Tomo

And then when Nkunku returns and we have an inconsistent £100m 250k a week back up who's heart is at Barcelona, what then?

@Pizyjust to further clarify I'm not too keen on the Balogun signing either (mainly because of the glut of young forwards we already have) just that's it's a bit harsh to have him being sold by Arsenal displayed as a red flag. Artetas talent ID isn't what it's cracked up to be.

For me outside of the restart period his good performances were as scattered and a few and far between as Torres', admittedly one of the outliers were a UCL semi but he quickly reverted to type in the final and could have cost us. The much maligned Hudson Odoi's form in the Autumn of 2021 (in terms of medium term form) is above anything Pulisic ever done for us with fans in the stadium.

He wasn't given a shirt number for a large part of the summer, Arteta was planning on doing exactly the same to him as he did to Auba, Guendouzi, Pepe etc. That was on top of loaning him out the year before and spending £50m on White instead of integrating him. Him literally taking no for an answer is the only reason Arsenal haven't got their own KDB situation right now.

However good or bad they become doesn't change the fact Pulisic was shit for his whole time here outside of what was effectively a pre season.

Arteta was happy to let Saliba go for good, it was the latter himself that decided to stay and fight.

One goal and all of a sudden 3 years of next to nothing is forgiven and forgotten, really?

Arsenal were prepared to sell Saliba until he insisted to stay and win his place.

I disagree tbh, those two I was never really that bothered about because as you said we have Reece and I wasn't/am not convinced by either from a defensive standpoint. Hall however is a huge asset, we're coming into an era of fullbacks going going midfield being the tactical trend and he's tailor made for that role. The blow is softened a bit by the news he was pushing but still, I think we've lost a big player here.

In fairness he's "only" signed for four years so he'll be attainable before he even peaks.

You'd be the first to lose your mind if we signed a youngster with 12 career appearances for that price 🤣

Newcastle won't accept that. They're a competitive equal now with similar ambitions to us, if he goes to Newcastle he's going for good.

For all their flaws in their overall game both Sterling and Auba have an excellent scoring record down the years. On paper those two alone should have added 30-40 goals but we barely got to that figure as a team, which is why I laugh when I see comments like "get in a number 9 and some proven PL players" like we haven't already tried it to disastrous results (hopefully 'so far' in Sterling's case).

Last summer we signed two elite goalscorers and ended up with our worst scoring season in nearly a century. Sort the system and the goalscoring will take care of itself.

I wouldn't be so sure. If we shown willingness to bid £100m at an early stage there's no way Bloom wasnt moving the goalposts and raising the price.

The ironic thing the 7 year deal has come up clutch for us in the end. Given how we were moving pre the recruitment team being constructed he'd have so been given a new deal off the back of his Autumn purple patch had he been on his last year.

Morelike he's the only keeper of note happy to go there as a placeholder and then warm the bench once the main guy is back.

Liverpool defensively are a mess. VVD has declined almost as badly as Kouli has, Robertson is totally out of his depth in the new hybrid role (its why they were so desperate for Colwill) and well it's always open season on their right hand side. Even if they somehow still get Caicedo that's going to absolutely cripple them this season.

They got Haaland because of his Dad and even then he asked for a release clause to keep his options open in the coming years. Haaland to City is the equivalent of Terry or Drogba's son becoming world class, in that context they may aswell have come from the academy. City haven't exactly been attracting the bonafide tier 1 superstars (that didn't have the connection with the club or become that level while with them), Bellingham didn't look twice at them and even an ageing CR7 fucked them off as soon as United batted their eyelashes and asked for round two.

Mbappe and Bellingham level attacking players are (99.9% of the time) out of reach for us regardless of where we're at (and even if somehow fluke one we'd be seen as a stepping stone to Real/Barca). Even when we were dominating under Jose 1.0 we still didn't have a cat in hells chance of signing the likes of Ronaldinho and Henry. They're simply above our market sadly, only big chance of ever having that level a player is if they come from Cobham. Hazard has been the only exception.

A lot can change over a summer, 21/22 Chelsea probably finish 2nd in last season's league. Not to mention, Arsenal and United will both be fielding a bigger culprit to our 12th place finish than we will most weeks 🤣 That being said, even if we do margainly miss out I hope not too much blame is put on Poch if the advanced metrics are pointing to sustainable progression. As boring as the football was that season, we'd be in a much better place currently if Sarri stayed, it was very sustainable as he showed before and since.

Top 4 should be minimum requirement.

For the same reason Kante came here over United the last time we had a season like the one before. One swallow doesn't make a summer. Also Liverpool are just as uncertain as us at the minute (they were arguably worse than us last season until we effectively forfeited the season reappointing Lamps) they have a defense falling apart at the seams and like with us a new younger midfield replacing experienced pros. Not to mention a manager known for his teams totally collapsing around this stage of his tenure.

I can understand why people would have been underwhelmed had he been the Caicedo alternative but in isolation I felt he would have been a smart signing (similar to when Liverpool took advantage of Newcastle's relegation to sign Wijnaldium).

Bit disappointed tbh although I'll quickly get over it if we get this deal over the line 🤣 Felt he was going to be a good signing.