January Transfer Thread 2018/19

omnomnom said:
Pulisic to Chelsea then...not sure I get that one to be honest. Seems to have lost his place at Dortmund and his stats, although they don't always paint the true picture, are a bit..rubbish.
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It's an interesting one. I've said before that I'm certain we're interested in him but there's been a clear policy at the club in the last few years to not gamble on outright potential but to take more calculated risks on players just on brink of becoming stars. If the reports are true and Chelsea have offered around £50m for him then he very much falls into the gamble category - £50m for a player that's not nearly at the level of our front 4 and no guarantees that he'll reach that level just doesn't make sense. Had we been looking at £20-30m, which given his actual progress (or lack of) and contract situation in the summer would have been more reasonable, then I could have seen us making a move for him.

Shamikebab said:
Yeah but he's American, think of the shirt sales, right Baz?
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He's actually (potentially) an exception to the rule :p

Superstars from markets that don't have established club sides of their own can actually make a meaningful difference from a commercial point of view. Not enough to be the main reason why you'd sign them but it possibly could persuade you to spend an extra 10% (for example) to sign them. Pulisic is probably on the lower end of the scale compared to a Salah or a Son in that regards though - not only isn't he nearly as big a star in the US as they are in Egypt/South Korea, I'm still not convinced football will ever be big enough in the US to attract big money commercial deals.
 
BaZ87 said:
Tbf, Arsenal did sign two rubbish defenders in the summer.
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I think Lichtsteiner at 34 was only signed as cover, as he can play in a number of defensive positions (albeit badly in all of them).

I'm not sure they will give the manager, or whoever is responsible for signings now any money to spend.
 
An interesting rumour has popped up - Arsenal interested in signing Cahill from Chelsea.

There's no doubt he'd improve our defence in the short term, especially given the injury situation, but I think I'd prefer us to sign a younger player who's going to be capable of doing a job for more than a season or so
 
The rumour is it's a loan deal, right? Not sure how that deal makes sense for Chelsea, why would they want to strengthen Arsenal? For Arsenal a loan would be ok but there's no way they should be signing him on a permanent deal. Arsenal's mistake in the summer was signing so many average players. Torreira, despite his performance at the weekend, looks a decent player and the sort of player Arsenal needed but the rest (who knows re Geuendouzi) have been a complete waste of money and haven't improved them one bit. Rather than spend £35-40m on Sakratis & Leno, hoping for marginal improvements over what you've got, put that money towards signing 1 player that you feel will be an obvious upgrade.
 
I've got no problem with any of our summer signings. Sokratis is probably the worst of the lot, but still a good player to have as a 4th choice centre back. The problem there is that what we needed was a new 1st choice player in that position but the board was clearly not willing to release the money needed for such a player. Leno and Guendozi are both young and can be expected to improve, while Torreira is the player we've been crying out for for at least 5 years.

It's unrealistic to expect Emery to rebuild the entire team over a single window, but I'm happy with the progress being made overall. I said pre-season that 6th would be a reasonable position this year and I stand by that although obviously hoping for better. The real indicator will come after the next summer window when we'll see if Emery is able to bring in a Koscielny replacement and an upgrade on the frankly disappointing Mustafi. Sadly I can't see us getting either of those in January
 
trigg_27 said:
I've got no problem with any of our summer signings. Sokratis is probably the worst of the lot, but still a good player to have as a 4th choice centre back. The problem there is that what we needed was a new 1st choice player in that position but the board was clearly not willing to release the money needed for such a player. Leno and Guendozi are both young and can be expected to improve, while Torreira is the player we've been crying out for for at least 5 years.

It's unrealistic to expect Emery to rebuild the entire team over a single window, but I'm happy with the progress being made overall. I said pre-season that 6th would be a reasonable position this year and I stand by that although obviously hoping for better. The real indicator will come after the next summer window when we'll see if Emery is able to bring in a Koscielny replacement and an upgrade on the frankly disappointing Mustafi. Sadly I can't see us getting either of those in January
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I'm not sure anybody said or expected a complete rebuild in one transfer window but I can't help but think that Arsenal have wasted a lot of money and most of the signings made aren't long term answers.

