Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

The 5 players Arsenal need to sign this summer

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Cedric Soares

Arsenal took Southampton right back on loan in January.

He arrived with an injury and then the Covid19 suspension hit meaning he has yet to play a game for the club.

Available for free in the summer, Arsenal would do well to secure his services on a 3-year contract.

Capped 33 times by Portugal, Soares was part of the team that won Euro 2016.

The experienced right back has spent 5 years on the South-Coast, playing 138 games. He has experience, and more importantly Premier League experience.

Some are calling for us to sign Max Aarons – but at £30million it would be a misappropriate use of funds when he would not be first choice.

Soares would be solid cover for Hector Bellerin.

Pablo Mari

Like Soares, Pablo Mari is also on loan. Like Soares, Arsenal should make the deal permanent.

Arsenal are currently overloaded with central defenders. Before even signing Mari, we have 7 at the club (David Luiz, Shkodran Mustafi, Sokratis, Rob Holding, Calum Chambers, William Saliba, Konstantinos Mavropanos).

Signing Mari would take it up to 8, but then the challenge would be to sell or loan out at least 3.

Two of David Luiz, Mustafi and Sokratis should be moved on. Mari is better than the later 2.

Time is also running out for Calum Chambers and Rob Holding.

Both Englishmen have stagnated at Arsenal and unlikely ever be good enough. Neither are young enough to be considered as “having potential”.

Mavropanos has been linked away from the club in recent days. A loan deal for a season would make a lot of sense.

Whilst plenty are linking us to the likes of Dayot Upamecano, we do not have the finances to make many big money signings.

Available for as little as £7million, Mari would add balance to the defence and replace the experience we would lose in Sokratis and Mustafi. He is an organiser and leader of the defence.

Ideally, we should go into next season with Luiz, Mari, Holding / Chambers and Saliba; with either Dan Ballard or Zech Medley as 5th choice.

Thomas Partey

If Arsenal make one big money signing this summer, it needs to be Atletico Madrid midfielder Thomas Partey.

For years, Arsenal have lacked power in the middle of the park for nearly a decade. You have to go back to Abou Diaby for the last time we had midfielder powerhouse; capable of physically destroying an opposing midfield, whilst also having the power and pose to drive forward with the ball.

Calling Partey a defensive midfielder is a disservice to him. Like Patrick Vieira, Yaya Toure and Diaby, he is much more than someone who simple wins the ball and passes it on (think Claude Makelele or Gilberto Silva).

He is the type of midfielder that dominates the game, dictates it with his physicality.

The 27-year-old Ghanaian midfielder is at his peak and would transform Arsenal.

Orkun Kokcu

Dutch-born Turkish youth international Orkun Kocku is one of the biggest prospects in the Dutch top-flight at the moment.

It was reported recently that Arsenal’s technical director Edu is a huge fan of the midfielder and wants to bring him to the Emirates this summer.

With Mesut Ozil set to leave the club on a free transfer in the summer, Arsenal should recruit his replacement this summer, enabling him to play and train alongside the German, before taking the step up for the 2021/22 season.

Our friends over at GunnersTown have an excellent scouting report on Kokcu.

At just 19-years-old, recruiting him this summer would give him a year to adapt to the Premier League before becoming a first team regular in 2021.

Ryan Fraser

Bukayo Saka is going to be a star. But he is still just 18-years-old.

Saka can not be expected to play 50 games next season, and with Nicolas Pepe and Reiss Nelson the other two “natural” wingers at the club, we are one short.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang needs to play down the middle next season, with Gabrial Martinelli backing him up (if Alexandre Lacazette leaves). Neither player is really a winger.

Bournemouth winger Fraser is available on a free transfer. The Scot would give Arsenal some Premier League proven experience alongside Saka without breaking the bank.

The pair could share the load on the left hand side, and give Mikel Arteta the option of playing left or right footed players on both wings.

Final Thoughts: The impact of Covid19 is going to impact the finances of all clubs across Europe this summer. We are not going to see too many teams spending big this summer.

Based on reported fees, the above transfers would cost the club in the region of £80million. Once this is amortised for accounting reason, it would increase the clubs outgoings by around £16million a year.

Arsenal would look to raise funds (and make savings in salaries) by moving on Mustafi, Sokratis, Chambers / Holding and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. In the current market, Arsenal would do well to raise £25-30million.

Selling Alexandre Lacazette could double that, freeing up further wages and providing us with some very important cash to complete the transactions.

With tightening finances, Arsenal are going to have promote some youth next season. The likes of Soares, Mari and Fraser will provide experience alongside those youngsters, whilst Kocku would replace on loan Dani Ceballos as the creativity behind Ozil.

Thomas Partey should be the number one target.

Keenos

England needs football to return

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This time next week football will be back, and boy do we need it.

A month ago, I did not see the point of the season restarting.

Safety of players could not be guaranteed and the proposal of neutral venues alongside expiring contracts would bring into question the integrity of the competition.

