I was going to start looking ahead to the United game on Sunday, but given Ethan Nwaneri has essentially signed for Marseille on loan for the rest of this season, I figured we need to say something about that.

It appears Big Bill Saliba has had his say before departing to the South of France, calling them one of the ‘best clubs in the world’ and certainly, he’ll get a vociferous home support that will no doubt back him. Big Bill had a very impressive loan spell there a few years back, so much so that I think Marseille were quite open about the fact they would love to sign him, but Arsenal were steadfast in their view that he must return to the club. Didn’t that turn out to be a shrewd decision, eh?

Another key part of this puzzle is Roberto Di Zerbi and Nwaneri soecifically mentioned him too, for good reason, I suspect. We saw how Di Zerbi could adapt his tactics, would play on the front-foot, as well as improving a number of the Brighton players in his time, so he will have probably sought the council of somebody like Leo Trossard before making the move too, I suspect.

For Arsenal and Nwaneri, it also represents a bit of a U-turn. The noises coming out of the credible sources online were that he wanted to stay and learn what it is like to be part of a title challenge. That suggested that whilst we were all worried about his lack of minutes, the club and the player were probably a little more realistic; he’s 18 years old, he’s had a breakthrough season last season, sure, but that was built on a heavy injury crisis, as well as less depth than Arsenal have today. He is a guy whom I think Arsenal have massive hopes for, so I suspect that the conversation about the remainder of this season was open, positive, and focused on his development. The hope he – and we – all have is that Arsenal will be competing for the top honours for many years to come, so there will hopefully be other title run-ins that he will be part of. But at his formative age, he needed minutes, which was clear when they had the conversation at the training ground, probably ended with a collective acknowledgement that he just wasn’t going to get them this season. He’s missed a few of the match-day squads of late, which shows the level of competition that there is this season, as we fight on multiple fronts.

The benefit of keeping him was because of the fear of the injury crisis going nuclear this season; we’ve already had a ton of injuries, but they have all been in the same position, which hasn’t tended to be where Arsenal want him to play. Had we lost Saka, Madueke, Martinelli and Trossard all at once this season, I suspect he might have played in the wide positions, even though Arsenal supposedly don’t want to see that. But he can do that job, and I wonder if he’ll be asked to once or twice by Di Zerbi? Part of me hopes so, because it will mean that Arsenal might just reconsider their viewpoint that he isn’t quite suited to the flanks, with next season in mind.

According to Romano, there are clauses in there which mean the fee for the loan changes depending on game time. That makes sense; both the player and the club need him to play. We can’t have a West Brom/Pulis/Gnabry situation on our hands. So if the club have set a structure, something like the below, it makes sense for all parties to get him minutes:

• Plays less than 10 games = £4million
• Plays less than 15 games = £3million
• Plays less than 20 games = £2million
• Plays 21 or over = £1million

Of course, it’ll probably be mapped out a little more precise than my ‘ignorant fan who doesn’t know the inner workings of football finances’ example above, but this loan is designed to get us a player back in the summer who has grown and improved and can come back next season ready to challenge, so having clauses that reward the game-time investment Marseille put in, absolutely work for us, him and them too, I suspect.

I think the different culture and style of football might also allow him to grow as a man, too. Maybe he’ll pick up some French, maybe he’ll find sides to his game he didn’t know he had, maybe he’ll even be able to iron out some of the kinks that have meant Arteta will be much more willing to use him than he has this season? Who knows? But in William Saliba, we have a case study that shows that this pathway has been trodden before and done so to great success in our Rolls-Royce centre-half we have. Let’s hope the same happens for Ethan.

I’ve seen some speculate that we might go into the market for somebody now, but frankly, I just don’t see that. The reason we let Ethan go is that he wasn’t making match day squads. Why bring somebody else in to have the same situation? Plus, if we’re talking about him as a future star, why put another barrier in the way by signing somebody?

The jittery amongst us might worry that another injury crisis is bound to come up around the corner, but these are human beings with careers, so we can’t just stockpile to the extent they are not even making match-day squads. And you can’t do it on the ‘off-chance’ of injury ravaging this team. At the start of the season we had injuries, but some of those were long term like Jesus and Havertz (who can also play in at eight – where Ethan was earmarked), but those guys are back now, so the pathway is even more crowded for the youngster.

So for me, this is a good move for all involved, and I hope he absolutely smashes it and comes back ready to fight for The Arsenal next season.

Back tomorrow as we start to stare down united on Sunday. See you then.

Let’s start with Hincapie, who last night I decided to watch a bunch of YouTube clips of as we were awaiting the announcement and I have to say, he looks a tidy player. I guess if you’re paying around £45million for him (eventually) he probably should be. But then again we did sign Skhodran Mustafi for £35million all of those years ago, so money clearly isn’t everything. There’s been some suggestions that there are similar characteristics between the two and I’ve seen a fair few clips in which he goes to ground and wins the ball, but the faith I have in Arsenal’s scouting team and Mikel Arteta is such that I don’t think they’d be dumping that amount of cash – next season as we’re at loan stage for now – on a player if they weren’t 110% sure of his mentality and his quality. And by all accounts, I’ve heard some analysts talk about how he’s aggressive, he’s one of the most impressive young defensive prospects in Europe and having played nearly 50 times for Ecuador at only 23, he’s clearly got a bit of South American pedigree about him.

How much game time he gets will be interesting. He’ll have had plenty of offers and if we are led to believe the Spurs interest was real, he certainly would have been going there with a view to playing. Chelsea were interested too and given Colwill is out for a long period of time, there would have been more minutes for him there too, but instead he’s another one of these players who has had his heart set on joining The Arsenal and that is a really interesting development for this summer I think. When news has been breaking about each of the players we’ve brought in this summer, it has always been that the player wanted Arsenal ‘and nobody else’. That’s the kind of dedication and drive that Arteta will love and I suspect he is thrilled with the squad composition that has been built. There has been a lot of money spent, there has been significant overall investment this summer, you have to say the Kroenke’s have backed him and Berta and now it is time for us to deliver.

Of course we’re not the only ones, as Liverpool confirmed Isak’s signature last night and what I enjoyed yesterday was seeing the hypocrisy of that club, with a former manager talking about how Liverpool can’t afford to spend that big and making them out to be plucky underdogs. Welp, they’ve spent over £415million this summer, more than any club this summer and you can talk about ‘net spend all you like in comparison with us, but I won’t be convinced there wasn’t some shenanigans going on with them. The money they got for Nunez from Saudi, as well as the cosy Leverkusen inflation of two sets of fees (Wirtz for Leverkusen, Quansah for Liverpool), plus the money they got for Harvey Elliott yesterday – all very suspect if you ask me. I wonder if the media will still treat Liverpool with the same demands they appear to be putting on us, eh? I highly doubt it. A final one on Isak – there’s no way that you could convince me that a £125million+£5million deal would be sensible for us. We needed to build out our squad and getting in an injury prone player on that kind of money and wage would be crazy for us in my opinion. He is already a guy who misses around six weeks a season on average, so at Arsenal you could at least double that and whilst he’s a very good player when on the pitch, that kind of money would worry me. Maybe he’ll have some ‘magic’ inhaler stuff at Liverpool that will keep him fit, but with that record and as he gets older, does his body suddenly realise that he can stay fit for a whole season? We’ll see.

As for us, we’ve had a great window in the end, I think. You’d like to have got a fee for Nelson, Zinchenko and Vieira, but the wages for all probably made it a little more complicated and we have to hope that each player does well and allows us to get a good fee when the 2026 summer window comes around.

The balance of the squad looks better too I think. We had some senior players who were just nowhere near the match day squad and whilst there will still be some players missing, there won’t be those who would spend the entire season nowhere near the starting XI or even the matchday squad. Up until the Zinchenko announcement by Arsenal and Forest, we had the very real prospect of a player playing Kieran Tierney no minutes whilst on a huge wage for the whole season. The rumours are that we have the wages paid for by Forest, as well as a small loan fee too, so whilst he won’t come back to The Arsenal again because his contract will have expired, the fact we’ve got the wages off the book and have at least some money for the player, has to be a good thing.

Arteta now knows what he’s got to work with and he has an international break to prepare for the visit of Forest, as well as opening up our Champions League account. With the value and quality of squad we have at the moment, most of the players will be heading off to be with their international teammates now, but at least we get the chance to take stock and assess where we are at and from my perspective, we’re in a good place. We have upgraded across a number of positions, we’ve got coverage for the inevitable injury crisis with significant depth and although we suffered defeat this last weekend, I saw enough in the way we set up and the bench options we had to make me excited for what’s to come. It now just needs to be translated to wins, goals and points.

Let’s hope we get those. Back tomorrow with more post-window thoughts.

Why dedicate the first 75-ish words to another team today? Well, we’re up next against them and if they are as defensively suspect as they have been for these first two games this season (and also the Community Shield), then there will be opportunities for us to exploit at Anfield next weekend.

As I said on the Same Old Arsenal podcast that we recorded yesterday morning, I’m not particularly confident of us going there and getting anything (no win since 2012), but based on the small sample size I’m looking at so far, it is not a Liverpool team that look like they’re going to sweep everyone aside and whilst we know they have goals in them, we also know that defensively they are not looking rock solid.

Of course that’s one of the areas of the pitch in which Mikel Arteta has prioritised for some years now and with the news that we’re supposedly in for this Hincapie fella from Ecuador, whose plying his trade for Bayer Leverkusen, it seems as though Arteta and Berta aren’t quite done with their spending spree. This one looks predicated on the outgoings of the likes of Kiwior and Zinchenko it seems, but given the money that is supposedly on offer, you do have to wonder where we’re getting the cash from. Supposedly Porto want to give us €20million for Jakub Kiwior.

I’m sorry, how much?

We paid £22million for him, he’s improved since arriving, he’s a Polish international and he still has a few years left on his contract. How are we having the poverty card flung at us by Porto?? We need to be telling them that €20million is the loan fee, then they have the obligation to buy him next summer for another €20million. As somebody from my social media timeline remarked yesterday “If this was Chelsea they’d already have £40million for him in their back pocket”.

We’re all loving the decisiveness with which Arsenal have moved in the market to get the incomings this season, but that outgoings situation is still problematic and as I sit here today and type out these thoughts, we are still to make a significant sale. Remember when we all thought that by being good again teams would naturally come and take some of our rotational option players? Whatever happened to that? That’s what City and Liverpool have done for years as the two best teams in England. I thought we’d be able to get on that squad player gravy train, no? But instead we find ourselves with one week left of the window and still quite a bloated squad.

Do you know what though? Maybe it’s not just us? I’ve just seen this article on Football365 about the size of each Premier League teams’ squads. We’re joint 12th. We’ve got 28 along with Newcastle and Liverpool whilst Sunderland have 35, Burnley have 34 and Brighton have 33! So perhaps there’s been a trend of stockpiling this season anyway and this is a natural consequence. I suspect it is just that some clubs seem to be covered with deals across the media and one instantly projects that they are doing fantastic business whereas we can’t find clubs for any of our players, but the truth is probably a little more distanced from that I think. Many of these teams have been setting their squads up now and only the likes of Villa, Fulham and Everton are those that need to pick up some bodies as we hit the last week of the window. Fulham might try for Reiss Nelson again I suspect, but I do wonder if what James said yesterday might be the name of the game in the last week of this year’s summer window; lots of loan signings with options to buy from clubs both in England and overseas.

I suspect homes will be found for Fabio Vieira, Sambi Lokonga and Reiss Nelson, but whether there is a permanent nature to them or not remains to be seen. Stuttgart want to pay us €20million for his signature when TransferMarkt has him at 22. That’s probably a fairer price but for a player who is still 25 and cost us £34million (€40million), that’s quite some tanking in value. If Arsenal end up accepting something like that, you’d have to think they’ll be putting a fat old sell on clause in there too. It’s how we’ve managed to make our money back on Nuno Tavares, but with Vieira I think that’s a hopeful pipe dream to claw back all of the money outlay that we did back in 2022.

But we need to do something. Zinchenko isn’t being shifted because of his bug wages and so I suspect that will be an overseas loan where we pay a chunk of them, because I can’t see a Fenerbahce coughing up all of his £150k+-per-week wages. So we’ll have to find a solution that doesn’t mean we have a guy on our books who will take the cash and not get anywhere near the first team. I’m sure he will want that solution too, to be fair, because no footballer wants to be left to just rot in the reserves when he could go somewhere else and play regularly in the autumn of his playing career. Zinchenko is still only 28 and so has plenty of time left in his career, so I’m sure a solution can be found.

That’s me done for today. One step closer to the weekend thanks to the bank holiday yesterday, so I’ll be back tomorrow at the mid-working-week point with some more Arsenal musings as always.

Catch you then.

We talked about the magnitude of it on the Same Old Arsenal podcast last night and I think it is fair to say that James and I had a fair bit of fun. This has been a fun transfer turnaround, further encapsulated by the excellent Kimmo on social media:

These past 24 hours have shown us all the 4 stages of being a Spurs supporter. Let’s put it together
1⃣The fan fiction
2⃣The reality
3⃣The anger
4⃣The envypic.twitter.com/NkYf4AOSpx https://t.co/vNeZgjUsuW

— kimmoFC (@kimmoFC) August 21, 2025

We’ve had a swift resolution and decisiveness from The Arsenal, we’ve had fan meltdown from the Scum, then last night as the stories on how the deal came about started to emerge, we found out that what Tottenham thought was the reason for the delay – to let Eze play in their Europa Conference League game against Fredrikstad at Selhurst Park last night – was actually mostly likely a delaying tactic. Whether it is from the club or the player we don’t know, but the fact that Oliver Glasner admitted on Channel Five last night that Eze called him to say he was ‘not well’ and therefore couldn’t play in their first leg, shows that perhaps it might have been a delaying tactic in the first place.

Personally I think it is a shame. It would have been a lovely book end for Eze to start and star for Palace in their first European match ever, before waving a goodbye to the fans, but in the cold light of the next day I’m sitting here thinking that it makes sense that he pulled out. He’s supposedly got a medical today, he’s about to sign for the club he supported as a kid, his head will be a million miles away from Selhurst Park and just imagine if he’d have picked up a knock. There’s nothing in the world that is going to prevent him from making sure he can’t get through that medical and given the size of the transfer too – £60million+ add-ons (funny how add-ons never get included or reported when Liverpool sign anyone, eh?) – you can understand why playing in that game would probably not be the smartest move. Arsenal and Arteta may, or may not, have wanted him to pull out of last night. I am thinking not however, because Arsenal have always wanted to do the right thing by players, broadly speaking and so I suspect this is somebody from the agent side thinking that they should probably protect the player in this process.

If the deal can be done and medicals confirmed today, there’s every possibility he could be at the ground tomorrow, but knowing Arsenal as we do I suspect that the media team will want to have themselves a real kick-ass launch video. I think if we all know Arteta as I think we do, he won’t want a match day dominated by a transfer. He’ll want focus, attention and every detail observed for Leeds, which means he won’t like any circus around Eze. Let’s see what shakes out.

