Arsenal 2015-2016: The One That Got Away

[blueguitar322]

Could have been much worse. Not really setup well for the round of 16 (relatively low chance of winning the group with Bayern in it) but will have to fail hard to not move on to the knockout rounds.
 
Two games against top competition to serve as a measuring stick for the team, then four games against teams that would probably be low/mid PL teams. All things considered, should be able to focus on league games without having to worry too much about getting CL results (assuming Bayern runs away with the group and the team is content with 2nd in the group).

 

[sachmoney]

There was a high probability of getting a very good opponent from Pot 1. Arsenal got Bayern. Okay. Pot 3 has some potentially tough opponents. Did Arsenal get any of them? I wouldn't say so. Overall, there's nothing to complain about. 

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Oh, there's always something to complain about. How about this: Arsenal is odds-on to again finish second in its group and then (probably) get bounced out of the last 16 for the sixth year running. (Did I do that right?)

 

[blueguitar322]

CL fixtures against Bayern come after @Watford / before Everton, and after @Swansea / before Tottenham. Overall I think that works out very well for the squad. Also, having the Bayern fixtures as #3 and #4 in the group should help Wenger determine if it's worth playing all starters in games #5 and #6 (if first place in the group is possible) or whether it's better to play younger players (if first isn't possible but second place seems safe).

 

[Luis Taint]

Seriously, no one? Not one player in the entire world could help, there wasn't even a Kit Kallstrom available?

 

[Spacemans Bong]

Seriously, no one? Not one player in the entire world could help, there wasn't even a Kit Kallstrom available?

Go on, who would have helped and was available.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Krychowiak.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Or really anyone better than Flamini who could cover at DM.

 

[mikeford]

Go on, who would have helped and was available.

Plenty of dudes that moved already would've helped and Arsenal weren't in on or allowed themselves to be outbid for.

 

[Spacemans Bong]

Krychowiak.

Who was surely available given his purchase by...

Oh.

People can't have a moan about how Arsenal didn't sign some big name player when there's no proof any of Arsenal's targets were available. If they could have signed Benzema, they would. Pretty likely the same for Lewandowski or Reus.

Besides, the window's still open for another several hours. Welbeck and Özil hadn't signed yet at this time in 2013 or 2014.

 

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

Say what you will about the transfer strategy, Wenger has balls.  If he wins the Premier League (or does something else impressive) with this group of players, its going to a complete validation of his philosophy of investing in youth players and building squad continuity.  If the team collapses this year, the number of supporters clamoring for his sacking is going to make the discontent before the Ozil signing look tame.
 
I understand the strategy of focusing on adding very high quality players but I think you always need to have a Plan B, C, and D and that you can't be afraid to spend at least a little money on marginal upgrades, because sometimes a few marginal upgrades can be the difference between winning something or not.  This was obviously a very difficult market for any team seeking top players, especially goal scorers or CBs: United and Chelsea found out the same thing.  But once the Benzema dream died the club did not seem to show a lot of initiative in terms of considering other creative ways to improve the squad.  Even a player like N'Zonzi would have been a superior option to Flamini as a backup DM.  Or, with the striker market looking dead, they could have decided to take another position of relative weakness like LB where we don't have an obvious long-term solution and bring in a top young prospect like Rahman or Kurzawa.
 
All that said, we have a good team and I think we absolutely could win a major trophy this year.  We need a lot of things to break right and we need our younger players, on whom Wenger has just rolled the dice, to deliver.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Who was surely available given his purchase by...

Oh.

People can't have a moan about how Arsenal didn't sign some big name player when there's no proof any of Arsenal's targets were available. If they could have signed Benzema, they would. Pretty likely the same for Lewandowski or Reus.

Besides, the window's still open for another several hours. Welbeck and Özil hadn't signed yet at this time in 2013 or 2014.

 
Krychowiak has a release clause in his contract of around £20m if memory serves - he could have been had by anyone willing to pay the money.
 
Also, the window closed at 6 p.m. UK time - it's not 11 p.m. as normal. So, again, no.

 

[mikeford]

Like anyone at Arsenal cares what the supporters are clamoring for or about.

Silent Stan likes Arsene. Arsene makes him money without spending much money. Arsene has total autonomy.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Say what you will about the transfer strategy, Wenger has balls.  If he wins the Premier League (or does something else impressive) with this group of players, its going to a complete validation of his philosophy of investing in youth players and building squad continuity.  If the team collapses this year, the number of supporters clamoring for his sacking is going to make the discontent before the Ozil signing look tame.
 
