Cannot do that with CL as prize money for progression is huge.
Arsenal 2023/24 - Have bottled the Champions League and are Bottling the League
- Thread starter horsechoker
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They also finished 8th in the league and were knocked out of the Europa League by Olympiakos. Even Moyes managed to get past Olympiakos and finish 7th. Ten Hag winning the League Cup, making an FA Cup final and finishing 3rd is clearly better than Arteta's first season at Arsenal, it's not really a debate.
He's done brilliantly to turn it around since then though and we can only hope that Ten Hag is given just as much backing and patience.
Any substance to Tchouameni links?
With Modric and Kroos retiring next year and Camavinga most likely covering LB, no chance.
They have Valverde and Bellingham. Weird rumors but they might sell him if they get a chance to sign Mbappe this summer.
They are definitely building an exciting team. Not sure where the money is coming from having been out of CL for 6 years but at least they are using it right. Not sure about Havertz but we shall see.
Kroenke exploited the pandemic to restructure the debts in more favourable terms. The debt remains, just rather than the club owing to an anonymous bank – for lack of a better word – it’s now the owner. We still owe the money. We’re still paying it off. But at reduced interest.
In reality though, Kroenke hasn’t invested his money in the traditional sense to endorse our transfer market exploits, i.e. he’s not personally propping up our transfer budget, its self-generated funds. He has accommodated a more liberal budget at best via shrewd financial management, but he’s not personal delving his hands into his pockets and coming out with £100m for Arteta to go on a spree.
The pedantic source of ours funds aside, I’m curious to see how we eventually come to line-up for the new campaign.
Xhaka is as good as gone and it does seem increasingly likely Partey is going to follow him out the door. Whilst we did brilliantly to retain the core of our team through the off-season that’s still a huge amount of turnover in the centre of the park.
Rice and Odegaard are certainties, but the identity of that third piece seems up in the air to me.
Whispers of Havertz playing the Xhaka role, but whether he's positionally adept and disciplined enough for a true midfield position remains to be seen.
Partey might yet stay and complete that triplet, which legal complications aside I would be in favour of. I think that would be our strongest midfield, however unsavoury.
There is the possibility Arteta might envision Timber as a DM. I think he’s been brought in as CB/RB cover with a view to inherit the RB position as his own, though.
Finally, there is talk we’ll go back to the transfer market in the event Partey leaves, with Southamptons Lavia being our prime target. Can't say I've seen a great deal of him but he appears a talent, if a bit unpolished.
I think there’s a real possibility we’ll be weaker at CM in the short term next season, albeit with a higher ceiling realised sometime in the succeeding seasons. Might need to brace ourselves to take a step back before taking two more forward.
Seems to be mostly from getting our wage structure under control in the last few years. Our wages are apparently about £100mil/year less than Utd, Chelsea, City. We can now spend some of that money more easily as there'll be more revenue due to CL.
True, I guess I'm saying I think Timber will take White's place. He's far more suited to that role and he can do the pseudo midfielder thing Zinchenko does but from the other side, so you don't lose that whenever you have to give Tierney a game.
I don't know. Gabriel post WC was excellent. His form dipped a little towards the end when babysitting Holding took it's toll. He was outperforming Saliba even. I don't think Arteta is going to split up the Gabriel Saliba partnership for White.
I like the signings they have made.
Expectation will be high. I await the implosion.
Expectation will be high. I await the implosion.
This guy is obviously some kind of troll, WUM, fan of another club in disguise.
Nobody, literally nobody, in the real Arsenal fan base is reacting to this summer’s business by saying they miss Wenger.
Missed the trick by not mentioning 'Gabriel Saliba axis'
How in the world do they line up with rice and Havertz? Clearly a midfield of them teo and odeegard is suicide?
Then how can city lineup with Rodri-KDB-Silva. Profile wise its similar 2AM-1DM. And we will have atleast 1 FB tucking in.
That’s a lot less. Quite the accomplishment tbh.
Yeh, which makes what Arteta has done - to get everyone on board with his project without being able to give high wages - more impressive. I suppose the promise was once we get back into CL, wages will climb again and we're seeing that starting already.
I was thinking that same thing, it’s sad what we’ve wasted here with the wages offered but we are on a better track
Arsenal played only 49 games (v United's 62 games). Let's see how much the lack of squad depth will affect their run this coming season.
Anything less than a title challenge that goes right to the final day is a massive failure, surely?
Not quite the final day. They were leading for 93% of the season before losing the lead permanently.
Nah. Arsenal's revenue is also more than 100m less than City, Liverpool, Utd, and Cheslea too.
It was always going to happen that once we got back into CL, we'd have to offer higher wages. Revenue will increase a lot now, which will allow us to buy better players. As long as we don't go another 6-7 years without CL football, our higher wage bill hopefully won't hurt us again.
They are addressing squad depth aren't they by throwing loads of money at it.
By the same token, are you doing enough to increase your squad depth for all competitions?
They've pumped a lot of money in again but I'm not sure they're actually bulking up the squad that much. It seems quite likely Xhaka and Partey could be off. Timber would be an additional body, but that's about it.
What's the FFP situation like for Arsenal right now? £200m + on the 3 players they're signing this summer after the heavy investment made in the last 2-3 years must be putting them on the brink.
