Rate the Transfer Window

[Rimaal]

A 6.

• We dallied far too long before we bought our players, thus our shítty start to the season.
• We should have bought a goal scoring winger, instead we let our back up wingers go, thus we're short again in the squad.
• We should have bought Lacazette back in June. As soon as Vardy delayed his signing until after the Euros, we should have gone for Laca (apparently we did but with the laughable offer of 29.5M), and we would have gotten him for EUR 40M.
• We should have sold Theo and bought a winger.

 

[ferrarif50hunt]

7/10.

Good additions, but Alexis aside I still feel we're short of quality on the wings. Hard to complain though, we've addressed the three biggest issues we had throughout last season.

Hopefully it'll allow us to go for a big name forward next summer.

 

[bingobob]

Those who voted 8 (significant improvement) and 9 (vast improvement) I'd be interested to know if therefore you think we have done enough to be champions this season?

That wasn't the question. It was to rate the window and the window addressed major concerns within the team. Lack of movement up front etc.

Time will tell if those we signed were the right guys or not

 

[remains]

7/10.

Good additions, but Alexis aside I still feel we're short of quality on the wings. Hard to complain though, we've addressed the three biggest issues we had throughout last season.

Hopefully it'll allow us to go for a big name forward next summer.

Exactly how I feel. Just not sure we have enough goals and creativity from out wide, which is a problem because we lack a top striker.

Hopefully Perez hits the ground running.

 

[4R5Emaniac]

8 is about right. Few doubts re the sale of Gnabry, Joel going out and no creative wide player coming. I was more calm over Joel's departure and thought maybe Gnabry would get his shot. But most issues dealt with and the spine is strengthened.
Jack and Chambers loan moves- CC needed it, we could all agree on that. Karanka is a good coach and was assistant to Mourinho so definitely knows how to train defenders.

Jack on the other hand, I would've preferred he stayed obviously but its a pretty unexpected and potentially really fruitful move. Would've liked if he went to Italy, he could've learned a lot but gets plenty of games if he can stay fit.

 

[MagicalRozza]

I'd give it something like 6.5
Pros: 1) For the first time we have filled the holes in the squad
2) All three main players seem very promising and I am glad we did't get Lacazette I mean if Giroud and Gignac are called to national team instead of him there must be a reason. 3) The lesser signings like Holding may be real bargain deals
Cons: 1) We did it too late. 2) We let Joel Campbell go instead of Theo/the Ox, 3) We offloaded Gnabry (young, promising, relatively cheap) instead of i.e. Debuchy/Mertesacker

 

[Furious]

What have you done with the real @Furious

You must be on some hard meds

That's as Furiousy a post as it gets mate.

I'm a fair man, and will give credit to Wenger and the club where it's due. Looking at the market I don't think we could've done much better this summer other than sign another attacker, which is why I don't rate it as a 10/10.

What's your take on it?

 

[morpho]

Could have been 8 if we did our business early on. They way we started this campaign could have been avoided.
And of course, Walcott still here. Could have been 9 if he'd left.
Wilshere is imo a good mutual decision.

7 from me

 

[goonerwarsh]

I think it's a 6 or 7 for me. Really glad we've bought a better centre back than Mertesacker who I have never been convinced by. I have concerns that Mustafi is a bit on the small side but then we have also bought Holding who looks a really good prospect and good in the air too. Looking forward to seeing him develop.

I'm really glad we strengthened the spine of the team, that was very important. I'm disappointed with the Gnabry sale, just at a point where his career looks like it's going to start delivering after the early promise and we've lost him for relative peanuts. I'm not happy with the Wilshere deal at all, and think we should have gone for a shorter loan with a view to an extension depending on various scenarios. Other than him getting games I don't see how losing a top class player like that is a good thing considering our previous squad management. Shipping out poor old Campbell too. I think Wenger must be convinced that the Jeff can contribute something because otherwise we could find ourselves a bit thin in the wide positions.

