It's 2013 again..

[say yes]

Been reading some of **** Law's notes on our previous transfers, and this question occurred to me.

To set the scene, it's the summer of 2013. Arsenal have just finished 4th with 73 points in their first season without RvP, 1 point more than Sp**s on 72, and secured champions league football for another season. Our starting XI going into the summer was:

------------------ Szczesny ------------------
Sagna - Mertesacker - Koscielny - Gibbs
-------------- Arteta - Ramsey --------------
Walcott -------- Cazorla --------- Podolski
------------------ Giroud ------------------

The number one priority that summer was to find an upgrade for Giroud, who in a disappointing first campaign had struggled to fill RvP's boots, scoring just 11 league goals.

Arsenal famously targeted Luis Suarez for the role, and were also close to signing Gonzalo Higuain, but neither move transpired. In the end, Arsenal failed to sign a superstar striker; instead managing to pull off the signing of Mesut Özil on deadline day. A move for CF Demba Ba was also arranged, but Mourinho pulled the plug on that at the last moment, reportedly hesitant to strengthen a rival.

Assuming we could have signed Higuain with the Özil funds, based on what our team needed, and knowing what we know now, who would you have chosen to sign that transfer window? Both players have their flaws and generate strong views, so I'm interested in seeing the debate on this.

Note: Fwiw Law says it wasn't a choice. Higuain was our first choice target that summer (ahead of even Suarez) and we had agreed terms with the player, but were priced out of the move by Napoli, who were flush with Cavani money.

 

[say yes]

Personally think that Özil was the more talented player, but I've gone for Higuain on the basis that CF was our biggest need and it took another 3 seasons to find a replacement for Giroud. He was also phenomenal for Napoli, albeit has now turned into a pizza boy.

Helped in that decision by the fact that Fabregas became available the following summer, and I think we would have moved for him if not for already having Özil here.

 

[Rex Stone]

Personally think that Özil was the more talented player, but I've gone for Higuain on the basis that CF was our biggest need and it took another 3 seasons to find a replacement for Giroud. He was also phenomenal for Napoli, albeit has now turned into a pizza boy.

Helped in that decision by the fact that Fabregas became available the following summer, and I think we would have moved for him if not for already having Özil here.

In hindsight the right move was Griezmann. Poll should really have him on there.

Griezmann was aware of their interest and was keen on speaking to Arsène Wenger – only for the club to stall on making a decision before rejecting him.

“I waited, I waited, and I kept waiting,” he recounts in his autobiography.

“When there was no news, Eric called Grimandi, who said that the manager was still interested in me [and] to keep waiting.

“Finally a few hours before the market closed, he let us know Arsenal would not make a move. I don't like to be told something and for it not to happen.

“So when Eric told me later that the London club were interested again I told him ‘Forget it, after the blow they gave us’.”

He was ready to move that summer but for whatever reason we totally f*cking bungled it. He’s been a better player than both Özil and Higuain since then and it was our choice not to pursue.

Feel he probably would have been cheaper than Özil in 2013 and maybe we could’ve spent the leftovers on Idrissa Gueye rather than Flamini on a free.

Still would prefer Alexis to Cesc in 2014 and pairing him with AG would’ve been carnage. Best wing duo in Europe with Ronaldo-Bale.

 

[UpTheGunnerz]

Higuain and we win the league that year or 15/16. Easy choice for me

 

[Vibra]

I remember being convinced we were getting both Benzema and Di Maria that transfer deadline day. I don't remember why

 

[Notorious Big]

Expetations from Özil were quite big and he didn't start that bad at all.Think that his mentality wasn't right for most of the time and EPL is quite different than La Liga,so he never adapt until the end.

Also,we had a lot of players in midfield in those times.Ramsey,Cazorla,Jack,Rosicky.

 

[OnlyOne]

Suarez, everything should of always been Luis Suarez.

 

[Mrs Bergkamp]

Higuain. He was what we needed and I actually think he and Giroud could have played together in the right formation if needed. I don't recall us struggling to create chances so Özil wasn't the priority in that scenario. Ramsey in beast mode for half the season made a massive difference. It was just unfortunate that quality wise, we had the worst leading striker we'd had in a while. I did like Giroud though simply because he did all he could to maximise his game. He's just not top, top quality.

