blinkblue said:
Tez Tosterone said:
There is a great concern from Arsenal fans down here that mounting a Premier League title this coming season is looking less possible as each week progresses. Getting a top three finish seems to be a a more realistic objective.
The likely sale of Febregas, holding on to an unsettled player with Nasri, the short term injury to Theo Walcott who increasingly appears to be made of glass, the disappointment of Chamakh and the fact that Thomas Vermaelen is injury prone.
Obviously they are going to trouser a decent fee from Barça if it goes through within the dealine specified by Arsenal which frees up funds to finalise the Mata purchase and possible one other in central midfield.
Nonetheless, the Nasri situation should crystallize in the next 24 hours as Arsenal receive our well timed bid. A figure of £22m must surely tempt the Arsenal board. I'm pretty sure that Stan Kroenke and the rest of the board would overrule Arsene Wenger if only from a logical economic standpoint. That £22m could then be used to fund a fourth signing. Gervinho, Mata and two others.
If all their players could remain fit, most unlikely given their track record, Van Persie, Wilshere, Walcott, Mata (if signed), Sagna and Ramsay would form the basis of a new Wenger work in progress that might, repeat might cause problems. However, as things stand, there are too many players in the current squad, who have been at the club long enough to become disenchanted with the lack of progress, including Van Persie, Fabregas and Nasri who must be disappointed with Wenger's weak and parsimonious forays into the transfer market over the last 3 years, seeing the qualitative gap between Chelsea, the rags and now ourselves, widen, not exponentially but certainly of significance.
As a consequence, I am growing increasingly confident that Samir Nasri will become a Manchester City player in the very near future.|
Do you think top 3 is attainable with you current squad? (Assuming you do lose Nasri)
First off mate, I'm a City supporter since 1957. currently exiled in London, having lived the first thirty eight years of my life in Blackley and Didsbury. My first memories were of Bobby Johnstone, David Wagstaffe and Johnny Crossan as a 6 year old. The latter particularly memorable, as he discarded a dimp behing the nets at the Platt Lane end during the warm up around three minutes before the kick off and then puked up behind the said nets.
To answer your question, I think that despite Wenger's mistakes in the transfer market over the last few years, there is still time between now and 31/8 to rescue what is looking like a particularly difficult situation.
The current squad is clearly not good enough as we saw last season and the loss of Clichy and the addition of Lille's Gervinho has done little to change the picture. Clearly, it was always going to be difficult to replace Vieira, Bergkamp and Henry. Football is cyclical as Liverpool fans, without a league title since 1990, four prime ministers and three popes ago, will tell you. Accordingly, I caanot see Arsenal doing anything meaningful in the near future.
Some are now seriously thinking that Wenger may be gone in the 18 months/2 years.
