I’m a bit meh about Mata anyway. He’s a good player but past his prime IMO. If we were to get him next summer, he’d be 30. If we lose Özil I’d rather we invest some money in some youth, not a player who we’ll have to replace again in a couple of years.
Going from Özil to Mata is a backwards move, it accomplishes nothing but make us slightly worse. We need to go with a younger or different style of player as a result. I’d sooner just give Özil’s minutes to Iwobi and Nelson. Obviously preferable we buy a top talent or player though, Fekir would probably be the dream.
People would get frustrated pretty quick if Iwobi/Nelson were regulars with their current levels of development. Ozil is a better dribbler and is better off the ball than Mata, but Mata is the better striker of the ball, while both are creative. So swings and roundabouts.
Getting Fekir would be tastey but he’s not really a CAM. Not sure why we didn’t go for James, well I do, because we’re reactive and not proactive in the market.
Our way forward should be the Monaco-way (what we did during Wenger’s first 12 years anyway) and that’s buy all the u-23’s with some experienced players and try too build a team out of that. Otherwise we’ll end up with too much Mata’s; very good supplemental players, but no actual building blocks. Because we can’t compete for the better players.
Fekir? Thanks but I don’t want another player with the same strenghts and weaknesses as Mesut (who is a WC class player, much better than the frenchman). I would like to have a player with a direct football.
In my opinion a good idea may be to sign a top class midfield and switch Ramsey behind the striker. Arsenal must to replace Alexis and Ozil with players with better inclination to be team players and not with the “one man band” syndrom.
Arsenal should replace the free agents with other free agent to save money. I don’t know if they will sign or not new contracts but Juan Mata, Ander Herrera, Leon Goretzka are great players good enough to improve our team even if Ozil and Sànchez will walk away.
He was voted their player of the season twice then sold, I disagreed with it but either way he was never their best player even then, Oscar was preferred over him in the central role and the results speak for themselves.
Save money to sign Lemar, to sign a new GK, to sign defenders because Chambers isn’t good - Mertesacker will retire - Koscielny will be one year older.
I think signing Kolasinac for free is better than to sign Mendy for 45M.