According to Jeremy Wilson in the Telegraph, Arsenal have turned down a £16m bid from Crystal Palace for Calum Chambers.
The England U21 defender is one of the many players who could leave the club this summer, and the fee on offer matches what Arsenal paid Southampton for him in July 2014.
Chambers had a good season on loan with Boro, and given that Arsenal are playing with three centre-halves it seemed as if there may have been chances for him on his return.
However, Arsene Wenger clearly believes he has enough depth with Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny, Shkodran Mustafi, Gabriel, Rob Holding, Nacho Monreal and new boy Sead Kolasinac.
The report suggest that Arsenal are holding out for £20m while Palace believe they can find an agreement a little below that.
Let’s see how this one plays out, and with Jack Wilshere, Carl Jenkinson, Kieran Gibbs, Mathieu Debuchy and Lucas Perez all in the departure lounge, we’ll have to see who next follows Wojciech Szczesny out of the exit door.
Okay…..in other news, WTF does LANS mean?????
Like A New Signing.
Usually used when someone comes back from a loan or injury.
Thanks Paul, I’ve just been seeing it for while and I just couldn’t find the courage to just ask……tried to depend on my deductive skills, to no avail?….
Usually when the squad is desperate for a new signing, when EVERYBODY knows we need a new signing because every player is out on the infamous 3 week injury timeline and then Wenger says, oh we have xxx player coming up, he’s like a new signing. It has become so much part of the Arsenal lore that even the twitter account got in on the act when we signed AL9.
xxx player coming
===
This explains why players never want to leave the treatment room.
Welcome to the world of Arseblog GoonerMike!! Glad to have you hear. 🙂
Local Area Networks. Players who return from injury are nicknamed LANS if they have undertaken IT training during their treatment.
Like a new signing Mike. New here are you? ?
Mike what the fuck does WTF mean? I’ll get my coat… ?
Oh piss off would’ya…?
Opow what does that mean?
LOL
…which means?
Come on Third, its easy…the new english premier league season 2017/18….League Of Laca…seriously guys, we cant all be slow
Lots of Love… at least according to granny. Classic texts of; really sorry to hear that mittens (cat) was hit by car. Lol, Granny
FFS what does WTF mean ?
Thought I would throw ROFLMAO into the discussion.
ROFLMAO stands for ‘Rolling on the floor like Muller, Arjen Robben and Co.
Generally sarcastic remark made when one of our regularly injured players returns yet again after 9 months out. Eg Diaby Wiltshire etc.
Surely we make a profit on him, assuming we sell?
Now an England international, lots of experience, more money in the game.
Would prefer we keep him.
Who Mike or Callum? ?
Selling Mike is surely madness…
True but if the right offer comes in??
Final year of his contract too don’t forget.
Maybe a straight swap with Aguero…other than that, Mike stays.
Selling Miguel Sanchez is surely madness.
As long as we get a buy back clause…..
Mike – you need any education on COYG?
Why? Keep him unless we are getting Van Dijk or Koulibaly.
Because Mike is new on here and has potential imho.
Sorry thought you meant “why keep him”?
But surely they aren’t half as talented?
as half talented as Mike is
Mike it’s actually Look At Nipples Secretly. Goodnight.
I doubt thats the “Original” meaning
Ahh you are definitely new then.
Fingers crossed no one makes me sing in front of everyone…..newbie rituals
In my opinion 20m is still not enough for Chambers in this market especially from another PL club. It’s like we just want to give our players away for nothing.
Hey dad !! I totally agree with you..
We need to hold on to Chambers this season and probably have him start more games this season too!!
I mean our two best first choice defenders.. Koscielny and Monreal .. are in the latter years of the career .. Per is retiring .. And Gabriel is average .. won’t mind if we sell him
Bring in one good central defender next season .. and you can rotate between Chambers Mustafi and the new guy throughout the seson .. Holding starts every match and plays every single minute .. Obviously
I voted up and then down
I say keep him. But if we’re selling, sell him for 30m plus add ons and buy back clause and/or sell on clause. After all he’s young and English with a lot of potential. I mean if Burnley got 30m for Keane why not us!
This. We suck at this transfer business thing.
25 million sheets for Adebayor to City. Are you sure?
we turned it down!
Fucking insane. Mertesaker is about to retire, koscielny keeps getting injured, Gabriel well, fuck knows what you’ll get from him on any given day and Mustafi, whisper it quietly isn’t very good. When will Wenger actually finish a squad?
Mustafi is good enough for the German national team and not The Arsenal? I know hes no.3 or 4 there but he hasn´t reached his peak yet. A little polishing and he will we great.
I think he is not very good.