I understand the strategy of focusing on adding very high quality players but I think you always need to have a Plan B, C, and D and that you can't be afraid to spend at least a little money on marginal upgrades, because sometimes a few marginal upgrades can be the difference between winning something or not.  This was obviously a very difficult market for any team seeking top players, especially goal scorers or CBs: United and Chelsea found out the same thing.  But once the Benzema dream died the club did not seem to show a lot of initiative in terms of considering other creative ways to improve the squad.  Even a player like N'Zonzi would have been a superior option to Flamini as a backup DM.  Or, with the striker market looking dead, they could have decided to take another position of relative weakness like LB where we don't have an obvious long-term solution and bring in a top young prospect like Rahman or Kurzawa.
 
All that said, we have a good team and I think we absolutely could win a major trophy this year.  We need a lot of things to break right and we need our younger players, on whom Wenger has just rolled the dice, to deliver.

 
This is an intelligent post from start to finish, although I think your conclusion depends upon what you mean by "a major trophy". (FA Cup again, anyone?)
 
One parallel I have going through my head is that Wenger's decision not to buy (or sell) any major outfield players reminds me of baseball teams who try to change a paradigm by not having a closer or going with a four- or six-man starting rotation. It makes perfect analytical sense and looks good on paper, but when you try to put it into practice you realize you've created a lot of pressure for yourself both from the media and within the team, because whenever things go wrong that's what everyone starts asking and thinking about. In Arsenal's case, I think all it would take is one injury to the wrong player - Coquelin being the obvious candidate - and the house could start to come tumbling down...and that assumes the house isn't made of cards in the first place. (Not necessarily a safe assumption, given the way the season has started.)
 
The other thing the Wenger-Gooner relationship reminds me of is a marriage. Some married couples just go from strength to strength and remain in love with one another forever - sure, no marriage is perfect, but in a good marriage each party overlooks each other's flaws and focuses on the good things to keep their love going strong. (See: Alex Ferguson and Manchester United supporters.) But some married couples approach 15 or 20 years together, and the flaws start looming larger than the shared experiences which ought to bind them and the features which attracted them to each other in the first place, and they start seriously asking whether they want to live together anymore. And at this point, surely there can be few pro-Wenger acolytes who aren't at least asking themselves on some level if they really want to stay together with their manager 'til death do they part. Whether it's the tactical myopia, the transfer-related parsimony or something else, these perceived flaws are starting to loom ever larger; if you're a Gooner, maybe you do still really want to stay together, but surely you're getting annoyed rather more regularly now than you used to. And for some Gooners, this transfer window might be the final straw which makes you want to file for divorce. Either way, love isn't supposed to be a battlefield, and as someone who tried to keep my mouth shut until the transfer window was closed and I knew for sure Wenger wasn't buying anybody, I feel properly bothered at the moment.

 

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

 
This is an intelligent post from start to finish, although I think your conclusion depends upon what you mean by "a major trophy". (FA Cup again, anyone?)
 
One parallel I have going through my head is that Wenger's decision not to buy (or sell) any major outfield players reminds me of baseball teams who try to change a paradigm by not having a closer or going with a four- or six-man starting rotation. It makes perfect analytical sense and looks good on paper, but when you try to put it into practice you realize you've created a lot of pressure for yourself both from the media and within the team, because whenever things go wrong that's what everyone starts asking and thinking about. In Arsenal's case, I think all it would take is one injury to the wrong player - Coquelin being the obvious candidate - and the house could start to come tumbling down...and that assumes the house isn't made of cards in the first place. (Not necessarily a safe assumption, given the way the season has started.)
 
The other thing the Wenger-Gooner relationship reminds me of is a marriage. Some married couples just go from strength to strength and remain in love with one another forever - sure, no marriage is perfect, but in a good marriage each party overlooks each other's flaws and focuses on the good things to keep their love going strong. (See: Alex Ferguson and Manchester United supporters.) But some married couples approach 15 or 20 years together, and the flaws start looming larger than the shared experiences which ought to bind them and the features which attracted them to each other in the first place, and they start seriously asking whether they want to live together anymore. And at this point, surely there can be few pro-Wenger acolytes who aren't at least asking themselves on some level if they really want to stay together with their manager 'til death do they part. Whether it's the tactical myopia, the transfer-related parsimony or something else, these perceived flaws are starting to loom ever larger; if you're a Gooner, maybe you do still really want to stay together, but surely you're getting annoyed rather more regularly now than you used to. And for some Gooners, this transfer window might be the final straw which makes you want to file for divorce. Either way, love isn't supposed to be a battlefield, and as someone who tried to keep my mouth shut until the transfer window was closed and I knew for sure Wenger wasn't buying anybody, I feel properly bothered at the moment.

