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Julian.
Dude are you fucking idiot? He is awful, definitely worse than Scsahcasheny in case he's brought as a first team goalkeeper.
VP.
Its a loan deal with an agreement to buy if we want. You really need to just worry about your own club rather than ours.
Telegram Sam
1-1 at Newcastle
you cunt
Julian.
Telegram Sam
Thursday nights
Fantastic
Julian.
Telegram Sam
Obtuse
K3V0
You've probably already got your Mesut Özil tattoo done.
Ninja
AFC
I think the biggest thing is the signing of Ozil shows some ambition/intent that we could use in Jan/next summer to sign a world class striker etc and build from there.
GK - Szczesny/Viviano
LB - Gibbs/Monreal
RB - Sagna/Jenkinson
CB - Kos/Mert/Vermaleen
CM - Arteta/Wilshere/Ramsey/Flamini
AM - Cazorla/Walcott/Ozil/Rosicky/Ox (when he returns)
ST - Giroud (No real cover, could be a problem)/ Podolski (when he returns)
Decent overall I think. 2 more world class signings and we are title challengers.
Telegram Sam
I don't see how being delighted with Ozil means I've forgotten about all of the other players we missed out on/ needed.
I'm still ambivalent towards how I feel about this window. We've signed a new goalkeeper, defensive midfielder and an attacking midfielder but I still cannot believe we're going into the season with only Giroud, Sanogo and Bendtner as our striking options. We needed another defender as well. As delighted as I am with Ozil, I can't shake the thought of how good we'd look with Higuain in front of him and Luiz Gustavo in the midfield.
This window has been a stressful one but Wenger pulled a massive rabbit out of the hat in Ozil. The fact we've signed a £42.5m player from Real Madrid who most people would claim is one of the best players in the world is huge for us. It's still frustrating that we didn't fill the other positions where we look short but the Ozil signing and the result on Sunday has perhaps seen me give Wenger more credit.
Telegram Sam
When we have a fit squad we pretty much have two good players to cover each position (bar the striking position). We do only have three central defenders but Sagna can play there whilst Flamini can fill in at right-back.
Viviano
Sagna - Mertesacker - Koscielny - Gibbs
Jenkinson - x - Vermaelen - Monreal
Arteta - Ramsey
Flamini - Wilshere
Walcott - Ozil - Cazorla
Chamberlain - Rosicky - Podolski
Giroud
x
Ninja
It's fair enough, I'm just not sure I'd be particularly happy that the club decided to spend money on one player despite the problems with your squad, and even then signed a player in a posistion that you needed least.
Don't get me wrong, Ozil is a good enough player that his mere presence at Arsenal improves you but for all the talk of laying down a marker and world class signings would he improve you more than that money spent on other, lesser players for posistions you need more?
I guess its just one of those conundrums you face, we had a similar thing with Van Persie last season and won the league by miles. So I guess its not a black and white issue.
Eric Portapotty
After all, if he wants a move, surely he must do enough to warrant other clubs' interest?
Telegram Sam
It's a gamble and a gamble I wish Wenger hadn't taken, but there is some logic in it. We could, perhaps, have signed someone like Michu yesterday for £25m. He's a good Premier League striker, no doubt, but I get the feeling Wenger has always thought that we could do better and doesn't want to spend the money he's saved up for top quality players on decent players. If Giroud keeps banging in the goals and stays fit then we might be okay until January and around that time a far better striker than Michu may become available and we'll still have the money to go after such a player. It's a huge risk given our injury problems and I don't agree with it completely but I can see Wenger's logic.
Also, it wasn't a case of spending £40m on Ozil or three or four lesser players - we have plenty more money available for transfers, it's just that Wenger didn't want to spend it on lesser players. There's still plenty of players I wish he had bought alongside Ozil that were a lot cheaper, mind.
Poe
I'm not so convinced he will.
Telegram Sam
I never even entertained the possibility that we'd almost triple our transfer record and sign a world class player like Mesut Ozil, but here we are. It's not a guarantee but Wenger has proven that he's willing to spend big when the right player becomes available.
Ninja
I guess its the sign of the changing market that average players now cost a bomb, we paid £27m for fucking Fellaini, for example.
I think thats the struggle we've both had this summer. City, and Spurs, may have looked at players like Fernandinho and said 'thats too much money, but its what we need and we aren't going to balk at the fee' whereas we have had a set fee we consider the players 'worth' and won't go above that whether it is Gustavo, Higuain, Suarez or Fabregas, Modric, Herrara and (for us) Ozil. And then we got desperate and bought Fellaini.
I assume we're hoping we can ride out what we think is an obvious bubble in the transfer market and then hope that fees normalise next year, wheras others think that £25m for a good player £40m+ for an excellent one is the new going rate.
We'll see, I suppose.
Eric Portapotty
1. Look how well that turned out , 2. What?
Telegram Sam
I think it's fair to say that Manchester United and Arsenal share quite an old-fashioned philosophy in terms of the transfer market and I'm sure that's why neither clubs bought anyone of note until the last day of the transfer window. Clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City probably don't have much of a problem spending over the odds on players because, lets face it, the money they're spending isn't money they've earned but rather oil money pumped in externally by Russians and Emiratis.
RealityCheck
I thought Cazorla was your record buy?
Telegram Sam
I think it's Arshavin, which was definitely £15m.
Cazorla's transfer was closer to £12m and the Reyes deal was only worth £17m including add-ons, but seeing as he didn't play much and we won bugger all then I can't imagine we paid much more money after the initial payment.
Eric Portapotty
Apparently Reyes' price included add-ons, which pushed it over Cazorla as (what was) our record transfer.
Telegram Sam
I'm still pretty sure we didn't pay as much for Cazorla as we did for Arshavin.
Eric Portapotty
Weird.
Telegram Sam
VP.
The way i saw things though the summer was that we had 3 main targets, Benzema, Suarez and Higuain. Now the reason we didn't sign Higuain is simply because he wasn't our top target (that imo was Suarez), that's why Napoli were able to nip in and sign him as we had our eyes elsewhere, clearly believing that Suarez had that buyout clause. Once that wasn't the case and Liverpool had quite openly came out and said that there was no way they would sell to us, that deal was dead. Benzema was slightly different as like Ozil, it depended on 1- us qualifying for the Champions League and 2- Who would be available once Bale signed. For me Benzema was never really available though, he's been playing and scoring and is a very important part of that side, plus Madrid would have had to replace him and time was not on there side. Plus i genuinely do not believe he would have wanted to join us, unless Madrid had made it very clear they didn't want him.
I do expect us to try to sign someone in January, but again it really does depend on who is available otherwise it'll be next summer. Fingers crossed Giroud can stay fit and the rest of the team can chip in with goals, this happened last season so its not unthinkable.
VP.
Also, a couple of quotes from Madrid players.