I actually think the bigger issue is that he’s too similar to our CBs, namely Kos. For years now, Wenger has had this fascination for fielding 2 similar CB partnerships, even though the evidence says it doesn’t work. Toure-Gallas, Gallas-Verm, Verm-Kos. None of them worked as they were too similar. Then it wasn’t Per-Kos, which worked but of course Wenger doesn’t be like it so abandoned it. Now we’re back to Kos-Mus or Kos-Gab, and they both show the same flaws of the toure-Gallas template. But Wenger won’t let go. As for Chambers? It’s almost forgotten he had a great… Read more »
This. Why on earth don’t we just sell Gabriel and keep Chambers, who can also play RB and DM in a pinch
Wenger probs thinks that Gabriel’s pace makes him a better right back than Chambers.
But as said by others with Per set to retire and Kos a little shakey injury-wise I’d really like to keep Chambers on the books. Extend cntract and loan out this year.
I remember when BFG arrived and had a at best ordinary first season. He was unceremoniously written off only to turn out to be a giant for the club by the second season. Mustafi showed better form than Per in the beginning and his slump in the second half of the season coincided with most of the team being shite. Mustafi is likely to go on and be a fine player for us. Don’t write him off just yet.
Same could be said for Chambers too. On this very sight people were excited as to Chambers first half form and deemed him our future CB captain. It’s almost forgotten that it was a bit of Wenger’s fault for exposing him as a slow RB and letting his confidence get damaged. Then we got a shiny new toy in Holding and in typical fan fashion, everyone has written off Chambers. Imagine if Holding has a tough second season syndrome (or gets played as a RB), will people write him off and start looking to Beilik? Chambers is what? 20? 21?… Read more »
I think Mustafi is very much like Koscielny was at this stage, only more experienced at top levels and more polished. The same strengths (pacey, aggressive, likes to anticipate and attack the ball) and the same (related) weaknesses–impulsive, takes foolish risks, gives away needless free kicks. Koscielny became one of the very best centre-halfs in England. I think the same will be true of Mustafi.
Kos the Boss wasn’t very good in his first season. Give Mustafi a chance (I really like his attitude too).
He has not impressed in German national team off late, not a starter. Mustafi did not impress after Christmas, hopefully he has recharged really well.
Koscielny was pretty bang on “alright” when he first came, same as Mustafi in my opinion. Mustafi will get better. As did Kos the boss.
Kos and gabriel are not too dissimilar in their early days at the club. If gabriel sharpens up, he will be a monster for years to come.
Yes, Gabriel is getting treated much more harshly than he deserves in these comments.
Not true. Gabriel hasn’t improved in 2 & a half seasons with Arsenal. That was hardly the case with Kos.
Give Mustafi time, absolutely. Gabriel has had his, time to move him on.
Exactly. Everybody thought Kos wasn’t good enough originally. Patience is sometimes required!
Exactly L. Stock! And letting Szcz and now possibly Chambers is madness. Wenger has lost his mind, for some time now.
Wenger out…
Bitch what?
Think we will regret selling Chambers, unless Bielik is ready to make the move up to first team
To be fair Bielik looks rather impressive. His passing in particular.
What I like about Bielik, and Holding for that matter, is they both like a dribble if there’s space. Ads a different dimension to our attack. Nacho does this from the left as well.
The engraving on Holdings boots:
“This machine kills Stoke Orchs”
Thumbs up for the Woodie Guthrie reference
I thought it was a Phil Ochs reference?
He had a very good season for boro. Why not loan him out again at least. Another top season, he either becomes part of the squad proper, or we sell him for closer to 30. Now makes no sense.
Let’s loan him to Roma, get into the best XI of the Serie A, then sell him to a CL contender for cheap.
/still bitter.
I think it makes sense to sell Chambers now. He’s had a great season and his stock is higher than it’s ever been. We have a surplus of players in the center of defence with Bielik about to make a step up.
If we play a 3-man CB, we DONT have a surplus.
Also tired of people counting Kolas as “CB cover”. It’s like people don’t learn that claiming a player as cover for 2 positions also leaves us short for 1 of them (if our first choice LWB is secondary cover for CB, then it means we remove him from his primary position).
It’s like the 10 years of repetitive Arsenal injuries and lack of depth is just forgotten about.
25 mil, minimum. And a buy-back clause.
Thank you, Palace.
I don’t know why we wouldn’t keep him. A back three for the future of Chambers, Bielik and Holding sounds pretty good to me.
And that future may not be that far off with Per retiring at the end of the season, Kos’ Achilles apparently being held together with paper clips, and Gabriel being Gabriel.
Fir heaven’s sake we just bought Mustafi for 35m last season
Where are we with the home grown player rule? Surely we must be near the limit? I would hold on to him considering our injury record, and the fact that he had a half decent season at Boro.
Martinez
Bellerin holding chambers Gibbs
Coq Ramsey
Walcott. Wilshere Ox
Wellbeck
Subs
Jenkinson
Iwobi
You forgot Mike.
