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[Charles Watts] Arteta is very keen on Alvarez and has a clear vision as to how he’ll fit into his squad. He has spoken with Alvarez in recent days. As a part of that conversation Mikel has been speaking about how living in London is different to Manchester
Weather in England in general is a turn off. i suspect its 1 of the reasons why Vini chose not to join Arsenal. Footballer from South America will less likely trade sunny Spain for it.
London is actually quite different, more like a Paris in terms of weather.
Being a London club is actually such a huge advantage, the biggest London club absolutely should be the most successful English club. The fact we've been the biggest London club for 100 years and done so little with it is kind of crazy tbh. Historically we've had some really big chances to truly kick on and have a massive era of dominance and we've just never got it. For example under Wenger, if we didn't build the stadium during a financial crisis and get a 15 year owner dispute we'd probably be sitting on like 5+ more league trophies and probably at least a CL right now. Same thing at the end of the 30's. We were extremely well positioned after the tremendous job Chapman had done, then WW2 kicked out and we lost everything and had to start from scratch.
As for what happened between 1950 and 2000 I've got no clue, but letting Liverpool run wild and have all that dominance is a bit crazy. Didn't help that we were stopped from buying guys like Maradona because of Visa issues, though.
I think as the biggest London club we are the best positioned club in the world in terms of taking the next step and truly challenging RM and Barca for the biggest club in the world, but at this point we have so much catch-up to do that it's almost impossible.
I feel like it’s somewhat normal for the biggest cities to not have the most successful teams. PSG wasn’t particularly successful until Qatar took over. Roma and Lazio are hardly known for their dominance. No Berlin team has ever won the Bundesliga. New York sports are pretty infamous for not winning very much except for the Yankees.
The book Soccernomics goes i to it more. Forgot a lot of the details but showed historically the working class cities like liverpool and Barcelona the people were more inclined to be involved with football, where large metropolitan cities attention could be divided by the arts etc. Obviously footballs changed since then, but those are the roots of ehy those teams succeeded.
I mean the answer is just money. We were owned by fairly wealthy real estate families who dont have liquid wealth and arent flashy with it. We had periods of dominance when we amassed enough talent but never spent enough to replenish it constantly.
We also had to split youth talent around London.
Wenger broke through by having a much deeper european scouting network of coaches he had worked with and our willingness to field a side that wasnt 90% English players and veteran players. Even in 2000 we were getting flak for having a side of all non-english players.
Going younger and foreign allowed us to get higher quality talent than the PL teams for a bit. But as soon as other clubs evolved, we lost that advantage and were back to being outspent.
The Kroenkes know what kind of behemoth they have with Arsenal, they will be sure to capitalize on it. They want us to be the biggest club in the world and it can happen.
There's a great SC Libero episode that discusses this exact topic of why the biggest cities don't have the biggest clubs and also discusses other elements from the book Soccernomics I believe.
My point is specifically about why the biggest cities/capital cities in Europe aren't always the most successful footballing wise historically. And for the exceptions like Madrid, why they buck the trend.
That time period from the 50s to 2000 was just a very different dynamic. The Prem was much less global, institutional money didn’t drive club and academy development as much as history, culture, and grassroots support. Liverpool was a *thriving* industrial and merchant city before globalization kicked in, etc. Almost all of the factors that give London such big advantages now didn’t really matter back then and the things that did matter were major strengths for Liverpool and Manchester.
Not really it’s been a known fact that South American players don’t like basically anything about living in UK with London being probably the only acceptable place. There was an interview with Di Maria’s wife and she said she wanted to leave Manchester after first day there - weathers bad food is bad lol
He picked the only woman at the club who could possibly turn their nose up at a premier league footballer with impeccable hair. Our manager and his fogging estandards.
Imagine going after a Miss Spain when you havent even been capped by your country, or played for madrid or barcelona...
If it happens, I'm jumping aboard the hype train and will hope he plays to the best of his abilities despite not getting his dream move.
If it doesn't happen, I'm not losing any sleep over it. I'm way more excited about a rejuvenated Odegaard and fit Saka improving our attack than the addition of Alvarez.
The way I see it - if Arteta is convinced, then so am I. I'm not saying he's always got it right, but the man's improved us every season he's been here and brought us our first league title in 22 years. He's earned the benefit of the doubt.
Besides I don't believe for one second that Arteta would be so keen on Alvarez if he wasn't 100% sure that he'd get the best out of him. Arteta values discipline and hard work so much, and he wouldn't compromise on that just for Alvarez.