And what should be shaking out apart from Eze today is the focus on Leeds United. Amongst all the furore, we have a game against a Leeds side with a win already under their belt and with nothing to lose tomorrow, so we need to be focused on our opponents, who apparently have been dealt a blow because the guy who looked like the star in their team, the guy who made everything tick against Everton Ethan Ampadu, is reportedly out. Daniel Farke confirmed he’ll be out until after the international break and that is certainly a boost for us and blow for them.

So, how are their fans feeling, ahead of this one then? Well unsurprisingly most of them are predicting a loss, but quite a heavy one as well, which is quite unusual for this early stage in the season. Usually the hopes of fans – regardless of where they are or whether they are newly promoted or not, means that you see a few more of them predicting favourable results. But a quick scan of a couple of forums tells me they are thinking 3-1 losses, 3-0, 4-0, there’s a 1-1 in there I spotted and a smash and grab 1-0 victory from one person predicting Gnonto as the scorer (good player – I thought he was impressive for them last time they were in the league). You can understand why; newly promoted, but also they also have a style under Farke that he has apparently been criticised of when it comes to adapting it. Having marauding fullbacks like they did in the Championship is going to result in Saka and whoever plays left wing having a lot of space to work with. Against Everton Leeds dominated territory, possession and in the first half basically reduced Everton to nothing in an attacking sense, but Farke isn’t silly enough to think they’ll be getting that much time away from home against us. The challenge we and Arteta has, however, is that the sample size for analysis at this stage of the season is so small. I sit here today genuinely not sure if Farke is going to go balls out and try to attack Arsenal, or whether he’ll change his approach, sit in to a low block and see if he can frustrate. You’d have to think it’d be the latter, but the Premier League is an elite sporting division and just flipping your style within a week – a style in which you’ve basically played for two years in the Championship – isn’t going to be easy. You can’t really train a side in a few days to become a peak-Dyche Everton, can you?

I hope not, which is why I am hoping that we can take advantage tomorrow of the season being in it’s infancy, or Leeds missing their main man and captain, as well as us needing to make a statement victory after the questions of last weekend.

I’ll come back tomorrow with some more thoughts on how we line up, but for today, you have yourselves a good one and let’s stay glued to that timeline for Eze news.

This time yesterday I was writing about the Trossard deal, trying to justify what felt like quite an odd move from the club, as it appeared as though we were unlikely to be doing any more business. I pondered over what we needed from the trio of Martinelli, Trossard and Madueke in terms of goals and assists.

By lunchtime – or just after – that had become even more important, because the news was breaking that Havertz had suffered an in jury and was due to be out for a ‘significant’ period of time, as reported by David Ornstein. That was the counter-signed by a few journalists and as the club took part in an open training session in front of the fans at The Emirates stadium, the absence of Kai was very noticeable and a worry for us all.

Cue the hand-wringing from us all. This is what happened last season and this news meant that, like last season, a big player for us suffered an injury that would cause big ruptions in our aspirations this season. Our attacking options were supposed to be Big Vik AND Kai, not just Big Vik.

So I think it’s fair to say that the mood was pretty low. We’d been dealt another accursed injury and the season hadn’t even got going. And spare a moment for poor Kai; he’s had a knock in pre season, having missed a massive chunk of last season, yet here he is with another spell on the sidelines. An important player for us, loved by all of us, who can’t do the thing he’s good at. I’m gutted for him.

And yesterday afternoon I was gutted for us, because the news that was permeating from various sports journalists who had clearly been briefed, was that Arsenal were looking for loan options or something to replace Kai that would be on the cheap. The chats started. Vardy at 38? Nico Jackson? Asensio on loan?

None of them were optimal, none of them were Havertz, few really inspired.

Then it dropped.

Ornstein and Fabrizio, not long after each other, with a Bomba and a Here we go.

Eberechi Eze. The Arsenal. Fee agreed. Player wants move.

The online explosion was amazing. It was like a set of beautiful fireworks were going off across Arsenal social channels everywhere. This was the one we wanted. An Arsenal lad, a player who has been the talisman for a rejuvenated Palace side towards the end of last season. A guy who should have been the match winner last weekend.

Eberechi Eze. A Gooner.

Jobs not done, player still has to go through the medical and tonight he’ll be playing in the Conference League at home to Palace, but by the sounds of it Arsenal have moved swiftly to conclude this and he may be an Arsenal player by the time the weekend is done.

Honestly, the level of decisiveness that has been shown in this deal really is quite something and dare I say it, quite un-Arsenal like. We like to take our time on these types of deals. Just look at what happened with Gyokeres. Clearly a lot of that was down to the Sporting Chairman and clearly Steve Parish is a man who is loyal to ‘Ebs’ and wanted to do right by him. There was a fee and Palace were happy to go with that fee. And so he should – hopefully – become an Arsenal player.

The deal was ‘dead’ apparently. I heard through a mate that it was off a while ago and I don’t think any of us really batted an eyelid. The Scum had a pressing need, we were looking at our front line and left wing, there needed to be some sales and clearly we weren’t pulling the trigger on a ‘nice-to-have’ player unless we had space for him. The Havertz injury has clearly changed that and, worryingly, it makes me wonder if this is a really bad one that means we might not see him until at least 2026. If that’s the case, he will take time to get fit and so most of his season is probably hanging on a knife-edge, because there’s no way you sanction a £60million deal for a player like Eze as quickly as we did unless there is a big problem with Havertz. I am delighted we have moved, we have a versatile player in Eze who will fill a number of positions, but that joy is tinged with a little bit of sadness for the German.

There will also need to be a re-jig on how we line up now I think too. Eze for Havertz is not like-for-like. Eze can play left eight, left wing, I think he’s done right wing once or twice and he plays in the pocket as a 10. That’s a lot of spaces that Kai might have taken up, but if we’re looking for a rotation option for Gyokeres now, it feels like we’ll have to find an alternative solution. Martinelli? Trossard? Merino? None of which are optimal, but perhaps in some games we will need more from those wide players.

Whatever Arteta has planned for Eze, one thing is for sure now, which is that we are well stocked in those attacking positions. And we’ve brought in players who like a shot, like a dribble and can play more direct. That should make us much more unpredictable this season and given some of the stodgy stuff we saw last season, that is welcome news to all Arsenal fans.

Finally, before I sign off today, perhaps the juiciest of cherries on the cake, is all of the #content out there from Spurs fans. They came in their droves. They posted on TikTok, they gloated on X, they lorded on Threads and they chuckled on BlueSky. Facebook was awash with mems and the joke was, supposedly, on The Arsenal.

No no no my friends. Whatever happens in life, the joke is always on you.

Those ‘feelings’ are the ones that are irrational and based on the fact that because nobody has really kicked a ball in anger yet, every other team has strengthened in the market, will be 100% better than they were last season, everyone is going to fight for the title and we have the possibility of having our season tank.

I think those irrational feelings are because of our hard start, but also because sometimes as a fan you look over the fence at ‘rivals’ and think that everything they have done will click, whereas everything you do possibly won’t.

Kepa will have his tiny chocolate arms once again, having got rid of them from his early years at Chelsea.

Mosquera will end up being a little like Bambi-on Ice, despite the fact there’s no evidence of that so far.

Norgaard might not end up being better than Jorginho.

Zubimendi might not settle in to Premier League football.

We’ll find out that there was a reason Chelsea let Madueke go.

Gyokeres will struggle against low blocks and miss sitters against the big boys.

I know, I know, it’s stupid, irrational and in reality, a little bit disingenuous to the coaching staff, Mikel Arteta and also the transfer team that have spent a lot of time scoping and sussing out each of these players. But I can’t help have these irrational feelings and I think it is because we haven’t played any proper football yet. This summer has seen a hotch potch of XIs playing right up until we smashed Bilbao, which is when it looked like we were the Arsenal you’d expect, but it being a team I think might not reach the heights they did last season (Bilbao) has made me put caveats in front of that performance and win.

And then, as irrational as this is as well, Man United are suddenly going to be this team from 20 years ago that will be competing for the title. We talked about them towards the end of last night’s Same Old Arsenal podcast and James talked about how he would swap the signings up top that United have made for ours. I can kind of get where he’s coming from (Cunha and Sesko for Madueke and Gyokeres, anyone?) and it’s those attacking signings that make you think that they will be brilliant against us on Sunday. They might be. But let’s not poretend that all of their demons have gone away. I will talk on that game a little more in the coming days as we lead up to it and preview it, but as I said last night, ideally you want to be playing United about five or six games in. You’ll have a better idea of what team it is, for sure, but also there won’t be as much fever pitch excitement from the home crowd as there will be ahead of this match.

Again, I’m projecting in my mind a United side vastly superior to the one last season, whereas the truth may be quite different.

And that goes the same for the predictions we made, that journalists made, that ex-players are making about this season. I watched last summer as a lot of journalists were split between us and Man City (check out this as an example). This season?

All Liverpool, some City. Check this list out as an example

I can see why. They won the league last season. They’ve bought what looks like some exciting players in to the club. They look very strong going forward. But I watched the Community Shield and I really hope they are like that defensively, because that will give plenty of opportunities for opponents to get at them. And if they suffer at least ‘some’ injuries, unlike last season, then I think they’ll be pulled closer to the rest of the league compared to last season. There is an AFCON which means no Salah, they’ll be reliant on VVD being as good and bucking any kind of age curve and my hope is that much like last season where many couldn’t look beyond us, this season teams sleep on us and we can go about our business of trying to win the league as underdogs.

That label suits me fine.

But you can’t really afford to lose many matches and that’s why this hard start feels like it’s doubled down on the pressure, because a slip up against Man United and there will already be people signalling the death-knell on our season. We know that will be nonsense, but if you can only lose three or maybe four games a season, notching an ‘L’ on the first one really does put you on the back foot not just statistically, but also from a morale and mental point of view for the players.

That’s why I’m extra apprehensive ahead of the start of the new season. We need to hit the ground running and do it straight away.

Conversely, if we get through those first six games with circa 15 points, we’ll be in a superb position to take on a potential league challenge. After six games we’ll have chalked off Old Trafford, Anfield and St James’ Park and we’ll have played City at home too. If you’ve got anywhere around the 15 points mark by that time, things are looking a lot more rosier.

But for now the apprehension remains and until those first 15 – 20 minutes at Old Trafford play out, I am nervous about what sort of Arsenal team we’re going to get this season.

Hopefully the one capable of 89 points like two season’s ago.

Catch you all tomorrow.

The ‘real talk’ bit is that as much as many of us would like to, there’ll be no rowing back if he goes to that lot, in terms of the quality of the player. Many of us have twerked for him all summer in addition to some of the big moves we’ve done, yet him ending up at the wrong end of North London is going to end up stinging quite a bit, I reckon. Sure, they’ll claim the whole ‘we beat you to his signature’, they’ll drop a couple of “biggest club in London” nonsense when we all know the reality there. But if this moves in the way it appears to be advancing, then we’ll be feeling the sting a bit when everything becomes official.

Of course, things could change, but we’ve known all along that Arsenal needed to make sales before anything else gets done. That we simply haven’t been able to shift players on probably has the biggest impact on what is happening right now, as I’ve spoken about before and even as much as yesterday where I talked about how we need to offload before we can reload. The Scum clearly know this because if the player wanted Arsenal, he’s most likely telling them to back down, but I think these moves show that the player wants Champions League football too. He’ll settle for them and he’ll easily be able to displace Maddison if he joined them, so if I’m taking my red-tinted spectacles off for a second, I can see why he’d be open to this move coming about if Arsenal can’t do the deal. If you’re player like Eze you can’t hang around all summer in the hope that Arsenal offload a bunch of players now so that you can join them. What happens if they don’t make enough money? What happens if they aren’t able to offload those players and then Palace reject the offer that is made? Eze still has two years left to run on his deal and if he decided to ‘do a Gyokeres’ and reject any other advance of any other club in the hope of Arsenal coming, he could end up missing a big chance for a big move this summer when he is ready to go.

I suspect he see’s the cautionary tale of Wilfred Zaha to Arsenal as a prime Exhibit A in that regard. We had Zaha at the training ground, Emery wanted him, Arsenal bid something in the region of £40million but Palace were asking for silly money at the time at around £100million, it put Arsenal off and we went for Pepe. Three years later and Zaha is leaving on a free transfer to Galatasaray, followed by a loan to Lyon and then a loan to Charlotte in the States. Eze will be very aware of this and that’s why I think if you’re in his shoes you need to have multiple options open and you need to be able to have a good relationship with Parish and hope he grants your wish if you get a bid in from a club playing in the Champions League. Perfect if it’s Arsenal, but Tottenham would also fulfil those wishes.

So I get it, but it’ll sting, because we want that final piece and with the likes of Reiss Nelson supposedly not wanting to leave permanently to Fulham, or the Zinchenko and Fabio Vieira moves seemingly not really progressing, this is a perfect ‘market opportunity for the Scum to take advantage of the fact we went in early for other targets.

One discussion that I do think will need to be had when the window closes and we see where the chips have fallen, however, is the timing of the deals. I have a WhatsApp group of lads I go to the football with and there was a few really interesting things that I think are worth pointing out. Firstly, we all know Chelsea needed to sell, right? So with that in mind, I’m a little confused as to why we decided to go for Madueke so early and basically pay almost what Chelsea were asking for. If we wanted Madueke and Eze, why not go for the player probably a little more in demand (Eze) than the one in which we probably could be chatting to Chelsea about right now? That’s the bit that doesn’t sound too clever to me. If we’d have gone for Eze first and then gone for Madueke, I think we’d have not only have had the fans a little more excited about the move (not that it matters too much on that from the clubs’ perspective), but I think we might have been able to even drive down the price from Chelsea a little bit.

It all feels a little strange.

Now, if you tell me the sales will facilitate an actual wide forward coming in, with the likes of Rodrygo back on the table if we sell one or two players, then I guess you could understand how the market is playing out. We’d all want an Eze, it will give us great rotation and different options for Odegaard, but if we’re getting in a top left winger to compete with, say, a Martinelli, then I’m starting to get excited. That’s because the balance of the team suddenly feels good. The challenge we’ve got, which Luke in our WhatsApp group pointed out, is that if you can get the Madueke deal done then do it early so you don’t hang around and miss out on both Eze and Madueke. Or a Rodrygo in this instance, because if Man City sell Savinho and get Rodrygo, then we’ll have been left with fewer options out there for that wide forward and maybe Chelsea go even further on their asking price.

It’s all “ifs” and “buts” at this stage. We’re not on the inside to understand the machinations of the Arsenal transfer team. But because of that, we have to just sit on and watch a player many of us coveted for a lot of the summer, go to our local ‘rivals’. That just leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth.

Know what I mean?

It’s why you can see leagues like the Spanish league desperately to find ways to make more money to keep up, with the Spanish league approving a motion to play Villareal’s home game against Barca in Miami in December. I just pray that our footballing values hold true in this country, because the thought of Arsenal playing one of their matches in the States, or in Asia, fills me with dread. Don’t get me wrong, I get it, the fans from those countries would have an official match with jeopardy on the line, but for me it creates a dangerous precedent that would open Pandora’s box for the global game. I can almost see it now…

Why stop at one game? Why don’t we sell the rights to six Arsenal home matches to the highest bidding country?

