TWITCHY TIMES
FEAR NOT FELLOW FIENDS, OUR TIME IS COMING
The hardest part of any transfer window, especially if you're a fiend for transfers, is watching everyone else get high off of fast moves while you sit in the car park of Colney literally begging for a hit of anything.
Manchester United seem to have taken the cuts to staff meals so far, they're able to operate like they just won the Champions League with their outlays. They've spent well in my humble opinion. Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha before the first day of summer is some movement. They've added hard work, goals, and a bit of bang BANG Arsenal lack.
You can't deny that those two wouldn't have done well at Arsenal. They fit the general profile, if a little older. They are Premier League experienced and they have a set of G&As so solid, you don't need to ask one of the stats bloggers to help you see it. The only question I had was over the attitude of Cunha. Putting someone with that sort of body language in a dressing room like Arsenal is fine… but Cunha looks like he could let the toxic fumes of Old Trafford get into his arteries.
My other question that has been nagging me is… are they getting the money for all of this party time window work because Saudi are going to put £100m their way for Bruno Fernandes? Arsenal went there last summer, why is PIF so against buying up one of our players for that sort of cash? I swear man, if our early Arteta banter team was around during the Saudi Sports Era, we'd have made a small fortune.
So, we haven't seen any official unveilings yet, but we do know a few things that I've told you before, so I'll repeat them.
Zubimendi is the best 6 in Europe and that deal has been locked for over a year, at least in terms of fee, and a principle agreement from the player.
Sesko and Gyokeres are the main interest points from a striker perspective - unless Newcastle do a madness without a Sporting Director in place. Both deals are fairly straightforward to do. This notion being peddled that Arsenal are only just investigating the structure of a deal is ridiculous. Arsenal will have been talking to clubs for months working out what needs to be done to ensure movement at exceptional speed.
Only one word of caution, don't anchor yourself too closely to any one player at this point… things change fast in football and a lot of decisions will be made in the moment, especially if new options like, say, a Raheem Sterling come available at a cut price deal.
Just kidding on Raheem, hopefully we've learned a very good lesson there… 29-year-old players that rely on pace are NOT a good bet.
Yeah, I'm watching you, Ollie Watkins lovers…
Something non-football that I am watching this off season is how the backroom team is going to be shaped. Arsenal are losing Jason Ayto and a decade's worth of institutional knowledge. Does that gap get filled by someone behind him or are we going to let Andrea Berta bring his people in and slowly populate the technical team with his people that he liked from Atletico?
I'm also interested to know whether he is a technical Sporting Director, or just a suit with a BlackBerry.
Arteta isn't very good at managing squad load. Is there a hire who can help with that?
Does Andrea Berta have any feeling for things we lack in the dressing room department that could be beneficial?
Does Arteta have some ideas about how he can upgrade behind the scenes as he seeks out some edge for the upcoming year?
Ok, I'll say it… IS SANTI JOINING AS A COACH? A move for the nostalgist pining for simpler times.
P.S. Johnny’s end of season wrap is here… ratings of the ratings type thing.
Inzaghi going to earn 26m a year tax free.
Wow
One of the biggest problems we have as a club is Arteta's inability to see what's right in front of him. Just by having a good talent ID, we could have saved half the transfer fees we've spent under him. Looking at the Manchester city youth team of 2020/2021,that won epl 2 by a wide margin, we could have comfortably picked at least four of them for pittance and save ourselves from shelling out ridiculous fees for players like Havertz and Rice. Among those players were James Trafford, Romeo Lavia, Morgan Rogers, Cole Palmer and. Liam Delap. I think Jeremy Frimpong and Michael Olise left them few years previously probably when Arteta was already there. That Arteta didn't think any of them was good enough to be taken on the cheap when Man City couldn't properly integrate them into the first team is simply criminal. And he was there and watched those boys game after game after game.
So aside having zero talent ID, pathetic in-game management and an arrogance of someone that's won it all, he also has relatively poor man management abilities by being unable to manage youths like Guendozi and probably Nwaneri.
If he has all these demerits then why do people really think he's the man for Arsenal?
5 years is a long time in football and he couldn't have had it rosier with all the top 4 teams, except Man City, falling apart as he stabilized. Sadly, in those 5 years, Chelsea are almost back to becoming superpowers again, the Liverpool we bested two seasons in a row won the league without a singular meaningful addition, Man City are on a slow rebuild that'll have its solid foundation in a returning rejuvenated Rodri, and if Man United continue to transform their attack as they're doing, and manage to keep Bruni Fernandes in the process, we may be in for a very torrid ride next season.
And we are making their jobs easy by sitting idly on our hands and watching all the good players get picked up one after the other.
Next season won't be as easy as the last 3 and we may be back to fighting for top 4 if we don't pick it up and have a window like the one Raul had.
Berta had better be as good as people say because the job to be done this summer is staggering.