Summer Transfer Window 2017/18 - Rumours & Signings

BaZ87 said:
Yea tbf Son stepped up last season, particularly when Kane was injured - whether he can do that again remains to be seen as he's only ever been a 1 in 3 player throughout his career. Eriksen got a few goals but no more than anybody that plays in his position - he's not somebody you pick out as a genuine goal threat at the start of a game. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if your CM's were scoring 10-15 goals between them. As it is, you're pretty threadbare in attack and still look overly reliant on Kane & Ali to score the goals for you.
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I understand what you mean and it would be helpful but the Spurs midfield in my opinion is more about increasing attacking chances rather than attacking options. Dembele, Dier and Wanyama do a great job at holding and creating the chance for the wingers, Alli and Kane to go and stay further forward. Hopefully like I say though, Spurs will benefit from Lamela coming back in that way.
 
bloodline76 said:
How did Monaco do well, they sold all theirs stars for ridiculous amounts of money but that wouldn't impress the fans. They also won the league by about 15 Pts, so why would they have not competed against PSG? Even with PSGs signings they would have still put up a good fight if they never sold anyone.

If Arsenal won the league then sold all theirs best players the following year you would be ripping Wenger apart. Bit inconsistent with your views.
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Mbappe isn't a guy that has played first team for Monaco for 5 years and they sold him on a whim, they got 180million quid for a guy who might go crazy with bigger money or might basically do anything, or could be brilliant but would leave eventually anyway.

They didn't sell players for cheap, they had an owner who wanted to massively bring costs down a few years back and has engaged in a process of identifying younger players to bring through, this is part of the process, financing the club going forwards and Monaco couldn't be doing better at that. They sold players, brought youngsters through, those youngsters won them the league then finance the team for the next 5 years while they bring more youths forward.

I didn't say they couldn't compete with PSG, but PSG had a bad year, they were exactly 8 points behind and previously beat Monaco by 30 points the year before. PSG have strengthened immeasurably when last year they lost Ibra who was an incredibly important part of the team, he made things tick offensively. When Bayern have an off year and Dortmund win, you still know Bayern will win the league 9 out of 10 times the next year, and the next 10 years. That is just how it is, Monaco are a monumentally smaller club than PSG, they'll have good and bad years.

If you ever actually paid attention my stance has always been, for Arsenal, for Liverpool, for Monaco and for Real, clubs sell players, only fans and bad managers are scared of selling players, it's business, players have a price, if you can get a ridiculously inflated fee.... sell, it's better business. There is ALWAYS a good new player. People said Monaco were making a mistake selling Martial, but look who came after. There are always more new players and great players. If you have good scouting and great coaching you can always produce more top players. It's only when your scouting goes to pieces and your coaching goes bad(Arsenal, on both counts) that hanging on to players becomes important.

Monaco can't win the league every year against a state sponsored club, simply not going to happen, what they can do is peak, get insane value for players when clubs are spending stupid then scout, coach and make new great players and have a pop every few years.
 
Robbo said:
Our net spend has been £78m if you factor in players sold in January (none were bought).

Arsenal should have sorted out Lemar sooner, Sanchez might not be helping much this season, he apparently creates dressing room problems and now they've lost out on £60-70m. Difficult situation, admittedly...
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Shamikebab said:
Did Sanchez hand in a transfer request? City only made a bid on Tuesday. Only really has himself to blame for not sorting it out earlier in the window.
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It was known all summer that he wanted to leave but Arsenal, rightly so imo, didn't want to sell him to City and/or were holding out for a huge fee. The problem with all these transfers are they become a game of brinkmanship and City were hoping that the longer it dragged on the more likely it would be that Arsenal would cave and negotiate with them and/or lower their asking price.

It's easy to say it should have been done sooner but it's never that straight forward when you've not got 2 willing parties. With Arsenal not wanting (or desperately needing) to sell him to City and City not being willing to pay an extortionate fee it was always going to drag on. I made a tongue in cheek comment last night but it appears Liverpool's interest in Lemar scuppered any chance of the deal happening* - he reportedly rejected Arsenal, wanting to join us and a result of that was Arsenal then wouldn't sell Sanchez.

*Arsenal's bid for Lemar also scuppered our chances of signing him too. Seemingly we weren't going to go nearly as high as they bid so as soon as they made that offer Monaco were never going to consider our bid.