Surely cant be a first 11 without Mike….. and Sanchez
He really wasn’t all that at Boro
To be honest, no one really knows how Callum will turn out to be. He may eventually be a great signing for a different club, or his career may eventually be punctuated by a lot of injuries (regardless of how good he is). Bottom line is that, Wenger can only deal with the elements he has control over. And I would rather he takes action now, to create space for proven talent than risk and wait it out with Callum. For me, these are indicators that Wenger is in his final stint with the club, and no longer has patience… Read more »
No, doing that (Selling wojciech and now possibly Chambers) are signs that “the Boss” – more like The A$$hole has lost his mind. We will be 7th at best this season, mark my words.
Im not marking your fuckin words for shit. Selling a keeper, who was around during the most part of our drought years….and a defender that doesn’t even draw interest from elite clubs (John Stones) can never drag us down to 7th..no way..
Hey Domi. Why don’t you just try and support the team?
Has everybody else bookmarked this – so that we can taunt Domi endlessly in May?
Bitch what?
Wait, selling Serie As best keeper at age 27 so he can make space for Martinez is evidence that Wenger wants short term results?
Selling Chambers to make space for Beilik is also evidence of short terminism too?
No Faisal, not making space for Martinez….rather Ospina. And selling Chambers is generally making space, not for Bielik specifically, but to free up our Wage bill. No one is ready to purchase Beilik, but Scz had ready suitors…and Wenger clearly feels we have adequate numbers in defence. And besides, the bid was rejected….we may talk all we like, and find out that Chambers is actually staying
Also, we can’t sign any more players until we free the places in the squad, it’s kind of one out to get one in if I’m not mistaken
We have plenty of players that we can either sell or at least release.
Shoot, Jenkinson is still around. WHy not just cut our losses and cancel his contract and let him be free?
Is Ospina better than Chez? You would be hard pressed to find evidence to support that.
So if it’s about making space for wages, why not sell ospina? Who also had suitors. Shoot, why not sell Chez last year when his stock was still high and we had 2 years left on his contract?
If he wants to make space, why sell Chambers, whe guys like Theo and others are readily there, have less justification and are on more wages?
He may well stay, who knows, though after the sale of chez, I don’t count anything out anymore.
Chambers seemed to lose something after the roasting by that guys from Montero and Hazard a bit like Maicon after Gareth Bale ripped him a new one….I did feel sorry for Maicon because he had a really big reputation before then The bottomline is that Holding is the Standard because he has the necessary ingredients and you can build on that..he will have bad days but likely to come good…..The EPL will only get faster and faster and the slow defenders no matter how positionally sound you are will struggle…athleticism is going to be a requisite going forward with the… Read more »
Completely agree. I like his attitude, but he lacks a little pace and doesn’t have the skills and composure of Holding. He did ok at Boro, but anyone half decent would have stood out with that lot. I’d be happy if he stays and maybe he can grow into something good, but he’s #6 on my list, maybe even #7 (after Kos, Holding, Per, Mustafi, Kalasinic, Monreal and even Gabriel). Make that 8th i guess.
All in all, selling him for +20mil is the best solution. he needs games, he will continue to grow if he gets them, which will only happen occasionally if he stays with us. Holding that is ahead of him (for good reasons) will also not be a given starter. If you ask me he may be worth 20mil today, but he wasn’t worth 15mil when we took him, had it not been for that successful loan spell last year(all the cred to him) we would have had a very different discussion.
I think it’d be a poor decision to sell Calum. We have two defenders in Per and Koscielny that, at this point in their careers, are struggling to play 2-3 games a week for an entire season.
If the Arsenal brain trust feel he is never going to make the grade, then better to sell him now – even if the price seems absurdly low in the post Kyle Walker era.
We should keep him, looks like a good prospect and deserves some playing time
I’d keep Calum. You can almost guarantee there will be some part of the season where two or more of those defenders are injured, and we’ll have 3-day turn-arounds between league and Europa games. He should stay at least for rotation.
Also remember Per is gone next season, and I can only see Koscielny (who turns 32 in September) becoming increasingly injury prone in the latter years of his career. Calum is one for the future.
I suspect Chambers’ lack of versatility in the new system might see him leave, which would be a shame particular given Per is retiring this season.
Speaking of centre backs, what are people’s thoughts on Eleney slotting in there in a competitive match? Haven’t really heard much chatter on it
We keep him. We have to take the europa league seriously ( after Man Utd winning it and Liverpool reaching final in recent seasons ) I say and play a different defence on a Thursday night to the weekend premier league game. Factoring in the potential for injuries , obv kos will only play premier league games and bfg not play two games in a week, monreal also I say. A back three of Callum , holding , Gabriel ( European experience and pace) would be ideal. For europa league matches.
Keep him. why are we so keen to sell. Probably better than Elneny in the position. We have Per graduating to academy in a year. Gabriel is injured. I think Mustafi and Koscielny for the centre of the 3-4-3 Monreal is an option left or Koscielny. Holding on the right or Calum. OR if we revert to 4-2-3-1 we can also play Calum in his original role as a Rback for Soton. + all this “lack of pace” argument doesn’t hold water. You think Chambers is slower than Nacho or Kolasinac? He’s still young and the future Chambers. Bright player… Read more »