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Why Wenger Has Made A HUGE Mistake Giving Up On £42m Duo

By on July 24, 2014

Widespread reports today claim that Arsene Wenger has ditched plans to try and sign either Sami Khedira or Lars Bender and is set to give Jack Wilshere the chance to be our holding midfielder this season.

The boss was fully expected to bring in a proper defensive midfielder this summer to replace the ageing Mikel Arteta, with Khedira and Bender among the chief targets we were being strongly linked with.

At one point two weeks ago the Khedira deal looked close, with reports in Spain stating that we had agreed a £24m deal with Real Madrid and the German was keen on making the move to the Emirates, but the move broke down after the 27-year-old supposedly demanded in excess of £150,000-a-week and we were soon being linked with his compatriot, Lars Bender.

The Bayer Leverkusen ace is valued at around £18m and Wenger is a long-term admirer of the players having tried to land him last summer, and we were ready to renew our interest after failing to agree terms with Khedira.

However, reports today suggest that the boss has now decided to call-off his interest in Khedira and Bender and plans to move Wilshere in to a deep-lying role in front of the back-four next season.

If true, it will be a huge mistake from Arsene in my opinion as Jack is simply not cut out to be a defensive midfielder. His instincts are always to get forward and right now, he lacks the discipline to sit back and protect the defence.

We need a fast, athletic, ball-winner who knows his job is to sniff out danger, make tackles, interceptions, break up play and get the ball moving to our playmakers. Wilshere is simply not the answer and we would be foolish to rely on him as our main holding player, particularly given his recent injury worries.

Sure, we could try and teach him the role, but why take such a risk when we have ample funds available to bring in an established holding player? This season isn’t the year to be experimenting or putting square pegs in round holes. We should be signing the players we need to build a complete and competition squad that’s capable of challenging for the Premier League.

Right now, the bookmakers are offering Arsenal at a good price for the 2014/15 league title with odds of around 7/1 [favourites Chelsea and Man City are at 2/1] and with good reason. They know we don’t have the squad to sustain a challenge right now. If we were to bring in someone like Khedira or Bender, I bet you’d see those odds shorten considerably.

With Alexis Sanchez and Mathieu Debuchy in the bag, the only position in the starting eleven we now need to strengthen in the defensive midfield department. After that, it’s squad players like a back-up keeper, centre-back and hopefully another forward, but the main priority now should be an anchorman.

If we fail to fix this problem area, we will continue to be hit on the counter-attack this season and pace on the break is going to be our Achilles heel once again. But bring in the likes of Bender, Khedira or even Morgan Schneiderlin, and we’ll have a team capable of beating the best and lifting major honours. Over to you Arsene….

37 Comments

  1. gooner4life

    July 24, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    You couldn’t make it up if this is true it would be crazy Jack will not last long in there with his glass like ankles if he gets through the opening month it would be a miracle.We need someone big with a real menacing presence anyone else agree.

    • minx

      July 24, 2014 at 5:32 pm

      wilshire is the weakest link in the team we should sell him and buy sami .

  2. arsenal-steve

    July 24, 2014 at 2:13 pm

    If we are honest the odds of Arsenal winning the Premier League must be 100/1. Every season Wenger puts us out the race before the season starts. Check on this. He has now become a liability. He is a great coach but there is definitely something wrong with him. He has some strange agenda going on. He got his new contract and bought Sanchez, and suddenly he is now back to type. Wishire as DM. Insane. After watching this great club since 1958 I am more confused as ever. Does he actually want to lose the league….I am beginning to think so, because he is always a couple of players away.

    • Goonermikey

      July 24, 2014 at 3:05 pm

      Please give me your name and address because i’ll happily have a grand each way at those ridiculously generous odds……..or perhaps you’re just trying to make a silly point because you don’t actually have the knowledge, experience, qualifications, expertise or brain to come up with a rational argument. For somebody who started watching the club in ’58 you are remarkably naive I must say……second childhood perhaps?!!!

      • arsenal-steve

        July 24, 2014 at 6:20 pm

        Every so often a plank of wood who has nothing to add to the discussion joins in. You are that person goonermikey. Why do you bother? You have absolutely nothing to say.

      • John Peters

        July 25, 2014 at 2:21 pm

        First sentence excepted ,i totally agree with Steve .Are you a real supporter of AFC ,or just the plastic dodo like so many “fans” since 2004 ?

      • John Peters

        July 25, 2014 at 2:24 pm

        My post is for you ,of coarse, Goonermikey !

    • minx

      July 24, 2014 at 5:42 pm

      two quality players thats all we need a striker worth the name ,and one of his three targets, any one. there must be some one at the clubwho can deal with these things.

