Thierry Henry believes Arsene Wenger will have to be busy in the transfer market this summer as he tries to get ‘the excitement back’ for Arsenal fans left frustrated by another season without the league title.
The club’s record scorer says that adding to the squad, in particular a striker, is paramount and will, as they say, put bums on seats.
Speaking to Sky Sports, he said, “There is something to prepare now. Trying to finish as high as Arsenal can, because there is a little battle. It looks like Arsenal should finish in the top four, but there is something to look forward to, and that’s next season.
“If Sanchez can perform the way he’s performing at the minute, and we have Mesut ozil carrying on giving the assists he’s been giving since the start of the season, then you can think if you have that striker who can score in that moment – maybe NG’olo Kante, we have lots of names we can throw around.
“Mahrez also was linked, but its going to be a very busy summer for Arsene because you need to get that excitement back and the fans to look forward to something for next season.”
Henry also touched on the fact there were many empty seats at the stadium for the 2-0 win over West Brom, and urged fans to show up rather than stay away. He also suggested they could demonstrate their unhappiness at the end of games.
“It’s a difficult one if you’re a fan, when you’ve had enough, and sometimes that’s their way at Arsenal to show they’ve had enough,” he said.
It’s also for the players to bring them back to the stadium, to have something to look forward to. I’m more a believer in come, and then if you’re not happy with team you can say something at the end of the game, but everybody has their own way of dealing with it.
“Maybe the fans are feeling something and the players can feel that from the fans, that there is not that togetherness. Sometimes it doesn’t help in terms of trying to win the title.”
Only top top quality though, or only someone who adds something to the squad,
It’s not like shopping in the supermarket, those players are very difficult to find, and the other club has to want to sell etc etc,,,”Zzzzzzz”
Yeah, we can expect to hear plenty of that this summer, and then plenty more as deadline day approaches when the only players we’ve signed are two 16-year olds from Zimbabwe and Christopher Samba.
You missed ‘there is no value in market’ and ‘we don’t want to kill Akpom / Iwobi / Jermaine Pennant’
And don’t forget this is tournament year – so the Euros will be used a special bonus excuse!
I know he has used that excuse in the past but actually the 2014 WC tourney was a bumper transfer season for us so perhaps that will work in our favour again?
I hate to say it, but any Arsenal fans expecting named signings are going to be bitterly disappointed.
We recently bought that stat company, so I think that will dictate any signings (if there are going to be any)
We’ll probably pick up one or two random lads we’ve never heard of before from a random European league and hand Flamini another 1 year deal to keep Mesut around.
Will it be enough to win the league, no, probably not.
The stat company will probably do a better job of finding us a striker than our scouts. If only we had it in use 5 years ago Giroud wouldn’t be here, that’s for sure.
Yeah so that would be 20 goals we wouldn’t have had this season. Giroud is good. Not great, but good and does so much else I’d hate to be playing against him.
Not gonna go into the nonsense about why a guy who can’t even run with the ball is not good enough for this level. It’s been done to death. He’s performed about as well as you’d expect a 12million pound player to perform, so fair play to him. Not like its his fault the manager thinks only the likes of Messi and the few below him are the only upgrades. But the point still stands I think, if we had been relying on the stats company to make our purchases back then instead of Grimandi’s eye for talent spotting, we… Read more »
Nothing much objectionable there, but it’s time somebody said that we need to draw a line between Henry the arsenal legend and Henry the TV pundit, and keep that line clearly in mind at all times.
So I’m the guy saying that.
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Thierry, the whole point of no showing that game or showing banners during the game is to voice our displeasure for all to see, what is the point in doing that after the game when the cameras in the stadium are off? to send a message you need an audience and that is why it is right to do it at the game. wenger himself used the distraction tactic for many years “judge us at the end of the season” but at the end of the season you cant show your protests on camera can you? by then it is… Read more »
yawwwn. I can almost guarantee you we will finish fourth next season. Thanks to Arsene Wenger.
The only question is, do we start the season strong and collapse in February or start weak and rally to secure 4th in the new year?
