I don’t know about you, but I immediately put two and two together and made myself four. That sounds to me like Arsenal are gearing up for an exit of either Ethan or Myles, and after Myles’ performance in the Community Shield on Sunday, coupled with the fact he broke into the side in midfield and played in the Champions League final, I have a bad feeling we’re losing Ethan Nwaneri this summer.

That would make for sad times for me, because I think we’re missing a trick. I listened to the Arsecast Extra this morning on my run, and James and Andrew were talking about the situation with these two players. James’ point about Myles kind of forcing the hand and making him kind of unsellable by the way he’s played. Hey, that’s how all of us want Arsenal players to play, because if they’re all doing it, it makes for an amazing headache for Arteta, and it will almost invariably mean we’re winning football matches. But what is frustrating, I think, is how we seem to be prioritising the financial side over the football side. James and Andrew talked about the fact that both Zubimendi and Madueke, as examples, would not actually bank much cash in terms of the financial regulations, because their amortised values are still so high (i.e., the book value hasn’t been spread out over several years because they only signed last year). If that’s true, that the club is thinking about how they have to make this kind of ‘pure profit’ sale so they can give themselves headroom for other signings, it just makes me more frustrated about the Madueke deal last summer. He got eight goals and four assists from 43 appearances and 2,200+ minutes. In 2024/25, Ethan bagged – from the same position – nine goals and two assists in 37 appearances and 1,300+ minutes. Nearly 900 minutes less for Ethan, and he delivered one fewer goal/assist.

There’s nothing you can do about the past, this is all hindsight, but I’m just looking at the data, the two players, where they are at, and the fact that we wouldn’t bank much regulatory headroom for new signings because we decided that Ethan wasn’t a right winger (which I still don’t understand) and that Noni was a better output and outlay at £50million. I think Noni did alright for us last season; my issue isn’t personal to him. I just think we made what is perhaps not the right move there – to my very untrained eyes.

I guess we are where we are. But for me, if somebody gives me the option of not signing another player this summer, which means we keep Ethan but send him on loan next summer, I think I’d be ok with that. There are probably a few people who would choke at that, but I’m looking at what all of the pundits are saying with their predictions, and most are saying we should be favourites for the Premier League title by a mile. Now, last season, because Liverpool spent the GDP of a small island on players, everyone had them down to walk the league. And for the first five games, they won all of them (including against us) and Liverpool fans in particular were already booking days off after the season had ended for a blinder of a bender in Liverpool. But it didn’t pan out like that. So I understand that you can’t hang your hat on pundits’ predictions, but I think pundits got too hung up on the transfer business, and not enough on some of the other factors that impacted Liverpool’s position as defending champions. Slot had ridden the crest of the Salah and Van Dijk wave; at their ages, the age curve was always going to hit. They also picked up injuries – like everyone else did last season – and found out that Slot’s “injuries are excuses for losers” chuntering on from the season before was suddenly a crutch they wanted to lean on. Plus, and I remember saying this multiple times in his first season, I just don’t think Slot was really that great from a tactical and man-management perspective. Why bring all of this up? Well, think about where Arsenal are now compared to where Liverpool were:

• Where are our ageing players who just had a blinding ‘season for all seasons’?
• Where is our litany of mega signings that are going to over-index our ability to walk this league?
• Where was our season of having barely any injuries last season?

None of the above applies to us going into this season. On top of that, there are a host of new managers who are unknown quantities. One or two might end up being the second coming of Fergie or Wenger, but as of right now, there’s a lot more uncertainty on that front. We have the continuity manager, the settled squad, the team that everyone thinks is going to win the league. It doesn’t mean we will; things might conspire against us, but we’ve got a squad that is already championship-winning, plus we’ve added one of the best midfielders in the league and a Greek lad that many think might be the surprise package for the season. So yeah, when I think about it like that, I don’t want to roll the dice by exiting Ethan and using that money to fund a random left winger that could just end up being the left-side version of Madueke (i.e., good, but hardly massively needle-moving).

We’re in good shape. Let’s not blow it up by exiting one of our most promising youngsters.

So for all of that posturing about figures well north of £80million, that it’s going to have to be close to the near £100million the Scum paid for Tonali, it appears as though the fee is ‘relatively’ more reasonable for the player. It’s probably more than Arsenal would want to pay; the original links that came out made it sound more like £60million, and if you go by TransferMarkt, that’s his realistic value. But we know that in this window, this summer, those two utterly wretched clubs Man City and Chelsea have inflated the market with their grossly overpaid fees for players. And so I guess we were always going to overpay a little for this one.

It feels like – as Ornstein reported yesterday – we’re nearing ‘end game’ here and, frankly, I’m sure we’re all glad. Get it done, let’s have some pics by the weekend, maybe have him paraded at the Emirates for our friendly against Dortmund on Sunday, then let’s start to look seriously at what we do on that left wing position. Because by then, we should have an indication on the Vini Junior situation, for which I suspect it’ll end up being a renewal on better terms.

