Your Says of the Day: Wilshere loan ‘best option’; sell Sturridge
Plenty are against Jack Wilshere’s proposed loan but one fan thinks he can see the logic, while Liverpool supporters are growing tired of Daniel Sturridge.
Wilshere needs to prove himself
Seen a lot of Arsenal fans on social media expressing quite a lot of anger about this but personally, I think it’s the best option for all concerned.
We have seen over the past few seasons that we can’t rely on Jack to be fit for a sustained period of time. Unfortunately for him, it has resulted in other players coming in and proving themselves to be more reliable. Xhaka will start when he is fit and then its about who you partner him with. Wenger’s preference the majority of the time will be Santi. Coqelin and Elneny provide a different kind of option when a more defensive approach is needed, so we need to keep them around and then there is also Ramsey to come back into the set up.
A season on loan will show us whether he can put some games together. His talent is never in doubt and if he goes away and works hard, it could work in his favour. Its worth noting that Santi’s contract is up next year. He is 32 this December so I can’t personally see him being offered a new deal – at least nothing more than an additional year.
Maybe the plan is to let Jack have a season on loan to see what he can do, with a view to him being the long term replacement for Cazorla?
Mustafi musings
I have my reservations about Mustafi, but they are mainly in terms of pace and whether he would be the perfect fit for our style of football, particularly our high defensive line.
BUT… Our best defensive partnership of the last few years has seen an intelligent interceptor merge with an aggressive, all-action defender. Mustafi had his best period at Valencia in 2014/15 (in which they conceded 16 fewer goals than last season!) as the intelligent interceptor in a partnership with Otamendi, who was the more aggressive, continental defender.
So we have the makings of a very good partnership, with compatible styles and complementary strengths and weaknesses, within a set-up they are both familiar with. Although, while he is supposedly good in the air, Mustafi still wins a lower percentage of aerial duels than Mertesacker. So that’s something I will keep an eye on because that’s a problem we have right now, our aerial defending.
But overall, I believe he and Kos (and perhaps, in the future, Gabriel) can form a partnership which far excels the sum of its parts. He’s not my first choice, and he actually seems more of a “panic buy” to me than Lucas (just my opinion!) with the risk compared to his fee and the context of his purchase, but a good prospect nonetheless.
Liverpool almost there
If we play like we did at Spurs on a more consistent basis then we will really move forward. Not many times go to WHL and do what we did on sat. We just need to learn how to manage 1-0 leads and kill games off.
Sturridge should be sold
Sturridge absolutely is too selfish for Klopp, we know what Klopp likes in his team and early on in his time with us he gave us quite the window into this exact situation. I can only pull this from memory but there is an interview out there somewhere , where Klopp is talking about (i think his time at Dortmund) and a situation where he was looking for a striker, had been pointed towards a highly rated guy and when he looked at him, the guy scored a goal and celebrated on his own. Klopp then says “this guy isn’t for us, he is celebrating for himself and not with the team”. . I’m paraphrasing so don’t sue me
I would also sell him if I were in charge. The club (fans included) have been more than patient with him throughout his injuries and after all that, he just can’t be arsed.
He was moping around the pitch against Burnley and I called for him to be dropped against Spurs. I wouldn’t have even had him on the bench . . and what does he do when he’s benched? he sulks and then posts about it on instagram.
Changes at United?
Jose has shown that he is very old school and he will not change a winning side.
His inclusions of Mata, Martial, Valencia and Fellaini prove this, I don’t think they have all performed to a required level but nothing to write home about.
If we hadn’t won the game against Hull he would have had to take some share of the blame because knowing they were going to park the bus it should have led him to picking a team that had players who could beat a man.
I commend him for making the right choices in the end by bringing on Rashford and Mkhitarian as they changed the game.
Lets hope he sticks to his guns and keeps the winning 11 that finished the game instead of the one that started.
I have heard that Fellaini is injured which hopefully gives Schneiderlin his chance to prove he is the better player which only leaves Valencia as the final weak link in my opinion.
Levy praise; Alli/Gerrard comparisions
If Levy sells Chadli (£13m), Mason (£6-8m) and Son (£20-24m) for a lowest total of £39m and we bring in N’Koudou (£11m), Coric (£15m) and Isco on loan Levy should be highly praised. All those rumoured incoming are marked improvements on the outgoings bringing much needed creativity.
Final thought, Dele should move back into his midfield role next to Dier. He is clearly more combative than is needed for an attacking role and he is far too raw to rely on. He is a classic box-to-box midfielder, the young heir to his idol Gerrard.