By Sir Hardly Anyone
I am not sure there has ever been a transfer window like this with such a paucity of transfer news as we have in this one. Normally by now we’d expect to have 40 to 50 men coming to Arsenal, but this January, its very poor. Very, very poor. Just 23, and one of those doesn’t have a name!
So poor is it that newspapers and blogs have started to run stories about old transfer rumours they created that have simply never happened. As with
The real story of how close Liverpool & Arsenal came to signing Lemar.
We know that changing managers doesn’t work most of the time in terms of improving the team’s form.
But telling us about transfers that are not on????
Mind you we do have one crazy story, and this comes from Goal.com “The richest man in Africa has expressed a desire to take over at Emirates Stadium, but remains focused on building his company for the time being.
“Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote has hinted he could buy Arsenal in 2021, if a number of multi-billion dollar projects for his company are completed on time.”
Does anyone think that this is going to help? The whole history of the transfer of ownership of Arsenal since Sir Henry Norris was forced out by the Hill-Wood clan has been an utter disaster. Sir Henry was busy creating a club owned by its fans, as he constantly sold off parts of the club to supporters after rescuing Woolwich Arsenal from liquidation in 1910. Then the Hill-Woods, whose own club had ignominiously declined, abandoned it totally and left it to rot, moved into Arsenal, forced out Henry Norris, and eventually sold it to the Kroenke family, pocketing a massive profit along the way.
Now it seems there might be another buyer – and will it make any difference? The chances of it seem slim.
So back to the players. Who will we buy?
We’ve got 23 listings, although since the first one is weird maybe that ought to be 22.
| Player | Currently At | Position | Source / Notes | |
| NEW | ??? | ??? | Centre back | HITC devote whole article to saying we are getting someone but we don’t know who. https://tinyurl.com/quxj5ak |
| 2 | Nathan Ake | Bournemouth | Centre back | FoLo. Chelsea want him |
| 3 | Max Aarons | Norwich | Full back | £30m; Mail |
| UPDATE | Jerome Boateng | Bayern Munich | Centre back | Gunnersphere, Football Fancast. Sempremilan says no deal |
| NEW | Hakan Calhanoglu | Milan | Attacking midfield | Football fan cast say the “fans” have already turned against him. |
| 6 | Merih Demiral | Juventus | Defendender 50m. | Fotomc / Sport Witness |
| 7 | Firmino | Liverpool | Attacking midfield | TalkSport. Speculation |
| 8 | Omari Forson | Man U | Attacking midield | He’s 15; HITC |
| UPDATE | Bruno Guimarães | Athletico Paranaense | Midfield | Benfica and Borussia Dortmund both want him – The Star |
| NEW | Christian Kabasele | Watford | Defender | NBC Reports |
| NEW | Thilo Kehrer | PSG | Part swap for Lacazette; Bleacher | |
| UPDATE | Thomas Lemar | Atletico Madrid | Left Wing | Read Arsenal. Team Talk says as part of Lacazette deal |
| 13 | Thomas Meunier | PSG | Right back | World Soccer Talk |
| 14 | Thomas Partey | Atletico Madrid | Defensive midfield | Express |
| NEW | Leandro Paredes | PSG | Central midfield | Part Swap for Lacazette; Bleacher |
| 16 | Adrien Rabiot | Juventus | Midfield | Star. £25m |
| 17 | Boubakary Soumare. | Lille | Midfield | Read Arsenal |
| NEW | John Stones | Man C | Central defence | Sun, HITC |
| 19 | Dominik Szoboszlai | Red Bull Salzburg | No 10 | FoLo |
| 20 | Samuel Umtiti | Barcelona | Centre back | Sport Witness |
| 21 | Cengiz Under | Roma | Winger | The Boot Room. £34m |
| 22 | Dayot Upamecano | Leipzig | Central defence | Express. France u-21 |
| 23 | Kevin Volland | Bayer Leverkusen. | Forward | World Soccer Talk |
Previous rounds of transfers suggest the number that will actually come to Arsenal from that list is either zero or one. Don’t hold your breath.
OT
I see we’ve been given Dean and Atwell for the next two games. That will be their fourth and third times in charge of us respectively. Added to the 4 times Atkinson has been in charge and the 3 times Tierney has done it, we’ve had four refs doing 14 games out of 23. As has been mentioned on this site numerous times, an ideal number of games for on ref is two out of 38. That would mean four refs would have 21% of games. We’re only just half way through the season and we’ve had four refs doing 58% of our games.
