Transfer window analysis: Good, good and quite bad indeed

Morning all.

So transfer deadline day came and went, and despite some chat yesterday about Malick Fofana, it looks like Arsenal decided early on the 21 year old wasn’t the right option, and thus any chance of an arrival went out the window. I can’t sit here this morning, despite the fact I think we’ve left ourselves short, and bemoan the fact we didn’t sign a player I’d barely heard of until 24 hours ago.

Let’s look at what we did in this window. I think the signing of Bruno Guimaraes is very good. It makes us even stronger in an area where we were already very strong, but you could see against Aston Villa what the Brazilian will bring to our midfield. His passing ability, from deep and closer to goal, is all about making things happen, and as he demonstrated with the moment when he was bizarrely not awarded a penalty, the timing of his own runs into the box will give us added threat. It might have been a bit expensive, but it’s good business.

As for Ezri Konsa, he has arrived to help us deal with the loss of one of the best central defenders in the world as William Saliba recovers from his back injury. For me, that signing was an absolute necessity, given the injury issues Ben White and Jurrien Timber have had in recent times. We’re now into the 6th month of a troublesome groin for the Netherlands international – bar that Champions League cameo. Konsa is a really solid, experienced international footballer who profiles in similar ways to Saliba in possession, and that’s something we had to try and find. Again, a little bit expensive, but important and necessary business.

Then we come to our forward line, and I’m trying to be careful with my words here, but I think it’s an absolute failure that not have we failed to add to squad beyond Christos Tzolis, because we have actively made ourselves weaker. At the start of this window, this was the one area where I really felt we had to do something to elevate the level of the team, and despite some efforts, we’ve failed to do so.

Leandro Trossard was sold, and replaced with the Greek international. I like the look of him, but as we saw at Villa Park on Monday evening, he still has plenty to come to terms with at this new level for him. I’m optimistic about what he can bring, but I can’t sit here this morning and absolutely guarantee he can match Trossard’s output or general consistency. So, there’s a bit of a grey area there.

On top of that, we’re about to sell Gabriel Martinelli to Al Hilal for a club record fee, Gabriel Jesus has gone to Barcelona, and Ethan Nwaneri will likely spend the season on loan at Borussia Dortmund (although it has been reported there is a clause to recall him in January if necessary). In isolation, I don’t have any problem if Arsenal decide they want to sell Martinelli, or especially Jesus whose huge talent was massively diminished by serious injuries, but I do have a problem if we sell them and don’t replace them.

I found this graphic on /r/gunners (apologies to the creator, I couldn’t find it again to give proper credit), but it shows you what the players we have let go this summer did for us last season in terms of playing time:

Between three of them (Trossard, Martinelli, and Jesus) they provided 45 goal contributions last season, and we’ve essentially replaced that output with a 24 year old from the Belgian league. I don’t really know how anyone can stand over or justify what we’ve done in this window from an attacking perspective.

Yes, I hear – and am more or less on board with – the idea, that if we can keep Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard fit, we can get more out of them. But surely part of how you do that with three players who have suffered a lot with injury in the last 18 months, is have the kind of depth that allows you to manage their minutes and involvement properly. You don’t get that by losing three players, regardless of whether you think the time was right to sell, and replacing only one of them.

It’s not to say I don’t think we’re not a good team, we are. I still think we’re going to competitive, and we’re not necessarily struggling for numbers in those forward positions, but we did not raise the level of the team in a key area, and for me – and I’m sure many of you – that’s at least underwhelming if not downright frustrating. It’s also exacerbated by the attempts we made to sign players who would do that, but who we missed out on. Morgan Rogers went to Chelsea, and if you think the price was too high, fair enough, but that’s what the market dictates. We were happy to pay over the odds for two 28 year-olds, but dallied on a key target and got gazumped by Chelsea who were just more decisive.

Then it was Vinicius Junior, which I liked the ambition of, but that didn’t happen, so our sights turned to Julian Alvarez, but his situation was always far too complicated, and at the heart of it was the significant problem that he simply did not want to join us. I understand when you’re as good as we are that the pool of players who can improve you is small, but I remain unconvinced that there wasn’t a single player in the world of football we couldn’t have identified as someone who could add something to this squad.

I don’t like the ‘Tell me who we should have gone for!’ argument either. I’m just a bloke with a blog, a football fan with opinions like all of you, but there are people paid millions of pounds at Arsenal whose responsibility it is to do that job. Don’t put the onus on me, and when we get to deadline day and we’re in desperation mode, humming and hawing over a player who ends up in the middle of a fight between Crystal Palace and Sunderland, you cannot convince me that’s good process.

