WALCOTT - which position is best etc?

[Rohan]

He can only sign a pre-contract with a foreign club,
so if Prem clubs are interested its as buyers...

Not necessarily.

They've probably been talking to Theo's agents for months, letting him know exactly what sort of wages/signing on fee he'd be getting if he ran his contract down.

Theo won't be stressing in March or April if nothing has been officially agreed. He'll know full well what deals are on the table.

Anyway, I'm still hoping a deal can be agreed.

Hopefully he will sign a new deal. There are not many goal scoring wingers in the league. He is no worse than Young.

[highburyJD]

Young is just a cheat, Feo's way better

[SteveO 35]

My biggest fear with this whole situation is what happens on the final couple of days in the transfer window. Wenger is saying that we will risk losing him for nothing by making him stay but what happens if City or Liverpool come in with a bigger than anticipated offer on the final day of the window. Surely Kroenke and Gazidis's resolve will be tested if the contract hasn't been agreed and someone comes along with say £15m - money that we will receive far too late to invest in improvements even if we wanted to.

If that does happen then we are in for a terrible second half to the season of watching Wenger persist with the useless forehead

[donaldo]

My biggest fear with this whole situation is what happens on the final couple of days in the transfer window. Wenger is saying that we will risk losing him for nothing by making him stay but what happens if City or Liverpool come in with a bigger than anticipated offer on the final day of the window. Surely Kroenke and Gazidis's resolve will be tested if the contract hasn't been agreed and someone comes along with say £15m - money that we will receive far too late to invest in improvements even if we wanted to.

If that does happen then we are in for a terrible second half to the season of watching Wenger persist with the useless forehead

SteveO who is going to pay £15m for a player who goes for free 4 months later? We would be lucky to get £5m

As i have said many times give the Ox a long run in the side and within 6 months it will be Feo who?

[SteveO 35]

My biggest fear with this whole situation is what happens on the final couple of days in the transfer window. Wenger is saying that we will risk losing him for nothing by making him stay but what happens if City or Liverpool come in with a bigger than anticipated offer on the final day of the window. Surely Kroenke and Gazidis's resolve will be tested if the contract hasn't been agreed and someone comes along with say £15m - money that we will receive far too late to invest in improvements even if we wanted to.

If that does happen then we are in for a terrible second half to the season of watching Wenger persist with the useless forehead

SteveO who is going to pay £15m for a player who goes for free 4 months later? We would be lucky to get £5m

As i have said many times give the Ox a long run in the side and within 6 months it will be Feo who?

Never under estimate how stupid Chelsea and Man City can be in the transfer window - they'll both probably have new managers keen to flex their muscles in the window. I never thought we'd get 24m for RvP given that he could have been signed for fuck all a year later

Oxlade Chamberlain doesn't have the end product that Walcott does yet. In six months? Possibly but we need more than one quality player in each position - that has been our downfall for too long. Scratch beneath the surface of the first XI and the replacements aren't up to scratch. Who would back up the Ox - Gnabry? The Lazy Russian?

When Walcott leaves and the Self Harmer shows his usual lack of ambition in the transfer window we'll be cursing the day he left. Just watch the Ox get injured and having Gnabry or the Forehead running around at the Nou Camp

[SteveO 35]

Looked great again without his pace and directness again yesterday didn't we?

And yet there are still people wanting Chamberlain to be installed as automatic first choice - he was fucking awful yesterday. The worst player out there by a mile.

And look at all those options we've got from the bench - the fat, lazy Russian who wants to be here even less, and surely the least technical, most pathetic attacking player to grace the red and white for sometime i.e. the clueless forehead. Jesus, he couldn't trap a bag of cement and his second touch is a tackle to win the ball back (something he also can't execute properly)

And yet when Walcott goes, we'll be stuck with these options plus our 'new signing' Gnabry that we sourced from the 'internal' transfer market

Never mind at least we have a 35 year old coming in on loan for seven weeks

[donaldo]

I will hold my hands up SteveO Chamberlain was fucking awful yesterday and stunk the joint out.But that doesnt make Feo a good player and worth a contract of £25m.Thats the problem at the club now we judge how good a player is because they are not as bad as one of their teamates

[northbank123]

I will hold my hands up SteveO Chamberlain was fucking awful yesterday and stunk the joint out.But that doesnt make Feo a good player and worth a contract of £25m.Thats the problem at the club now we judge how good a player is because they are not as bad as one of their teamates

I agree with you that that's a poor benchmark to be using. Walcott doesn't deserve £100k/w but imo he has, after years of not delivering any end product, in the last year started to show more composure, better decision-making and greatly-improved crossing and finishing. Given the fact that with Wenger in charge the best we'll do is sign an unproven replacement who may never come good and if he does do then he'll take years to do so, it's impossible to ignore the fact that if Feo goes it significantly weakens our options.

