14 Sep 2020 10:41:02
Lots of people upset that we sold Martinez. I'm split as to which of the keepers we should have sold but let's try to be real in that you can only keep 2 top keepers if;
1 - You have plenty of money available without selling them
2 - Both are happy to be rotated
3 - You have a perfectly balanced squad in all other areas so you don't need to raise funds for new purchases
Unfortunately none of the above is true in our case so we simply had to bite the bullet. As painful as it is, one of them had to go.
I just wish we worked a bit harder now on doing the same with the players we need to ship out ;
Chambers
Mustafi
Toriera
Guendouzi
Hector
Sokratis
Ozil
We got almost EUR 20 million for Emi - Surely we could get another EUR 80 million for that lot above and then get at least one if not both of our midfield targets in.
14 Sep 2020 11:12:21
There's one key issue that everyone seems to forget.
You can only sell a player if there are interested clubs and clubs that can afford a deal. Nobody wants Mustafi, Chambers and Ozil. Napoli want Sokratis but don't even want to pay a fee for him and Guendouzi thinks he's playing at KDB's level, so should leave to join a bigger a better club. Ed002 has already said that Arsenal are struggling to offload him.
Realistically we can sell Bellerin and Torreira but again, interested parties are limited mate.
Teams want players like AMN's and Martinez and it's so important that we generate some funds through player sales. Lacazette has publicly stated that he's happy at Arsenal and wants to stay but don't be surprised if we offload him for 50m if a club comes calling. He's the type of player that clubs want, not the dead wood so to speak.
14 Sep 2020 12:08:10
Agree totally Glenn.
I suppose the point I was trying to make was that selling Emi falls in to the category of selling the likes of Laca in that while some of us might not like to do it, the reality is that we need to sell them both to reduce the squad size and to raise funds.
The list I had to raise more money was more in hope than anything else due to the current market.
Tough decisions required all round at the moment.
14 Sep 2020 12:36:48
I totally agree lads, you can only sell a player if
A they agree to leave
B Another club wants them
C a fee can be agreed between Arsenal and the other club
D the player and other club reach agreement on the players wages etc.
It's definitely a buyers market right now and the market is flooded as almost all clubs try to off load unwanted players to save money, great news when your looking to pick up a bargain but not so great when your looking to sell players yourself.
14 Sep 2020 21:13:28
Agree with everything said so far. In any field, good assets, that offer quality, or something unique, will always have a re sale value, and market to do so.
Sadly that list of players we would like to offload, with perhaps the exception of Ozil, offers nothing unique, and have questionable or perhaps inconsistent quality.
All are on wages That put them into only the top tier of European club wage structures, none of which would touch any of those players with a barge poll.
The next level of European clubs, such as your Valencia’s, would have to make these players amongst their top earners for any to accept a move, and no-one is going to bring in Mustafi as their top paid player unless they come in on a free, so I fear we may be stuck with that list for longer than we hoped.