 
Great post.  This will be an interesting year for Arsenal supporters.  The last couple seasons have seen us winning trophies and clearly moving in the right direction but also raised expectations regarding investment and future success on the field.  There could be quite a bit of strain on the marriage if things go badly this year and it'll be easy for the eyes of supporters to wander with figures like Klopp and Ancellotti looking for work next summer.

 

[Luis Taint]

Go on, who would have helped and was available.

The four names that interested me this window were Scneiderlin, Draxler, Cavani and Benzema. Over the last two years Arsenal has had a hard on for them, only to either be denied, or swooped in on by another team. This shouldn't happen at all. Arsenal isn't the Sisters Of The Poor, we have the money to get these players. It either comes down to A) Wenger is so stubborn with money, he won't get into a pissing contest with other teams or B) he already thinks that this team has the makings of a Champions League/Premier League Champion, which after the first few games, how could he?

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

One other thought and then I'll shut up for the moment: the transfer deadline is supposed to be fun and interesting, whether or not your club actually signs or sells anyone, and whether those players are good or bad. Guess when Arsenal last failed to buy a single first-team player in July, August or September? I'll count backwards for you, highlighting the most expensive and/or important player(s) Arsenal did sign each summer during this timeframe:
 
2014: Alexis Sanchez
2013: Mesut Ozil
2012: Santi Cazorla (and Giroud, Podolski)
2011: Everyone (Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arteta, Mertesacker et al.)
2010: Laurent Koscielny (and Squillaci/Chamakh!)
2009: Thomas Vermaelen
2008: Samir Nasri
2007: Bacary Sagna
2006: Alex Song, William Gallas (swap with Ashley Cole), Denilson
2005: Aleksandr Hleb
2004: Mathieu Flamini (v1.0), Manuel Almunia
2003: Jens Lehmann
2002: Gilberto Silva
----The transfer window as we now know it was only introduced before the 2002-03 season----
2001: Sol Campbell, Gio van Bronckhorst
2000: Robert Pires, Sylvain Wiltord
1999: Thierry Henry
1998: Freddie Ljungberg
1997: Christopher Wreh (after Petit/Overmars/Grimandi had signed in June)
1996: Patrick Vieira
1995: David Platt (after Bergkamp had signed in June)
1994: Stefan Schwarz
 
So you basically have to go back to 1993 - a summer in which Arsenal only signed Eddie McGoldrick from Crystal Palace in June, although to be fair Martin Keown had been signed back in February - to find an Arsenal offseason as boring as this one, and that was long before the current transfer window concept existed (and you could sign anyone pretty much whenever you wanted to) and only shortly after the financial behemoth called the Premier League had been created. We didn't even have any good *rumors* this summer: there was the barely credible Benzema nonsense in August, and the barely credible Vidal nonsense in July, and little else which even rose to the level of knuckle-dragging sub-credible.
 
I certainly wouldn't ask Arsene Wenger to sign someone he doesn't want - or try to sign someone he doesn't think he can get - to make my summer more interesting. But simply as a fan, I feel rather cheated by this summer, just as a kid on Christmas morning would feel cheated to discover his only present was a bike his parents let him unwrap in November: it's a nice present, but by Christmas he's already been on it a few times, and it's lost some of its luster for having actually been used. (It's also just, you know, a *bike*.) In the abstract, I want Arsenal to win as many matches as possible, but as a football fan I fundamentally want to be entertained on and/or off the pitch: that entertainment can take many different forms, including everything from watching my team win trophies or exceed expectations or behave like model professionals or give interesting interviews to pulling off a transfer coup or trade which most analysts think is a heist to watching my team's rivals lose badly or make asses of themselves or get caught cheating or fail to submit their transfer paperwork on time. But at the moment, for a team and a manager so committed to putting an attractive brand of football on the pitch, very little about what I'm seeing and hearing on or off the pitch fills me with great joy; indeed, most of the joy I'm getting from football at the moment involves watching Arsenal's rivals screw up. Which is nice and all, but it doesn't make me excited about the team which indirectly helped me learn to love their suffering in the first place.
 
