Arsenal's outgoing transfer business post Wenger.

[truth_hurts]

There probably isn't very much life in this, but the conversation of whether we should sell or keep Joe Willock has brought this thought in my head - 'Are Arsenal doing some good business post Wenger?'

We know the losses of Ramsey and Alexis were absolute s**t shows, but in the last 3 years (I think) we've gotten nearly 60m for Walcott and Iwobi and appear to be about to sell Willock for around the same price that it would cost to sign an Aouar or Renato Sanches.

Recently, we've allowed high earners such as Luiz, Mustifi, Mesut and now probably Kola and Laca run down their contracts, but have tied down our future stars to long term deals and even protected the value of a useless **** like Holding.
Are we moving in the right direction as a club with regard to play sales? I naively think that we are especially if we move out Willock, AMN, Bellerin, Nelson and Nketiah for 75m plus.

 

[Rimaal]

Why would we want to sell Willock to buy Renato? Willock has a higher ceiling, imo, given the right manager.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Why would we want to sell Willock to buy Renato? Willock has a higher ceiling given the right manager.

A lot of this fanbase suffer from grass is greener syndrome. It was actually low-key similar with ESR some where willing to let him go to Villa.

If Arteta cannot use a player like Willock why would he be able to use someone like Renato? Look at what he's done to Partey ffs.

 

[truth_hurts]

Why would we want to sell Willock to buy Renato? Willock has a higher ceiling, imo, given the right manager.

This hasn't been suggested by anybody. Some Gooners think with emotion too much.

Sanches is so much more proven than Willock is my point. 25m is a good fee for Willock in a COVID market.

 

[TornadoTed]

I don't think out sales are anywhere near as bad as they are made out to be, Iwobi, Ox and Walcott for £95m is fantastic business.

However we are still behind our rivals, Chelsea and City are making on average around £50m a season from players who anyone has barely heard of. To be self sustaining we probably need to follow their model of signing 17-18 year old prospects and send them out on loan for 3-4 seasons. They are either ready to come into our 1st team squad or get sold for £10-£15m.

A few link ups with 'feeder' clubs who are good at developing youth would help a lot in this regard.

 

[truth_hurts]

A lot of this fanbase suffer from grass is greener syndrome. It was actually low-key similar with ESR some where willing to let him go to Villa.

If Arteta cannot use a player like Willock why would he be able to use someone like Renato? Look at what he's done to Partey ffs.

You've missed the mark completely. I actually Woulld like Sanches, but that isn't my point.

I was probably front of the crowd ahoyting that I wouldn't feel the same about ESR if we sold him. I think he's our best young player. However, if we got Maddison money for ESR, I couldn't argue that it wasn't a great price.

 

[truth_hurts]

I don't think out sales are anywhere near as bad as they are made out to be, Iwobi, Ox and Walcott for £95m is fantastic business.

However we are still behind our rivals, Chelsea and City are making on average around £50m a season from players who anyone has barely heard of. To be self sustaining we probably need to follow their model of signing 17-18 year old prospects and send them out on loan for 3-4 seasons. They are either ready to come into our 1st team squad or get sold for £10-£15m.

A few link ups with 'feeder' clubs who are good at developing youth would help a lot in this regard.

We definitely need to improve our loaning of players. Hopefully, the Willock loan is a new dawn. We should have gotten better money for Mavro.

 

[TheDrunkenMaster]

They are doing a great job, with mustafi being the prime example. Trying to renew his deal and then canceling his contract 6 months later was a masterstroke.

 

[Blankety Blank]

I think its a tough market now.

I was sad to see iwobi go, i though he would kick on & add goals to his game. He did not & Everton fans cant wait to see the back of him.
Likewise AOC but unfortunately & some of this has been down to injuries he has never fulfilled his potential.
Walcott was never a particularly good footballer Wenger tried to develop him for years and he never became a 'top' player.

All those sales very look good business now.

Right now as long as we dont sell the crown Jewels Saks, ESR or Tierney i am not going to lose much sleep over any of the others.
Joe, Eddie, AMN & Reiss may have very decent careers but there is no guarantee in football.
Not sure any will make it at a big club.

 

[Rimaal]

This hasn't been suggested by anybody. Some Gooners think with emotion too much.

Sanches is so much more proven than Willock is my point. 25m is a good fee for Willock in a COVID market.

How is Renato proven??? Seriously? He's proven as someone who will always disappoint.

 

[bingobob]

A lot of this fanbase suffer from grass is greener syndrome. It was actually low-key similar with ESR some where willing to let him go to Villa.

If Arteta cannot use a player like Willock why would he be able to use someone like Renato? Look at what he's done to Partey ffs.