I think it really comes down to the money position, centre forward and a lot is riding on Perez becoming a star. I hate watching us with Giroud up front, I think we become very laboured, slow and predictable. We've grown up on forwards of the calibre of Wright, Anelka, Kanu, Bergkamp, Robin Van Persie, Adebayor (for one year let's admit he was dynamite) and of course Henry. To go from that to then watching the likes of Chamakh, Bendtner and Giroud has been very hard. This team is one star forward, the likes that can win you the big games with moments of magic that special players can give you; from being a great team.

I think we've bought some great promise, all be it too late. We've had a good window, is it good enough to compete with United and City. I'm not convinced it is, so I don't think it was quite good enough.

 

[carlito'sway]

I'm a "Wenger basher" and gave it a nine.

We addressed the spine of the team and that is something we needed to do for a long time. We got players in with the attributes we needed. A pacey striker, a powerful midfielder and a mobile defender. We've brought in a young up and coming striker, a promising midfielder and defender.

For me it's been a near perfect window. Just a shame one or two more didn't leave but we've brought down the numbers and have a solid platform to go forward with.

The major disappointments seem to be around a lack of a name signing. Disappointing I guess but understandable. That's why solely looking at attributes and what we needed everything matches.

Now it's time to see if those guys adopt and actually play.

Good analysis!
PS. You can remove the Wanyama reference now..

 

[Goonerozil33]

I went with 9. Last year, in the second half of the season our build was too slow. We were struggling to get the ball forward when we were pressed. This year if Xhaka and Santi stays fit we will beat a lot of teams outside of top 7. The second problem was with having Giroud and Mertesacker in the team at the same time. This prevented us from being compact. If we push up Mertesacker will be vulnerable. If we drop deep Giroud will become ineffective. This was a huge problem when we went a goal down last season. Having a faster defender will allow us to push up when required. Having a faster striker of good quality will allow us to stay deep. Having mustafi(holding) and Perez playing at the same time will ensure that we can be tactically flexible during a match. This will allow us to be compact and defend and attack high or low in a match. This will also allow us to reduce the space we allow in our midfield. I don't expect it to work right away. But by Feb next year we will be able to see a very cohesive and consistent unit. I think we will go far in CL if we avoid Barca.

 

[say yes]

My take is that last season we had everything to win the league except a goal scorer. The lack of goals meant we dominated games but either had edgy energy sapping wins or watched points trickle away in draws and defeats.

If 2 of the following not improbable things happen

• Pèrez hits the ground running,
• Giroud does go 3 months without scoring,
• Walcott finds some form, or
• Sanchez regains his first season form

Then I am certain we are serious challengers.

Problem is that last season our competition for the title was Leicester.

 

[Toast]

Overall, I'm happy with the signings we've made. Don't know a lot about them, mind, but on first glance Mustafi seems to have adressed a long standing issue and Xhaka's has looked good as well. I do have some concerns over balancing issues with Xhaka in the side.

Perez seems like a bit of risk to me. If he doesn't manage to go up a level this season we may end up next summer with four decent/mediocre strikers (Giroud, Wele, Wally, Perez) who will be difficult to shift, thus preventing us from bringing in a striker. I suppose he can play on the wing as well, but again, if he doesn't do so to a high level he'll just add to the list of decent/mediocre wingers.

Early signs look good for Holding. No idea about the other prospects.

Outgoing transfers were a mixed bag, but overal it was again a fairly poor outgoing window for us. The Wilshere loan could be good, since he simply needs playing time, but his departure leaves us with a more unbalanced midfield. But I suppose he'd be injured here anyway, so let's see what he can do on loan. Loaning Chambers was smart too.