We’ve seen already what money does to taint the purity of our game. Just look at that abomination of a Club World Cup. The only way that competition was given any kind of priority was not because of the prestige of it, but because of the sheer volume cash that morally questionable entity FIFA put on the table with their Middle Eastern bedfellows. And the clubs chased that coin. This news of a possible La Liga game in the US is the precedent that nobody should want. What comes after that? Renaming of clubs? Why don’t we have Washington West Ham Clarets? Or Singapore Everton Blues? “Who have you got this weekend? We’re up against Manchester Hong Kongers”.

Not for me. No thanks. There’s already enough about this sport we love that has been eroded over time, but let’s not have yet another thing to slowly remove any kind of tradition that we can still hold on to with hundreds of years behind it.

Back in the Arsenal world and the now, there are noises that the Scum are also interested in Eze too. That doesn’t surprise me with the Maddison injury news and I’m pretty sure that they were also linked with him right at the beginning of the window. Given that we’re the second biggest spenders so far this summer, it stands to reason that we need to sell before we buy, with Arteta also talking about possible exits over the last week or so. I think for most of us we’ve though that would be multiple squad/out-of-favour players exiting the club like Sambi, Zinchenko, Fabio Vieira, Nelson, Karl Hein (funny how you always have to say his full name and not just his surname – or is that just me?), maybe Kiwior if a big offer comes in, with Trossard also touted as an exit. But I just have a feeling that Arsenal are holding off of any further interest in this and won’t also be pushed into bidding if the Scum suddenly come calling. That release clause he had as not been triggered, so Palace can now afford to negotiate and if the player has any sway it sounds as though he’d favour a move to us. But you have to actually place a bid in order for this to get going and so the only way I think the dominoes start falling is if Arsenal start movements too. So really what we have to see is Berta earning his coing by starting to shift some players.

It’s funny how none of us – well, certainly not people I talk to online or offline – talk about some of the above players as ‘deadwood’ any more. It’s probably because, actually, they aren’t. Each of the above players mentioned would, I think, be able to carve very good careers at other clubs. But we have raised our levels so that the concept of ‘deadwood’ just doesn’t apply any more. Zinchenko is a very good footballer; it’s why Mourinho apparently wants him at six. Sambi has shown flashes of brilliance, just not enough in an Arsenal shirt, whilst Fabio Vieira feels like a good player in the wrong league because of the lack of his physicality. I ‘like’ all of these players, they just aren’t what Arsenal need, so moving them on this summer needs to be priority now.

Back on the Eze thing, I think if the player doesn’t get the vibes that Arsenal are in for him, he probably accepts a move to the Scum. Take the tribalism away from it, they are a team who are in the Champions League this season (through the back door) and with Maddison out of the picture he could basically have a free run at the position he is most comfortable in. Arsenal might be a place he might prefer to go to given his ties at youth level, but his pathway to more regular game time would be more limited under us. It would be a bit of a kicker too given we’ve been linked all summer, but you can’t just magic up the cash from nowhere. Our net spend is apparently around £187million (again, according to TransferMarkt) whereas the Scum have theirs at £95million – so I suspect they have the ability to go big for a couple of £50million moves. We just have to hope that Arsenal do their bit first before they make their move. One things for certain, however, if it’s a straight fight between the two clubs, it’s no doubt which team is currently in the most attractive position to be competing towards the top of the league. That doesn’t mean we’ll get him, but if all things are equal and there are two bids on the table, then I suspect Eze to Arsenal happens.

But that feels a bit of a way away at the moment. More dominoes need to fall for us so we just have to play the patience game on this I think.

Back tomorrow with some more thoughts as we prep for the visit to United.

Of course the article is more about the demand for his number given the club was giving away free printing for a limited time if you bought the Arsenal shirt, but the very fact that we’ve had such demand and there is this direct purchase, meaning more money going to the club if you buy directly from them. At least, that’s what I think happens, although this article from a couple of years ago shows that in fact, football clubs don’t get a big chunk of the money. I think that’s fair enough though; it’s thee club’s IP for sure, but if they are essentially subbing out everything – shirt design, production, distribution and shipping, etc – then why should they get the bulk of sales? The likes of Adidas also pay them a sponsorship fee too, so there’s ample cash going to the club. But if they’ve sold 100,000 Gyokere’s shirts since he signed and they get 10% of every sale, for example, that’s around £7.50 and around £750,000 – no small change indeed!

But it ain’t paying for Big Vik’s fee I’m afraid. That’s going to take 733,333 shirts to get to that £55million number. With the age of the internet and access to information that we have, we all know that the whole ‘it’s paid for his transfer’ is a myth, but it’s still fun to trot out little stories like this I think.

In the meantime, we’ve got our first pictures of the big man in training and whilst that’s also good to see, my favourite picture was the one of Zubimendi and Norgaard tussling for a ball and Zubi holding on to his shirt. Given they both play in the same position, I couldn’t help but feel like there was some kind of symbolism or metaphor in there somewhere…

I also liked picture 36 from 36, in which Merino looks like he’s holding court and telling the others around him “so I told her, I am not putting chia seed on my polenta, it’ll ruin the dynamics of my lunch”…

They are, of course, gearing up to a ‘North London Derby’ tomorrow in Hong Kong and I have to say I’m not a fan. Those are the worst games of the season for me and I get so nervous beforehand. Tomorrow won’t be anywhere near as worrying, but even thinking about it I find myself saying “we can’t lose to that scummy lot – they’ll be proclaiming Frank as the new Messiah if we do”, which is silly because it’s a friendly and there will be yet more mass rotation at varying intervals. But what we don’t need is a game full of clatterings. I hope – but will not expect – that Frank will talk to Arteta beforehand and both will agree that players need to go easy on the gas tomorrow – both teams had their injury problems and so neither needs to have players going down with injuries that will impact the respective starts to their season’s. Let’s just have a game of football without any crunching tackles please. Oh, and keep Calafiori away from the pitch! The last thing we need is him going down again like he did against Newcastle.

There’s some tenuously-linked Arsenal news that Ramsdale could be on his way to Newcastle to compete with Nick Pope, but I can’t help but find that one a little odd. If Pope is the defacto number one, doesn’t that just mean that Ramsdale is back to where he was at The Arsenal? In which case, why didn’t he just stay with us? I guess being a number one and then effectively being demoted forces you to seek a move elsewhere, but surely there are better options than being Newcastle’s backup? A quick look at the number one’s in the Premier League tells me I think he could go to any of the following clubs and be better than what they have:

• Chelsea (they buy anyone for any fee, so finding money will be no problem for them)
• Crystal Palace (price might be an issue but I think Ramsdale is better than Henderson)
• Man United (In money troubles but they’re looking at a striker so surely they should have a go at a ‘keeper first)
• The Scum (he’s not doing that though)
• Fulham (he’s already dislodged Leno once)
• Brighton (might be a money issue)
• Wolves (same again re: money)

That’s just a few but it feels to me like there should be more options for him. Hopefully that’s just a rumour in which will die. We don’t really want him going to that Orcky lot in the North East, do we?

There’s still some rumours about Eze knocking around but I suspect that one bubbles along a bit for a few more weeks if I’m honest. Feels like one in which Arsenal need to keep him sweet by telling him “we’re coming”, but I suspect there has to be some people going out the door first to free up space, so I’m not expecting anything any time soon on that one. And as a result I don’t really feel like talking much about it. The ITK stuff can be a bit weary with the whole ‘edging closer’ nonsense; we’ve just gone through that with Big Vik, so I’m a little reluctant to invest more time and energy in another saga. We’re in a good shape right now and there’s a ‘friendly’ tomorrow to focus on.

So I’ll catch you all tomorrow for some more thoughts ahead of that game. See you then.

Annoyingly I couldn’t watch the game as I was in Cologne airport and they weren’t showing it anywhere, nor could I get a signal or stream good enough to view the match, but by all accounts it sounded like an absolute cracker and as Arsenal fans, seeing/hearing/reading about how it was the Arsenal girls that made the difference on the night (and throughout this tournament, actually) just puts an extra special cherry on top of the cake. Chloe Kelly with an assist for Alessia Russo, Ageymang playing her part by getting England through two of the knockout phases with her late goals, Kelly’s overall impressive performances in general, with captain Leah Williamson doing her part at the back – Arsenal won the Euro’s and after the Champions League win a couple of months back, this is an amazing achievement for some of those Arsenal players. Let’s hope it carries them over into next season as Arsenal try to dislodge Chelsea Women from their dominant perch.

Over the other side of the world the men were of course gearing up for their season ahead by beating a physical Newcastle side and again, because I was out and about I didn’t get to watch the game, but I’ve seen highlights of the key moments and clearly the biggest talking point is Max Dowman’s second very positive cameo against top-level competition. This wasn’t one of those ‘Newcastle Select XI’ that you sometimes see. This was a side full of their first team prepping for the new season and if anyone was in any doubt about what sort of game they were going to get, it was evidenced with Joelinton ‘leaving one in’ on Dowman. Big Man – slapping a 15-year-old in the face. Naturally some of their fans thought it was hilarious, but what was more hilarious was that Dowman had the last laugh, because he bossed some of their men and even won us the penalty that Odegaard converted to secure the win.

Arteta said it was a test and batted off the physicality of Newcastle, but I would imagine that if he gets an option for future games in pre season over the years, a club like that is the last you want to play. Perhaps it was because they’ve had a pretty rubbish transfer window so far, that has meant they’ve signed just Athony Elanga (who scored their first goal to be fair) to compliment their first team, whilst spending the rest of the time fending off the advances of Liverpool for Isak, which led them to feel like they needed some kind of ‘win’ by getting something out of us yesterday. But they got nothing for their efforts and the hope is that they continue to have a ‘meh’ window, because I suspect Eddie Howe knows that if they don’t strengthen significantly more than they are at the moment, that they’ll struggle to juggle the multiple competitions of the Champions League and the Premier League. If they lose Isak to Liverpool, however……sheesh…that will make their job a lot harder indeed.

Of course that prospect is hardly palatable for us either, because an Isak at Liverpool makes the Scousers one heck of an attacking outfit. They’re shifting on Diaz for €75million and then they’ll look to bring on Nunez so they can push for Isak, which will make them a force to be reckoned with next season. So let’s just hope they don’t get him, that he stays at Newcastle and that Newcastle give Liverpool the same runaround all summer that we all thought they’d give us when we wondered if we were after the Swede.

But back to Arsenal, back to Dowman and back to the questions about whether he’s ready to force his way into Mikel Arteta’s plans this coming season. Naturally Arteta and the club want to keep it low key on a child prodigy, but if he keeps up with cameo’s like this then it will be hard to ignore him. We have all talk about Ethan’s development and that not being stunted by signings, but if this kid puts in more displays like that, the question over the new signings should probably also be aimed in Dowman’s direction. He was fast, his ball control was brilliant, he forced Ruddy into a few good saves and also had an important role in the eventual winner from Odegaard. I suspect this will be a similar situation to Nwaneri last season in that we didn’t really see him until the new year, but this time around we have more squad depth I think; Arteta has already talked about how we have raised the base of the squad and unless there is another mega injury crisis like we had last season, I can’t see Dowman getting the volume of minutes that Myles and Ethan got.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t look to impress in the League Cup competitions, or if we get a certain level of opponent in the FA Cup, there will be minutes for sure. But these things need a blend of patience, timing and also fortune, as well as talent. Dowman is forcing the talent angle to make himself seen by Arteta, but let’s not forget about the curious case of Charlie Patino who, last season, made eight appearances and a total of 382 minutes for Deportivo La Coruna last season. Dowman could be somebody who forces Mikel’s hand, but even Nwaneri who has been doing bits for the last few season’s since he broke through as a 15-year-old, still had dips in form last season. Arsenal and Arteta will be super mindful of this and I think we, as fans, have a duty to try our hardest not to hype-train this kid too much. He’s in a good place, he’ll train with the first team this season, he’ll get some minutes in competitions and Arsenal will monitor his development closely. And that’s how it should be.

Right, I think I’ll leave it there for today because although I could talk about the fact Gyokeres is now out in Singapore with his teammates, all that really happened was a wave to the fans. I could talk about how Calafiori went down injured again too, but I think for now we have to park that, as we don’t know how serious it is. Let’s see if either players get some minutes against the Scum on Thursday night.

Back tomorrow with some thoughts.

Were used to signings being dragged out. We normally expect there to be an element of wait and delay as Arsenal pick the right moment, usually do all the pictures and videos, then it takes a day or two, then BAM! We’re hit with the announcement. But after getting the confirmation on Friday that he’d been given approval to travel to London, after the medical was scheduled for Saturday and on Friday evening pictures emerged of him getting off a private plane, we got last night the announcement we’d all been waiting for:

Viktor Gyokeres has signed for The Arsenal.

It is done. Sporting have relented and I suspect I am not alone in hoping we don’t go back to them again for any of their players, because that president is a pain in the arse.

Sporting and Chelsea – can we just not from now on?

But it’s over, the striker is signed and despite there being a bit of handwringing from some Arsenal fans over the likes of Isak or Sesko (me too on the latter by the way as he was my preferred choice, not so much on Isak because of the money and the injury record), I think most Arsenal fans – if not all – are happy to get this one over the line and see what big Vik can do.

He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s powerful, he’ll run all day and he knows where the goal is. One of the biggest challenges with any new player joining The Arsenal from overseas is the physicality of the league. The Prem is about power and pace and you can’t have somebody who is getting boshed off the ball in your attacking line. Sure, he has flaws, which I’m sure you’ve also already read about like me with things like his heading, etc, but the key fundamentals of his game seem well suited for the Premier League.

He won’t get the same time as he does in Portugal, he’ll certainly have more shots saved from goalies in our country (I’ve seen his goal compilations and there are some in there I just don’t think he gets against Premier League ‘keepers), but he knows where the goal is and I guess a bit like Madueke, he’s going to try to have a pop. We’ve needed that for some time to be fair. We all lamented our lack of unpredictability but what the club have done this summer is, I think, commendable because I think we’ve set ourselves up well to be competitive this season.

He’s also clearly got some cajones and really backs himself, because he’s selected that iconic number 14 as his number. He will be very aware of its significance and with the last person to wear 14 being Aubameyang, he’ll know that goals is what that number demands and us Arsenal fans will be desperate to see him deliver those in abundance in red and white.

I’ve also read some positive noises about how he was desperate for that Sporting move and really pushed for it from Coventry. Clearly he is a strong-willed man and having read all of the noises about how much he pushed for this Arsenal move, we can only feel positive about a guy who is desperate to play in the shirt. Lovely stuff.

There’s one question that we all have about upgrading that left hand side and sure, I’m with you that we could certainly do that if perhaps there was a buyer for Trossard and we pulled the trigger on Eze, but even if that deal doesn’t happen I have to say I’m in a good place with where Arsenal are at right now.

Wide rotation forward

Striker

Central defender rotation option

Upgrade on Partey

Upgrade on Jorginho

Upgrade back up ‘keeper

That’s a heck of a lot of work done before we hit August. There’s more to do – we need Sara and Saliba to put pen to paper and we probably need to bank at least £50million in sales before the window slams shut – but for where my head is at this morning I feel like there’s a good balance about this squad and we look like we’re ready to be competitive with a better team than we had last season.