You’re way too pessimistic. You could dream big, we may finish 3rd!
which one do you guys actually prefer though? personally would have preferred a late rally rather than an epic collapse like this one… this feels the most painful of the lot
that being said i’d take an unbeaten march to the title any day :'(
We finish third by accident. 4th is the target with the financial benefit of more income from the qualifying round which they assume we will get through and always do. I hope not this year.
We could sign 4 world class players but until they play with tactical discipline and change what they do depending on the opposition it means fuck all.
Leicester and spurs have shown the minimum requirement and that is you work your arse off every game for each other. You can’t coast against lesser or so perceived opposition. And if you do your team mates and manager tell you about it
Suddenly the way Leicester and Tottenham play football is “the right way” and the most important things are what they do? Spurs haven’t even finished above arsenal yet and got hammered by Dortmund in the European league. For example Real Madrid players don’t give a s*it in a lot of games but produce when it matters. Just saying that because those teams have had one good season doesnt mean that their way of doing things is right for arsenal. They have both had the chance to rest players (no cups/not taking the EL seriously) and will probably struggle next season… Read more »
And Real Madrid has massively underachieved in the last 10 years relative to the quality of the players they have.
It’s no coincidence.
Your right, Real Madrid should play the Leicester and scum way. Can’t believe they are trying to play the Real Madrid way when they could play the Leicester way. Cheese and bread Lord help us please.
It helps when you have the best strikers in the league.
You still need to defend and be prepared to work hard
For the love of Sanchez what was he doing against west ham?
And stop saying they have mental strength! They have fuck all. Neither do you! Confront your players when they fuck up don’t give them extra days off and bleat about how we deserved better blah blah blah
“I’m more a believer in come” Teehee.
Moot point until the manager is dismissed. We didn’t suck this season because of Kronke or the board or Gazidis. This stasis and mistrust and disillusionment is not because of anybody but the manager.
Is he calling Kante a striker? Leicesters defensive midfielder?
No. Clearly not. It’s just train of thought stuff that we reproduced.
Ah yeah I see what he meant now.
I’ll be quite shocked if its a busy summer. Two of Wenger’s faults are not being bold enough in the transfer market and sticking by players who don’t deserve it. Hopefully this season has finally taught him something.
Wenger is clearly staying, if he wants his legacy to end on a high, next season has to be a good one. If he goes out (big if) and actually spends some money we could do well but we have been saying that for years. I am hoping the urge to go out on a high will encourage him to be less conservative this summer. SPEND SOME MONEY, GET RID OF THE DROSS.
I suspect Wenger will be busier in the transfer market than usual, but as usual he’ll be cautious and we’ll enter the season the perennial couple of players short. Then the usual suspects will get injured leaving us shorter still, and 4th place beckons.
Cue Sonny and Cher.
Desperately sad to see our all time greatest manager going out with a whimper instead of a bang.
When spurs replaced bale with a raft of signings he said you can’t introduce that many players successfully. I doubt there will be the turnover of players required, there will be 2/3 but none of the real dead weight will be moved on
To be fair, didn’t they buy about 8 players with the Bale money? I don’t think anyone really believes we need quite that amount of change.
We need quality not quantity.
3 are out of contract in cm
We need a cb
We need a cf
We need a winger
6 players at the least
I can’t remember exactly and I can’t find the quote but I’m almost certain he said 4 is the most you can add in a single window? Or year? And not lose cohesion. That being said I bet we buy 1 player
Cohesion was our big summer signing and look what thats done for us!!
Unless we win the remaining 4 matches we’ll be worse of than last season!
I think the biggest regret was not that any particular player was not signed but that certain players did not progress as hoped. Ox has amounted to a busted flush. Ramsey has not rediscovered his goal-scoring touch. Walcott has not replicated his pre-injury form of a couple of seasons ago. Wilshere was injured and then stayed injured far longer than anticipated so basically his season has been a washout. Arsenal’s luck failed with all four of these players this season. Very frustrating for supporters and for all involved, I imagine. At the minimum, we need a world-class striker and technical… Read more »
Player for player we must be stronger then Leicester and ‘that lot’ so I agree no amounts of signings by Arsene will make any difference. I’m a big AW fan but until he steps down nothing will change and that’s a real shame because we have some quality players.
