Groundhog summer transfer window thread

[Leyton Gooner]

Buy all the strikers in Ligue Deux and all the midfielders

[BFG4]

So that's it. Our January transfer business is done. A striker whom we need is a nobody from French Ligue 2. Well done Wenger. You have never failed to amaze me.

If we were fifth or sixth right now, then we would be scrambling to make signings to finish fourth, but because we are top then the holy grail looks guaranteed, this is Wengers logic, unfortunately.

[mcdowell42]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... al-3028621

[SteveO 35]

€10m for N'tep would be justifiable in the mind of There's Only One, just like it was justified to chuck €11m Lille's way for the Forehead. Another Ligue 2 wonderboy to save us from 'dizzying prices' and to stick 2 fingers up at those nasty oligarchs who would rather spend treble that amount but for a player 10 times as good and who would probably make up the difference in shirt sales alone. I can see the schoolkids all queuing up to get N'tep printed on their replica shirts

I also like the way they talk about a 5 year deal.......no surprise there, the standard Self Harmer formula. Why change a winning policy as it worked handsomely with Fabianski, Djourou, Denilson, Vela and Bendtner

As has been said already here - we're virtually guaranteed the virtual trophy this year so its almost mission accomplished by January. Only when Villa looked to be taking our cherished Be All and End All spot did he spend €15m on Arshavin in January.

[defleppardisking]

So that's it. Our January transfer business is done. A striker whom we need is a nobody from French Ligue 2. Well done Wenger. You have never failed to amaze me.

If we were fifth or sixth right now, then we would be scrambling to make signings to finish fourth, but because we are top then the holy grail looks guaranteed, this is Wengers logic, unfortunately.

That's why we will never win any trophy under wenger again

[p206ab]

10m for this guy? And then another 13 in 5 years wages?
Get Morata for two on loan and buy something decent in summer!

[QuartzGooner]

We do not know how N'Tep will do.
But he and Sanogo look no better than Afobe and Akpom, who are already at the club and speak the language.

Bit baffled.

[Red Gunner]

We do not know how N'Tep will do.
But he and Sanogo look no better than Afobe and Akpom, who are already at the club and speak the language.

Bit baffled.

Afobe and Akpom understand French?

[the playing mantis]

james olley in the evening standard:

"Mesut Ozil's £42.4million arrival last summer heralded Arsenal’s ability to sign the world’s leading players but the club insist they will not attempt to match the lavish spending of their cash-rich rivals.

The Gunners smashed their transfer record to bring Ozil to north London in a move which announced the end of the club’s financial restrictions imposed by the decision to build Emirates Stadium.

That impotence in the transfer market was compounded by the arrival of Roman Abramovich at Chelsea and then the Abu Dhabi-funded takeover of Manchester City, with both owners injecting huge sums to further warp football’s economics.

By contrast, Arsenal were reliant on high ticket prices and player sales to help balance the books but Ozil’s capture signalled a new era in which the club’s revenues were sufficient to enable them to operate at the top end of the market.

Significant funds remain available to manager Arsene Wenger, with the club currently weighing up whether to activate Julian Draxler’s £37m release clause at Schalke, but they are not about to abandon the prudent financial business model that steered them to this position.

UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations stipulate that clubs must keep losses to an aggregate of 45m euros (£37.2m) over the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons.

Arsenal will easily meet that requirement but while questions persist over whether Chelsea and City can follow suit, their wealthy backers can help absorb any potential fine or, in a worse-case scenario, suspension from competing in European competition.

The Gunners’ chief commercial officer Tom Fox said: “We’re a football club in London and we are a global brand but we would never try to compete against the financial resources of a country.

“I just don’t think that’s a very realistic thing for us to do — trying to chase those types of owners. Obviously it’s just not possible.

“Almost by necessity, we have a financial model that doesn’t allow us to go into the market every summer and buy all of the best players that are for sale.

“We are competing against oligarchs, we are competing against nation states, we are competing against clubs all across Europe that have sources of funding that are significant, that make it very difficult for us to compete. Winning and doing it on our terms, in a self-sustaining way, would be incredibly powerful.

“We believe we will be successful running the club the way we’re running it, despite other issues, whether it’s the economy at large, whether it’s the make-up of the ownership.”

Arsenal’s financial position was strengthened by two significant deals last year. The team will wear Puma kit from next season after agreeing a five-year contract worth £150m. Emirates airline also extended its shirt sponsorship and stadium naming rights until 2019 for another £150m in a deal which was front-loaded to ensure Wenger had funds to spend last summer.