Loaning Campbell made very little sense. Wenger doesn't seem to rate him, so why didn't we sell? He's just further depreciating in value now as his contract runs down to its final year. Selling Gnabry on top of that may leave us a bit light on the wings, but maybe there are other prospects ready to step up. Not too worried there. We only got 8 million for him, which seems too low considering his Olympics performance and what a lot of dross goes for these days.
I was also disappointed we didn't ship out Debuchy and Sanogo. The latter will walk out the door for free next summer. Should've sold.

Finally, we ****ed around far too long and consequently dropped 5 points. There's also the lingering suspicion that Perez was only brought in because we'd dropped points.

6/10 for now.

 

[bingobob]

Good analysis!
PS. You can remove the Wanyama reference now..

Not sure what it can be changed to.

Mods feel free though as I can hardly advocate a spud.

 

[celestis]

I can't rate the window until after the season starts have never seen Perez or Mustafi play . By Dec we'll be able to tell whether it's a good window or not .

Although Xhaka and Holding especially have exceeded my expectations.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Shambolic until last week but can now comfortably award it a 6.

 

[albakos]

I rate it as 7 only because we left it too late and failure to act earlier, is one of main causes for loss v. Liverpool or dropped point v. Foxes.

I also don't like that we got rid of 4 very solid bench options: Wilshere, Chambers, Campbell and Gnabry.

Just when you thought that we're well stacked and any inevitable injury curse might not affect us a lot, Wenger goes on an offloading spree.

 

[say yes]

My take is that last season we had everything to win the league except a goal scorer. The lack of goals meant we dominated games but either had edgy energy sapping wins or watched points trickle away in draws and defeats.

If 2 of the following not improbable things happen

• Pèrez hits the ground running,
• Giroud does go 3 months without scoring,
• Walcott finds some form, or
• Sanchez regains his first season form

Then I am certain we are serious challengers.

Also hate to ruin the optimism here but:

It's unlikely Perez hits the ground running. New country, new club, no pre-season, will probably be phased in slowly by Wenger etc. If he can deliver immediately then fantastic but I've learned to temper my expectations with these kind of signings, despite everyone on here trying to convince each other he's brilliant.

I'll happily admit I've never watched Perez play so this is almost entirely based on my natural skepticism/the fact we moved for him so late & our competition was Everton, but pretty much every attacking signing we've made since the move to the Emirates was hyped to high heavens on here and almost all have disappointed: Baptista, Eduardo, Arshavin, Chamakh, Gervinho, Park, Podolski, Giroud, Sanchez, Welbeck.

Giroud's freakishly erratic form last season shouldn't disguise the remarkable consistency he's displayed throughout his career - roughly a goal every 2.2 games in total and ~15 goals in the league. That's not good enough.

Walcott has been here for over 10 years now, I'm not sure how long we can keep hoping he returns to his 2011-13 form. Certainly not much sign of it so far.

Sanchez at his best is brilliant (hoping that Perez can bring the best out of him), but we'll need a lot of our other things to go our way as well (no annual injury crisis, Özil maintaining last season's form, untested CM partnership performing well, untested CB partnership performing well etc), and it's worth remembering that our rivals this year are no longer Leicester (who got one of the lowest winning points tallies ever) but tanked-up United and City sides.

So many unknowns about our side now that we certainly could challenge, but think a standard 3rd/4th place finish is far more probable.

 

[Aevi]

...

Just when you thought that we're well stacked and any inevitable injury curse might not affect us a lot, Wenger goes on an offloading spree.

The wrong offloading spree as well. Debuchy and Sanogo are still here

 

[Furious]

The wrong offloading spree as well. Debuchy and Sanogo are still here

They all wanted out to play, don't see the problem.

Holding >= Chambers.

Perez > Campbell.

No one = Wilshere and Gnabry. But we've added Xhaka/Elneny and Iwobi, so again improvment.

Compared to last season(s)^.

Debuchy is a good backup, rather him than Jenkinson. Sanogo is irrelevant, whether he goes or still is here is pointless, besides he's injured.

Outgoings are more than fine, don't see the fuss. Hopefully we get some stronger players back next season, especially Wilshere.