I've seen people on here complaining about our lack of transfer activity, and about the players we will potentially get (Mustafi and Lucas Perez), saying that they would be no or little better than what we have. I've also seen Wenger saying that any new players will only be signed if they are an improvement to the squad.
Surely any new, fit signing who is of our current standard (and I've seen people describe Perez as 'an upgrade to Walcott) and adds to the depth of the squad is an improvement to it? From the limited viewing I've had of him, Mustafi seems a bit like Vermaelen, who in the early days was exactly what we needed. And while Perez isn't a 20-a-season striker, he scored a decent amount for a mediocre team last year.
We're not looking at world beaters but we're not looking at duffers either. Remember that Leicester won the league last year with almost no big name players - we already have a solid core of world class talent (Sanchez, Özil, Cech) and any addition to it of reasonable quality is a step in the right direction which I would welcome.
Improving the squad
posted on 26/8/16
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posted on 26/8/16
Any talk of a "solid core" at Arsenal is purely theoretical. Our questionable management of player fitness simply won't allow it.
I'd be much happier with an extra 3-4 decent players in the 25-man squad, than some flashy signing.
posted on 26/8/16
comment by Lucas Perez... Please save us from Le Donkey (U3245)
posted 9 minutes ago
thats the problem though. they may improve the squad, but they aint world beaters. Man city and United have signed world beaters recently, and you'd be joking if yo thought Arsenal have a good chance of finishing higher than them this season.
we are just making do
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Of the two, United bought more world beaters, one of whom (Zlatan) is ageing and won't give them more than a season or two.
As for City - Gundogan, fair enough. But Nolito? I wouldn't call a man who only scored 12 league goals last season for a team who finished outside the European places a world beater. People are only creaming over him because he scored twice on his debut.
If our transfers come off, we'll have bought Mustafi, Perez, Xhaka, Holding (who is already looking promising) and some cheap filler. Not Supermarket Sweep, but certainly not bad - better reinforcement than last year.
posted on 26/8/16
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posted on 26/8/16
What does improving the squad even mean? Its usual euphemism by lazy journos who don't actually watch the team they are writing about so come up with 'improve the squad'.
We don't need to improve the squad. We need to improve the first team! The first team lost us the league last season.
posted on 26/8/16
The first team lost us the league last season.
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Disagree, I think the lack of strength on the bench (i.e the squad) cost us the league.
As usual we had loads of injuries to the first team but had no like-for like replacements from the squad. Now (hopefully) we have.
posted on 26/8/16
Its easy to pinpoint when we lost the league. Jan onwards when the pressure was on and Giroud went through a spell of not scoring for 14 games in a row. That was it. Now you can say that we improved when Welbeck came into the team to replace Giroud and that at least eventually got us to second. The same thing happened the year before. But when has Wenger preferred Welbeck to Giroud in the striking position? It was only when Wenger got so desperate watching nothing performances that he made the change. So that should have triggered Wenger buying a better solution to Giroud up front this summer right? Well it hasn't. So how will bringing in someone new to the league to sit on the bench or play wide going to help him adjust to play striker for Arsenal? You are only going to improve and get used to the league if you start in your preferred position and play consistently. This why I keep on repeating that our only hope is that Wenger is signing Lucas to be a starter.
Injuries didn't hurt us last season. Wilting under the pressure did. And that happened to our first team. So enough of the clichés that somehow players who come in occasionally are going to be game changers. They are not. If they were they would be called starters!
posted on 26/8/16
So you don't think Flamini for example coming in to the team after Coq got injured hindered us? Wenger certaiinly did hence why he bought Elneny. Or having no one to replace Giropud until Welbeck recovered when he was going through that lean spell?
Also Perez may well have been bought to play in place of Giroud rather than alongside him. He is apparently a Vardy-type player so we may well play on the counter and attack teams at pace now we have DMs to soak up pressure and cover our defence. In fact I expect us to often line up away from home against the bigger teams with 2 DMs (Coq and Xhaka/Elneny) and sit back and defend rather than all-out attack like we used to do.
Anyway we shall see.
posted on 26/8/16
It all went to pot when Santi and Coq got injured
posted on 26/8/16
Wenger lost us the league we had the player to win it but not the manager. im not conviced by Perez but i'll give him a chance same with Mustafi