BaronCrocodile

Sorry some clubs know what fair value is/know how to spend responsibly. Don't know why you're being critical of our motivations to spend when you lot spent 600 million pounds to finish 12th.

Timber is a better fit.

The difference between Gullit and Havertz is that Gullit was actually good in all of those positions

Your name says it all u moron

Don't forget the "Edu's a fraud" and "we're directly funding Caicedo" talking points

People who don't understand how negotiations work at all complaining about Edu and our transfer team... they are close on 4 SEPERATE transfers all at the same time... They've negotiated West Ham down to £100m from £120m, Chelsea down to £55m from £70m and agreed personal terms with all 4 of our transfer targets. The window has been open for 6 days... and they are working around an international break where they will have taken a break out of respect for the players and clubs. Just trust they know what they're doing.

https://twitter.com/zrafc/status/1671094900673191943?s=46&t=3CIn_EYN0-Vxl6SdsYrsWg The Lavia links are exactly what I need. Get that boy over here, Rice, Havertz, Timber. We are COOKING. Havertz the biggest question mark, but probably a clear plan for him here

https://twitter.com/EduardoHagn/status/1671113233661304832?t=35XEZeI3ibbEL511NekRUA&s=19 Like asnurgyyy said, looks like 90m is the base fee and with add-ons it's 100m. That should really seal the deal

Yeah that's fair enough. I Just read this which makes it make a little more sense. If he gets his finishing under control I think he'll do well. https://sofifa.com/comment/8013183575

Very talented ball playing defender. Has shown absolutely crazy levels in the UCL and on national team level where he for a long time was first choice cb along with Van Dijk ahead of the likes of De Ligt and De Vrij. Hasnt had the best season last season but the whole of Ajax was shit and the backline/ system was shambles. Reads the game very well, something he may have picked up from Blind. What he lacks in physical dominance he makes up for with the way he reads the play. Also offers quite a lot going forward, adapt at breaking the lines with either a pass or by passing the attacking/ midfield lines himself. Not sure he would get away with a couple of his more risky take ons in the PL though. Also nice mentality in the sense that he’s a hard worker and a humble lad. Dont know for sure if its still the case but last year he and his brother Timber both still lived at their moms place even though they had plenty of money to buy something crazy. May take some time to adapt to PL in terms of physicality and the change of scenery, never heard him conduct interviews in English so cant determine how much of a adjustment that would be for him. Seems like a smart lad tho. Played almost exclusively CB for Ajax but with the way our system is set up the CBs handle a lot of the build up. Pros: - ++ reading the play - ++ breaking the lines - + pace - + mentality Cons: - - lack of aerial dominance, not terrible either - - physicality, not that weak but deffo no Saliba

this is definitely a defensive right back signing for arsenal if they get him

If I’m not mistaken he has similar qualities to Ben white ? If that’s the case he’ll fit in well to the system

Would probably be viewed as more of an inverting defensive RB. Kind of like when they wanted to sign Lisandro Martinez last year on the left.

I think he suits the defensive right back role the most, essentially a wide third CB

Nah give up on Tavares. He's shit couldn't cut it at Marseille

I’d sacrifice Diaby + Lavia to get Caicedo but I would still be very happy with that window

Love our starboy https://twitter.com/England/status/1670911626307051520?s=20

Vieira purely because I’ve seen that ESR is capable in the PL. Emile could be clutch in UCL games

Neither. We need depth, however both can’t afford another poor season or they’ll be out the door.

Timber is fucking perfect for what we need, what great news to wake up to. Now let’s get it done.

The reports of Mikel mage wanting to move White back to CB make sense if we sign Timber. Timber probably becomes the RCB in the 3-4-2-1 and White becomes Saliba and Timber depth. Or maybe White is still the RCB but will play more games at CB to allow Timber to play and give Saliba a rest. Either way I think White will play more games centrally next season but it’ll be very interesting. White should keep his place at the start of the season though for sure, cant drop him.

Yeah, 8th to 5th to 2nd in 3 years is so bad. You can't get every transfer right, but Arteta and the board know what they are doing and if you say otherwise after the progress that has been made it says everything about you

Saka ⬅️ Foden

Surely he's the player that plays best for England, right??

We scored 2nd most goals last season. Only 6 less than ManCity with Haaland. We scored the most goals in the league in our history. More than invincibles with Henry on top. We scored 18 more goals than Spurs with Kane on top. We scored 30 more than ManU with super Marcus Rashford. For right price will be great decision to sell Balogun this summer. Sorry bro. He is not improvement to Nketiah or Jesus. In Ligue1 even Lacazette had outstanding numbers.

