Roma were hoping to convince the Gunners of a Mkhitaryan + cash deal. Now, the Armenian essentially terminated his deal a year early with Arsenal while Roma surely pay to Raiola a hefty commission. : Gunners

Koscielny

IIRC he unexpectedly decided he wanted to force a move and go back home to France (partially from feeling like his Achilles injury had been poorly managed), screwing us and resulting in us signing Luiz because he was cheap and we hadn’t planned on buying a CB, so the money to buy one didn’t exist

Monreal

Believe he’d decided he wanted to return to Spain to finish his career, and the club was willing to respect a loyal servant’s wishes. You can’t expect loyalty from players and then keep them locked up against their will.

Pepe

Yeah we clearly need midfield/defensive signings, but don’t forget that we clearly needed wingers as well, to support Laca and Auba. Maybe not as high a priority as midfield, but when a player we like becomes available, in a position that needs additions, then we shouldn’t pass on it just because we have other needs too. Same reason we signed Auba even though we just bought Laca a few months prior – if a class player becomes available, you sign them. We’ll fill each position eventually.

Auba

Don’t act like that’s an easy thing to do. He wants and deserves European football. If we can’t meet that, then no amount of negotiating is going to change anything.

Saka

Chill the fuck out, the deal is clearly basically done. If Saka didn’t negotiate for what he deserves then he’d have a shit agent.

Luiz

See Koscielny. We were forced into needing an experienced CB without having money to get a good one.

Luiz extension

I’d prefer it having only been for the rest of the season, but he reportedly has agreed to cut wages so having fairly cheap depth and a veteran to help some of our young CBs isn’t as bad a move as you’re acting like it is.

Thiago Silva

If this actually comes true then I’ll agree, but it’s literally just a rumor. We’re linked to hundreds of players every year and we don’t sign any of them, so don’t use rumors as evidence of anything if you want to have any credibility.

Balogun

This is also a rumor, but if he does leave then keep in mind that we have a long list of forwards who are ahead of him in the depth charts. There is no realistic path for him to get into the first team. Ideally we’d loan him around for a few years then sell him, but you can hardly blame him if he’d rather just move elsewhere on a permanent deal.

Cedric

We needed RB depth because Bellerin has been alternating between being injured and being not great, and AMN was making fuss over not wanting to play RB anymore. We had fuck all for money to spend, especially in January, plus no good player would be available in January anyway. Definitely not ideal that he was injured to begin with, but we needed someone and I find it hard to believe they could find someone better for a minimal price in January.

But yeah, continue to push the narrative that our negotiating has been disasterously bad. Don’t forget that we committed daylight robbery with the sales of Oxlade-Chamberlain and Iwobi, both far more than we used to get for sales.