All I ever ask is that Arsenal try to be the best they can be, and there is no question that if we get an injury in attack, a proven winner at this level is a more reliable alternative then Eddie Nketiah, Vieira or Reiss Nelson (all who left this week).
It’s amazing how long some of our fanbase defended mediocrity and those same voices who blindly followed them for years won’t say anything now they have gone.
We might now be smaller in numbers, but you really have to separate those in the squad and those who actually were involved.
Eddie last started in February, and wasn’t trusted to play at all in the last 6 fixtures.
Reiss Nelson has only started once in the Prem in 4 years while Vieira started 5 league games in 2 years (not bad for 35 million!).
These were terrible players who their own boss lost faith in.
If you don’t believe me, look who wanted them, where they have ended up and how they will struggle.
Sterling has Arteta’s belief, the two winning every domestic honour possible together.
When the Spaniard was being praised for his 1 to 1 coaching at the Etihad, it was often Sterling highlighted as someone who improved under Arteta’s teachings.
Saka’s numbers are so impressive that it often gets ignored that it seems for a while now he’s been playing with a niggle.
Now if he needs a rest, or Martinelli can’t find his confidence we have a reliable replacement.
One of the few winners in our dressing room making him a much-needed leader.
He’s not the same since he stopped working with Pep Guardiola. Yet he’s not at an age or suffered an injury where that can be explained.
Maybe he needs to be in the right environment with an arm round his shoulder?
Having also been frozen out of the international picture if he moves across the capital with a chip on his shoulder and with a point to prove, even better.
Experience back up who can play either side, an upgrade on what was on the bench and winning mentality.
All of that for a zero fee and Chelsea are paying for most of this deal to happen.
Arsenal shouldn’t be looking for a bargain, but what a bargain it is!
Welcome to Arsenal, Raheem Sterling
Dan
ADMIN COMMENT
So here are some simple rules which I must insist commenters follow….
You agree not to give any personal abuse to other Arsenal fans. Everyone is allowed to hold their own opinions even if you disagree with them. It COSTS NOTHING TO BE POLITE TO OTHER ARSENAL FANS.
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
While I agree with your point about Sterling, it feels pretty harsh to call Nkeitah and Nelson terrible players. I mean Fulham and Palace aren’t bad sides.
Overall the quality of the team is better, but I feel like we should have kept one or two of the loan players cause the squad seems too small.
Good window overall.
Pep operates with small squads. He doesn’t like mire than 18 to work with.
As far as I can make out we have room for another three in the squad, so named promotions from U21 or U23’s or out of contract players are the only way by the look of it. Rabiot’s still without a club.
Come to think of it, sterling on a normal day can bench Martinelli and Trossard….
He’s not just coming in as a backup, but much more he’s going to make that front line more potent.
If he does well (something am praying for), I see us signing him on a permanent deal next season.
Can U imagine, “RAHEEM STERLING” in an Arsenal shirt!!!
We sure will give them something to talk about
Martinelli vs Trossard. Harvertz vs Jesus. Saka vs Sterling. 2 good players in each of the front 3. Hopefully we can upgrade on Harvertz/Jesus in the summer. 7/10 on incomings and 9/10 on outgoings.
It’d be a great bargain if his injury history doesn’t affect him. We’ll see whether he’s still got the pace or not
He definitely isn’t the player that was at city.
@Gai I am cool with the fact the deal is a loan with no obligation to buy. Not many winger at his age has any pace left in them. But considering the way he played for Chelsea during Pochenttino era he still got some tricks in him and a threat on the wings.
Dan – No point being rude to our ex-players and academy products. How anyone can describe Nketia, Nelson and Veira as terrible players baffles me. I noticed you didn’t mention ESR in the list of terrible players, but he’s no better than any of them. These are all very good players who didn’t get played by MA. Just like Maresca feels Sterling is no good but you are here praising him. If a player doesn’t get minutes, his value and confidence diminishes, and you can hardly do much with 7-minute cameos like Nelson and Eddie were often confined to. I honestly expected more from you than the utter rubbish in your article.
Name me 10 great games Eddie and Reiss Nelson had
Hence why they are at Palace and at Fulham
Probably will both end up lower level then that
Because I can name you moments where smith rowe played well and impacted games consistently
In Prem era , let’s say any Arsenal striker to play over 20 games, Eddie would be one of worse.
When we do the math – Dan is not wrong as I find neither Nketia, Nelson or Veira have distinguished themselves – though Veira may eventually being he’s now a loanee.
Sterling is crap runs around like a headless chicken not wanted a striker was needed.
Remind me of the trophies he’s won, the England caps he’s received and the clubs he’s played for – were they obtained before he was decapitated and suffered from diarrhea, or are you just exaggerating a bit?
I totolly agree with you.
According to the writer’s weird reasoning and criteria, Ramsdale would also qualify to be labeled as a terrible player, a most absurd description of our ex players.
Sterling imo was never a bad player for any of the premiership sides he’s played for. The fact that his new arsenal loan does not contain the obligation to buy is a huge plus. Why? because he has a full season to workout which side to approach next and in the interim we can work out (maybe) how to coax Anthony Gordon to join us.
And as we all know we needed goalscorers it will be interesting to see who scores more out of Solanke (spurs) versus Sterling (Ars) just to see which team got the better goal threat. My point here is I would rather have took a punt on Solanke whilst we had a chance to do so. Only time will tell whether we missed out. Hopefully the boat has not yet sailed on either Isak or Gyokeres – point being we are yet to make a huge statement by putting money on a striker.
Every top business looks in the bargain basement in their respective fields, look what we pulled out.