(Tl;dr version: I want all the time I spent this summer searching for something worthwhile to read at http://arsenal-mania.com/forum/forums/transfer-rumours.22/ back, with compound interest.)

 

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

To be fair, we did buy Cech.
 
I've seen lots of optimists make the parallel to the 2003 offseason, when we bought Mad Jens and a bunch of youth players (including guys named Fabregas and Van Persie, but that's besides the point) and trusted that the outfield team we had in place would kick into gear. 
 
Of course, that team had TH14, Bergkamp, Pires, Vieira, Ljungberg, Campbell, Cole, etc...

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

To be fair, we did buy Cech.

 
Yeah, I know - that's why I framed my last post around transfers made in July/Aug/Sept, Cech having been bought in June.
 
I admit that cutoff date is somewhat disingenuous in the context of looking at how Wenger has strengthened his squad in each summer, but the thrust of that post was to try and find a rational basis for why Arsenal supporters can be so frustrated by their manager despite everything he's accomplished and everything he's meant to the club. Say what you want about someone like Harry Redknapp - and I've said and thought plenty - but it's always damn fun to be a fan of his club as the transfer window comes to a close. And even if many of his signings were ultimately crap, just as many summer signings in general prove to be crap, the fun you get as a fan from the transfer window is no less real or relevant than the fun you get from watching your team win actual games on the pitch. (Just as the trauma many Patriots fans have gone through over #DFG is also no less real than the joy they got from winning the Super Bowl.)
 
Anyway, Arseblog has a nicely measured take on Wenger's transfer window at:
 
http://arseblog.com/2015/09/thoughts-on-the-transfer-window-and-the-state-of-the-squad/.
 
I don't disagree with anything in that article, and as you yourself also suggested above, it's entirely possible that Wenger's gamble may prove to be a masterstroke; Arsenal could just be having their annual dip in form at the start of the season, making things look worse than they are. But particularly when it comes to soccer, a sport where a club's performance relative to expectations is much more relevant to fan happiness than its absolute performance, it is simultaneously possible for a) your team to have a great squad, b) your team to finish above most of their rivals and even win the occasional trophy, and c) you to be utterly frustrated and baffled by your club more often than you are exhilarated by it. Such is the Gooner's lot in life these days; we take a lot of crap for this attitude from other fanbases for whom the grass seems a lot greener in our pastures, but that doesn't make the attitude itself at all irrational.

 

[CoRP]

Say what you want about someone like Harry Redknapp 

His mistress is a whore.

 

[soxfan121]

 
Yeah, I know - that's why I framed my last post around transfers made in July/Aug/Sept, Cech having been bought in June.

 
That's some Eric Van data bullshit. Manufacturing an arbitrary and misleading cutoff point to exclude one point in order to emphasize your other points is disingenuous and lame. 

 

[Spacemans Bong]

Celebrating Harry Redknapp's love of crappy signings for the sake of crappy signings at the expense of Arsene Wenger is sub-Kevin Witcher "Owen Coyle should be Arsenal manager" bullshit.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

 
That's some Eric Van data bullshit. Manufacturing an arbitrary and misleading cutoff point to exclude one point in order to emphasize your other points is disingenuous and lame. 

 
I'll grant you arbitrary, but misleading? My argument centered around the fact that this was the first summer in 20+ years in which Arsenal didn't give its fans any reason to be excited or nervous or fretful for most of the summer - Cech was locked up early in the summer, and there was no legitimate transfer noise after that, let alone any signings. By any measure, I think this was certainly the dullest and most frustrating transfer window for Arsenal fans in two decades...and in the first of those two decades, there wasn't a transfer window as such to speak of.
 

Celebrating Harry Redknapp's love of crappy signings for the sake of crappy signings at the expense of Arsene Wenger is sub-Kevin Witcher "Owen Coyle should be Arsenal manager" bullshit.

 
I confess that I laughed hard at this sentence. But I'm not so much celebrating Harry Redknapp as I am lamenting Arsene Wenger's refusal to play along with the normal social contract between manager and fans. He's basically gone all Nathan Jessup on us - he might as well grimace and scream, "I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who celebrates the wins and trophies that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide them." No wonder the Wenger-Gooner marriage is a bit strained...

