Santi Cazorla

Can't wait to see the team play now. We have a big squad right now.

ralph avedikian wrote:Does anyone know the fee? Thesun saying it's 16m, eurosport saying 12m.

12mil upfront going upto 17mil with add ons.

Marko Maksimović wrote:Liking this a lot...
On a separate note, I really like how well Arteta has fit in, not only football-wise but as part of the family. Very nice to see him welcoming Santi like that!

Arteta would be my vice captain should VP leave and Vermaelen get made up, love him and his attitude.

Jenks1981 wrote:

Marko Maksimović wrote:Liking this a lot...
On a separate note, I really like how well Arteta has fit in, not only football-wise but as part of the family. Very nice to see him welcoming Santi like that!

Arteta would be my vice captain should VP leave and Vermaelen get made up, love him and his attitude.

As a formal vice-captain agreed... But I'd still like Sagna and/or Kos/Per to be deputies to the captain as well. Our squad in particular is a bit too big for just one or two guys to lead.

Right guys, as great as this is let me be devils advocate for a minute. 3 potentially very good signings, but lets now say in the next week we lose Walcott and RVP and bring in no one else....everybodys thoughts on the squad then?

Who is this Cargonzola chap?
We should sign Scotty Parker and bring power to the team.
Venga Out.

Jenks1981 wrote:Right guys, as great as this is let me be devils advocate for a minute. 3 potentially very good signings, but lets now say in the next week we lose Walcott and RVP and bring in no one else....everybodys thoughts on the squad then?

Still a good summer. If RvP is a wantaway (which I'm not completely sure he is) then better sell him to Juve. Same for Theo. Players with their heads elsewhere do more damage staying than if they leave no matter how good they are.

Jenks1981 wrote:Im gonna go on record now and say this is the best signing ANYONE has made this summer, FACT!!!

Agreed!

Joey Schwab wrote:

Jenks1981 wrote:Im gonna go on record now and say this is the best signing ANYONE has made this summer, FACT!!!

Agreed!

Better than Hazard, Marin and Kagawa for me.

Next up : Sahin and M'Vila and we're good to go.

"If a player is world class and plays in Germany bayern bid for them, they sold poldoski and stayed away from Marin and the defender at arse, if a player is world class in Spain Madrid or barca or ath Madrid will bid, santi has been sold 2x now and none of those clubs went near him!!"
Spurs fan!

Van Roy Bostanian wrote:"If a player is world class and plays in Germany bayern bid for them, they sold poldoski and stayed away from Marin and the defender at arse, if a player is world class in Spain Madrid or barca or ath Madrid will bid, santi has been sold 2x now and none of those clubs went near him!!"
Spurs fan!

Hahahahahahahaha

So basically David Silva is shit.

Van Roy Bostanian wrote:"If a player is world class and plays in Germany bayern bid for them, they sold poldoski and stayed away from Marin and the defender at arse, if a player is world class in Spain Madrid or barca or ath Madrid will bid, santi has been sold 2x now and none of those clubs went near him!!"
Spurs fan!

One of the funniest thing ever. So fucking deluded hahaha.

I can't believe nobody is talking about how disastrous this signing really is.

...we were shoe-ins for the PL Handsome XI! Now this buck-toothed midget-donkey has gone and ruined everything.

On a serious note, where do people think he will play? Very excited about this as I felt we were one player short in the "3" column of our anticipated 4-2-3-1. Sounds like he's quite versatile which, given our team's penchant for injuries, is pretty key. Plenty of options for our front four, this is what I'd expect (pretty much in this order)

----------------------Giroud/Poldi/(RvP?!)------------------
Gerv/Ox/Poldi-----Cazorla/Rosicky-------Walcott/Cazorla/Ox

happyhappyhappyhappy

Or


-------------Giroud--------------

Poldolski-----RVP-----Cazorla

We need one more in midfield I feel, either Sahin or M'Vila, and we have incredible depth. Re-sign RVP and we have a great shot at silverware. Without RVP, we would have to rely on a lot of new players to hit the ground running to make up the shortfall in attack.

pwoodman1 wrote:Or


-------------Giroud--------------

Poldolski-----RVP-----Cazorla

I don't see this as being ideal positionally for the personnel, but those names on paper are frightening and would scare the shit out of any side in the premier league.