Sargatanas2511 said:
I understand what you mean and it would be helpful but the Spurs midfield in my opinion is more about increasing attacking chances rather than attacking options. Dembele, Dier and Wanyama do a great job at holding and creating the chance for the wingers, Alli and Kane to go and stay further forward. Hopefully like I say though, Spurs will benefit from Lamela coming back in that way.
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I know what you're saying. Benitez used to get hammered for playing Alonso and Mascherano in midfield but they were as important to our attacking play as they were to our defence. Having that base there allowed us to keep possession and pin teams back - every time the ball was cleared they were there picking it up and starting attacks again but it does leave a huge goal burden on the front 4. Just like Spurs we were always just lacking in terms of goalscorers and how successful we were in any given season was often dependent on how many goals the likes of Kuyt and Benayoun scored rather than anything else.

Ironically the one season we performed at our best (when Benayoun and Kuyt both scored decent amounts), Benitez started that summer with plans of moving Gerrard back into central midfield so that we could bring in another forward (Keane) into the side.
 
bloodline76 said:
Not really, we still have a good squad, we just need them to pull it together. It's just other teams are loving the fact we are going through a bad spell. It's not a great time to be a fan but at least we can never be considered glory supporters lol

Next game they need to come out fighting and show a little more passion. Sanchez is here until January and I believe he will do his best. A little luck and we could maybe have a cup run. We still won something last year which is more than most.
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Do we have genuinely good squad? Who actually played well against Bayern last year or Liverpool at the weekend? Where is the top notch quality, outside of Kol and Laca who are basically still unknowns because we've barely seen them yet(and seen them play with meh players around them), I see basically no top level players at all. Kos... ish, though he still has a tendency to make rash decisions in the most important games and get stupid red cards. Outside of Kos though, who, Monreal isn't a top fullback, Bellerin... feels like he could be a top fullback but isn't good enough offensively or defensively to call him such yet. Giroud is an excellent finisher from close range but is extremely limited outside of that, Welbeck is trash, Walcott is a weakling with a woeful mentality, Ramsey, Coquelin, Elneny aren't top players or even close to it. Ozil is Ozil, all style and no substance, he makes great passes and has great vision but he can't supply it when it really matters.

Outside of Sanchez and possibly Kos, I don't think there are many players you would consider good enough for any other top club in the world. Honestly half the squad is so bad that Real, Bayern or Utd wouldn't even take them as backup/rotation players, another quarter of them wouldn't be first team at top clubs and only Sanchez or Kos I think could play at a top club and not have that club be looking for a replacement.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Do we have genuinely good squad? Who actually played well against Bayern last year or Liverpool at the weekend? Where is the top notch quality, outside of Kol and Laca who are basically still unknowns because we've barely seen them yet(and seen them play with meh players around them), I see basically no top level players at all. Kos... ish, though he still has a tendency to make rash decisions in the most important games and get stupid red cards. Outside of Kos though, who, Monreal isn't a top fullback, Bellerin... feels like he could be a top fullback but isn't good enough offensively or defensively to call him such yet. Giroud is an excellent finisher from close range but is extremely limited outside of that, Welbeck is trash, Walcott is a weakling with a woeful mentality, Ramsey, Coquelin, Elneny aren't top players or even close to it. Ozil is Ozil, all style and no substance, he makes great passes and has great vision but he can't supply it when it really matters.

Outside of Sanchez and possibly Kos, I don't think there are many players you would consider good enough for any other top club in the world. Honestly half the squad is so bad that Real, Bayern or Utd wouldn't even take them as backup/rotation players, another quarter of them wouldn't be first team at top clubs and only Sanchez or Kos I think could play at a top club and not have that club be looking for a replacement.
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Too much text and not enough paragraphs...

But I think I get your point, Arsenal players are all trash in your mind. You pick two games were we played particularly bad and ask for the ones that played well.

I never said they were great, but I think on their day we have a good squad of players. Most are full international players and some are World/Euro cup winners.
 
BaZ87 said:
I know what you're saying. Benitez used to get hammered for playing Alonso and Mascherano in midfield but they were as important to our attacking play as they were to our defence. Having that base there allowed us to keep possession and pin teams back - every time the ball was cleared they were there picking it up and starting attacks again but it does leave a huge goal burden on the front 4. Just like Spurs we were always just lacking in terms of goalscorers and how successful we were in any given season was often dependent on how many goals the likes of Kuyt and Benayoun scored rather than anything else.

Ironically the one season we performed at our best (when Benayoun and Kuyt both scored decent amounts), Benitez started that summer with plans of moving Gerrard back into central midfield so that we could bring in another forward (Keane) into the side.
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It works very very well for Spurs, the problem is when someone up front gets injured (Kane) and his backup is underperforming. Llorente may cover that for the next year or two, let's hope!
 
