According to the Athletic’s David Ornstein (subscription required), Arsenal are ‘working on three to four deals’ in the January transfer window.
This statement is sure to get Arsenal fans excited, but Ornstein has reiterated that the Gunners aren’t planning on ‘significant expenditure’ at this mid-season point.
The Athletic’s report highlights that the north London outfit will instead be focused on eyeing loan moves, free transfers or signings for ‘small fees’.
Ornstein claims that Arsenal have targeted full-back, central defence and central midfield as potential areas for strengthening this month.
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Given Arsenal’s spending last summer, this strategy seems wise, it also ensures that the club won’t pay the big bucks for players that could fall into a less important role once some stars return from injury.
Mikel Arteta currently has an injury crisis on his hands, the Gunners are without Hector Bellerin, Calum Chambers, Sead Kolasinac and Kieran Tierney.
The likes of Bellerin, Chambers and Tierney are all potential stars for the future, so it would possibly hinder their development if we were to sign high-cost players for the first-team at this moment in time.
Which potentially bargain transfers should the Gunners explore this month?
I really can’t belive you said , it will hinder potential futures stars who are nurshing injuries, well i will forgive your statement over that because, like you said this is not summer so they can get those to fill up the position but arsenal need to invest heavily come summer so we can compete ..At least 250million will be a bench mark…Spend the money if it borrow or sell do any to get this club going.
So what ornstein is saying we want to bring players in who are not first team material but can stand in until the first choice comes back. Mmmmm, i am not sure i buy into that, im not sure about a player who comes knowing that either.
“According to the Athletic’s David Ornstein (subscription required), Arsenal are ‘working on three to four deals’ in the January transfer window. This statement is sure to get Arsenal fans excited, but Ornstein has reiterated that the Gunners aren’t planning on ‘significant expenditure’ at this mid-season point.”
My once great team are looking to get second rate players for no money and become great. Illusory fantasy that cannot work. No one can by the best things in the Pound Shop. The real truth is Arsenal are loved by the supporters, clearly Arteta, and maybe Edu. The whole ownership, board and management structure is like a ‘Brian Rix’ farce. Sadly for Arsenal magic does not exist. I so want Arteta to succeed, he is really eloquent, assertive and energetically young, but he will be let down by the clowns above him. Impeach Kroenke would be better for us. How can those people own 5 diluted clubs? They should be kicked out.
So it sounds like the club is bringing in possible deadwood to band-aid our injury crisis, and then we’re stuck with that same deadwood going forward. I swear this club never seems to learn. Rather than spend 40-50 million on a proper CB the club wastes 35 million on Mustafi, 18 million on Sokratis, and 8 million on Luiz.
Basically a one time 50 million top CB transfer is frowned upon, but wasting 61 million total on 3 subpar CB’s seems wise and/or prudent?
Let’s hope it’s Miki, Ozil, Xhaka, and Mustafi gone then! That’s four deals I’d love to see go through asap!
@thirdman, You want to sell three players when you are not sure of getting their replacements the same way Emry sold four first team players last season Ramsey, Montreal, iwobi and Mikki last summer and he surfer for it
They are all extremely easy to replace, and it wouldn’t cost a lot. I don’t expect much to be done this month, but certainly by next season, I would like to think we can dump this deadwood.
Mustafi – Barely plays for us anymore, and is terrible when he does. He is a poor squad player now, and could easily be replaced with a cheap defender from the Championship, or from our reserve/youth team.
Ozil – Literally offers nothing! Signing a player for any fee, from any division, is an upgrade on nothingness. Could easily dip into our reserve/youth team.
Miki – Massive flop, not even at the club currently. Again, easily replaced with a cheap midfielder from the Championship, or from our reserve/youth team.
Xhaka – One of the worst midfielders I have seen at Arsenal, and has never had a good season for us. Easily replaced, but his departure could possibly destabilize our midfield in the short-term, as he has formed a decent partnership with Torreira.
