Mikel Arteta: Aston La Vista To The Title?

[Makingtrax]

There's no dumb comments, i'm just talking to some thick as a plank spacker.

You can’t control yourself anymore on this forum. I keep seeing mod edits. You need a rest @American_Gooner

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Why do people keep raising net spend, it means absolutely nothing.

A team at the bottom of the league can sell a player for £10m and buy one for £30m and their net spend is -£20m. A team at the top of the league can sell a Coutinho like player £100m and buy 2 players at £60m, and their net spend is -£20m. Same net spend that year. Are fans of the lower team going to keep saying they should be competing with the top team because they have the same net spend.

Only squad cost tells you what the club has really invested in a squad, not net spend.

Our defence is the best thing about us atm and one of the best defences in the league. Also cant deny that even on paper our defence is impressive ability wise. Much better than a team like Manchester United for example.

Arsenal defence cost inc keeper - £100M or so.
United defence cost inc keeper - Around £215M.

Now you look at the attack we'll take Liverpool as the example as they've scored a mammoth amount of goals in recent years with the same front 3.

Arsenal attack cost - £184M.
Liverpool attack cost - Just under £100M.

Squad cost is important when you're differentiating from the very top clubs to the mid table ones and lower. But within that top 6 squad cost is one of the things that doesn't really matter. Back up even further by wage bill. Look at Sp**s and Liverpool's wage bill compared to the likes of Arsenal and United. Which clubs have done better over the past few seasons? Sp**s and Liverpool, says a lot really.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

I think the days of finding these hidden gem wonderkids are pretty much gone in football anyway. Sure you'll get the odd Martinelli but there aren't too many around. Every half decent kid has an agent at 14 now and has probably been scouted by the top clubs.

I used to love the early days when Wenger used to pluck an unknown 17 year old out of the Estonian third division, there was about a 50% chance he'd be class too

 

[HairSprayGooners]

I think the days of finding these hidden gem wonderkids are pretty much gone in football anyway. Sure you'll get the odd Martinelli but there aren't too many around. Every half decent kid has an agent at 14 now and has probably been scouted by the top clubs.

I used to love the early days when Wenger used to pick an unknown 17 year old out of the Estonian third division, there was about a 50% chance he'd be class too

Yeah these days you have to pay £20-40M for those gems. Which is absolutely fine.

I personally believe we are 3 players away from a title challenging starting 11 on paper. That would still have our squad cost very low.

 

[MikelHadADream]

Why do people keep raising net spend, it means absolutely nothing.

A team at the bottom of the league can sell a player for £10m and buy one for £30m and their net spend is -£20m. A team at the top of the league can sell a Coutinho like player £100m and buy 2 players at £60m, and their net spend is -£20m. Same net spend that year. Are fans of the lower team going to keep saying they should be competing with the top team because they have the same net spend.

Only squad cost tells you what the club has really invested in a squad, not net spend.

Because it firstly highlights the lack of quality we have had over the years due to terrible recruitment, and it secondly shows our inability to sell players when they should have been sold. Its a vicous circle tbh.

For example, we rejected 60million pounds for Sanchez to only get nothing for him 4 months later. The player we then replaced him with cost left on a free. You cant build a football team like that unless you are Man City.

 

[GDeep™]

I think the days of finding these hidden gem wonderkids are pretty much gone in football anyway. Sure you'll get the odd Martinelli but there aren't too many around. Every half decent kid has an agent at 14 now and has probably been scouted by the top clubs.

I used to love the early days when Wenger used to pluck an unknown 17 year old out of the Estonian third division, there was about a 50% chance he'd be class too

Leicester have been signing players from under the radar for years now, they have great scouting.

Gems are there if you know where to look.

 

[GDeep™]

Arsenal fans got bored of gems anyway as the development period was long. I remember people on here saying they rather have a decent experienced player as they’ll at least perform today, a gem no matter how good will still need years to develop.

We got what we wanted, we’re stacked with decent experienced players now.

 

[BigPoppaPump]

Arsenal fans got bored of gems anyway as the development period was long. I remember people on here saying they rather have a decent experienced player as they’ll at least perform today, a gem no matter how good will still need years to develop.