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Actually, I should probably revise my conclusion in the first paragraph above to simply say that this was pretty clearly the dullest and most frustrating summer transfer period in terms of Arsenal purchases. (Obviously going through the process of acrimoniously losing players like Van Persie, Nasri, Fabregas et al. sucks in its own way and can sour the whole transfer window experience.)

 

[soxfan121]

 
I'll grant you arbitrary, but misleading? My argument centered around the fact that this was the first summer in 20+ years in which Arsenal didn't give its fans any reason to be excited or nervous or fretful for most of the summer - Cech was locked up early in the summer, and there was no legitimate transfer noise after that, let alone any signings. By any measure, I think this was certainly the dullest and most frustrating transfer window for Arsenal fans in two decades...and in the first of those two decades, there wasn't a transfer window as such to speak of.

 
Summer begins on 6/21 - before Cech signed (6/29). You manufactured a cutoff date to exclude data and then used that exclusion to craft an argument that isn't factually true or complete. 
 
And if the addition of one of the best keepers in the world isn't a "reason for fans to be excited"...well, we're not in the same universe on this issue. 

Manipulating facts and presenting things so you can exclude pertinent data is dishonest and misleading. But it did lead to a very hot take - albeit one that's been beaten to death and gives Bonger headaches. GJGE.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Are you honestly going to tell me you think most Arsenal fans should be happy with and/or excited by what happened this summer? If you are, then your criticism of my data manipulation makes sense; if not, then surely you're not so obtuse as to miss the point of my philosophising about what it means to be a fan of sports teams in general, and of Arsenal specifically.

 

[soxfan121]

No, your feelings are personal, and irrational, and of absolutely no relevance to the point I've made. 

My issue is that you willfully manipulated data. And I find that disingenuous and lame. You aren't entitled to your own facts and if you're gonna try to explain away your willful deception, try to do better on the basic stuff, like what "summer" is and when it starts. 

 

[mikeford]

Yeah, it's dumb to try to Eric Van the data to fit your narrative when you could've just as easily said "Arsenal bought Petr Cech and literally no other senior players" which still sounds just as terrible. 

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Your data puritanism is charming, but:
 
1) I never misrepresented the data I posted - I chose to concentrate upon July through September transfers because June is largely still part of football season (World Cup, European Championships, Copa America, qualifiers for one of the above, etc.), and therefore irrelevant to the point I was trying to make about fans wanting to be entertained by the summer transfer window.
 
2) It's not like I picked a cutoff point which excluded data from 2003 people might have forgotten about - I picked a cutoff point which excluded Cech because his acquisition clearly hasn't been enough to satisfy many Arsenal fans this summer, and that point ought to be self explanatory to anyone who has been following this thread or Arsenal or the Premiership more generally this summer.
 
[FAKE EDIT: or what mikeford said.]
 
(An interesting counterfactual could involve asking what Arsenal fans would feel about this transfer window if Cech had been acquired yesterday or in mid-August, or if Arsenal's one acquisition in late June had been an outfield player instead of a goalkeeper...)
 
3) I'm the person who pointed out the data "manipulation" without prompting, in (an obviously misplaced) hope of avoid the very argument I'm now having - I've been completely transparent, haven't I? You might not buy the argument about why I selected the data I selected, but I didn't do it for purposefully nefarious reasons.
 
If that's not good enough for you, then so be it.

 

[soxfan121]

Your data puritanism is charming, but:
 
1) I never misrepresented the data I posted - I chose to concentrate upon July through September transfers because June is largely still part of football season (World Cup, European Championships, Copa America, qualifiers for one of the above, etc.), and therefore irrelevant to the point I was trying to make about fans wanting to be entertained by the summer transfer window.

 
No, you chose to "concentrate" on a cherry-picked sample and willfully ignored the world-class keeper that was acquired because it undermined your "feelings". 
 
When mikeford tells you're in EV territory, it's time to put down the shovel and stop digging. 

 

[mikeford]

If Arsenal had bought say: Vidal or Schneiderlin (examples of guys they could have theoretically purchased but either did not want or were outbid for in transfer money and/or wages) rather than Cech, I would feel better about things.
 
Ospina is not a world beater, but he isn't the reason Arsenal didn't win the league last year either. Not having a solid defensive midfield presence (til Coquelin emerged anyway) had far more to do with that.
 