Certainly, if you listen to a few of the Madrista vloggers, like this John Terry-looking guy, they’re starting to get twitchy. The Madrid official social media accounts are doing their best to put their fans at ease though; Vini Junior interviews, “day in the life of training” clips, interviews on him talking about the new season, etc, etc. There’s two ways you can look at it; one is that they’re confident he will sign, or two is that they’re pumping out this content so that if it comes out he won’t sign a new deal, they can turn to their fans and give it the ol’ “we tried” narrative. That’s fair enough, although I suspect he will ultimately bow to the pressure no doubt being exerted on him and take the deal.

For Arsenal, that means getting the Bruno G deal over the line should result in Berta focusing the mind on who we can get instead of Vini Junior. Where’s plan B, C and D? That’s what I want to start hearing rumours of the second we hear that Vini Junior is staying. Let’s not have any protracted chase of him all summer. Madrid have supposedly said they want an answer this week, and I think Arsenal should push for that too. No deadline day shenanigans, please.

Speaking of shenanigans, how about those RB Leipzig jokers, eh? Just offloading Diomande for £100million, now they supposedly want Ethan Nwaneri for €40million. That article i’ve linked to also references the possibility of a buyback clause, which I’m sure we’d be fine with, but if Arsenal countenance selling him for €40million/£34million, I’d be pretty cheesed off, I have to say. Let’s remind ourselves that we had to pivot away from Sesko last summer because RB wanted too much. Well, this time the boot is on the other foot, motherf*****s, so pay up. And pay well. Or you can get in the bin.

As can, it appears, the Arsenal IT technical team, as the club has announced they are refunding everyone who bought a pre-season pass, following the technical difficulties on the website at the weekend. Eek. And in a move that may well cheese a lot of fans off, it doesn’t look like the Betis game in Dublin tonight will be televised either. man, I’d hate to be in the team that is trying to fix that mess. I suspect they’ll record the match and make it free to everyone tomorrow if they can’t get it working today, but if you’re going to the game tonight, you might be in one of those rare privileged positions to be watching a game that very few people can see live in the flesh. I guess that’s a little like how we used to feel when we had a 3pm kick-off on a Saturday. Very novel indeed.

I’ll be plenty of people are annoyed, but I can’t get too wound up about it, if I’m honest, because I don’t really watch these friendly games. I mean, I will if it’s on one of the many TV platforms I already pay for, but with a season ticket that also sets me back a grand, I’m not forking out over a tenner (or whatever it is) to watch pre-season matches. Sorry, that’s a ‘hard no’ from me.

The club has released some images of the players training, and I suspect we’ll get a bit more of a smattering of involvement from more of the first team regulars. I’m interested to find out how many minutes Ethan and Max get, but I also want to see (probably in hindsight after the game) what Kai’s looking like. Let’s not forget that he spent most of last season injured, plus half of the season before that out, so having him fit and firing for the new season is something I have everything crossed for.

Right, that’ll do me for today. I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully having been able to watch the highlights of the Betis game, for which we can all completely over-index the significance of. You have yourselves a good one.

Yes, there’s a game on today as Arsenal take on Girona, but you and I both know that isn’t the first thing that popped into your mind – was it?

Step forward our guy HandOfArsenal:

EXCL : Arsenal Football Club have personal terms agreed in principle with Vinicius Junior. Roc Nation will go armed into negotiations with Real Madrid with a monstrous offer from the English Champions…….over to you Vinicius Junior. Story W/ @MrArsenicTM

— HandofArsenal (@HandofArsenal) July 31, 2026

I swear, that guy IS Berta, right? Or maybe…..

I’ve got it – it’s his daughter Paola.

I’m using the homogenised version of ‘guy’ now….

How else would you get such scoops?

Anyway, that doesn’t matter, but what does matter is that alongside Ornstein, HandOfArsenal has proven themselves to be somebody who is pretty accurate with their intel, they clearly have approval of the club to do this, and they have delivered another side to the Vinicius Junior to Arsenal story that we didn’t know. A knew angle. Fresh #Content. Grade-A5 Kobe beef wagyu ribeye flavours delivered into our eyeballs courtesy of social media platforms. And naturally all of our Arsenal timelines blew up.

Of course, this means nothing, and is far from ‘a done deal’. But from the initial “that’s ambitious from Arsenal – love it” through to “well, it probably won’t happen”, then “ahh, shame, it definitely didn’t happen”, now to “Wait….is there an outside chance here?”

This is a potentially seismic change that could impact Arsenal Football Club in so many facets. And what we’re going through on this change curve varies with who yoiu are and where you are:

We got the Ornbomb last Saturday – shock.

