Arsène Wenger's Worst Signing?

[Smiley Culture]

26 minutes ago, Asura said:

Two different things, I was talking about player's ability and you are referring to the hype and expectations surrounding him which has nothing to do with the player. 

Of course it has something to do with the player.

The hype and expectation is, rightly or wrongly, an element of Football and clubs, managers and fans expect some sort of return for the clubs investment in terms of financial cost, the players wage and the players reputation/potential. 

Shevchenko arrived at Chelsea described as one of the best strikers on the planet, he failed to deliver and match his reputation, that’s why he’s classed as a poor signing by Chelsea. Just because he’s technically better than say Asmir Begovic, who’s reputation, wage payments and transfer fee was much smaller than Shevchenko’s, it doesn’t mean he’s an inferior player to Shevchencko. Both disappointed at Chelsea but for differing reasons.

Granit Xhaka was rated as one of the best young midfielders when signed by Arsenal. He was expected to be the ‘missing link’ that had been vacant in their side since Patrick Vieria’s departure. He cost Arsenal £40m, a sum that, at the time, was alien to Arsenal. He was expected to play regularly and contribute something to the Arsenal side. Frankly, he’s been atrocious, not lived up to the hype and has not justified his transfer fee. 

Take Francis Jeffers. He was signed by Arsenal at a time when they had Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and potentially Sylvian Wiltord, too. Jeffers was never expected to be a regular first teamed at Arsenal just because of the competition he would have had. Jeffers signed for a relatively modest fee, too, £8m. Was Jeffers a success? Undoubtedly, not. Technically he wasn’t up to much but does that alone signify how good/bad a player is deemed? For me, no. 

[Chaaay AFC]

2 hours ago, Happy Blue said:

The worse bit of transfer business he's done is having Yaya Toure turn up for a try out then turning him down    ...almost as bad as Mourinho with De Bruyne 

That story is a little misguided. We couldn't get him a work permit and he didn't want to sign and get loaned out. I'm not sure if Wenger was totally sold on him but it is a shame we missed out.

 

57 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

Of course it has something to do with the player.

The hype and expectation is, rightly or wrongly, an element of Football and clubs, managers and fans expect some sort of return for the clubs investment in terms of financial cost, the players wage and the players reputation/potential. 

Shevchenko arrived at Chelsea described as one of the best strikers on the planet, he failed to deliver and match his reputation, that’s why he’s classed as a poor signing by Chelsea. Just because he’s technically better than say Asmir Begovic, who’s reputation, wage payments and transfer fee was much smaller than Shevchenko’s, it doesn’t mean he’s an inferior player to Shevchencko. Both disappointed at Chelsea but for differing reasons.

Granit Xhaka was rated as one of the best young midfielders when signed by Arsenal. He was expected to be the ‘missing link’ that had been vacant in their side since Patrick Vieria’s departure. He cost Arsenal £40m, a sum that, at the time, was alien to Arsenal. He was expected to play regularly and contribute something to the Arsenal side. Frankly, he’s been atrocious, not lived up to the hype and has not justified his transfer fee. 

Take Francis Jeffers. He was signed by Arsenal at a time when they had Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and potentially Sylvian Wiltord, too. Jeffers was never expected to be a regular first teamed at Arsenal just because of the competition he would have had. Jeffers signed for a relatively modest fee, too, £8m. Was Jeffers a success? Undoubtedly, not. Technically he wasn’t up to much but does that alone signify how good/bad a player is deemed? For me, no. 

Granit Xhaka has been fine, arguably our best player of late and one of the best passing DM's going. I'll admit he has had his shaky spells but he is a fantastic footballer. 

A lot of his struggles came from being played in the wrong position. Wenger was asking him to play box to box which is not his game. Finally started playing with Ramsey consistently and he hasn't looked back. I think he is very good and under the next man he can be top notch. Absolutely nowhere near his worst signing.

[SirBalon]

54 minutes ago, Chaaay AFC said:

That story is a little misguided. We couldn't get him a work permit and he didn't want to sign and get loaned out. I'm not sure if Wenger was totally sold on him but it is a shame we missed out.

 

Granit Xhaka has been fine, arguably our best player of late and one of the best passing DM's going. I'll admit he has had his shaky spells but he is a fantastic footballer. 