Day 1: We will be very active in the transfer market. Day 10: Look it is not easy you know, but we work very hard and if we find the right opportunity we will take it. Day 20: We only want top, top, top quality, and I have Giroud, Welbeck, and Campbell as well. Day 30: I promise you as soon as something happens I will let you know. *nothing happens* Call me a twat, but I swear down, if we just pulled our fucking finger out and signed a beastly marquee striker – I couldn’t give a fuck who… Read more »
I’m not going to call you a twat, because I’m complete agreement with your comment. If we had bought a prolific striker in the summer, there’s a damn good chance we would sitting at the top of the league right now. All those chances we create, a world class finisher would love it. I knew what we needed, you knew, all the other fans knew, the pundits knew. But stubborn Arsene thinks he knows better than everyone else in whole world – ‘I believe in the players I have’ he said. ‘judge me at the end of season’ he said.… Read more »
Thing about the global game is a big signing gives you so much money back with regards to shirt sales, global branding, coverage, new fans, bargaining chips on major deals…as well as probably the league.
So what went wrong with your master plan for instant success when we bought Ozil? Are you telling us he wasn’t a big signing? What about Alexis? Mertesacker? Buying a big name player isn’t a free ticket to success. Ask Leicester City. They’ve left all the teams with big players in their wake. The mental strength of the team is paramount, and I don’t mean Arsene Wenger believing that if he says we are mentally strong then we will magically be mentally strong. I mean the sort of real strength that comes from hard work and a willingness to do… Read more »
Name a world class striker that is going to be worth 50mil or more that would be worth buying. Neymar? Just got to Spain and would go to the Chavs or Citeh before us. Suarez? You must not care if he’s a bitey racist as long as he bangs in the goals huh? Cavani is a cop out to me. Might as well said benzema. Point is that there really isn’t any World Class strikers in the market. Yes we have the cash to turn a players head but if the club don’t want to sell then it’s going to… Read more »
Why do some here have to use such obscene offensive language! This shows they must have a very small vocabulary and have to resort to this kind of language.
That’s far from true, just because I (and many other people on here) use “bad” language in the posts, it does not mean we have a small vocabulary.
If in my opinion we were fucking hopeless, I’ll write that I thought we were fucking hopeless.
I am an intelligent, well educated person, cum laude and all that jazz, who just happens to enjoy a good swear sometimes. Not all people who swear are uneducated boors with a limited vocabulary. Once you start ascribing negative attributes to people that you don’t know, based upon a single observed facet of their behaviour, then there is a chance that you are taking the first step on a slippery slope that could lead to bigotry, elitism, sexism, ageism. racism, and/or xenophobia.
Actually the research evidence shows people who swear usually have a bigger vocabulary than those who don’t.
it’s so depressing to hear people resigned to the fact that wenger is staying another year despite his failure. we deserve better, but unfortunately this club doesn’t care about its fans. i would encourage fans to continue putting the pressure on. if the owner and wenger “believe” they’ve had a successful season we’ll get another summer of inadequate transfers and he’ll get another 3 year contract extension.
The problem is just that, it shouldn’t be a ‘busy summer for Arsene’, but busy for whoever at the club brokers the deals (Gazidis,? Dick Law?). I get the impression he gets involved with far too much of the nitty gritty of the transfer window.
People keep on saying about world class strikers but what makes people think they would come to Arsenal? Lets narrow down the world class strikers or players who can function as strikers Lewandowski Messi Suarez Ronaldo Neymar Benzema (this is debatable and his style of play is similar to Giroud) Aubameyang Ibra (old, would ruin the team dynamics, not worth the 600k per week he apparently wants) Cavani These players play for clubs with more prestige, or have better stadium atnospheres, or can pay really ludicrous wages. As much as I love Arsenal, we arent a big club if you… Read more »
Lukaku is def a possibility, Ibra’s wages are not all bad he will be coming ”free”. Aubameyang prob has the world at his feet unfortunately i can see him going to Real or anyone else before we get our chance. Higiuan continues to be very very good (why didnt we get him the first time!) Surely there is some young south american kid who’s the next argentine striker thats a sure bet like neymar was
Why not a Griezmann? If Atletico could buy him a year ago, so could we…And we needed someone Luke him too, for 30 million
And he was French FFS!!!!!
