By DJ's Locker Room
August 31 2021
The Transfer deadline has been reached. DJ a regular AT contributor has summed up Arsenal's activity here all in one place, and gives his assessment.
Contract extensions – we managed to get contract extensions for Tierney, Saka, Smith-Rowe, Balogun, Azeez and Taylor-Hart – all young players with a real future at the club. All good business. We also extended Nelson & Xhaka’s contract by one year to protect their value when we want to sell them next year when the market may have picked up.
Sales/ending contracts– The dreadful mistakes of signing Willian &
Runarsson (now leaving on loan) have been swiftly rectified. Willian has gone (releasing £200k pw or £10m pa off the wage bill). Bellerin have gone too (releasing a further £100k pw or £5m pa off the wage bill). We have sold Willock for £20m+. Probably the right thing to do to release funds. We have also sold off some academy players (for undisclosed but probably small amounts): Bola, McGuiness, Sheaf, Coyle & Medley.
Loans out – We have loaned out the following: Guendouzi, Saliba, Mavropanos, Torreira, Bellerin, Nelson, Runarsson (from the first team),and academy players like Azeez, Ballard, John-Jules, M Smith, Osei-Tutu, Moller, Clarke & Alebiosou. The only loan out of that lot that I have a problem with is Saliba. It seems almost wilfully stupid to loan out three tall, strong central defenders like Saliba, Mavropanos & Ballard (given our other centre back options). We really should have held on to Saliba.
Transfers in – we have signed six players: Tavares, Lokonga, White, Odegaard, Ramsdale, Tomiyasu. They all have a youthful profile – all between 21 and 23 years old, and are seen as potentially long-term first team players.
As a result we have reduced our squad average age to 24.6 years (or 24.2 years if you include those out on loan). We paid over the odds for White and Ramsdale, but other PL home-grown young prospects have also gone for high sums in this window. We played better with Odegaard last season and it is good to get him permanently. White is an upgrade on our other centre backs and Tomiyasu is probably better than any of our other Right Back options.
Lokonga looks a good addition from first impressions. Ramsdale – too early to tell but his strong character and organising strength at the back is welcome. Tavares is a rough diamond but only a back-up for Tierney at this stage and has significant room to improve. But it is clear that the signings are not going to make a big difference to the team in the short term. We did much better in the second half of last season – hopefully the new signings will have the same impact and our season will gradually improve as they all bed i
Deals not done – considering how much else had to be done, it is maybe churlish to moan but it seems crazy that we didn’t get deals done to offload Kolasinac, Maitland-Niles and Nketiah. The Maitland-Niles affair was an embarrassment. None of them realistically have a long-term future at the club. And we should have sold Lacazette and invested in a new central attacker. But perhaps the biggest disappointment is that there are no “wow factor” signings and we still look below par in key areas – central midfield, and in attacking creativity and delivery. And while the youthful profile has improved, we look physically light weight through the spine of the team.
Context - every football pundit confirms it has been the most difficult transfer window anyone can recall especially if (as in our case) you are dependent on trying to shift a lot of unwanted players out. Let’s also remind ourselves that everyone on this site agreed it would take a few years to overcome the damage to the squad wreaked by Silent Stan, the end of the Wenger years and Unai Emery. This window is still a work in progress. And of course, being out of Europe and seen as a club in decline, it has not been easy to attract top quality players to the club, at prices we could afford. These are not excuses – just a realistic assessment of the context we faced in this transfer window.
Overall– a bit under-whelming. Lots of tidying up of the squad, clearing out more deadwood. And a clear youth-based project emerging, which is welcome. But plenty of missed opportunities - look at Leicester’s transfer business as an example of what might have happened. We are now heavily dependent on a huge improvement in our young players expected to play week in, week out this season and the next to have any chance of eventually breaking back into the top 4.
Quote:I hate to say it but creativity comes from Wide areas for most teams.mapleleafgooner
Underwhelming transfer window imo. Did not sufficiently address the midfield creativity and goal scoring from midfield issues. Spent too much on White who struggled against Brentford when dealing with high balls - which should be bread and butter for defenders in the EPL. Lokonga is a very good prospect but with Partey proving to be very injury proned, adding Bissouma would make more sense. With Xhaka staying on a new contract, I don't think Arteta will have the b@lls to drop Xhaka for another DM to partner Partey. Tavares is still raw and keeping Kolasinac as backup to Tierney makes sense for the time being. Ramsdale is definitely a good backup keeper compared to Runarrson but at a price which would have been better spent on another creative midfielder besides Odegaard. Tomiyasu seems like a good defender but this is his first exposure to the physicality of the EPL after stints in the Italian, Belgium and Japanese leagues - it will be a test for him. Getting Willian off the payroll is a win for Edu and Arteta though they must take the blame for the deal in the first place. Also good to get others like Bellerin, Nelson and Runarrson off on loan. The AMN situation could have been handled better and not spilled into the public domain.
Quote:CazOnARola
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I hate to say it but creativity comes from Wide areas for most teams.
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The biggest improvement in creativity needs to come from Saka, ESR, Odegaard and Pepe supported by Martinelli, Auba, Lokonga abd Partey.
I mean if our wide men do not improve on their final balls, Pepe (1 assist), Saka (3 assists) we are @#$%&.
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Quote:You missed a crucial part of my post... I said "bad teams".mapleleafgoonerQuote:CazOnARola
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I hate to say it but creativity comes from Wide areas for most teams.
..........
The biggest improvement in creativity needs to come from Saka, ESR, Odegaard and Pepe supported by Martinelli, Auba, Lokonga abd Partey.
I mean if our wide men do not improve on their final balls, Pepe (1 assist), Saka (3 assists) we are @#$%&.
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Can't just rely on our wide players to create. It is certainly an attacking option. Problem is we do not have strong forwards who can attack the crosses/passes from wide areas. ManCity attacks alot from the wings with high accurate crosses but they put a lot of their players in the box to attack the crosses or pick up the rebounds. With Silva departing, they brought in Grealish to complement De Bruyne who both can bring the ball up the middle and make passes behind the opposing defence. Partey tries that but he is not the most accurate passer from deep. Odegaard can run and carry the ball thru the middle but it would be ideal to have another attacking midfielder who can do that on a regular basis. Xhaka can't carry the ball up field and relies on long balls over the opposing defence for our forwards to latch on but he is far from accurate or consistent (provided he is not sent off already).
Quote:Tierney on 100k now.karteta16
For Arsenal the transfer window is ONLY about new signings. Remember our owners don't need the money. So all players we don't need can be left out of the squad like Ozil was. Renewal of contracts are not praiseworthy especially if you have them on 90k
Quote:Oxlade-Chamberlain (out to Liverpool for ยฃ34million) and Wojciech Szczesny (to Juventus for ยฃ12million). Debatable decisions.
