Morning all.
Now, it’s all about the football. Which is good. I said what I had to say about the window in yesterday’s blog, I stand by my opinion, but there’s nothing we can do now except go out there and win games with the very good squad we have. I do hope every slight under-performance doesn’t become a referendum on what we did and didn’t do this summer, but then the best way to avoid that is to play well, score lots of goals, and win lots of games.
It should be interesting to hear what Mikel Arteta says when he is inevitably asked about the lack a forward signing. My suspicion is he won’t be that happy about it, especially as he lost players who he could have counted on had they stayed, but with his new contract still unsigned, we’ll wait and see how he speaks about this publicly.
Some of the language used by people at the club this summer has been interesting. Both Arteta and the club’s CEO, Richard Garlick, used the word ‘dynasty’ in recent weeks. There’s been non-stop use of the word ‘ambition’ since May, when we became Premier League champions lest we forget, and reached the Champions League final. After that game, the manager said, “We will have to start making some very important decisions if we want to reach another level.”
Perhaps that was evident in the way we decided as a club we’d go after Vinicius Junior, a move where you could not fault the ambition, even if it always felt like something of a long-shot. Had it happened though, Arsenal would have had to contend with the repercussions of that kind of financial outlay, not simply by what they would have spent on the player and his package, but what it would have meant for everyone else.
I think most people can understand a certain disparity between a ‘star’ player and the rest (for want of a better term), but a rising tide lifts all boats, and I can’t help but wonder if that kind of internal financial earthquake would have been worth it in the long term. It’s all speculation now, of course, but there’s no question it was, at least in football terms, an ambitious attempt from Arsenal to bring in a player who would clearly have raised the level – especially in light of where we ended up in the market.
The question then becomes can you separate the desire to create this dynasty, which I understand to be a period of sustained success in terms of silverware, from what you do in the transfer market? It’s obviously all connected to an extent, but from where we are right now, I don’t think it’s quite as intrinsically linked. For example, if you said this in 2022, you’d have to acknowledge that in order to win the title you’d need to do a lot in the market. Which is what we did. Using that date as a marker, we’ve spent close to €822m on players (via Transfermarkt), and that spending ultimately helped us achieve the long-standing goal of winning the title last season.
I know the way the market has shifted in recent months might make that look a bit different, but it is still an extraordinary amount of money, particularly when you factor in how, in that same period, we’ve struggled to sell as well as we might like. Which isn’t to make excuses for not doing more in this window, but when you get your team to a point where it is as good as ours – and it is a very, very good team – spending has less influence on your ability to improve as it did in previous summers. Everything is just more marginal.
I worry about our forward line, as I said yesterday, but we have the strongest, deepest midfield in the Premier League (if not Europe), and defensively our solidity isn’t just based on the individuals, but the way this side is organised. The collective focus on being as difficult to score against goes way beyond any one defender we might be missing. We will miss William Saliba, no question, but as Arteta said a few weeks ago when asked what the impact of defensive absences might be:
“Hopefully nothing, because the system is so strong that it can handle, like it did last year, the year before, five or six injuries and the team performed.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to create, a system that is not dependable of an individual or two or three, that still can produce what the game requires to win consistently.”
And that’s where we are now. I think we could have been stronger, I think we should have been stronger, but I also think the transfer window acts – to some extent – like blinkers where people just don’t see, or won’t see, how good we are anyway. It’s now down to the players and the manager to produce, and for him to perhaps find solutions to issues in the final third that as a club we couldn’t in the market. Maybe that forces Arteta to be a bit more creative with certain team selections, to find different ways to set up his team, and to be effective.
What we have we hold, right now, and with that we have to go and remind people why we’re champions. And create that dynasty.
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For some extra reading this morning, Lewis’ tactics column takes a look at Riccardo Calafiori’s influence in the win over Aston Villa on Monday night, and there’s also a video version over on our YouTube channel – a new series which we’re going to do more of throughout the season. There’s also some exclusive Arsenal Women content too, with Tim’s interview with Mariona Caldentey.
So, if you haven’t already, give us a subscribe over there, it’d be much appreciated.
Right, I’ll leave it there for now. We’ll have an Arsecast for you a bit later on, with transfer window chat and lots more. That should be out around lunchtime.
Until then, have a good one.
