Re: The Official Winter Transfer Rumours Thread

[djoe26]

Keep in mind that those are Falcao's wages AFTER TAX as well... if my knowledge of England's taxes are solid that's around 500k/week prior to taxes.

[Sri]

I went to bed early, got a good night's sleep, woke up to the Welbz news, focussed on work and finally got some time to put down my thoughts. I'll do it by quoting the 2 most relevant posts since I logged off last night.

If we consider Ospina a Fabianski upgrade
If we consider Chambers a CB backup (verm replacement) who can also play DM
If we consider Debuchy to be Sagnas replacement - arguably slight downgrade
If we consider Welbeck the Giroud back-up many have been hoping for
If we consider Sanchez to be our marquee signing to improve the squad

Then surely, we have improved our squad and haven't done so terribly. We're net positive.

Our window basically seems only half planned. We identified replacements for Fabianski and Sagna and got them in. We saw an opportunity to sign Alexis and got him in. We followed through some long standing interest in Chambers and got him in. It was a great July.

Don't know what happened in August. Vermaelen left but wasn't replaced. Defensive midfielder needed but not signed. Don't think we sign Welbeck if Giroud doesn't get injured. It's not encouraging that the only way you sign a needed player is for one of your players in that position to pick up a long term injury. We should be much more proactive than that.

So it's a mixed window. Over £80mil was spent, which is a record outlay for Arsenal, and the extent to which we've improved the squad is debatable. Still, we have excellent midfield and forward depth now. Nobody is satisfied with Arteta and Flamini but they're fine against most teams in the league. They're not complete liabilities.

Centre back is where we'll be living dangerously. Okay, we've got three centre backs - one is 19, which worries me a bit - but cover after that is flimsy, to say the least. I think someone like Alderweireld would've bolstered this area of our squad nicely.

Anyway, time for the moaning and bitching to be over and for us to return to supporting the team until January, at least.

The Good:

I believe Debuchy this year is better than Sagna (who is warming the bench on a fatter paycheck) this year - atleast offensively. Sagna was a rock defensively, no arguing there. But Chambers doesn't have a pinch of the experience Thomas Vermaelen had. Sanchez is for the role AW wanted Suarez to fill and directly addressing the lack of pace. Welbeck is 23, adds to our British core, has been through a managerial merry-go-round in the last couple of years and still has enough talent and potential for a very successful top flight career. He needed a change in environment and the tutelage of Arsene could give him a Sturridge-esque metamorphosis.

So yes, we have improved our squad compared to last season.

(We have also brought in medical staff to address injury frequency and intensity, but this is a long term project which will not yield results in the short term).


The Bad:

Our top 6 rivals also improved, just as we did. Also to be noted is that it is not just us and Liverpool who have had managerial stability this summer. On the contrary, only United in the top 6 have changed manager - Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and City have had stability. I think each of those teams boasts of an improved squad now.

I have seen those inforgraphics of all the big name strikers that others have, while ours is an injured Giroud and 2 youngsters (I have faith and patience in both - Yaya and Danny - despite their recent performances), not counting our most clinical player who doesn't fit our system, another youngster who some are rating a bit too highly without having seen enough of at CF and a marquee player who is finding his feet in the PL. I am not completely worried, although it looks a grim picture. Except that one van Persie season, we have been a team which has spread goals around and not relied on individual players as goal threats. It's bad, but it is workable.


The Ugly

And the part which I am really dissatisfied about - the pointlessly wasted month of August. There was no transfer strategy in place. The two holes at the back haven't been addressed again. And I am not buying any of the Twitter BS about how many people we were linked with or bid for - this is again a transfer window with no tangible results to address defensive issues. You could argue that we had among the best defenses in the league except those 4-5 away games that we completely sucked in (Szcz Golden Glove, etc) but we have no clean sheets this season and that is just as good an indicator - I'm not even going to count the number of players at the back to make my case. We have beaten that horse to death.


My Rating: 6/10. What we did, we did well. What we should have done, we didn't do jackall about. It only shows complacence in the month of August after 4 early deals and the usual lack of ruthlessness in getting things done.


My request:

Do not misdirect your anger due to the poor transfer management at Danny Welbeck. He can be a very good player for us. He's an Arsenal player now and we should get behind him and catalyze the process of him stepping up for us and for the NT.

