I’m just not feeling the panic

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Lacazette

Two months and no posts. That is without doubt the longest I have ever left it fallow since raising the mainsail on this blog, all those mixed metaphors ago.

And I tell you what – I let my mind chunter off elsewhere most summers and it’s a joy. I recommend it. Yes, I’ve thrown some shoddy wordplay into Twitter from time to time before scurrying away, but not paying too much attention to the (let’s be frank, limited) transfers has done me no end of good.

The result? I’ve not whipped myself up into a megafrenzy about not landing that £50m striker. I’m just looking forward to the season starting and getting back into the routine. Simple man, simple pleasures.

I say that, but now that I tally the fixtures with my actual life, I’m not in fact going to the first two games, so won’t be at the Emirates until 24th September for our annual home handbrake to Chelsea. That might explain my sanguine disposition.

Xhaka happened so long ago that people forget he was a £35m signing, but I do concede that there are yawning gaps in our squad that need filling. The mixed messages from Chief Ivan have not helped matters but it’s pretty clear we’re looking, as two rejections of different kinds prove (Vardy and now Lacazette).

Of course, there are those who will decry a £35m bid for Lacazette as low-balling and arrogant, but isn’t that how prices get sorted, whether they are houses, car boot sales or players? Coming in lowish rather than slinging £60m at the problem as a first bid seems sensible to me. No?

So as it stands we have one ready-made in Xhaka and two ‘prospects’ in Rob Holding and a Takuma Asano.

My guess? There will be a fair bit of activity yet. No, we might not get it all done by 14th August, but that’s the nature of the market.

And if we fire blanks until September? Well then we can all drop the panic anchor and stagger off the plank wailing.

Still looking forward to the season, though 😉

Jim

Arsenal since about 1979. Thick, thin and all that.

This Post Has 13 Comments

  1. Me

    Whats the point..

  2. Jim

    Of what?

  3. FunGunner

    Finally, some sense. Thanks.

  4. Jim

    Thanks. Feels too early for nonsense. Plenty of time for that!

  5. Signorjay

    The bid for Lacazette was £29 which is certainly low balling it, we seem to have adopted the Alan Partridge approach to negotiation. West Ham had a bid £35m for Lacazette rejected back in June so it’s beyond my comprehension as why we would offer 6m less for him. This is another example of our poor transfer planning and negotiation blunders, numerous agents and journalist have commented on the face clubs don’t like doing business with us because of instances like this. This kind of approach just makes the approached team more aggressive and stubborn.

  6. Arsical

    Common sense seems to depart the masses when it comes to football transfers. “just, bid £70m to get it done Wenger” as if any of us have every been involved in negotiating a multi-million pound deal. Ffs. Which of us have ever started an ebay auction by bidding the highest possible bid.
    Common sense people. Common effing sense. Why would Arsenal PLC bid higher than the figure the media reported West Ham bid? Somehow I doubt that the Arsenal’s corridors of power are patrolled by individuals that would give two shits about what’s written on the back page of the Daily Mail.
    Lets negotiate. You say high, I say low. You say no way. I say let split the difference. We end up somewhere in the middle. Common fucking sense!

  7. Signorjay

    In answer to your question one would Arsenal PLC would higher than West Ham bid after seeing West Hams bid was turned down. Not quite sure what the media have to do with it as the figures of both West Hams and Arsenal bids were released by the Lyon chairman.

    You can keep shouting from tbe roof tops we have lots of money we can compete for any player apart from Messi & Ronaldo then everytime you try to sign a player cry poverty.Not suggesting we bid 70m quid but common sense if the club dont want to selll you have to make it worth their while.

  8. Jenkinson

    Lyon have not disclosed when Arsenal made their bid. West Ham made theirs in June – not so long ago and probably a response to the Arsenal bid and enough to make us back off.

  9. Jim

    Are we not assuming it was right now? Why else would you make it public?

  10. thenry

    no one is crying poverty its about common sense lacazette is not worth more then what we bid imo and its the first bid not the last the fact that the lyon chairman has decided to make it public seems to be a negotiating tactic to get us to bid higher but most know it all arsenal fans know better as usual i imagine when they buy things they pay over the odds for everything in their lives.
    at the momment you can’t please the small contingent that believes every negative thing said about Arsenal
    they seem to forget we started off spending 35 million for xhaka or does that not count
    COYG

  11. Jack Tuffney

    Usual useless activity, most expensive club to watch, most penny pinching to provide a decent team. Watch what all our competition do over and above us. Then when we lose to Liverpool with a patched together team everything goes toxic, booed off and Wenger abused. From day one. Lose to Leicester next week, and everything is wrong. There is something fundamentally wrong at Arsenal. I don’t know if it’s Arsene, if I was him I’d of asked for 150m and tried to win the league. We are a joke.

  12. Nonny

    @ Signorjay

    The fact that WHU bid a higher figure than we did does not imply Lyon must sell to WHU. I will give you 2 recent examples to butress my case.

    Tottenham bidded more for Welbeck than we did yet he chose us. Liverpool bidded more for Sanchez than we did yet he came to us.

    Transfers are not like going to a market to buy a commodity. For any transfer to happen, 3 things must fall in place.

    1. The team must be willing to sell because if they don’t want to sell, no deal can ever happen. Example, Liverpool and Suarez. Don’t tell me the £40m + 1 is a joke because John Henry admitted later that the offer activated Suarez’s released but because they didn’t want to sell, they made fun and played around it.

    2. The player must be willing to go to the club. If a player does not want to go, no matter the money offered, the deal can never happen. Example Kaka and Man City. Man City were willing to make him the highest paid player and break world transfer fee but he didn’t want to go even when AC Milan wanted to sell him.

    So it’s not just enough to say, offer them whatever they want for whoever. If you manage a club like that, unless you have a sugar daddy ready to bankroll the club, you will go bankrupt in no time even if you win a few trophies in the process. Where are Leeds and Blackburn?

    Like @Arsical says, it takes more than Twitter and FM warriors to run a club

  13. PDDD

    No need to panic at all.
    It’s not as if there’s any precedent here. I mean Arsene always gets things right in every transfer window & we never go into the season lacking in keys areas right ? 11 days to the first league game of the season & our options up front for that game are Theo & Akpom. No problem…..two world class options. And we’ve got 3 easy games before the transfer window shuts….and hey, even if it somehow goes wrong in those 3 games (you know the way we’re so unlucky with referees & everything else) this team’s mental strength is so world renowned that everyone knows we’ll bounce back & be champions anyway.
    Everything is rosy. Arsene was, is and always will be the world’s first perfect football manager. Don’t ever doubt him. In fact, sign him up for another 3 years. Oh what the hell – 5 years ! Everything’s fantastic, yay for Arsenal !!!

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