The Summer Transfer Window Assessment

Initially I felt short slightly changed, but after fully evaluating each signing, individually, I would say that I'm satisfied. I'm still somewhat mystified by certain decisions made my Wenger and co; Why leaving the signings till the last minute? Why not sign Enrique? Why didn't he sell Cesc and Nasri sooner?

I think what we'd all agree on is that we lack a 'marquee' signing', which I think is fair to say. A team like Arsenal deserves to have at least one recognised world class player. In todays game, it extremely difficult to achieve success without it. I know it sounds crazy, but that's what it boils down too.

What I do like about this new look squad, if we'll call it that, is the balance of experienced, mature and youth player wehave at our disposal. We've allowed several youngsters to move on permanently and on loan, which in turn allows the new batch of players to come through.

I'm intrigued to see how we'll look, when the epl resumes. I'm buzzing to see how all our new players will look and fit in. Bizarrely though, I'm probably most excited about Park. I think he'll be our dark horse signing, especially with all the alleged millitary service suggestions. Mertesacker pair alongside Vermaelen will also bring us some much needed balace and stability as will Santos. I asked that under no circumstances do we play Djourou and Kos alngside one another. I've been well aware of their lack of understanding, and it was evident against Utd.

Overall, we've sold and signed, and guess what...we made a profit. Anyone surprised- or was merely a coincedence?!?!?!

6unner wrote:

GoonerJay29 wrote:

Top 4 finsih should be our goal.

Only at Arsenal is a top 4 finish considered an achievement.
Hate to be the downer but which of these does everyone actually think we are going to knock out of 4th?
Manu
Manc
Chelsea
Liverpool

We will fight to the end and we still have January to bring in players if we need to. I believe we can finish in the top 4 and maybe higher.

At last we have some competition in our team, I just cant wait for our next match.

Am I the only one who is happy with our signings and think we can finish in top 4 and win a trophy?

All I know, there will be many EPL teams who will be our victim.

When you rake in nearly £70mil, it's a bit difficult not to make a profit. I don't think it was the clubs intention to make that much money, but we ended up doing so anyway.

I'm pretty firm in the opinion that had the defeat against United not been so bad, we would not have been as active in the window.

In the end, though, we have signed nine players for around £40mil and I don't think we've overpaid for any of them bar Chamberlain. So even in a panic, we've managed to pull of some very good signings for very good prices.

And here's a fun fact: the average age of the five players we've just brought in is 30. I don't think we've ever signed so many players over the age of 24 in one window before and that's a wise thing for the club to do, considering the situation we're in. The older guys will hopefully help steady the ship and take the pressure off the younger players.

GoonerJay29 wrote:When you rake in nearly £70mil, it's a bit difficult not to make a profit. I don't think it was the clubs intention to make that much money, but we ended up doing so anyway.

I'm pretty firm in the opinion that had the defeat against United not been so bad, we would not have been as active in the window.

In the end, though, we have signed nine players for around £40mil and I don't think we've overpaid for any of them bar Chamberlain. So even in a panic, we've managed to pull of some very good signings for very good prices.

And here's a fun fact: the average age of the five players we've just brought in is 30. I don't think we've ever signed so many players over the age of 24 in one window before and that's a wise thing for the club to do, considering the situation we're in. The older guys will hopefully help steady the ship and take the pressure off the younger players.

it's hard to spend 70 mil?

GoonerJay29 wrote:When you rake in nearly £70mil, it's a bit difficult not to make a profit. I don't think it was the clubs intention to make that much money, but we ended up doing so anyway.

I'm pretty firm in the opinion that had the defeat against United not been so bad, we would not have been as active in the window.

In the end, though, we have signed nine players for around £40mil and I don't think we've overpaid for any of them bar Chamberlain. So even in a panic, we've managed to pull of some very good signings for very good prices.

And here's a fun fact: the average age of the five players we've just brought in is 30. I don't think we've ever signed so many players over the age of 24 in one window before and that's a wise thing for the club to do, considering the situation we're in. The older guys will hopefully help steady the ship and take the pressure off the younger players.

