Gabriel Jesus was the best striker available this summer

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Morning all.

So we announced another player yesterday – but not the main man.

Matt Turner has joined from MLS side New England Revolution. I know nothing about him but the club seem to think he will do a good job replacing Bernd Leno as number two.

I imagine his arrival will see a change of policies on the goal keeper.

In recent seasons we have played one guy in the league and the other in the cups. I would now expect Aaron Ramsdale to play in everything bar the League Cup.

Whilst we sit and wait for Gabriel Jesus, his impending arrival is  creating noise from rival fans as well as those so-called Arsenal fans that do not really support the club.

A lot of the noise from the day has come from Tottenham fans.

They are stating that Gabriel Jesus is a “poor” signing as he would not walk into their team.

Harry Kane is one of the best strikers in the world. So they are right in the fact that Jesus would not walk into their team. But that does not mean that he is a poor signing for Arsenal.

Jesus is a huge improvement on Alex Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah.

Football is a team (and squad) game. Jesus improves our starting XI and our squad.

We finished just 2 points behind Spurs last season. We have improved our starting XI with his recruitment.

If you also include Fabio Vieira, we have improved two areas of our team.

So whilst Jesus would not have improved Spurs, he has improved us.

Their fans should focus on the lack of improvements in their squad, rather than try and mock us for our very positive transfer business so far.

I stand by my prediction that Spurs will finish 8th next season.

There are some Arsenal fans predicting he will score no more than 15 league goals for us next season.

I think if he scores 15 league goals he will be considered a good signing.

Do not believe me? Let’s look at the stats:

Last season, only 4 players scored more than 15 goals in the Premier League. The year before it was 5.

15 goals would have made Gabriel Jesus the 7th (or highest) Premier League goal scorer 6 out of the last 10 seasons (and top 10 in 9 of the last 10).

Last season was only the 4th time in Premier League history that we have not had someone in the top 10 Premier League goal scorers.

I think some people over estimate how many goals are scored by a single man in the Premier League.

I see some saying “we need a 30 league goal a season striker” as if they grow on trees.

Thierry Henry only scored 30+ league goals once in his Arsenal career – and only 6 players have breached that landmark since the league went down to 20 teams.

Alexander Lacazette was our top league goal scorer last season with just 7.

A man that (potentially) scores another 8 goals would have been more than enough to take us into the top 4.

There is a real lack of top strikers in world football right now – this is not the early 00’s when we had Henry, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Samuel Eto’o, Andriy Shevchenko, Raul, Ronaldo, Filippo Inzaghi, Alessandro Del Piero, Ronaldinho and Gabriel Batistuta battling it out to be the best on the planet.

These days there is pretty much Robert Lewandowski, Karim Benzema, Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Kane. 4 of which are the wrong side of 34.

Bar Erling Haaland, there really isn’t any other top young striker in world football right now.

Is Jesus the perfect answer? No. But that player really does not exist right now.

He is an improvement on what we had last season and will score enough for us to be top 4.

Onto the next one…

Keenos

Busy week of new signings and new contracts for Arsenal

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Bit of fun for me this morning as I try to predict what movements will happen in the transfer market for The Arsenal this week.

My first prediction is that Gabriel Jesus will join from Manchester City.

Now I know this is not exactly a bold prediction – a bit like your Nap of the Day being a 1/10 favourite. The deal is basically done. We all know it. Expect a late Monday or early Tuesday announcement.

The week will then be mainly focused around speculation about Raphinha.

I do not expect a deal for the Brazilian winger to come off this week. Arsenal and Leeds United seem to be someway off valuations. I also expect a deal will only happen once Leeds have already secured his replacement (Cody Gakpo the latest name linked with them).

Expect “in negotiations” and “close to an agreement” to be the buzzwords of the week for this deal.

Whilst there is lots of talk about Raphinha, I expect little if anything to be mentioned about Youri Tielemans.

Speculation surrounding the Belgium moving to Arsenal seems to be getting getting more and more quiet since the arrival of Fabio Vieira. I expect the deal is now colder than a bottle of Madri in the fridge of my garden bar.

We might get some contract news this week.

William Saliba is set to return from his holiday and the online speculation is that he is set to agree a new contract with Arsenal. Could it happen this week? I would say yes.

One man whose contract will not be renewed this week is Bukayo Saka.

My gut feeling is the deal is done. Agreed. Signed. But Arsenal are waiting to announce it in a bit manner. That will not happen until he is back from holiday.

Arsenal will not be worried. There is no rush as it is probably agreed (I think Arteta’s new deal was a big part of his agreement). Just wait for the PR to drop when he is back.

End of the week Matt Turner will be announced.

MLS rules means players can not officially leave until 1st July. It is a bit odd as I thought he had agreed to sign for us in January and was loaned back. Expect him to finally hold the shirt up on Friday.

What else? Probably not much.

We will not see the predicted loan deals yet materilise – clubs will not take a player on loan whilst they are on holiday; Paying wages for a player who will not even be training.

Only other deal to keep an eye on is Lisandro Martinez. I think this could be a deal that rumbles on this summer as Ajax attempt to push his price up.

So should be a busy week. Two incomings and some new contracts/

Have a good one.

Keenos

https://twitter.com/SheWore/status/1540396026003169283

Arsenal ‘playing catch up’ with big spending summer

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Much has been said already of Arsenal’s potential big spending summer. Much of it by the negative nancys.

“We spend £200m we should be targeting the title, not just top 4” is the most commonly used line by those fans who seem to spend more time hating one the club then supporting it.

Whilst spending big this summer should increase expectations, all we are actually doing is playing catch up on those other teams in the top 6.

In the last 24 months we have seen a huge amount of underperforming “stars” depart the club.

The likes of Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, Alex Lacazette, Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Sokratis, Shkodran Mustafi and Calum Chambers have all left the club.

Those 7 players cost us close to £250million. With the majority leaving for nothing.

Huge investment last summer and (potential) even bigger investment this is just us making up for our poor (and under) investment previously.

If we spend close to the rumoured £200m, that will be a squad that has cost us £700m – still less then both Manchester City and Chelsea.

We can also expect Manchester United to spend big again this summer, whilst Liverpool’s spending has also not finished.

By the end of the summer we would have spent around the 4th or 5th most in the Premier League on our squad.

Now some will now point out our poor “net spend” but this does not really matter. In fact all it shows is how poor business has hampered us.

We could have further closed that gap on those above us if it weren’t for so many poor sales (created due to the poor buys and huge contracts handed out).

In recent years we have also consistently had the 5th highest wage bill in the Premier League.

Wage bill is the single most important factor when considering where a team finishes.

To put simply, the more a team spends on wages the higher they are likely to finish in the league.

We have dramatically reduced that wage bill in recent years. This has freed up a lot of the funds we are now spending.

The investment we are seeing this summer (and last) is only making up for nearly half a decade of poor investment.

To highlight further, Mikel Arteta has been at the club for just 2.5 years. But how many of his first starting XI were in the final starting XI of last season?

TWO.

Granit Xhaka and Bukayo Saka.

Of the 18 starters and subs, there will likely be just 3 remaining by the end of this summer.

My final thought on this is where Liverpool and Manchester City squads are is where we are aiming to get to.

At that point, we will be spending £100m+ a season on one or two players rather than 5 or 6. Each one improving our starting XI.

Our investment will continue…but we still have a long way to go to catch up!

Keenos