I have been gripped by the computer, radio and television for the last few hours. It is not normal behaviour and it is certainly not healthy to become so obsessed by football transfers. Honestly though, I just couldn't help myself, it was utterly compulsive stuff. It's not usual for Arsenal to leave things so late and then do so much business so late in the day. this made things all the more exciting and in the end we did pretty well considering
Park Chu-Young - 26yo South Korean captain >50 caps and goal/3games for Monaco last year
Yossi Benayoun - 31yo Israeli attacking midfielder with extensive PL experience
Andre Santos - 28yo Brazilian left back with >20 caps and great attacking pedigree
Per Mertesacker - 26yo German international centre back with 75 caps and great aerial power
Mikel Arteta - 29yo creative all round ball playing midfielder with extensive PL experience
Big mistakes have been made recently and the club's strategy has been found wanting, most notably in the wage structure department. Lessons must be learnt, we must restructure our wages but this will take time as the dross is shipped out, we must also get our business done earlier next time round. Arsene and the Board must learn these lessons and adapt, we must also hold them to account and try to find out exactly why things were left so very late in the day when they should not have been.
However given the position we were in on Sunday after the 8-2 mocking at Old Trafford, any self respecting Gooner would have bitten hands off for Arteta/Mertsacker/Benayoun/Park/Santos. Arteta and Mertesacker are particularly key for me. The former has been such a key player for Everton for so many years, he can play the holding role, he can defend, he can attack, he can pass, he's a great all round player with experience. The latter is also very experienced, despite never being a league winner with Bremen, he has been a consistent performer for them for many years as they have finished high up the Bundesliga.
Overall I am absolutely delighted. Yes, things were badly managed and should not have been left this late. Yes, certain things need to be investigated and we need to change our antiquated wage structure. However I am the eternal optimist and given how bad things could have been, the last couple of days' business have been an absolute lifesaver for the club. Well done Arsene and the lads.
28 comments:
this is a terrible window for us......arteta and benayoun to replace cesc and samir... what a joke. utd, city and chelsea must be wetting themselves. oh and where is the other 50 million form the sales.......no hazard, m villa, martin or gotze....these would have been good signings. No top 4 this year...may even struggle for top 6.
omg arteta and benayoun are crap are we meant to win ttles wiith them or bide our time we shud of brought gourcuff and mvila even renato agusto wud of done omggggggggg
Really feel we need to sign a couple of WORLD class players lets hope this keeps out of the bottom four at the next transfer window
Get a grip people, it's not about winning titles. I firmly belive that the club is more focused on 4th place than winning titles, and to be honest if you would have offered me 4th at the beginning of the season I would have bitten your hand off. Just accept AFC is going through a transition stage. No trophies for a while
Mertesacker, Arteta and Santos are all good signings. Park is a gamble and unknown, Yossi is ok BUT this is still very very poor! Where does this put us? We loose two great midfielders and get one good one and one on his way out! What the F... so we are still a midfielder down. We needed two centre backs we get one. Where is the experience premiership quality striker. Where is the rightback cover (Jenkinson is not ready). This is F...ing shit. We made over £60mm from selling Nasri, Cesc and Clichy. We spent how much? £10m for Mert', £10 m for Art' free for Yossi,. Piss poor
are you all idiots?? benayoun and arteta are quality signings, both with a wealth of PL experience, a creative spark and the ability to lead a midfield setup...i.e exactly what arsenal need
i bet you've never even seen gourcuff or m'vila play! we've got 2 good quality midfielders who know the game, can pass, score etc. it's exactly what we needed. people who know the premiership and who just need decent players around them. look at young, he wasn't that good at villa, put him where he has talent around him and he shines. benayoun and arteta will be good signings for us.
Are yiu guys even Arsenal fans srsly if you did youd know why he wanted arteta one coz he can play a ball justy as good as Cesc two the team is lacking in much needed experience with this players they give arsenal youngsters the edge they need as well as a helping hand with the experience they bring. Arsene im pretty sure will be signing Gourcuff before his contract expires at Lyon.
We have done well Arsene has bought players with plenty of experience which was most important So give up complaining and go support some one else Nasri went missing last year when we needed him most
I am happy that Wenger has strengthened the squad, the end!!! If some of you guys want to b*tch about it then fine, but, I for one am happy!
