Arsenal Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2013

gnfnrhead

Deleted User wrote: »

Other than Fellaini a top class Centre back should be our next priority.

Koscielny and Mertesacker are one of the best pairings in the league. So long as we have Vermaelen after that, CB should be well down the list of priorities.

wandatowell

id take hig or Rooney, but ideally Id have the hig.

For other signings a left sided midfielder would be nice. DM is a must too. I cant shake the idea that Nacho will get our left back berth with Gibbs playing further up the field.

Gibbs has shown some he can get business done while on the front foot.

So bloody excited about Higgers!
Is he our first Argie?


p.s. I'll never say higgers ever again (unless we sign him)

gnfnrhead

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Koscielny and Mertesacker are one of the best pairings in the league. So long as we have Vermaelen after that, CB should be well down the list of priorities.

Verm has had a poor season with no guarantee about his Arsenal future. Coupled with Squillachi and probably Djourou also set to leave we badly need competition in that area. What if Mert or Koc were to get injured? Then where would we be? All good squads thrive on competition for places anyhow and another centre back challenging the existing order can only be a good thing.

wandatowell

wandatowell wrote: »

id take hig or Rooney, but ideally Id have the hig.

For other signings a left sided midfielder would be nice. DM is a must too. I cant shake the idea that Nacho will get our left back berth with Gibbs playing further up the field.

Gibbs has shown some he can get business done while on the front foot.

So bloody excited about Higgers!
Is he our first Argie?


p.s. I'll never say higgers ever again (unless we sign him)

Nelson Vivas was our first back in 1998 followed soon after by Fabian Caballero who had a brief spell at the club.

At the moment we have Damian Martinez, a young goalkeeper who made appearances in the Carling cup last season.

gnfnrhead

Deleted User wrote: »

Verm has had a poor season with no guarantee about his Arsenal future. Coupled with Squillachi and probably Djourou also set to leave we badly need competition in that area. What if Mert or Koc were to get injured? Then where would we be? All good squads thrive on competition for places anyhow and another centre back challenging the existing order can only be a good thing.

Vermaelen was great before hand though. No reason to think he wont be able to get back to that. As for his future, hasnt he said he is staying to fight for his place?

This next part is nearly always forgotten about during transfer windows.

The 25 man limit. It means we have to think about the entire squad. Last season we were at something like 22 out of 25 so there isnt a ton of room there. 8 of which have to be home grown or left blank.

As it is:

3 - Szczesny (HG), Fabianski, Mannone
6 - Sagna, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gibbs (HG), Monreal
8 - Rosicky, Arteta, Ramsey (HG), Cazorla, Walcott (HG), Podolski, Coquelin (HG), Diaby
2 - Gervinho, Giroud
3 - Missing HG players

Thats leaving out the likes of Chamakh and Santos.

I doubt any of the others are counted as home grown meaning we only have 3 spots left unless they are home grown or under 21 years of age. Higuain and Fellaini would leave us with only 1 spot unless they are classed as home grown.

To make it worse, next year Wilshere and Jenkinson, along with Frimpong, will need to be registered as they'll be over 21. I think that one spot can be better used elsewhere.

dvemail

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Vermaelen was great before hand though. No reason to think he wont be able to get back to that. As for his future, hasnt he said he is staying to fight for his place?

This next part is nearly always forgotten about during transfer windows.

The 25 man limit. It means we have to think about the entire squad. Last season we were at something like 22 out of 25 so there isnt a ton of room there. 8 of which have to be home grown or left blank.

As it is:

3 - Szczesny (HG), Fabianski, Mannone
6 - Sagna, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gibbs (HG), Monreal
8 - Rosicky, Arteta, Ramsey (HG), Cazorla, Walcott (HG), Podolski, Coquelin (HG), Diaby
2 - Gervinho, Giroud
3 - Missing HG players

Thats leaving out the likes of Chamakh and Santos.