 

[say yes]

@Rex Banter @OnlyOne Forget about Griezmann (ouch - as you say, that would have been amazing) and didn't include Suarez because the poll would have been 100% in his favour.

Thought Higuain (first choice target) vs Mesut (the guy we signed) would make for a more interesting debate.

 

[Heskey]

The Griezmann/Vela summer was so ****ing weird and frustrating, now that you mention this @Rex Banter. Just ruined my sunday reminding me of this. If we could have had Griezmann as well as Idrissa (was he rumored to us, or are you just wishful because he would've been a good pickup?) I would select that above Higuain or Özil tbh. since that would give us more options on the squad with Idrissa being able to aid our scarce options for a holding midfielder, and Griezmann both capable as a winger and a striker.

@say yes on your initial question I see it this way:
1) We had a better system/setup for Higuain to come in ie. we had a striker in Giroud who could rotate with him to allow him to settle or allow him to come from LW (he played there very few times so not basing this on prev. performances, but I think he could've worked out there if we needed the big man up front). We also already had players who could set him up in Arteta and Cazorla.
2) Having Giroud as the main striker in front of Özil for that many seasons is as close to committing a crime as we could come and having to move Cazorla away from his AMC had a big impact on his second season where he was LW for some time as far as I recall with various success before we very successfully moved him to CM the season after.
3) Özil is a unique talent and when we signed him I was completely stunned. I did not see that happening. I am among those who thinks he's been amazing for us for the most part and we have won 3 FA Cups (+2 Community Shields - usually I wouldn't count these but it felt so good to trash City 3-0, and Chelsea 1-0 was a treat too so just mentioning) in his time here, so for me to take Higuain ahead of him it would have to be because I think we would have been performing better with him than Özil.
4) We led the league that season for 18 gameweeks and crumbled in the end. Not a deep enough squad, especially given our insane amount of injuries, "Research by the website physioroom.com has shown that Arsenal were without first-team players for a combined 1,716 days during this past season, almost 300 more than Tottenham who had the next worse injury record. By contrast, Chelsea were without key players for just 556 days this season, while champions Manchester City and runners-up Liverpool endured a similar injury toll of respectively 978 and 997 days lost." so would Higuain have changed that fact if we'd signed him rather than Özil? Would Griezmann and Gueye?

All in all, signing Özil was a major part in us being closer to the title than we had been in many seasons - **** sake we had our name written on it.. If anything, my biggest wish for that season was that we had a larger budget/were willing to spend more than just roughly £30M (after outgoings) that summer so we could've brought in a couple extra cheap players to provide cover. Guess we only was able to spend the roughly 80M (after outgoings) the next summer due to the Puma deal...

I'd rank it like this (but I'm very ambivalent, as always),
1) Griezmann + Gueye
2) Özil
3) Higuain

More cover in option 1 which would've helped us in 13/14 against the injuries. No guarantee for Higuain securing us the title that season or becoming a success, and therefore I have Özil slightly ahead.
We spent 107M on transfers in the season after in 14/15,
Chambers, Welbeck, Gabriel, Debuchy (who was great at first, got injured, and was a ****). Had we spent that money better in hindsight the Özil deal would have looked so much better is my assumption.

 

[OnlyOne]

@Rex Banter @OnlyOne Forget about Griezmann (ouch - as you say, that would have been amazing) and didn't include Suarez because the poll would have been 100% in his favour.

Thought Higuain (first choice target) vs Mesut (the guy we signed) would make for a more interesting debate.

Probably go Mesut, knowing what we know now anyway. Guy put balls on plates in his first years, take that away and Higgy would of struggled in the PL .

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Damn I wish it was 2013 again.


Anyways Özil easily.

 

[Mitch]

Despite at my total frustration of watching Giroud as our CF for years I will have to with Özil. Özil arrival was the catalyst that saw us end of our trophy.

 

[MutableEarth]

It's tough to say but I'd probably still have signed Özil. Obviously things didn't work out quite as well as we'd have hoped but he really was a necessity. That 2012/13 season was one where we actually weren't creating as much in the final 3rd as we should have - in hindsight, that season is probably miles ahead of where we are now in terms of chance creation and shot volume.

Higuain would really not have had that much to work with IMO, as Arteta (while still relatively effective) was starting to slow down and Cazorla on his own wasn't enough. I love Cazorla but he had his flaws and ineffective games too. A lot for me really depends on if we would have been able to keep Jack Wilshere fit and at his best. For me, he could have been the difference.