What’s also interesting is that the VAR ref for four of our games was also Tierney which means he has had a very influential role in 7 of our 24 games. Why?
@Mikey – you ask why? The answer is that the PGMOL are corrupt and don’t care a toss for what you & I think because they are answerable to nobody.
The FA, FIFA, UEFA are all culpable beacuse they do not accept National Governmental control of the Game.
“The more you spend, by and large, the worse it gets.”
This statement is utterly misleading. In fact it is plainly untrue.
Yes, it would be fair to say just spending large sums of money in one big splurge does not work, I agree with that, but history shows that consistent high net spending, maintained over a length of time, is in fact ultra successful, hence, since our last title in 2004, every title bar 1 has been won by the 3 biggest spenders. Man City, Chelsea and Man Utd.
I have done many posts on here, the most recent of which was in the article titled TRANSFERS FOR THE BIG SPENDERS ARE NOT WORKING outlining that fact, with tons of supporting statistics.
I’m not re posting it here but I clearly demonstrate that big spending, over time, is in fact essential if you want to win the league.
Yes Liecster did it on a very modest spend but that was a freak.
And yes, you can point to the fact that Liverpool spent under £5 Million last summer and are going to win the league, but again that would be utterly mis leading because over the 5 years previous to that they spent £582 Million.
I concede they kept their net spend down by trading their assets extremely well, but to say they haven’t spent big, very big, is ridiculous.
Man City, the most successful PL side over recent years have been averaging a NETT spend of around £100 Million per season. That’s NETT.
Again, I concede these big spenders don’t always win it the very season they spend big, as Liverpool will show, but it’s not about individual seasons of low spend. It’s not about isolated seasons of big splurges, it’s about constant, high average spending, over many seasons.
Of course other factors have an impact. Get the wrong manager time after time, as Man Utd seem to of done, and you will fail, especially when 2 of your opponents are also spending enormous amounts but have 2 of the best managers in the World at the helm.
But no matter how good your manager is, without constant big spending (Leicester City accepted) you are absolutely guaranteed to fail.
Sorry, but you can keep suggesting otherwise but it simply isn’t true.
@Nitram
Bang on the money, so to say. Which is why year on year relative under-investment at Arsenal eventually caught up with AW. And why the most important question any prospective manager is likely to ask is “how much will I have to spend?”
(You omit to mention the guy at Spurs. Great job based on net spend.)
Talking about consistent average seasonal sending to refresh and reinforced the team for enhanced performance in the Premier League matches, but have Arsenal not been spending big consistently for four to five seasons in the transfer market recruiting new top rated players for the club? But all to no avail as it has seemed. For, Arsenal have neither won the Coveted Premier League title nor have they finished in one of the top-four places for three consecutive seasons despite the club spending big in the transfer market for four to five years consistently signings top rated players.
But where lies the problem for Arsenal that is causing the club to continue to struggle in the Premier League missing out on the top-four finish for three consecutive seasons now? A run which if not stopped from continuing could extend to four seasons on the bounce this season’s campaign. Save, if the club win the Europa League Cup this season to offset lack of finishing in one of the top-four places to claim an entrance ticket for admission into the UCL participation next season.
If this failure in struggling in Premier League matches by Arsenal is to stop, I think the club should review their new players signing strategy to stop signing top rated names hyped by the media e.g. Thomas Lemar. But instead sign less glamorous players who are top rated players but hidden who can be signed for low transfer fee as they are unhyped in the media. For instance Richardlison who is now at Everton. Whom if Arsenal have signed him would have turned out for the club they’ve signed a proven quality player of regular goals scoring ability in Premier League matches as he has proved to be for Everton.
Past mistakes in wrong top rated players signing by Arsenal should not be repeat ever, even as from this January transfer window if the club want to sign senior players on loan or on the permanent basis for reinforcements.
There seems to be a consistent error in assuming that Leicester City didn’t spend to get the title. King Power is no poverty driven entity. The expenditure of the foxes was cunning and one can see the sloping fields on which they played. There are no miracles in the EPL, everything is paid for and set up for success.
There are aspects of the players that also need to be questioned, speed does not arrive suddenly. It needs some system of nurture as we know. WADA was not set up for fun but seems to be absent from football.
My observation is the stare of a player is not necessarily his soul.