💰 is the reason mate. Balogun is worth 3x more and is not 3x better, would be madness to keep Balogun over Nketiah if we can 25-30 million for Balo.

The only correct answer. Sell Balogun now, Nketiah next summer. £60-80m combine and we can reinvest them into Ferguson.

Football needs a major intervention and every time the people running things let something go it becomes harder to make a change. I want football to be an escapism but it is really hard when so many shady things are going on. I don't see things improving soon, and I think it would take changes outside of football for those improvements to happen.

Yeah, their priorities are garbage. Not because I think those sponsors should be allowed either, but idk how that can be "too far" yet all that other stuff is totally fine. I mean, not only would the PIF link be bad on it's own, but now there's actually another PL club owned by the pif AND Chelsea are suddenly selling are their unwanted players to Saudi Arabia. 10 or so days before their FFP deadline. It's a joke. There's not been a day in my life where I've not hated football lol. It's such a huge part of me, but a day seriously doesn't go by where I don't absolutely despise it. I actually wonder what my breaking point will be. Boehly + PIF, PIF at Newcastle, Qatari owned Man Utd, Man City... I seriously wonder what will happen to the European footballing landscape tho. PL clubs are running away financially from the rest of Europe and eventually we might reach a stage where the top 4 clubs in that league alone all will be state-owned (including Boehly and his PIF buddies ofc). I seriously don't know where this ends.

Both are in their 30’s and Rice can be our future starter for the next 7-8 years.

Lol he’s nothing like Stevie G Bellingham is the closest to Stevie G and sometimes TAA plays like him too.

It just doesn't make sense on so many levels lol. Yes Chelsea are shit but he has not been playing well either. THEY WANT 75 MILLION!! Chelsea can go for Caicedo. He will probably be on 200K as well. Crazy to screw up the wage structure for a player like Havertz.

Mount makes more sense. At keast I know where he plays in this team.

Being picked over auba isn’t that hard

Mount for sure. Mount - Rice - Odegaard is a solid midfield trio if you guys can get both of them. Mount has had shit form this season but he still carried our UCL run with Kante. Just like Rashford I think he'll bounce back in form whether he's at Chelsea or at a different club. If you guys get Havertz he's gonna warm the bench while he watches Jesus and Saka play. There's no way he starts over any of them. 60 mil for a bench warmer is a big waste of money.

He’s already miles better than Caicedo. I came to that realisation today when we first got linked to Lavia

I didn't watch many of his games at Spezia, but I belive that yes, he improved a lot

Zinny isn't a problem. Signing Rice will provide more cover on left flank than Xhaka does. This will make it easier for Zinny to take up the flank and double up with Martinelli, safer for him as he know that he has a better support.

Who cares if we win games? Guardiola is the best, not every team can copy his style and have it work. Man United and Spurs would get torn apart if they played the high line Guardiola-Arteta football we play, we play it because we are good enough to... and it works.

On paper Havertz is not a bad idea, but I have doubts about his profile compared to what we need. And above all: is it a necessity for him to push and splash 60M now when we have other profiles with higher priority than Havertz? Rice + a proper 8 or Caicedo is much higher priority than Havertz. I trust Arteta if he wants to, but we have to prioritize things. And prioritize our money. Rice + Caicedo is construction, Havertz is adjustment

Well said. Since qatar owns psg. Reports are emerging that qatari high officials pressured mbappe to stay last season but unfortunately how much we say keep politics out of football nothing will happen

Bellingham has played 0 PL minutes which is still a big question mark. Sancho dominated for Dortmund. Rocked up to United on big bucks and still hasn’t turned it on

It’s progress not success. 8th to 5th to 2nd. Pressure is on this season to compete again and get some silverware

Haha very funny but kai can’t do anything besides head

This sounds good in theory, but selling clubs and player agents feed off these internal deadlines in order to spook the buying club in to overpaying to ensure players link up with teams in time. I'm an advocate for getting them in early, but not if it puts us in a weak spot at the negotiating table. West Ham don't have to sell as Rice is contracted, and Rice benefits financially from more suitors (competitors) at the negotiating table. Longshot this gets done early in the window unfortunately

