Category Archives: Arsenal

Arsenal focusing on top young talent whilst Spurs become Free Transfer & Loan FC

30 Replies

The window is barely a week old and Arsenal are continuing the strategy of 2021.

Fabio Vieira has been added to Marquinhos as Edu and Mikel Arteta continue their Arsenal rebuild – focusing on young, hungry players who want to learn and develop.

Meanwhile, up the road Tottenham seem to be following our policy of 2017-19.

Their signings have very much been in the “short term here and now” mould of Antonio Conte.

The Italian has a reputation of going into clubs, demanding “oven ready” transfers and then leaving after a couple of years. He usually departs with trophies, but also leaves behind a lot of ageing players on big contracts.

Spurs have already sign Ivan Perisic (33) and Fraser Forster (34) on free transfers. They are also being heavily linked with Christian Eriksen (30) on a free.

It shows a club that does not have a pot to piss in. One that is trying to do much of its business through free transfers and loan deals – kicking the transfer debt down the road.

They have to spend £80m on making the Dejan Kuluveski and Cristian Romero dead permanent. That is £80m spent of just keeping the squad at the same standard as last year. And £80m less than can be spent this summer.

They have spent a bit of money on Yves Bissouma, securing the midfielder in a cut price deal following some horrendous allegations that hang over him. The rest of their transfer dealing will turn them into Loan FC or Free Transfer FC.

In recent years, Arsenal tried to recruit ready made senior players in Stephan Litchsteiner, Willian, David Luiz, Sokratis and more. Add in the loans of Denis Suarez and 2017-2019 will go down as one of our worst periods in the transfer market.

It has taken a few years for us to be able to undo that work and it is exciting the new path we are going down.

Tottenham might not feel the “Conte affect” on the transfer window until after he is gone.

A squad filled with ageing former stars and loanees is not a squad that can be built on for the future.

The future is what Arsenal are doing.

Keenos

Arsenal quietly doing transfer business whilst others make noise

8 Replies

And that is how transfers happen.

Whilst many of you were moaning about the lack of transfer business from Arsenal barely a week into the window, or complaining how slow Arsenal do deals compared to Liverpool, Edu and his team were quietly working away.

The impending (at the time of writing) transfer of Fabio Vieira does show everyone up as know-nothings.

All them twitter accounts, bloggers and bloggers that spend their minutes, hours and days linking us with players (then moaning we had not signed them). Well where was your source when it came to Vieira?

“Negotiations FC” I have some some label us due to the press constantly saying we were in negotiations with one player or another. “just pay the asking price” some cried.

Well Arsenal have managed to negotiate Vieira’s initial price tag down from his €50m release clause to €35m.

By negotiating transfers, it leaves us an additional €15m in the pot in comparison to if we just signed the player for his release clause.

Now I am not going to pretend to know anything about Vieira.

All I know about him is he isn’t a big black lad from Senegal. Nor did he once play for Fleetwood Town. But he is a 22-year-old midfielder (according to Wikipedia) who fits in with the sort of player Edu and Mikel Arteta have been focusing on.

If you were still confused about what “the process” was and what our transfer strategy is then maybe it is time to stop spouting rubbish?

We move quietly. We move quickly. We move forward together.

Keenos

Awful England and Torreira Woes

2 Replies

Morning all and happy Thursday.

I see that the usual suspects are still complaining about our “lack” of transfer business.

The majority of those complaining have “TV” in their Twitter handle or a YouTube channel in their bio. I guess they need to “create” content somehow. And with their very limited knowledge on football, complaining about transfer and spreading transfer gossip is the easiest way they can earn a couple of quid.

The fall-out to England’s dismal Nations League continues and the consensus seems to be that it is all Bukayo Saka and Aaron Ramsdale’s fault.

If you lose 4-0 at home to Hungary, it is not really one players fault. It is the entire team and management.

The finger pointing at Ramsdale in particular just seems churlish.

England failed to score from open play in any of the 4 fixtures.

Against Hungary we has 2 shots on target – both from John Stones.

Harry Kane – the greatest striker to ever grace the game – has had 4 shots on target in 4 games. Raheem Sterling just the one. Harry Maguire seemed to forget how to defend and Southgate continued to play right backs at left back. It was rank football from an exhausted team.

So lets not just blame a single player just because he plays for a team you do not like. It was everyone’s fault. Manager included.

Back to transfers and we have a very frustrated player in Lucas Torreira.

He went to Fiorentina and had a good season – starting 25 Serie A games as the Italian side had their highest finish in 6 seasons.

Despite having and option to buy of just £15m, Fiorentina have decided to not make the transfer permanent.

Torreira’s recent quotes would indicate that he has been lied to by the Fiorentina hierarchy, meaning if this was a ploy by them to drive down his price they have probably only ended up alienating.

I do feel for Torreira.

His big move to Arsenal did not work out as he failed to settle in London. He then had an average loan spell at Atletico Madrid. It looked like he had found a home back in Italy, but then Fiorentina pull the deal.

I hope he finds a new home next season – even if it is a temporary one again.

He is clearly a good player and a good person. I wish him well.

Enjoy your Thursday.

Keenos