Sargatanas2511 said:
It works very very well for Spurs, the problem is when someone up front gets injured (Kane) and his backup is underperforming. Llorente may cover that for the next year or two, let's hope!
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It works as long as Kane & Ali are fit and firing, if and when they aren't then you need goals from elsewhere in the team. Son might score a few but beyond that Spurs don't have much of a goal threat both in the rest of their 11 or to come off the bench. Going into a season relying on 2 players staying fit and scoring 40+ goals isn't really sustainable.

Had Spurs added somebody like a Mane or Pedro to their squad, it suddenly looks a lot stronger.
 
BaZ87 said:
It works as long as Kane & Ali are fit and firing, if and when they aren't then you need goals from elsewhere in the team. Son might score a few but beyond that Spurs don't have much of a goal threat both in the rest of their 11 or to come off the bench. Going into a season relying on 2 players staying fit and scoring 40+ goals isn't really sustainable.

Had Spurs added somebody like a Mane or Pedro to their squad, it suddenly looks a lot stronger.
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I really don't feel that anyone new is needed there. Harry Winks is showing a lot of promise, Lamela will be back soon and Eriksen already helps out a lot with the attack. It'll be nice to see him score a handful more goals though.
 
If you have ever wanted to know what it is like to be a manager on Transfer Deadline Day, check this article out. It's about Sheffield United, but I imagine the same things occur at the top level as well, just with higher sums of money...
 
drunkenmaster said:
Mbappe isn't a guy that has played first team for Monaco for 5 years and they sold him on a whim, they got 180million quid for a guy who might go crazy with bigger money or might basically do anything, or could be brilliant but would leave eventually anyway.
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To be fair Monaco havent got anything for Mbappe .....yet (no one has mentioned a loan fee - but maybe they got 10-20m euros for this year's accounts?) :)

Obviously they sold 4 players or something before Mbappe, so probably already made ~200m or so this summer, and if everything goes according to plan they have another 160m (+ loan fee) or there abouts already to add for next summer's accounts - and thats before Fabinho , Lemar and maybe one or two others leave also.

edit - they actually sold 7 for a total of just under 175m euros (quite a few deals were approx 5m euros each), with the best part of 150m euros from Chelsea and Man City before Mbappe.

bloodline76 said:
I never said they were great, but I think on their day we have a good squad of players. Most are full international players and some are World/Euro cup winners.
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You may well be right, but the problem with Arsenal , and has been for quite a while tbh is that "on their day" doesnt happen often enough for some of the quality of players concerned.

For instance Ozil - some days he can be completely unplayable and can win you games you dont really deserve to, but the amount of times he is relatively invisible (even against lesser teams) - the former doesnt really count for much .
 
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I would say it's very likely Monaco have access to... low interest loans(low meaning 0%) from a generous Qatar based bank, with a maximum limit of say 180mil, for if they had wanted to spend this or Jan transfer window. But realistically I think Monaco have a plan, buy young and make good. When Martial was sold people said they were selling their best talent, then they went and beat PSG with the next gen of talent, and they still have a bunch of young players improving anyway and they'll have more around. My guess is they are unlikely to spend big on any one player in the next few transfer windows but instead offer some bigger deals to keep some other guys around longer and to bring in a bunch of young highly talented players to be the next guys to break through, or the ones to come through after that.


bloodline76 said:
Too much text and not enough paragraphs...

But I think I get your point, Arsenal players are all trash in your mind. You pick two games were we played particularly bad and ask for the ones that played well.

I never said they were great, but I think on their day we have a good squad of players. Most are full international players and some are World/Euro cup winners.
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International football... is trash level football. A group of guys that stays pretty similar over a 5 year period and trains together 3-5 days a week, plays together 60 times a year will play better than a team that changes with almost every international period and plays together 7-8 times a year, with maybe only 20 training sessions together a year.

It's entirely meaningless. Second, we spend 200mil a year on wages give or take now, if we don't have a squad full of players who can play well in the big games, then why are we paying them that much. Those are the games that actually test if your squad is good or not, the tough games, not the easy games. When 80% of the squad fails to show up in 80% of the big games, those players aren't good enough.

However many of the ones I listed put in bad performances throughout the whole season against a range of competition. On their day, Newcastle can beat Man Utd, even with a vastly inferior squad. How good your squad is, is about how often they can play really well, not the fact that one time they did great against a decent team but they flopped completely in 8 other big games. On their day, is the worst concept of how good a player is, Ramsey scored what 10 goals in half a season, but often can't hit a barn door and shoots all the time, he was great for 3-4 months in front of goal but bad for 6 years before and after it... you can't judge him on that 3-4 months and hope, that is exactly what Wenger does, you judge them on what they can produce game after game after game. On that basis this squad isn't close to good enough and at a wage bill that is 10% lower than the top teams and 80% above Spurs... that is not at all acceptable.
 
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