‘Concerns over champions Chelsea; Tuchel’s next job?’

Ian Watson

Might Thomas Tuchel be tempted to replace Tony Pulis? One West Brom fan wants a more positive approach, while the debate over Zlatan continues…

Got something to add about the transfer window or your team’s season? Have your say here.

Sanchez and Ozil out; Costa and Cesc in?

I’m shocked that more hasn’t been made of this but there was a video circulating social media yesterday from the on pitch celebrations at Wembley. The video shows Xhaka walking over to Alexis, hugging him and you can hear, as clear as a bell, Xhaka says ‘good luck’.

Gutting to think that he is very likely to leave, but its not in the slightest bit surprising. A player of his quality is never going to hang around to play Thursday night football at the peak of his career. The best we can hope for is that he isn’t sold to a PL rival.

andy528

Alexis Sanchez & Mesut Ozil: Have two years left on Arsenal deals

Haven’t seen but the writing has been on the wall since we were guaranteed not to get CL football. I would still make him see out his contract. What’s funny is that Wenger loves the fact he sees out his own contracts but then allows players to leave in final year of theirs. I know financially it makes sense to sell for something rather than nothing but if you hold yourself in high regard for contracts then make players you manage do the same!

If he goes to Bayern then we need to make sure that Douglas Costa is a part of that deal, he is absolute quality. He wants out of Bayern and we can easily double his wages without breaking the bank. I would even say a straight swap would be fair as he is still fairly young.

If Sanchez goes then you may aswell offload Ozil at same time. I think he would be much easier to replace and whilst a lot of fans wouldn’t want it I would be tempted to try and bring Cesc back. He is absolute class, hate myself for saying it but at end of the day he can unlock any defence and knows the Prem inside out.

TheHulk

 

No fun for Arsenal

So Whilst our rival clubs are linked to the best and top players of the world everyday in Griezman, Bale, Salah, Van dijk etc (list is on and on), the only thing we hear about Arsenal this season is our struggle to keep Sanchez and Ozil.

Absolutely ridiculous. It should not be a struggle to keep them, and neither should they be regarded as Wenger’s cliche “new signings” should they be at the club.As it is, at least IMO it’s been a huge set back for Wenger to sign a 2 year deal, and for us to not be linked to no players is so frustrating.

I don’t care whether it’s just two or three players that come in. They should be top players. Bernardo silva already gone (absolutely fantastic player and could’ve been a long term replacement for Ozil if not next season itself!).

We should go in for Van Dijk and Belotti or Manolas and Lukaku. I don’t care about the money, we have to break the bank. It’s our fault we didn’t qualify for the CL so we have to deal with the consequences and do the necessary. Considering we finished below all our rivals last season, they’re strengthening so much more and we are not doing anything, the thought of even finishing in the top four would be a near impossible task let alone challenging for the PL.

the specialone

 

Is Salah really one of the world’s top players???

Apart from the Silva to City agreement nobody has signed anyone yet and the window doesn’t open until July 1st so no need to panic just yet.

Arsenal’s problem this window though is that they can’t offer the top players CL football which will rule a few out.

nine nine nine

 

Thomas Tuchel: Arsenal rumours squashed

Tuchel over TP

The money list is now out. Had we managed TWO more points than we did we would have received £8 million more in revenue. This is what TP’s negative defensive style over the games after we reached 40 points has cost us! Hopefully the new owner will see this and either tell TP to change his style of play or get in a new manager.

I doubt if the former will happen but if the latter does then Thomas Tuchel is available. He took over from Klopp at Dortmund and having won a trophy and got them into the Champions League either left or was sacked. It seems that he was unhappy at losing important members of his squad. He speaks better English than most at the Hawthorns!

Northwich Baggie

 

Ronaldo coming home?

I’m going to take a guess, despite the reports stating otherwise, that Ronaldo will make an appearance for Carrick’s testimonial. Even if it’s only a 5 minute cameo as a sub – I think he would love nothing more, if he won the CL, to be announced and welcomed home.

