The Official Arsenal - 14 x FA Cup winners thread - Vol 4

[megaphone]

Very close to drawing Spurs, that would have been fun! Quite happy with Man U at home.

[Carl_Manchester]

When Phil Jones anchors the oppositions defence you know that you can score at least one goal. If we play Kos then let’s call it 1-1 from the off

[StonedRollin]

Good news in that Bellerin, Monreal, Mavropanos, Koscielny and Ozil are all back training with the first team. Bad news is so is Mustafi.

[leglessAlex]

StonedRollin said:

Good news in that Bellerin, Monreal, Mavropanos, Koscielny and Ozil are all back training with the first team. Bad news is so is Mustafi.

Really excellent news about the bold three. We've missed Bellerin big time I think, and Monreal too. Mavropanos just needs a lot more games under his belt, the more he can play in maybe the Europa or FA cup the better, and against some of the weaker league teams.

Kos? I dunno, he's looked pretty suspect in his first few games back. Mustafi has had a couple of okay games here and there but remains a liability IMO, a question of when will he let you down, not if.

Ozil is still a strange one. Is this all a ruse/him faking it or does he actually keep getting injured? How can the team help him play his best every game?

[StonedRollin]

leglessAlex said:

Really excellent news about the bold three. We've missed Bellerin big time I think, and Monreal too. Mavropanos just needs a lot more games under his belt, the more he can play in maybe the Europa or FA cup the better, and against some of the weaker league teams.

Kos? I dunno, he's looked pretty suspect in his first few games back. Mustafi has had a couple of okay games here and there but remains a liability IMO, a question of when will he let you down, not if.

Ozil is still a strange one. Is this all a ruse/him faking it or does he actually keep getting injured? How can the team help him play his best every game?

My tongue was firmly in my cheek with my posting and i agree about Koz as he's looked like the guy that originally arrived many moons ago and that is equally as much a bomb scare as Mustafi.

It'll be interesting to see if Mavropanos gets thrown into the mix but we are so crying out for a CB that i wouldn't be surprised.

As for Ozil, who knows. We don't. All i do know is that somewhere inside him is some serious talent but for whatever reason, we aren't getting to see it, never mind the best of it.

[IrateNinja]

He's 33, and given his general style of being an aggressive defender I think the Achilles injury has all but finished him. I posted when it happened that i thought that could would end his career, and I really hope I'm wrong as he's been a truly great servant of the club of the past decade.

[theplayingmantis]

a poor natural defender, totally dependent on good pace to recover from his lack of defensive awareness. physically weak and bullied by any 2 bob striker with a bit of beef about him, from the heights of drogba to the likes of championship level plodders like shane long. he was ok at his peak but not a Cb who title contending sides are built around.

[cbmotorsport]

Ramsey off to Juve apparently.

Why oh why have we let so many players go for free? Something is very wrong.

Liverpool seem to get ridiculous fees for the average talent they want to unload:

Jordan Ibe - 17M
Dominic Solanke - 19M

WTF?

We've let go:

Serge Gnabry
Wojciech Szczesny
Alexis Sanchez
Jack Wilshere
Aaron Ramsey

All for the sum total of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and £15M.

[aeropilot]

cbmotorsport said:

Ramsey off to Juve apparently.

Why oh why have we let so many players go for free? Something is very wrong.

Liverpool seem to get ridiculous fees for the average talent they want to unload:

Jordan Ibe - 17M
Dominic Solanke - 19M

WTF?

We've let go:

Serge Gnabry
Wojciech Szczesny
Alexis Sanchez
Jack Wilshere
Aaron Ramsey

All for the sum total of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and £15M.

Yeah, but we supposedly sold Walnut to Everton last Jan for £20m.........

[theplayingmantis]

yeah but we probably could have sold him for far more to liverpool a couple of years earlier when he still had a bit of standing in the game. we flogged him to everton at the time football woke up to what we knew for years; he is sh*t!

did have a good record against spurs however so bonus points for that.

[cbmotorsport]

aeropilot said:

cbmotorsport said:

Ramsey off to Juve apparently.

Why oh why have we let so many players go for free? Something is very wrong.