From 3rd to 12th

10/10 if we add a defender or 2

Just because Arteta and Edu have got a lot right with transfers over the last 2 years doesn't mean they're infallible, or that we're not allowed to question their decisions. These are the same people that brought us Willian and Pablo Mari after all. Also, Martinelli and Saliba -- the two best transfers relative to cost -- were probably made by Francis Cagigao in his breif stint as head of recruitment in 2019. For that excellent work Cagigao was let go by the new Arteta-Edu regime. I know it's extremely unpopular to say anything negative about Rice, and I really do respect a lot of the pro Rice arguments made, but I still believe that prioritising a defensive-minded midfielder over a more natural #8 is the wrong way to go. Without Xhaka we don't have a single #8 in the team. Partey and Jorginho are excellent (albiet old) #6s. And we have tons of talent in the #10 position with Odegaard, Vieira, Trossard and ESR. But who is the 2nd phase midfielder? who can gives us the kind of box-to-box performances Xhaka did last season? If the answer is Rice than that is one hell of a gamble. There is a time and a place for intuition-led transfers and it's not £100m deals. Mac Allister was a premier league proven #8 with exceptional technical ability -- he's gone to Liverpool to play in the Europa League. Barella was another great #8 with an engine to go with his technical ability -- now it looks like he's going to Newcastle to play with the likes of Dan Burn and Joelinton. If we missed out on those players, it's because our attention and priority was elsewhere: Rice. Ozygunner made a great argument yesterday about why Rice is worth every penny of a £100m deal. I agree with a lot of those points, especially the point about Rice playing the John Stones role (for lack of a better term). I have to admit that I had never considered that and I think it's really exciting idea. My one small critique of that idea, however, would be that in order for Rice to play that role, he'd have to replace Saliba or Gabriel in the first 11. I don't know about you guys but as long as Gabriel and Saliba are fit I want them in the team. So for my money what Rice gives us is a younger and more physically reliable version of Partey in the #6 role, and a cool John Stones syle rotaitional option to our CBs. Do I want a player like that? Absolutely. Do I think that player should be the priority and cost £100m? Absolutely not. A #8 to play the LCM position should have been the priority this year.

Nketiah, Holding, Xhaka, Partey (to buy Caicedo), Tierney, ESR and the ones on loan

Havertz is such an interesting story. I, like most of us apart from Kap, have called him a bum this season but of course when we are linked with him I suddenly start to see the upside. First of all, it’s the profile for me that I like, he kills multiple birds with one stone. He is a “more physical taller nine” that we’ve been looking for and he has decent aerial ability but can be also involved in build up. He also has the potential to be a left footed Saka backup occasionally, as well as our left 8 in a box midfield, with Rice, Partey or Zinny behind him he could do it. What worries me is that he’s a jack of all trades and master of none. Also, I really wanted a cold hearted killer as our next 9, sort of like our ‘Haaland’ and I don’t think Havertz is that despite him being a bit taller and stronger. I wonder how this deal affects Caicedo, no links in a while make me think it’s probably a long shot but idk man, maybe we only sign 1 defender but that would be risky imo considering our last 2 seasons have been fucked by defensive injuries.

Also fixtures are released today. I really want Man City in the first 3 games before the first international break. They always drop a couple points early doors and they’ll be especially vulnerable this season. There has to be some kind of treble hangover surely, having to play them twice in 2nd half of the season killed us last season, they’re unstoppable during that time. Apparently it’s been leaked our first game is Fulham away. Hopefully Man City at home after that.

Man Utd easily at the top. Barca is second for me. Then I guess Chelsea, I used to dislike Milan a lot, ended up not caring for them too much. Spurs has to be there but not necessarily above Chelsea and def miles behind Man Utd and Barca.

I would stop supporting, I would support Bournemouth or Norwich for some reason they are little like Arsenal.

Stop supporting Arsenal

i'd stop watching then.. aint fun watching these oil teams play..

My top 4 is prob exactly the same. I think I'd put any of City, PSG or Juve instead of Barca, altho I don't like them either so it's difficult to say really. City are a cheating sportswashing entity, PSG are too + they're idiots, and Juve are just crooks (and I just find them annoying tbf). If Barca weren't run by such huge assholes every year then I may even like them, but wow are they corrupt.

Just saw that from Fabrizio. Tbh we should sell Fabio Vieira for 20m and replace him with Guler. Could play both Saka and Odegaard’s roles.

I think most fans are rightly annoyed about the 2011-2018 period where he was majority shareholder but had to deal with Usmanov. Since 2020ish it's clear there's been a complete overhaul of behind the scenes processes.

That's fair. He also won't press, and probably wouldn't want to play in a side that doesn't create goals for him.

Personally don't want Gundogan or Cancelo... steer clear if you ask me