by Sir Hardly Anyone
“The six players Arsenal must sell this summer to give Mikel Arteta the squad he needs” is a challenging headline. Six? I mean really six? More than half a squad??? All sold at once???
Of course, some of them might be youngsters or players who are already out on loan, but even so, selling six all at one go, at a time when no one knows if there will be any value left in the transfer market, and most players will not want to leave since leaving is going to mean a cut in salary.
Time for Untold to investigate!
Player 1 is Konstantinos Mavropanos
The opening phrase is “Arsenal are not exactly short on promising centre-backs” and that is certainly true. And in that list we have to include William Saliba and quite possibly Pablo Mari.
“He was highly-regarded, but has spent the second-half of the season out on loan with Nurnberg in the Bundesliga…”
Now note the word “but” – meaning “was highly-regarded and something went wrong”. Well, actually what happened was he had an awful injury that took a lot longer to come back from than was expected. Yet he worked solidly and hard with the under 21s and under 23s before going on loan and playing five times in the first team in the league in Germany before football was abandoned.
Even the knocking text agrees that he’s been good but says, “and while he has shown some impressive performances in Germany, it would be best for all parties if the youngster was moved on.”
And why is that? Oh we are not told. Seems we have to take their word for it.
Player 2 is Shkodran Mustafi
“Mikel Arteta has done admirable work to salvage a playing career that looked finished for Shkodran Mustafi. The German went from something of a joke among supporters to a cult hero in the space of weeks such were his improvements under his new head coach.
“Mustafi is imposing himself on opponents again, showing confidence in possession and fearlessness when he needs to defend. At 27 years of age there is still reason to believe his peak may yet arrive.”
Wow, sounds like he is just the man we need – and besides when has the judgement of the fans been the defining factor? The rampant negativity of the anti-Arsenal-Arsenal reborn under Emery and still there under Arteta will mock anyone and everyone.
So why should we sell him? Because he will get a good price! And for what? To buy a replacement. But why? We are not told.
Why not sell Sokratis if they think Mustafi is very good? Oh because Sokratis will bring in less dosh.
So we sell our best player, to get the most money to… buy another player while keeping a less good player????
Player 3 is Sead Kolasinac
Now Kolasinac is the other way around. While Mustafi is good and so must be sold, Kolasinac is not good and so… must be sold.
“Arsenal’s interest in Layvin Kurzawa in January tells you everything you need to know about their view of the Bosnian international.” Actually no, it tells us that rather than take note of the financial crisis in football journalists are just making stories up again. Remember only 3% come to pass. Most are just journalistic fantasy. So what a journalist says is everything we need to know. Really?
Player 4 is Mohamed Elneny
Every report from Besiktas is that the player is flying, but apparently, because he didn’t look on top of his game before he went on loan, we should sell him. Err… isn’t sending him on loan a way of giving him game time and getting his top form back? Nope, apparently not.
Player 5 is Henrikh Mkhitaryan
While Elneny should go because he has been playing so well for Besiktas, Mkhitaryan shuold go because he has “hardly pulled up trees in Roma”. While some players are sold because we can get a good price for them, others have been injured and their value has declined so we should sell them.
“Simply finding a way to get Mkhitaryan off the wage bill would be a significant boon to Arsenal.” And that means another club willing to pay him the same if he is that bad. Is that likely?
Player 6 is Mesut Ozil
“There is always speculation around the German’s future at the club and this summer is set to be no different.” Which means this website will be on his back, again, all summer.
The argument here is that he earns too much and isn’t good enough. So why would he ever agree to leave for a lesser club on a lower salary?
Indeed the whole saga is bonkers. We sell players because they are very good, or because they are not good enough, because we’ll get a lot for them, or we won’t.
And who produced this gibberish? Football.London.
And why? Either because the writers at FoLo are idiots, or because through this collection of contradictions they are wanting to undermine Arsenal, and encourage the supporters to get on the players’ backs. I don’t think FoLo finances AFTV, but it would not surprise me if they did.
