners and are operating with huge losses each season. Soon they will either have to make dramatic spending cuts or will not be allowed to compete in European competitions. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/26/premier-league-uefa-financial-fair-play
Now don't get me wrong, I would absolutely love for Arsenal to bring in several big names and win every trophy available next season and I'm sure Wenger would too... but it's just not that easy in today's market. Hopefully once the fair play rules (which the FA fought against by the way, wonder why?) come in the English transfer market should begin to reflect true player values.
For now however it's pay 10 to 15 million extra on a player from the Prem or wait till July 1st and get your monies worth.
Pay an extra 10 to 15 million now...
posted on 23/6/11
nice article.
when you see how much some average players go for these days, particularly British ones, its pretty easy to see why AW shops in Europe.
until British players fees come in line with Europe I suspect Arsenal will not go near them.
Ashley Young reportedly 17mil (to Man Utd)
Ozil - reportedly 12 mil (to Madrid)
both in last year of contract.
I know who I would prefer.
posted on 23/6/11
Now I'm not saying they're bad players but they're simply not worth the 15-25m price tag their respective clubs have put on them - that is unless you have an owner with a bottomless pit of money.
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I am not sure that Samba is worth the amount stated. Don't get me wrong, I would like a CB of his stature at Arsenal and he would do a job.
What happened to Mertersacker? Could we not aquire him for a similar figure or slightly more? I believe he is a better defender all round and is even bigger than Samba the beast.
posted on 23/6/11
The one thing we missed was ability to deal with a lot of tall players trying to head the ball in, or flick it on, where we couldn't deal with the first ball or react in time to deal with the second.
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The main reason this was missing was that apart from JD, Kossy & Song the rest of the team are a bunch of Dwarfs/Midgets/Little Fellas.
We cant expect JD, Kossy, & Song to make all the players over 6ft and we usually play team that have at least 6 players that tall.
We need to increase the overall size of the squad.
posted on 23/6/11
when you see how much some average players go for these days, particularly British ones, its pretty easy to see why AW shops in Europe.
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Bang right!
The valuation of British and English players especially is nothing short of outrageous and in the last 2/3 seasons it's got completely out of control!
The most recent one that quite frankly blew my mind wasthe Henderson transfer to Liverpool! 20 million for a player who I'd say was worth, what, not even half of what Liverpool paid for him!
posted on 23/6/11
sure i will get pool fans or utd fans disagreeing with this, but trying to be objective, Henderson is no more than 8mil and Young 10 or 12 max...
the reality is if you have a British passport, you seem to be worth approx double your actual value....
thats not meant as a slam to other teams, its just my opinion
posted on 23/6/11
The most recent one that quite frankly blew my mind wasthe Henderson transfer to Liverpool! 20 million for a player who I'd say was worth, what, not even half of what Liverpool paid for him!
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Exactly, i live in the north east and on local radio the sunderland fans and pundits were slagging off Henderson after most games, ive never seen him do any thing better than average. Crazy transfer!! It annoys me so much as these sort of transfers stop arsenal from buying good proven players as they ARE SO OVERPRICED!!!!!!
posted on 23/6/11
I agree with all that others have stated above, but what I meant was, if Samba really is the answer to our set piece problems it would be worth paying over the odds to get him specifically. If you are in a bind in business because you can't perform a key operation, you go out and spend the dosh to get an experienced guy who knows how. It doesn't matter that you're paying over the odds for that guy, as long as you get this flaw in your business addressed. Longterm your business can learn from his experience and train cheaper guys to replace him, but in the short term that knowledge is key and that's why you have to make sure you secure the right guy, whatever the perceived premium to do so.
Now I know as a defender Samba is nothing revolutionary, and he's not a top class international with years ahead of him. But we've got those guys in our team already. What we need is someone who knows how to run a defensive outfit that our less experienced guys can learn off. We used to have Adams and then Campbell who fulfilled that role. Look at Utd and Chelsea, with Rio/Terry teaching their young lads what to do in each situation their younger and all-round better players learn the key organisational skills to form a top defence when Rio/Terry are gone. That's why Smalling can come in fairly raw and slot in, because Vidic and Ferdinand will teach him what to do and cover for him while he learns.
At the moment we have great defending 80-90% of the time and then the rest of the time we are all at sea because our players don't know how to handle specific situations, e.g. long throws from Stoke, set pieces with Zigic, corners against tall teams, free kicks against tall teams, attacking crosses on the counterattack from Man U. They are situations that are possibly specific to English football, which is why recently our form in Europe has been better than our domestic form.
posted on 23/6/11
TheWalrusandtheNasriator
that's a good point. I personally don't believe Samba would be an improvement to a Kos/JD/Verm centre-back paring. However I'm certainly no expert and haven't watched Samba week in week out so can't be sure. If he genuinely would sort out our defensive frailties then I'd be all for buying him even if it is for an inflated price.
posted on 23/6/11
I think that the whole defensive problem at set pieces has nothing to do with personnel but the fact that last season and the season before the defence has no faith in the keeper.
He is the leader at these times and he should be setting the defence.
Also last season we missed TV immensely. We played a lot of games with our 3-4 choice CBs.
Samba Cahill are not the answer.
Our real need is a top rate goalie.
If I was incharge I would be spending all the cash I had to get Pepe from pool.
posted on 23/6/11
Great article- as lee nelson would say:
"Qualitiiiiiiiiiiiyyyy"