I doubt any of the others are counted as home grown meaning we only have 3 spots left unless they are home grown or under 21 years of age. Higuain and Fellaini would leave us with only 1 spot unless they are classed as home grown.

To make it worse, next year Wilshere and Jenkinson, along with Frimpong, will need to be registered as they'll be over 21. I think that one spot can be better used elsewhere.

Jenkinson is also homegrown, as is The Ox and Djourou if he returns.
Pretty sure Vito Mannone is as well. We will still need to sell a few others though to make room.

wandatowell

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Nelson Vivas was our first back in 1998 followed soon after by Fabian Caballero who had a brief spell at the club.

At the moment we have Damian Martinez, a young goalkeeper who made appearances in the Carling cup last season.

serious facepalm on my part. How could I forget the beauty that was Vivas. He was a right dirty little fecker if I remember correctly

Liam O

Huge fan of Higuain, happy enough he's going to Arsenal and not City or Chelsea, looking forward to seeing him in the league, just hope he gets a small injury that keeps him out against United

Liam O

Liam O wrote: »

Huge fan of Higuain, happy enough he's going to Arsenal and not City or Chelsea, looking forward to seeing him in the league, just hope he gets a small injury that keeps him out against United

Pod or Giroud....maybe both, will go apesh*t that day and nab a few goals

Hope and pray this could become a reality folks

Marty McFly

The Rooney rumors haven't died down only yesterday I read that were trying to tie up the Higuain deal and Rooney could be next.

I still don't believe Rooney to Arsenal will happen though.

batistuta9

gnfnrhead wrote: »

This next part is nearly always forgotten about during transfer windows.

The 25 man limit. It means we have to think about the entire squad. Last season we were at something like 22 out of 25 so there isnt a ton of room there. 8 of which have to be home grown or left blank.

As it is:

3 - Szczesny (HG), Fabianski, Mannone
6 - Sagna, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gibbs (HG), Monreal
8 - Rosicky, Arteta, Ramsey (HG), Cazorla, Walcott (HG), Podolski, Coquelin (HG), Diaby
2 - Gervinho, Giroud
3 - Missing HG players

Thats leaving out the likes of Chamakh and Santos.

I doubt any of the others are counted as home grown meaning we only have 3 spots left unless they are home grown or under 21 years of age. Higuain and Fellaini would leave us with only 1 spot unless they are classed as home grown.

To make it worse, next year Wilshere and Jenkinson, along with Frimpong, will need to be registered as they'll be over 21. I think that one spot can be better used elsewhere.

the only time 8 have to be HG is if you name 25. you don't have to name 25, like in february arsenal named 22 like you say.

the real rule of it is, that you can only name a maximum of 17 non-HG

of the 19 you list, 13 are non-HG (mannone as someone said is HG)
so they're 4 places left for non-HG players (higuain, fellaini, ?, ?) & 2 for HG (rooney :pac:, ?)

that's assuming nobody leaves; Vermaelen, gervinho could go, one or both of fabianski & mannone, coquelin possibly, diaby could be left out until the february squad if really needed

Wilshere, Jenkinson & Frimpong are all u21 for this season coming, chamberlain as well, though he has two seasons left where it's the other threes last

wandatowell

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Pod or Giroud....maybe both, will go apesh*t that day and nab a few goals

or Santi might curl in another beauty

.jacksparrow.

http://www.marca.com/2013/06/23/futbol/ ... 00026.html

Jorge Higuain, player's father, is clear: "Real Madrid will decide. Still no signature, but I can assure you that the agreement both with Arsenal and Juventus are very advanced," he told La Gazzetta dello Sport ' .

Far from done deal, have we got ahead of ourselves?

Fuzzy_Dunlop

At least we have the advantage (which seems to have been in our favour in the past too) is that we have the cash money to pay up front. So therefore, the solution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dPjONDN3ZI

greendom

The other thing is they are supposed to be close to signing Jovetic too. Can't see how they can afford both when they can only pay in installments anyway. Unless a more serious bidder comes into the frame I'm very hopeful he'll end up at Arsenal

gnfnrhead

dvemail wrote: »

Jenkinson is also homegrown, as is The Ox and Djourou if he returns.
Pretty sure Vito Mannone is as well. We will still need to sell a few others though to make room.