I think most of us hit ‘denial’ on Sunday, as we realised it probably wouldn’t happen.

Then came the “Arsenal are only doing this because of the inactivity – FFS!” – frustration mode activated.

Getting bantered by rival fans as Sky Sports’ Jose Mourinho mouthpiece Gary Cotterill said “He will stay at Madrid” came out around Tuesday, I think – that was the depression.

Hand Of Arsenal last night shifted most of us back up that graph above.

Experiment? Is that the part with which we all start working out what our team will look like? How we’re going to function and drawing up First XIs using various lineup apps? If I speak, I am in trouble…

I guess the Decision part, as HandOfArsenal says in their tweet, is all on Vinicius Junior. Arsenal have done all they can. They’ve run the numbers, they’ve debated the impact, they will have considered how this affects squad composition, they’d have thought about what might be needed in terms of sales to be generated, there’s the other players and what that does to wage negotiations they’d have factored in – and all of this still points towards the most ambitious move in the history of the club. That’s not even hyperbole; this is a peak-age, top three footballer in the world. This is a brand that will instantly catapult Arsenal even further globally than they’ve ever been. KSE aren’t doing this because they found an extra £500million down the sofa; they know that a brand like Vini Junior’s could be a massive statement for their whole franchise. They know that it will make the world sit up and take note. And as the USA rides the crest of the World Cup wave (good to see that parasite Infantino has backed down on his FFE money-scheme now – if he can just ‘step down’ next, that would be great), KSE know that the right move now could mean big cash value added to their already huge asset in Arsenal Football Club.

Heck, I’m not knocking it, because we’ve been living in an age of people realising the importance of personal branding for at least the last 10 years. But right now, with image rights being at the centre of this whole discussion, I think we can see why Arsenal’s chances might just be up to about 40% of this actually happening. And even that feels mental compared to a week ago. KSE know this. Arsenal know this. Vini Junior and Roc Nation (his agency) know this. And most importantly, Real Madrid know this. Which is why it is a sticking point. Because Madrid knows the knock-on effect the outcome of these discussions could have. In the same way that Arsenal fans and the English media are speculating over Vini Junior’s potential arrival at The Arsenal, meaning big changes in terms of our wage structure, if he stays and Madrid give him what he wants (higher percentage of image rights), then they open the same Pandora’s box, but for image rights of their big names. Which is why we’re in this position right now. Arsenal have gone big, they’ve gone bold, they’ve gone hard.

And as Arsenal fans, you can’t knock it.

I also think that the fact we’re getting this sort of information is really good, because it shows a little more on the inner workings of these big transfers. Also, hopefully, if it doesn’t come off, we’ve all been given enough of a sneak peak into how this deal unfolded. So if it doesn’t happen for The Arsenal, we all know why – and it isn’t because of Arsenal. It will simply be that Real Madrid blinked, or maybe Vini Junior just decided he would blink and simply couldn’t leave them – which I understand.

The Spanish media mouthpiece of Real Madrid – Marca – are leading with ‘sign it or leave’ – and although that was from yesterday morning, I’ve seen a screengrab of the back page of Marca today which also leads with the same news lines – so this is clearly at a stage in which briefings are happening. And hey, he may still decide that he wants to stay, even on those Real Madrid terms that aren’t exactly what he wants. But if that happens, then you won’t hear me complaining about The Arsenal’s moves – they just need to know sooner or later so we can move on if needed.

Is there a downward bit to the change curve if that happens? Asking for a friend.

All jokes aside, whilst I have no problem with them bringing in elder statesmen like Henderson, we all love a bit of Welbz. Seeing him in the shirt of that reprehensible football club might sting a bit.

What we need is a bit of that good ol’fashioned transfer dopamine, but it doesn’t sound like it’s on the immediate horizon. And when it does come – possibly in the shape of Bruno G – we’ll have all been so saturated by the news and how it has rumbled on, that it doesn’t really ‘hit’ when it actually happens. I’m pretty sure every summer for the last five, maybe even ten, years I’ve written a blog like this. But that’s because every summer at some point it just feels like it. That time is now, and it’s with the Bruno G transfer, although I suspect the Vini Junior stuff might be the same if we don’t get some kind of black-and-white answer soon.

Supposedly that will happen this week. I think Arsenal just ned a call which goes something like “oh, ok, so you’re signing a new deal. Cool, we’ll move on”, or a Real Madrid WhatsApp sent to Berta saying “let’s start talking, because Vini Jr ain’t to us” type thing. Yesterday the news was that Real Madrid are looking at getting an answer one way or another this week. We all know how this works with these Spanish clubs; they set a deadline, the deadline is missed, they end up getting what they want anyway. I’m pretty sure it’s happened with a few of the Barca transfers, which is why I suspect Alvarez will end up there. Atleti say “no”, Barca set deadlines, but come August 31st, they’ll go back in and pay the money. It’s what just tends to happen.

