Status of club in the eyes of the best players

Hi gents,

It has been a long time since I posted in here, but following that dreadful January transfer window, I wanted to share a few thoughts.

If you had asked me going into this transfer window what I was looking for, I would have started out by saying an exit of a lot of fringe players. For years now, dead wood has been taking up so much of our squad space that we have been unable to spend big money on any superstar players. Obviously, this had a terrible effect on our squad's quality and we've had to endure a depressing few seasons.

Enter Edu. Even though we have not sold players for good transfer fees in the time since he arrived, this man has been ruthlessly efficient at offloading the dead weight and at the same time, identifying fantastic young players to revitalize the team. The way that we were turning things around in the Fall reminded me of the feeling I had in 2007/2008 when Henry left but the young players emerged from his shadow and created this optimism around the team that in a few years, we would be consistently competing for the title.

Now...we get to January. The game plan I wanted was exactly what the club tried to do: finish selling off non-key players because we only have 1 competition to worry about until the end of the season and don't need depth, and sign some marquee players to carry us into a top 4 finish. In the end, we got the outgoings right I feel - even though the way Auba went out is sad - but then when we approached the big players that the top clubs in the world would want: Vlahovic, Arthur, Dembele, what happened? Well, we failed.

The Arthur deal falling apart came as a surprise, maybe it had to do with resentment towards Juve for attracting Vlahovic. But Vlahovic? He directly turned us down to go to Juventus. Dembele? It sounds like we were trying to get him right at the end of the window but from the sounds of it, he decided that he would rather sit on the bench and collect a pay cheque than come to Arsenal, reportedly because PSG has been in touch with him.

What does this mean? The big players really don't want to come here anymore is the conclusion I'm drawing. Sure, we were linked with other players too like Isak, Davids, Neves, etc. but at the end of the day, they were not our first choices and we didn't think they were worth the big money we seemed to have been willing to spend on the players we actually wanted.

What do you guys think? Will finishing in the top 4 - if we can do it - change the perception of us? If it doesn't, and the best players choose to go elsewhere until we really compete for the title, how do we move forward?

I am not really sure that even if we did somehow fall into forth place that any big players would actually look at the team and really believe that if they made a move to AFC they would have the ability to win a major trophy or even go deep into champions league competition.

Tactically we are inept! Artetta does not even really seem to have a plan A let alone a clue what to do when things start looking bad. We constantly seem as though we are playing to not loose instead of trying to win. Rarely are we putting players in a position for easy goals and if we do it is almost as rare to actually watch someone have the courage to so take a chance.
Neither Artetta or Edu seem to be able to motivate the best out of our players or our players are just not as good as we would like them to be.
Nor do they seem to be able to encourage players that we think to be world class to join the half hearted experiment and potentially ruin their careers.

I just am not sure where AFC will go from here. I guess we will have to wait and see.

I am in two minds about the current situation. On one hand, I see where the vision of the club stands at. I understand that the club didn't want to make any rash decisions in this transfer window and end up becoming another case of buying someone we end up regretting or someone who doesn't fit in our system. But on the other hand, this season might be our best chance of getting into the top 4 so surely it would have made sense to gamble on a couple of attackers? Instead we ended up losing Aubameyang on a free and loaning out Balogun. It's almost as if the club has sent out a message saying they are fine with not finishing in the top 4 for another season. But my argument for that is surely you would go with such a strategy when you are sure about your summer plans and this is where my concerns lie. We spent over a 100m this past summer and the only signing which has been successful is Tomiyasu. We can't attract the top players due to the lack of champions league football so we need to either pay players massively to get them to sign or we need to try find players who can become top in time. Latter is a very patient approach which i think is what we are going for and that is not going to please many.

I am somewhat indifferent to seeing Aubameyang leave. We have freed 20m in wages but those 20m in wages aren't going to score goals. We really should have gambled on few loan signings. Relying on 0 PL goals Nketiah and old man Lacazette is not getting us top 4. Arteta either has to show us something which he has not done so far in his managerial career or it's just going to be another season finishing 5-9.

In terms of your question eman, we have not been a top club for years and now the club brand itself seems to be on the decline. We seem to be finding it hard to find players who actually want to play for Arsenal and not just the money. In a way i am glad we are getting rid of all the deadwood. Kinda sick of players who couldn't care less about Arsenal as long as they are being paid. This is why i am happy Vlahovic rejected us because he'd be another big money signing who would leave on a bad note in 3-4 years.

I totally understand this transfer window. The prime objective of which was to clear the deadwood off our wage bill and get a striker (as Auba was not in plans for the second half). The strikers we targeted were not acheivable for different reasons. One not willing to come the other too pricey. Now its up for debate that whether we should have bought a third choice whose chances of becoming a deadwood in a year or two would have been 50/50.

The concern that I have about all this process arose when I combined two different interviews.

Xhaka: I will not change my way of playing. (A little without context but thats the bottom line)

Edu: Let’s put that in context now.” Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey, for example, play in the middle. So, for me and Mikel, signing another player to be on top of them makes little sense if they are the ones who will be playing.

Now are we killing the progress of the team when we are telling players that they will not have any competition for the spot? Signing Guimares would have made an extra personel but with higher overall quality of the squad. But we declined that.

This means the sole reason we wanted to buy a striker was that Auba was not in plans rather Auba not performing and we were so sure (over confident) of buying Vlahovic that we let Balogun leave.

Now, I remember the start of the season where we had soo many strikers that Balogun was reluctant to sign a new contract. Come 1st August Balogun will be the only striker that Arsenal football club has. Also if Nketiah dont sign a new contract now whats the point of playing him for the club? Lacazette with an U23 kid as back up would be just as fine. (Nketiah was offered a contract while Laca was not so Laca can play on until the end of the season).

We just need a slight change in mentality to be on top again. Instead of letting players go for free for just disciplinary issue we should also be willing to part ways if they dont fulfil their yearly targets consistently. (Give an xG based target to balogun for next 2 years if he dont fulfil it sell him in the third year be it for free)

RealGunner wrote: We spent over a 100m this past summer and the only signing which has been successful is Tomiyasu.

This is all kinds of wrong. White has been extremely solid alongside Gabriel, Sambi and Tavares are good back ups and have shown their class. Ramsdale has been epic and his energy is infectious, he has been an upgrade from Leno.

Summer was easily one of our most effective transfer windows that we had in a long long time.