Category Archives: Arsenal

Mikel Arteta’s Red and White Army

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The transfer window is shut. Foootball returns today. It is time to get back to being Mikel Arteta’s 12th man.

Despite spending £200m, there are fans still complaining that we should have spent more. Or should not have bought the players we signed. Luckily those “fans” follow Arsenal through social media and have probably never, and will never, step foot inside the Emirates.

Armchair critics who attempt to make their sad little lives better by trying to project their negativity onto others and bring them down.

It is interesting how these people were hardly heard from last season, and then, off the back of a single draw to Fulham, they are back out from under their rocks and demanding Arteta to be sacked. You would think they had learnt their lesson from last season.

In his post-match interview, Arteta highlighted how often that noisy minority have been wrong. When asked about fans not being convinced by Kai Havertz after 3 games, he said:

“More than two months [people weren’t convinced by Ødegaard]. Gabriel Magalhães was the same. White could not play as a full-back. Ramsdale wasn’t good enough & now you sign another goalkeeper, it’s a catastrophe!

“Saka was a left-back, eh? Now he’s playing right-wing. Granit Xhaka, we have so many examples, good examples.

“The players have to love what they do & I think they love more what they do when they feel supported.”

Arteta might not get everything right, but he gets a lot less wrong than his criticis.

Whilst Arteta was building a title challenging team, his harshest critics were calling for us to sign the likes of Lewis Dunk, Ben Chillwell, Idrissa Gueye and Ryan Fraser.

They would have us still starting Rob Holding and Hector Bellerin, Alex Lacazette down the middle and Reiss Nelson (rather than Bukayo Saka) out wide.

Last season, the Emirates crowd were more connected with the team than we have been for decades. That needs to continue this season and we need to ensure that those few online trolls do not let their negativity infect us.

We spent £200m, and fans demand more. Had we spent £300m, they would have demanded more. Had we spent £400m, they would have demanded more. Never happy.

By purchasing top quality players (rather than going down the Chelsea route of buying 20 unknown youngsters for a lot of money), we have dramatically improved the squad:

Rice is an improvement on Xhaka and Lokonga.
Havertz is an improvement on Patino and Balogun.
Timber is an improvement on Tierney and Trusty.
Raya is an improvement on Turner and Runarsson.

Some will now say “well we have to win the league then”, but football does not work like that.

Manchester City have also improved (and spent more than us). Liverpool also looked to have returned to their top form in the second half of last season.

A bit like the last campaign, I do not see it as a failure if we do not win the league. I do not expect us to get the 90+ points to win the league. And those that do clearly do not realise how tough this is, and how much Pep Guardiola has raised the bar.

We could get 84 or 85 points again and end up finishing 3rd. That is not failure.

And if you want an example of why fans need to be ignore, just look towards East London.

West Ham fans spent the entire summer demanding David Moyes be sacked.

Following the departure of Declan Rice, they complained over the signing of James Ward-Prowse. Not good enough was their opinion.

After 4 games, they sat top of the table unbeaten, with Ward-Prowse their best player.

If fans ran the club, Moyes would have been sacked and replaced by Graham Potter. Kalvin Phillips would have been signed instead of Ward-Prowse.

Some of their fans will never accept David Moyes. Even though he has taken them to a trophy and a 6th and 7th place finish in the Premeir League, with a win ratio of 46%. The adhored Harry Redknapp won just 37% of his games in charge.

So today, back the manager, back the team. Win lose or draw.

We achieve nothing by booing an individual player, or booing the team off at half time or full time. This is Spurs behaviour. We are The Arsenal.

Leave the negativity at home. To those who follow the club on social media. Who record themselves watching the game.

UTA.

Keenos

Arsenal transfer window review

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It baffles me how some people claim we had a bad transfer window. It goes something like this.

Them: “Spend some fucking money”
Arsenal: Spend £200m
Them: “Spend some more fucking money”

Had we spent £250m, they would have demanded more. Had we spent £300m, they would have demanded we spend more.

They justify it by calling themselves High Standards FC. But inreality they should they have very little knowledge of the clubs finances, and they would rather us be Chelsea and spend £1bn on 20 average players rather than £200m on 4 fantastic ones.

And we have bought 4 fantastic players.

Declan Rice is world class. Not really sure how some fans still do not see it. A modern day Ruud Gullit.

Yes, £105m is a huge sum. But then Chelsea have spent £80m on Lesley Ugochukwu, Andrey Santos, Cesare Casadei and Carney Chukwuemeka over the last 3 windows. I have no idea who any of them are.

On top of that they have spent a further £260m on Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia and Enzo Fernandez.

£340m spent on midfielders, none of whom are better than Rice.

Kai Havertz, Jurrien Timber and David Raya are not world class (by my definition, which is if you made a World Cup squad, they would get into it), but they are the level below.

Havertz and Timber certainly have the natural attributes to step up a level, whilst Raya is a huge improvement on Matt Turner as a number 2.

We probably do not see as many outgoings as we wanted.

Early in the summer, I blogged that we could raise £190m if we sold all the players who were on the frignes of the squad. Realistically, I blogged that £100m will be the more likely figure.

We sold around £75m of talent in Pablo Mari, Granit Xhaka, Auston Trusty, Matt Turner and Folarin Balogun.

Going into the transfer window, Transfrmarkt valued them at a combined £65m, so we got better than the average.

I think Arsenal will be dissapointed not to get a fee for Kieran Tierney.

The reality is no top Premier League club really needed a new left back except for Newcastle United. They opted for Lewis Hall (The Man U door with Luke Shaw injured only opened after Tierney had departed).

I think considering he was rumoured to be “home sick” living in London, it would have made little sense for him to sign a 5-year contract with a European club. So a 1-year loan deal to see if he can handle living abroad is sensible from his point of view.

