Yeah with Le Coq and El Neny and Xhaka now, can’t really see this as priority area. We need wing talent or depth in wing defenders perhaps… not going to likely make any massive upgrades with WC player until the summer.
Frankly, if we could nick Payet for 25 million or so, I’d take a punt. He is obviously out of sorts and being a bit of a c*nt to WHU, but he has a couple of good years left, was awesome for them last year, is a magisterial deadball specialist and the key area to shore up to me would be wing. Ox and Theo aren’t going to get us back into title race and this would be a reasonable hail Mary.
We have the money, assuming we are jettisoning a few players in the summer (Theo, Ox, Ramsey please), we should have plenty to spend to get at least one WC signing in the summer, if not two.
I agree.
I would like to see us sell two of these and get in a world class winger.
Like you say there aren’t going to be any big signings in this window by us, and I can’t see many other big clubs spending much either.
I think most of the players moving will be to relegation sides, or maybe sides pushing for a European place, like Everton have.
I think Bakayoko is a huge talent and is the type of player our midfield is missing. IE excellent close control, can drive the ball up the field with his dribbles, big, powerful, fast, good engine, physically dominant, good technique, very good passing and movement. The type of midfielder who’d compliment the more stationary Xhaka. The type of midfielder that would get obvious comparisons to umm nah I won’t go there but let’s just say he can tackle while running forward without going to ground. Probably won’t happen, we should go all in imo.
Right now he’d start over all 3 for us and improve us.
If he’s a true upgrade and Arsene treats it as such, I’d be thrilled. Still seems incredibly unlikely given our needs, the logjam at DM/CM (even if I am not thrilled with any of the options (I do think Le Coq is underrated though). We need wing attacker talent.
Also, AW doesn’t tend to get someone like that and just put them in the first team right away… this would certainly be an investment for the future and depth/emergency play and I can see just waiting for the summer for someone like that.
I also thought I heard that Chelsea and others were sniffing around this guy - is that true? I wonder what his price tag would be.
Given that Cazorla looks likely to be out for the rest of the season do you still think midfield would be a low priority area? I think long term we need some kind of replacement for him but even in this window, I wouldnt mind having Kallstrom back for example. I think midfield is the least functional part of the team at the moment, we desperately need someone who can absorb pressure and hold onto the ball in there.
Yeah but I don’t think we will get someone in January that:
a) Arsene trusts enough to get a serious and reliable role in FT
b) Is good enough to be our long-term solution
Cazorla news does throw a bit of a wrench in things… if Le Coq is coming back shortly, Ramsey looks like is getting minutes, and we have EL Neny back after ACN, then we will have 4 players for 2 positions with Xhaka.
I doubt we do any business in January honestly unless there is some unique situation/opportunity like Payet (which i doubt very much will happen regardless).