The trouble with doing nothing to the outfield squad isn't so much that the outfield squad is bad but it does lack key depth at striker and DM. And I'd argue wholly in the midfield as well especially with Jack Wilshere perma-crocked. Not only that but every squad around Arsenal did something to improve their team whereas Arsenal stood pat. 
 
It might've been good business off-the-pitch not to buy high on any of the players who DID move in this window but its going to hurt on the pitch regardless of that. 

 

[wonderland]

Your data puritanism is charming, but:
 
1) I never misrepresented the data I posted - I chose to concentrate upon July through September transfers because June is largely still part of football season (World Cup, European Championships, Copa America, qualifiers for one of the above, etc.), and therefore irrelevant to the point I was trying to make about fans wanting to be entertained by the summer transfer window.
 
2) It's not like I picked a cutoff point which excluded data from 2003 people might have forgotten about - I picked a cutoff point which excluded Cech because his acquisition clearly hasn't been enough to satisfy many Arsenal fans this summer, and that point ought to be self explanatory to anyone who has been following this thread or Arsenal or the Premiership more generally this summer.
 
[FAKE EDIT: or what mikeford said.]
 
(An interesting counterfactual could involve asking what Arsenal fans would feel about this transfer window if Cech had been acquired yesterday or in mid-August, or if Arsenal's one acquisition in late June had been an outfield player instead of a goalkeeper...)
 
3) I'm the person who pointed out the data "manipulation" without prompting, in (an obviously misplaced) hope of avoid the very argument I'm now having - I've been completely transparent, haven't I? You might not buy the argument about why I selected the data I selected, but I didn't do it for purposefully nefarious reasons.
 
If that's not good enough for you, then so be it.

You should've followed thru your threat last year and quit being an arsenal fan. You could've switched to West Ham and enjoyed a robust transfer season. Because we all know that social contract is more important than wins.

 

[mikeford]

So yeah...
 
Danny Welbeck got knee surgery and is out til around Xmas.
 
Arsenal knew about this a week ago. And yet did not bring in any depth at that position.
 
Just more baffling shit from a club perpetually run in a baffling fashion. 

 

[Stanley Steamer]

 
Just more baffling shit from a club perpetually run in a baffling fashion.

This should definitely be the tag line for the Arsenal thread.

 

[JayMags71]

Danny Welbeck got knee surgery and is out til around Xmas.
 
Arsenal knew about this a week ago.

Source?

 

[CoRP]

If Arsenal had bought say: Vidal or Schneiderlin (examples of guys they could have theoretically purchased but either did not want or were outbid for in transfer money and/or wages) rather than Cech, I would feel better about things.
 
Ospina is not a world beater, but he isn't the reason Arsenal didn't win the league last year either.

Cech looked pretty good against Liverpool. Might not have gotten that point without him.

 

[mikeford]

Cech looked pretty good against Liverpool. Might not have gotten that point without him.

Looked pretty bad in that first game though. Might've gotten a point with Ospina instead. Cuts both ways, ya know? I think Cech is better but I also think the squad had other places that needed upgrades/depth way more.
 
 

Source?

The surgery happened before the window closed. You think Danny got surgery and Arsenal was kept in the dark about it?
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3221490/Arsenal-boss-Arsene-Wenger-accused-lying-fans-failing-reveal-injury-Danny-Welbeck-transfer-window.html

 

[CoRP]

Cuts both ways, ya know? 

You're fiesty today. 
 
Arsenal was the best team in the league in the 2nd half of last year. Cech may be the only piece they need.  And for what it's worth, Schneiderlin wasn't exactly cheap at £25 million.

 

[mikeford]

Nope, sure wasn't cheap. You don't usually get world class guys for cheap anymore unless you get em at like 14 and develop them.
 
It's not even that they needed to get a guy like him though, he's just an example of someone who DID move and WAS available. But what the real failing is, is not getting someone who's an upgrade on Arteta and Flamini as Coquelin's backup. If you're gonna give Coq the starting spot and let him try to continue to build on his fantastic end of last season, fine. I don't have issue with that... but get a better safety net cuz neither Arteta nor Flamini are good enough if Coq gets hurt or his form falls off a cliff.

