Why would they sign a left back? There's Robertson, Tsimikas, and Gomez and then the academy prospects at the club. As far as I'm aware no offers came in for Robertson or Tsimikas. Don't get me wrong it will be an area that needs improving on in the next year or two. But is is hardly a priority imo.
Maybe beacuse robertson looks to have lost stamina and is 30 going on 31? Or tsimikas looks a very poor player positionally and probably won't get any minutes. Or beacuse gomez hasn't been played yet by slot? The academy prospects have all been loaned out? One injury and we might look quite short of options yet.
But again, unless the above are sold then what? the position is very well covered currently. I don't understand the notion the club had to sign one as a minimum. If there was an injury crisis at LB then the club can likely recall the young players currently out on loan.
7/10 Hard to rate due to the number of young players signed with potential. The main achievement was to sort out any PSR issues without making the team weaker, and the average age of the squad has been brought down also. The negatives were getting a low-ish fee for Douglas Luiz and failing to move on Diego Carlos and/or Matty Cash meaning we couldn't upgrade our RB position. Ins Lewis Dobbin, 21 FW - £10m, Everton. PSR fiddle. Doesn't look good enough tbh, unlike Iroegbunam who went the other way. Ian Maatsen, 22 LB - £37.5m, Chelsea. Both our left backs were 31 so a good long term signing. Samuel Illing-Junior, 20 FW and Enzo Barranachea, 23 CM - £19m, Juventus. Both gone on loan. *shrug* Ross Barkley, 30 CM - £5m, Luton. Decent backup for Tielemans. Jaden Philogene, 22 FW - £13m, Hull. Nice to have him back, but a downgrade on the player he replaces - Diaby. Amadou Onana, 23 CM - £50m, Everton. Club record transfer. Not Luiz's replacement despite what the media seems to think (it's Tielemans). Beast of a player and he can play too. Hopefully Emery can polish him up and take him to the next level. Also signed a lot of young players. One to look out for is Omar Khedr, 18 FW (Egyptian). I reckon he will play in our first team this season. Outs Morgan Sanson to Nice, £?m - terrible signing. Not a Premier League type of player. Tim Iroegbunam to Everton, £9m - shame to lose him to a PSR fiddle. Thought he might make it with us but Emery wasn't a fan. Omari Kellyman to Chelsea, £19m - also a shame to lose him to a PSR fiddle but the money was too good to turn down. Douglas Luiz to Juventus, £42m - didn't get a great deal as we were over a barrel with PSR, but the club have done well replacing him. Moussa Diaby to Al-Ittihad, £50m - money was too good to turn down. Thought he was in for a good season. Oh well. In/Out Cameron Archer - Sheffield Utd to The Villa to Southampton. Hope he finds a home there to stop all the moving around. Sorry for the long list - blame Monchi.
On paper about 8 out of 10. Really happy with our 3 new defenders, especially Kilman who has been fantastic so far. We’ve clearly upgraded 3 of the 4 defensive positions. Coufal has never replicated his early form with us, zoumas knees are fckd and augard is a good footballer but not great at defending. And we’ve managed to shift 2 of those as well we’ve done some smart business in CM with Rodríguez and Soler, with very little outlay for the 2 of them. We’ve got lots of different options in the middle and on the flanks now. Summerville looks really promising and I’m excited to see what fulkrug can do when he’s up to speed. can’t grumble about any of our business, excited by most of the new signings but we needed to get another forward in (a youngster ideally) and shift ings. That’s the negative
Remember those bubble kits that promised on the packaging magnificent bubble's your kids would be in awe of ? The ones that just left you standing there in front of your expectant kids with washing up liquid running down your top and f*cking wet feet. Well that was our transfer window and I dare say I'll only remember it the next time I fart in the bath.
Just from what what I’ve seen of Slot’s style so far, I’m not sure how much Robertson and Tsimikas are suited to it. He likes his full backs coming in and playing narrow but it’s hard for Robertson and Tsimikas to do as none of them can use their right foot so will constantly be going back to Alisson. Given time, they may be able to adapt to it though. I still think it’s a position Liverpool could’ve strengthened with a LCB/LB similar to a Gvardiol/Calafiori.
My takeaway has been Robertson has been playing pretty narrow, almost pulling into a CB position which is weird given how Klopp had him playing. Ultimately I imagine they'll look to get a new LB in which will have t be the case regardless of playing style as Robertson is getting on now.
Yes he has but he's not exactly giving a passing master class right now. However both full backs are still able to go forward and provide that width as well when it suits.