The elephant in the room is Ozil. His wage is a superstar wage for an average player. He performs like a winger – one good game in four. Will he go? No he is content to take stupid money (that we offered) and he has no shame or ambition so will let his contract run and pick up a nice signing on fee at his next club. Whose fault? Management. The others might bring in pennies but we tend to sell cheap and declare it a great bit of business. Let us see some management and forward planning but hey we are the Arsenal!
I’m a Kenyan,english is third language,french while I’m learning french, kiswahili and bukusu my mother.
But when read what the so called English media’s tells me out rightly that the writer is on fishing spree.
What i know for sure is that ARSENAL Fc does need to buy or sell any player but let them gel under Arteta. Let Arteta build his team from what he has and indeed we’ve untapped gem at Arsenal.
Maybe one or two players may leave because of advanced age say sacrotis at end of his contrac.
Something tells me that what the writer wants is for Arsenal to invest heavily in English players, instead of these foreign ones. You know, English players, who “get stuck in” and “fight for the badge” and have “passion,” all of which enables them to do SO well for the national side in major tournaments.
Uncle Mike , I don’t think we will be heavily investing in anyone English or otherwise . Following this lockdown money is going to be tight for clubs and fans alike . Arsenal will have to rely on Hale end for squad supplements because Stan is losing money hand over fist in Los Angeles with the Sponsors ( sofi ) and as they lose season ticket income and probably gate receipts frugality is likely to be the name of the games
Although I don’t agree with your basic premise Mark as to the quality or ambition of Ozil, to really make that case you’d need to compare Arsenal with other clubs. I think you’ll find every club has great signings on the cheap and bad signings which are expensive. It is the nature of the game.
5:24 pm
I’m a Kenyan,english is my third language,while I’m also learning french, kiswahili and bukusu is my mother tongue language I command fluency.
whenever read what the so called English media’s (blogs) tells me out rightly that the writer is on fishing spree without researched information. This is reason why i majorly read untold arsenal to give me genuine position of arsenal fc.
What i know for sure is that ARSENAL Fc doesn’t need to buy or sell any of it’s player but let them gel under Arteta make up team like how Barcelona depended on Masia academy to produce Iniesta Pique and the rest. Let Arteta build his team from what he has and indeed we’ve untapped gem at Arsenal and that is what I call arsenal values. Arteta can directly emulate prof. Wenger. Take young players tap the talent then make them into superstars like how Wenger transformed Bellarin from righ winger to fullback right until Barcelona admired to buy him back. Brought Ramsey, Cesc, Chamberlin Iwobi and transformed them into excellent players.
Here is my question, should we really be a buying team when 3-4 academy players are annually promoted into senior team?
Are we not killing the motivation of academy players’ moral who are aspiring one time to play for senior arsenal fc team?
Apparently a team in Belarus, sold virtual tickets to a game. Upon purchasing a ticket, a printout of the person’s face was put on a mannican(sp?) in the stadium. A cardboard cutout of a fan, so to speak.
That would be an improvement for PGMO officials in the EPL. If nothing else, a cardboard cutout cannot dance when some team scores against Arsenal. And cardboard cutouts cannot blow the whistle, so it would no longer be a case of missed fouls by teams against Arsenal, all teams would be experiencing missed fouls. A level playing field, if you will.
And you could bring officials out for interviews after the game, of course they couldn’t say anything as cardboard can’t talk.
And you could have 😈 Mike Riley get interviewed every week. Again, as cardboard can’t talk, nothing would be said. But when does 😈 Mike Riley say anything of value?
A never ending attitude in the football press, is that things will start up again “soon”. The season will be finished, the transfers will happen, next season will start approximately on time, ….
The CEO of the Tokyo Olympics, is being cautious about whether the formerly 2020 Tokyo Olympics will even occur in 2021. It might be 2022.
So, don’t count on football being “back to normal” any time soon.