John Stones was another one speculated on as a possible makeshift incoming whilst Saliba is out injured, but it looks like he’s off to Inter Milan, which makes a fair bit of sense. Slower league, less intensity, plus he’ll be more of a first-choice option than he would have at The Arsenal. The pitch to him from our side would have basically been “you’ve got until October mate, then it’s dead rubber Champions League, League Cup, or early-stages FA Cup games” – so I kind of get it.

It probably would have been higher wages anyway than we’d want to pay for a veteran England international who spends half the time on the treatment table. No, as I’ve said all along, we should not be looking at taking minutes off Mosquera. It’s time to give him the keys.

I do hope they are properly stress-testing both Timber and White’s robustness too. If both of those players even give us two-thirds or three-quarters of a season each, as long as they both aren’t out injured for the same period, then we have enough to cover. And besides, why not think Marli Salmon for some of those dead-rubber games, or League Cup, etc? He’ll be a year older; we all heard last season how the club rate him highly, so let’s have him in there as the third-choice understudy. I’d be cool with that.

I did read one rumour this morning which left a bit of sick in my mouth. Step forward, The Metro, with this abomination of a link to Christian Romero. Can you imagine? A complete nutcase, who isn’t even a great defender, is a walking yellow card, plays for ‘The Bad Guys’ of international football in Argentina, plus he has a really shit nickname – “Cuti”. Bleugh. Last night’s linguine feels like it’s coming back up to say hello.

Please – Richard Garlick, Mikel, Stan, Josh, and anyone who has anything to do with transfers – I beg you to not even countenance such a move. I can’t think of one Arsenal fan who would want this – even if he’s a third-choice option. The Scum probably wouldn’t sell to us anyway, but for £42million+? Give over.

I need a palate-cleanser after that. How about this interview with Szczesny saying that he’s still an Arsenal fan and loves The Arsenal. I know it’s in Polish, but you still get the gist. Why can’t we buy him off Barca for a couple of mil? They can have Kepa, then we can bring Moj back home to understudy Raya? That would be a wholesome move that, in an inverse of the Romero links, would have the nostalgia gland activated for any Arsenal fan.

Look at me, 800 words in and all I can talk about it a reserve keeper at Barcelona saying he loves The Arsenal. Shows how slow the news is.

Tomorrow I might do a book review I’ve been sent. Will come back to you on that. Until then, stay awesome.

Did you see that coming? I certainly didn’t, but Messrs Ornstein and McNicholas dropped an Athletic Bomba on our social media feeds, and yesterday was spent with Arsenal fans recalibrating their ‘dream starting XI’ for next season, with the Brazilian superstar firmly placed in it on that left wing.

It’s exciting, isn’t it?

There seems to be two schools of thought here. Two ways in which Arsenal fans are reacting to the news that Arsenal are ‘exploring the possibility’ of a deal. The first group – of which I’m choosing to be in for a change – is just excited at the prospect of this happening. The second group, of which I have a few mates whose feet are firmly in that camp, are saying that it’s never happening in a million years.

That may well be true. It will be a very difficult deal to pull off. Real Madrid do not want to sell one of their prized assets. We’re used – as Arsenal fans – to seeing players join Real Madrid or Barcelona, not exit them. The only time players leave those clubs is when they are surplus to requirements. The Ozil deal was amazing; we all couldn’t believe it, and it was a very exciting transfer, but ultimately he was being moved on because Real Madrid wanted to find room for Gareth Bale. This time it would be different. This time it is Madrid not wanting to lose Vini Junior for free. We’d have a statement signing that would blow anything else out of the water. I’d go as far as to say that it might be the biggest transfer the whole of the Premier League has ever seen.

And that’s probably why so many are sceptical, which I totally understand, because the financial numbers behind it would probably be eye-watering. The rumours are that he’s currently on €400k-per-week at Madrid, or that he’s turned that down. Arsenal would have to make that a pound instead of a euro, for sure. But then you’re getting a higher tax rate in England than Spain, so the Brazilian would end up being worse off with take-home pay. But does that matter to these players? I read something a while ago that talked about the way players use weekly wage as a benchmark of their own value. They all meet up with their international teams, and those who are on the highest weekly wage are the big dogs in the team. They are already multi-millionaires; they don’t need the money, but they do need the kudos from their fellow pro’s. So perhaps that would be something for Vini Junior? Perhaps what this situation is, is not about money, but status?