  3. Cadey

    July 24, 2014 at 2:16 pm

    Come on Wenger, spend the money on a specialist defensive midfielder, not an experiment with a injury prone offensive player. We CANNOT afford to experiment, we CAN afford Bender, Schniederlin or Khedira.

    • andy

      July 24, 2014 at 4:50 pm

      WE COULD AFFORD ALL THREE AT A PINCH, WE HAVE AROUND £65 M LEFT IN THE BANK. THE ONLY THING HOLDING US BACK IS WENGER DITHERING WHILE PLAYERS ARE GETTING SIGNED ELSEWHERE.
      ANY OF THE THREE WOULD BE 10 TIMES BETTER IN THAT ROLE THAN WILSHIRE AS WOULD FLAMINI VEMAERLIN RAMSEY MONREAL JENKS .THE BOYS TACKLING WIN RATIO IS JUST CRAP . THEY WOULD BE STRAIGHT THROUGH ON OUR BACK FOUR ,
      ARSENE NEEDS TO ACCEPT THE FACT THE WORLD CUP SEEMS TO HAVE PUSHED UP PLAYERS WAGES AND PRICES AND JUST SIGN THE ONE HE WANTS THE MOST .
      THIS IS NOT A POSITION TO SKIMP OVER OR START PENNY PINCHING .

      • andy

        July 24, 2014 at 5:00 pm

        WHY NOT PLAY 2 3 4 1 WITH GIBBS VERMAERLIN AND DEBUSHY SLIGHTLY IN FRONT OF THE CENTRE BACKS . THEN WE HAVE TWO LINES OF DEFENCE TO GET THROUGH AND NO NEED TO WORRY ABOUT B F G AND HIS PACE .
        . WE JUST KEEP TWO BACK AT ALL TIMES
        PODOLSKI ONE WING WALCOT ON THE OTHER ,
        RAMSEY AND OZIL IN THE CENTER .SANCHES UP FRONT .

        • jax

          July 24, 2014 at 5:26 pm

          like this very much .we must keep our captain and not sell to man u ,a major rival. or does arsene not think they are s threat . its van perse strings all over again .

          • john

            July 24, 2014 at 5:30 pm

            dead right aresene said earlier he wouldnt sell him ,now hes back tracking .
            leave van gael witha bloody great problem ,thats what he should be doing , and the best all signed up by now .

  4. Ren Vassilliou

    July 24, 2014 at 2:20 pm

    Big big MISTAKE for Wenger if that is true , we will be commiting a sin to our selves and leave us wide open at the back, Wiltshire is a good player but not one to cover the back four , unless we khedira we will struggle again come the second half of the season, we should now while we are buzzing go out and get the best we can, Khedira is that player we need to press for the title,

  5. Adam Keys

    July 24, 2014 at 2:21 pm

    Couldn’t agree more. We’ve been screaming for an enforcer for years, and now one of the world’s best is available we have to go for him. If Khedira is demanding £150k a week, surely the club must look at the reduced transfer fee and see that the extra 10/20k per week still works out less than paying the transfer fee of someone else. The wage structure was broken for Campbell under these circumstances and look at the success it brought.

  6. Malaysian gunner

    July 24, 2014 at 2:23 pm

    He has been given more time than other managers to get Arsenal
    going. If for some reason Arsenal can’t challenge,in all honesty,he has overstayed his welcome and shd go before he is fired.
    The heavy losses to the top 3 must not be repeated. If Arsenal get humiliated again,it shows he has not digested the lessons.Normally after a heavy loss,any manager worth his sugar/salt,will make 100% sure there will be no repeat.
    The season hasn’t started but the bookies have put the gunners at 4th place. So don’t be surprised the gunners will fight for 4th again.I hope to be proven wrong.

  7. Jon

    July 24, 2014 at 2:40 pm

    Don’t believe this for a minute. It’s all come out of a completely quoteless, unsubstantiated (and in places downright contradictory)report in the Mail this morning which has then been picked up by other sources. The Mail love nothing better than to troll Arsenal fans so I’ll take this with a bucket load of salt. And Jack Wlshere at DM? they might as well have suggested Santi Cazorla!!

  8. sean

    July 24, 2014 at 2:44 pm

    there is no truth in that story. wenger is not that retarded. Come on lads take a chill pill and don’t believe the mail for one

  9. Phillip Shafuda

    July 24, 2014 at 2:45 pm

    No Arsene, this time you got it absolutely wrong. Jack cannot protect the back four. It hurts to see the team losing the league every season while we had the opportunity to sign new quality players like Khedira.