Liverpool seem to get ridiculous fees for the average talent they want to unload:

Jordan Ibe - 17M
Dominic Solanke - 19M

WTF?

We've let go:

Serge Gnabry
Wojciech Szczesny
Alexis Sanchez
Jack Wilshere
Aaron Ramsey

All for the sum total of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and £15M.

Yeah, but we supposedly sold Walnut to Everton last Jan for £20m.........

Now that was good business.

Anyway...Our hierarchy go on about us being a self funded club, sustainable business model etc etc and then let our biggest assets walk out the door for free. I just don't get it. Our net spend figures are awful, compared with some. No wonder we don't spend more on players.

[jammy-git]

We try not to let players get too far into their contract before getting them to renew. Also, since signing Klopp, we've returned to the Champions League, expanded our stadium and now we're competing for trophies and titles again. Quite a few reasons why players would want to renew.

Whilst Arsenal stagnated under AW and Kroenke, it's not surprising your high earners are/were considering options.

[theplayingmantis]

hold on a sec, didnt our once great manger claim (when he ran everything until very recently) that letting players get into last year of contract made them hungrier and perform better in the hope of getting a new contract.

ramsey is legacy contract situation from the Wenger years.

[cbmotorsport]

theplayingmantis said:

hold on a sec, didnt our once great manger claim (when he ran everything until very recently) that letting players get into last year of contract made them hungrier and perform better in the hope of getting a new contract.

ramsey is legacy contract situation from the Wenger years.

That was Wenger though, arrogant to the point of delusional. He just couldn't understand why people might want to leave Arsenal, and assumed they'd try harder so they'd be honoured with a new contract offer.

Anyway, yes Rambo was the last of Wengers legacy, but that doesn't make it acceptable, whoever's idea it was.

[Carl_Manchester]

all the above players were shocking and needed to be dumped. I can’t find a single one of those players where i think ‘big mistake that one’.

Our problems deepened when Fabregas and Van Persie left - what happened after was just window dressing.

The owners of the club are not to blame for the more recent problems we have with the squad - it’s the players themselves and people generally won’t accept that explaination as they want someone to blame.

The new Arsenal starts from May and we just need to hold onto 6th in the interim.

Whether or not Ramsey, Sanchez or Walcott are at Arsenal has no bearing on this, the club deserves better than any of these players.

Edited by Carl_Manchester on Thursday 10th January 19:22

[BlackLabel]

That’s quite an admission to make.

“Arsenal can only afford to loan players during the January transfer window and cannot make permanent signings, says manager Unai Emery.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46827324

[leglessAlex]

BlackLabel said:

That’s quite an admission to make.

“Arsenal can only afford to loan players during the January transfer window and cannot make permanent signings, says manager Unai Emery.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46827324

Just further compounds the idea that we're not going to spend any money in the summer either. There should be no real difference in our spending power between now and then, or indeed now and for the next number of years.

Even if we get back into the CL, I think that 'only' adds about €19-25m, and that's if we get out the group. This 'self sustaining' model we're saddled with means I can't see Arsenal ever being able to pay the money needed for a world class player in any position, especially since the Van Dijk transfer has raised the ceiling of what clubs will ask for very very good defenders.

[jammy-git]

Aren't your issues more to go with FFP than actually have cash spare?

[leglessAlex]

That's what they're saying, but I think it's more that the FFP affects us because our owner isn't willing to put any money into the club, and therefore the losses we are allowed can only be offset against the club earnings.

At least, that's how it seems to me, I could be wrong. Either way, many clubs seem to be able to justify spending very very large amounts of money indeed and not get charged under FFP.

[Deesee]

When the loans were undertaken to build the new stadium (as well as re develop the old and the surrounding areas), there were substantial covenants within the agreements to leave 9-10 figure cash sums on account, seemingly doing nothing.

The previous management put in place huge penalty’s if the loan/s were repaid early, as well as larger penalty’s if the cash sums were spent/withdrawn, somehow they almost knew that a takeover would happen, however if it did no further borrowing could take place and no cash raiding could happen....

When it comes to FFP, no other club takes more on match day than arsenal, they are in the top paying league in Europe, realistically the only club that puts them in the shade in terms of ’real’ cash generated is Man Utd...