We got what we wanted, we’re stacked with decent experienced players now.

I'm of that ilk myself, we don't have time to have a bunch of youth players developing it's annoying to watch them. Liverpool's success came from buying players going into their prime years.

No more trying to make random 18 year olds that spend most of their time injured and then end up leaving us anyway. We need more Partey type signings.

 

[Macho]

Leicester have been signing players from under the radar for years now, they have great scouting.

Gems are there if you know where to look.

I disagree, Saliba and Fofana cost close to 30 mil and Saliba had 18 appearances in senior football. Leicester were smart and made their Fofana signing undisclosed but it is believed he cost the same.

Gabriel cost 20 something mil with not much men's football. we even had to battle Man U and Napoli for him.

Martinelli got turned down by a lot of top clubs before he came here, we got lucky.

Championship signings like Watkins and Benrahama cost over 20 mil now, Benrahma is 25 as well so there's some risk there.

Benfica have fantastic talents but their release clauses are insane. I think it's much harder to find low key talent compared to years ago.

 

[MikelHadADream]

Depends on what you consider a hidden gem. Liverpool signed Mane/Jota/Wijnaldum from teams within the Premier league, and they've gone on to become top players for them. If those names had been mentioned on here at the time they moved, they would have been dismissed instantly. There are lots of players at lower clubs that would improve this team.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

Leicester have been signing players from under the radar for years now, they have great scouting.

Gems are there if you know where to look.

Leicester aren't generally signing wonderkids though, which is what I was talking about. They're signing underrated adult players 20+ for the most part.

Their scouting system is great though.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Leicester have been signing players from under the radar for years now, they have great scouting.

Gems are there if you know where to look.

We wanted Soyuncu before Leicester nabbed him. Sad times.

 

[GDeep™]

Soyuncu, James Justin, Maddison, Ricardo Pereira, Maguire, Ndidi, Castagne, Mendy etc.

All signed in recent years and all for under 20M. Not even including Vardy, Mahrez, Kante, Schmeichel etc.

 

[GDeep™]

I’m talking general scouting, not wonderkids.

That said, Soyuncu and Maddison would qualify as wonder kids.

The Leicester model is similar to what we had post Highbury.

 

[HairSprayGooners]

Soyuncu, James Justin, Maddison, Ricardo Pereira, Maguire, Ndidi, Castagne, Mendy etc.

All signed in recent years and all for under 20M. Not even including Vardy, Mahrez, Kante, Schmeichel etc.

That's nice but then you have the flip side with Fofana £31M, Castagna £21M, Tielemans £40M, Perez £30M, Praet £17M, Ghezzal £13M, Ward £13M.

They've spent a lot of money in the past 3 or 4 windows.

 

[TakeChillPill]

Without a full squad? What are you on about. We had the money to build a full squad We've spent close to £700M on footballers since 2014. Are you telling me we couldn't have built a decent enough squad by now with that spend?

There's no dumb comments, i'm just talking to some thick as a plank spacker.

Biggest mistake we made was that we made was that instead of spending an extra £10m and buying a world class player we decided to pay pay top dollar for potential and basically every player turned out to be a huge flop.

Xhaka - if we paid a bit more we could've gotten Saul or Kante.

Mustafi - if we paid a bit more we could've gotten koulobaly

Laca - if we paid a bit more we could've gotten auba the first time around. And spent the remaining £50m on Mahrez

Basically we wanted our cake and to eat it...it didn't pay off and it's set us back 10years.

 

[GDeep™]

That's nice but then you have the flip side with Fofana £31M, Castagna £21M, Tielemans £40M, Perez £30M, Praet £17M, Ghezzal £13M, Ward £13M.

They've spent a lot of money in the past 3 or 4 windows.

They’ve spent because they’ve sold big too - Maguire, Ndidi, Mahrez, Kante etc.

 

[OnlyOne]

Arsenal have just never sold well, thats the only difference. Leicester have also spunked money away on players, all clubs do it.

Silmani, Musa, Silva, Iheanacho, Benkovic.. thats nearly 100M.

 

[A_G]

Arsenal have just never sold well, thats the only difference.

 

[kash2]

when was the last time arsenal outbid everyone to sign a prime age player?