[Hapless_Hans]

Keep in mind that those are Falcao's wages AFTER TAX as well... if my knowledge of England's taxes are solid that's around 500k/week prior to taxes.

nah I think there's some misunderstandings there.

All we know is that both Monaco and Utd have confirmed Utd will cover all of Falcaos wages, and that those were 12m € net at Monaco.
that's  ~180k £ net/ week.
Now if you calculate that he has to pay taxes of 45% you'd arrive at a figure of ~340k£ per week, which incidentally was exactly what Utd mouthpiece Ogden was reporting earlier.

Now Ogden has changed the story and says its 268k, DailyMail says 280k, etc
Now either Utd negotiated Falcao into taking a hefty paycut, which I really don't believe as that would mean Ed Woody negotiating Jorge Mendes into letting his client take a paycut when joining the BIGGEST CLUB IN THE WORLD lol,

..or they are spinning the figures so that DiMaria and Falcao don't earn more than Rooney PUBLICLY lol.

Either way, it's much more than is reasonable and would be inconceivable for Arsenal.

Or are you talking about 500k € per week RedO?
Because, to avoid confusion it would be good I think if we used per year figures with Euro and per week figures with pounds, and kept that straight.

[Raptorgunner]

I dont know why you guys keep going on about Falcao, it has nothing to with him. Falcao is just one player out of many players who were available.

We needed 3 players and only manage to sign a striker, I think we got lucky signing Welbeck.

The more I think about the Welbeck signing the more I believe we came out a winner.

[RealGunner]

I went to bed early, got a good night's sleep, woke up to the Welbz news, focussed on work and finally got some time to put down my thoughts. I'll do it by quoting the 2 most relevant posts since I logged off last night.

If we consider Ospina a Fabianski upgrade
If we consider Chambers a CB backup (verm replacement) who can also play DM
If we consider Debuchy to be Sagnas replacement - arguably slight downgrade
If we consider Welbeck the Giroud back-up many have been hoping for
If we consider Sanchez to be our marquee signing to improve the squad

Then surely, we have improved our squad and haven't done so terribly. We're net positive.

Our window basically seems only half planned. We identified replacements for Fabianski and Sagna and got them in. We saw an opportunity to sign Alexis and got him in. We followed through some long standing interest in Chambers and got him in. It was a great July.

Don't know what happened in August. Vermaelen left but wasn't replaced. Defensive midfielder needed but not signed. Don't think we sign Welbeck if Giroud doesn't get injured. It's not encouraging that the only way you sign a needed player is for one of your players in that position to pick up a long term injury. We should be much more proactive than that.

So it's a mixed window. Over £80mil was spent, which is a record outlay for Arsenal, and the extent to which we've improved the squad is debatable. Still, we have excellent midfield and forward depth now. Nobody is satisfied with Arteta and Flamini but they're fine against most teams in the league. They're not complete liabilities.

Centre back is where we'll be living dangerously. Okay, we've got three centre backs - one is 19, which worries me a bit - but cover after that is flimsy, to say the least. I think someone like Alderweireld would've bolstered this area of our squad nicely.

Anyway, time for the moaning and bitching to be over and for us to return to supporting the team until January, at least.

The Good:

I believe Debuchy this year is better than Sagna (who is warming the bench on a fatter paycheck) this year - atleast offensively. Sagna was a rock defensively, no arguing there. But Chambers doesn't have a pinch of the experience Thomas Vermaelen had. Sanchez is for the role AW wanted Suarez to fill and directly addressing the lack of pace. Welbeck is 23, adds to our British core, has been through a managerial merry-go-round in the last couple of years and still has enough talent and potential for a very successful top flight career. He needed a change in environment and the tutelage of Arsene could give him a Sturridge-esque metamorphosis.

So yes, we have improved our squad compared to last season.

(We have also brought in medical staff to address injury frequency and intensity, but this is a long term project which will not yield results in the short term).


The Bad:

Our top 6 rivals also improved, just as we did. Also to be noted is that it is not just us and Liverpool who have had managerial stability this summer. On the contrary, only United in the top 6 have changed manager - Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and City have had stability. I think each of those teams boasts of an improved squad now.