And so now all focus needs to shift to that. We need to get the group together, get matches under their belt for pre season and now the hard work with his squad (practically) all assembled is what will be Arteta’s focus. An Eze-shaped signing will be a cherry on a cake for sure, but I think we’re good enough to compete and I’m really excited to see how we line up come that first game against Man United.

Before then – and today – we have a few friendlies to get through and that includes Newcastle this lunchtime UK time. I’m still in Cologne having a mini break seeing family so I won’t be watching the game, but hopefully we see more positive football from the players and we have some good stuff to talk about tomorrow.

Catch you then.

You’d be a fool if you were to bet on when Arsenal would make the announcement, but given they haven’t officially announced the third kit yet (a white abomination that there is no way in hell I’m buying), I’m guessing if Adidas and the media teams at Arsenal had their way they’d announce it in the launch video with him smiling at the end. Now that would be a way to announce yourself as an Arsenal player!

In terms of the transfer itself, is anybody else just glad that all of this will soon be over? I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted he’s signing, but when you think that we’ve had practically two years of striker search and being told “they need a centre forward” rammed down our throats, it’s nice to know that there will be an alternate stick to beat us with from the media next season, because we’ve finally gone out and brought ‘the big fella up top’.

Of course the reality is that our problems won’t be solved with this signing. Even if he ‘bangs’ and bags goals, we still need it to come from all over the pitch and last season our problems wasn’t because we didn’t have a striker, but because we had a big chunk of the season in which we had four of them missing from our front line (if you count Gabby J as one of those guys which, ostensibly, he still is). That we have padded out the front line with a striker and wide forward who can play both flanks will help (Madueke surely has to have more of an impact than Sterling!) for sure, but we still need to find ways to spread the goals around, be more unpredictable in attack and unlock those stubborn low and mid-block teams.

But I’m happy i don’t have to lament “if only we’d have addressed the striker issue’ because the club have now done it. Fine. Good. Now can everyone please stop talking about it??

As for the rest of the squad, they are of course doing their media bits out in Singapore and there’s a nice puff piece on the official site where Mikel has spoken to the media team about how great it is to meet young kids from the Arsenal soccer schools, the support in the ground, good facilities and how thankful he is to be out there. There’s nothing really massively informative about the interview and he’s not really talking about any new incomings (yeah, I know, like he would!) or any kind of new tactical approaches he’s working on (again, that’s a little like expecting water to not be wet), but it’s still great for the people out there who will have seen a few years of us going to the States and probably wondering “when’s it our turn?”

I take it for granted that I see the games all the time at home. I’m in Cologne visiting an Aunt and I was showing her pictures last night of where my seat is and the atmosphere pre Real Madrid. She doesn’t have any interest in football but even she went “wow!” When she saw it via an almost pitch side view. She even said “it would be lovely to come along someday”. Needless to say I didn’t tell her about the waiting list or clamour for every single match-day ticket!

But it did hit home – along with thinking about these tours – the privilege I have and the fact that I just know that providing I’m fit and able enough, I’ll be at the first home game of the season in just over a month’s time.

A month away. Well, less than that really, because we have the small matter of United away. It’s just as well because as much as I needed last season’s cursed season to go away towards the end and after the Champions League semi final, here I find myself, tapping away at an iPad, starting to feel the pang of longing for The Arsenal to return. I want to smell that north London grass on a (hopefully) warm, August day. I want to meet up with mates I haven’t seen over the summer. And lastly, I want to feel those nerves kick in at kick off.

Bring me back to My Arsenal.

Catch you all again tomorrow.

I like these kind of signings, because it has rivals going “who’s he? Arsenal have bought poorly again” and because they don’t know the player or haven’t become invested in him like us since the deals of a potential move surfaced, they sleep on him a bit. But when you start reading into him, his profile and also the bloody size of him – he’s six foot three at 20 years old! – you see that he feels like a very impressive acquisition. Although I  have to lay my cards on the table here; I don’t really know much about him and don’t really watch much Spanish football other than the odd game if it’s on in the background as I’m cooking. So I read up on this article from Phil Costa on Arseblog and I have to say, that ticks all the boxes for me. Comparisons to Rudiger, a player who has the kind of minutes under your belt that you’d expect from a 23-year-old, can play either side of the defence, good ball retention and I love it when I get the ‘Gandalf’ feeling from reading about a player. You know what I’m talking about – that “YOU SHALL NOT PASS” kind of vibe. Super stuff.

We of course need to let him get settled in, he needs time to adapt to the English game and its physicality, but he looks like he’s got all of the tools to be a very good signing for us and it’s the first one that I think most of us know is a true ‘Berta’ signing. Even in the video itself Mosquera references ‘the sporting director’ along with Mikel as the reasons he wanted so desperately to sign. And it’s another one that ‘desperately’ wanted to sign, which has become a feature of the signings this summer. Players moving heaven and earth to get to your club is a sure sign that when they put on that shirt, they are walking an inch or two taller, are going to try that little bit more, which is all we ever ask of as fans. But yes, this one is for sure a Berta one. There’s lots of talk about the great summer he’s had, but I do think that does a little bit of injustice to the groundwork that was already done. I think Zubimendi, for example, was already sorted. And I’m not sure (but happy to be told otherwise) whether he had too much impact on the Big Gabi signing, because that seemed to happen pretty quickly after he’d walked through the door, if my memory serves me right. The rumours of Gyokeres or Sesko have persisted for most of this season gone by and although Berta clearly had his preference and maybe that’s what has led us to the Swede, I wouldn’t think he’s ‘instrumental’ on the deal, but maybe just did his bit to push it over the line.

I dunno, perhaps I’m doing Andrea a disservice, but for this one I think it feels to me 100% like this is ‘his guy’. Apparently according to Phil’s article there were rumours that Berta wanted him at Atleti, so that shows you how much of an influence he’s clearly had here. It’s proper pissed Valencia off too by the looks of it. That statement is as cold as you’re gonna get from his selling club. Eek.

But he’ll move on, they’ll move on, hopefully it works well for him and we have a guy who will compete for a starting spot within a few seasons.

The other article I wanted to give you a heads up on was an Athletic article written by Gunnerblog that was released yesterday (behind a paywall here). What I loved about it was the way in which Rice spoke about Madueke, saying how driven he is to prove everyone wrong and be a success. Again, a response from one of our pseudo captains along the lines of “wait and see guys, you’re going to be excited” is the sort of thing you want to read as a fan. We’ve all had our say on the transfer, but now it’s time to see what he can actually do with a red and white shirt on and I hope Rice is right about him surprising people.

I also hope he’s right about his own ambitions. We all wondered about Rice last season at the start and he himself said that the Euro’s and basically having two week’s to ‘get over it’ before being pushed back out on the Premier League stage meant that he didn’t quite feel with it. We all saw that play out. But we saw the real Rice towards the final third of the season and if we think about how he’s had plenty of rest, a full pre season under his belt and now is ready and raring to go, it’s exciting. To me it feels exciting that we could get the Declan Rice that finished the season, starting this season, so when you couple that with the hope that Odegaard is over his struggles, Kai has beefed up, Ethan and Myles are a year older (and Ethan looks like he’s been taking his vitamins!), we’ve got an upgrade at six in Zubimendi and a lot of depth options have been solved – something else Rice mentioned.

It makes me really hope we get to make some rival fans chow down on some humble pie next season. I’ve seen plenty saying we’ve bought bang average players, we will finish between fourth to sixth, that there’s no chance we’re competing and I’m absolutely fine with that. I just hope we can kick on early on and show them that we mean business this season, because I think we really do, and I hope Rice is right with what he was saying.

Catch you tomorrow – maybe – I’m doing a cheeky weekend in Cologne to see family so may or may not get time for writing stuff.

He also spoke about those already in the door and you can tell he’s super pumped about Zubimendi above all. That was the one that we know he coveted and he talked about how it was a long process to get him, how the club did a great job of convincing him, but this signing feels like it has all the hallmarks of it being an Arteta deal. Sometimes you never know how much involvement Arteta has. Take Gyokeres, for example, who most people pretty much universally accept that it’s one of Berta’s guys. I’ve heard multiple journalists and podcasters talk about how Arsenal were hot on Sesko, Arteta was desperate for the Slovenian, that was ‘his guy’, yet Gyokeres is the one we’ve landed on, mainly because Berta is backing him big time and I think Arteta is like “ok cool”. Madueke feels like he’s Arteta going “you get Gyokeres, I get Madueke as my pick” in that forward line, but the Zubimendi deal was one that was really clear that everyone wants and Arteta clearly feels that he’s a guy who is going to take us to the next level.

The exit of Partey meant a hole needed to be filled and I think Arteta feels like he’s definitely got an upgrade in that respect. He was asked about the Partey situation and of course he said that he felt the club acted 100% correct and he can’t talk about it for legal reasons, but I suspect even Arteta is glad that sorry mess is behind him and now he can focus on Zubimendi, who he mentioned he was very excited about. It’s easy to see why – he himself adopted that position when he arrived at The Arsenal and I suspect Arteta see’s a lot to like from the way Martin plays and his style. He intimated that by saying that after 10 days of training now he’s been very impressed. He doesn’t have to say that; he could just say he’s very happy, glad he’s in, happy to have signed somebody with that level of experience. But he chose his words very carefully and when he’s talking about Zubimendi’s character and personality, you can tell he’s got a guy who is a perfect fit for the environment and culture that Arteta has built over these years.

He spoke positively too about Madueke and that one was more general soundbites I think. I think Arteta and the club know full well how it went down amongst the fanbase pre the announcement. They know there’s a bit of work to do and I don’t think talking too much will do anything any more. So what everyone needs to see is him on the pitch and making an impact – which I think is fair enough.

Apart from that there’s a little bit from Gabriel talking about how he wants to win things at The Arsenal, how he’s happy to have signed a new deal, etc. It’s nothing majorly ground-breaking in terms of what he said, but it’s nice to hear that he’s bought in for the long term. We need that energy from Bill Saliba now, as the second part of that double act, which will need to be the next thing Berta and his team get sorted once the transfers are done. In a way, you want us to get the Mosquera and Gyokeres sorted ASAP this week, because it will mean that he can focus attention on outgoings and also contracts, so hopefully that’s the second half of the summer that gets sorted for us. We need to hear that positive news on contracts as much as we need to hear the new signing news. Let’s hope Berta is on it. The initial signs have been positive though. MLS and Big Gabby seemed to be done with little fuss. The Nwaneri deal is – if all is to be believed – done and dusted too. So we need Saka and Saliba the focus of attention next and if that can be done by the time the summer is over, that will be hugely positive for all of us and the club too.

Hopefully we see a little movement this week, whilst the team get on with the process of bonding on the pitch with the upcoming friendlies.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Sixty million down the drain…

And that’s exactly how it should be. I didn’t want this deal, I am sceptical on the player, I think we’ve paid about £10million more than we should, but I am absolutely going to be singing his name loudly and proudly if he gets on to the pitch for that first home game against Leeds in August. He will need it and he will want it and I think as fans it is our job to now do our bit.

Welcome Noni.

The initial noises are good too. He’s said he wanted to join the tour as they jetted off yesterday for the pre season tour of Singapore yesterday, but the club have told him to take some rest, so he’s clearly eager to get started. I thought the announcement message was cleverly crafted actually. The statement made by Berta and Arteta talked about his ability, his pace, but also his ‘professionalism’, which is something that we’ve actually heard the opposite about in recent years. He’s been dropped from match day squads, we saw the fighting on the pitch with Jackson over a penalty and clearly there’s something in this player that has a bit of spice to him. I listen to the Arsenal Opinion podcast and Johnny and Pete talk about this on their pod so I’d urge you to go have a listen if you want another couple of perspectives on the player. Here’s a link to the show – you can get the free version wherever you get your pods.

But I do think the club have been very careful in the wording of their announcement on Friday. They know that this deal hasn’t gone down amazingly with the fanbase, like Kai two year’s ago and like Ramsdale four years ago, but they also know that the Arsenal fans – because of those two deals as examples – know that they have tended to get behind these deals and that the club has tended to get these signings right. So I think a lot of us are willing to sit back and let this play out with the hopeful positive consequences.

There was also the accidental Mosquera video release and supposedly there’s some technical stuff around the medical which is just delaying the formal announcement, but given the player has already done his interviews and been pictured, that deal clearly is just going to get over the line. And it’s a good deal that brings that depth we need at centre half, but as a result of it, I’m convinced the club will try to move Kiwior on for decent money this summer. We brought him for around the £22million mark and if a club comes in and offers £35 – £40million, you have to take it, after he showed his capabilities at the end of last season deputising for big Gabby. I think given Mosquera can play left or right centre-half, the reason he was dead set on signing for Arsenal is that he’s basically been told he’s getting any centre-half minutes that our two main men at the back don’t take. That means Kiwior doesn’t get them and I think flipping him for a profit also means that we recoup back some of the cash we’ve outlayed on players already this summer.

And we still have to get that striker in, which has all gone weirdly quiet given that it was a week ago that we saw that Arsenal and Lisbon had finally agreed the fee. I liked Arseblog’s work this morning in giving us the amusing comments from the A Bola article about the deal potentially being off because it’s stalled. Have a read if you want a little light-heartedness on your Sunday morning. The reality is that both clubs are just driving a hard bargain. Everyone expects this deal to happen and it’s so far along right now, that nobody is going to want it to collapse:

1. Sporting want their money so they can move on. They also don’t want an unhappy player and I don’t think given how much they’ve messed around on this deal, Gyokeres is just going to shrug his shoulders and say “oh well, never mind, it’s back to training in Lisbon for me” is he?
2. Arsenal want their player. They have set their stall out and starting all over again for another player is probably just not something that they want to entertain at this late stage in the transfer saga.
3. Gyokeres wants his move. He’s packed up his house and has already said his goodbyes. The last thing he wants is to have to do a full U-turn and move himself back in.

So this deal is happening, it’s just a matter of when, as well as somebody finally blinking and I suspect both clubs will move a little more towards each other to get this over the line.

Other than that, we play the waiting game, as Arsenal will be playing during next week and we’ll start to get things like press conferences ahead of the next pre season friendly. What will be exciting is to see whether some of the (really) young players who have joined the tour get any minutes. I think most of us are looking at Downman and thinking he might be the one to watch, but sometimes on these tours another player comes from nowhere and has really good pre season. We saw what pre season did for Lewis-Skelly last year and here we are one year later with him as our starting left back. So it will be good to see if we have another one of those waiting in the wings.

Right, that’ll do for today I think – have yourselves a good Sunday and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

Of course this supposed deadline is just a pin in pre season; deals won’t all get to be done before that date and Arsenal aren’t going to just slap extra money down just so that a shiny new signing can be unveiled whilst out in Asia. Now wouldn’t that be a crazy reveal, eh? Imagine if Eze is smuggled in to the cargo-hold, then whilst up 20,000 feet in the air, they pull him into his seat and he just bowls down the aircraft steps with fans screaming all around him. I’ll have me some of that, thank you very much.