No one saw it coming. Excellent piece of business! If he will be half as good for us as he was for Liverpool and City, we might actually end up lifting the trophy at long last.
That is if Mr saboteur does not sabotage himself again.
Mr saboteur ? Who would that be, and why ?
I too believe Sterling’s loan to be an astute move. Whilst many cry out for a marque signing, the reality is if Arteta and Edu now only want the best and I suspect that was either Izak or Williams and rather than commit themselves and the club to a player who wouldn’t be their first choice they have ensured that if/when the opportunity arrives in Jan or next year they haven’t committed funds that would prohibit a future signing. When you sign a player for tens of millions with the players contract that would also cost millions over the life of the contract you are stuck with them for the next few years. Because of the existing P & L restrictions buying the right player for the next 3-5 years becomes more important and if others have spent unwisely to appease fans predominately then future transfer options in the future are restricted.
Read first two defensive sentences, realised who wrote this… scroll to end to check. Yup. Seen enough, thank you.
And then scrolled down and commented
Giving article more credence
Thank you lol
You are spot on Dan, an interesting option off the the bench, mix it up with the academy players and ill say we are stronger. Only short in the no 9 roll
Going by Arteta’s comment, the “thinner” squad seems deliberate to make room for Academy talents to rise through the ranks. It’s a pleasant and a welcome change in Arteta tbh. And we actually have some strong willed as well as talented youth knocking on the door. I think signing of Merino and now Sterling, and as well as Neto with their winning mentality and loads of experience, is the ripe environment for the youth to flourish.
I think Arteta has mentioned on one occasion regarding youth, that it’s not just a matter of giving them opportunities, but the right environment must first be there for them to flourish. And it can only mean an assortment of experienced heads in the squad to mentor the youth.
I don’t believe raheem sterling is a good buy not consistent enough think he’ll be another Jesus for some reason Arteta thinks he can buy other teams rejects and make them super stars hasn’t done so yet with Jesus or havertz
Sterling can score goals – he brings more finishing power to the squad, so possibly more like another trossard imo. I think he’s been inconsistent at Chelsea, but that’s probably more down to the environment at that club than him. If he can play well on the right and provide solid cover for saka, he’ll be a good loan signing imo.
Rightly or wrongly, havertz is getting a lot of praise throughout the football world, so I think you could argue he has become a minor super star – I don’t think either him or jesus have it in them to be Henry-level players, but I think we’re getting the most out of havertz at least
We won’t know one way or the other until he’s played a fair number of games for Arsenal. I think currently he’s just put an Arsenal shirt on (a blue one in the photo I’ve seen, unfortunately), Let’s give him a chance to show what he can do.
Improvement over what we had (on paper), we shall see how it works out. Sterling on a 1 year loan not bad, but we should still return to sender at end of the season and not sign Sterling on a permanent basis.
I think it’s a good bit of business and he’s still only 29 and his last 2 seasons have t actually been that bad at Chelsea numbers wise in a team that was in disarray.
Only problem I see is that he plays left side where we already have martinelli and trossard but I know he can play as a number ten and forward so we will see .
Good signing though IMO
Maybe, but wouldn’t it have been better to just keep Smith Rowe.
So surprised Arteta didn’t keep him and try to integrate him better.
We have sold players we don´t need or use and we have received almost 90 millions for all of them, included two academy players. It’s lots of money and hopefully a sign of a new era.
The signing of Sterling seems to be a no-brainer, and the deal is another good piece of work from Edu. From my point of view the quality of our first team and squad are increased, but I’m not sure we have reached Man.City’s level yet. COYG.
Surely we aren’t at Man City level. Just looking at the first 3 games tells you that the league is for Man C to lose with LV to chase!
Can Manchester City “Old Boys” win the Premier League?
What do you all think?
Yeah
Difference is Halland
He’s not an Old Boy
They can’t win us the league
Personally l believe MA is an excellent coach.
We have seen how ruthless he can be when he wants a player out.
The fact that he was stuck with Eddie, Nelson and Smith speaks volumes to me.
Let’s give him 10 games, then we will see if he made the right calls.
We just lost three exciting young talents who left Arsenal this transfer window. I assume MA wants to integrate a few Academy players into the senior team to make the rest believe and have faith in their career progression at Arsenal.
He wasn’t “stuck” with Nelson, Nketiah or ESR, as he handed the first two new contracts and he said ESR was part of his plans as late as last season.
They were part of his plans were they.
They were that much in his plans that they barely got any game time.
The truth is, that Arteta didn’t have any confidence in them, if he had they would certainly have got more game time.
Out of the three, the one I had the most sympathy for was Smith Row. He definitely should have got more game time.
The fact that Arteta gave Viera more game time says a lot about Arteta’s judgement on talent in my eyes.
So why did he give them lucrative new contracts then? Was someone twisting his arm behind his back?
It was his choice to do that and he made a mistake – he didn’t inherit that mistake did he?
I agree with your view regarding ESR, as did Arteta and Edu… at least that was the case when they said he was part of the future of the club just, what, eighteen months ago.
Funny old game!!
In praising the signing of Sterling, we’re just trying to cover our failure to do the needful in the long transfer window! As days and weeks passed by, we were all hoping for quality signings until the last hours of the window when MA and Edu were caught panicking. Then just to cover their backside, they reach out to a Chelsea outcast, then here we’re clapping hands!
Not long a go most of us here agreed on the importance of signing an outright top class striker. By every std I believe the likes of Gouyeres tick that box. Can we be honest to say that we expected signing of another defender(Calafiori)?
IMO another opportunity lost to win the league, CL and a cup?