If that is the case, maybe Arsenal’s interest does mean that it is possible, because coming to the Premier League – the biggest and best in world football – and being ‘the guy’ is his aim. As has been pointed out on social media by a few people on my timeline, at Real Madrid he is in the shadow of Mbappe. The Frenchman is the superstar, with Vini Jr the wingman, so a move to The Arsenal will put him in a top team, but as the guy. He’d be joining a team that made the semi-final of the Champions League two seasons ago, the final last season, only losing out on penalties, having just won the Premier League. He will have watched that Champions League final. He might have even seen over a million people line the streets of London for the parade. He’ll be looking at The Arsenal as one of the most exciting teams in Europe to be in, and he’ll have had a few Brazilian’s named Gabriel who would be talking to him about what it is like at The Arsenal.

He might even be looking at the fact that a certain Brazilian could be about to sign next week. If he and his representatives are speaking to Arsenal about the possibilities of a signature to play in red and white, he’ll be well aware of the talent at the club, plus he’ll be well aware of how strong we will look with both him and Bruno Guimaraes joining the team. This is a good time to be joining The Arsenal, and with Mikel Arteta just having won the Premier League title, there’s proof of concept that Arsenal can go the distance and win trophies.

Real Madrid must be thinking about this too. As already mentioned, they don’t want to lose him for free. They want him to be at their club and so will no doubt offer a new deal on better terms. They’ve also entered the race for Diomande. As I speculated yesterday, that deal is supposedly a message to Vini Jr, or so some have suggested. But Madrid do have a surplus of attacking players if Diomande signs. I don’t think the two are related, personally, because Diomande plays on the right and Vini Jr on the left, but if that deal gets done, then there will certainly need to be movement out of the club, and that could give Arsenal some opportunities – even if it isn’t with the Ballon d’Or runner-up.

And with all that said, suddenly it does seem like this could be an achievable deal, albeit one that I doubt gets moving any time soon. It feels like there needs to be some more moving parts for this to start to actually move along. What Arsenal can’t afford to do, however, is chase this deal all summer and then find out he signs a new deal and we have left ourselves without that left-wing position being solved. So I hope there are some clear plans around ‘Plan B’ or ‘Plan C’ if we find ourselves with a week before the transfer closes and we are still nowhere with the signing. Aim for the moon, Arsenal, but if you can’t get there, have yourselves something else lined up, please.

That’s it from me today. Back tomorrow as usual, as we start another week, hoping for some big Arsenal news. Catch you then.

I do wonder if, certainly from a winger perspective, something big needs to shake loose for all of the dominoes to start falling though. The reason I’m thinking that this morning is that I saw that Diomande is the subject of a bid from Real Madrid, for which Leipzig have rejected around £85million. A couple of days ago Fabrizio Romano was saying that we had enquired about the Ivorian, but given he wants to go to PSG, Liverpool have previously made a bid and I’m sure I’ve seen that City had a look, that one feels like it is going to be a little beyond The Arsenal. I saw some stuff saying the players’ representatives have been a bit of a pain in the arse, and when you’ve got the likes of PSG and Real Madrid involved, you’re getting in to a bidding war that I think Arsenal just need to steer clear of.

What we know about The Arsenal and Arteta is that he wants a level of commitment from any joining player. We’ve heard on countless occasions that “Play X only wanted Arsenal” and that is not something you’d say would be obvious from Diomande. We also know that Arsenal won’t get drawn into overpaying on the valuation. The Morgan Rogers situation showed that. But going back to my original point, it feels like there needs to be one big move for a player, to shake other players out. If Diomande goes to PSG, then surely Barcola gets clearance to move. If he decides that actually he fancies a bit of Real Madrid, then does a Vini Junior become available? Possibly not, but does Rodrygo become available? It’s funny because we were all looking at him last summer, but there’s been little noise about him this summer, which is strange because he played just over 1,100 minutes. For a player of his quality he won’t like that. But if Madrid get Diomande, then you’d think that somebody like Rodrygo would be on the market for a move. He did his ACL in March, which of course ruled him out for three months, but even before then, he was hardly a regular. If he’s still not fit then that might be a problem if any club is interested, but I’ve seen some suggestions that he’s stepping up his rehab, so perhaps something could happen there. Madrid have Mbappe, Vini Jr, Endrick, Rodrygo – could they afford to have Diomande as well and have enough minutes for them all?

What we need to be careful of, however, is not making our move at the right time. It seems to me like the big clubs are all after left wingers this summer. That’s problematic for us because it means competition. It means bidding wars. But it also means that if you don’t get your deals done, you run the risk of being left behind and searching round the back at the bins for players. We’re the champions, Champions League finalists, semi-finalists the year before, so there’s no way we should be doing that; players should be banging down our door.

That means making your decision, making your move and going for it. Come on Arsenal, let’s move. Now.