Jenkinson and Chamberlain are under 21 so don't need to be registered. Same deal with Wilshere, who if he was born a day later, would have to be registered this season. They don't count as home grown because they don't need to be registered. Wasn't sure about Mannone but it still leaves us tight on numbers. Including him, we can have a max of 23 unless they are home grown. We're awfully close to that as is and over it if we include the likes of Chamakh etc. I'm already leaving out players to give us those free spots. If we can't get rid of them, Wenger won't leave them in the reserves, he'll try include them.

Is Williams home grown? If not, Rooney is the only one we've been linked with. Pretty much everyone else has been foreign meaning we're very limited in how many we can sign.

Going to be a lot harder next summer when we have to include Wilshere and Jenkinson, along with Frimpong if he breaks in. I can only see us getting rid of two or three from our current first team (Gervinho, Diaby, one of the GK's) so we'll have the same problems next year and that's before we sign anyone this year

gnfnrhead

batistuta9 wrote: »

the only time 8 have to be HG is if you name 25. you don't have to name 25, like in february arsenal named 22 like you say.

the real rule of it is, that you can only name a maximum of 17 non-HG

of the 19 you list, 13 are non-HG (mannone as someone said is HG)
so they're 4 places left for non-HG players (higuain, fellaini, ?, ?) & 2 for HG (rooney :pac:, ?)

that's assuming nobody leaves; Vermaelen, gervinho could go, one or both of fabianski & mannone, coquelin possibly, diaby could be left out until the february squad if really needed

Wilshere, Jenkinson & Frimpong are all u21 for this season coming, chamberlain as well, though he has two seasons left where it's the other threes last

That's why I added the number for missing HG players. They have to either filled with a HG player, or left empty. I can't see any of those leaving this season, Diaby maybe left out if needed since he won't even be considered until February and that's assuming no set backs. The rest I think will be in, leaving us tight on numbers.

The reason I brought this up is because its hardly ever mentioned but people expect loads of signings. We only have a couple of free spots before we can't play some players anymore.

TheGunns

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Jenkinson and Chamberlain are under 21 so don't need to be registered. Same deal with Wilshere, who if he was born a day later, would have to be registered this season.

Just on this, they dont need to be registered but can be to meet homegrown requirements. We don't have to sign homegrown since we are already able to meet the requirements.

Would be nice to have some older homegrown players but we would pay through the nose for them and we could probably get better players from abroad.

Fuzzy_Dunlop

Didn't Wenger register like 70 U21's one of the last few years?

brianregan09

Wish they would get the deal done now, I don't believe the no manager thing for a second, Since when did Real Madrid of all teams need a manager to sign off on anything

gosplan

The good thing about all of this is that the Arsenal board are desperate this year and we shouldn't see any penny pinching from them.

The only way I can see us being blown out of the water is if City or someone come in and offer him 250k pw.

Can't see us backing down on transfer fee.

Soups123

gosplan wrote: »

The good thing about all of this is that the Arsenal board are desperate this year and we shouldn't see any penny pinching from them.

The only way I can see us being blown out of the water is if City or someone come in and offer him 250k pw.

Can't see us backing down on transfer fee.

I really want to be optimistic like you but until the first major deal gets done this just looks very like the Mata/Villa/M'Villa chase all over again its all paper talk.

I want and hope more than anytime recently that we have turned the corner with regards to transfers but I need convincing yet

extra gravy

Seems it's now become an auction.

keano_afc

I usually dont belive a word Balague says. Not changing that now.

