Football: For Now We Are All Champions!

[Mexal]

5 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

It's gonna be Lewandowski.

And by Lewandowski, you mean Walcott right?

[Spockydog]

Lewandwalcott. 

[BigFatCoward]

52,000 tickets sold for huddersfield this saturday.  mugs. 

[Nas!]

#chamakhback

#bendtnereturn

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 hours ago, Mexal said:

Mustafi's agent has confirmed that Arsenal and him have agreed personal terms. So now Arsenal needs to agree a fee with Valencia. I'm figuring this will go through given how desperate we are. It's a good signing and one that I really like.

Now, if only we could find a striker before the end of the transfer window. 

Mustafi's agent (Ali Bulut) says he had been misquoted and there's no agreement in place, right now. They're in talks, neither Mustafi nor Valencia have agreed on terms of a transfer, yet.

[Mexal]

2 minutes ago, Notone said:

Mustafi's agent (Ali Bulut) says he had been misquoted and there's no agreement in place, right now. They're in talks, neither Mustafi nor Valencia have agreed on terms of a transfer, yet.

Hahaha standard. I hate the media and I hate Arsenal. 

[Consigliere]

10 hours ago, Calibandar said:

I think it's going to be incredibly close and it really is impossible to say at this point who wins this.

It looks tighter than ever.

What I think ends up happening is that City, Chelsea, United and Spurs are going to stay very close.

This is my first tier.

The second tier of Liverpool, Arsenal and Leicester is just below that. I actually think Leicester will hardly be worse , if at all, than last year, especially if they keep Mahrez. Which they might, because Arsenal keeps low balling them, as they do. So basically seven very good teams that could beat anyone on the day, and Everton and West Ham are not far off either. I expect Everton to come back hard this year after last season's lapse. Disclaimer there being that if they still sell Lukaku their quality diminishes.

I think Liverpool will be better than last year and if they are that basically puts them in title contention. I think they will be.

I think Arsenal will be about as good as last year and that will not be enough to finish top 4.

Spurs will be strong again, they just have a very good side. Though I wonder how Kane will fare after a truly lousy EC. Maybe it won't impact much. United I am just very curious about. Pogba, Zlatan, the Armenian. 

 

Spurs do have a very strong side and good manager but they have not yet been able to shake the 'chokers' tag. I think that Arsenal will finish ahead of Spurs and in the top 4. Despite not matching their rivals in the transfer market, Arsenal always find a way to finish in the top 4 and they have a settled side and manager. If they can avoid their annual injury crisis then I'd have them down as genuine title contenders along with City and Chelsea and especially so if the Mustafi transfer goes through and they manage to sign a striker as well.

My second tier - those fighting for 4th place - would be United, Spurs and Liverpool with Leicester, Everton and West Ham just below that. I agree that the Leicester squad is just as strong as last season, particularly if the hang on to Mahrez, but I still see them finding it tougher going this term. Last season alot of sides underestimated Leicester and fancied their chances against them. This season I expect they will be afforded much more respect and sides to be more cautious when playing them. As a result, they may find it more difficult to break down their opponents - we already had glimpses last season where Leicester struggled to break down opponents who sat deep and nullified their counter-attacking game.

[Spockydog]

4 hours ago, Fuchs, himself! said:

#chamakhback

#bendtnereturn

#sanogononononono

[Spockydog]

Posted yesterday:

What could it mean?

[Mark Antony]

Lmao Wenger might break you Arsenal fans if he doesn't buy a striker. 

[Jeor]

I'm so fatalistic I don't think I can be broken. Or maybe that means I am?

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Mark Antony said:

Lmao Wenger might break you Arsenal fans if he doesn't buy a striker. 

I just can't imagine him not buying a striker. I'm convinced he's gonna surprise us all.

 

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

I just can't imagine him not buying a striker. I'm convinced he's gonna surprise us all.

Wenger's been not buying a striker for so long, I find it hard to imagine him doing anything else.

Seriously, I think the problem here is that Wenger knows he needs a striker but doesn't really know who, specifically, he wants. If he had a clear idea of who he wanted to buy, would we be getting these links to anyone and everyone? Wouldn't he have already signed that person?

So he hums and haws at inflated prices for players he's not sure about, and meanwhile time passes, the season begins, the chance to integrate a new player disappears and the best you can hope for is a late rush to buy someone the manager isn't that committed to. Depressing.

[Spockydog]

There's good reason to believe that he hasn't shared his prime targets with anyone outside the club. When we signed Ozil it came totally out of the blue on the day we actually signed him.

 

[Mexal]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Wenger's been not buying a striker for so long, I find it hard to imagine him doing anything else.

Seriously, I think the problem here is that Wenger knows he needs a striker but doesn't really know who, specifically, he wants. If he had a clear idea of who he wanted to buy, would we be getting these links to anyone and everyone? Wouldn't he have already signed that person?

So he hums and haws at inflated prices for players he's not sure about, and meanwhile time passes, the season begins, the chance to integrate a new player disappears and the best you can hope for is a late rush to buy someone the manager isn't that committed to. Depressing.