In regards to the others you have mentioned: Ramsey’s departure was largely the fault of the previous regime. Monreal needed replacing, and has been with Tierney (when he’s fit), Iwobi has been upgraded with Pepe, and Miki never did anything anyway. The only one we haven’t replaced is Ramsey, but that’s because we cannot get rid of Ozil (another problem the previous regime left us).
Sir, every word written is the absolute truth. And those gone are not doing anything great at their new clubs either so Ems was right.And we have forgotten Elneny.
Oh Jesus still comparing apples and oranges … Ramsey was a second rate box to box player who Was favored by our aging manager as football dementia set in and is now struggling to start A game with juventus … Ozil is an overpaid quality playmaker who struggles without quality players around him … the problem is that none of the youngsters we have who might replace aging players is up to the mark with possible exception of martinelli
The ownership destroyed us, and they could care less. 100% agree about buying second rate people you get what you pay for. Sell the team for the good of this club, the worst pillager,money grubbing greedy non caretaker of our storied history and brand. Get out.
Maybe people should stick to what they’re good at, rather than attempt to teach those who know a thing or two about what they do for a living.
Most fans live in a FANtasy world. I suspect that is why they call us fans. The job of running a club, especially a big club like Arsenal, is hardly a walk in the park as some would like us to believe.
It is easy to sit in the comfort of your home and put your FANtasy world and virtual reality into words. The real world of business and transfer of players (good/great ones) whose contracts are owned by another club, is hardly that as simple as some of us think.
Replacing players, like we have to, in the midst of a season, because of injuries, is a nightmare no coach wants to have to do. Arteta has a lot on his plate trying to juggle all the moving parts of the club without dropping the ball.
Some of us have only ONE solution for the kind of scenario the poor man is facing now: buy and sell players. End of story.
No consideration for the ripple effects on the entirety of the club, the careers of individual players, club finances, the immediate and long-term future of the organisation and many other factors too complex to mention.
There are so.many things we fans do not see or know about the club we love and yet we pass EASY judgement on those who live daily with these difficult choice and have to make calls that are nail-biting.
Let’s show a bit of respect in the way we take easy shots with our comments on the hierarchy of the club. Especially when it comes to transfers and players. It is the least we can do.
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We heard the same before the summer, everyone said we had ..can’t remember the number but it was low. They were wrong and we were buzzing after the summer, don’t know if this is the same thing. After the summer AFC said that we never said a number, the media totally came up with that themselves. And Ornstein was one of them.
3 or 4 players when everything we’ve been hearing is how we don’t like this window and how the summer window is the important one. I can’t see us bringing in 4 squad players like above comments seem to think, and I don’t see us spending decent money on more than one player.
If we sell Mustafi, then I can see us signing one player for a decent price, and maybe one loan or tiny fee signing along with him. Maybe even without Mustafi’s sale we could still do this. Kurzawa, if the links/talks are true, he would be a small fee player. Then at most I’d guess at one more player.
Surely the signs are there that we may finally be on the right track for a change, while Unai Emery may go down in history with the unenviable title of Arsenal’s worst manager of our time, Arsene Wenger and his cohorts did not do well in not planning an adequate succession to the professor before he left, what happened at Manchester uUnited would have been enough eye opener for them to have learnt from.
However, it is all hands on deck; everybody that has “The Arsenal blood” its “OPERATION BACK TO BASICS; BACK TO WHERE WE BELONG” Going forward, I believe that is what Coach Mikel Arteta is peaching and surely “WE MUST LISTEN”
Giving Mustafi another chance may be a fair gamble after all HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE. He is a good humble guy who is just unfortunate; lest we forget, he is a World Cup winner and truth be told he does well sometimes, let’s hope that he performs all the time he is called upon to and not sometimes after all it is a mind-set thing, confidence barrier that he has to break and with Mikel, he may have finally found salvation.
I am a very strong believer in Mikel Arteta and will always support his decisions because he does not just make them for the sake of it, he analyses and judges from what he sees before him…
Honestly, Arsenal should look at signing Thomas Party.