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2 months ago
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Raheem Sterling’s move was a classic case of reacting to an opportunity.
Arsenal didn’t go into the summer window thinking about signing him, Edu openly admitted that himself when he spoke to the club’s media team soon after the window shut. But having been unable to add to their attacking depth, the opportunity was there just before the deadline to try and do a deal with Chelsea because of Sterling’s situation and Arsenal took full advantage of that.
In the end you have to say that it looks like a great piece of business by Arsenal. Ultimately though, it will be judged on how well Sterling does while he is with the club.
But on the face of it Arsenal have landed themselves an excellent player, who can play anywhere across the frontline and who has the experience of winning four Premier League titles under his belt. And they have done it without having to pay a loan fee, without being tied into any sort of obligation to make the move permanent and by committing to only paying a fraction of his wages. It’s Chelsea who will still be covering the majority of them.
So there’s no doubt it’s a good deal for Arsenal. The key thing is though that they need Sterling to rediscover his best form during the year that he is with the squad. Hopefully Mikel Arteta can find a way of doing that and the signs are good, given we know that Sterling credits Arteta for getting the best out of him while he was with Manchester City.
You look at Arsenal’s squad right now with the departures of Emile Smith Rowe, Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nketiah and with the injury absence of Gabriel Jesus, and it looks light in the attacking department. So Sterling needs to get up to speed quickly and needs to start making a difference.
His game does look well suited to Arsenal. We know Arteta’s side like to get into the box and cut balls back and there are not many wingers better and getting themselves in at the back post to finish off those types of chances. He will also provide much needed cover for Bukayo Saka, which will be crucial over the course of such a demanding season.
So I think it’s a good move for Arsenal.
It had started to look like they weren’t going to get anything done in terms of signing an attacker. Obviously Nico Williams was the player they would have loved to have signed, but that just wasn’t possible, so they had to react to what was out there.
Kingsley Coman was also linked late on, but I don’t know if there was any truth in that. His representatives were certainly doing all they could late on in the window to try and get his name out there to see if they could engineer a move.
There was lots of talk about Arsenal signing a striker during the summer, but I never got the impression that was something they were really looking to do once their move for Benjamin Sesko proved unsuccessful.
Sesko was a player they had tracked for a while and – thanks to his release clause – they felt he was available at a price that was under his actual market value. It was an opportunity they felt was too good to pass up. That’s why they tried to get a deal done, but I never looked at it and thought that if they signed him, that he would be coming in as first choice starter ahead of Kai Havertz. He was always more of a development signing. Someone who would get plenty of game time, but would be more of a squad addition at first rather than a starter.
So it wasn’t a case of Arsenal going into the window determined to sign a new centre forward. They were always quite happy with what they had. He was just someone who was possibly available that they felt was worth moving for. When it didn’t happen, I was always of the opinion that a winger would be more likely to arrive than a forward in what time was left of the transfer window.
What Arsenal’s move for Sesko did show was that they are willing to spend big money on a striker if they believe he is the right player. What they won’t do is just spend money for the sake of it and risk bringing someone in that they are not convinced will be the right fit or the right type of profile.
So this summer they kept their powder dry and decided they had enough to get through this season with what they had. Next summer, however, could be a different story.
It was a really frustrating day for Arsenal on Saturday against Brighton. It was a game they should have won and a game I think they would have won pretty comfortably had Declan Rice not have been sent off.
Arsenal were firmly in command of the game before the red card, even if they had not exactly been at their best during the first half.
But Rice’s dismissal completely changed things and I honestly think it was a laughable decision from the referee. I’ve seen lots of talk since that Chris Kavanagh had ‘no other choice’ and by the ‘letter of the law’ Rice had to go.
That’s just rubbish. Of course he had a choice, just as he did in the first half when he decided not to book Joao Pedro for booting the ball 40 yards upfield to prevent Arsenal the chance of taking a quick throw-in after he had run the ball out of play.
Kavanagh had the chance just to go over to Rice and Joel Veltman, tell them both to get up and to get on with things. Had he done that, no-one would have even mentioned the situation again.
But instead he chose to make himself the story. He chose to completely change the context of the game following a nothing incident.
Was Rice a bit stupid to do what he did? Yes. But we will see that sort of thing countless times this season and I guarantee that we will never see a player sent off for it again.
Rice didn’t boot the ball away, he didn’t stand in front of a player for a long period of time to stop a free-kick being taken. He was walking away, had the ball deliberately knocked into him and then nudged it about a foot to his right. He then got deliberately kicked as well.
It was just a ridiculous decision from an over zealous official who was consistently awful throughout the 90 minutes. One that not only left Arsenal with 10 men for half of the contest, but also robbed them of their most important midfielder for the north London derby after the international break.
It was farcical to be honest and I just don’t understand how anyone can look at what happened and think the right decision was made.
The Champions League draw could have been worse for Arsenal. When you look at the fixtures, especially away from home, there was certainly the possibility that things could have been tougher for Mikel Arteta’s side.
But that’s not to say that they will cruise through their eight games. There are some tough looking trips there and so they will have to be at their best if they want to secure that all important top eight finish in the new format.
I thought Arsenal gave a decent account of themselves last season in their first season back in the Champions League. They just ran into a Bayern Munich team in the quarter-finals that had a bit too much experience and nous for them.
Having said that though, it was a tie that could have gone either way. Arsenal easily could have come out on top and made the semi-finals, which would have been an excellent achievement having been out of the competition for so long.

 
Hopefully they will have learnt a lot from the experience of last season and I see no reason why they can’t have a good crack at it again this time around.
I still look at it at a competition that is winnable for this Arsenal team. They won’t be favourites and nor should they be. But they have the quality to win it, if they get a bit of luck along the way.
I still think the Premier League has to be the priority though.
