Buy better!
Ceballos will probably not be here next year. Imagine we had bought him on improved wages on a 5 year deal ?They could start a Madrid loan duo with Ceballos alongside him, its just too much imo. Its just another player who wont be there next year
Buy better is great advice but you also need to understand that the last few years have greatly reduced the quality of players Arsenal can legitimately go for.
No CL, okay runs in EL, no chance in hell to compete for the league. That's not a great Powerpoint slide to recruit Werner, Cavani or these big names. Partey is an anomaly because everything lined up perfectly for us.
If Madrid had put up Odegaard for sale this summer, what would have been the fees in your opinion if United/Spurs got involved ? 30? 40? 50? We had to go until the last 2 days of the window to end up with "only" Partey because of a lack of funds.
We get him for 5 months, if it works, great it help us in the short term. If not, well, we tried and there was no real other alternatives without spending money we don't have. And it's already painfully obvious that without ESR/Saka, our play suffer instantly. Most people had no idea who Smith-Rowe was 6 months ago but if ESR gets injured we're back to playing weird formations to fit Willian/Pepe in and hope something happens.