There will be a lot more Arsenal transfer rumours for us Gooners to wade through over the coming weeks, until the winter transfer window shuts down at the end of the month, and it is anyone’s guess which of them will be true, close to the truth or downright fabrication.
I sincerely hope that one of the latest reported by the Daily Star this week is of the third variety, because the paper claims that people at the club are becoming more and more concerned about the likelihood that neither Mesut Ozil or Alexis Sanchez will agree to sign new contracts to stay with Arsenal.
If the report is true, however, then I think it will force Arsene Wenger to use the current transfer window to make at least one big signing and possibly more, for two reasons. The first is to show the star duo that the Gunners are serious about competing for top honours, as even though the report talks about the salary demands of Ozil and Sanchez being the problem, part of it must surely be their ability to win things like the Premier League and Champions League trophies.
The other reason is to give the club cover in case they do leave in the summer, because once the other clubs know this is happening then the price for any replacement we look at will miraculously rise. The question is, will Wenger act now or wait and see?
Bob.
Should have done this the previous two summers. We were all just asking for a WC forward and Top DM.
But I doubt we will get anyone big in January
I think wenger thought that, xhaka would be his top dm and that alexis would become his wc striker, with perez taking alexis role out wide.
In fairness, all 3 facets could still happen, in glimpses xhaka and perez have.shown both their capabilities and their inabilities. Alexis hascertainly proved he could that striker, but giroud hascertainly taken his chances this season. I said in a previous post, that our “front 8” are as good as any other teams. It’s up to wenger to find the right permutations and predict when each of those players is going to perform to the best of his ability. Let’s be totally honest who has 8 attackers of this quality? Alexis, ozil, walcott, giroud, perez, chamberlain, welbeck, iwobi? All 8 should be fit for our next match, for the first time this season.
Our 5 centre midfielders also provide a decent variation, cazorla, coquelin, ramsey, xhaka and elneny. If anything this is the one area, where we are lacking at the moment, the decision not to have a recall option on wilshire could hit us hard, if we don’t sign anyone, cazorla struggles to get back soon and elneny’s Egypt go on to the latter stages of the ACON.
In defence we currently have 3 right backs, 5 centre backs and 2 left backs, 3 if you include the new kid. Shame we can’t do a deal with Bournemouth who are after a cb, we trade on loan Mertesacker or holding for Wilshire and throw in zelalem all 3 moves would help out both clubs.
I would do that in this window, plus I would sell Debuchy (too injury prone) sanogo (not good enough) gibbs (too injury prone) and jenkinson (not good enough) and then buy the best two attacking full backs we could get. Rodriguez probably being one of them.
I would probably also send martinez macey maitland-niles, Adelaide and akpom all on loan too with recall options.
Surely we won’t get any big signing in mid season. Loosing two team core will be a massive decrease for us. Weird, because both of them are happy here. For Alexis is all about money, I don’t believe he asked 300K a week anyway. As for Ozil, it’s an unbelievable sentimental reason, but I don’t think he’ll be happy with his old paycheck either. On top of it, the board will be too dumb if they let this thing actually happen.