Honestly their backing was amazing. His ideas of building towards something were pretty visible (the way he initially put up this 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 in particular stood out to me), but they were so vulnerable and got hurt so much, that most boards would let the manager go and pick a safer bet. Perhaps they had different ways of tracking progress agreed, in more subtle statistics/metrics? Because even though I liked looking at his formation ideas, it seemed like we were merely waiting for the news of Arteta being fired.
But honestly I don't think Moyes is a fair comparison. Arguably even ETH arrived with a stronger foundation, but Moyes especially arrived with a champions squad, which, even in its clear decline, did not warrant a six spot drop on the table, in my opinion. They would probably have done better if Moyes had people managing skills (imagine him even trying with talents like Zaha, and I assume many other players could've done with a stronger or more pleasant coach). Moyes would've probably been better with time, too, but he mostly showed stubornness in contrast to Arteta's ideas, in my opinion at least, and stubornness is useless if you're not strong enough to push it through, because it even loses people like Van Gaal a lot of jobs, or pleasant enough to get people to want to try your ideas for you.
I think the fairest comparison would be Klopp, who had some good players, but had to build his ideas with the Milners of this world initially, before having more choices in who to add to his squad like he does now. I guess the high energy approach does lead to success quicker, but their ways of building to something after a fall from grace to the level of players not wanting to join your club that badly, seems like the closest situation.
Things like the Frenkie situation last year and the pond United fishes in shows a trajectory close to that, but to me still seems like he could start from a stronger position than either Arteta or Klopp did.
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But, to get back on topic, with the Partey and Xhaka departures seeming close, I do think the transfers in show some promise. It does look like Arteta wants to change his approach a bit, though, especially looking at Havertz. I think tactically it's a good pick, because it offers better cover for Jesus, but also offers the option of a scoring 10, when you want to move Odegaard to the wings or even CM. Both tactically and rotation/injury wise, it offers solutions in a variety of ways, which I think makes for a very good addition. With Rice you will have to wait and see how he lands at a bigger club with bigger pressure, and just different tactics and colleagues in general, but with him and perhaps another CM or DM to replace Partey and Xhaka more completely, I think Arteta will have more of the options that he wants, while being less dependent on specific players (if the new squad buildup plays out as planned, of course). Their front 4 is great, but one case of bad form or injury shouldn't drop you several levels in quality.
I assume ETH wants to build similarly (that's what he did at Ajax at least). Have a favored skeleton, but while Rashford and Bruno showed what they can do much more than they did in recent years, their bad games usually broke the team. United still has the chance at some resurgence from the likes of Sancho and the growth of Amad and Garnacho, but you don't want to be reliant and vulnerable like that, especially with Absenthy Martial as your only real hope for the number 9 position. Just an extra (more fit than AM and more skilled than WW) option would open up a squad like United's so much more. It's no wonder everyone is hoping for Kane to pick us over Bayern, even if chances are getting slimmer by the day.
We probably won't play as many games next season as we did last, truth be told. We got to two cup finals and had three two-legged knockout ties in the Europa League last season. That means the only way we could play more games next season is if we make it to the final of every available cup competition next season (assuming we don't drop back down to the Europa League again).
We obviously need to sign a striker and a goalkeeper, but beyond that it's more about improving the quality of the squad depth rather than the squad depth itself. Upgrading the likes of Maguire, McTominay and/or Fred.
Not sure how accurate this is but Maguire seems to be the go to guy for some of the media regards football finances.
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Think with what you say in your last post about quantity not quality, we will be doing the same.
We'll likely be swapping Holding for Timber in terms of squad place, Havertz for Xhaka and adding Rice. If Partey were to leave as well then the talk is we'd look to add someone else in there as well, Lavia or the like.
If we can keep guys like Tomiyasu and Smith-Rowe fit and up to speed as well that should help with depth as well.
What City do well is have a core of round about 18+ players where they can rotate and there is hardly any drop off, think that's the standard we all need to aim for, rather than thinking it's just about numbers.
No. We are at least two season away from having any semblance of competing with city
I would imagine rice and harvetz are starters? They may lose xhaka and Partey. Now exactly adding depth. Improving the starting 11 only. They really ought to keep Partey.
Because we're adding Timber also, which is added depth.
And most reports say we will only sell Partey if we get another midfielder in like Lavia (more depth).
We'll increase the squad by 2 players (Timber and a midfielder). Then we have ESR back who didn't play a part at all last season really, so maybe 3 players really.
Ok. Makes sense now. Surprised with all the talk of selling partey who at one stage was our casemiro -- the team played differently when he wasn't playing.
Personally i'd keep him. For 75% of the season he played a top top class level. The last 7ish games of the season he dropped off. The club might just see it as a time to cash in as he did have injury issues and hasn't got too long left on his contract. For me though he is a top class midfielder.
What's happened to his court case? Seems like united supporters are pretty woke compared to goobers.
It's more that you're not meant to talk about it on here?
Arteta is an annoying scrote, so I'll be crossing my fingers that they flame out in spectacular fashion.
I think they'll try to go too hard right from the start and end up with some morale-sapping draws in the first 5-7 games. Plus dropped points early in the season would attract a lot of questions like "is the title challenge already over?" Can see that getting to him.
Nothing new really but with that hanging over his head, could be another reason we may look to move him on. He's brilliant but it looks like he cannot maintain that high level over the course of a full season. The drop-off in the last month or so was pretty significant. I think his age and injuries have caught up to him.