Reason I’m guessing – a bit of fun, something different to discuss other than transfers, not logistically impossible, and for the conspiracy theory – Carrick’s team only has 6 registered midfielders. The All Stars have 7.

HailMartial

Zlatan Ibrahimovic: Already an Old Trafford hit

What to do about Zlatan…

I reckon we have to cut our losses on Zlatan. His wage is just way too big.

I have been highly impressed with everything about him since he joined – his arrogance, his ability, the feedback we get about him from other players, his professionalism, even his apparent superhuman recovery rate from such a big injury.

Fact is he’s just done his knee and will be available at the end of the year. Are we so rich that we can pay circa 8.5 million quid to an injured player over the next 6 months?? That’s insanity.

hatters

 

Pretty much exactly what I would expect on here, just cast off a guy who scored 28 goals without breaking a sweat in his debut season for us. Probably would have gone on to get 35 had he not been injured. But that’s fine let’s just buy another striker who’ll get us 30 goals, there are so many around and they’re so easy to sign.

happyhurling

 

Liverpool fan in peace… Zlatan has been a personal favourite player of mine for a long time, and I was chuffed to bits to see him come to the prem (gutted it was for united but chuffed none the less). I think in terms of his experience and the way a lot of the United players seem to talk about him you would be mad to get rid personally, plus how much does a 25+ goal a season striker cost in today’s market? £60m+? But at the rummered 300k a week seems mad. Maybe if you could sell him a Owen style pay as you play (and tell him he would play every other week) deal at 300k a game with the knowledge you’ll be in Champions league so will have at least 2 games a week for most the season? It would keep him happy and willing to help the youngsters that seem to look up to him like rashford?

Ross Pettit

 

Antonio Conte: A summer target for Inter Milan

Chelsea concerns

Drogba, Lampard, Cole, Cech, Ivanovic, and finally Terry (honorable mentions to Carvalho, Essien and Mikel). The spine of a team that has served us so well for so long is now at an end. Fortunately in Conte, I think we have the best manager available to take us into this new era, it was wonderful to finish the season as Champions and give JT a good sendoff but given all that happened the season before, a few worries have crept up.

Its clear the squad needs investment, I generally thought it was the system that gave us the title, granted some players did exceptionally well, Hazard, Pedro, Moses, Alsonso, Kante, Luiz and Azpi. There were also players who played really well despite limited gametime, Fabregas, Willian, Bathshuayi and Ake. They would all be guaranteed starters at many clubs, so unsure how we will handle their futures cause obviously they all want to play games. Some players for me however, clearly have the ability, but their attitude has to be questioned, notably Matic and Costa, both started the season on fire, but there were some games they just didnt seem interested or bothered at all. We may regret not selling Costa in January, cause at the moment it seems that crazy money from China may be slowing down.

But when other teams adopted the 3-4-3, especially Spurs, they looked like they had more suitable players for the system. I’m wondering who we can get in that would really improve and upgrade our squad. Better depth at wingback, we already have a new defender in Christensen, central midfield and the front three are my big worry. If we go for another box-box CM such as Kessie or Bakayayo, we may get effort, but lose a lot of creativity, the reason Fab played such an important role this season. If we do though, I think we will need not just a new striker but also another false 9 or inverted winger to challenge the likes of Hazard, Pedro or Willian, possibly Traore could make the step up but not sure.

Either way, despite my hopes, I really don’t think it will be a case of us giving youngsters opportunities, Christensen hopefully, but we will probably end up going for proven players, and the likes of Aina, Loftus-Cheek and Zouma will probably end up on loan.

At Juve, Conte did exceptionally well in the League, but just came up short in Cup finals and didn’t excel in the Champions League, hopefully he has taken something on board from those years, and we can make a real go at it next year.

Bit of a disjointed ramble, but I’m just hoping the club don’t rest on their laurels, and really try and step up!

redpanda