I have seen those inforgraphics of all the big name strikers that others have, while ours is an injured Giroud and 2 youngsters (I have faith and patience in both - Yaya and Danny - despite their recent performances), not counting our most clinical player who doesn't fit our system, another youngster who some are rating a bit too highly without having seen enough of at CF and a marquee player who is finding his feet in the PL. I am not completely worried, although it looks a grim picture. Except that one van Persie season, we have been a team which has spread goals around and not relied on individual players as goal threats. It's bad, but it is workable.


The Ugly

And the part which I am really dissatisfied about - the pointlessly wasted month of August. There was no transfer strategy in place. The two holes at the back haven't been addressed again. And I am not buying any of the Twitter BS about how many people we were linked with or bid for - this is again a transfer window with no tangible results to address defensive issues. You could argue that we had among the best defenses in the league except those 4-5 away games that we completely sucked in (Szcz Golden Glove, etc) but we have no clean sheets this season and that is just as good an indicator - I'm not even going to count the number of players at the back to make my case. We have beaten that horse to death.


My Rating: 6/10. What we did, we did well. What we should have done, we didn't do jackall about. It only shows complacence in the month of August after 4 early deals and the usual lack of ruthlessness in getting things done.


My request:

Do not misdirect your anger due to the poor transfer management at Danny Welbeck. He can be a very good player for us. He's an Arsenal player now and we should get behind him and catalyze the process of him stepping up for us and for the NT.

Great post. Agreed with everything.

[RealGunner]

I am just wondering who Arsenal planned IF Welbeck wasn't available

Huntelaar?

[VendettaRed07]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Sri]

I am just wondering who Arsenal planned IF Welbeck wasn't available

Huntelaar?

Simple. Nobody. That's my point.

[Sri]

Jonas agreed to terminate his contract with Valencia by mutual consent this summer due to the strict non-EU quotas in the Primera Liga. The Brazilian international might be the pick of the players still available for Premier League sides. Only 30 and with a good goalscoring record for Los Che, he could prove to be an astute signing for clubs lacking a bit of firepower. Capped 11 times by Brazil – all within the last three years – it won’t be long until Jonas finds a new club and there will be plenty of interest from the Premier League - maybe even the champions, Manchester City, who saw Alvaro Negredo join Valencia on deadline day without replacing him.

Would Suit: Arsenal, Manchester City.



http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/free-transfers-10-best-available-4151891#ixzz3CBZwIOnE
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook

[Sri]

Just 29, Park spent three years at Arsenal following a move from Monaco in 2011 before being released in the summer, having barely kicked a ball for Arsene Wenger’s Gunners. Park has a very decent goal scoring record at international level for South Korea netting 24 times in 65 appearances for the Taeguek Warriors, and he was part of the side that won Olympic bronze in the Summer Games in London in 2012. A player with talent but one devoid of confidence after a soul-destroying time in north London, a patient manager may bring the best out of Park and with no transfer fee and relatively low wages, it could turn out to be an astute signing for someone.

Would Suit: QPR.



http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/free-transfers-10-best-available-4151891#ixzz3CBaGdyM4
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook

[MJ]

I can now rest assured knowing Joseph Yobo and George McCartney are waiting in the wing should any misfortune befall our beloved Mertescielny.

[MJ]

Portuguese press: Arsenal offered Sporting £12.7m + Joel Campbell for William Carvalho but they wanted a straight cash offer of £23.9m. FFS.


If we really wanted him and didn't mind using Campbell as a negotiating chip then we could have raised at least £8m by selling him to Benfica.

[Jay29]

I've seen other reports saying Wenger refused to sell Campbell despite Benfica trying hard yo sign him. And there's nothing in the English press about Arsenal trying to sell Campbell or use him in a makeweight in another deal.

[VendettaRed07]

Yeah, Wenger had no intention of ever selling him. He stated he won't be going anywhere, he wants to keep him many times.

We should have just spent the money to get Carvalho regardless though. We shouldn't have to sell players like Joel to make deals like that happen.

Hopefully January

[RealGunner]

My guess is that Arsene was selling Podolski so Joel could get his time. However with Giroud's injury, Podolski was kept and Arsene perhaps thought Joel could do with a move as his time will be limited.