A lot of his struggles came from being played in the wrong position. Wenger was asking him to play box to box which is not his game. Finally started playing with Ramsey consistently and he hasn't looked back. I think he is very good and under the next man he can be top notch. Absolutely nowhere near his worst signing.

Where has Xhaka been in our away games this year?  Are you going to blame everything on Wenger?  Actually now, because you just said he ended up playing him in his correct position which apparently isn't as a DM... If he isn't a defensive midfielder, what is he exactly and what is he comparable to on the elite level?

He's mediocrity in my view mate.  He can be good (I've always said this especially his mid range passing), but in general he's ok and at times erratic.

Ask yourself this.., Would he get into any of Europe's top sides?  Who is he comparable to? 

[6666]

Statistically Xhaka's passing and interceptions and ball winning has always been good at Arsenal. One or two moments that get a lot of focus from moronic pundits doesn't change the fact he's generally very good. It's not just with Xhaka though, it's normal for pundits to only mention players when their performance matches the narrative whether that's good or bad. On the other side of that was Barkley, who was incredibly inconsistent but as soon as he had a good game they'd pretend he was always playing like this and the national team needed to be built around him. Ignorance at its finest.

Anyway, can't think of one that sticks out as being the worst as the ones in contention are players that were bought for very little during the period we were barely spending in which case it wasn't really a disaster because of the low fees involved. The ones we spent big on (by our standards) performed to a decent level while maybe not always being great. Don't know how we finished top 4 all throughout that period, thankfully we had a great manager that sacrificed his CV for the club during those lean years. Wenger did a very good job during that period (if you're capable of looking at things in context which unfortunately most football fans aren't). 

[Panna King]

Richard Wright. Tipped to be the next David Seaman 😂

[Panna King]

33 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

Where has Xhaka been in our away games this year?  Are you going to blame everything on Wenger?  Actually now, because you just said he ended up playing him in his correct position which apparently isn't as a DM... If he isn't a defensive midfielder, what is he exactly and what is he comparable to on the elite level?

He's mediocrity in my view mate.  He can be good (I've always said this especially his mid range passing), but in general he's ok and at times erratic.

Ask yourself this.., Would he get into any of Europe's top sides?  Who is he comparable to? 

Xhaka would probably fit a slow boring side like Ac Milan

[SirBalon]

1 minute ago, Panna King said:

Xhaka would probably fit a slow boring side like Ac Milan

And then Man Utd would sign him for £90m. 

[Spike]

A bad signing is a bad signing. You can write Jeffers off with what Smiley said earlier but the point remains that Arsenal invested £8,000,000 in him to return nothing. Just think about that outside the scope of football: imagine making an $8,000 investment and getting fuck all in return. All investments are gambles to a degree but not matter how large or small a bad investment is just that. Most of the time we can only retroactovely judge a transfer. That is why I always wait till a players career with an X club is over till I rate them. For instance, Xhaka looked a great investment when purchased, now looks a poor investment, but in the future we don't know. He could be sold for £120,000,000, would that then make the investment great? He didn't return a footballing investment but tripled his cash worth to the club.

[6666]

Stats > Media Narrative.

And with that in mind, people thinking Xhaka hasn't even been good this season are lost. Statistically he slaps Eric Dier and Henderson around for example who are supposedly untouchable in the England team. And when it comes to his passing, he's a genuinely great player. And his tackles per 90 is higher than the likes of Matic.

Not suggesting he's been flawless but that stats don't back up people's claims that he's been bad overall. Not even close.

[Spike]

37 minutes ago, 6666 said:

Stats > Media Narrative.

And with that in mind, people thinking Xhaka hasn't even been good this season are lost. Statistically he slaps Eric Dier and Henderson around for example who are supposedly untouchable in the England team. And when it comes to his passing, he's a genuinely great player. And his tackles per 90 is higher than the likes of Matic.

Not suggesting he's been flawless but that stats don't back up people's claims that he's been bad overall. Not even close.

Stats without context are worthless. 

[Chaaay AFC]

10 hours ago, SirBalon said:

Where has Xhaka been in our away games this year?  Are you going to blame everything on Wenger?  Actually now, because you just said he ended up playing him in his correct position which apparently isn't as a DM... If he isn't a defensive midfielder, what is he exactly and what is he comparable to on the elite level?

He's mediocrity in my view mate.  He can be good (I've always said this especially his mid range passing), but in general he's ok and at times erratic.