I do think most of us are expecting movement now though. Over the weekend we got our Ornbomb’s about Gyokeres and the agreement in place, so I suspect the player will be doing a medical within the next day or two, which gives the club enough time to get the pictures snapped and then have him on the plane as the players make their way. The Madueke signing will come first though; we’ve all already heard that he’s completed his medical, which means pictures are probably taken today, then maybe an announcement tomorrow. We still need to work out where the heck we’re going to play him and who he is going to displace, but it’ll be ratified by the usual social media and then we can start to understand how Arteta might deploy him. For a little bit of bonus “what are we getting?” I’d recommend checking out James’ chat with a Chelsea podcaster on the Same Old Arsenal pod here.

I wouldn’t say that the pod has completely turned me 180 on Madueke, but there’s enough in there for an ageing Arsenal fan like me can start to get his head around in terms of what he might bring that is different to the current squad. I’d still probably take the Chelsea fan up on the fee though; I think football fans always over-inflate the value of the players they have and the guy on there said that £48.5million for Madueke was fair market value. When you hear that, I always think we’ve probably over paid for him – a bit like we did for Havertz to be honest. And that still doesn’t leave the best taste in the mouth, because we’ve once again bailed out a reprehensible club in Chelsea. But it’s done now. eventually I’ll move on.

And so will Reiss Nelson too, by the sounds of it, because there appears to be two or three clubs interested in his signature. And for a pretty decent fee too. You’ll note my comment about fans over-inflating their players’ values, but in this instance I thought we’d be lucky to get £10million for Reiss. He’s on a decent wage (I think the rumours were circa £100k), he’s had a load of injuries throughout his career, plus he’s not really in the Arsenal first team picture. But I guess when you get a player who is English, still young (he’s 25 and will be 26 in December), plus he was well liked at Fulham where he was on loan before his injury, there will be clubs interested in that and hoping that he can get over his injury challenges. Apparently Palace are having a sniff and I’m sure I also saw that Brentford were interested and as we all know, when there’s more than one club interested, you can always get a little more cash for what you are expecting. I doubt we’ll get too much of a bidding war, but if the negotiations are indeed with Palace, you could see where Arsenal might naturally take the conversation next.

Eze is apparently next on the list after the completion of negotiations for Gyokeres and whilst there’s no chance that deal gets done before the players depart for the pre season tour, I suspect if the do want Nelson in through the doors at Selhurst Park, these conversations will help to smooth the way. And if it’s £15million fee, that’s another good bit of cash generated by Hale End once more, added to the Smith Rowe and Nketiah money we got last summer. We can talk a little more about Nelson if those rumours become a little more concrete, but it does feel like now is the right time for a player like him to be find a permanent home where he can play more football.

And for Arsenal it will help to pay off for some of the outlay we’ve had this summer. I saw talk that there might need to be a significant outbound departure over the next 12 months to balance the books, but if Arsenal make a number of sales that are for around the £15 – £20million mark, then surely that would help to covera  lot of the costs from this summer? Nelson, Vieira, Zinchenko, Kiwior – all of those players could potentially fetch that £15million fee (more for Kiwior I’d hope) and if that happens we should be looking at a minimum of £60million there. And i haven’t even talked about the likes of Sambi Lokonga or if Tavares moves to Saudi. So let’s see how those exits go.

There’s also expected to be the movement of Christian Mosquera from Valencia, which sounds like a superb deal for Arsenal and maybe that too can get done this week, but I think i’d rather save my thoughts for another day on that one. Let’s see if he’s in through the door by Friday too.

Right – that’s it from me today. Maybe we have a shiny new signing to talk about come this time tomorrow.

Wait, is it still an ‘Ornbomb’ when we’ve kind of had varying degrees of reporting on this stuff. Like, when does an ‘Ornbomb’ become an actual ‘Ornbomb’? When initial stories about the player break? When it is announced that there are talks between clubs? Or when there is an agreement made? Has anyone actually set some parameters around what constitutes the actual ‘bomb’ part?

I’m saying all of this with a little bit of my tongue in my cheek, but this saga has dragged on for a fair bit and so the ‘bomb’ side of it – which I always feel is the exciting and surprising side of the story – has kind of already gone off. Now all we’re doing is drawing everything to a close.

I guess none of this matters. The important thing is that the two clubs finally agreed on the fee and value and when it was announced that it was going to be €63.5million plus €10million in bonuses, I found myself thinking “hang on a second, that’s less than Arsenal were bidding in the first place. Why?” It kind of feels like that Family Guy sketch in which Peter doesn’t know how to haggle. Of course the benefit of the reporting these days is that it becomes easy to find that information out, which it appears is centered on the agent and Gyokeres waiving their fees for commission to get this over the line. That meant that Sporting didn’t have to pay him, they get to keep a little more of the total fee, whilst Arsenal also got to do a deal that was less than they originally offered.

Literally ‘everybody wins’ in this situation. Sporting get their money. Arsenal don’t have to pay over their value, Gyokeres gets his move and whilst the agent doesn’t get his cash pay-out, he’ll know that there will always be future contracts to negotiate and this will bag him enough goodwill amongst all parties, that will come in handy in future. It’s also kind of good that this kind of story gets out into the media, because agents are frequently seen as somewhat pseudo bad guys for taking big cash, moving players around, poorly advising in some instances, being a bit chirpy in interviews sometimes, etc. But this is a story which paints an agent in a more favourable light and whilst I suspect it is on the agent side that this story was leaked, it is still good to hear and see.

The deal should now pass through relatively quickly and by the sounds of it Arsenal aren’t stopping there, because Mosquera is also getting closer to being concluded and with Madueke set to be announced within the next few days I suspect, I think that deadline of the end of this week will end up being met for Arteta to get his players on the plane heading out to Asia. If all of the stars align, we might see the following heading out on tour:

1. Kepa (£5million)
2. Martin Zubimendi (£55million)
3. Christian Norgaard (£10million)
4. Noni Madueke (£48.5million)
5. Viktor Gyokeres (£55million)
6. Christian Mosquera (£17million)

There are still rumours about Eze and I saw something about a possible player going in the other direction yesterday, but I suspect that one will take longer to bubble before we see which direction (if any) the player move goes. What the above arrivals do tell us is that Arsenal will have almost completed their rebuild on players based on some of the exits we’ve already had, but I suspect we might see some outgoings, because I think the guys coming in at the moment are replacements, rather than additions. There we noises yesterday from Germany that Bayern Munich are looking at Leo Trossard as a possible option if they can’t get Luis Diaz and if you think about the fact he’s been linked to Saudi Arabia, as well as Fenerbahce in the last week or so, it feels like there’s no smoke without fire. I also saw some noises online that Kiwior is up for sale too. I can understand that, particularly if we can inflate his price as a result of the run he had at the end of last season. Let’s look at that list above again, for which I think we’re looking at:

1. Kepa – as a replacement for Neto
2. Martin Zubimendi – as a replacement for Thomas Partey
3. Christian Norgaard – as a replacement for Jorginho
4. Noni Madueke – as a replacement for Trossard
5. Viktor Gyokeres – as a replacement for Gabriel Jesus
6. Christian Mosquera – as a replacement for Jakub Kiwior

If the reported numbers are right, Arsenal will have made an outlay of around the £190million, which is no small change. You’d think that in order for Arsenal to press on with Eze, they’d have to probably get some cash in, which is why I’d expect there to then be a fair few sales going on. Kiwior? Trossard? Zinchenko? Fabio Vieira? Nelson? Sambi Lokonga? Karl Hein? If we offload all of those players you’d hope we could get around the £100million mark. That’s me being a little conservative I’d have thought for seven players. And I think with the above additions mentioned above we have basically replaced in terms of quality and numbers, because aside from Kiwior and Trossard, none of the other players really made a meaningul contribution:

• Zinchenko played a total of 795 minutes in 23 appearances
• Fabio Vieira played zero minutes as he was on loan at Porto
• Nelson played three minutes of one game
• Sambi Lokonga played zero minutes as he was on loan

So if we pick up money for even the above players, we’re banking cash and not really weakening the squad much from last season. So maybe there is some money to be found and some space to be filled up by an Eze?

Who knows. But for now let’s keep an eye out this week for those Madueke, Gyokeres and Mosquera moves that might come to fruition.

Back tomorrow.

Firstly, I think it’s difficult for me to row back from my original thoughts and feelings about the player. I have been told by two Chelsea fans – one a season ticket holder – plus last night had a chat with my Godfather who used to take me to The Arsenal when I was a kid and he was saying that two of his work colleagues had told him “you’ll get 10 minutes of football out of him every match”. I hear that stuff and I find it difficult to get too enthused. Then I see that we’re giving Chelsea a £20million uplift by signing him for £48.5million in initial payments (they paid £28.5million two years ago to PSV) and it just annoys me. If you’re talking about £30million then I can get behind this deal. Why? Because this deal does, I think, mean that other hopes many of us have for the window don’t happen. By investing that kind of money on Madueke – a rotation option for Saka as it stands – is a lot of money that I think could probably have been spent elsewhere.

And I don’t think Arsenal are spending it elsewhere on all the players we want. Well, all the players I want, should I say. I would have loved an Eze to come in. That could still happen and I suspect after the club have sorted out the messy Viktor Gyokeres saga, they’ll turn their attentions to Eze, so we may yet see that develop more. But I also wanted us to really try to push the boat out and go for Rodrygo this summer. He’s a quality player, he’s an impressive player, he’s a guy who I think would have moved the needle on that left hand side and my hope was that with Martinelli playing there too, we’d have two superb options to battle it out.

I can’t see that happening now. You don’t go out and sign Gyokeres AND Madueke AND Rodrygo. I can’t see a world in which that happens financially or from a squad balance perspective. Especially with the news I’ve seen this morning from a few sources that Arsenal are getting close to a deal of extending Trossard’s contract. I did wonder if Arsenal were to look to shift him on, but I think if he signs then that’s our forward line for next season:

• Saka
• Martinelli
• Havertz
• Trossard
• Madueke
• Gyokeres
• Eze

That’s seven players for three positions and I think that’s too much as it is. Now, I know there are caveats, because we might see Kai in at left eight, Eze too playing there or 10, whilst we haven’t actually got any closer in the Gyokeres signing, although I think most of us think that’ll get done. But there isn’t a world in which we get all of those players AND then go for Rodrygo, even if the reporting is that Arsenal are mad-keen on the Brazilian. In fact, I even wonder if Trossard signing a new deal means we don’t go after Eze? I don’t think it’s outside of the realms of possibility.

And I think that’s probably where my Madueke stance is, because from what I thought we were getting this summer, it would suddenly feel underwhelming. The player himself, when you look at what he’s bring, I’m kind of like “fine, let’s give it a go”, but for me I think it’s all the things that Madueke doesn’t represent that has also impacted my perspective. So that’s:

1. The fee that might impact other signings
2. The stories about the player, his style, attitude and the fact Chelsea fans seem happy to be offloading
3. The space he takes up that might stop some kind of other deal happening

Do I hate the player? Of course not. Am I going to abuse him when he signs? Absolutely no way. Will I pray this is another Havertz situation (I didn’t want him either and said so on this blog)? You betcha. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have reservations given all of the above, right?

Now, having said that, I think I – and a lot of Arsenal fans, podcasters, bloggers, etc – are all now a little bit in ‘Justification Mode’. Because I didn’t see many people jumping up and down with joy when his name was first mentioned. So there’s a lot of people who – like me – are going to have to go into, as I mention, Justification Mode to get behind this signing (well, apart from some of the football hipsters who deliberately take the alternate view so they can be uber ‘told you so’ if the player does do well, in some kind of race to be the first who is right). And that’s ok. That happens. We have opinions, we share them, as long as you’re not a dick about it (like putting white paint ‘Arteta Out’ nonsense across NorthBanksy’s murals by the ground – whoever you are you are an absolute idiot and you’ve destroyed a wonderful bit of fan culture that we’ve had for a couple of years, you cretin), then I think that’s ok.

As soon as he’s in that Arsenal shirt, get behind him and hope that whatever Arteta has seen in this player, it comes out in spades over the coming years. I’ve seen some liken him to Alexis Sanchez. Give me that kind of output and approach and Noni, my boy, you’ll have me singing from the rafters about you as an Arsenal player – I can tell you that much.

And maybe there is something in there that is about to go ‘bang’? Maybe we might see something that takes him to the next level and we will all be saying in 12 – 18 months that we got him for a bargain. That’s where my head is at right now, as I enter Justification Mode. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all. We’re football fans. We’re allowed to change our minds and those of us who do have our minds changed when players step up like Havertz did, we are all the happier, because it means we’re doing the right things. That’s all I care about.

Back tomorrow.

I’ve seen people getting really quite pissy over the fact that Sesko will most probably not be ‘the guy’ and that he’ll probably be plying his trade elsewhere either this summer or next when he eventually moves on from Leipzig.

I’ve stated my case for Sesko to be my first choice, but now that it’s not going to be that, for me it really isn’t that big a deal. We are getting a guy at the peak of his powers, with a physical prowess that should translate to the Premier League, as an alternate option to a guy we were already falling in love with last season in Kai Havertz. He’s also a guy, I might add, that was on course for a 20 goal season I think, had he not picked up that injury in January.

If Gyokeres can come in and deliver even half of what he did for Sporting this upcoming season for us, I think we are close to achieving that lofty ambition of winning the title.

But that news is still to be confirmed, so we’ll park any further talk, because the next one off the transfer production line with be Norgaard, who is expected to be announced either today or tomorrow. I’ve touched on this being a good move for all parties and I don’t think there should be too many people arguing against. And when it happens, I think we’ve upgraded our midfield from last season.

1. Zubimendi should be an upgrade on what was an increasingly ageing and leggy Thomas Partey (particularly towards the end of last season).
2. Norgaard I think is an upgrade on Jorginho (by virtue of the fact he’s played more games, is a little younger and has been Brentford’s captain).

I think our goalkeeping situation has been upgraded (Kepa is better than Neto) and I think Gyokeres’ arrival is an upgrade on what alternatives we had to Kai; the square peg (that we are all very thankful for I might add) in the round hole that was Mikel Merino, or the frequently (sadly) injured and unavailable Gabriel Jesus. So already I can see that we’re in a better position than last season.

Those Madueke links won’t go away though, which I can kind of understand if you’re looking at what appears to be gathering pace as a rumour – Leandro Trossard attracting interest from Turkey.

Now, I’ve already been on here saying that Madueke would certainly not be my preferred choice and for £43million I think we should laugh Chelsea out of any negotiating room. But if you tell me that Trossard is exiting for £20million and Madueke is his replacement, I can understand why these links are arising. I’m still not sure I like them though. I’d rather have Leo in there than a guy with whom so much inconsistency still exists. We know what we get from Leo and let’s face it, he’s still one of the most potent finishers at the club. Does Madueke really move the needle that much? Not for me I don’t think he does. The age profile works if you’re swapping Trossard for Madueke, but there’s a whole bunch of challenges I’ve already mentioned in yesterday’s blog that still have been unsure about this particular scenario. Let’s hope Arsenal are either going to do the bargain of the century and pick him up for £10million less than is being quoted, or they’re just keeping their options open at the moment, which is certainly what my hope is.