Let's face it we're not in for the title this year, but at least we can go for a top four finish.
What were our problems which needed addressing:
1) poor in the air
2) no strength
3) no leadership
4) Too young and inexperienced
so y is everyone calling for signings like m'vila, hazard, martin?? when they have no premierleague experience whatsoever!! ther young kids so when everyone is complaining about having kids, u want more kids to replace cesc and nasri!!
mertersacker-awesome in the air and strong, experienced in championsleague and international
santos is a quality left bak and first team for brazil, gud replacement for clichy and is experienced in european football too
benayoun and arteta are both premierleague experienced and no the english league is like. There creative and attacking players and will help the youngsters like ramsey, wilshere and frimpong!
cumon guys! u want wenger to spend, he does, u want experience, he gets it, u want leadership, he gets players with it and ur still complaining?? get behind the team and cumon you gunners!!
i believe the signing we made were spot on..each of them are experienced, matured..proven at highest/international level..at d moment we need experience players badly, more than talent..they'll help us against tough & physical teams, & help us develope our yaoung team..
Prior to his move to Chelsea Benayoun was looking very good and the same can be said for Arteta.
These are 2 players that will slot into Arsenals style of play with ease.
I still think we needed a top striker but maybe Walcott will get the opportunities now.
As for Mert and Santos they will also fit in perfectly. Wenger is right to find players that can play the Arsenal way and this he has done.
god
those first few negative comments are beyong belief in their rank ignorance
the later comments are spot on
we have brought in some extra experience, some more aerial power, some more creativity, all things we needed
by the way gervinho was the nasri replacement, so anyone not mentioning him when talking of nasri replacements is an idiot
a great couple of days work from the club
Most of the writers here are rather ignorant of what football is all about. Do we just want to hear that we have splashed 20 million and more or do we want the right quality we need in the team at affordable prices.
For God's sake i must say we have done great business in the past 24 hours and just hope the team will bond quickly. This team has the very right balance of youth and experience now and will do good things...
whilst I think they are decent signings they are not as good as what we've lost, and put us still some way behind City and United. But we still must have what £70m in the bank? Wenger couldn't spend it even though he wanted to on the last day. Left it much too late.
gazzap..who would you have us buy ....can you name the experienced players you had in mind please
I'm more inclined to be negative here - what's missing at Arsenal right now is not depth but rather star power. Arteta is a good player and a good signing, and he will make our starting XI better than it was by replacing Ramsey, but he's not a difference maker. I'm nervous about Mertesacker, whose form dipped dramatically last year (see http://abehnisch.com/mertesacker-strange-decline/). If he was playing through a nagging injury and recovers, thats great, but if he's an average Bundesliga defender that means he's below-average in the EPL. Why not pay 2m more for Cahill? Santos makes me nervous, seems like Clichy mark 2, which isn't gonna make anybody happy. Park seems like nice value, but was it worth infuriating Lille, a club we want to do business with next summer re Hazard, to get him? Yossi no complaints, if he doesn't recover his fitness no loss - and I'm glad we kept Nicky B. If he breaks out given regular PT at Sunderland, maybe we have a replacement on hand for when we have to sell RVP next summer.
Narsi's replacement - Gervinho, Ryo & OX
Cesc's replacement - Arteta & Benayoun
Clicy's replacement - Santos
Eboue's replacement - Jenkinson
Bendtner's replacement - Park & Campbell
Denilson's replacement - Frimpong
Sqillaci's replacement - Per
We have replaced every player that have left and even added more. We have a bigger and better squad than last year and I am certain we would be pushing up the league very soon.
Do not forget our ace "Jack de lad" is yet to return. Not to mention Diaby.
in Arsene we Trust .. Good Job Boss!
If AW had to bring any french player or from french league,it should have happened earlier, why? because they need to adapt to the EPL & it would take them months. so Arteta ,Benayoun can play straight away for the next match. i personally feel it's the right move giving the need for current situation & that make a sense.
Over all the squad has been strengthened in several ways. We now have pace from proper left sided players (Gervinho & Miyachi).
At right back we now have cover for Sagna (Jenkinson) & Right wing cover for Walcott (Chamberlain), where as before Eboue covered both positions. Mertesaker is an experienced (big) additional CB, while Santos has to be better than Traore at left back & at least Clichy's equal.
