The Arsenal Society VIII

Frimpong/Ramsey - new signings.

Kos over Djour?

Eveyone's talking about which players to get rid, but no one is suggesting any replacement.

Do you want to make a bet that Wenger will sign someone this summer? You seem to forget that Koscielny/Vermaelen/Arshavin/Nasri have all been fairly big buys in recent summers.

Wenger never bought the best players. Ever. Henry was like 26 or something when he came. He always bought established players for £10 million pounds who he then took to the next step. Sure I'll give him four years of not very much money because of the stadium but why can't we revert back to that old model now? None of the invincibles cost the earth.

That's because there's not a lot of point speculating, frankly.

Have you ever in your Arsenal supporting life predicted a signing before it was announced in the media?

No, Henry was 21/22 when he came.
Wenger has always stuck with the old model. But, he was able to get away with it back then because other teams weren't spending money then but then came Ambromovich and recently with Citeh. (You can't race a Renault Clio against a Bugatti Veyron. )

Now with the UEFA Finiancial play league, it seems things might going back to the old ways but that don't mean it'll be all of a sudden be in our favours because other teams have copied the Wenger model and have scouts all over the world.

It's a good point. When chopping and changing players you need to think about who to bring in.

I've mentioned before that at the back I'd (realistically) recommend Vrsaljko, van der Wiel or Spahic (temporary).

Not really sure who to look at for midfield, best options are probably in France though (Valbuena?), as Bundesliga options like Kagawa are almost certainly too expensive.

For wingers don't forget that we have Miyaichi coming back from Feyenoord at the end of the season, although I'd like us to look at Milos Krasic at Juventus, he's a quality player.

Striker-wise I'm not sure what we need. A versatile target man would be good, but we've got Chamakh already and he doesn't really suit our style. Cavani is banging the goals in for Napoli and I wouldn't be surprised to see N'Doye (Copenhagen) in the Premier League next season.

Cavani and Krasic will not come to Arsenal they are both worth at least 20 mil and have not even played a season in their current teams.Valbuena would command a fee of at least 15 mil.Kagawa is in a Borussia team that look like they could be a force in the CL.

We signed Koscielny, didn't we?

If we had spent an extra £2m on Xabi Alonso, we'd be champions.

No we wouldn't have. We need leaders, and Xabi won't solve that.

He's not a leader? I'd always assumed he was a really well liked player at liverpool the players looked up to.

Arshavin wasn't a summer signing. I'll say that Wenger won't sign a midfielder unless Cesc leaves, tbh.

Ship out 3 of Bendtner/Eboue/Denilson/Diaby/Vela/Rosicky, and recoup ~ 12m. Bring in Contrao and Hazard. Turn Walcott into a striker.


So when RvP is not fit, we can do this:

Hazard Walcott Nasri

Wilshere Song Fabregas

Contreao Vermaelen Koscielny Sagna

Chesney

Xabi isn't a leader, he's more Laissez-faire like most cultured DMs are.

Hm. I'd imagine he would be like what Pires would have been if had stayed on Pires had stayed on, just because he doesn't shout and scream like Campbell would've doesn't mean he couldn't control the pace of the game, slowing it down or speeding it up as he wished. So giving Arsenal some level of control. And that is evidently what's missing from the team. The ability to keep a cool head under pressure and controlling the pace.