Both shows that Arsene rates Joel because Arsene won't keep a player who he thinks can have a great career elsewhere if its hindering his progress at Arsenal. He was also willing to give him a shot and selling Podolski while at it. But Giroud's injury spoiled the plans.

[El Gunner]

I went to bed early, got a good night's sleep, woke up to the Welbz news, focussed on work and finally got some time to put down my thoughts. I'll do it by quoting the 2 most relevant posts since I logged off last night.

If we consider Ospina a Fabianski upgrade
If we consider Chambers a CB backup (verm replacement) who can also play DM
If we consider Debuchy to be Sagnas replacement - arguably slight downgrade
If we consider Welbeck the Giroud back-up many have been hoping for
If we consider Sanchez to be our marquee signing to improve the squad

Then surely, we have improved our squad and haven't done so terribly. We're net positive.

Our window basically seems only half planned. We identified replacements for Fabianski and Sagna and got them in. We saw an opportunity to sign Alexis and got him in. We followed through some long standing interest in Chambers and got him in. It was a great July.

Don't know what happened in August. Vermaelen left but wasn't replaced. Defensive midfielder needed but not signed. Don't think we sign Welbeck if Giroud doesn't get injured. It's not encouraging that the only way you sign a needed player is for one of your players in that position to pick up a long term injury. We should be much more proactive than that.

So it's a mixed window. Over £80mil was spent, which is a record outlay for Arsenal, and the extent to which we've improved the squad is debatable. Still, we have excellent midfield and forward depth now. Nobody is satisfied with Arteta and Flamini but they're fine against most teams in the league. They're not complete liabilities.

Centre back is where we'll be living dangerously. Okay, we've got three centre backs - one is 19, which worries me a bit - but cover after that is flimsy, to say the least. I think someone like Alderweireld would've bolstered this area of our squad nicely.

Anyway, time for the moaning and bitching to be over and for us to return to supporting the team until January, at least.

The Good:

I believe Debuchy this year is better than Sagna (who is warming the bench on a fatter paycheck) this year - atleast offensively. Sagna was a rock defensively, no arguing there. But Chambers doesn't have a pinch of the experience Thomas Vermaelen had. Sanchez is for the role AW wanted Suarez to fill and directly addressing the lack of pace. Welbeck is 23, adds to our British core, has been through a managerial merry-go-round in the last couple of years and still has enough talent and potential for a very successful top flight career. He needed a change in environment and the tutelage of Arsene could give him a Sturridge-esque metamorphosis.

So yes, we have improved our squad compared to last season.

(We have also brought in medical staff to address injury frequency and intensity, but this is a long term project which will not yield results in the short term).


The Bad:

Our top 6 rivals also improved, just as we did. Also to be noted is that it is not just us and Liverpool who have had managerial stability this summer. On the contrary, only United in the top 6 have changed manager - Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and City have had stability. I think each of those teams boasts of an improved squad now.

I have seen those inforgraphics of all the big name strikers that others have, while ours is an injured Giroud and 2 youngsters (I have faith and patience in both - Yaya and Danny - despite their recent performances), not counting our most clinical player who doesn't fit our system, another youngster who some are rating a bit too highly without having seen enough of at CF and a marquee player who is finding his feet in the PL. I am not completely worried, although it looks a grim picture. Except that one van Persie season, we have been a team which has spread goals around and not relied on individual players as goal threats. It's bad, but it is workable.


The Ugly

And the part which I am really dissatisfied about - the pointlessly wasted month of August. There was no transfer strategy in place. The two holes at the back haven't been addressed again. And I am not buying any of the Twitter BS about how many people we were linked with or bid for - this is again a transfer window with no tangible results to address defensive issues. You could argue that we had among the best defenses in the league except those 4-5 away games that we completely sucked in (Szcz Golden Glove, etc) but we have no clean sheets this season and that is just as good an indicator - I'm not even going to count the number of players at the back to make my case. We have beaten that horse to death.


My Rating: 6/10. What we did, we did well. What we should have done, we didn't do jackall about. It only shows complacence in the month of August after 4 early deals and the usual lack of ruthlessness in getting things done.