The one I haven’t heard of for a while, is that fella Yildaz from Juventus. He’s rated by TransferMarkt as one of the most valuable left wingers in the world, and they put him at €75million. That’s a tidy sum, and I’ll confess not to know tons about the player, as I don’t watch Italian football. He got 10 goals and 11 assists in 47 games and 3,600 minutes. That’s a modest return in a worse league than the Premier League; Martinelli got 11 goals and seven assists for us last season, so whilst I think we all know we need an upgrade, is Yildaz the man to be that upgrade?

What he does have in his favour is that he’s just 21. That means he’s still building his game. If we’re going to go young, however, why not try somebody like Said El Mala, who has been doing numbers at my German club FC Koln. He’s 19, has just bagged 13 goals and five assists in the Bundesliga, and I suspect he wouldn’t cost the earth. TransferMarkt has him at €45million. The German Bundesliga isn’t the Prem, but it is still one of the top three or four leagues in world football, and if he’s doing those numbers at 19, could it be worth a punt?

I guess with that one he probably needs another season to show his consistency, and that he hasn’t just run hot for one season. We had that one season from Martinelli in 2022/23 in which he bagged lots of goals and assists, but he’s now not been able to replicate it for three subsequent seasons – the same could be true of this kid.

But it does feel like we need to see some names popping up now that aren’t just Barcola or Diomande. I feel like the Barcola stuff is just going to rumble on, so why not just start looking elsewhere? We all hear the stories of how many plates Berta likes to spin, how many fingers he likes to put in different pies, but it all seems a little quiet on the winger front, so what’s going on, Andrea?

Maybe something will shake loose this week, but it does seem alarmingly quiet. Then again, perhaps that’s just what Arsenal want.

Back tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get something exciting today.

Laters kids.

We all already knew, in reality, because we’ve been hearing the stories from the French press. But as an Arsenal fan, you still await to hear about it via the official site, which is as expected in its vagueness. I get it though; they’re hardly going to say “we have no real idea of an exact timeline, but we’re saying around three months”, because if it’s more than that then the club will just get a pasting for misleading people.

The frustrating thing above everything else is that back injuries are notoriously difficult to predict. We all remember how his injury derailed any hope we had of winning the league in 2022/23. That injury sustained at home to Sporting Lisbon had him out from 16th March 2023 until 20th June – a solid 97 days – and had him missing 15 games in total. Now, I guess the good news out of this is that surgery is not needed, because if it was, I would be guessing that we wouldn’t be seeing him until February next year. Heck, it could potentially derail his whole season, so we have to look at some small measures of positivity here. But it is still a massive blow. He’s one of the world’s best defenders, and there is no way to replace him. But, much like with Kai last season, the club has to find a way to augment the squad so we can mitigate that loss somehow. Last season the club moved quickly to switch their thoughts towards Eze and getting the job done, when it was clear Kai would be out for an extended period too, so if we can do the same again here that would be useful. If Saliba’s back injury is similar to 2022/23, circa 100 days puts us at 31st October from today. So we’ll be needing somebody for the first nine games of the season the Premier League, plus League Cup and Champions League games.

I’m still a fan of giving Mosquera a go. And, as I said on Tuesday, if Timber and White are fully fit then I still believe we have the numbers. I also think that for some games last season – admittedly only one or two – Norgaard was an able third-choice centre half. So we have numbers. But many Arsenal fans will ask about quality. Personally, I can’t be having a 28-year-old Ezri Konsa for circa £40million. That sort of money needs to be reserved for the big purchase if you ask me. But what I could get behind is a deal for free-transfer John Stones. James from Gunnerblog reported that Arsenal would be looking at somebody like that, and the Standard has backed that up with words Arteta has talked previously about the centre-back here. If Stones can be persuaded – and I say that only because he’ll know that he isn’t first choice here – to join us, I think it would make perfect sense.

For Stones, he joins the Champions, reunited with somebody he knows well, playing right at the top level having left Man City.

For The Arsenal, they get a Premier League-ready centre-half, good ball distribution, a very accomplished player with plenty of experience of winning things, who can provide decent cover.

The questions that stop this from being a ‘no-brainer’, however, are:

• Will Stones get more game time at somewhere like Chelsea, with whom he is also linked?
• What does that mean for Mosquera’s pathway?
• What sort of shape is his body in at 32, given that last season he missed 24 games through injury, the season before it was 34, and the season before that it was 14 again.

That final bullet is the big one for me. It’s all fine and dandy if Stones starts the season and is fit for the first 15 or so matches, because that takes us into around October/November and hopefully a returning Saliba, but if he plays two or three games at the start and breaks down, we’re lumbered with another player on the treatment table and the same situation we are in now.

It’s a tricky one for The Arsenal, but I’d still be tempted to do it. If it’s low wages, he plays backup to Mosquera or he’s used in the ‘smaller’ games, then I’m kind of ok with it.

