Arsenal: Start of season expectations, transfers, preparations.

Hi everyone, welcome to my first post about my journey with the gooners! Before I start Arsenal won 6 — 0 vs Braga yesterday! Yeah! Woohoo! We simply thrashed them :-)

I would like to ask everyone a question, if you watched the game, which goal do you think was the best? My favourite was Marouane Chamakh’s goal.

START OF SEASON EXPECTATIONS:

So my budget was 29m to buy players. The minimum i would recieve was 26m for a continental finish, i told the board that i believe that i can win the league. I have to admit, i am not happy with the budget, i was expecting 35m-40m with a higher wage budget but o well….

TRANSFERS OUT:

Mikael Silvestre departed because he only had a year left on his contract so i thought i might as well cash in. Mikael is just not good enough for this team. I also didn’t have any hope on Fran Merida improving his stats anymore and when Juventus came knocking on the door, i happily let him go. Nacer Barazite was sent out loan as he would have had very little game time at Arsenal. The next three players that departed was because of signing ‘better players’ which you will see in the next screen shot :-) The money i received for Emmanuel Eboue and especially Nicklas Bendtner tempted me even more to sell, especially with my current budget.

TRANSFERS IN:

With my budget only being 29m, i had to make the right decisions on who to buy. Before i bought anybody i did a squad analysis and the defence was the main worry.

A total of 53m was spent on transfers!

Welcome to the club, our 3 new 16 year olds!:

ALPHONSE AREOLA — 300K

Alphonse Areola has some pretty good attributes for a 16 year old goalkeeper. I bought him for one reason only, and thats is for the future, hopefully he will make his way into the first team after 3, 4 seasons.

MARCO VERRATTI — 425K

Marco Verratti is by far my favourite transfer, as usual. I have bough him in every game and he has been a god for me in all of the games i have played for FM10 especially the Leeds United game! Ofcourse i didn’t scout him myself, i picked him up from a wonderkids list. He already has some excellent attributes and hopefully he will improve even more. Marco has been granted a place in the first team also.

LUC CASTAIGNOS — 1.6M

Luc Castaignos,  how many times have we heard his name before?!!! Like I just mentioned with the other two 16 year olds, he had pretty good attributes for a 16 year old which is why I signed him.

JONJO SHLVEY — 3M

Jonjo Shelvey was also signed for the future. :-)

The waiting game will have to be played for all of these players but I am hoping they are the future of Arsenal, just like Arsene Wenger has done in the last 5 years :-)

Now the major signings!:

Nicolas Otamendi — 3m

Nicolas Otamendi was signed from Velez on a 3m deal. Otamendi is the current third choice defender in the squad, behind Vermaelan and Gallas. The price was simply too cheap for Otamendi and with all the main defending attributes were very good, was a reason why i didn’t hesitate to pay the 3m price. Not bad replacing Silvestre with him by paying an extra 1.6m ;-)

Cristian Zapata — 15m + P/ex (Francis Coquelin

I needed a commanding strong centre-half. Zapata has high Marking and Tackling attributes, along with good pace, which was the main reasons i opted for him instead of the other defenders on my shortlist. Zapata will partner Vermaelan in defence. With the signing of Zapata, i decided to sell Emmanuel Eboue, as Zapata can also play RB, another reason why I signed him.

Simon Vuckevic — 8m

When i did my squad analysis, i found out that I needed a partner for Cesc Fabregas as Abou Diaby/Denilson wern’t good enough. They are perfect squad player but not first teamers. I really wanted to sign Mesut Ozil but Werder Bremen wanted 25m! Instead i opted for my good old friend Simon Vuckevic who was a real leader in my Leeds game. At 23years of age his technical stats are brilliant. He will partner Cesc Fabregas in the 3 of the midfield.

Edin Dzeko — 22m

Our deadline day transfer, Edin Dzeko arrived at the Emirates Stadium for £22m! It took 2 days to negotiate the deal after i got the fees for Bendtners transfer. I was never going to sign Edin Dzeko but only for one reason….. That is Robin Van Persie hasn’t scored a single goal in  5 games so far! (the August games) and he also suffered an injury which will rule him out for 3 weeks. I was also quiet weak on the right wing as Walcott’s attributes are very average, so i have decided that RVP will play RW with Dzeko CF.

That concludes my transfer business.

First Team XI:

Pre Season Fixtures & Results:

Pre-season went quiet well. The draw vs Tigres was because we started with half of our reserves, but we showed excellent determination and desire to come back. the draw vs PSG was disappointing, apart from that, it all went well. Lets see if it continues into the new season….. :-)

Well that’s it for this post, just let me know if I’ve missed anything out, Thanks.

Take Care, Sayam