Benayoun is a skilled attacking midfielder who'll likely be an impact sub but'll give Rosicky & Arshavin a wake up call with competition for a place. Arteta has the same instinctive skills that Cesc had & will work well with Wilshere.
In the striking department Park chu Young is a bit of an un known, but who knows..he might be brilliant.
With the new arrivals it looks like a much better balanced squad to me.
Got to say that i never thought wenger would make such an about face. Good on him and good for the team.
Some solid signings that'll give us experience and depth. If they can develop some understanding and perchance new tactics/formation who knows what's possible. I'm excited to see what can happen.
I'm anticipating games again rather than dreading them.
certain fans want to talk about ignorance and that we should be happy that he made the signings but your all forgetting that arsenal is a big club that should be signing big players i used to look at teams such as everton and laugh my head off at the players they had compared to arsenal who had players like fabregas and nasri and yes you idiot i have seen gourcuff and m'vila play cause i follow other leagues aswell i strongly belive that gourcuff and m'villa would have plugged the gaps at arsenal while also still giving us that star player quality anyone happy with theese panic bargain buys should shoot themselves
I don't understand why there are still so many that is so pessimistic and gutted...
In my view, all 5 guys seem to be great quality and considering the $$$ we spend getting them, all are real good pieces of business!
In Mertesacker, we have a great partner for TV. His reading of the game, clean tackles and a more defensive approach will compliment TV’s more attacking style while TV’s pace will compliment Per’s perceived lack of pace.
Santos seems a big improvement to both gibbs and traore. He seems like a monster going forward but I am not too sure on his defending. Still both gibbs and traore were not too good in defending anyway and Santos, being an international and considering his more solid built, will definitely do better than the 2. I can see him constantly making bombing runs forward and with Gervinho, our left flank looks deadly!
As for Arteta, I think he is probably one of those “super quality” player that Wenger can refer to! Everyone keeps saying he was never capped by Spain and hence he is only a decent player but I beg to differ. I think Arteta is probably on par with Cesc in terms of his passing, vision and technique. The only reason why he was never chosen to the national team, imho, is more because of the team he is in. No disrespect to Everton, but if he is in a big spanish team or one of the big 4 in England, I am sure he would have been picked! He is definitely going to form a great midfield partnership with Wilshere and be a good mentor to Ramsey after Cesc’s departure. My only concern is his injury record.
As for Yossi and Park, both will be great squad players! Yossi is a proven BPL player and represents a much better squad player to the ones we have currently. He will also, hopefully, put even more pressure on Arshavin to step up (I still miss the old Arshavin and don’t understand how he can have such a drop in standard to the player he is now). Park will challenge Chamarkh (who again is struggling to regain his form from the 1st half of last season) and provide good cover to RVP. I think with our current squad, Park represents a good investment. Relatively low price and low risk. Even if he doesn’t do well and Chamarkh continues with his struggle, we can still move Gervinho up and have Yossi and Walcott on the wings. Or we can even push Santos up and get gibbs in as the LB!
What these 5 signings gave us is definitely options and plenty of them! Add them to the signing of Gervinho, the season now looks bright and like others were saying, BRING ON SWANSEA!!!!!
Just imagine if we had hung on for for just a 1 or 2 goal defeat at OT most of these signings would never have happened. These signings are a quick repair job that the head on crash at United made vital. They will give the team a chance to stabilise and regain some belief. Its painfully obvious that Cesc and Nasri have few replacements that with the Arsenals wage structure and cautious valuations are available to buy especially when left so late, but in Jack and Aaron we have two players that with the influence of the experienced additions to the squad can hopefully mature into their equals. This season we can now at least concentrate on mounting a challenge for 4th spot and give the cup competitions some serious effort.
some excellent comments
"Narsi's replacement - Gervinho, Ryo & OX
Cesc's replacement - Arteta & Benayoun
Clicy's replacement - Santos
Eboue's replacement - Jenkinson
Bendtner's replacement - Park & Campbell
Denilson's replacement - Frimpong
Sqillaci's replacement - Per
We have replaced every player that have left and even added more. We have a bigger and better squad than last year and I am certain we would be pushing up the league very soon."
agree with this
add to this some of our young players being a year wise and more experienced (Coquelin, Miguel etc), they are useful in the squad too
we are definitely stronger but it's going to be a tough season
1979gooner
It won't work in actual fact, that's exactly what I suppose.
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