Throwing around names hardly helps..The question is “Does Arsene have the balls to get rid of his fear to spend big?”
I am afraid the answer is a BIG NO!!
He asked us to judge at the end of the season, and we come to the end now and we have to say he has failed again! AGAIN!! AGAINNNNN!!!
Enough with the insanity.
insanity? come on man! he spent 42 million quid on ozil. he doesn’t fear spending money.
‘Benzema (this is debatable and his style of play is similar to Giroud)’ Don’t quite get this part of your comment. His style of play is not similar at all to Giroud’s. Giroud’s a target man and Benzema’s so much more than that. Benzema’s all round game is on another level to Giroud’s. He can hold the ball up better. Run the channels better and links up play better. His finishing ability is also so much better. He’s scored 27 in 31 this season. Giroud is a very limited striker. He simply can’t run in behind a defence. He’s a… Read more »
Fair play on Benzema i think i needed to do some more research on him. And yes atmosphere and the voracity of the fans plays a part for some players. Theres a reason the Emirates is sometimes referred to as The Library by other clubs. Watch the highlights of the 3-3 LFC Dortmund game youll know what im talking about. And for the record we have several styles of play and Giroud fits into one of them quite well. It theoretically is great because we can use welbz, theo or giroud depending on our game plan. Unfortunately they arent clinical… Read more »
Wow i can’t believe the atmosphere was great in a huge European game at Anfield. Just like the atmosphere was great in 2011 at the Emirates when we beat Barca. It’s almost as if when you’re winning huge European ties that atmosphere is great. Why don’t you watch the highlights of Liverpool’s home matches in Rodgers’ final season and you’ll find not much difference between our atmosphere and theirs.
We don’t have several styles of play. It’s the same old slow slow slow build up no matter who’s up front.
£50m would get Lukaku after the season Everton have had, he wants out to a champions league club and has said he would love to play for Wenger. Would be the 20+ goal a season striker we need and Ozil would probably end up getting 30+ assists with him. His justification for not pursuing him will be “too similar to Giroud”. Chelshit, manure and citeh get the players they want because they pursue the relentlessly when they know they want to come and pay what is needed and use their status to get them. When have we ever done that,… Read more »
The Suarez ‘attempt’ wasn’t ‘half hearted’, and it would have happened if Suarez hadn’t decided that he would wait because he’d been told both Barca and RM were interested in him in the next summer window and that’s where he wanted to be. If he’d come to us then he’d have caused problems the next year trying to get that move to his dream teams.
Wait this doesn’t make much sense. Aubameyang can’t come to Arsenal because “he plays for a club with more prestige, etc.” ; but Dybala and Griezmann will? Atletico are in the UCL semis, and are consistently in the title race. Juventus pretty much are guaranteed the Serie A every year. If at all, I would probably shift Dybala and Griezmann to your first list and shift Aubameyang to the second.
There’s various factors why players stay at a club and reject moves to others I tried to list as many as I could think of wasn’t saying there was 1 specific reason. Aubameyang has more current ability than Dybala and Griezmann by virtue of being older, whereas Dybala and Griezemann while both talented, still have that potential to grow further. Hence Aubameyang being in the ‘tier 1’ category. Never said Dybala and Griezmann will, just that they are probably a more likely transfer than Aubameyang but as you said it often boils down to trophies and prestige. Is Wenger really… Read more »
I think the reason Ibrahimovic fetches such an insane salary is because his value decreased so much while at Barcelona that PSG bought him for a fraction of what he had previously been worth. That was due to twat face Guardiola benching him and a host of other super expensive players during his reign there. With his contract expiring at the end of this season he’d come to us for free and I doubt he’d charge that kind of money he’s on at PSG at age 34. Although no long term solution I’d love it if he did a season… Read more »
It doesn’t matter who we sign as we’ll be in the same position with the same suspects blaming those players next season whilst absolving the manager……….