Exactly! You’d think that most people here would have learned by now that we should trust Arteta’s instincts on this rather than shouting out our strongly-held opinions that are based on nothing more than feelings and whatever nonsene Spanish ‘journalists’ are putting out.
Same. I think he’ll definitely be a good player for us. Hell, he’ll have no choice! If he wants Barcelona to be his next destination then he’ll have to be impressive here because Barca will be less interested if he’s a flop. But I’ll quickly forget about it if a deal doesn’t materialize. We absolutely must buy someone though because losing Nelli definitely weakens the attack
I really don't understand people getting annoyed at us trying to convince him to join. He's the best attacking player on the market, fits us extremely well, pairs very nicely with Havertz and improves our attack massively.
We don't have the pull that Barca and Real do (especially with South American players), that's the reality of it and if we want to go up a level then you need to fight to convince players of this quality to join.
If he joins and then wants to leave for Barcelona in 2 years, so what? He's very good and would most likely contribute to us winning more league titles and possibly a Champions League.
People take things way too personally like he insulted their mom just because he wants to be a Barca player.
Cesc trauma is real lmao. I saw someone say they still hate Cesc because they were bullied in school because of it. Like bro… get therapy or get over it lmaooo
Yeah I got that same reply when I dared suggest that maybe underpaying your captain for 8 years and then acting offended that he wanted more money was not the best strategy for long-term player retention.
The turnaround has been so strange to read..? Basically all summer I've been reading that we need a ST upgrade and Gyokeres is not that good, but not now that we are in the market for likely the best attacking player available, suddenly Gyokeres will do because he works hard.
I understand he wants to be here and he loves the club, but so did e.g. Ramsdale but he was simply outclassed at a certain point. If we have both and Gyokeres becomes a monster all of a sudden then I'm glad but I think Alvarez is basically the perfect striker for Arsenal.
Because he won't be happy and won't play to the best of his ability, and then will leave a year after. Motivation is important, i reckon he'll have a bad season at atletico because of that, but it wouldn't be that much better here
Why do some people act like its a dead story when we literally spoke to him just days ago? It might not happen but its obviously still an open decision at this point
But why is it an issue for Alvarez and not for any other south-American player? There were several players from Argentina playing in the PL i haven’t heard them having this issue.
Different circumstances. Either his mum or day has Italian citizenship so can stay indefinitely in Schengen. I think its up to 180 days in UK. Thanks Brexit.
The difference for Alvarez is that he wants his family super close. Other South Americans playing in the UK may accept that they cannot.
It’s very odd that he couldn’t get visas for his family. Argentina doesn’t face the same sanctions countries in Africa do. He is also wealthy, which makes the visa process simple. He should also have connections via the club, the Argentinian embassy in the UK, or the UK embassy in Argentina.
Eh, it's easier for us to get into EU and spain due to historical ties (IIRC we can get spain citizenship in only 2 years), and post brexit immigration has gotten harder
No, Martinelli (as much as I’ve loved him) is being sold because he unfortunately never reached or maintained the necessary level. Just like ESR (who I also loved). Sadly you have to be ruthless in sport.
I think it's even more due to the fact that we need to make some money from sales this summer and have gotten no traction with Jesus, Viera, or Nelson.
Both these comments are true and are well said. It says very little about Martinelli as a person or footballer and I wish this was emphasized more in this discourse.
Making £20m a year tax free isn’t dying mate. He will live like an absolute king in a mansion showered with adoration, have zero costs and leave with enough money for his next 10 generations to be wealthy.
I like Alvarez and I’ve liked the idea of signing him all summer.
But _this_ level of explanation required such that our manager is becoming a glorified estate agent makes me a bit queasy.
Do we really want to sign someone who takes this much convincing?
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u/dynesorBobby, what’s French for va-va-voom?7d agoedited 7d ago
Simple as this:
We have the best goalkeeper in the league.
We have the best defence in the league.
We have the best midfield in the league.
We do not have the best attack in the league.
Alvarez improves the weakest area of our team. Does signing him give us best attack in the league? No, I don’t think so, but he’s the best attacking player currently available in the market, he will improve us in that area and there are quite simply not that many players available that would do so.
Some players need convinced. I am sure that plenty of our great players in the past had to be convinced too. Bergkamp certainly didn’t see us as his first choice and had to be convinced by David Dein. But he ended up joining us, falling in love with the club and retiring here.