Ask yourself this.., Would he get into any of Europe's top sides?  Who is he comparable to? 

No he is a DM, I said he was being played as box to box midfielder at times which he is clearly not. 

He has not been perfect, I just don't believe for a second he is anywhere near close to Wenger's worst signing.

[DeadLinesman]

9 hours ago, SirBalon said:

And then Man Utd would sign him for £90m. 

We only take your decent players mate 

[SirBalon]

27 minutes ago, Chaaay AFC said:

No he is a DM, I said he was being played as box to box midfielder at times which he is clearly not. 

He has not been perfect, I just don't believe for a second he is anywhere near close to Wenger's worst signing.

There seems to be a conflict of what Xhaka's position really is because you hear people say he isn't a defensive midfielder and others say he isn't a central midfielder because his short combinative pass and movement is of a low level.

By no means is he the worst quality footballer to arrive during Wenger's era... That is ridiculous to say but there is something to be said on that with relation to how much he cost (not the crazy prices now, but when he was signed mind you).

I would go as far as to say that Xhaka was signed to be an out and out defensive midfielder for the simple reason of his time in Germany and his aggressive style in tackling which he has has to moderate due to the fact he is a crap tackler and tends to get himself booked or sent-off.  With that, he isn't a really good defensive midfielder and we can start a debate on what the hell he really is.

[RandoEFC+]

I obviously don't watch Arsenal every week but Xhaka has never struck me as a bad signing even if he was relatively expensive. 

I have to commend @6666 for calling out the problem that several people seem to have on this forum of just trotting out whatever "Jeff and the lads" invent on a Saturday afternoon as their opinions. I'm not remotely shocked to see that someone else basically laughed off the statistics that backed up his argument.

Let's get this straight, taken out of context stats can be meaningless for example claiming that Joe Allen at Swansea was better than Frank Lampard because he had better pass completion, but stats are also the closest thing to "evidence" you can use when debating footballers and their relative abilities and in this case the poster used 3 or 4 measures of performance to back up their point so come back with something of substance if you're going to argue against that.

[Panna King]

12 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

I obviously don't watch Arsenal every week but Xhaka has never struck me as a bad signing even if he was relatively expensive. 

I have to commend @6666 for calling out the problem that several people seem to have on this forum of just trotting out whatever "Jeff and the lads" invent on a Saturday afternoon as their opinions. I'm not remotely shocked to see that someone else basically laughed off the statistics that backed up his argument.

Let's get this straight, taken out of context stats can be meaningless for example claiming that Joe Allen at Swansea was better than Frank Lampard because he had better pass completion, but stats are also the closest thing to "evidence" you can use when debating footballers and their relative abilities and in this case the poster used 3 or 4 measures of performance to back up their point so come back with something of substance if you're going to argue against that.

Maybe this song sums what most Arsenal fans think of him

 

 

[Panna King]

13 hours ago, Chaaay AFC said:

No he is a DM, I said he was being played as box to box midfielder at times which he is clearly not. 

He has not been perfect, I just don't believe for a second he is anywhere near close to Wenger's worst signing.

Depends what people judging signings on, if its price or ability.  Xhaka is no where near a 38 million pound player, I wouldnt have him down as the Worst signing but just a very poor bit of business. 

[Bluebird Hewitt]

On 10/05/2018 at 17:37, Cannabis said:

You were doing well up until that point, Jesus .

He means comparatively in regards to transfer fee and expectation like with the Arsenal signings mentioned.

[Rick]

His contract extension last summer.

[Danny]

Yaya Sanogo surely

[Lucas]

Pascal Cygan was absolute toss.

One of the few defenders I've seen that assisted attacks with subtle bouts of inefficient defending. It's actually amazing he can claim to be one of the invincibles.

You'd probably have to say that Stepanovs guy was different gravy. From the Djimi Traore school of jokers. He looked like a rabbit in the headlights when Man U smashed them 6-1 all them years ago.

[Rick]

1 hour ago, Lucas said:

Pascal Cygan was absolute toss.

One of the few defenders I've seen that assisted attacks with subtle bouts of inefficient defending. It's actually amazing he can claim to be one of the invincibles.

You'd probably have to say that Stepanovs guy was different gravy. From the Djimi Traore school of jokers. He looked like a rabbit in the headlights when Man U smashed them 6-1 all them years ago.

How dare you call Djimi a joker