Fuzzy_Dunlop

Plus it's essentially just a rehash of what Higuain's dad said.

extra gravy

Has Balague ever got anything right? Speaking of new signings, Sanogo is in action again for France U20s at 4pm on Eurosport.

gnfnrhead

Soups123 wrote: »

I really want to be optimistic like you but until the first major deal gets done this just looks very like the Mata/Villa/M'Villa chase all over again its all paper talk.

I want and hope more than anytime recently that we have turned the corner with regards to transfers but I need convincing yet

We were in for Mata but Chelsea blew us out of the water as soon as they found out. It's not exactly a secret that we're in for Higuain and yet Juve remain the only opposition.

Marty McFly

gnfnrhead wrote: »

We were in for Mata but Chelsea blew us out of the water as soon as they found out. It's not exactly a secret that we're in for Higuain and yet Juve remain the only opposition.

Yeh but the fear is the longer it drags on the more chance of a oil rich club coming in a blowing us out the water, we clearly have more financial power than Juve so lets not mess about go in blow them out the water and get it done and dusted no penny pinching.

Soups123

gnfnrhead wrote: »

We were in for Mata but Chelsea blew us out of the water as soon as they found out. It's not exactly a secret that we're in for Higuain and yet Juve remain the only opposition.

But the papers had it signed, a done deal being announced on the Monday etc... when it was only ever an advanced bid same with the others I mentioned.

I'm not doubting us bidding and being in with a shout but I dont believe its as done as a deal as the media are making out, same as I dont believe there is an ounce of interest in Rooney.

Time will tell and I for one will be over the moon if we make signings like Fellani etc but until I see one happening just aint getting too excited

Pepe LeFrits

On a different note, I find Chelsea's new shirt deal with Adidas quite interesting as it suggests to me that they are getting on-board with FFP. Their deal appears to be quite competitive and at a similar rate to our rumoured deal with Puma, but their term - 10 years - isn't. It reminds me of our original deal with Emirates - 8 years - which we locked ourselves into because we needed the cash to finance the stadium. It looked competitive at the time but quickly became a millstone (£6.8m a year being replaced 8 years later by a deal between £30-£35m a year shows how much the market can move). I don't see why Chelsea would lock themselves into a such a restrictive long-term deal unless they badly needed cash now, and I can't see any reason for such a need other than FFP.

It remains to be seen what effect FFP will have on the likes of Man City, PSG and Monaco, but redressing the financial imbalance with our London neighbours would be at least one step in the right direction.

.jacksparrow.

I agree I don't think this deal is anywhere near where people think, I'd say Madrid will hold off until they think they have the biggest bidder, their probably thinkin city might come in seems they might not be getting Cavani.

Best not to get hopes up knowing our record. Be nice to hear some fresh links.

If we dont get Higuain i reckon we'll get Jovetic but from what i hear, Juve (or at least Antonio Conte) prefers Jovetic so that will pave the way for Higgy to join us.

.jacksparrow.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

If we dont get Higuain i reckon we'll get Jovetic but from what i hear, Juve (or at least Antonio Conte) prefers Jovetic so that will pave the way for Higgy to join us.

Or we could end up with neither!

Giroud and Sanogo spearheading our attack next season!

.jacksparrow.

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

Or we could end up with neither!

Giroud and Sanogo spearheading our attack next season!

I have faith we'll land a striker and I think personally Higuain will wish to test himself in the Premier League and will come to us.

Of course the arse could fall out but im.....welll......about 90% confident of success in this one

gnfnrhead

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

It remains to be seen what effect FFP will have on the likes of Man City, PSG and Monaco, but redressing the financial imbalance with our London neighbours would be at least one step in the right direction.

Monaco dont need to worry about it. The tax issue means they can spend a lot more before it becomes an issue. Plus, it only affects teams competing in the Champions League, so Monaco are in the clear for this season anyway.

Mr Blobby

Do you think we'd have the cash to out bid Juve?

Mickeroo

gnfnrhead wrote: »

Monaco dont need to worry about it. The tax issue means they can spend a lot more before it becomes an issue. Plus, it only affects teams competing in the Champions League, so Monaco are in the clear for this season anyway.