My request:

Do not misdirect your anger due to the poor transfer management at Danny Welbeck. He can be a very good player for us. He's an Arsenal player now and we should get behind him and catalyze the process of him stepping up for us and for the NT.

FFS

[Sri]

[RedOranje]

Keep in mind that those are Falcao's wages AFTER TAX as well... if my knowledge of England's taxes are solid that's around 500k/week prior to taxes.

nah I think there's some misunderstandings there.

All we know is that both Monaco and Utd have confirmed Utd will cover all of Falcaos wages, and that those were 12m € net at Monaco.
that's  ~180k £ net/ week.
Now if you calculate that he has to pay taxes of 45% you'd arrive at a figure of ~340k£ per week, which incidentally was exactly what Utd mouthpiece Ogden was reporting earlier.

Now Ogden has changed the story and says its 268k, DailyMail says 280k, etc
Now either Utd negotiated Falcao into taking a hefty paycut, which I really don't believe as that would mean Ed Woody negotiating Jorge Mendes into letting his client take a paycut when joining the BIGGEST CLUB IN THE WORLD lol,

..or they are spinning the figures so that DiMaria and Falcao don't earn more than Rooney PUBLICLY lol.

Either way, it's much more than is reasonable and would be inconceivable for Arsenal.

Or are you talking about 500k € per week RedO?
Because, to avoid confusion it would be good I think if we used per year figures with Euro and per week figures with pounds, and kept that straight.

I'm operating off of information that came out when Liverpool were being linked with a loan move for Falcao. The reports (can't recall exact source or find it... a bad sign) stated that we'd be required and willing to pay the £15-20m loan fee and all of his wages; which for us in England would amount to about £500k/week before taxes. It is very possible that A) these figures were indeed mistranslations and were intended to be in Euros that some lazy person simply stuck a Pound sign in front of, B) that these figures were simply simply dragged out of someone's arse to make for a more interesting article, or C) some combination of the above. It's also possible that United themselves are utilising some 'fuzzy math' to hide the actual wages and fee so as to avoid internal squad issues and/or external investor/fan issues, those this is clearly less likely than the previously mentioned possibilities.

[6unner]

FFS Shrek makes a bloody fortune more than he is worth what is the difference.

[Sri]

'If Arsenal had signed Danny Welbeck in June and Alexis Sanchez on deadline day then a large section of the fanbase, who have clearly never really seen Welbeck play, would be a lot happier than they are today.'

[VendettaRed07]

Last year we signed Ozil in the dying hours and everybody was happy. I feel like if we had signed Welbeck when we signed Sanchez, and Sanchez when we signed welbeck people would be feeling a lot different right now. Just my opinion

[Jay29]

We would've just had people moaning that we haven't signed any world class players and that the Ozil deal was the fluke, in that case.

[Sri]

Conclusion: Gooners will moan either which way

[Jay29]

Football fans in general will moan either way. Transfers have gone from a means to and end to the end itself because the expectation and pressure to spend nowadays is so high.

On deadline day, Hull dished out £9.5mil to sign Abel Hernandez from Palermo, which was a record transfer for them. Their fans got all excited but how many of them will have seen Hernandez play in Serie B last season? Not many, but because it's a record transfer and a large sum of money, for them, has been spent they get all excited.

Nobody's interested in projects and player development now. Could you imagine what the fans' reaction would be if we, needing a striker on deadline day, signed a 22 year old French winger for £11mil that Wenger says he wants to convert to a striker? He'd be lambasted by the fans and slaughtered in the press for not spending £30mil on an established, world class centre forward.

[GenBlizkin]

Still should have gotten Carv, if he kills it this year, someone will pay 37mill, when we could have had him for 23-24

[MJ]

I agree that morale would certainly be much different had the timing of the Sanchez/Welbeck deals been switched but even last season, through all the hysteria and celebrations of signing Özil, rationally speaking, we all knew that we were short a striker and possibly DM.

It lifted our spirits as fans and as a club to have a marquee signing come in at the last possible moment and that may have been a factor in our great first half of the season.

But the point would remain that we had business not yet done in the window. We'd still end up getting to a point where we'd be saying: 'right, I'm thrilled at all the additions we made and bringing in Sanchez was a great last minute move but we still let ourselves down in not bringing in another defender.'

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