Per Mertesacker

I too would have rathered Friedrich, but getting Mertesacker in sure beats hedging our bets on Nordtveit or something.

How can you go and watch almost every game at the world cup and come back with Germany's shittest player?

you try too hard sometimes.

Try too hard at what exactly?

Don't be cryptic, it's not clever.

Mertesacker had a good world cup.

I can understand thinking he might not be suited to Arsenal's high defensive line, but he's hardly Germany's "shittiest player", and did not have a bad WC at all. Badstuber was far far worse

hey, those girls havent got any clothes on!

Why is there lots of sand in that kitchen?

Why is there lots of sand in that kitchen?

lol

Why is there lots of sand in that kitchen?

Everyone can take their high line arguments and stick them up their collective bumhole. We need a big huge headering machine.

Fabianski's got the high-line covered anyway.

Everyone can take their high line arguments and stick them up their collective bumhole. We need a big huge headering machine.

bring cygan back!

From djourou proformance agine i think we need sgin mert djourou is not ready he is heavy and made mistakes

Everyone can take their high line arguments and stick them up their collective bumhole. We need a big huge headering machine.

What he said. I don't want to see another goal like yesterday's.

Mertesacker signing = bench for Koscielny. So it's not happening.

Kos is 1st choice and if we buy a 4th choice, the standard of player will be exactly that.

That doesn't make any sense. Kos has 1 year of Ligue 1 experience, I doubt he will demand to be first choice and I doubt Wenger will hesitate to bring in a better player (for now) if the opportunity presents itself.

I hope you're right, doubt it though.

I'm convinced Wenger wants a squaddie to give us some depth as opposed to a starting quality player, like Mertesacker would be. Sol would have been perfect for Arsène, loads of game time for Djourou as Sol recovers.

If Wenger was serious about addressing our defensive frailties then we will see this signing or similar happen.

On Per Mertesacker...
Wenger: "I would not like to come out on names because it raises the price straight away by 50 per cent."

wengers not serious about patching up our defence, dont be silly, goals = entertainment no matter which end to him

Listening to Wenger, he's going to get a CB just to keep up the numbers rather than someone who'll be challenging for a starting place so I think players like Mertesacker probably are not in scope.

"We still need a centre half of course. We are still short number wise. Just number wise. [We need] at least one."

Well that's ok as long as he signs someone capable or challenging Koscielny.

Not mentioning names may keep the price down but leaving it til the last minute where the seller club has no time to get in a replacement won't

ie hurry up Arsène

When you sign a player is actually a really interesting thing to study, because its really simple economics on one hand, but trying to figure out the value is tough.

There is a finite amount of time to sign player X, ie, the transfer window.

July 1 - Aug 31 is two months. On July 1st, if you are a buying club, you have 2 months to buy the player. If you are a selling club, you can demand more money on July 1, theoretically, then you can on Aug 31. Unless you aren't really forced to sell, ie, the player didn't hand in a transfer request and your club does not need the money to survive.

From the buyer's perspective, let's say you go to Team A and ask for Player X on July 1, and the team says £10M. And you balk at the price and offer £8M. So you haggle, you negotiate, you look for other options, and you come back on Aug 31 and the team doesn't budge. Now you realize you really need this player, so you pay £10M. Which is £2M more than you wanted to pay. And now you got the player at the very end of the window. He didn't have time to adjust to his new team, and you are basically just dropping an inexperienced (in terms of the team) player into the squad.

If you had paid the £10M on July 1, you would have had the player for the entirety of the preseason.

I think a good case for this is Vermaelen, who we signed very early on. He didn't have trouble adjusting to the league, and part of that might have been because he got in a full pre-season with the team and was able to build relationships in the squad before games started.

I'm not sure how you value that, or take it into consideration. But I think its something that definitely has to be considered.


Oh, and we should sign Mertesacker.

Good post MD.

One would think that team chemistry would supersede the desire to get a good deal, especially before such a crucial season.
Although Id hope in this case that Wenger's frugality is the reasoning behind us dragging our feet.

I'd be massively surprised if we got Mertesacker. To be honest I think he's more someone that various journalists think we should buy than someone that Arsène is genuinely interested in... maybe they look at Arsenal, think 'tiny team' and link us to every beanpole centre-back going, just the same as we used to get linked to goal poachers a few years back.

On Per Mertesacker...
Wenger: "I would not like to come out on names because it raises the price straight away by 50 per cent."

He could have simply said no if he was not interested. I think, we are interested in him but Werder wouldn't sell. So, we'll get someone else.

i.e. Emir Spahic.

On Per Mertesacker...
Wenger: "I would not like to come out on names because it raises the price straight away by 50 per cent."

It says a lot about what he thinks of himself as a talent evaluator, doesn't it, that he thinks if he puts his stamp of approval on a player as in "I would want this guy at Arsenal" that the player is very good and should be valued more highly than the market right now? Kind of like when Warren Buffet buys a share of a company. I mean, Mertesacker's an established professional that everyone knows about. We aren't talking about an unknown here.

I mean, ok, so maybe it would start a bidding war or something, but it seems like that's a bit of a loaded comment.