‘daft’
I think most of our woes come down to Wenger’s impotence in the transfer market. He has a lot of qualities but his inability to adapt to the modern market is what hurts us the most. Let me explain. I believe the biggest reason for all the (justified) discontent from fans is the fact that deep down, none of us actually believe we are title contenders. Seriously, ask yourself if your think we can win the title without any of the big teams failing hard. Be honest. I keep hearing “this was our year” because we believe there won’t be… Read more »
There was that summer where Higuain was almost a cert to come to us when Real Madris wanted rid of him.
But Tightwad McMiser didn’t want to splash the cash when Napoli started competing with us.
Hummels and Higuain are exactly the sort of players we need.
Yet Leicester are doing it without those very same mythical 1-2 players we didn’t buy (or are we now retroactively deeming Wenger to have failed because he didn’t buy Mahrez and Vardy when everybody but Wenger just knew they were league-winning players?). Ozil and Alexis are not exactly Laurel and Hardy, now are they? People who always think we are just 1 or 2 players short of winning something (and thereby consign our FA Cup wins to the dustbin) are never going to be happy. Out of all the top players listed earlier who bought them last summer or in… Read more »
What’s your point about Leicester? Name me another team that has done what Leicester has in the last 35 years?
Leicester are an anomaly and should be considered as much.
Wenger’s failed in winning the league this year and there’s nothing you can say to defend him.
We heard this before..Arsene will buy this,Arsene will buy that but year after year our manager doesn’t buy what is needed. Is there striker or defensive midfielder that hasn’t been linked with Arsenal but knowing we needed a top class striker our manager bought a goalkeeper at the beginning so let’s stop this nonsense of what he’ll do in the transfer market because we know Arsene hasn’t got a clue what to and needs to go now. Enough is enough
The current squad were more than capable of winning the league, or at least capable of mounting a series challenge.
Buying more players will simply paper over the cracks.
The issues run much deeper I’m afraid. Style of play, mentality, susceptibility to injury and expectations from the board.
Until these issues are rectified we face more of the same.
ok we get top 4 another achievement accomplished after all whats gone on this year we started with great expectations coasted along nicely then hit the top 2 points in front of leicester then all 4 wheels fell off, Leicester have been the most consistent team this year so far lets hope they do it above $pur$, Wenger always has said that consistency is the winner for the league, every team has had blips and below par games this year it has been one of the most indifferent years since the prem started, lots of factors, the teams coming up… Read more »
Why do people think the transfer market is the issue? Players have come and gone over the years but the same failings have remained. What we need is a new manager who can fix the recurring tactical deficiencies and instil belief into the squad, as well as getting rid of Wenger’s favouritism (how the hell is Campbell not getting a look in). If Leicester can win the league with their current squad then to be honest our squad is not the main issue.
you nailed it
Sports psychologists instill belief into players and teams. It’s what they do. Cech was a winner who was expected to help instil a winning mentality into the team. All he managed to do was make our defence a bit more confident. Exactly what you would expect really because ultimately he’s only a goalkeeper. This again shows that managers aren’t necessarily experts at every facet of running a team. Wenger just doesn’t do team belief. He never has. We had a strong captain in every year we were successful but recently we’ve only had flaky ones, star-of-the-show-who-must-be-bribed-to-stay ones, or quiet friendly… Read more »
If wenger buys early trust me it would be for the tickets sale
Your own defence didn’t trust you Manuel. Why should we?
We will look for top qualidee players who will improve the team. I have never understood what that means. Wenger always seems to fall short of spotting qualidee. Moreover none of our potential players have developed in the past few years.