Well said jay, I really didn't think we could this many sigings in such a short time.

So what you think our line up will look like for the next match?

By the time the Swansea game rolls about in ten days time or so, Gibbs should be fit and Wilshere might also be back - he did some gym work today, so I'm assuming he's on the mend. Gervinho and Song are both suspended still, but Frimpong will be back.

I expect something like:


Santos will probably get the nod ahead of Gibbs, and given we've made Mertesacker one of our highest earners I expect he'll go straight into the side. Likewise Arteta, who's also one of our hgihest earners now. Not sure on Wilshere's fitness, so Ramsey will likely play.

I suspect Ju will be on the bench. Not sure about Benayoun, since he's just coming back from an injury so he might be short on fitness for this game.

GoonerJay29 wrote:When you rake in nearly £70mil, it's a bit difficult not to make a profit. I don't think it was the clubs intention to make that much money, but we ended up doing so anyway.

Not sure if serious.

Don't be so naive, Jay. Arsenal along with Gazidis and Kroenke know exactly what they're doing when they sell Nasri for £23m and cesc for £30m. Whether you want to believe it or not, we're watching the pennies to the last penny- it's that simple. My understanding is that, because we're underachieving from a commercial standpoint, we have to off-set some of our income to make up the short fall. Hence the reason why 30% of any income from player sales is reinvested back into the team.

It was essential that any signing we made left us with a health surplus at the end of it all. Hell, we;ve made a profit on transfer dealing the majority of summers.

GoonerJay29 wrote:By the time the Swansea game rolls about in ten days time or so, Gibbs should be fit and Wilshere might also be back - he did some gym work today, so I'm assuming he's on the mend. Gervinho and Song are both suspended still, but Frimpong will be back.

I expect something like:

Szczesny

Sagna --- Mertesacker --- Vermaelen --- Santos

Frimpong

Arteta --- Ramsey

Walcott ----------------------- Arshavin

van Persie

Santos will probably get the nod ahead of Gibbs, and given we've made Mertesacker one of our highest earners I expect he'll go straight into the side. Likewise Arteta, who's also one of our hgihest earners now. Not sure on Wilshere's fitness, so Ramsey will likely play.

I suspect Ju will be on the bench. Not sure about Benayoun, since he's just coming back from an injury so he might be short on fitness for this game.

That looks good, when Song and Gervinho come back we should be a force.

Nasri I can agree with, but I don't think the board, as intent on money making as they seem to be, wanted to sell Fabregas.

Actually, the board didn't want to sell Nasri straight away either. They did offer him a new deal first and only sold when it became apparent he wasn't going to sign.

I like to think that if it was the board's intention to raise as much money as we did, the Cesc and Nasri sagas would've been concuded much sooner than they were.

You guys do not realize how good of a deal Arteta for 10 million is. He has no national commitments. Is far better than mireles. Its quite funny that a bunch of us wanted Jadson, but we are frowning to Arteta, who is clearly the superior player of the 2.

If that were the case then fair enough. It hard not to think the board are clinging onto every penny made, based on the way that we conducted ourselves at times.

But one gentlemen in the Evening Standard seems to also think that Arsenal stalled on further transferd because they didn't want to pay salaries to inactive players. In other words, we could've wrapped up signings such as Mertesacker sooner, but we weren't intent on paying £80k a week to someone who wouldn't make their debut for another 4 weeks.

Arsenalfaithfull wrote:You guys do not realize how good of a deal Arteta for 10 million is. He has no national commitments. Is far better than mireles. Its quite funny that a bunch of us wanted Jadson, but we are frowning to Arteta, who is clearly the superior player of the 2.

Arteta is a very solid signing. The whole Jadson thing didn't get me excited one bit. Arteta can take free-kick and penalties and is technically sound.

SUPERCARTTS wrote:If that were the case then fair enough. It hard not to think the board are clinging onto every penny made, based on the way that we conducted ourselves at times.

