I basically refuse to acknowledge there is any football going on from now until August 16th when the new Premier League season kicks off. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. It’s all about the transfer window and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE. 

The press is full of talk of strikers and if Arsenal value anything of the health of its supporters, I would urge them to get one in asap, because if we’re still waiting for one to arrive come July, I think we’ll have all driven ourselves into insanity with all of the different ‘takes’ and spin on what is essentially the same story.

  • “Gyokeres has given the green light to a move”
  • “Arsenal weighing up Gyokeres move”
  • “Gyokeres has spoken to Arteta”
  • Arsenal and Sporting locked in discussions over payment structure of deal”
  • “Gyokeres deal hits stumbling block”
  • “Gyokeres deal in danger of hijacking by Club X”
  • “Arsenal weigh up Gyokeres alternatives”
  • “Arsenal poised to confirm bid for Gyokeres”
  • “Gyokeres flight booked”
  • “Gyokeres refuses to board plane as Arsenal will only offer him a Premier Inn to stay in”
  • “Gyokeres has named his cat “Declan”
  • “Gyokeres spotted on holiday in Greece wearing red swimming shorts”
  • “Gyokeres likes fan AI image of him in an Arsenal shirt”

Even typing out all of those headlines is wearing me down. I guess the upside is that for the Swedish international it is a release clause. The downside is that it’s rumoured to be £84million. Although Romano has suggested Sporting would let him leave for €65million (£55million). At that price I suspect the deal could be done relatively swiftly, but it does mean that there could still be a bit of haggling over the fee and knowing our luck, if they go in and offer that, Sporting will go “nah, fee’s gone up, we want £65million”. When you start to get messed around you have to walk away. But you also have to act swiftly to get the lay of the land and putting that first bid in at least gives you some idea.

Then there’s Sesko as an option. This is the one I like because:

  1. He’s younger and so there’s more up side
  2. He’s playing in a harder league
  3. There IS a release clause with this one that I think is more doable.

Supposedly that’s a deal that gets done at €70million (according to TransferMarkt) and for £59million and an extra £4million over the rumoured Gyokeres fee, I say just pay that release clause and move on to your next target. Sesko has bagged 21 goals in 45 games including four in eight Champions League games and this is a kid that I would have my cash invested in to. If Arsenal want a relatively serene summer, paying Zubimendi’s release clause and then going and dropping £59million to pay Sesko’s one, would be a good way of going about it.

I also think Arsenal quite like paying release clauses. We’ve been doing it on the more regular ever since we prized Partey out of Atletico Madrid and in these two players you can do the deals, get them embedded in the team and have yourselves a better pre season without having to go around chasing for players that would eventually not even sign for you because the selling club has mesed you around. Like Newcastle blatantly would. Imagine if we started talking to them about Isak. Eddie Howe has already done a semi-cryptic “I can’t guarantee any player’s future” post match press conference from last weekend and whilst plenty of fans got excited about that, I’m not having it.

For the record I think he’s a fabulous footballer. He’s caused us a fair few problems this season and he would definitely thrive in an Arsenal shirt. But Newcastle will want north of £120million for him for sure. If Arsenal just said “screw it, here’s your £120million” Newcastle would drag this out all summer and lead us a merry dance before probably rejecting and telling us it’s now £140million. I’ve already said on here that he’s my least favourite option because of his price tag, but also his injury record, whilst this season as a ‘good’ season for him stands at nine games missed in all competitions. Last season it was 12, the season before it was 18, the season before that it was five games (TransferMarkt details here if you’re interested). So since his early 20s he’s always picked up knocks. What makes anyone think that signing him next season wouldn’t have the same results?

I’d like to say those persistent niggles every season are something that Arsenal will look at, particularly when you start to look at our volume of injuries this season, but we signed Calafiori knowing of his injury record, so you never know what they are thinking at the club. If you look at Sesko’s record, you have to go back to 2021/22 to see his last set of injuries and whilst Gyokeres missed five games this season through knocks, it doesn’t look like in record history he’s had many injuries either.

So to me this should be a straight shoot out between the two overseas options. Focus on that, get whichever one you can get that you think works best from those, then let’s go on to augmenting other parts of the squad.

What I’d like to also see is Arsenal acting during this weird first transfer window, which is open from 1st June until 10th June, because of the Club World Cup joke of a competition. Imagine if Arseal can tie up a Zubimendi deal in that time frame, then focus on getting on of those strikers when it re-opens later in June. Let’s have some of that action early, eh boys and girls?

The reality is that no club is likely to be rushed in to it unless they are in that stupid competition and wanting to register players for free like we expect Jorginho to do. Clubs who have to go in to haggling mode are surely more likely to just say “we can wait” because the second window only opens six days later, so what difference does a week make? Still, would be nice to see us strike mega early with our plans this summer. We don’t normally go hard and fast with our summer signings, so it would be nice for a change.

Right, I’m going to stop there, as it’s time to go do some exercise and then get cracking with another working day. Enjoy your Wednesday, folks.