The other news was the leaked image of Christos Tzolis from HandOfArsenal, so I expect we’ll get something either today or tomorrow, because he appears to have done his medical and pictures, so we just need the announcement now. Will be interesting to see what he says about joining the actual biggest club in London.

There’s some stuff from yesterday about Newcastle being ‘frustrated‘ with the Guimaraes situation, which I understand if Arsenal still haven’t opened talks, to be honest. Last summer we loved a bit of Berta plate-spinning, but we’re at the stage now where he has to pick a plate and grab it. It cheeses all parties off by the sounds of it, not just the Arsenal fans. If the deal’s there to be done at £75million, just do it I say. Then let’s focus on that wide-left forward position to complete our summer stuff (after the centre-half replacement.

Right, I’m going to leave it there for today, as I have a busy one in the City. I may or may not blog tomorrow, depending on how sore my head is – if you know what I mean…

So catch you either tomorrow or Saturday. Have a grand one, peeps.

Mate, pull the other one, it’s got bells on. The club you just joined finished 10th, you act more like a trading platform than a football club, and this “we’re bigger than you” nonsense is exactly what you  do when you know it isn’t actually true. You crack on. Everyone knows it isn’t true.

What I will say, is that Arsenal need to ‘crack on’, because even I’m starting to get a bit ‘hmm…’ with our lack of movement. I’m in a few WhatsApp GCs and it does feel like a few groups are starting to get restless. I get it, we’re champions, and we don’t want to just over-pay for players. Arsenal tend to do things ‘the right way’ when it comes to how our club is run; we don’t set up dodgy deals between other sides in financial trouble so we can cook the books. So we have to do it the right way, and that means we cut our cloth accordingly, but it does feel as though the cloth we’re cutting is a little dated. Sure, we’ve got Tzolis to be announced, which will be great, but there needs to be more, because everyone is starting to make their moves.

Or are they?

Let’s have a look at which teams are stronger or weaker at this point – Wednesday 22nd July 2026 – in the transfer Window. I’ll go from top to bottom, based on the Premier League. The biggest club in London will be towards the bottom of this list, for that reason, plus I won’t include every club, as it’ll take me ages.

Arsenal

Trossard out. Let’s say Tzolis is in, because it could get announced any day now. Meslier in. I would call that at best ‘on par’, assume Meslier isn’t replacing Kepa. So we haven’t really shifted the needle there.

Man City

Elliot Anderson in for a crazy fee. Mathys Detourbet (yeha, me either)  in from Troyes. Jeremy Monga in from Leicester. Out has gone John Stones, Nathan Ake and Bernardo Silva. I’d say City are actually weaker at this point.

Man United

Tielemens, Andrey Santos and Karl Darlow. Out has gone Casemiro (who I believe had a decent finish to the season), Rasmus Hjoland and Jadon Sancho. I would say they’ve bumped their midfield up for sure, so you have to say they look a little stronger. But not a ton in my opinion. Plus they won’t be playing one game a week this season I doubt.

Aston Villa

The other club gaming the system, have lost Rogers, Tielemens, but have gained an impressive-looking Manzambi, Joao Gomes from Wolves, as well as Modou Kéba Cissé, who is clearly one for the future. We know we have Saliba out for the start of the season, but they’re missing Amadou Onana after an ACL, so I wouldn’t say they are stronger. Gomes replaces him, does Manzambi replace Tielemens? That’s a tough one. There’s noise about Villa getting Garnacho (of course there is), or even Nicholas Jackson. I don’t think that makes them stronger.

Liverpool

Jeremy Jacquet joins to replace Konate, so there’s a question mark there. Victor Munoz joins from Osasuna as a left winger, but the fee suggests that’s a bit like Tzolis from Genk for us. They’ve lost Konate, Salah and Robertson, so I’d say they’re hardly massively improved.

You then have to go all the way down to 10th to find Chelsea, then 17th to find the Scum. So let’s give them a little sentence or two. Chelsea have signed Rogers (see what self-confessed Chelsea fan Paul Merson feels about that here), Palestri to replace Cucurella, a right winger Geovany Quenda from Sporting for €50million, then a young Brazilian from Corinthians for €10million. They’ve lost Santos to United and Cucurella to Real Madrid. I’m not really sure if, having spent nearly £170 million this summer, they’re even better than the 10th-place finish last season. Xabi Alonso might be a good factor; not being in Europe might help, but to have them as Arsenal’s ‘main’ rivals is, well… a bit weird if you ask me.

Then there’s the Tiny Totts, who have spunked £200million and I would say certainly have improved their team, but then again they nearly got relegated, so that was going to be hard not to.

So having looked at those other six clubs and where we are, whilst we’re all not happy about the lack of movement, I personally am not completely losing my sh*t. However, I think by the end of next week, when we’re knocking on the door of August, if we’re talking about only seeing Tzolis in pre-season training so far, I think it’s fair for some serious questions to be asked. Our kick-off to the season is not an easy one, we will be without key players who went deep into the World Cup, so the club needs to arm Arteta with the tools needed to succeed.