I appreciate the desire to not want to block the paths of Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly but again, we’re trying to catch Man City. You aren’t going to do that giving minutes to a couple of 17 year olds. Unless they are Messi Just to emphasise my point further, Man City themselves drip fed Foden minutes. He didn’t have a 1000 minute season until he was 20.
Well. Where to start haha. "Big spending Brighton on the march to the title after buying the league" My initial shopping going into the summer would have been fairly simple: a RW (to cover for March/compete with him as and when he's back), a new starting RB, a young CB to develop over the next year or two, and a midfielder that can provide the physicality and defensive screening that gilmour and gross just can't while baleba continues developing We hit all of those points other than the CB this summer, and there can't be any complaints about the amount we've invested Ins: Rutter, Minteh, Wieffer, Gruda, Kadiolgu, O'Riley, Osman, Yalcouye, cozier-duberry Outs: undav, gross, gilmour, dahoud, lallana, leonard, Fati (end of loan), and tons of loans Net spend: somewhere in the ballpark of £150m The players with italicized names are those that have gone straight out on loan or were part of the loan army before being sold (so didn't play a role in the first team at all last season) For all the jokes about the number of players we've signed, the signings all make a lot of sense. Ignoring the punts we've taken on future signings (which we do every window), there's Wieffer as the DM we clearly need, O'Riley hopefully being a gross replacement, Rutter taking lallana's spot in the squad (for now, and maybe welbeck's in a couple years), Kadioglu being the new RB we've needed for three transfer windows, and minteh/gruda as RWs (extra cover there is no bad thing given the uncertainty over March's recovery time). So overall it's 5 out, 6 in for the first team. Nothing too extreme on the numbers side - transfermarkt still lists 30 players for us, but three of the players they list will primarily be playing in the u21s and only be used in emergencies, so really there are 27 members of the first team squad. Overall it's a near perfect window on the incomings, and the main thing taking the shine off of it is O'Riley already being injured. On the outs we've done less well - we failed to shift moder or lamptey, and I feel that barco/buonanotte could have stayed to fight for game time here rather than going out on loan. Hopefully both will play more while away though, and come back better players for it. Losing both gross and gilmour is also a bit worrying, especially with gilmours sale happening after O'riley's injury and before we know when he'll be back I'd still give the window an 8/10 at this point as a result. A CB, keeping Gross and shifting some more of the deadwood would have made it perfect. The club has clearly tried to address the main issues we faced last season, so it would be unreasonable for me to put too much weight on players already being injured or (imo) unnecessary development loans
Long term thinking? City isn't a linear conversation. They've weened off the mega money splurging. You've also 5 subs now. It's more than possible to win a game then target giving good minutes to those potential brilliant players.
Sancho got asked go on a US tour, he said no, Foden said yes, there's the difference, with academy it's all about the timing. Didn't hear anyone talking up Rico Lewis and now he's part of the treble winners and last years title winners, I think Rashford only got chance due to injuries in a game vs Liverpool.
In Ryan Sessegnon, Emile Smith Rowe, Jorge Cuenca, Sander Berge, Jochim Andersen, Reiss Nelson (loan) Out Tosin Adarabioyo, Joao Palhinha, Bobby DeCordova Reid, TIm Ream, Marek Rodak, Tyrese Francois, Willian, Kevin Mbabu, Jay Stansfield Got cover for our Centre Back positions which was needed after losing Tosin & Ream Emile Smith Rowe was probably our best signing. Think we should have strengthened in getting a better backup Keeper after letting Rodak go. Needed cover in for our Forward line but haven't got it. (Raul & Muniz are not Mitrovic replacement). Losing Stansfield was a blow to me as I feel he could have done a decent Striker job given coaching under Silva.
Not sure what your point is. It wasn't saying that you don't give young players a chance it was saying that you have to reach a very high level to get into your side, so high that players like Palmer and Sancho went elsewhere. @A Gooner was making the point that they can't be blooding in youth players into a side that wants to go toe to toe with you unless they're of an elite level, which at present Arsenals aren't.
Absolutely. Right place, right time, right Talent. You've a perfect example in both foden and Palmer. You'd contend both had the talent right? Did both get the chance? Maybe Was it the right time for both? For foden yes largely on his own in terms of timing so got chances. For Palmer probably not as he found his time less easy to get so left and exploded. Wouldn't it be a shame to have a potentially amazing player but you miss out because you put a less than amazing senior in his path? That's the point. Maybe arteta wants to work with these kids and sees them as a viable way to compete with city also. In any event only time will tell.