Nah, I think he had some idea. I just don't think he's willing to spend the money to buy them because the price tags fall below his evaluation and Wenger is unwilling to raise his evaluation to match the market value. He only buys if he thinks it's good value and a striker in today's market will never truly be considered value.

5 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

There's good reason to believe that he hasn't shared his prime targets with anyone outside the club. When we signed Ozil it came totally out of the blue on the day we actually signed him.

Ozil wasn't a target, he was an opportunity. RM had to sell him to recoup some of the costs of the Bale transfer.

[mormont]

3 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Nah, I think he had some idea. I just don't think he's willing to spend the money to buy them because the price tags fall below his evaluation and Wenger is unwilling to raise his evaluation to match the market value. He only buys if he thinks it's good value and a striker in today's market will never truly be considered value.

I don't think this is likely. If Wenger genuinely has a number one target, is it likely he's been sitting on his hands for months refusing to buy that player at, say, £40m instead of £25m, out of sheer principle and nothing else? And that nobody at boardroom level has said 'Arsene, don't worry about it. We're in charge of the money. Let's just do it'?

No, I think all these rumours about various strikers have come about because he's casting around looking for someone he thinks is both worth the cash and keen to sign. Calls are being placed, enquiries made, but Wenger just doesn't have a target that he's really keen on. He's talked before about not signing someone unless they're an upgrade. He'll only gamble on unknown young players, not a big signing.

[Mexal]

5 minutes ago, mormont said:

I don't think this is likely. If Wenger genuinely has a number one target, is it likely he's been sitting on his hands for months refusing to buy that player at, say, £40m instead of £25m, out of sheer principle and nothing else? And that nobody at boardroom level has said 'Arsene, don't worry about it. We're in charge of the money. Let's just do it'?

No, I think all these rumours about various strikers have come about because he's casting around looking for someone he thinks is both worth the cash and keen to sign. Calls are being placed, enquiries made, but Wenger just doesn't have a target that he's really keen on. He's talked before about not signing someone unless they're an upgrade. He'll only gamble on unknown young players, not a big signing.

I do actually. For starters, he's done it before. He had a #1 target in Higuain and failed to buy him because of cost. He had a #1 target in Suarez and got laughed out when he made the 40m + 1 bid and then never did anything above and beyond when Liverpool said fuck you. This year, he had Vardy who spurned him which I legitimately believe he never thought would happen. But after that? Lots of talk of a few strikers, some that come from reputable sources where the cost is around 50-60m and he's willing to pay 35. Do I think he won't sign them because of 15m? Absolutely. That's not a small amount of money and for a guy like him, who penny pinched his way through 8 years, value is in his blood. He's not going to overpay and in this market, that's the only way you get the player you want. Arsenal won't get a legitimate new striker until Wenger retires and a new manager spends the hundreds of millions we have in the bank.

ETA: At this point though, it doesn't matter if the player is an upgrade on Giroud or not. The fact is, we have one senior striker going into a season where we compete in 4 competitions. And that senior striker is Giroud. That's a massive issue, one that had to be addressed with someone, anyone. It doesn't matter. You can't win anything when you have a single striker in your squad. Imagine Giroud gets hurt, we're down to zero senior strikers. It's unbelievable how short he has left us yet again and he's done it in a season when he knows Walcott can't play CF and Welbeck is out until 2017. It shouldn't be acceptable to the board but somehow it is.

[mormont]

See, I understand that it's just about possible that Wenger won't pay over the odds on principle for a player. I don't think it's credible that he has a number one target right now and the board aren't pressuring him to just agree to pay the going rate. I think Wenger isn't really that keen on Vardy, and has been looking for an alternative, but hasn't found one he likes.

Where we can surely agree is that one way or the other, he's frittering away time on the mistaken belief that it's less important than money.

[Mexal]

3 minutes ago, mormont said:

See, I understand that it's just about possible that Wenger won't pay over the odds on principle for a player. I don't think it's credible that he has a number one target right now and the board aren't pressuring him to just agree to pay the going rate. I think Wenger isn't really that keen on Vardy, and has been looking for an alternative, but hasn't found one he likes.

Where we can surely agree is that one way or the other, he's frittering away time on the mistaken belief that it's less important than money.

No, Wenger was keen on Vardy. He said no. I think after Vardy, Wenger didn't have a target and has been scrambling but every target he has approached has asked for a ridiculous sum of money or the team has refused to sell them. Wenger went into this window expecting to get Vardy for cheap because of the release clause and never expected Vardy to say no. The fact they didn't wrap it up before Vardy went to the Euros was the biggest disaster of the offseason. Vardy spent so much time around Spurs, United and Liverpool players that there was very little chance he'd say yes after that.

We can definitely agree with your last statement. It's tiresome since it happens every year.

[Consigliere]

Yeah, I don't think Vardy saying no even crossed Wengers mind. Tbh, I thought the transfer would be a foregone conclusion once Arsenal met his release clause. While I think that Arsenal should be breaking the bank to bring in someone like Aubameyang, we all know Wenger is loathe to spend that sort of money. If the Lacazette option is dead in the water, what do Arsenal fans think about Berahino? He'd be more in Wenger's price range of 20-25 million.