I think replacing Alexis with one of Mahrez/Lemar and Lacazette is more akin to Pires for Overmars than Giroud for RVP
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This is the best news i’ve heard in a while. Until we sign a replacement? Our history of signing replacements means Sanchez will be drawing his pension with us!
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No, it means we will sign Sanogo’s distant cousin, as the club’s stadium announcer and call him Sanchez’s replacement. Wenger’s definition of replacement isn’t even on the same planet as yours and mine.
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Why? It seems we are acting quickly this summer 
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I think Wenger has realised he is skating on thin ice with the supporters, and his pathetic attitude towards transfer windows has made a lot of supporters turn against him.
That, and finishing fifth, behind spurs, not being in the CL and watching all our rivals qualify for it, as well as his only world class players wanting to leave.
Saying that, I’m not sure he has acted that quickly.
He has bought Lacazette, who is a decent signing but a few seasons too late, and he might buy Lemar, who is an inferior version of Sanchez.
For me that represents a poor transfer window because if we couldn’t get a top four place last season with Sanchez, I don’t see how we are going to do it without him next season.
Having a massive overhaul of the first team, with at least three world class players coming in, and losing two or three of our under performers might have convinced me he’s changed.
But that isn’t going to happen.
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Hmm. I think we’re acting fairly quickly. We identified Mbappe as our top target, bid a world record fee for him (or close to, right?) and put in serious work to try and make it happen. That didn’t wok out some we went out and bought a different striker for what was still a club record fee. Moving on to, and pretty quickly signing, a secondary target with two months of the window to go is not particularly typical of us and in my eyes seems to represent a shift in policy.
When viewed like this I think it’s only fair to say that we are acting quite quickly. If you add that we seem to be tabling properly serious bids for a top young player we want then the case starts to become hard to argue with IMO.
I’d also add that Lemar is a pretty different kind of player to Sanchez. He’s an inferior player to him right now, but he isn’t an inferior version of Sanchez.
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I really don’t get this logic.
We were a top 4 team getting 70-79 points before Alexis turned up.
With Lacazette up top and a decent enough replacement for Alexis’ slot there’s no reason that we won’t be at least as good as we were last season, and our biggest problem last season was a mental collapse that seemed to go on forever. If that can be prevented or reduced there’s no reason we can’t beat 75 points.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that Alexis was nothing special the season before last and the rest of the team is no weaker than it was then.
Alexis going seemed like a foregone conclusion from the start of the window. I don’t know why every signing we make has to be in relation to him. Nobody actually expected us to replace Alexis with a player as good as Alexis, did they? We can only do what we can with what’s left and as long as we sign the best player we can for our attack then I don’t think we can really complain.
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Bidding for a player is great but not getting him makes it pointless.
We have needed a striker for four seasons and replacements for Sanchez and Cazorla just to keep us at the level we were, so anything less would be unacceptable.
So far we only have a striker, which should have been sorted several seasons ago, which would be a minimum requirement.[quote=“Craigie, post:7631, topic:125”]
With Lacazette up top and a decent enough replacement for Alexis’ slot there’s no reason that we won’t be at least as good as we were last season,
[/quote]That might be true, if Lacazette and Sanchez replacement have a good start to the season, but even if they do, and we are as good as we were last season it means we will still be out of the top four.
Also, all the other top clubs are going to strengthen significantly, with the exception of spurs.
[quote=“Craigie, post:7631, topic:125”]
It’s also worth bearing in mind that Alexis was nothing special the season before last and the rest of the team is no weaker than it was then.
[/quote]He was still our best player even if he wasn’t as good as he was the following season, where he was one of the best players in Europe.
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Wenger has won many doubters over to his side again. But surprise! This is what he does every season. Getting our hopes up every transfer window. And as always I hope I’m wrong and he can build a competitive squad again.
We already knew one between Alexis and Mesut was always gonna leave. To replace one of them with Laca and maybe Mahrez and Lemar as well would be ok to me.
If you want to look at it that way, then pretty much any endeavour that requires effort but ultimately results in failure is pointless. I get where you’re coming from, but pointless isn’t the word I would use. It wasn’t a pointless bid we made, we offered close to a world record fee for an 18 year old. It wasn’t a token gesture as we may have seen in the past. It didn’t work out, but it wasn’t pointless to make a serious effort as we did.
It hasn’t worked out we have gone out and bought a second choice for a record fee. No pissing about, no “the right quality wasn’t available” and persisting with current options for another season. If we are assessing how the window has gone so far, I think you have to say the club are doing a good job of things. I am hopeful that by the end of the window we will be able to say the same.
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Fruitless is the word we’re looking for, rather than pointless.
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Change in policy…before van Persie left we acquired his replacement(s) and than made the worst kept secret public (RvP was gone). They are doing the same thing now. I have a hard time to see a change within Arsenal/Wenger.
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Refuse to sell a player - especially for £80m - which you will lose after 12 months, it’s a shocking decision.
Especially if this player doesn’t want to play for you and will have his head not focused on the team.
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If we get those three it will be an adequate window because we will have the striker we have waited so long for, and replacements for Sanchez and Cazorla.
It’s not as if we are buying top quality players to play alongside our best players, they are just replacements, and are the signings we should be making, and Lacazette should have been made a few seasons ago.
Replacing Sanchez and Cazorla is the minimum a club of our resources should be making just to keep us at the level we were.
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I’m sorry but do you know the value of the money or live on the Moon?
Buying three great quality players for a fee around 130/140M is adequate?!!?
There is a perfect club for you in Manchester, they spend much more every window, you will be happy…
I think it’s also about the calibre we’re going for, breaking our transfer record rather than buying players who were cheap and easily available. Lacazette and Lemar or Mahrez to replace Sanchez excites me more than Giroud and Podolski to replace van Persie.
You have a point though, we did move early to replace van Persie so perhaps change in policy is too strong a way to put it.
Given we’ve just finished outside the top 4, we’re probably in need of spending a little more ourselves. We should be aiming to spend at least 150m this summer and balance it out with shifting a lot of dead wood that should bring us back at least 50m of that.
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Anyone thinking that Perez will stay and take over on that flank. He is good enough a damn good goal scorer is a good winger has pace has good throughballs and has an eye for a pass and is a good assister. We might actually get to see him play this season for a change. What we saw of him last season he looked pretty damn good and we were wondering why he couldnt play more often.
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