 

[CoRP]

Fair point.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

There was a great segment on yesterday's Football Weekly Extra podcast about Arsenal's lack of movement during the transfer window, and James Horncastle said something I think is worth transcribing and quoting in full:
 

 
I'll tell you, [Wenger] is so principled - he still puts such an accent on value, and [often] he doesn't see value. We saw that when he was bidding for Suarez: he would only go a pound over that perceived buyout clause. And you see it again when, for example: Martial is probably a player who in the past that Wenger would have signed, but he probably looked at the money that Monaco were asking for and that United have paid, and he would have said, "Absolutely not," irrespective of the fact that Arsenal have that money. And there have always been whispers that when they signed Ozil in particular, Arsenal's board had to lock him in a wardrobe and say, "We're doing this business." Well, not literally [lock him in a wardrobe], but he was fretting so much about the value they were going to pay that he wouldn't have done that deal, and they got to the stage where they basically had to say, "Look, Arsene, we're doing this deal - we need to do this deal - not only because we need that kind of player, but also, fans are exasperated, and we have to get real. This is the real world now - this is the world we operate in - and that's why [we're buying him].

 
I mean, that story about Wenger and Ozil sounds so ridiculous that I feel it almost has to be true...and if you view Arsenal's reticence to buy any players through the prism of Wenger's never-ending search for value, everything makes sense. Depressing, maddening sense, but sense all the same: it's as though Wenger won't buy gasoline for his car any more because he remembers what the price of gas was a decade or two ago and doesn't believe the price should rise above the normal rate of inflation for any reason.

 

[blueguitar322]

From the beginning of the summer:
 

I'm relatively happy standing pat except for getting a backup DM. But for the reasons you [MMS] mentioned in your earlier post, I don't envision us getting anyone that will make me very excited, if we get anyone at all. I do think that Wenger likes Arteta and will keep either him or Flamini - or, God forbid, both - around to serve as backup DMs. After all Arteta "is like a new signing."

 
I'm disappointed we didn't bring in anyone else to serve as a backup to Coquelin, but knowing Wenger, I'm not surprised. I'm just hoping that the Arteta we've seen (5 tackles in 25 minutes or something ridiculous like that) is the Arteta we will continue to see. Who knows? Maybe he's showed Wenger something extra in training. He's 33, which is old but not ancient. Two years ago, he was still playing at a pretty high level until injuries piled up. I'm hopeful, but not optimistic. If Coquelin is injured for an extended period, results will likely suffer.
 
Last year my big transfer window critique of Wenger - which led to me questioning if it was time to find a new manager - was that there were only six players for four defensive spots. I didn't count Bellerin as a legit prospect for much playing time last year due to his age/inexperience. 
 
In retrospect, I was at least partially wrong. Arsenal's lack of defensive depth did cost them a bunch of early-season points, and ultimately a shot at the title, but it did allow for Bellerin to develop and force himself into the starting 11. At the risk of playing too loosely with counterfactuals, If I could go back in time and force Wenger to sign more (likely mid-level) defenders, at the risk of stunting Bellerin's growth, I wouldn't know what to do. To some degree, Wenger's confidence in the players he had (e.g. Bellerin) simultaneously cost us a chance at the league title last year and increased our chance at a title this year.
 
Therefore I'm really not inclined to yell "Wenger out!" After 20 or so years at the club, his strengths and weaknesses are obvious to many. But in this case, I suspect the devil we know is better than the devil we don't. Outside of Mourinho (who hasn't exactly started the season well either), I wouldn't trade Wenger for any other manager in the EPL. Ironically, I see Pellegrini and Van Gaal as similar to Wenger in that both of them combine a proven track record with weird stubborn eccentricities that sometimes baffle their fans. 
 
P.S. The idea of "entertainment" is subjective. I, for one, would be very happy to root for a team that never bought anyone yet won everything.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

Lest we forget, Wenger did buy a DM last summer:
 
http://www.arsenal.com/first-team/players/krystian-bielik
 
When I read "highly-rated" about an Arsenal youth buy, I can't help but hear the voice of this guy:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdjf4lMmiiI
 
"HIGHLY. RATED."

 

[JayMags71]

The surgery happened before the window closed. You think Danny got surgery and Arsenal was kept in the dark about it?
 

 
Did you see that claim in my post?
 
My point was if you're going to make statements like this:
 

 
Danny Welbeck got knee surgery and is out til around Xmas.
 
Arsenal knew about this a week ago. 

 
 
You need to back them up with outside sources. That's the way SoSH has worked from the beginning. You know this.

 

[blueguitar322]

2-0 over Stoke which should have been 5-0 or 6-0. The announcers mentioned during the game that Arsenal lead the league in shots, but are second lowest in conversion percentage. That sounds about right.
 