I stated the day you signed Cech that he was well past his best but can you honestly say that Leno has been more than a marginal upgrade, if an upgrade at all? And he's 26, the same age or older than Alisson, Ederson and Kepa - all 3 of which are massively out performing him. Do you really believe that over the next couple of years you're going to have a keeper on a par with the best sides around or will you be looking to replace him? I agree that you needed a new/another CB and given that fact it only made the Leno signing even more questionable. When money's tight and other areas need addressing more, why spend over £20m on a keeper that at best is only a small upgrade? Surely it would have made more sense to stick with Cech and put the money towards signing the first choice, long term CB you need and then looking at the keeper situation next summer? Instead you ended up with an average keeper and a 30 year old 4th choice CB for near £40m.
 
It's a little hard to judge Leno on his performances this season, given the defence he's playing behind. His distribution and positioning is generally very good and he's produced some nice reaction saves which show that the ability is there. I can only think of a couple of goals we've conceded which could be put down to goalkeeping errors.

Given Cech's age and apparent decline, we needed to sign a new keeper so it made sense to get one who could occupy the position for several years - and let's not forget, he cost a fraction of the three other keepers you named.
 
He cost less because he's not nearly as good, which is part of the point I'm making. You've spent nearly £40m on two players that aren't good enough. Rather than gamble on £20m players in the hope that they are going to be marginal upgrades, spend £40m on somebody that's more likely to be a bigger upgrade. Long term Cech needed replacing but if Leno's the replacement then wait a year, sign a better CB now and replace Cech after. Instead Arsenal are going to go into the next summer still needing a CB and if they realistically want to challenge at the top of the table, still in need of a better keeper too.
 
BaZ87 said:
He cost less because he's not nearly as good, which is part of the point I'm making. You've spent nearly £40m on two players that aren't good enough. Rather than gamble on £20m players in the hope that they are going to be marginal upgrades, spend £40m on somebody that's more likely to be a bigger upgrade. Long term Cech needed replacing but if Leno's the replacement then wait a year, sign a better CB now and replace Cech after. Instead Arsenal are going to go into the next summer still needing a CB and if they realistically want to challenge at the top of the table, still in need of a better keeper too.
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Bit unfair to judge Leno yet, playing behind an injury ravaged defence and some defenders that as you stated are not great anyway and its his first season, I'm sure some of the other top keepers in their 1st season were shaky at times as well.
I agree on your points about spending fair chunks of cash on average players and not just going out and splashing a load on one player that is quality, a bit like what Liverpool did when they got Van Dijk.
A team will never have a stable defence if it keeps buying players that have 1 or 2 seasons left in them, that's why I don't want us to get Cahill, too many players of late coming into our team that are past it, even Sokratis, despite doing ok since his arrival, how old is he 30-31?
 
Could be a good buy for Chelsea. Looked good when USA played us and £58m really isn't that much for any sort of top player these days especially a young one with a lot of potential.
 
Still not sure if Spurs will bring anyone in this window.

Despite activating his contract extension, I'd be keen on releasing Toby. He's probebly the one of th best CB we've ever had and as great a player he is, his mind has been elsewhere the last year. So maybe a decent new CB.

I'd be keen also to cash in on Dier, he's too defensive IMO and Sissoko is getting better as each game goes by and we've more offensive since Dier been absent. I'd like to see a class MF who's been there and done it. Someone who knows what it takes to win.. Too many of our player drift off at times and we neeed someone to pick the team up and change things when it's needed. The Wolves game was a casing example of this.

Off load Llorente too.. buy another decent covering striker.
 
Risky buy for Chelsea imo. Watched him quite a bit last season and was never impressed tbh. He’s actually regressed even more this season and can barely make the team. Favre seems to prefer Sancho. Even in this day and age I think £60m is too much. Chelsea fans themselves don’t even seem excited by this.
 
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