But one gentlemen in the Evening Standard seems to also think that Arsenal stalled on further transferd because they didn't want to pay salaries to inactive players. In other words, we could've wrapped up signings such as Mertesacker sooner, but we weren't intent on paying £80k a week to someone who wouldn't make their debut for another 4 weeks.

It's definitely a fair accusation to make, just not one we can prove either way. I do get the impression that the board want to save on everything, hence how no one at the club is earning more than £100,000 p/w bar Wenger, but then they went ahead and sanctioned the signing of five players in two days and at least two are now amongst our highest earners despite neither of them being stellar names.

The team against Swansa will put 4 past the net. That team does not have Song and Gervinho Koschielney and wilshere..... Was someone saying that we didnt have the squad

GoonerJay29 wrote:By the time the Swansea game rolls about in ten days time or so, Gibbs should be fit and Wilshere might also be back - he did some gym work today, so I'm assuming he's on the mend. Gervinho and Song are both suspended still, but Frimpong will be back.

I expect something like:

Szczesny

Sagna --- Mertesacker --- Vermaelen --- Santos

Frimpong

Arteta --- Ramsey

Walcott ----------------------- Arshavin

van Persie

Santos will probably get the nod ahead of Gibbs, and given we've made Mertesacker one of our highest earners I expect he'll go straight into the side. Likewise Arteta, who's also one of our hgihest earners now. Not sure on Wilshere's fitness, so Ramsey will likely play.

I suspect Ju will be on the bench. Not sure about Benayoun, since he's just coming back from an injury so he might be short on fitness for this game.

I would turn the mid into the diamond formation. ------
-----------------Frimpong
------------Arteta-------Ramsey
-----------------Arshavin (tranquilista)
---------------Theo------RVP

Arshavin is way too lazy to work on the wings. Give him the position /role which he is known for. Someone that lurks around outside the box... Feeding strikers or shooting from range.... or dribbling it in

How happy i am... Never expected so many guys in coming in the last 3 days..
But actually relieved to know that we have made if not top quality but some experienced signings at good prices...
We have good squad now atleastto challenge for top 4 spot..

how can some of you not be happy???

i still don't get how people can say the quality of our squad has gone down???? two players Nasri and Fab don't make the whole team.....

yes our Mid isn't as great as last year, because there aren't many Mids we can get that are Cesc Quality but we replaced him with the closet thing to home, who has as much experince as him in EPL..and is alot better then the current mids we have....

and what has nasri done???? he was only there for 6 months, and did nothing for the rest.... even Chamack was scoring like crazy at that time....

and we have signed 5 players who have far more experince then most of our others players in our team....

has our quality gone down???NO

others teams have improved their Quality....because they have more financial power the us

I dont see goals leaking ... and city aside, our mid will still run rings around most of the teams ... I was really worried last week, but not anymore. We are better equipped than most ppl think. It will show

I'm actually not too dissappointed in our last minute signings. Arteta is probably the most Cesc-like player available, experienced, used to the PL and very technically able. Benayoun is an underrated player, ravaged by injuries last season but again, very experienced. He'll be backup anyways, I assume. It's good for the depth.

Mertesacker, I'd say our best signing of the season. I don't think he will have trouble adapting to our game or the league. He's solid all around and that lack of pace can be offset by sitting him deeper and pairing him with a fast, technical CB which we have (Verminator or Koscielny).

Santos again, experienced Brazilian. Notice the common factor between all these signings? Oh yeah, experience. I love that, I'm tired of the kids. Some people might have doubts over his abilities, but I know he's solid enough and good going up. It's fullback, so any decently solid guy will do.

We finally have some badly needed depth and MUCH appreciated experience. Sure, no "star" signings but I don't think we need more divas after the Fabregas and Nasri fiasco. Overall the window could have gone much better, the board is still a failure but I'm glad we seem to be changing away, or evolving our transfer model to something more modern and practical.