Arteta nor Bruce could use Willock. Which is why he was predominantly on the bench for both. Partey has been injured. Are we blaming that on Arteta now?

 

[truth_hurts]

How is Renato proven??? Seriously? He's proven as someone who will always disappoint.

Try to read to understand instead of reading to respond. Sanches is FAR more proven than Willock. It's not even a debate. Is he proven compared to a Kante? No but that wasn't the comparison.

 

[Mrs Bergkamp]

Short answer to the question is No. We seem to selling anyone with a value and keeping dross. We aren't getting megabucks with our sales and the dross we keep, lowers the squad quality. There are some players that have little to no value so we can't even move them on a free transfer. We have to pay them to leave!

 

[MutableEarth]

The problem is nuanced. The issue is a knock-on effect from our recruitment INTO the club, which has been poor for quite a while. There's been some improvements, and some good deals here and there but even then it's a mixed bag. As a result, we can't get any of the big underperformers out and they don't want to leave because the wage is nice and they're comfy. Cedric is already batting away suitors because he wants to "fight for his place".

So we're stuck in a position where the players with the most value are Hale End products who still have a bit of upside but haven't nailed down a spot in the squad for varying reasons. In most cases, I would be fine with this - IF we had a decent performing first team available to us (we don't). We also cannot trust that the recruitment borne off the backs of these players' sales would even be good enough to justify it. We've been very poor at selling because we've been poor at buying. We've loaded the team with averageness and can't shift any of them. These average players then suck up all the minutes and now even the Hale End talents barely have any of the value they should even have!

And on top of that, once we sell these guys, we're still gonna be stuck with the same average players with a fraction of the upside that we can't get rid of - with absolutely no guarantee that the exotic names of Martinez, Maddison and the like are even going to come to Arsenal come the end of the window.

Selling Joe Willock to Newcastle for £25m would be a good move for Joe Willock. He'll play football regularly, continue to grow into a top midfielder and probably end up at a top 6 club within the next couple of seasons. It most likely won't be a good move for Arsenal though, as we will be the ones missing out and our hit-and-miss recruitment will likely not be able to help us. Lokonga should, in theory, be a welcome presence but my guess is he'll play 2nd fiddle to the usual suspects of Xhaka and Elneny, 2 players synonymous with our slow descent.

For us to use Hale End as a cash cow, we need our recruitment to be WAY better than it is. I personally think we could have gotten more talent out of Hale End if we actually committed to using more of it in our team and actually had proper plans in place - something that we only now seem to be doing with Mertesacker in charge - but that's just my personal view, based on how bad our first team have been for quite a while that I'd rather see the kids struggle and fail because at least they have the upside.

We'll only be moving in the right direction if we can recruit better. The incomings have an effect on the outgoings. And just using Hale End talents as selling stock is not going to help us there either.

 

[Rimaal]

Try to read to understand instead of reading to respond. Sanches is FAR more proven than Willock. It's not even a debate. Is he proven compared to a Kante? No but that wasn't the comparison.

Willock has potential. Renato has none, we know what he will deliver, i.e. disappointment, that he's proven.

 

[truth_hurts]

Willock has potential. Renato has none, we know what he will deliver, i.e. disappointment, that he's proven.

Erm. Okay

 

[dka1]

The problem is nuanced. The issue is a knock-on effect from our recruitment INTO the club, which has been poor for quite a while. There's been some improvements, and some good deals here and there but even then it's a mixed bag. As a result, we can't get any of the big underperformers out and they don't want to leave because the wage is nice and they're comfy. Cedric is already batting away suitors because he wants to "fight for his place".

So we're stuck in a position where the players with the most value are Hale End products who still have a bit of upside but haven't nailed down a spot in the squad for varying reasons. In most cases, I would be fine with this - IF we had a decent performing first team available to us (we don't). We also cannot trust that the recruitment borne off the backs of these players' sales would even be good enough to justify it. We've been very poor at selling because we've been poor at buying. We've loaded the team with averageness and can't shift any of them. These average players then suck up all the minutes and now even the Hale End talents barely have any of the value they should even have!

And on top of that, once we sell these guys, we're still gonna be stuck with the same average players with a fraction of the upside that we can't get rid of - with absolutely no guarantee that the exotic names of Martinez, Maddison and the like are even going to come to Arsenal come the end of the window.

Selling Joe Willock to Newcastle for £25m would be a good move for Joe Willock. He'll play football regularly, continue to grow into a top midfielder and probably end up at a top 6 club within the next couple of seasons. It most likely won't be a good move for Arsenal though, as we will be the ones missing out and our hit-and-miss recruitment will likely not be able to help us. Lokonga should, in theory, be a welcome presence but my guess is he'll play 2nd fiddle to the usual suspects of Xhaka and Elneny, 2 players synonymous with our slow descent.