If his only concern is living in England, it’s possibly worth it. London is very different to Manchester but I’m not sure it’s different enough. Our weather is still wank. A lot more high end restaurants etc. though and probably would be nicer for WAGs or family members.
London and Manchester are on different planes of existence. London is one of the elite global cities and Manchester really isn’t. Not knocking Manchester but just being realistic. There’s a difference between New York and Columbus Ohio.
As a person who has lived in both these cities: it is that different, even for a normal working person like me, even more so for a rich young footballer. London is a millionaire’s playground. Even the weather is substantially better in London than Manchester and the north-west. There’s just no comparison. Even as an Irishman I honestly see London as one of the best cities in the world.
I think you’re missing the point here a little. We aren’t comparing Manchester and London directly in isolation. I think your points are absolutely fair but he wants to live in Spain. So what we are actually comparing is Manchester>London>Barcelona and hoping that London sits close enough to Barcelona.
So whilst your points are valid, it’s not the entire argument here. If it was just London is better than Manchester then I doubt he’d be questioning coming here.
Depends what you value. Some would argue that London still doesn’t have the weather. If you’re from a generally warm climate, I can understand wanting to keep that.
If you asked me to move to Norway or Alaska for example, I’d definitely have to factor in the weather to my decision .
I am in the same boat because the one area we could really improve is the attacking line, and Alvarez is a player I could see really lifting us.
I was all for trying to sell the vision to him. I didn't really care about how much Barca was his #1 choice if he also was open to hearing us out as an option.
But at what point is this just begging him to join? It is starting to have the feel of that Di Maria to Spurs quote. If that's what this feels like to him then fuck it, give up on him now.
You need to stop reading too much social media 'news' reports. A lot of them is recycling the same leeks over and over again.
Furthermore, there are interested parties in this who would like to push a certain narrative. For example, Barcelona ones would want to discourage Arsenal (and their fans) from wanting Alvarez so that they could have him. Even Arsenal could want to downplay their interest (and Alvarez suitability) while trying to drop down the price.
There is a large chunk of people on here who believe absolutely everything they read and also like to extrapolate the worse case scenario out of everything, which is an absolute tinderbox for this particular transfer
“Living in London is different than Manchester”
Like how does Charles fucking Watts know this level of detail about their conversation. I’m so sick of transfer talking. All these engagement farming journalist need to be banned next season. I’m sick of reading these useless post. If it’s not Ornstein, HoA or Fabrizio who probably wont even be doing transfer news next year, ban it from the sub.
Hard to believe Charles Watts would know this much detail about their talk. I can believe that the club briefs talks between the manager and player but this sounds completely made up.
icl, im significantly more concerned over our lack of left wingers now over the desire to sign another striker
even if i think gyokeres isnt good at all and we play better with havertz, i dont see the reason to sign alaverz when A) Kroupi is available in the winter window/next summer and B) we have exactly 1 true left winger at the club right now.
Unless the plan is to make Madueke the back up left winger and play Dowman as the back up right winger or something i dont see how we can go all the way up to January with only 1 left winger,
"The way things are going with Climate Change, it may soon be better weather in the UK than in Spain, if not already. With the record breaking El Nino, even as soon as next Summer, Spain will be too hot, and UK will have a Mediterranean climate" - Arteta probably. Gets out power point to explain what El Nino is.
Is there anyway we could set Alvarez up in a Ramadeteur role on the LW?
We overload through Ode and Saka and the RB heavily down the right, in theory creating space for a striker profile on the left. And it's not like he's limited in link up play and super one dimensional out there
It's the only way I can see the money quoted bringing an actual tangible improvement to the squad worth the fee.
Yes, 100%. If he’s going to be playing left wing and not striker, I would be fairly certain the idea is for him to roam and find pockets of space centrally or just off the striker on the left.
I was all for Alvarez at the start but the last week has convinced me he is 100% not worth all this fuss. I get it with Vini Jr as there was a clear difference in quality between him and our current LW options but Havertz is a quality #9 and one could argue keeping him fit and in form means there isn’t much need for Alvarez anyway, certainly not to the extent where we are effectively begging him to give us a chance.
Cannot believe the levels of twerking we're doing for Julian fucking Alvarez. A player who doesn't even want to join us.
If he's signed to play out on the left I don't mind but he is in no way an improvement on Havertz, Gyokores or even Merino up front. Certainly not enough to justify the level of expenditure reporter
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u/lemonlixks Champions of England 25/26 7d ago
“Living in London is different to Manchester” 😭 😭 this is all getting a bit too comedic lol