Summer Transfer Window 2017/18 - Rumours & Signings

Soldato
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Selling Mustafi is beyond stupid considering our squad. I honestly think Wenger has lost the plot. Sell 2 CB's, play LB's at CB, Chambers and Elneny as stand ins. We'll be lucky to get in top 6 at this rate.
 
Soldato
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Wenger is gambling with this season as far as I'm concerned. He would rather not sign anyone than sign players who are not his top targets. I get it, but we still have this season to play as well.

Personally I cannot wait until we get a new manager.

Looking at how United are set up, you can see old Wenger in Mourniho. He is singing players how are:

Tall
Athletic
Fast
Strong

In other words around athletes. Thats what Wenger did when he first came to Arsenal with players like Viera etc...
 
Man of Honour
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Paris Saint-Germain have agreed a €155m (£143m) fee with Monaco for Kylian Mbappé and personal terms with the player, but have yet to convince Uefa that they will be able to comply with financial fair play rules if they sign the young Frenchman in the same window as paying €222m (£198m) for Neymar.

PSG are really going for it. :p
 
Soldato
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It's a complete shambles really. Why are we playing players out of position like Monreal in CB when we are selling Mustafi. Mustafi isn't that bad. He's better than Monreal as a CB.

The point is Wenger has already said we will not sign anyone else this window.
 
Don
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It looks like we could be set for an exciting end to the transfer window for the first time in years. So many players futures up in the air, so many clubs still wanting and needing to do business and bucket loads of cash burning holes in some deep pockets.

One possible transfer that I didn't see coming is a possible exit (maybe just on loan) for Origi. He's not even made the bench of our last 2 games and seemingly now 4th choice for us in the centre forward role. I've not seen the press-conference myself but Klopp was supposedly asked about Origi's future and replied with something about depending on arrivals he may have to look at moving players out. And to add fuel to the fire Jason Burt is reporting that we've made enquiries over a €60m move for Lemar.

I'm not sure how likely that particular deal is given how many players Monaco have already lost but it's the type of deal that could make sense for us. As things stand our front 3 options are a little unbalanced - we've got 4 centre forwards all covering Firmino for the central role but have no direct cover for Salah & Mane. We have Coutinho (assuming he stays) who's likely to play more in midfield than attack and then Firmino who's obviously our first choice central forward - another wide option wouldn't go amiss. Given his age and the stage of his career, I suspect it would be much easier for us to accommodate somebody like him than a Draxler (for example) who would expect to be first choice.
 

fez

fez

Caporegime
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And to add fuel to the fire Jason Burt is reporting that we've made enquiries over a €60m move for Lemar.

That would be a very odd move for lemar in my view. He's an exciting young player that wouldn't get that much game time unless mane or salah were injured and I assume he would want as much playing time as possible. There isn't any reason for him not to wait until next summer before moving and Monaco don't need to sell.
 
Soldato
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So PSG are taking Mbappe on a years loan with a view to buy him next summer for £166mill.

So they will escape any FPP punishments for this yr I guess.

Thats the rumour.

PSG spending this amount of cash is related to performance in the CL alone, thats where they want to improve and make a difference. The league is pretty much a toss up between them and maybe Monaco at the moment.

Maybe I can understand Mbappe moving there because from what I am led to believe he has his roots in Paris. Neymar though? Its strictly cash orientated, and to stand out in a team where he may get in a shout at the Ballon. I am sure he could have got more money in the Chinese league, but then his reasons for doing it would really be exposed, PSG is a sort of half way house.

The only benefit from all of this is seeing this is the impact it is having on La Liga and particularly Barcelona who have well and truly thrown their toys out of the pram. Barca and RM have had it too easy for too long as the poster clubs of world football. Its nice to see the beginning of that change.
 
Don
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That would be a very odd move for lemar in my view. He's an exciting young player that wouldn't get that much game time unless mane or salah were injured and I assume he would want as much playing time as possible. There isn't any reason for him not to wait until next summer before moving and Monaco don't need to sell.
As I said, I can't see Monaco selling him after losing half their squad to PSG and City but I don't think it would have been a bad move for the player though.