My view was simple. Crown Liverpool champions, and void the rest of the season. No promotion, no relegation, European places are based on last years positions. 2020/21 European football broadcast money split evenly between every Premier League side.

But with where the world is at the moment, we need football. We need that escape.

Virus fatigue has set in. People on Twitter are in a spiral. Arguing the same points they were months ago, to the same people. It is groundhog day.

You then have the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd.

What begun as peaceful, justified protests have been hijacked by anarchists intent on causing trouble.

We are now to a point where people have gone stir crazy. We are seeing people demand statues across the UK be taken down – from Nelson’s Column and Winston Churchill to Francis Drake and others.

Now whilst I agree that some of the statues should not stand, mob rule has taken over. A few hundred pulling statues down is not democracy. The people within the constituencies that the statues sit should decide if they remain. Parties should state their position in the next council elections and let the people decide.

I have always strayed away from sharing my political opinion. Whether that be my position on Brexit (I voted to leave), my voting intention at General Elections (I have not voted in the last 2) or whatever. I realise I am dangerously close to turning this into a political blog.

We need a change of narrative in this country. It has been months and months of depressing news headlines. Negative stories. It has led the country to be in a really bad mind set where idiots are boycotting tea brands and people are considering going out this weekend to “protect” their local statue.

We need football.

For decades, football has been the man on the Clapham omnibuses escape from the world.

You do a hard weeks work, down a mine, in a factory or on a building site. Then at a weekend you go down the football. You scream, you shout, you cheer, you drink. You drink drink together in the name of the AFC. You have arguments, maybe even in a punch up, if that is your thing.

For well over a century, Saturday’s have given people a reason to live, to get through the week. To battle on.

More then ever now we need that relief, that escape.

It will be different. Watching at home alone, or in your garden with a few mates. But with games coming thick and fast, the distraction will exist.

We can get back to the important arguments on Twitter. Who had a good game? who was pony? Should the manager stay or go? Why did he drop him? Why did he play him? Who are we going to sign this summer?

England is on the brink of anarchy at the moment due to the behaviour of a minority. Hopefully football will give the majority something else to focus on, to immerse in.

A week today we play Manchester City.

I can not wait.

Keenos

Mavropanos should leave Arsenal…but only temporarily

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Today’s Arsenal related transfer news comes in the shape of Konstantinos Mavropanos and that ‘FIVE Bundesliga clubs eye summer swoop for young defender’.

Arsenal have too many central defenders next season, which has delayed the club offering a new deal to David Luiz.

David Luiz
Sokratis
Shkodran Mustafi
Calum Chambers
Rob Holding
William Saliba
Konstantinos Mavropanos

Arsenal do not need 7 central defenders. At most we need 5. Maybe even just 4 senior ones with Dan Ballard of Zech Medley backing them up.

The management are also extremely keen on making Pablo Mari’s loan deal a permanent.

If Mari does sign, that would leave the club with 8 centre backs. That means 3 more to stay on top of the Spaniard and Saliba.

The preference of the club is that David Luiz remains for one more season. The Brazilian has been one of the first names on the team sheet under both Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta. No player has played more games this season.

Luiz remaining depends on whether the club can sell either Sokratis or Mustafi.

If either Sokratis and Mustafi leaves, Luiz will stay. If Arsenal can not sell either, the Brazilian will leave.

This summer will also probably see the end of the road for either Rob Holding or Calum Chambers.

Neither has progressed much in recent years and are now both 25-years-old. The Englishmen are also on relatively low wages. Both are good sellable assets and would generate a lot of interest from Premier League side.

That would leave Arsenal with:

Mari
Luiz
Mustafi / Sokratis
Holding / Chambers
Saliba

5 defenders excluding Mavropanos.

But Mavropanos should not be sold.

The Greek is still just 22, and whilst it has been a couple of seasons since he put in a handful of OK performances at the back end of 2012/18, there is player there.

Like many players, he needs games.

Mavropanos has shown progression in the short time he has spent at Nurnberg in the German second division, but he needs to keep playing – both to progress as a player and to continue to prove his fitness.

Come 2021, the contracts run out for Luiz (if he signs a 1 year extension), Sokratis and Mustafi. That would leave the club with just 3 senior central defenders in Saliba, Mari and Holding / Chambers.

The worry for Arsenal will be that whilst we are overloaded for defenders going into 2020/21, the case for 2021/22 is looking very diufferent.

It would make a lot of sense to loan Mavropanos out to a Bundesliga side to play a full season next year, and then bring him back for 2021.

He will still be just 23 and, if he has progressed in Germany, will be well set to compete with Saliba and Mari for a starting place.

That would leave us in 2021 with:

Mari
Saliba
Mavropanos
Chambers / Holding

Arsenal would then have the option of buying a superstar defender if we need to improve the back line (with whoever has stayed between Chambers and Holding moving on) whilst promoting either Dan Ballard or Zech Medley to fill the 5th centre back squad.

A loan move away for Mavropanos will enable us to keep our options open in a years time.

Keenos