About a month ago I think I wrote a piece which said something broadly along the lines of “it’s only June people, we don’t need to lose our collective sh*t just yet”. We were just a few weeks after the Europa League Final, it appeared as though there were a few targets who were being identified and the club were start to sniff out interest.
Well we’re now on 13th July, with less than a month to go before the transfer window closes and the Premier League starts and rather than finalise some deals which really shouldn’t have dragged on as long as they have, we’re doing what the Arsenal of old have done a heck of a lot over the last 10 years or so: we’re dragging our heels.
Take the Kieran Tierney bid. £15million dropped on Celtic’s laps about two weeks ago. Neil Lennon confirmed yesterday I think that no other bid has come in. Why? Surely we must have known that this opening bid was just a starter and Celtic are clearly happy to sell. So why on earth has a second bid or at least further contact happened? Why have Arsenal just let two week’s pass with little other action.
We’ve seen this before at Arsenal, only previously it’s been because Arsene was the driving force and then he’d just walk away. We have heard stories of Arsene dithering on deals but as it stands right now it feels like this is just a culture of indecision at Arsenal and that is a really big worry for me. Arsenal’s hierarchy don’t appear top have any real plan in place and whereas we lamented the ‘words’ of Ivan and the lack of decision of Arsene at the club, what we’ve seen so far from Raul and Vinay is a committee of people unable to act in a manner befitting one of the most wealthiest clubs on the planet. And we are. We may not have the greatest commercial deals or Champions League football, but Arsenal football club makes a ton of money and has a global fanbase. But we are being left in the dark and what we are seeing, as we’ve seen what feels like nine summers out of the last 10, is a football club that runs itself like a semi-professional team at times.
We were supposed to be ‘outsmarting the market’. There’s no way you can tell me that is happening right now. We’re about to be gazumped by Tottenham for one of the few deals that looked like we were finally getting over the line! What sort of message does that send out to the fans? To the young fans that are looking forward to the friendly games in the States or the Emirates Cup? They can’t usually afford to go to the normal games during the season because of the prices, yet this is a time of the year when they can get excited because new signings can tale to the field to get them excited. Yet we currently have the club putting out social media posts about the Emirates Cup with ‘tickets still available’. Yeah, in their droves, because there’s little at the club that doesn’t look like an unmitigated disaster right now. There doesn’t feel like there’s any leadership and even the leadership on the field wants out through any means necessary.
I said a month ago we shouldn’t lose our collective sh*t. Well I’m starting to lose mine because we are aimlessly lurching towards the start of the season and we’ll do so with a team that only looks half complete at best. Let’s not forget we’re worse off than we were last season having released a fair few first teamers and all we have two show for it right now are a group of young players who are going to get plenty of game time. Hey, maybe they’ll be the saviour of the club but I’m not so sure at this stage. Have we seen enough of Willock to suggest he will be a star? Is Saka really ready to make the step up having played hardly any games in the first team last season? We’ve also got a heck of a lot of hope on Reiss Nelson but he didn’t play the whole season at Hoffenheim so should we be expecting him to come in and light up the place on his own? It’s a tall order for a player who should be part of the first team, but not somebody we’re going to pin absolutely all of our hopes on. I mean for christ’s sake he hasn’t even completed a full season of senior team football yet! Look at how tired Torreira was towards the end of last season. Nelson will probably experience the same learning curve and we’re going to pin all our hopes on the poor lad? It’s farcical.
But that’s Arsenal right now. We’re a farce. And unless something starts to give now, then it’s only going to get worse.
Catch you all tomorrow.
Must agree I’ve tried to stop listening to all the rumours of who we’re interested in, bid for, keeping tabs on etc as most are out of our price range anyway.
Would love to see a lot of our youngsters used this season but with some experienced players brought in to help them. Never thought Saliba was a viable option for Arsenal as we need players now not in 12 months time. Tierney would be a good buy so don’t understand why Arsenal havent gone in with a better offer. Zilech from Ajax would be a good fit to operate behind our front 2 and cheap at £30 million.
However seems to be the same old thing with Arsenal dithering along until theres no one left to buy.
Just reading the headline of ur article triggered my response, Arsenal is a team going down period!! They are not in it to compete on the highest level anymore, when I listen to fans on aftv ranting on about this or that signing new players , I just look at the whole brouhaha and laugh, Arsenal is finish!! Remember old Leeds United, Nottingham Forest etc, all went down due to bad club policies , Arsenal on the other hand was unlucky to have Wenger and gazaridis that started the rot, making them loose so much money by not signing up players and then letting them go for free or fraction of their real worth, we are talking of 5-6 players that could have generated close to 200m, what are those morons are Arsenal smoking for real?? These simple model of management is the platform Liverpool and spurs have used to leave Arsenal behind
Arsenal lack ambition big time!! A serious team that’s trying to re invigorate themselves would hit the ground running trying to sign new players at least to shore up the defence and drastically get rid of the ones that ain’t good enough , they conceded so much goal that there is little between them a pub Sunday team, I wonder why people are slagging off Koscielny, the guy simply has had enough of a team that is happy to keep loosing even he has been part of the poor history, maybe he has had enough of picking the ball from the net many many times
Yes!
I agree 100% with your analysis of the current board etc. I have a very good source who tells me things usually true and a month before the club announce it. Lately his respect for the club has hit an all time low because he says that the club is riddled with edicts from the God figure come yank and his son. In these statements it is clear that not only are transfers frowned upon but AFC are no longer going to compete with the top 10 clubs. Ie: future transactions will be based on the loan, payment over 5 years, or free. All that fits exactly with what has happened this month ie: nothing. Kroenke wants AFC to be run like a super market buy cheap and lower expectations. Finally if you know real AFC history as I do being 77 and a Gunner for 70 years, you would see a horrible parallel with 1959- 1962. Our manager then gave the board a list of players he wanted to take us to the Real Madrid level. The list had on it Cliff Jones, Jimmy Greaves, Danny Blanchflower, Terry Medwin, Maurice Norman, Mel Hopkins and John Charles. It never happened because like today Spurs waited and offered a little more and signed all but one of the list. Guess what they then won the double and John Charles was sold to Juventus. Our bad history is back. If Emery ends up as we suspect with 3/4 second rate signings it will mean us finishing 8/9 th and him getting the sack by January.
This is depressing to find out Pete ☹️