Regardless of injuries, he'd have still got plenty of game time. Clearly Salah and Mane have started the season well and would be first choice but there will be spells in the season when one or the other aren't quite at it and you only have to look at the opening 5 games this season to see that Klopp's going to rotate our line up a lot - it's only down to a lack of options that we've not seen many changes in midfield or our wide players (although Salah was left out in place of Sturridge vs Palace).

Lemar is the type of player (in terms of ability, age and status) that we need. He's good enough so that he'll provide genuine high quality competition/cover for what we've got but isn't quite at a level where he'll expect to be the first name on the team sheet. As above, he'll play more than enough games - take Origi as an example, he wasn't first choice and despite us playing fewer games than we will this season, he ended up making 43 appearances last season.
 
Soldato
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As of 5*mins ago account to twitter and sky sources we have bid 55m for Lemar?

Fits the bill but isn't he an attacking midfielder? I can assume chasing him means coutinho going

I have never seen him play so know nothing about him
 
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Don
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Obviously it's possible and if we do sign another forward people are going to put 2 and 2 together and assume Coutinho is off but I'm not convinced it's as straight forward as that. I've always said that in an ideal world we need another wide attacker - if you look at the balance of our front options, we've got Firmino + 4 strikers for the central role and just Mane, Salah & Coutinho (who is also doubling up as a midfielder) for the wide roles. It makes a lot of sense for us to replace a striker in our squad with another natural wide player and Klopp was asked specifically about Origi's future yesterday and said it's possible that he could leave depending on who we bring in.

If we end up spending big on a forward & a midfielder then I'd start thinking that Barca have made us a mega offer for Coutinho and he's off.
 
Associate
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I don't think it means coutinho is going tbh. we've made a profit over the last few transfer windows and it's not like we've splashed the cash this window. maybe it means palace is going to pay close to 30m for sakho, origi is moving on etc and klopp just wants more winger depth so we can still play this style and rest salah and mane every now and again. I'm not that sold on lemar but hey if we want to go splashing cash on young talent I'm all for it.

edit. also not to get carried away by recent results but if emre can gets resigned and keeps playing like this as an attacking midfielder then little phil wouldn't be missed that much. it will suck sure but 140m etc isn't to bad.
 
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Soldato
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I only felt he may go as I thought Lemar was just a cam after reading seems a winger so makes sense as both mane and salah cannot play every game plus firmino doesn't work as a winger so rather we had another winger
 
Don
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but if emre can gets resigned and keeps playing like this as an attacking midfielder then little phil wouldn't be missed that much.

If you're simply comparing to last season then maybe - Coutinho barely played a game in midfield last season so we'd have effectively swapped him for Salah and possibly Lemar. However, the aim of this summer was to improve on our squad and have more and better options.

The midfield yesterday was outstanding and in games of that type we don't need and probably won't play with Coutinho in a midfield role. It's the games where teams turn up with 10 men behind the ball (West Brom's, Burnley's Utd's etc) that we needed to improve from last season and seemingly the plan for that was playing Coutinho deeper to get him on the ball more and unlock deep defences. If we were to lose Coutinho without bringing a midfielder in that can do that job then he would be missed imo, no matter whether we sign Lemar or another attacking/wide midfielder.
 
Caporegime
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That's my concern as well. We would have the possibility, if he stayed fit, of playing Sturridge as the number 9 and dropping Firmino back in to midfield against those type of teams. Sturridge still has the instincts and movement to make space in the box, even if he doesn't have the outright pace anymore, and Firmino has the vision to pick out passes and play the fancy flicks that could make space for the players around him.

Would certainly prefer Coutinho to stay for another season, assuming he gives it 100%, but I think we have options.
 
Don
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I love Firmino but him playing in a midfield role terrifies me. His calmness and willingness to back himself in tight situations is fine when he's doing it in the oppositions half but I wouldn't want him twisting, turning and trying little flicks on the edge of our box.
 
Caporegime
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I suppose it comes down to where he would play, I was assuming at the tip of the three in midfield but Coutinho has been played in the deeper role which probably wouldn't work so well.

He's shown a willingness to backtrack and start attacks from deep though but I get your point.
 
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