We also failed to sell Nuno Tavares as he was loaned out to Nottingham Forest.

This was not a bad move for us as the loan fee exceeds his amortisation value, and they are paying his full wages, so we are actually making a small profit on him this summer. There is an option to buy for Forest next year.

I think most expected someone (Burnley) to come in for Albert Sambi Lokonga, but there was very little transfer speculation linking him with a move away. On deadline day he joined Luton Town.

In the end, Charlie Patino decided to stay at Arsenal, and agreed to another loan deal at Swansea City. I imagine this change of mind was due to a lack of Premier League clubs coming in for him. It was also not a surprise that Alex Runar Runarsson left on loan.

With the Saudi and Turkish windows not yet closed, I was not surprised to see Nicolas Pepe fail to leave on deadline day. I think he will still end up elsewhere.

Finally Emile Smith Rowe and Rob Holding

Holding joined Crystal Palace for £4m, whilst Smith Rowe stayed.

So in the end, of the 14 players on my “could leave” list, 5 left raising £70m, with a further 4 leaving on loan. Matt Turner was the only one not on the list that departed.

You improve the squad by buying players that could play in your first team, and as a result those at the bottom end of the squad depart. And that is what has happened for us this summer.

Rice is an improvement on Xhaka and Lokonga.
Havertz is an improvement on Patino and Balogun.
Timber is an improvement on Tierney and Trusty.
Raya is an improvement on Turner and Runarsson.

For those that think we are short of players, we have a first team squad of XXX. you do not really want much more than that…

A good window, one of our best in years. Now to get the results on the pitch.

Onto Manchester United tomorrow…

Keenos

Four out, Zero in for The Arsenal on deadline day

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No incomings

I have seen a few say stuff like “we still need 2 more players” and “striker and defender still needed”. Well sorry to break it to you, we are now a club that gets our business done early and will not be signing anyone on transfer deadline day.

Gone are the days of the late, mad trolley dash trying to pick up anyone that is left on the cheap. Our transfer windows under Edu are not much more methodically thought out, and we secure our men early even if it costs us a little more.

On the defender, people are after “an Champions League experienced full back who can be short term cover”. So basically you want Stephan Lichtsteiner?

How many of the “short term experienced” options have actually worked out for us in the last 10 years? None.

We have White, Tomiyasu, Saliba, Holding, Gabriel, Kiwior and Zinchenko as defendisve options (excluding Thomas Partey and Jurrien Timber). Anyone that comes in would either have to be a better left back option than Kiwior, and a better centre back option than Holding.

Personally, I would rather utilise Reuell Walters if need be.

The 18-years-old right back was recently singled out by Zinchenko for praise:

“I like so much the centre-back, Reuell,” he told Rio Ferdinand’s YouTube channel. “The quality he has, he’s aggressive.

“I swear to god, once he pushed Gabriel Jesus shoulder to shoulder, it’s not easy to push Gabi, yeah. He was confident on the ball after. He kept the ball well. Wow, he impressed me the most.”

I have thought for a long time that Walters is ready to step up, and prior to signing Timber I was suggesting that Tomiyasu would be back up right back and left back, with Walters backing him up on the right side.

Likewise, White is then Saliba’s cover, with either Walters or Tomiyasu playing on the right hand side:

White Saliba Gabriel Zinchenko
Walters Holding Kiwior Tomiyasu

I do not see an ageing import, who will probably get exposed by the harder, faster Premier League, coming in.

As for the striker, we have Gabriel Jesus on the cusp of coming back. He is backed up by Eddie Nketiah (who has gone up a level this year) and further backed up by Kai Havertz.

The issue all summer for all clubs is the lack of top strikers out there. Deadline day is not going to make one suddenly materialise.

We are better off selling Folarin Balogun and keeping Eddie as number 2. Then use the next 12 months to scout someone who is better than Nketiah. There will not be any top loan strikers coming available. The best will be Danny Ings…

Anyone that is good enough for Arsenal will not be available on a loan deal this late into the window.

Four outgoings

Arsenal’s stance on my players has not changed. For many of our fringe players, the exit door is open if the right bid comes in.

Emile Smith Rowe, Nicolas Pepe, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Cedric Soares could all leave today.

Some might chuck Rob Holding onto the list, but I think considering Timber’s injury, we will keep hold of him for another 12 months. The Arsenal legend does not cost too much in wages and will not raise too much in transfer fees.

One thing to remember with exits is that whilst most transfer windows shut today, the Turkish window is still open until 15 September and the Saudi Pro League until 20 September.

Bar Smith Rowe, you can certainly see the rest of those mentioned above heading to either Saudi (Cedric & Pepe) or Turkey (all of them).

The new loan rules bought in by FIFA are not a worry for Arsenal.

Clubs can now only loan out 7 players aged 21 or over who are not club trained abroad. As it stands, Kieran Tierney is our only senior player on an international loan deal. That means the door it open for all those mentioned above to leave on loan. It does not only need to be a permanent deal.

My bet is Smith Rowe could be the transfer story of deadline day. He will certainly be one of those sitting sitting at home with an overnight bag packed and a cab waiting at his door!

Lokonga, like Tavares, will probably both end up loaned out to a Premier League club. Pepe will be Turkey or Saudi bound. Cedric will stay at the club until January.

If you are waking up this morning expecting Arsenal to make some last minute signings, you are setting yourself up to be upset. We are a much better club than we were previously and have done our business early.

If you take to social media to moan about our dealings this summer, you will be showing yourself up as someone who is never happy, who will always complain.

£200m spent, Declan Rice, Kai Havertz, Jurrien Timber and David Raya. If you are unhappy with our window, then I imagine you will be unhappy whoever we signed!

Have a chilled deadline day.

Keenos