  10. RAHIM

    July 24, 2014 at 2:55 pm

    AT TIME I JUST WONDER IF DIS WENGER REALY WANT DE PROGESS OF DIS CLUB, WHY IS DIS MAN KEEP ON DOING ONETHING SEASON TO SEASON AND EXPECT DEFLENT MIRACLE.

  11. shockandawe

    July 24, 2014 at 2:55 pm

    Can’t be true surely. Jack spends more time laying on the floor in aparrent agony thatn he does on his feet. We need someone who can break up attacks not his own ankles.

    • DAVID JENSON

      July 24, 2014 at 5:03 pm

      DEAD RIGHT .WITH JACK WILSHIRE ITS MORE ABOUT HAW JACK WILSHERE LOOKS THAN DOING AN EFFECTIVE JOB

  12. Solomon

    July 24, 2014 at 3:09 pm

    I think all these reports are just fabrication. I believe that we will sign one defensive midfielder but it wont be Khedira. I see Khedira as a DM that will be cut in the same web which we believe that Jack is “always want to venture forward” We need a real DM and not the one that like to venture forward. We have enough players going forward. I think we will sign either Bender or Schniederlin.

  13. Goonermikey

    July 24, 2014 at 3:10 pm

    When you say AW is “making a mistake” I find it quite extraordinary since I’m sure if you had any talent for football management at all, you wouldn’t really be writing a blog.

    Why is it people think they know better when the nearest they came to being involved in the pro game is watching TV? By all means tell us what you would do as a compete amateur but please show some respect for those who really do know what they are doing.

    You wouldn’t go to hospital and tell the surgeon how to do your heart transplant just because you’d seen it done on the TV……..or would you?!!

    • mac14

      July 24, 2014 at 3:28 pm

      @Goonermikey

      Please explain how I showed a lack of ‘respect’ to AW simply by questioning his [apparent] decision to ditch plans to buy a def mid and play Wilshere there?

      I, like 99% of other Arsenal fans, think buying a holding midfielder player is a must this summer if we want to compete for the title. If we don’t, I feel it will be a mistake by the boss. Simple as that.

    • minx

      July 24, 2014 at 5:56 pm

      the whole point of this web sight is for people to express their view ,if you wont allow that or it upsets you .,then why are you on here .

  14. Sumtec

    July 24, 2014 at 4:30 pm

    Please wenger buy a defencive midfielder for us.

  15. KS

    July 24, 2014 at 4:32 pm

    We will end up finishing 4th or 5th again. We are losing cazo and signing old iker

    • top gooner

      July 24, 2014 at 5:15 pm

      we need to spend and get in a pro in this position. not a stupid immature boy who smokes drinks dives if touched and cant tackle worth toffee .

      • genge d

        July 24, 2014 at 5:49 pm

        vote with your feet dont buy the season tickets till he does .then the ownera accountant will sit up and take notice .

  16. KS

    July 24, 2014 at 4:38 pm

    Goonermickey. Didn’t we know lat year with injuries we will not finish on top we had a transfer window and still did nothing about. All it was needed was a half decent striket at that point. This everybody was saying. Don’t you think people know it better. Until wenger goes looks like we wont improved on 4 . Maybe even drop to 5th

    • DAVID JENSON

      July 24, 2014 at 5:12 pm

      IF WERE NOT DOING ANY MOTE ABOUT THESE SIGNINGS AND NO REAL STRIKER FIFTH MAY BE A STRETCH WITH SPUDS DOING LOADS OF SIGNING AS WELL AS NEWCASLE AND EVERTON .

    • dogy dog dog

      July 24, 2014 at 5:23 pm

      why cant the manager plainly see what 90 percent of us see let alone all those pros and pundits . weneed 2 more players . atop striker and a d midfieder , a kids team manager can see that all the money in the world sitting in the bank wont win you a damn thing ,spend it on two world class payers and we have a great chance .

      • sarah

        July 24, 2014 at 6:00 pm

        balotelli is there for peanuts ,hes dead keen to join when half the squad are linked to laeving . where is the problem his team will sell for £16 m .a month ago he was £28 m.

  17. Samuel

    July 25, 2014 at 1:02 am

    Wenger why? Do you want to break our heart again? Don’t forget dat fabregas is with Chelsea and remember what happened last season 6 past arsenal due to ur negligence, I reversed that arsenal won FA cup if not you would have left our club alone and allow a better coach who have modern knowledge of football, pls Wenger remember man c, Liverpool, Chelsea and man u, they are OK strong in every area of the pitch, pls for God sake don’t brake our heart again.

  18. otuechere

    July 25, 2014 at 6:32 am

    prof. please we need real Dmf and one world class striker coupled with defender is very important .

  19. Pingback: Arsenal Make 'Lucrative Contract Offer' To £18m Midfield Target | Arsenal Station | Arsenal FC News

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