Arsenal and transfers

[Hunta]

Wasn't going to start this thread but it's been annoying me since the loss last night and the performances of certain players. Our transfers since the 2014/15 summer have been nothing short of disastrous. Just take a look at our recent signings.

2014/15​

Alexis Sanchez - £35m - Good
Calum Chambers - £16m - Poor
Danny Welbeck - £16m - Poor
Mathieu Debuchy - £12m - Poor
David Ospina - £3m - Good
Gabriel Paulista - £10m - Poor
Kyrstian Bielik - £2m - ????

2015/16

Petr Cech - £1om - Poor
Mohamed Elneny - £5m - Poor

2016/17

Granit Xhaka - £35m - Poor
Shkodran Mustafi - £35m - Poor
Lucas Perez - £17m - Poor
Rob Holding - £2m - Good
Takuma Asano - £2m - ????
Cohen Bramall - ??? - ????

2017/18

Sead Kolasinac - free - ????
Alexandre Lacazette - £53m - Poor so far
​

Haven't included our January signings as they can't be judged yet. Tried to be fair even on players I personally don't rate, but from 17 players, and from around £250m (before our January buys) I think 3 have been good buys.

​

Harsh or fair? Do you think the problem is Wenger or the players simply not being good enough? Mixture of the two?

​

 

[say yes]

David Ospina - £3m - Good

​

​

 

[Hunta]

For a backup GK he's done ok in most of the cup games he's played IMO.

 

[GoonerJeeves]

Mathieu Debuchy - £12m - Poor
​

That is being generous. A horrible signing.​

 

[marting]

When wrote down like this, it clearly shows a massive failing by wenger/scouts and people doing the bidding negotiating as there will have been some good players we have missed out on.

 

[CurryFlavoured]

Last Summer was the big **** up. We invested almost £100 million in a centre back, centre mid and a striker (our 3 big weak points), and none of these transfers have worked out. We showed ambition in investing a lot of money but failed badly in the guys we brought in.

 

[GDeep™]

Two issues on this subject. Recent signings haven’t been good enough, and it seems a safe, sell to buy, type procedure still.

On the positive, Sven is here with a new input, and PEA is a sign we’re targeting what we want and not only what is available.

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

Well some times we have to risk spend money. But when your system is broken it will never ever work

 

[Rex Stone]

I used to back us 100% in the transfer window, when we signed someone we usually got it right. The problem was we'd never sign anyone.

Now though I'm worried most guys we bring in will flop, I don't think any of our signings after Alexis are starting quality right now. That's horrifying.

Lacazette, Xhaka and Mustafi are the types of signings we never used to make. Big money for us on players that aren't real, real proven quality.

We've wiffed on the likes of Kante who was a proven quality player just to spend the same money on Xhaka.

We don't buy quality youngsters any more either.

 

[El Duderino]

Offended that Asano didn't get a Ballon D'or rating there.

 

[tap-in]

Wasn't going to start this thread but it's been annoying me since the loss last night and the performances of certain players. Our transfers since the 2014/15 summer have been nothing short of disastrous. Just take a look at our recent signings.

2014/15​

Alexis Sanchez - £35m - Good
Calum Chambers - £16m - Poor
Danny Welbeck - £16m - Poor
Mathieu Debuchy - £12m - Poor
David Ospina - £3m - Good
Gabriel Paulista - £10m - Poor
Kyrstian Bielik - £2m - ????

2015/16

Petr Cech - £1om - Poor
Mohamed Elneny - £5m - Poor

2016/17

Granit Xhaka - £35m - Poor
Shkodran Mustafi - £35m - Poor
Lucas Perez - £17m - Poor
Rob Holding - £2m - Good
Takuma Asano - £2m - ????
Cohen Bramall - ??? - ????

2017/18

Sead Kolasinac - free - ????
Alexandre Lacazette - £53m - Poor so far
​

Haven't included our January signings as they can't be judged yet. Tried to be fair even on players I personally don't rate, but from 17 players, and from around £250m (before our January buys) I think 3 have been good buys.

​

Harsh or fair? Do you think the problem is Wenger or the players simply not being good enough? Mixture of the two?