The Eze stuff, however, is something I can 100% get behind. I’ve also said my piece on him, but the latest emerging yesterday was that we were exploring an instalments deal with three £20million payments the club wants to make for the player, as well as £8million in incentivised bonuses. It remains to be seen whether Palace would be happy to sanction that and as we know from Steve Parrish and his dealings with Arsenal with the Wilf Zaha stuff a number of years back, that he will dig his heels in if needed, despite those interviews that have surfaced sounding like he’d be happy to let Eze make a dream move to one of the big clubs. Palace will likely stick to that valuation, which still feels a little toppy to me, but I think if Arsenal want the FA Cup final match winner in the squad before Singapore, they’ll have to move probably within the next few days on structuring a deal I suspect.

Arteta has his deadline and that’s the tour of Asia, but that deadline can – and probably will – be missed for some of our signings. But I suspect that if he’s looking at replacing those that he’s already lost – barring Sterling – then he’ll probably see that as enough to work with. Then it becomes about getting in those players who will have that little bit of extra sauce like an Eze or Rodrygo. If Eze can be done early then great but I suspect there’ll be a fair bit of haggling, so let’s not expect to see him in an Arsenal shirt any time soon.

And so we wait. And tick follows tock. Let’s hope for some more transfer goodness during the day. Catch you all tomorrow.

Yesterday we got the official confirmation of Martin Zubimendi’s arrival from Real Sociedad, with the first pictures of him in next season’s kit, then later in the day there was talk of the striker situation finally nearing a conclusion. Thankfully.

Let’s start with the Zubimendi transfer. Yes, we all knew it was happening, yes, it didn’t come as a surprise to many, but until it’s on the dot com you still have that last 0.1% of doubt. So to see it all confirmed and ratified and to have him talking through his ambitions was still lovely to see. He came across as quite humble, down to earth and I suspect his character is as much of a draw for Arteta and Arsenal, as his ability on the pitch. And on the pitch we have a guy who is a Spanish international, who looks at home anchoring the midfield and who we hope will be an ever-present in an Arsenal side that needs to start picking up trophies. Zubimendi even referenced that need in his interview. He is a ‘win now’ player and at 26-year’s-old we’re getting somebody who – providing he acclimatises to the Premier League well enough – goes straight in to the starting XI.

That acclimatisation period is going to be aided by the fact he’s got some old teammates who are teammates once again in Merino and to a lesser extent Martin Odegaard, as well as the fact there are a few Spaniard’s and Arteta himself who will all be able to help him settle in. But by this deal being done earlyish in the window he’ll have time to do a bit of training at London Colney, before jetting off on tour to Singapore and then Hong Kong at the end of the month. He’ll also be given a taste of home over the next 10 days or so, because according to the Met Office it’s going to be a bit of a scorcher in London for just over a week after today! Martin, trust me, it isn’t always like this mate, so don’t get used to it!

This is a superb move any way you look at it. We have a duel winner, a guy who is a progressive passer, somebody who should be able to provide us with an even more stable base and not only that, but somebody coveted all over the top European leagues. But what also shows you how much work goes into these kinds of deals, is when you read articles like this on the BBC about how it unfolded, going all the way back to the summer. I  hadn’t realised that we had spent time talking to them as they were nearly about to seal the Liverpool deal. He’s a player that I think we’d been tentatively linked with before Liverpool, but nothing concrete and I remember last summer when that felt like it was about to happen, being a little apprehensive. “This guy is a winner and he’ll be really good for Liverpool” I thought. But I hadn’t realised that Zubimendi clearly looked at wanting to stay in La Real, as well as looking at the fact he might have something on the table from Arsenal for the following summer, had an impact on his decision making. These are the kinds of stories you love to hear – to think that last summer I was worried about losing a great player to a rival, when all the time he had his eyes on us, is pretty wild really.

Welcome to The Arsenal, Zubi!

And it appears he might soon be joined by a striker signing too, after Ornstein dropped his bomba yesterday about Arsenal being in advanced talks over Viktor Gyokeres, with the clubs nearing an agreement on the fee it appears.

I’ve been pretty clear in stating my case about Sesko as my preferred option, I just feel like it would be a better move for us overall, but with RB Leipzig supposedly wanting close to €100million for the player, Arsenal clearly had to act. I think Sesko was Arteta’s first choice and I think if Leipzig would have played ball a bit then a deal could be done, but I also think that Arteta wants his business done now so he can get everyone in and acclimatised to the style of play and how we set up before the pre season tour kicks off. If a deal can be done for a reported €65-€70million plus add-ons, as opposed to €100million, then you gotta do it. Arsenal can get it wrapped up this week, he can be training with his new teammates for a week, before heading off on tour and starting to get a feel of the ball at his feet as an Arsenal player.

It’s good to see the club making a decision. We’ve had a few transfer window’s now where it has felt like we’ve had a plan A and if that didn’t come off, there was no striker plan B. I think Gyokeres might be plan B, but if you’re going to have a guy who has bagged as many goals as he has, who is a style and an approach different to Havertz that means we can approach games differently between different types of matches and game states, then that’s a-ok with me.

I have a feeling that it might be a fair few days before this saga really reaches a conclusion, so I don’t think I want to have a deeper look at Gyokeres and give too many thoughts until it is done, but I think for most of us we’ll just be glad that this saga is reaching a conclusion. Go get the Swede, get him in, then let’s see if we have ourselves a goal machine like he was for Sporting. Even the talks about waving parts of his salary to get this deal done feel like there’s a player there who has a massive desire to join Arsenal, which will please Arteta too.

That’s about all I got got you today. I suspect we might even have the Norgaard announcement at some stage in the next day or so, which will be another positive bit of squad bolstering but for now, I’ll leave you be and hope you have a great Monday.

I picked a bad day to do it.

That’s because all the talk yesterday was on Arsenal reaching personal terms with Noni Madueke from Chelsea. My initial reaction?

“Really? Another Chelsea cast off?”

I just don’t see why we are looking at this as a deal. There are so many reason’s not to do it and the fact that things are advancing leaves me very ‘meh’ about the situation. Firstly, let’s talk about the fee. They bought him from PSV in 2023 for £28.5million. During that time he has played for them 91 times and had 29 goals and assists. That’s 3.1 games per goal. Gabriel Martinelli is a year older, has suffered a fair few more injury problems, but has 80 goals and assists in 225 games for The Arsenal. Do we’re buying a guy who is less prolific than the guy who we think isn’t prolific enough?

I can hear what you’re saying, which is “Ahh, but we’re buying him as a Saka back up, not on that left wing”, to which my response is:

What about Ethan Nwaneri?

We’ve already heard in the last week that negotiations are not going completely well, that it’s at a ‘delicate’ stage and that he wants a little more assurance on game time. To that I ask what game time can we offer one of the most exciting talents out of Hale End since Saka himself?

1. He’s not going to get time wide right as a Saka understudy if Madueke comes in
2. He’s not going to be given time wide left if we are looking to bring in somebody like Rodrygo
3. He’s not going to be given time left eight if Eze comes in.

So are we basically saying that Nwaneri plays if Odegaard doesn’t play? He’s the captain at the club, so I don’t see him being dropped much. I guess you could argue just as much as Saka, but if Ethan is covering two positions – Saka and Odegaard, then he’s absolutely more highly likely to be racking up minutes. Madueke blocks a path for a player who, actually, I already think is probably better than Madueke anyway. Last season Madueke got 11 goals and five assists in 45 games. Ethan bagged nine goals and two assists in 37. At 17/18 years old (turned 18 in March). Why on earth are we looking at Madueke with Ethan right in front of our eyes?

Then, worse still, Fabrizio Romano said Chelsea were looking at the situation. That would be the ultimate kicker, because they’d be offloading an erratic, inconcsistent right winger, getting in a guy who I think within 18 months would be a regular starter in their team. Forget Omari Hutchinson-style stuff, Ethan goes on to be a regular at that horrible football club and we would have to sit here and watch it all unfold.

Now, of course, I could just be getting a little too irrational for a Sunday morning. This could all be agent posturing to get the best deal for his client and if Arsenal sign Ethan up with a big fat contract soon, then I’m not fussed. But with all the rumblings talking about how this Madueke stuff is advancing, it’s just giving me the jitters.

There’s also the fact that we’re rummaging around in Chelsea’s bins again. That is more of an inconvenience than anything else, but I don’t like the fact that by getting anywhere near their farcical £50million valuation, we’d be giving them an option to flip a profit on a layer. That club buys attacker after attacker and yet they never seem to pay the price; if this deal is going through I really hope it’s one that we don’t pay over the odds for. And for me, over the odds is anything over about £35million. He looks like a £30million player to me, TransferMarkt has him as €40million (£34,5million) player and so unless Arsenal are getting close to that figure, I don’t think we should even be sniffing at him.

I’ve spoken to a Chelsea season ticket holder at work. He says he loves looking at himself on the big screen, you can tell within five minutes if he can be arsed to play and he thinks it’s normally 50/50 based on whether he’s up for it or not. There’s also rumours of attitude problems – as evidenced here when he was accused by Maresca of a lack of effort in training – and for me I am wondering why Arteta is thinking that he needs this guy when he really doesn’t sound like the sort of character that Arteta would want in his dressing room.

So we’ve got a guy over-priced, a guy with rumoured attitude problems, a potential blocker for Nwaneri’s path, plus somebody who would be a back up option for £45million+. Can anybody explain to me in what world this makes sense?

Why not just take that money and plough it in to a Rodrygo or Eze deal, because I don’t think if we sign Madueke, we’ll be getting both of those players. Maybe we go for Eze because he’s slightly different in terms of his position and potential role in the squad, but Rodrygo?

No. Thank. You.

Of course if this progresses, if he signs, he will get my support as all Arsenal players do. But if it happens, I don’t see a world in which this is a complete success of a transfer, for all of the reaason’s I’ve listed above. Incidentally, TransferMarkt has Nwaneri down as  €55million market value, the same as Martinelli as well. It’s always a little up and down, is TransferMarkt, but it’s a good gauge of overall player value. And I’m not seeing the value in this deal at all. Not when we have perfectly capable players who can play in wide positions already at the club.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today, as I’m going to do a spot of bowling I think. Take my mind off dodgy transfers for a bit.

Catch you all tomorrow.

But today is another day and I suspect we will finally get that announcement. The chain of events will probably be an Arsenal and Sociedad jointly timed announcement, perhaps from the La Real side with the player saying some kind of goodbye message posted on some socials at some stage thereafter I suspect. I doubt it will be as amazing and heartfelt as the one that Jurrien Timber posted on the Ajax site when he left, but I’m sure it will be one that expresses gratitude and love for his boyhood club.

For us, we’re getting ourselves somebody who is an interceptor, a ball winner and who was in the 92nd percentage quartile of La Liga players last season for clearances. At five foot 11 he’s not the tallest guy in the world, but I was surprised to learn that he’s in the 85th percentage of players in the league who won aerial duels. He’s a man who loves a challenge, loves to be at the heart of the build up of moves and will look to play progressive passing football through lines from deep. I’m not sure whether I’ve seen enough of him to know if he’s a quarter back though; so I don’t know if we’re going to get somebody playing long diags to the likes of Martinelli or Saka from deep to spring quick traps on opponents, but we will get somebody who will look forward at every opportunity. This is no Denilson-style crab master; Zubimendi is somebody always looking forward and always looking to get the ball into that space in between the midfield and defence of opponents.

I think Martin Odegaard is going to love him.

Last season we saw Odegaard picking the ball up a little deeper at times and I think that takes him away from where he does the most damage. Odegaard in between the midfield and defence of whoever we are playing is where I think he can do real damage. Think about the goal towards the end of the season against Bournemouth; Odegaard popped up in between their lines, he reverse-passed it to a diagonally-running Rice, who ironically took it beyond Kepa and then slot it home. Now imagine what it might mean if Odegaard is given specific instructions to occupy those positions more, because Zubimendi is going to be looking for him. That’s what I think (and hope) we’re going to get from our incoming Spanish international. There’s also the small matter of them having played together whilst Odegaard was on loan.

Don’t get me wrong, the clearances, interceptions, duels won, etc are all important. If we know anything about Arteta he gets upset when he loses a duel! So we know that the defensive side of his game will be important. But I think this move is Arteta’s way of trying to speed us up through the park this coming season. Partey was a master at receiving the ball, quickly turning from his man and then shuffling out into space so he could release it, but I felt at times he spent a little too long getting the ball moving. Towards the end of the season especially, we saw one or two too many touches and I think that contributed to the general feeling amongst the fanbase that we were too slow in build up. It was all too methodical and sometimes we needed to go from back to front more quickly. My hope is that this signing will allow us to do that more from deep and if it means we aren’t seeing Odegaard pick the ball up and travelling with it from halfway inside our box (because he’s already on the halfway line when the ball turns over) then I think all of us will be a little happier.

There’s a lot of talk about the striker this summer and I get it, I want that guy in too and soon. But I suspect the reason this work on Zubimendi got done so early, the reason that they were courting him for the last year and even more so from this winter just gone, was because I think Arteta views getting the right player in this position was his most important move for the way we want to play next season. It probably helps that Arteta knows that position so well too; he will know exactly what he needs in that role and by getting his man, his first choice, he has an exact idea as to how he’s going to deploy him.

I do think Arteta wanted to keep Partey, but I think (and I suspect most Arsenal fans do too) that the idea was for Arsenal not to become reliant on the Ghanaian and to have him serve an additional year as the Jorginho guy. Partey not wanting to do that (which I suspect is why he asked for more money just in dcase that was the situation i.e. at least he gets a big wage whilst sitting on the bench) has resulted in the Norgaard signing, which will of course probably be announced tomorrow I suspect.

Which will conclude a heck of a week of activity for The Arsenal. Feast or famine, eh?

Catch you all tomorrow

Of course the reality was always going to be that the club would start to making moves as soon as July 1st came around. We needed to start the ball rolling, clearly this deal had been done last week and the club were able to formally announce the agreement on 1st July as the market opens and player sales start to move.

Kepa The ‘Keeper is a Gooner.

Back up: Tick.

And, in somewhat of an aesthetic little pleasure for me personally, he’s also got himself a proper reserve ‘keeper number too. Ooooh I like that. There’s so much of football these days that has lost it’s tradition, that having something that reminds you of the good ol’ days when goalies wore one, the reserve ‘keeper had 13 and your full backs wore two and three, send an irrational wave of joy through my body yesterday when it was announced.

This is a good deal for all involved, except Chelsea, which is also good. Chelsea get just £5million for a guy who was number one at an impressive Bournemouth last season, who I’d imagine they’d want at least between £10 – £15million from Bournemouth if they wanted to sign him permanently, but because of the release clause in his contract, is going for just £5million. That money, in today’s market, is superb work for a guy who will probably only start half a dozen games next season. I just did a quick check on the Bank of England Calculator for what £3million in 2014 is worth in today’s money. In 2014 we signed Ospina from Nice for that figure and the value of that in today’s market comes out at £4.15million. So we’re basically playing a little over what we paid for Ospina back in the day. No problem with that at all. If we get through, let’s say three rounds of the League Cup and have the same in the FA Cup, then maybe a Champions League dead rubber (fingers crossed) come next year, he’s probably only looking at six to ten matches, maximum. So this is brilliant. The loan deal for Neto last year was, frankly, a bit bonkers because we couldn’t play him in the League Cup and when the FA Cup came around we got yet another tough game at home to United (on paper, anyway), so Raya had to play. But I think if that same match comes along again, Arteta is happy to give Kepa the cup games and I think that is the right thing to do. He’s also a guy who has enough experience under his belt and was impressive enough last season, that his past under Chelsea when he used to throw things in the net, is hopefully behind him.

