The Skipper

I agree. Moses will give us a good alternative option on the right though. He'd be great for squad depth. We need to build a good starting XI, but it's also important to build a good squad. I see where you're coming from but I don't think the Arsenal situation is really comparable. The players we signed e.g. Oscar and Hazard were brought in to have an immediate impact on the first team. That's why they were so expensive. Someone like Hazard has great experience already too. I'd be as concerned as you were if we went on to sign the Songs, Djourous, Walcotts etc. (players who haven't established themselves at all, even in their national team) but that's not the case at all with us. Arsenal believed more in buying players for obscure fees, who they could then develop into good players, not world class ones. They've had cases when these players have gone on to be world class (Fabregas, RVP) but that's the exception rather than the norm. We've bought the next superstars. They buy players with decent potential. The nuclei of our squad is still strong, we've still got the likes of Cech, Ivanovic, JT, Ashley Cole, Essien, Lampard, Mikel, Malouda and Torres who've all got bags and bags of experience. Arsenal didn't really have that. I personally really like the way the squad's being shaped up. We're signing a mixture of potential (Romeu, Moses?, KDB, Courtois) and pretty established talent (Hazard, Oscar, Marin, Ramires, Luiz). We only need a couple more signings and we'd truly have a complete squad.

£8.5m is a great fee, well done Gourlay.

Watch who you're calling idiot. It's not that I don't like you. I don't know you. What I don't like is how you feel the need to insult everyone. It's obvious you can't have a good constructive debate. Didn't know the forum had the block feature enabled, so I will be doing that. It'll definitely enhance my forum experience. Have a good day.

Azpilicueta, Hulk, Moses and Sahin and we won't have to operate majorly in the transfer window for 5/6 more seasons.

I don't understand it. We need a goal scorer? It's not like we have a team that creates lots and lots of chances only for whoever's playing upfront to miss the majority of them. What we need, is to sort out the way we play. We need that more than anything else. If we can get the tactics, the movement and the mechanics of the side right THEN we can judge whether we need a goal scorer or not. IMO, even the most potent goalscoring striker wouldn't maximise his goal return with the way we currently play. Buying a goal scorer is not going to solve the fact that we can't even get the ball to the goal scorer enough times. Drogba, Torres and Sturridge are goal scorers by nature. If we couldn't get them guys to score a lot of goals last season then the problem is clearly not eridicated by simply buying another goal scorer. We need to build a squad that'll allow us to tackle different problems and different situations. Signing Victor Moses, who's available at a decent price, would certainly help towards that.

Yeah, because we're going to get a DM who's so much better than Mikel and Romeu for £10m. I swear you're the catalyst to every thread spiralling into a Mikel debate. Regardless, Moses for £8m-£10m would be a decent deal for a good squad player. He won't be expected to start, but at least we'd have a proper option on the right side of attack, something we're still sort of missing.

Not basing on what I've heard/read. Azpilicueta isn't on Ivanovic's level at RB. He's not supremly agile compared to Ivanovic, plus he's not better in attack either. I think you've got the wrong image of Azpilicueta in your mind if you think he's good enough to displace Ivanovic at RB. Then again, I could be wrong as well as I haven't seen him play at all.

Wow. Had to sign up after seeing this. Just waiting for approval now...

Decent deal if true. Not heard many great things about the lad, never seen him play, but €9m is a relatively low fee so even if he doesn't turn out to be good it's not the end of the world. All I ask from him at this moment in time is that he'll provide good back up to Ivanovic, better than Ferreira or Hutch. If he can make the step up then that's even better.

If true, PSG are building a phenomenal team. Source though?

Mikel usually does.

It's not so much about what players we had. It's about the way we played. We didn't create enough as a team last year. It's been evident this preseason as well, but we've made the right steps towards rectifying that problem, we just need to marry the solution (e.g. Get the likes of Mata, Hazard and Oscar working together). If we do that then we'll surely see someone like Torres regularly scoring, thus reducing the need for a new striker. Believe it or not, Torres was our top scorer under RDM if I'm not incorrect. He's still good enough IMO, we just need to sort out other areas in the team before we can definitely know for sure that we need a new striker. That's my opinion anyway.

Only problem with this is that it doesn't seem to take you to the post you've been mentioned in. Well not on the iPhone anyway.

Is that why Drogba scored a hatful of goals as well? Look, I'm not saying that Torres is blameless, but I guarantee you any decent striker who had the service of most last season would struggle to score 20 goals too.

Add a CM like Sahin to that and we're set for years.

Perfect replacement for Zamora/Pogrebnyak.

You just gave me a very good idea for a thread!

Doubt he is on huge wages considering be came through the academy. If he's available at a reasonable price, he'd be very good back up to Ivanovic and also good competition to him. If we're looking for a new starting RB, which I don't see the point in, we're going to have to spend more than £20m to find anyone better than Ivanovic IMO.

Perhaps as a main RB yes. But Richards would provide very good competition and very good back up to Ivanovic IMO.

Of course, his team actually creates decent chances for him. Does he fashion a lot of chances away? He's good enough to put them away. He'd have problems here.

Rightly so, he's the better player. They wouldn't be on astronomical levels though.

£25m for Schurrle or £30m for Hulk. Hmm.

It's not a guarantee that we are going to sign two more players. If you think we definitely are then you're setting yourself up for dissapointment.

Would you be confident with Ba, Rondon, Schurrle or any of these other okay strikers leading the line as well? Fletcher would be a decent 3rd choice option, if both Sturridge and Torres were out injured or weren't producing. To me, having 3 good options for one position is more than enough.

It's not to me. To me the number 1 striker spot is between Sturridge and Torres. Whoever doesn't grab their chance will find theirselves on the bench.