The only thing missing now is a trophy but Fox insists nine years without silverware has not impacted Arsenal’s global appeal. “First of all, it is important for our fans that we win and everything we do, every single day, is focused on trying to put ourselves in a winning position,” he said.

“Having said that, we have just had two of our primary partnerships — the Emirates partnership and our kit partnership — that have come due after long-term deals and we sold both of those in a market that was very challenging where we hadn’t won in a while.

“But what we found from brands we were speaking to is Arsenal as a football club and as a brand resonates very, very well in the market place.

“They understand over a long period of time that we are a club that has achieved success. And the way we approach our business and the way we play football is what they want to be a part of.”

bolded bits i think are most annoying/worrying. the bt about the front loaded emirates sponsorship deal being what allowed the transfer spend is either very worrying, as where the heck is the rest of the cash, or bollox, as AW has had a war chest and huge cash reserves for a few years, not dependent on this emirates deal. this quote basically is saying and an excuse for not spending in the future...' o we have no money as the emirates deal was front loaded and thats been spent'

the putting ourselves in a winning position quote may be true, we are, but then what, we wont go on to win unless we make the necessary striker signing. its not about being in a winning position its about sealing the deal and hammering it home as i'm sure most of us can attest to.

the bit about oligarchs and competing against all the other clubs in the world is typical bollox that makes me so annoyed and just shows how we remain so unambitious. its football, we have always been up against clubs from across europe, nothings changed. just yet another excuse for failure from that prick fox.

just let sausage fingers take over and fuck these penny pinching yanks off. like it or not, football is about sugar daddies now and has been for years, get with the program or be an also ran.

as for u chaps saying the virtual trophy is sown up, well we are not actually that far ahead of the scum, a couple of defeats for us in a row, and a couple of wins by the chasers and we are scrambling for 4th again.

[SteveO 35]

We do not know how N'Tep will do.
But he and Sanogo look no better than Afobe and Akpom, who are already at the club and speak the language.

Bit baffled.

You often mention Afobe (as you do Coquelin)

I've seen Afobe play quite a few times and there are better players than him living in his own house

Give up on him

[StuartL]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... al-3028621

Didn't he come up with the " best squad ever" bullshit a few years ago when Denilson, Eboue et al were his pride and joy

[mcdowell42]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... al-3028621

Didn't he come up with the " best squad ever" bullshit a few years ago when Denilson, Eboue et al were his pride and joy

This is his fall back excuse when he doesnt want to spend money on making the squad stronger.its bollocks and everyone knows it.

[topgoon]

Auxerre must be rubbing their hands together. 10m! Negredo cost 16m lol

Inter are bidding 13million euros for Morata
F*ck,f*ckitty F*ck F*ck

Normal service is resumed Ozil was a f*cking aberration, the c*nts that run our club see attendances up, know there is a good chance of the VT being more or less secured so they can now go back to the business of fleecing the mugs who go to the money bowl they call a stadium.

The last 2 strikers to come out of Auxerre have hardly been a success Guivarch and Cisse(Djibril). Cantona was more midfielder than striker so he doesn't bloody count.

[augie]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... al-3028621

Didn't he come up with the " best squad ever" bullshit a few years ago when Denilson, Eboue et al were his pride and joy

This is his fall back excuse when he doesnt want to spend money on making the squad stronger.its bollocks and everyone knows it.

I would suggest to you that there are more than a few "wengerites" (akb is so last year ) that would disagree with you there mc

[QuartzGooner]

We do not know how N'Tep will do.
But he and Sanogo look no better than Afobe and Akpom, who are already at the club and speak the language.

Bit baffled.

You often mention Afobe (as you do Coquelin)

I've seen Afobe play quite a few times and there are better players than him living in his own house

Give up on him

I have never said that Afobe is a great player.
What I have done is ask why buy in two players [Sanogo and if as looks likely, we do buy N'Tep] that are seemingly little better than two we already have on our books?
From what I have seen of both Afobe and Akpom, I would like to see them get a few minutes here and there if we have a comfortable lead in a game.
They both have something about them at youth level and I want to see if they can make the next step up.
I do hope Sanogo and N'Tep succeed, I do not want them to fail.

I have mentioned Coquelin a fair bit because until Flamini came back, I thought him the one most likely to show a bit of steel in midfield (Wilshere was injured at the time).