For us to use Hale End as a cash cow, we need our recruitment to be WAY better than it is. I personally think we could have gotten more talent out of Hale End if we actually committed to using more of it in our team and actually had proper plans in place - something that we only now seem to be doing with Mertesacker in charge - but that's just my personal view, based on how bad our first team have been for quite a while that I'd rather see the kids struggle and fail because at least they have the upside.

We'll only be moving in the right direction if we can recruit better. The incomings have an effect on the outgoings. And just using Hale End talents as selling stock is not going to help us there either.

In full agreement with this.

Our problems are multifaceted and part of it is that despite knowing that we've suffered when signing dross in the past we've still loaded the club with guys like Cedric and Willian.

Additionally we've got a manager that never shuts up about culture change yet he has a very strange criteria when picking players.

As a club that can't blow through money like Chelsea and Utd it's a bad scenario. Whereas United can let go of Pogba for peanuts, and buy him back for millions, and Chelsea can do the same with Lukaku we can't be doing it.

Not only that but when we're buying players it seems like we're paying large fees too, so I don't know how smart we're being in the market either.

Where does that leave us? In a bit of a mess, we've got too many players we don't need and other clubs know that; Kolasinac? Three RBs? We should be looking to move on Elneny and probably Xhaka not Willock. Lacazette and Auba and Martinelli and Balogun yet we were interested in Martinez, what does that say?

Just a complete and utter shambles, it's no wonder other clubs think they can low ball us.

Despite that we're selling players with potentially huge value in the future for decent-ish fees (certainly not enough that I'd personally be tempted) just so we can bring some decent/good players for now but they probably don't have as much upside in the future.

 

[truth_hurts]

I do feel as though we've had a cleanse though. We've gotten rid of wasters like Mustafi and (hurts to say it) Özil; Kola and Laca will soon be off the books. We've replaced the 4 with White, ESR, Tavares and Balogun with hopefully a marquee signing to come in.

We should get decent change for Willock, Nelson, Nketiah and Bellerin rightly or wrong.

Auba will burn out his contract, but our other assets are protected.

 

[dka1]

I do feel as though we've had a cleanse though. We've gotten rid of wasters like Mustafi and (hurts to say it) Özil; Kola and Laca will soon be off the books. We've replaced the 4 with White, ESR, Tavares and Balogun with hopefully a marquee signing to come in.

We should get decent change for Willock, Nelson, Nketiah and Bellerin rightly or wrong.

Auba will burn out his contract, but our other assets are protected.

Yeah I mean we did get rid of Mustafi and Özil, but we paid them off so I'd hardly call that great business, but that wasn't really Arteta and Edu's fault so I didn't bring it up.

However we also got in Cedric and Willian that sort of undoes that work. Now we're going to offer Xhaka a new contract which means he'll likely leave on a free in 2024 or 2025. I don't personally feel he's added much value to our MF (ymmv) and we'll have gotten nothing in terms of a fee for him.

We're keeping on Elneny who is decent but again our midfield make up looks exceedingly mediocre despite having a number of bodies there, not good enough imo especially when there's atleast an offer on the table for Xhaka.

Also apparently we got an offer for Laca last summer? I mean unless it was like £5M or less, you just take it and run, because unless he has a really crazy season this year is it really worth it to keep him and lose him on a free?

As for Willock and Nelson I can't hand on heart say we've gotten the most out of them and we're keeping Laca and Xhaka who will probably go on free whilst selling those two for lesser value than they might get if they feature more (no guarantees ofc as the reverse might also be true).

Nketiah, well we're probably selling him at the bottom of his value too considering he hardly got a kick last season.

Bellerin I can't complain as he was a starter but just proved not to be good enough for most (I'm personally fine with keeping him but admit that I'm on an island on my own there).

Edit: Also forgot to mention but I think the £5/6M odd for Mavropanos is just lazy business. It's what I'm having issues with, sure we are selling some players but I feel like we're doing the easy sales and we're not even getting good enough value.

 

[GDeep™]

I don't think out sales are anywhere near as bad as they are made out to be, Iwobi, Ox and Walcott for £95m is fantastic business.

This thread is post Wenger. Ox and Theo were under Wenger.

Post Wenger, our buying, selling and loans have been terrible. How many top players have we signed despite spending 300M plus? Partey and Tierney? Who have we sold for big fees?

Even our loans have been terrible, we’ve not developed any players for sale or use, even worse we’ve brought players in without an abrogation to buy, what top club does that?