As an aside regarding CFs, I remember that season screaming for Akpom to get chances back then as Giroud and Welbeck sucked in front of goal and Sanogo was so unbelievably raw. He[Akpom] was approaching 18 and really starting to get confident. I sometimes wonder how different his career would have been for us if we didn't sign Sanogo and gave him those minutes instead. We did not strike while the iron was hot IMO.

 

[Riou]

Greizmann is one of the biggest gimps in football...so hard pass on that ****!

 

[Notorious Big]

Greizmann is one of the biggest gimps in football...so pass hard pass on that ****!

Ffs that celebration.

 

[OnlyOne]

I don't mean to go off topic on SayYes's rubbish thread but I'd pick Suarez over any transfer we made in the last 15 years. Apart from possibly Tierney but it's close.

 

[SingmeasongSong]

Been reading some of **** Law's notes on our previous transfers, and this question occurred to me.

To set the scene, it's the summer of 2013. Arsenal have just finished 4th with 73 points in their first season without RvP, 1 point more than Sp**s on 72, and secured champions league football for another season. Our starting XI going into the summer was:

------------------ Szczesny ------------------
Sagna - Mertesacker - Koscielny - Gibbs
-------------- Arteta - Ramsey --------------
Walcott -------- Cazorla --------- Podolski
------------------ Giroud ------------------

The number one priority that summer was to find an upgrade for Giroud, who in a disappointing first campaign had struggled to fill RvP's boots, scoring just 11 league goals.

Arsenal famously targeted Luis Suarez for the role, and were also close to signing Gonzalo Higuain, but neither move transpired. In the end, Arsenal failed to sign a superstar striker; instead managing to pull off the signing of Mesut Özil on deadline day. A move for CF Demba Ba was also arranged, but Mourinho pulled the plug on that at the last moment, reportedly hesitant to strengthen a rival.

Assuming we could have signed Higuain with the Özil funds, based on what our team needed, and knowing what we know now, who would you have chosen to sign that transfer window? Both players have their flaws and generate strong views, so I'm interested in seeing the debate on this.

Note: Fwiw Law says it wasn't a choice. Higuain was our first choice target that summer (ahead of even Suarez) and we had agreed terms with the player, but were priced out of the move by Napoli, who were flush with Cavani money.

Just as a football player, the real big miss was Suarez. There should not even be a debate about this imo.

Was the best player in the world next to Messi and Ronaldo looking at the last 7-8 years as a whole since then.

Should probably have gotten one Ballon d'or if it wasn't for his wrong doings.

Plus, he was the 100% perfect fit of our needs at that time.

 

[Riou]

Higuaín would have suited what we needed at that time, but it wouldn't have guaranteed a title, even though he is a very good striker.

In 2013/2014...with Higuaín or not, we weren't as good as either City or Liverpool that season...Suarez might have been the game changer that season though.

In 2015/2016...we needed Santi to not miss the second half of the year even with Higgy, as our midfield went to crap without him.

I am glad we got Mes, he hasn't been perfect by any means, but I have enjoyed watching him play for us, funny guy too.

Also there is no way Cesc picks us in 2014 over Chelsea anyway, so that's a no go, plus the team needed a game changing wide player (Sanchez) that summer more.

The big mistake was summer 2015.

 

[Maybe]

Looking at our wide and forward options at the time, there's not a single logical explanation for what Wenger did, and that transfer happened only because of his selfish reasons.
When you have gimps like Giroud, Walcott and Podolski, surely you improve over one of them instead of shifting Cazorla (who was at the time our best player and one of the best midfielders in the league) to the wing and playing Özil instead.
The stupidity of that move was confirmed later when Ramsey had one of his purple patches and Wenger didn't have a clue how to deal with the situation. We went from having a hole left by Ramsey in midfield to shifting them to the right wing just to fit them all together.
Özil did have some early success with us, but that all came at the expense of the team balance and our future struggles with him.
I'm still sure that this transfer was one of the key reasons Wenger lost his job here.

I think that replacing Giroud with a better striker, and having Sanchez - Cazorla - Walcott behind that striker, would win us the league and maybe some better results in CL. With Giroud, you can only fight for 4th place, and that happens with or without Özil behind him.