[Vinny1967]

I think all this talk about what a player deserves just muddies the subject. I don't think any of them deserve 100k a week, not just Theo and certainly none of them deserve 220k a week.

According to those in the know Pod is earning 90k per week. We would not be breaking any wage structure by paying him that and according to noises coming out this would be accepted.

Still think Walcott offers us something different and would be well worth the money. He is getting better every season, has openly stated he wants to play for the Arsenal and is worth holding onto imo.

[markyp]

i still cant believe people are doubting Walnutts ability,the stats show he is our best player this season,he is a little ray of light in a very dark tunnel,ok he isnt Pires but how the fuck do you replace a god like Pires.if Walnutt was a man u player right now and showing his current form we'd be drooling over him wishing he was a gooner,watch him leave in january and fulfill his potential and piss all over us when he visits the emirates

[northbank123]

I think all this talk about what a player deserves just muddies the subject. I don't think any of them deserve 100k a week, not just Theo and certainly none of them deserve 220k a week.

According to those in the know Pod is earning 90k per week. We would not be breaking any wage structure by paying him that and according to noises coming out this would be accepted.

Still think Walcott offers us something different and would be well worth the money. He is getting better every season, has openly stated he wants to play for the Arsenal and is worth holding onto imo.

To an extent yes, but if Wenger publicly baulks and gives him £100k a week there could be several other members of our squad justifiably demanding the same.

[Vinny1967]

I think all this talk about what a player deserves just muddies the subject. I don't think any of them deserve 100k a week, not just Theo and certainly none of them deserve 220k a week.

According to those in the know Pod is earning 90k per week. We would not be breaking any wage structure by paying him that and according to noises coming out this would be accepted.

Still think Walcott offers us something different and would be well worth the money. He is getting better every season, has openly stated he wants to play for the Arsenal and is worth holding onto imo.

To an extent yes, but if Wenger publicly baulks and gives him £100k a week there could be several other members of our squad justifiably demanding the same.

According to reports he won't have to pay him that amount to keep him. Don't see people complaining about Pod's reported 90k a week. I think he is worth at least what Pod is on.

[EC3]

According to today's Times Walcott has his house for sale in Hertfordshire, strange as it also said he only bought a year ago.

[SteveO 35]

I agree with your points Vinny - everybody's getting hung about 100k per week, but at the same time get animated when we don't pay the highest wages to attract players

And I have been waiting for some time now for people to come forward and tell me who this range of wonderful world class players are that will sign for us within 100k per week

So far Augie has offered up David Villa - an undoubted top class player but one that wouldn't sign for the wages on offer here and even if he was for sale would trigger an auction at 'dizzying prices'. So we have no chance of signing him in reality under this ownership and management structure

So come on chaps - if £100k per week is an outrageous amount of money then can we please have the list of better players we can sign for within that budget? And don't go down the route of "if Chamakh, Arshavin and Denilson are sold that frees up £200k per week in wages that we can give to one player" - simple logic that works for us, but the club will NEVER pay that to one player. We had a player worthy of those wages already at the club and wouldn't pay it, so he would never give that to a newbie

People will only realise what a fucking gross mistake it is to let Walcott go when we have to endure week after week of turgid shit like yesterday watching Chamberlain do his "Walcott of 3 years ago" impression, the Forehead knocking the ball into touch with his awful control, Podolski routinely subbed after 70 mins, Le Chapman just being generally ordinary, and the Chamster tucked up in bed watching it at home.

[richpye]

According to today's Times Walcott has his house for sale in Hertfordshire, strange as it also said he only bought a year ago.

It's not his house, it's one he bought for a family member.

Like others on here have said, what's the max we would get for Walcott in Jan? £5 million?

To replace him, for me we would be looking in the £15 million bracket + wages. The fee alone is £58k per week. So from purely a business position it would be stupid not to pay him the £90-£100k per week he is after. That's only an extra £15k-£25k per week, so we would actually be £30-£33k per week better off
From a footballing point of view he has been one of our best players this year and biggest contributors to the team. Replacing him in the summer, means yet another summer spent in transition (and that's if we don't lose anyone else!). At some point we have got to put a side out that starts to knit together.

With regards to Ox, I am convinced his best position is central, he just seems to enjoy it more there. I do wonder if he could do the job Arteta is doing at times?