​

Its an even bigger concern when you see it written out like that. Its like the whole recruitment team including Wenger have completely lost all ability to sign a decent player. Hopefully that will now all change, it has to.

 

[El Duderino]

I used to back us 100% in the transfer window, when we signed someone we usually got it right. The problem was we'd never sign anyone.

Now though I'm worried most guys we bring in will flop, I don't think any of our signings after Alexis are starting quality right now. That's horrifying.

Lacazette, Xhaka and Mustafi are the types of signings we never used to make. Big money for us on players that aren't real, real proven quality.

We've wiffed on the likes of Kante who was a proven quality player just to spend the same money on Xhaka.

We don't buy quality youngsters any more either.

It's an upgrade from before because now at least we're trying. Problem's become that we can't shift players fast enough (this window not withstanding).

The need to always sell to buy, this transfer window being a good example of that, also bugs the hell out of me.

We've been buying young talent in Jeff, Mavividi, etc. who are highly rated and also have a core of u21s (21s is it?) who've won a under-whatever WC with England.

Ironical that with the 1st team purchases, Wenger is not gambling with young guns anymore unless they're defenders and that's because he's forced to.

 

[El Duderino]

Hopefully the direction forward is moving to a Chelsea-like model of hoarding and loaning players out.

 

[A_G]

I don't understand why you'd sign a DLP like Xhaka and then try to turn him into a box-to-box player. Sign Kolasinac and then say you have doubts about him in a back 4. Then you have guys like Chambers and Welbeck covering multiple positions but never nailing down a place in the team, hard to see what the approach is here.

 

[bingobob]

I think three is being generous to be honest. Cech on paper at the time should have been massive but for whatever reason that hasn't been the case.

Our strategy has been non existent. We've never done what Mourinho did the season he returned to Chelsea I.e. What do I need? Cf and a creator then signed Costa and Fabregas.

It's been apparent every window where we've needed to address and we've never went and done the business we should have done.

 

[Hunta]

I think three is being generous to be honest. Cech on paper at the time should have been massive but for whatever reason that hasn't been the case.

Our strategy has been non existent. We've never done what Mourinho did the season he returned to Chelsea I.e. What do I need? Cf and a creator then signed Costa and Fabregas.

It's been apparent every window where we've needed to address and we've never went and done the business we should have done.

Yeah, the three I've said have been successful are Alexis, Holding and Ospina. The latter two mainly because of their fee and what the expectation was.

 

[Vinci]

Offended that Asano didn't get a Ballon D'or rating there.

Damn straight, my man.

 

[Sanchez11]

I think this window shows there is a new direction regarding this issue, time will tell.

 

[bingobob]

Yeah, the three I've said have been successful are Alexis, Holding and Ospina. The latter two mainly because of their fee and what the expectation was.

I can appreciate the logic. The thing with Ospina is simply the year after we signed him we signed Cech. It's not Ospinas fault that our transfer strategy is non existent but we effectively replaced him and spent 20m on two keepers in 12 months (reported fees from what I remember were 14 and 6 million).

At the time we had three keepers on the books and he was ranked bottom of the three but we kept Ospina and lost Sczesney. Cech hasn't lived upto expectations and Ospina still can't get in ahead of him. The Ospina business from when we bought him to now is a micro version of our transfer failures. No Co ordination, no proper identification of areas and certainly no long term planning.

 

[A_G]

Also the lack of activity in previous years has an effect later on down the line. Not signing a striker in 2013 meant that when Giroud got injured a year later, we had to settle for Welbeck. Same thing in 2015, Wenger opted against signing Kante on Grimandi's advice and so a year later he signed Xhaka with the intention of trying to turn him into a similar all-action midfielder. If he'd signed a striker that summer as well, he wouldn't have had to make a panic signing again in the form of Lucas Perez.

If a CM and CF had come in during the summer of 2015, it could easily have resulted in a league title that season but it would also mean less business to do the following summer. You could keep the squad ticking over with 2-3 additions every year, instead of being in the position we're in now where nearly half of the XI needs replacing at the summer time. @Trilly has been banging this drum for ages as well, if we can see something this simple it's amazing that Wenger allows it to happen.