I think some of the spotlight will shine harshly on Andrea Berta after this window. Transfers aren’t just decided by him, the manager obviously has significant input, decisions are made at executive level too, but ultimately it’s the Italian’s job to get the deals done, and while I like the midfield and defensive signings, in attack he cannot get even close to a passing grade for his work this summer. He might have sold ‘well’ (even if I think the way he dealt with Martinelli was poor, and he’s more or less escaped the wrath he should have faced for offering Myles Lewis-Skelly around via a character like Kia Joorabchian to give himself plausible deniability), but who does that keep happy? The accountants and perhaps the owners, not the fans, and certainly not the manager whose job it is to win football matches. I suspect Mikel Arteta will be less than impressed by this element of our summer business.

In his press conference after the Champions League final, he said, “We want to reach another level”, and while I think we have the strongest midfield in Europe, and an always solid defensive platform, we haven’t done that in attack. Again, I don’t think it’s fatal not to have done more business in this window, but it feels like an opportunity missed. When we have all those other elements at our disposal, really push, be decisive, be ruthless, press home that advantage and make life as difficult as possible for your opposition in the four trophies we’re going to compete for. We haven’t done that, we’ve ended with a hat-trick of high profile transfer failures, and we’re now banking on what we have to be sufficient to not just make up for the goals and assists we’ve lost from the players who have gone, but to improve on that.

It feels like a lot to ask, and that we’ve made a balls of a key part of this window. I’ll eat all the humble pie in the world if the Tzoliz/Eze left-hand side sparks into life, if Saka and Noni Madueke and Max Dowman can tear it up on the right, if Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres bang home the goals we need with the consistency required, and if Bruno adds more threat from midfield, but right now I fear we’ve made life more difficult for ourselves than we should have and that’s disappointing.

—

I did want to add a bit about Ethan. I’m glad that we decided against selling him this summer, because I love the talent and potential of this player, and we need to see how he develops with regular football before we make a decision like that. I get his chances would have been limited with us, so a loan made sense. I probably would have preferred a Premier League club, but Borussia Dortmund is a great option with good history in terms of young talent, so I thought it would be interesting to get the thoughts of Lewis Ambrose on this.

He knows the club well, so here he is with a bit of analysis on how this move might work for them and for the player.

Lewis Ambrose on Ethan Nwaneri’s loan to Borussia Dortmund

So, Ethan Nwaneri will play his football at Borussia Dortmund this season. We all know the club has an impressive reputation when it comes to player development and integrating youngsters from abroad, including success with English youngsters in recent years. Jadon Sancho, Jude Bellingham, Jamie Gittens, now Jobe Bellingham and (Austrian international) Carney Chukwuemeka. Gio Reyna and Erling Haaland were also born in England, if you really want to stretch things.

All of those players (and many more) have been tempted to Dortmund with the promise of regular playing time and, although his case is different as he’s only joining on loan, Nwaneri shouldn’t worry too much about opportunities coming his way with BVB.

Under Niko Kovac, Dortmund play with a 3-4-2-1 formation and went into this summer looking to recruit new starters for both the number 10 positions, with Julian Brandt and Karim Adeyemi both departing, Marcel Sabitzer being phased out at 32, and Maximilian Beier often filling in at wing-back. Ultimately, they signed a pair of Greeks: Konstantinos Karetsas and Giannis Konstantelias.

The pair look like huge talents and had the Westfalenstadion doing the Sirtaki at half-time of their Bundesliga opener on Saturday, with Karetsas assisting the opener and Konstantelias making it 2-0. Not long into the second half, though, Konstantelias went down. The club have since confirmed a torn ACL, and he’ll miss the rest of the campaign.

Which is why they came in for Nwaneri as the transfer deadline approached. And why he should play plenty of football. With Karetsas more of a creator and Konstantelias the bigger goal threat, Nwaneri should fit into the latter’s role comfortably – we’ve all seen his ability to take a defender on and get shots off. The interesting thing will be how they’re arranged: Karetsas, like Nwaneri, is left-footed and likes to play (and is best used) on the right-hand side of that pair behind the striker. Nwaneri may have to compromise on that go-to, trademark, Arjen Robben-style cut-inside-and-shoot on his left. Or maybe they rotate throughout games. But they should dovetail well and there will be plenty of minutes for Nwaneri from the right when Karetsas is rested or rotated.

Nwaneri’s main competition for a regular place is probably Beier, but he will also be used in both wing-back positions and up front at times this season. Beyond him, there’s 18-year-old Samuele Inacio, who made his breakthrough late last season, has one Bundesliga goal to his name, and was actually sent off on Saturday and will miss Dortmund’s next two league games through suspension. In truth, Arsenal should have no worries that the Hale End graduate will be ahead of the Italian, as well as Sabitzer, in the pecking order.

Dortmund’s success last season relied on organisation and clean sheets (sound familiar?) and they’re looking to inject more goals into the team (sound familiar?) with a more attacking style (come on now) this season. They’re likely to dominate possession in games and Nwaneri should enjoy the extra space afforded to teams, especially on the break, in the Bundesliga.

—

Ok, that’s your lot for this morning. We’ll let the dust settle, but I suspect The Arses will be busy today.

Have a good one folks, till tomorrow.

The post Transfer window analysis: Good, good and quite bad indeed appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.