Back then when he was signed for Chelsea for £71million in 2018 he was a 23-year-old lad (a baby for a goalie) who was simply Nicolas Pepe’d; all people talked about was his price tag because Bilbao played hard ball on the release fee back then. Chelsea were desperate and they needed to make a statement signing after being snubbed by Alisson, so they went for a young guy who had plenty of year’s ahead of him but not a lot of experience; before Bilbao sold him he’d played just 54 times for them across a couple of season’s as a 21 and 22-year old. So Chelsea did what Chelsea do (and continue to do today) – chucked a shedload of money at the problem just to get it done.

Kepa was never a £71million ‘keeper and probably should have gone for about a third of that.

But that’s water under the bridge. Because now he has found himself to be a very capable goalie that we have locked in for at least this season. He will back himself to try to force his way ahead of Raya, which is what you want, then maybe next summer or the summer after if he hasn’t managed to do that, we can move him on for probably about the same money as we’ve brought him. Smart move from Arsenal.

But now you’ve whet our appetite, Arsenal, so we want more. I think most of us are guessing that comes in the shape of Zubimendi and if that deal can be announced today, then that’ll feel good too, because it means another one in the bag. Before then, however, I suspect the club will announce the Thomas Partey departure, but I suspect the way it’ll be managed in the media is you do that and then give it an hour or two before giving the good news on Zubi. That’s how I’d let it play out personally anyway. I wonder if the club with take the five jersey from Partey and hand it straight to the Spaniard? He wore four for Sociedad, three before then, but he’s also worn six, 18 and five for Spain. So my gut feel is that – in the most obvious and visual demonstration that he is Partey’s replacement – he will adopt the same number as the Ghanaian had.

Of course the club also have Norgaard coming in and perhaps there’s been chat’s between the club and the two players? Because KT’s departure means number three is free, so perhaps Zubimendi takes three and Norgaard can have five?

I guess none of this really matters, but it’s fun to have a little speculation in the absence of any real news. We all know the important thing is delivering on the pitch.

Apart from the Kepa news, which I think timing makes sense because it means he doesn’t get glossed over as an announcement by a bigger name coming in before him, there’s not really a lot else going on. I suspect it’s because they will be knocking down signings one by one and if I’m managing the announcements, I’m building up to them in order of importance. So that might even mean that Norgaard goes first. He’s the Jorginho replacement and rotation option, so do that one next, before making a big announcement towards the end of the week on the big one in Zubimendi. Let’s see if that’s the case.

Back tomorrow with musings.

I think a lot of fans, despite seeing some of our rivals do some initial deals, have been somewhat serene on the signings situation. But for me today is the point where my nerves start to kick in. I get that today is when contracts expire, it’ll be when Arsenal announce Zubimendi (or tomorrow if they’re really teasing us), so in essence the business will start to kick in. But what we’ve had in June is plenty of “make strides towards” stuff from the ITKs, with not a lot of actual ACTION happening.

My hope is that Arsenal have everything lined up to go on a number of fronts and those dominoes will fall one after the other. So Zubimendi, then Kepa, then Norgaard, all coming in relatively swiftly. These are all the easy deals to do and I even saw one of the head people over at Brentford admitting that it’s a great opportunity to join Arsenal that Norgaard has, so that one feels like it’s pretty much sewn up. So these ‘low hanging fruit’ signings need to happen asap really. Not because we are all transfer-starved fiends who demand shiny new things to look at, but because we have genuine need for these signings to replace departed players.

With Neto returning to Bournemouth, Kepa’s arrival is the replacement.

With Jorginho having been released early to join Flamengo we have Norgaard as the replacement.

With Partey’s contract expiring today we have Zubimendi announced as his replacement.

We also have Sterling returning to Chelsea to sit in the barren wasteland that is their reserves, stocked full of expensive talent on big contracts that they aren’t using because they chase EVERY shiny new thing, so there is a replacement there that needs to be filled.

We all know about the need for a striker, needed because we had to do it last summer and in January, but also because Gabriel Jesus is probably cooked as a top flight footballer when he returns towards the end of the year.

So action is the name of the game, because as it stands, as I write this, technically speaking we are weaker with the current team than the one that ended the season. We all expect that to change, but every day that deals aren’t official, are days in which players can’t be getting more embedded with their new teammates. And as we’ve seen with the disruption of the World Cup and Euro’s years, not having a proper pre season under your belt can make a big difference to the start of the season and building up that momentum.

Of course the longer term deals – like this current striker hunt – might not be done too quickly, but I suspect Arteta will be pretty peeved if he hasn’t got the bulk of his team in for when they go on pre season tour towards the latter part of this month. That, again, is a great opportunity for embedding players and so having this situation where we still don’t know who might be leading the line next season (wink wink, we all know it’ll be Havertz to start off with, at least) will not be the kind of preparation Arteta will want. We all know that this is a man of intense and precise detail; having a striker rocking up on 1st August is not going to be something he will be happy about.

It’s a little different with the wide forward, with Eze the current name linked in the press over the last 48 hours or so, as we already have Martinelli and Trossard who occupy those positions. Both are well-versed in our style of play, I’d be happy with seeing either start the season, but Eze isn’t always a left winger as it is. So I’m not 100% sure how somebody like that fits in. Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be a good addition and certainly adds something, but are you spending £65million for somebody to be a rotation and ‘x-factor’ player who can come off the bench? Doesn’t feel like it to me. Let’s also not discount Nwaneri either. He played in Saka’s role on the right when he was injured, but this kid is good enough to play wide left, as well as centrally, so I do think we need to be mindful of that when thinking about players like Eze. Nwaneri will be even better than he was last season and if that means he goes north of ten goals next season, then we’ve got a perfectly good understudy who will get game time and give us more of the end product we’ve been craving.

Perhaps it’s just Arsenal and Berta exploring as many options and different ways of playing as possible. Either way, I don’t see it as an immediate priority, because first we replace the players who have exited, then we address most pressing concerns (striker), then we look for that wide forward.

That’s all from me today. Hopefully tomorrow we’re talking about at least one confirmation of an arrival at the club.

I wrote it on social media and that’s a commitment to print in this day and age, but on Friday last week I said that every time I go to Portugal over the summer, we sign somebody. I was here when we signed Rice, I was sat at my folks’ gaff when we announced Fabio Vieira, I was Algarve-stationed when the Tomiyasu deal happened. I could even go far back enough to tell you that we got Mertesacker when I was in Tavira that August all those years back. So I’ve been confident that we’ll get something over the line.

If I’m honest, however, I thought it would be Kepa. That deal is basically done and unlike Zubimendi’s deal being delayed at the request of Sociedad, Chelsea have no real issues about us announcing it. So I thought that would be the ‘low-hanging fruit’ transfer that would go through. So to see that it’ll be another player and one from completely left-field, I’m kind of glad that my powers remain in tact.

The player himself is a smart move for the club; they clearly wanted to tie Partey down for at least one more year, but the Ghanaian wants more money and a longer-term deal by the sounds of it. Arsenal are right to walk away. His injury record is such that you know that no sooner would the ink be dry on that contract, that he’d be treatment table bound, so finding somebody else to plug the whole in the squad is a sensible move.

And this move feels very Jorginho-like to me. experienced, good pro, has picked up a few knocks this season and last season but his overall injury record is much better than Partey’s has been over the last five years. He will know his place as the back up to Zubimendi and that won’t rock the boat. At 31-years-of-age he brings a wealth of experience and he is ‘prem ready’, but not only that, he’s the captain of Brentford at the moment. So on the pitch we have somebody who is a leader and will bring that experience to the table. We’ve just lost two 30-somethings from our squad and Norgaard brings that maturity and experience to what is still a relatively young squad overall. We may not have liked the deal, but Sterling was apparently fantastic for the younger players. Jorginho was too, so we have been missing some of that older head wisdom that this signing fills.

He’s also not going to break the bank on wages. The rumours are that he’s on roughly £40k-per-week. Arsenal will clearly give him a bump and so let’s just say we offer him a deal like Jorginho’s; that’s going to be two years long and let’s just call it something like £60k. That is £3.1million a year. So if Brentford get £11million they have a fair bit of cash for a 31-year-old that they can re-invest. The player gets a bump up in salary, the chance to get minutes in a team towards the top of the league who are also in the Champions League that he will inevitably play in. And Arsenal pay £17.2million over a two year deal, with probably the option to activate and additional ‘plus one’ on the contract length. If you think that Partey probably wanted a bump on his £200k-per-week to, say, £250k-per-week, then you can see why this is a better deal for all involved. £250k-per-week is £13million a year. If Arsenal caved and gave him a two year deal, you’re sinking in £26million into a player whose off-the-field stuff leaves an unpalatable taste in the metaphorical mouth, but who on the pitch is not going to suddenly become indestructible. It would have been a bad deal for everyone except Partey. The Norgaard deal represents the total opposite.

From a player perspective, this will obviously not be the same as a Partey or a Jorginho-type signing. Norgaard is your more traditional defensive midfielder; he’ll be the one to anchor the base of midfield and break up play. He won’t be seen as a progressive passer, but maybe that’s just because he wasn’t asked to do that under Frank? I for one didn’t think Jorginho would be as progressive a passer as he turned out to be and my Chelsea workmate told me he’s a bit of a crab-sideways passer. That’s not what we saw and maybe Norgaard – when given more licence to be forward-thinking in a side who dominates the ball for most of their games – maybe we might see him be more progressive?

We don’t know, but we do know that this deal is progressing rapidly and that appears to be the clubs first move into the market. Maybe that’s the one that starts the ball rolling on our business this summer. I think we all have to hope so.

Still, at least it gives me the opportunity to be hysterical about tomorrow, so there is that.

Of course there is the ‘leaks’ that you get access to and I’ve seen some of those. By the time you read this you’ll already know, but it sounds like another tough start for us. I’ll elaborate with thoughts tomorrow, but United away on the opening day won’t be easy – they won’t be bogged down by the poor season last season, we have a terrible record there historically (one win in the league going back about 15 years I think – will double check for tomorrow), so it’s not one to be taking for granted. Liverpool away a couple of games later and as Charlie who I follow on Twitter said – if you think these fixtures are random then you’re a silly Billy (or word to that effect).

So in lieu of me being able to talk about fixtures, shall we delve back into the murky waters of transfer tittle-tattle?

Thomas Partey

The noises are that he has rejected a contract offer from The Arsenal because he wants a pay rise. Interesting. I saw a couple of week’s back an offer from Barca might be incoming, but they aren’t in the habit of increasing wage offers to players; they love nothing more than getting players to drop their wages to play for them, so I can’t see that happening. My only thought on this one is that he must be getting some sizeable numbers passed his way from Saudi Arabia. He has said previously he’s happy at The Arsenal, Arteta has said he wants to keep him, but I guess at 31 if somebody comes in and offers you a two-year deal that doubles your money, you take it.

Partey is a contentious player for a number of reasons. I am not going to go into the rumoured off the field stuff, which needs to be a consideration in itself for whether to renew his contract, but on the field too he has never really delivered consistently. That’s because his body constantly let him down and having spent five years at The Arsenal now, the fact that just two of those five have felt like he has been fit an able to contribute, should be cause enough for concern. We can’t have him signed up for another year in the hope he would stay fit, because invariably he’d end up injured for most of it. The club are clearly moving on from him anyway with the expected and impending deal for Zubimendi, but this decision of Partey’s – if it turns out to be true – does mean that we will have to think twice about our options. Sure, Rice can play in the six as well as Zubimendi, but we saw last season that he’s best in that left eight role and whilst Merino can play the left eight, as well as Kai at a push, I think we will still need another body in there for cover. Maybe that’s MLS, but he’s got left back locked down right now, so do we really want to be making our squad smaller by not finding a replacement if Partey leaves at the end of his contract in just over a week’s time? 

I don’t like the sound of the Jorginho may not have been used much last season, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need a body. Is there an experienced centre midfielder who would be happy to play the rotation option, who has Premier League experience, that we could have a look at? I see Doucourre has left Everton, although he’s not as much of a ‘anchor the defence’ player – I also think I heard he might be off to Saudi for big cash too. So maybe a bit more work will be needed to be done by the Arsenal transfer team than they first thought.

Benjamin Sesko

I saw an interesting article on Sky Sports yesterday, talking about how Sesko won’t force a move from Leipzig and that Leipzig want between €80 – €100million for his signature. If it’s getting close to the €100million mark, you can see why Arsenal haven’t pulled the trigger, despite him seemingly being their first choice. If there was a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ in place to let him leave, it does make me wonder why these agents and players do these things. Apparent Gyokeres is pretty pissed off with the Sporting Lisbon president for the same reason. I mean, come on now guys, have you learned nothing from all of football transfer history? Forget the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ and focus on release clauses. And make sure they aren’t astronomical like in Spain. 

If Sesko is desperate for the move, however, then I think he’ll be putting pressure on Leipzig to get it done. And done at a fair market price. According to TranfsferMarkt that value is €70million, which is around £60million. I think if Arsenal go to them with a solid £65million (€76million) then that is more than acceptable. If Leipzig are messing around, then you can understand why Arsenal are still in dialogue with not just Gyokeres, but also Watkins too. And if both clubs keep messing around, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that the Watkins deal is back on the table this time next week.

But what this does at least give us an insight in to, is that Arsenal aren’t just ‘dallying’. They might be getting messed around by these clubs who keep changing their stance. We just don’t know. All we know is that it’s mid-June and there appears to be little movement and that causes – rightly, because I feel it too – angst amongst the Arsenal fanbase. But perversely, I did find that Sky Sports article giving a crumb of comfort, when I read it. We’ve praised Arsenal for being able to quickly pivot in the past (Mudryk/Trossard, Caicedo/Jorginho) and how they stick to their guns. If they’re doing it now, we can’t criticise too much I don’t think. 

Having said that, come back to me on 1st July and let’s see how I’m feeling.

Right, better get this out the door before the fixtures do come out and make me look like a wally for believing somebody on the internet.

Catch you all tomorrow.

We’ve received some money for Tavares already – around £6million if the rumours are true – which doesn’t quite recoup what we paid, but if he does go to Saudi Arabia for £30million then it’ll have turned into a profitable exercise, because we get around a third of it at circa £10million. So that sets us off for this summer. Marquinhos was a couple of million quid with a sell-on clause. If Zinchenko does have an official bid launched for him for AC Milan, I think that deal gets done pretty easily, to be honest with you. He’s fallen down the pecking order at Arsenal, he barely got any game time and we have tanked his value by Arteta not using him. The arrival of MLS was a welcome one for us, for sure, but Arteta’s refusal to give him minutes in midfield until right at the end of last season means that clubs can now come to us and say that a player who has barely played isn’t worth top dollar.