VibeTribe wrote:

Szczesny
Sagna - Mertesacker - Vermaelen - Andre
Song
Arteta - Wilshere
Walcott - Van Persie - Gervinho

this is a good team but are you sure about this 4-1-2-3/4-3-3 system ? i think this is going to change it would be more like
4-2-3-1 defensively 4-5-1 going forward. i think wenger might play wilshere in front of arteta and song.

arteta will make or break us....if he pays off then we in for a great season i tell you

i don't know wat u guys saying about arteta's wage but he took a pay cut and is on 55K a week....lol i cant imagine how dramatically reduced our wage must be this yr

i am hearing the financial fair play rules come in existence next season does that mean likes of city wont be able to participate despite finishing in top4 ?

The Transfer Window is shut and I can see Manuel Almunia ("Blondie") is still an Arsenal player.

Anyways, I'm overwhelmed of what we did these last 2 days. Within these 2 days we signed experienced decent players! Maybe not the best quality players, but we needed reinforcement and we did well to get them.

I know that these signings might've not been planned, and Wenger juz ran around to find the best players to sign after the demoralising defeat at Old Trafford!

This is what I think of our signings:

PARK CHU-YOUNG "JU"
'The South Korean captain...' That statement says it all to the sceptics! He must be at least good, if not extraordinary great. YouTube videos of the guy looks promising. And even though most of us haven't heard of him before, i'm convinced that Wenger had done his homework on "JU" and "JU" will score goals, imo!

PER MERTESACKER
The big man! C'mon Stoke and Blackburn, try come and bully and boss us around. I tell ya'll it won't be that easy!
Tbh, he with Benayoun, are the two guys which I have my doubts about. Yes, PER will be a great defender for set pieces, he has over 70 caps for Germany and he'll bring that organisation, experience and leadership that our back four lack, but we play a high-line and PER is notably not one of the fastest defenders out there and I juz have this feeling that he won't be that great .......so......... Let's juz wait and see.

ANDRÉ SANTOS
The Brazilian International. He's a great edition to our starting line-up, imo. Now I can breath easily when I see that it ain't Gibbs at Left-Back. SANTOS is really more renowned for his attacking ability (no surprise there. The guy is Brazilian). Lets hope he can be our Dani Alves and step up with his defending abilities. And if he couldn't defended, he wouldn't be a LB, but rather a LW. And I heard he can take free-kicks and take them well.

YOSSI BENAYOUN
The Israeli.....on loan that is! -_- Look the guy hasn't played much football in the last 1-2 years, he is an injury prone player and he came of a long injury spell and really didn't get a chance at Chelsea to get back to his Liverpool form. And because of this I have my doubts. Yes, I admit, he was one of the best and my favourite players at Liverpool when he was still there. He created goals and scored some of his own, he links up well with his fellow midfielders and strikers. So if he fits in quickly and finds his "Liverpool form" then he wouldn't be that bad.

MIKEL ARTETA
When I heard Yossi was coming, I knew that we couldn't only rely on the Israeli. We needed someone else. And even though I really wanted Marvin Martin or Keisuke Honda, I was praying and sitting fingers crossed infront of the tv watching Sky Sports News, hoping that we snatch Arteta. Because at that time I knew Martin, nor Honda would come and we really needed another creative midfielder and we got a EPL experienced player, in the Spaniard - ARTETA, who was the "main man" at his former club. I have this feeling that he will step up to the plate and if he stays injury free, he'd do great at Arsenal and try to protect are status as a Top Four team. And, of course, more Free-Kick reinforcement, so...........

Anyways, I'm happy now. I expect Wenger to sign juz two more players excluding Park, after Old Trafford. So yeah, that's why i'm happy and can't wait for the next match. Now I hope all of these new signings fit in well, and juz hit the ground running and of course, STAY INJURY FREE (please God)

6unner wrote:

GoonerJay29 wrote:

Top 4 finsih should be our goal.

Only at Arsenal is a top 4 finish considered an achievement.
Hate to be the downer but which of these does everyone actually think we are going to knock out of 4th?
Manu
Manc
Chelsea
Liverpool

I hope i'm not overreacting after the signings, but I think we have the balance in our team to finishing infront of Liverpool and Chelsea (yes). Our players juz needs to say fit and out of the medical room.