About the world class well known strikers I don’t think we will be in for them, I think Wenger will go for a diamond in the rough kind like he did with Eduardo just hope the opposition don’t break his leg when he starts to flourish
Haha, Arsene continues to be delusional thinking he is the one wary of the French and African kids and could unearth diamonds.
Unfortunately, the world has caught up and the scouting of all clubs are so intense that this is no longer a possibility.
You either pay top-dollar for a polished diamond like Aubameyang or end up unearthing a raw diamond like SANOGO and later realise that it was just carbon!
Common bossman @ wenger please just get top top quality like benzema or griezzman or just both,we need to win the title,those strikers will win us the title guaranteed
so henry wants us to sign kante, the striker? haha wtf?
not all managerial changes result in doom thomas tuchel is doing fairly well at borussia Dortmund and his appointment has in no way altered the bvb playing style
After taking space from the events of the last couple of weeks and reading various opinions, I find it such a shame. No two ways about it, from both sides of the argument, there is ONE thing we ALL have in common. And that is our love for this club. So nobody’s opinion is invalid or wrong. There is nothing more I want than for Arsene Wenger to go out with all guns blazing, heck, i wanted him to do that more so after the debt of the stadium became substantially reduced. But my personal opinion is this: The apathy… Read more »
I want action not mere words surely we are all sick of this ‘busy summer’ when fuck all happens. Fuck.
It will be a busy summer for Wenger. Trying to convince us that Giroud, Walcott, and Welbeck are world class strikers is not an easy job.
In one word W E N G E R O U T
We can buy any player in world football who isn’t wanted by RM, Barca, or Bayern. For strikers, that means Griezmann is probably our highest profile realistically available option. Atletico always sell. Always. But not to real Madrid (directly), Barca doesn’t need him, and Munich doesn’t seem like they would want him either. So we could get him if we were willing to pay the 50 million it’d cost. We could afford to buy Aubameyang too but he wants to go to RM and if Dortmund let him go he’d probably go there instead. The only way we’re getting Benzema… Read more »
The off season, is that the transfer season, is as frustrating as the actual football season for Arsenal fans nowadays. There is promise, but enough bitter disappointment at a failure that is in essence, so close but so far. Yes some players must go. They are past even Wenger’s general age limit. We do need replacements. Whats worrying is could the logic of “well we did without them this season, do I really need to replace them?” be considered? After all, Iwobi and Bellerin has blossomed…why not Reine-Adelaide, Zealem etc. There are close to 90 other clubs that would give… Read more »
Christ!!! When’s your new book coming out? That was some good reading.
Play Alexis as our striker. He’s got it all. Use the money to buy a top central defender with a though leadership instead. Would be a dream to have Boateng there.
I keep hearing about how top players are not available and how hard it is to find the right players. Yet, every season the best teams in the world add quality players to their squads, some way some how they manage to do it. That is why there are very rarely any shake ups in the world of football. The great clubs always find a way to sign the players they need. My issue with Wenger and Arsenal is that they have not been as tenacious or as willing to make sure they get their man. The many excellent strikers… Read more »
Henry: It’s going to be a busy summer for Arsene Wenger – Ofcourse, there’s the Euro this summer and is not like this commentry job is going to do all by itself.
I kid, as many others have postrd above the world cup summer was a major windfall for us in terms of transfers. Hope this summer brings us the same luck.
Same old nonsense with half truths. Sure we have a busy summer. We have been having busy summers apart from the last one. But its one thing to identify (correctly) that we could do with an upgrade say in the striking department and another to be able to find the solution. Lukaku for example was one touted by these same pundits as an answer and he missed several sitters today against United including a penalty. Imagine if that was Giroud? Not that I think we should be replacing Giroud but the player that should make way is IMO Walcott. We… Read more »
I was born in 1980 we won the little woods cup in 87 the famous league title in 89 then 91 both cups in 93 cup winners cup I’m mid 90s then the wenger era in which we we can all agree we did alright, the Emirates move held us back for a few years but it’s not all doom and gloom!! The stadium move has cemented our place at the top table for the next 2 or 3 generations of gooners long after we’ve all gone, it won’t be long gents we are nearly there it could be a… Read more »