The nice thing is that I don't remember a genuinely dangerous moment from Stoke. A long shot or two, a cross or two, but everything was pretty much covered. Coq/Kos/Gabriel kept everything under wraps the entire game.
 
Even without a new striker, I really like this team. BUT they really need to find their scoring boots to mount a credible title charge.

 

[soxfan121]

Sanchez hit the post twice. I don't think scoring is gonna be an issue when luck evens out. 

 

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

2-0 over Stoke which should have been 5-0 or 6-0. The announcers mentioned during the game that Arsenal lead the league in shots, but are second lowest in conversion percentage. That sounds about right.
 
The nice thing is that I don't remember a genuinely dangerous moment from Stoke. A long shot or two, a cross or two, but everything was pretty much covered. Coq/Kos/Gabriel kept everything under wraps the entire game.
 
Even without a new striker, I really like this team. BUT they really need to find their scoring boots to mount a credible title charge.

 
I was only able to watch today's game intermittently but I went through some extended highlight reels and counted at least 13 very good scoring opportunities for Arsenal and zero for Stoke.  That's fantastic.  I think the goals will come, especially since two of the players that have been having trouble converting are players with strong track records as finishers (Sanchez, Ramsey).
 
I'm less certain about Walcott.  He has been a very good finisher historically in his RW role, when his chances have often consisted of running onto balls and then slotting past the keeper or taking shots from angles in the box.  Those chances come up a lot as a CF too and, while he hasn't been burying them, I'm pretty confident that he will in time.  But I  don't know if he'll ever be a great finisher on the other kinds of CF chances (in some ways the most important ones) because the role still seems a bit foreign to him - I'm talking about headers, near post low crosses where he really just needs to run like hell to the near post and get a foot on the ball to redirect it on goal, or just very quick poaching type chances where the ball falls to him for a millisecond in a crowded box.  He seems to miss a number of these every game and while its encouraging that he is getting to the right spots to create the chances I don't know whether a late convert to CF is ever going to be particularly adapt at converting them.
 
Gabriel hasn't had much to do the last two matches but he has hardly put a foot wrong as far as I can tell.  He is one of the real bright spots of this season so far and I hope the transition away from Mertesacker really takes hold this year.  The conventional wisdom is that you want to have CBs that have slightly different skill sets that complement each other.  But I think that's kind of overblown.  If I could have two Koscielnys out there I would take it in a second.  Gabriel isn't nearly at that level but he seems to have that kind of potential.

 

[mikeford]

Feel like he was lucky not to get sent off for that forearm to the face he delivered to ManBun though. 
 
Gotta control yourself better. He got away with it but he could've easily been sent off. 

 

[sachmoney]

The problem that I've seen with playing Walcott up top so far is that the team hasn't adjusted to it. Instead of looking up to find Walcott on the break, there is a lot of dribbling. It would be best if there was more of a pass and run mentality instead of all of the dribbling. The dribbling slows things down and allows the defense to get set, essentially taking away Walcott's biggest asset: his speed. If you watch Walcott instead of the ball, you can see that he is always looking to play the line and create space between him the defenders as he sets up to make runs. They're just not looking for him enough.
 
I think the lack of urgency or pressing for goals is even more evident when Giroud is in. There are a lot of low percentage crosses. There is a lot of passing around the perimeter and not enough inquisition in the box. Giroud is great at holding up play and a very good passer. Arsenal needs players to run off of him with the willingness to shoot. 
 
Even with Giroud, I think that there has to be more tempo. You can't allow the defense time to get back and organized. This is my biggest problem with how Arsenal are playing right now.
 
***
Oh, it was good to win.

 

[CoRP]

The problem that I've seen with playing Walcott up top so far is that the team hasn't adjusted to it. Instead of looking up to find Walcott on the break, there is a lot of dribbling. It would be best if there was more of a pass and run mentality instead of all of the dribbling. The dribbling slows things down and allows the defense to get set, essentially taking away Walcott's biggest asset: his speed. If you watch Walcott instead of the ball, you can see that he is always looking to play the line and create space between him the defenders as he sets up to make runs. They're just not looking for him enough.

Ozil certainly looked for him on Saturday. That was a beautiful play, btw. Coquelin starting it with a superb tackle and then Ozil lofting a ball that hits Theo in full stride. They don't get much prettier than that.