Yeah I think I read somewhere the likes of PSG would have had to pay Falcao way more than Monaco to be able to equal the take home pay he's getting there just due to the tax.

.jacksparrow.

Mr Blobby wrote: »

Do you think we'd have the cash to out bid Juve?

Definitely its just if city or Chelsea decide to join the race its goodnight Irene.

Marty McFly

Mr Blobby wrote: »

Do you think we'd have the cash to out bid Juve?

Without a doubt, Juve aren't cash rich at the moment no Serie A club is really they moved to a new smaller stadium Italian football isn't bringing in the commercial deals or crowds to match La Liga, EPL or the Bundesliga.

Juve are looking to pay whichever transfer they do in installments were as we have have the cash there to pay it up front, for once we have the financial clout to out do a club.

.jacksparrow.

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

Definitely its just if city or Chelsea decide to join the race its goodnight Irene.

Id agree but i dont think they will though. City maybe a slight chance but i doubt that Chelsea will

Corvo

If Higuain didn't come off, what other players would Arsenal fans be happy to get in the side? Realistically.

Jovetic?

Benteke?

Michu?

Marty McFly

Marty McFly wrote: »

Without a doubt, Juve aren't cash rich at the moment no Serie A club is really they moved to a new smaller stadium Italian football isn't bringing in the commercial deals or crowds to match La Liga, EPL or the Bundesliga.

Juve are looking to pay whichever transfer they do in installments were as we have have the cash there to pay it up front, for once we have the financial clout to out do a club.

Not just any club either but an institution of European and Italian football. I can remember them making public declarations of interest in our players back around 99/00, offering wad loads but the boot is on the other foot now

Mickeroo

Corvo wrote: »

If Higuain didn't come off, what other players would Arsenal fans be happy to get in the side? Realistically.

Jovetic?

Benteke?

Michu?

I'd imagine they'd ramp up their efforts to land either Rooney or Jovetic. They seem fairly determined to land a big name.

Corvo

Corvo wrote: »

If Higuain didn't come off, what other players would Arsenal fans be happy to get in the side? Realistically.

Jovetic?

Benteke?

Michu?

Jovetic out of those 3. Ive a sneaky feeling the other 2 could be 1 season wonders. In fact Michu had a quiet enough second half to the season.

AdamD

Sanogo scored a pen. Looks a decent player but I wouldn't fancy him as our 2nd choice striker atm

Corvo

I think Benteke would be a good option, but he is probably a bit too similar to Giroud as to what he would bring to the side.

Michu was quiet in the second half of the season, you're right.

Is the plan for the front line to be Giroud with Jovetic / Rooney? Like two up front or is it a lone striker as per usual?

tayto lover

Deleted User wrote: »

If we dont get Higuain i reckon we'll get Jovetic but from what i hear, Juve (or at least Antonio Conte) prefers Jovetic so that will pave the way for Higgy to join us.

Why is the other bidder always more powerful than us?
Time to take the brakes off Arsene & Co., stop pissing about and get the job done.

Unless we bring in a big name starter, Wenger will want to give Giroud the freedom to lead the line after a very good first season for him.

The Rooney rumours are ridiculous, even though I think he's a good player, there's no way we would even consider paying those types of wages.
Whilst I believe the club wanna stretch the budget and get Wenger to spend on a big name signing, they won't want to destroy the wage structure for one name, 250k a week currently.

Higuain or Jovetic would probably stretch the wage structure as it is, but either would be fantastic signings, if Wenger has a 2 Striker strategy in mind that is.

AdamD

I was under the impression the current wage 'structure' no longer exists. By that I mean new signings won't be constrained by the structure which has been used up to this point. I'm sure somebody will point out that if Higuain came in on 150k others would be pushing for wage increases but everyone of note has signed a contract in the last 18 months and frankly none of them have shown anything in their careers to suggest they deserve to be on the same money as a Higuain or a Rooney.