116 days…
It’s 116 days till the transfer window opens again. Given the ridiculous circus act that accompanies it and the sheer excitement of it all, I think we all need longer than that.
Straight after it was announced I was talking to a friend about how excited I was about seeing Özil play for Arsenal. I’m still ecstatic- Arsenal Football Club have just signed the best number 10 in the world. Before I get a load of people shouting at me, telling me that Mata or Silva is better, I’ll just pretend that I’m blindly following Jose Mourinho who said “He is the best No.10 in the world.” That’s pretty cut and dry from Jose and more to the point, this article isn’t here to argue about who the best playmaker in the world is. From the Arsenal point of view, this acquisition is the reason Jose blocked the loan of Demba Ba. A quality addition up front would in my view, make them title contenders.
According to the best reports, Arsenal finalised the deal with Özil on Sunday, with the player having visited London Colney to complete the first part of the medical on Friday. The summer began with the high profile pursuit of a top class striker. Firstly, Higuain and then, Suarez. The details of this have been rehashed time and again this summer so I shall abstain from doing so. As the summer dragged on, panic rose exponentially until Özil was officially announced. By all accounts, Wenger played an instrumental part in the acquisition with a call to Mesut closing the deal. The real issue here is that everything occurred from Friday onwards. What would have been the plan if Real Madrid weren’t selling any of their players? Well, they probably would have got Demba Ba. Apart from that, what other targets were out there? Who were they targeting?
I think that this summer wasn’t a success. Arsenal Football Club got lucky. They got lucky that a truly world class player was sold at what was (given the current inflated market) a very fair price. It was an opportunistic signing by Wenger- the type he excels at. Look at Flamini. Look at Monreal, Cazorla to name a few. The plan this summer was to go and add a world class striker. They failed. For all the optimism in the Arsenal fanbase about how they are now established and will look to build upon this with further world class talent, is there any evidence from this summer that they would go and add a world class player to their squad if the selling club didn’t want to get rid and played tough? The answer is no.
I hope (and feel) that this squad will be there or thereabouts in the title race come January. If that was the case, and Giroud was injured, would they go all out to sign a world class striker to push over the edge? Moving forward, will they add world class talent on a consistent basis? As I said, on the evidence of this summer- no. The plan wasn’t followed through, they took advantage of a fantastic opportunity, the like of which occur only very rarely. Lessons must be learnt from this summer, Wenger said on Sunday that he was willing to overpay in the market. I just hope that he is willing to do so and give this team the push it requires to make it a trophy-winning one.
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