Rival Watch

All that hullabaloo over not signing Cesc seems so silly now that we've signed a more versatile player with attributes we needed to add to the team. A shame that few people had faith the club knew what it was doing.

With most teams playing their first pre-season games, the transfer table looks like this (with approximate transfer fees):

Man City: Sagna (Free), Fernando (£12mil) [£12mil]
Liverpool: Lambert (£4mil), Lallana (£25mil), Can (£10mil), Markovic (£20mil) [£59mil]
Chelsea: Fabregas (£35mil), Costa (£32mil) [£67mil]
Arsenal: Alexis (£30mil), Debuchy (£10mil) [£40mil]
Everton: Barry (Free) [£0]
Tottenham: Nobody
Man Utd: Shaw (£30mil), Herrera (£35mil) [£65mil]

Looks more even now than it did last time we did this. Five £30mil transfers; these used to be rare.

City apparently close to spending big money on Magala (Porto/France CB; very athletic, very powerful, lacking a bit in intelligence), Chelsea close to signing Felipe Luis (Atleti LB; well balanced player).

We'll most likely spend for about 80-90m by the end of it. Will still have spare cash for Winter

Lambert 4m

Jay purposely putting the lower fee for Debuchy to make it seem better smh

CuleJay29

Was Fabregas 35? I thought it was 27m€ to prevent us from getting any part of that.

Lallana was £23m plus £2m add-ons pending on performance. Can was £9.75m. Markovic was £19.8m.

no body got time for decimals brah.

Did you not read where he said "approximately"?

Man Utd spending so big on those two players.

Good players, probably going to be very good signings for them. But damn. There's "paying a little over the odds when you need to" and then there's stuff like that.

Liverpool are essentially doing what Spurs did post-Bale, but they have a better basis to work off of--a Liverpool w/o Suarez is stronger than a Tottenham w/o Bale was. It will be interesting to see how the new signings bed in. I still am upset another PL team got Markovic, though it was almost inevitable.

(Also: Liverhampton and Chelsletico. )

Man City will remain strong, and if Jovetic stays fit it will be, ahem, like a new signing for them.

Luis to Chelsea is done already isn't it??? thought Chelsea announced it rumors it's £20mil

Chumlum wrote:
Liverpool are essentially doing what Spurs did post-Bale, but they have a better basis to work off of--a Liverpool w/o Suarez is stronger than a Tottenham w/o Bale was. It will be interesting to see how the new signings bed in. I still am upset another PL team got Markovic, though it was almost inevitable.

I would call this true if we had a shit manager and the team would not have a young core base.

Nishy wrote:

Chumlum wrote:
Liverpool are essentially doing what Spurs did post-Bale, but they have a better basis to work off of--a Liverpool w/o Suarez is stronger than a Tottenham w/o Bale was. It will be interesting to see how the new signings bed in. I still am upset another PL team got Markovic, though it was almost inevitable.

I would call this true if we had a shit manager and the team would not have a young core base.

And you would see your response was completely superfluous if you bothered to read past the first clause of the paragraph ...   

Do Arsenal fans really think they'll win the League? Both City and Chelsea have stronger squads.

Yes, most do. Did you really believe Chelsea would win CL and finished 6th in the league with RDM in charge?

@Gil: Good thing titles aren't won based on paper squads then.

Chelsea still haven't addressed their biggest weakness. The weakness that caused them to not win the league last season after spending 100M.

The dude in that dug-out. Until he's there, They won't be any threat to other title challengers.

Gil wrote:Do Arsenal fans really think they'll win the League? Both City and Chelsea have stronger squads.

Which Arsenal fans are you referring to?

Gil wrote:Do Arsenal fans really think they'll win the League? Both City and Chelsea have stronger squads.

stumbling through to stir up BS?

Don't recall many, if any, of the Arsenal section being so bold when we haven't even finished our transfer activity to compare squads.

And that squad comparison means nothing, as Sepi said, I'm sure no one thought that on paper, Liverpool could have come so close to the title last season at the beginning.

I believe we can.

Gil wrote:Do Arsenal fans really think they'll win the League? Both City and Chelsea have stronger squads.

we'll tell you at the end of the transfer window

Thinking Arsenal "will" win the league and thinking Arsenal will compete are two different things, of course.

Calma.

pillock

If I had to bet today, I'd put my money on Arsenal to win the title.

Arteta is pretty much the only player in the squad who is in decline, the rest are either improving or at their peak. Sanchez is a quality addition and they will still buy a CM and a keeper.

The team still needs a leader, though.

Disagree.

We have leaders. We lack quality in squad depth.

If we do sign someone to take over the mantle from Arteta, that's a good start. But I am convinced Diaby will stay fit till the day after the transfer window closes, we will have our usual injury fiasco again and will end up playing makeshift, again.

I am convinced we will sign/announce a GK soon, though. I can't shake off the feeling that it will be the end of our summer window with that.

Damn,City's 2nd string CM pairing is Fernando-Zuculini now
rather than frauds like Rodwell/Garcia

Arsene i hope you are doing some business behind the scenes

Arsene got this

Bid for Torsten Frings coming up

RG
rather Carsten Ramelow though