Caporegime
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_Pérez
Honestly I'd say looking at a round up of his goals initial impression is someone who chases lost causes which gets him a few extra goals, works hard, is pretty fast/determined but scored a lot of fairly easy goals and several were monumental screw ups by defence/keeper.
Problem is in a decade that's his single good season. Giroud had 2 'good' seasons, both in a weak league but one of them in the second division as well. Welbeck, no great seasons, Gervinho, not sure he had anything great before he joined, I think he had one great season for Roma before they stopped playing him as much iirc.
Strikers who have one epic season with 2-3 times their more consistent rate are frankly a dime a dozen, those who are consistent are rare as hell. 17 goals isn't particularly huge for La Liga either. Gervinho, Chamakh, Welbeck, Giroud, Sanogo, Chu-Young, how many obviously not good enough strikers can Wenger buy but think he's somehow doing right by the club by not just spending more on a single great striker?
Honestly the only two semi worth strikers we've bought since RVP is Eduardo and Pod, the latter had really really impressive numbers with us but just wasn't used often enough then frozen out in the third season. Eduardo was insane up to his injury and then was pushed all over the place and used so sporadically he couldn't get back into his game. Wenger basically screwed around with him till he pushed him out.
Wenger needs to buy a top striker, put up with difficult personalities, stop getting rid of top players who you just don't like, stop buying insanely average strikers because they are cheap and actually try to win the damn league.
I think at this point we're at the stage where anybody is better than nobody. Is he the striker we all dreamed about? No, no he is not.
Is he probably the best we can get this late in the window? Well unless somebody else can throw up a name we're likely to be able to bring in... he probably is.
Is he probably the best we can get this late in the window? Well unless somebody else can throw up a name we're likely to be able to bring in... he probably is.
We've got plenty of average we can play up front already although if it means the last of Sanchez up top it's probably a good thing. Nice to see we're faffing about with the fee again though. It's almost as if Wenger doesn't actually want to sign anyone.
Ornstein just tweeted the the deal is done, we have signed a striker boys.
Edit: and it looks like the Mustafi deal is close, £35m, once again from Ornstein who is the most reliable source for Arsenal transfer information outside of the club website.
Edit: and it looks like the Mustafi deal is close, £35m, once again from Ornstein who is the most reliable source for Arsenal transfer information outside of the club website.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 7 Feb 2004
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He looks ok, we have plenty of ok. Might as well give Akpom a go if this is the standard we are buying.
It's like the rumoured £35m for mustafi... Just give holding a few more games.
It's like the rumoured £35m for mustafi... Just give holding a few more games.
Giroud seems to chip in with more than enough goals for the kind of player he is. I think people are clouded by the fact he's not "world class".
What are you classing as a good season, 20+ goals?
Caporegime
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No, I'd prefer to buy no one than the wrong striker. A young striker you have hope in, sure, a genuinely top striker for a huge fee, sure, a almost 28yr old with 9 below average/poor years and one above average yet not brilliant year.. 20mil and likely 80-100k a week for 4 years... no.
Buying lots of average not good enough players is why Arsenal don't compete. Another Giroud won't make us better, it just means one more player on the bench(regardless of him or Giroud) and the same quality on the pitch.
The squad is full of people who aren't really good enoug and Wenger keeps buying players like that.
Caporegime
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Goals doesn't entirely matter to me, it's contribution of both 90mins and over the season. Giroud is absolutely horrible on the ball, if he runs over 5 yards with the ball he normally loses it. He can't run at players, beat them then score, again not a part of his game. He can get tap ins and is deadly inside 6 yards, but that doesn't make him a great player. From further out he misses a lot and shoots weakly when on target most often. He basically is zero threat outside 12 yards from goal. I'm not saying he has to score 30 or has to score 10+ a year from further from the penalty box, but a player who is capable of being a threat from such positions is important.
Against the best teams in europe he goes missing, if we're under heavy pressure from a Barca/Bayern and we knock it long and it's just Giroud vs 1 CB or even played in behind with 30 yards to goal... he absolutely won't score, ever. Again he doesn't have to score these chances, Messi, Ronaldo, Aguero, Henry won't/wouldn't always score in such situations, but they at the very least score some of them, provide the threat and have won titles because of such goals.
He is an extremely limited footballer, if we want to win a CL it won't be with him, we have a huge wagebill but nothing approaching a world class striker and with absolutely no reason for that to be the case.
Napoli, a dramatically smaller club with significantly less money bought Higuain and we didn't... there are many other strikers who have been available who we've ignored, there are better strikers at significantly worse clubs in the premier league but we keep buying average strikers.
Caporegime
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The managers who wasted such money get called out on it. Other clubs spending money badly isn't an excuse for someone else to spend money badly. Chelsea/City's squads over the past 5 years considering how much they spend have honestly been extremely poor compared to what they should have been. But a lot of their terrible spending is different managers wanting different things and wanting some marque signings, so every 2-3 years a new manager is shoving some big names out of the door because he wants his own big names in.
Also of those, only Depay has been a bad buy. Darmian iirc didn't cost that much and wasn't particularly bad, just seems like he's not working out there though he played well at first. LVG didn't really like Schneiderlin and Bastion was actually frequently good but injured too often. Depay is the only player who just looked **** in all but like 2 games in the entire season.
The gap in wage bill is that world class striker though, isn't it? Arsenal are 4th, with a top top striker, they would still be 4th, but closer to the other top 3. Who though? Who do we buy that's a top top striker? Wenger obviously doesn't have 200m to lay down in a transfer window, he's got maybe a ~100m. If he lays down 75m on a striker. He looks like he's spreading his bets, which you can't really fault him for, i would do the same, it's less risky.
I'd like to know who we could buy as a top striker. Greizmann would be an obvious choice but is he going to leave Atletico? I don't think so. Morata? Looks like RM are going to be keeping him, Icardi is the one i'd of tried to get, if we could have got him for ~40m, i think he'd of been a good player for the club.
I want Wenger to sign Julian Brandt, he's not a striker but that kid looks like he could be something.
I'd like to know who we could buy as a top striker. Greizmann would be an obvious choice but is he going to leave Atletico? I don't think so. Morata? Looks like RM are going to be keeping him, Icardi is the one i'd of tried to get, if we could have got him for ~40m, i think he'd of been a good player for the club.
I want Wenger to sign Julian Brandt, he's not a striker but that kid looks like he could be something.
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Associate
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
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I don't know why we didn't make a concerted effort to sign Arkadiusz Milik. 35 mill, had a good season at Ajax, has experience,and he knows Bergkamp who could have helped convince him?
I remember people talking the same rubbish when we bought Koscielny and Monreal. Ok they didn't cost 30+mill but they weren't highly rated at the time they joined us but not have become world class. I would hope Mustafi will become world class with us, German international and still young so will get better.
Anyhow getting away from people talking the usual crap about our buys. I'm kinda glad that the Mustafi deal is pretty much done along with Perez, who I've never heard of but can only hope he does well with us. Someone who can play off Giroud or if not, latch onto Ozil's razor sharp passes and bang them in. Probably not so I'm not expecting a lot, haven't expected a lot for the past few seasons
They may all become wonderful players but its not like any of them come with glowing reputations or with people expecting big things from them. Personally I would rather my team spent 100m on a couple of top players than 5-6 ok ones. Its not like Arsenals first XI needs an overhaul either. They need a top striker and a defender and thats about it. As it stands they have bought a number of players who will only get a look in if your first choice players are injured.