How can RVP be justified in his comments now? Give him 150 a week for 3 years, all will be forgotten and we can get on with winning some trophies.

pwoodman1 wrote:Or


-------------Giroud--------------

Poldolski-----RVP-----Cazorla

I'd only be that adventurous if we were down with under 15 minutes to go.

It brings up a decent point though... does anybody know if Cazorla is any good at defending/tracking back? I remember Podolski doing OK on left from a defensive standpoint in the euros, but I never got the impression that he's really meant to play there in general and don't think he'll be nearly as effective on the left as he will be through the middle (full disclosure, I have not seen enough of him to back that up, at all!). AOC isn't great at tracking back currently, but Gervinho has a fantastic work ethic and Benayoun, used for a lot of the big games last year, showed how important it is to have somebody willing to put in the defensive effort.

Either way none of our options could be as bad as Arshavin when it comes to workrate!

Darcy Gorman wrote:

pwoodman1 wrote:Or


-------------Giroud--------------

Poldolski-----RVP-----Cazorla

I don't see this as being ideal positionally for the personnel, but those names on paper are frightening and would scare the shit out of any side in the premier league.

How can RVP be justified in his comments now? Give him 150 a week for 3 years, all will be forgotten and we can get on with winning some trophies.

yes. YES. YES!

I'm not sure it's that adventurous it essentially 4-2-3-1 with Song and Arteta sat in behind that front 4 controlling the Centre of the park. The key this season will be to hold onto the ball for longer periods of time, we gave it away far to much last year and with these players we have a much better chance of doing that.
I also don't think Wenger would spend £12 million on a striker (Giroud) and not play him, If RVP stays I can see them starting up top together

Jonathan Prendergast wrote:

Darcy Gorman wrote:

pwoodman1 wrote:Or


-------------Giroud--------------

Poldolski-----RVP-----Cazorla

I don't see this as being ideal positionally for the personnel, but those names on paper are frightening and would scare the shit out of any side in the premier league.

How can RVP be justified in his comments now? Give him 150 a week for 3 years, all will be forgotten and we can get on with winning some trophies.

yes. YES. YES!

HAHAHAHAHA!!! I say change it to that line up whenever we are 2 up aswell....really fucking pave teams in...we need to see us dishing out good hidings to teams again!!!!


If vp stays...Ohhhhh god help the premier league!!!

I think with the current injuries and with whats been said, we could potentially go into Sunderland like this. Assuming none of these players are sold ofcourse;

----------------SZCHESNEY-------------

JENKINSON-KOSCIELNY-VERMAELEN-GIBBS

--------------SONG-ARTETA-------------

----------------CAZORLA----------------

WALCOTT-----VAN PERSIE------GERVINHO

SUBS: FABIANSKI-MERTESACKER-SANTOS-DIABY-CHAMBERLAIN-PODOLSKI-GIROUD

Thats what I could see Wenger doing, NOT WHAT I WOULD NECESSARILY DO MYSELF

Darcy Gorman wrote:

How can RVP be justified in his comments now? Give him 150 a week for 3 years, all will be forgotten and we can get on with winning some trophies.

Not saying I agree, but there is still something to be said about our "ambition", or lack thereof, when it comes to our unwillingness to offer insane money to the very best players. People spend a lot of time talking about transfer fees without really considering that the players don't even see any of this... the draw away from Arsenal in most cases is the wages the likes of City, Chelsea and a few others are able to throw around at this point. The club has done a great job this summer-- far better than I think any of us would have expected-- in bringing in some quality, experienced additions to the squad... but these recent deals somewhat obscure the fact that Arsenal is not competitive at the top end of the wage scale. Does anybody think the new signings are on something around 100k a week? Unlikely.

We have historically been willing to splurge out on our biggest players (Henry, Cesc, probably now RvP), but bringing in a number of "world-class" additions just isn't feasible given our economic philosophy, which is what could be worrying RvP. Like Cesc before him, it's possible he wants to be surrounded by players of the same level of quality as opposed to being the main man.