If the noises are circa £12million (I’ve seen €15million quoted as our price) then I think everyone just has to get on with it. Zinchenko would thrive in a slower league like Milan, we get a bit of a bump to our coffers, MIlan get a player who can still add tons of value to their side. If that gets done for that value, then we’re looking at coming close to around £30million in the pot.

I suspect that we’ll try to find a home for Sambi Lokonga, but we won’t get much cash for him. He had some injury problems last season with Sevilla and as a result they’re not exercising his loan option. IF they’re not willing to do that, then I think we’ll be lucky to get £10million for him. If we say it’ll be circa £5million as a conservative estimate, then we’re looking at bumping our cash to around the £35million mark. That’s a Fabio Vieira-sized signing and that’s about it. I think we’re already starting to see that there isn’t going to be a Hale End exit windfall that we’ll not be able to take advantage of like last summer I suspect. We might get some offers for Vieira himself, but it won’t be near the £35million we paid. If we got half of that I suspect Arsenal might take it. For the purposes of this game let’s go conservative again and say £15million. Now we’re up to £50million.

The other name doing the rounds is Jakub Kiwior, who is also rumoured to be interesting Italian clubs and, specifically, Milan. Now this one might be the one that brings in proper cash. He’s just come off the back of an impressive end to the season, he’ll have been seen by a lot of clubs in that Champions League run and, frankly, we shouldn’t be looking to be forced to sell. That strengthens your hand and with that in mind, Arsenal need to be telling any potential suitors that Kiwior can be theirs, but only for a princely sum. We paid around £20million for his services and I definitely think his value has gone up based on last season, so if Italian clubs want him, we need to be asking for north of £30million. If he asks Arteta to go so he can play regular game time, I think we let that happen at around £35million and we’re up to £85million in sales.

It’s not a bad haul for a collective of players – Kiwior aside – that we’re not really using any more, but it’s hardly amazing, especially given all the talk of what we’re looking to invest this summer. Zubimendi is arriving for £51million, Leipzig want £59.5million (ish – when you do the Euro conversion) for Sesko, then if Partey goes we’re gonna need a new central midfielder. If MLS is earmarked for that spot maybe he gets moved forward and you can see why we’re in for Hato, but that feels like a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. Hato has also been quoted at £40million and so if that were to happen as well as Sesko at that price, suddenly Arsenal have spent £150million whilst recouping £85million back, giving you a net spend £65million. That’s not too bad and certainly if you factor in contract renewals it feels do-able, but when you start to do that ‘back-of-a-fag-packet’ type maths, you see why Arsenal are a little more concerned with not being ripped off on their striker choice. I’m not saying we do this, but you can see why they’re keeping their options open for Watkins, because if you can get him for £30million instead of £60million for Sesko or Gyokeres, suddenly you’re looking at a net spend of around the £35million, having been pretty neutral last summer and not having spent in the January window just gone.

There’s still lots to do, the window officially opens again today, so let’s see how this week plays out.

Catch you all tomorrow.

A boring 0-0 draw.

I didn’t watch it, but Sky Sports thrust it into my eye-line on their website this morning with a match review, whose highlights included “Messi hit the die netting with a free kick”. Honestly, I hope this tournament is as boring as possible and that FIFA are put off from ever doing something like this again.

They won’t. They’ll be back again as long as there’s a Saudi bankrolling them somewhere. Gianni Infantino gets his stage, he gets his money, FIFA line their pockets. Night follows day.

In the Arsenal world, it’s all still about Gyokeres or Sesko and I think even the ITKs are running out of ‘angles’. I’ve seen some suggest (fans, not ITKs) that we should go for both players, but honestly, I couldn’t see that happening in a billion years. Why would we do that? We have Havertz who we’ve all heard everyone at the club loves, he’s beefed himself up whilst injured and was a guy on form before his injury. He’ll be the one kicking off our season regardless of who we sign I think, so the idea that we’d go and buy two centre forwards when we clearly need to strengthen in other positions, feels a bit mental to me. And we leave that to those muppets in West London who play in blue.

I do wonder if this situation with these two players is making things worse for decision making though. I saw a few articles yesterday and this morning suggesting Gyokeres’ first choice is The Arsenal and he’s waiting to see what happens with us before deciding anything else. That sounds lovely and sure, it’s good to know we have a player waiting for us, but eventually Arsenal have to step over the line with one of them. It’s starting to feel a little like we have two lovely chocolate cakes and we can’t pick between the two, so we just keep staring at both of them, resulting in us not having any of the delicious cake.

Just pick one of the delicious cakes, Arsenal. Stop staring at them both. They’re both lovely. You’ll be very happy in the tasting of both cakes.

There was something I saw yesterday about Zubimendi’s medical booked for Wednesday, but at this stage it’s essentially the worst kept secret and I’m kind of a bit ‘meh’ about those stories because we already know it’s happening. I’ll be excited to see him in the shirt unveiling, but stories about medicals ‘booked’ don’t butter my muffins.

I have no idea what is with my food-based metaphors today.

It will be a big signing though. It’s weird, you probably won’t believe me, but I was kinda sad last summer when it looked like he was going to Liverpool. We had Rice and Partey sitting at the base, but Zubimendi was a player I thought “he’d be a good signing for us. I’d like him”. I also think that his signing for Liverpool made me very nervous in terms of how he would bring a level of quality to Liverpool’s midfield that would take them up a notch. Now, with him on the verge of signing for us, I have seen videos doing ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of him, how he might not be as physically ready for the Premier League and I can’t help but think that I never had that thought in my mind when he was signing for Liverpool last summer. It’s funny how when you’re looking over at somebody else’s garden, you automatically think the grass is greener and everything is perfect. It’s the same with the Wirtz signing. Great player, he’s going to be good for them we all know, but because of the fee I find myself thinking they are suddenly going to have all of their issues solved. Ultimately if they have Salah go down injured, or even if he just doesn’t run as hot as last season, then Liverpool won’t get things their own way all the time as they did last season. Even with Wirtz. But as champions, having just come off the back of walking the league, spending pretty big already, everyone is looking at them and automatically projecting more glory. All I’ll say is “we’ll see”.

Anyhoo, to more serious news, which is that it was a year ago today that we lost Kevin Campbell, who died at the age of 54 years old. On this Father’s Day here in England, I am thinking about his family and children who lost a husband and a dad at an age in life that you really shouldn’t be losing your life. He was such a loveable character, I know lots of Arsenal fans who knew him and said he was the loveliest man. I never met him, but I have read and heard plenty of positive stories about him and how he impacted people’s lives so positively. Rest in Peace, big man.

Catch you all tomorrow.

All I keep seeing when I log in to sports sites is:

Gyokeres’ agent and Arsenal still talking

or

Sesko bid is imminent

or

Arsenal still waiting on Zubimendi announcement

Or, like yesterday, we got:

Nico Williams speaking to Barcelona – Arsenal still interested.

We’re now getting to the halfway point in the month and whilst we’re still early in the window, it is starting to feel a little like we’re messing around a bit. Make your decision, pull the trigger, move on. I get what David Ornstein was saying recently (reported by those aggregator sites on social media) with regards to there being so many different factors involved in a transfer (he cited off the pitch, on the pitch, football style, financial package to the club, to the player, etc) but it’s not like transfers haven’t always happened. It’s not like we haven’t turned around deals within 24 – 48 hours before, is it?

It just strikes me that we just need to get on with making official moves now. I have already stated my preference, but in reality I just want us to get one of the previously mentioned players in so we can start looking forward and planning for life with them in the squad and for pre season. I am, of course, talking about the striker situation, but the big noises from yesterday were for Nico Williams. Those noises were all around him wanting to join Barcelona from Atletico Bilbao, that Barca had opened talks with his representatives and Bilbao, that they are looking at how they can make this deal happen.

There are so many things to say about this development. Firstly, let’s start with Barca, who even at January this year were not able to play their own signing Dani Olmo, because of their financial troubles. They’ve had to sell box rights, they’ve whacked Spotify over everything to get some money in and are constantly having to pull some kind of financial ‘lever’ to do some kind of deal. How on earth are they going to justify another signing like this one?

I guess the fee isn’t that big – £49million – it’s the wages that are an issue. But frustratingly for that club, they always seem to be able to get players to drop their kecks and join them on reduced wages, so I suspect that’s how they’ll get that deal done. Supposedly his current deal at Bilbao is £170k-per-week (can’t always trust these sources as salary data is always hard to find) and the noises from some corners are that he’s looking at Bayern too if they pay him between £322k-to-£400k-per week. I’m sorry, but even if that is half true and he wants even £250k-per-week, I’d have to question it as a deal in its own right. Again, if you think that there is a rough estimation that Saka is on £195k-per-week, paying this guy anything more than Starboy is just batshit mental. Saka bagged 12 goals and 14 assists last season, having spent a third of it injured, in our league and he’s a proven star in England and the world. Williams has looked amazing for Spain, sure, but last season for Bilbao with an extra 500+ minutes of playing time than Saka, he managed 11 goals and 7 games. He’s a good player is Williams, I’d like it if we signed him but there’s no way we should be held to ransom on wages for this guy. I get that Arteta supposedly loves him, but this deal to me has always felt a little fishy and I hope that our eyes are more focused elsewhere.

I like the look of Rodrygo and I think that sounds like an interesting one. I like the look of Leao of AC Milan. I like Anthony Gordon from Newcastle, although they’d probably want a princely sum. It’s a shame we’re not in for Gittens, because that might be a decent punt to compete with Martinelli. Or how about Semenyo from Bournemouth? We could look at Morgan Rogers, who is a pretty decent dribbler, although that again might prove to be costly, because Villa aren’t going to let him go on the cheap. I guess my point is that there are other options out there and that Arsenal shouldn’t really be focusing their efforts on somebody who clearly is going to end up at that crazy football club Barcelona.

To be fair to Arsenal, I think they’ve seen this Rodrygo situation begin to unfold and I think they’re playing the waiting game on him. He’s a guy who clearly there are question marks over because he’s openly said he wants to play on the left and, as we all know, his path is most certainly blocked in that regard so Arsenal can offer him what he wants. The numbers might be a little beyond what we ideally want – TransferMarkt has him valued at €90million – but we’ve been able to do deals with Madrid before and not pay full market price, so maybe if this becomes a goer we can look at getting him for closer to €80million, which would be £68million and certainly a very decent deal for us. Again, he’d probably want mega cash and is currently on just over £200k-per-week, so we’d probs have to bump him up to £250k-per-week, but if this is a special talent that you think is going to move the needle in attack, then you do the deal.

But we shouldn’t get hung up on just him. As I’ve already shown with some names off the top of my head, there are other options out there. We just need to be decisive and go for it. As I said when I started today’s blog, we should just make our decisions and go for it. Don’t fanny around Arsenal, we want to give ourselves the best possible start by having that good pre season with our players all bedded in.

Hopefully this weekend brings some breakthrough news. Fingers crossed.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Arsenal fans getting pulled from pillar-to-post over certain players and situations?

And of course it’s related to the The Great Striker Hunt of 2025. Which is an evolution of The Great Striker Hunt of 2024. It’s a bit like Home Alone 2; they’ve essentially taken the first iteration and gone again but in a different setting. The only difference is that this time the first one surely can’t be better than the second time around, right? I mean, last summer was essentially a fail for the attacker we needed, ending up with a duffer wide-forward who was past his prime. Can it get any worse than that??

Can it?

Can you tell that the first signs of fear are creeping in to my psyche? The first moments in which you think “ok, this feels like it’s starting to drag a bit guys”. I think some of that is predicated on the fact that because of the pointless FIFA club competition about to kick off, teams have been scrabbling around trying to get deals done super early. Man City have properly gone for it, Chelsea have done what they do under Boehly and spend already, then Liverpool look to be sorting out Wirtz and apparently Barcola is next on their radar. Yet for us there’s not a peep. Which adds to a heightened sense of panic. But I will acknowledge the wise words of a certain Mr Tim Stillman today, as I read on his BlueSky account yesterday:

Probably happens less #here than #theotherplace but transfer head loss is so often powered by envy at what other teams are doing (or look like they’re doing) but so much of that is shaped by the fact that we don’t live transfer updates for other teams from day to day, which warps our perception.

— Tim Stillman (@tim-stillman.bsky.social) 11 June 2025 at 16:28

It’s a good point to note that because we are all so invested in what Arsenal are doing, we’re not really paying attention to what other corners of the internet are doing in terms of rival fans. City fans will be bouncing all over the place because transfers are a shot of adrenaline and they’ve been given repeated rounds both in January and June, but most other fans are probably in the same sense of apprehension over their situation as we are. Impatience is a burden we football fans all have to live with unfortunately.

And so to where we are at right now, which is apparently back in for Viktor Gyokeres, with certain ITKs now saying that his agent is currently talking to Arsenal. I’ve made my preference clear that I’d prefer Sesko, but if Gyokeres gets in through the doors of Colney, I certainly won’t be complaining. I therefore think what Arsenal doing is smart, providing we do at least get one of these guys, that is. Clubs often try to stir up interest to get the best deal for their players, often trying to incite a bidding war like West Ham did to us with City a couple of summers back. What Arsenal appear to be doing here by keeping their options open, is to show both Sporting and RB that we won’t be had over a barrel here; if you play silly buggers with us we’ll explore other options. It’s why I can understand the fact that the Watkins situation hasn’t gone away – if both RB and Sporting get silly, we’ll just walk away. Now, I don’t think any of us think that should be the preferred option this summer and I think you might be in agreement with me that it would be an underwhelming signing, but it shows – to me at least – that we are not a team to be messed around.

I would like us to make a move though, just to see what happens, rather than this constant noise of “having talks”. Whether it’s with player representatives or clubs, we need to just pull the trigger now I think, because that way we know whether either the German or Portuguese club are going to deal seriously with us. What does make me laugh, however, is the fact that you hear about Arsenal in talks with both clubs and talking through payment structures, then the next thing we know, we’ll have news on Sky Sports telling us a bid has been rejected!

What’s the bloody point in spending all that time talking payment structures and fees if you can’t just accept the first offer if you’ve basically already agreed it?!?

I guess that’s all part of the dance; everyone knows it. In one of my previous roles I used to get asked to give my Marketing budget requirements for the year. I realised pretty early on that at the halfway point in the year the Finance Director would come to me and say “we need you to lose 25% of your budget from this year please”, so I’d deliberately inflate my Marketing budget each year. It was this weird and silly dance that I think even the FD knew he had to do. But it didn’t stop it happening. Maybe it’s the same with transfers. Arsenal know the price, they bid under the price, because they know that the first bid will be rejected. Or they bid the asking price quoted, knowing that they might have to pay a lot more for the player than was originally asked. It’s the silly dance designed to make all parties feel like they got a better deal out of the situation.

Sesko, Gyokeres or Watkins though, it does feel like we need to move because time stands still for no man and we are already starting to hear noises from the likes of United, Saudi Arabia, etc. Make your decision, make your bid, begin the ‘end game’ on the transfer saga now, so we can have whoever it is ready for summer pre season.

Laters kids.