Right, I’ll leave it there, because I need to get out for a run before the day starts to hot up too much and I melt. See you all tomorrow. Be good.

For starters, most of the Arsenal boys got on to the pitch, with Rice, Saka, and Eze all starting. And lo and behold, each of them had an impact on the match; Rice bagging a good goal for the first, Eze providing an assist to Saka, who also netted a hat-trick and promptly declared afterwards that he was fit and wish he’d have played more.

Great stuff. Now go spend two weeks on a beach somewhere, mate. Get those Achilles rested and ease yourself back into pre-season with The Arsenal. Same goes with Rice, Eze and Madueke. You’re all going to be needed.

Saka’s performance won’t help Tuchel’s cause, though, I don’t expect. He decided to drop Saka for Rogers, and let’s be honest, aside from a good ball in for the Gordon goal, he was hardly sparkling against Argentina. I guess the counterpoint to that was that nobody was, but this was still a good example of showing why you put Saka in your team. He is a game changer. Hopefully, he can continue to be for us next season, too. He even said that Arsenal fans have nothing to worry about. Super duper stuff.

What’s not super duper, however, was the Ornbomb we got, in which David declared that once again, Chelsea have gazumped Arsenal for a player, and Morgan Rogers would be a Chelsea man next week. Chelsea fans will be delighted. Villa will be delighted. There are some Arsenal fans on social media who are a bit miffed at this.

I am not one of them.

I have said it a couple of times over the last week, but the price matters, especially when you are operating in these PSR times. Chelsea are gamers of the system. They will pay £117million – probably about £30million more than what he’s worth – just to get this guy in. Their fans will laugh at how they’ve poached him from us, but the reality is, they have to make some kind of statement after a season in which they finished 10th, have no European football, and still have a squad that is so packed to the rafters with other players they over-paid for, that they’ll have to offload this summer, I’d expect. I call them gamers to the system, because I have no doubt that they’ll have paid Villa this fee because Villa need it for PSR and accounting ‘creativity’, whilst Chelsea will probably need the same in reverse, so Villa will probably ‘pay’ them £50million for Nicholas Jackson. We’ve seen Newcastle and Villa do things like that, and Chelsea and Villa are also in the same boat.

For Arsenal, I’m pleased they stood firm, because frankly I was a little confused as to where he was going to play. If it was as a wide-forward, then I’m looking at this and saying that perhaps this will allow Arsenal to focus on somebody like a Barcola? He’s spent more time playing wide-left, so why not have a proper go for him now?

I do think that Berta might be under a bit of pressure now, because whilst the fans are a bit restless, I suspect the manager will be too. Arteta said after the Champions League final that we have to be ambitious and we have to be fast, and here we are on 19th July and our main target (or so it seemed) is heading elsewhere. That won’t be a good look for Andrea, so I suspect he and Arteta will be having some choice words about what happens next.

Chelsea did this to us before with Mudryk, so we pivoted for Trossard and that worked out very well indeed. We have to hope at this stage, that the club have an alternative target in mind and are going to pull the trigger sooner rather than later. Could that be a Barcola? Maybe. Could that be a left-of-field option like a Nusa, Lookman, or Nico Williams? We know Arteta loves the latter, so I don’t see why we couldn’t have a punt at one of these names.

I do wonder if Arsenal will want to make a ‘statement’ this summer, but the challenge they have, a bit like the striker market last summer, is that there just doesn’t seem to be the profile of elite wingers who have been burning it up in mainland Europe this summer. And what of the Premier League? I’d certainly be having a look at Kroupi, and if Mitoma was a bit younger, I’d have a go for him, but his age and some injury problems in the last couple of seasons preclude us from going for him, surely.

The challenge Arsenal are going to have, if they don’t strike soon, however, is that targets are going to start moving elsewhere. There was talk about the Scum making moves for Kroupi, Liverpool are also interested in Barcola, whilst Barca have already moved for Arteta’s other favoured player Anthony Gordon. If we hold on to our playing cards too long, there might not be too many great options left.

This is where Berta earns his coing now – and we need to see Arsenal starting to flash theirs at clubs with players we want.

Back tomorrow with more news, as we contemplate where to go next with all of the players having done the World Cup and the transfer merry-go-round gets into full force. See you then.

Last night’s ‘HandBomb’ was that Morgan Rogers is advancing, and talks aren’t expected to be a problem. Apparently, the two clubs are in discussion, as I was speculating about yesterday, it looks like Villa is making moves to get their replacements going, too. My view on it remains that how ‘good’ this deal is, is dependent on the fee we pay. There are people out there who will say, “Well, it isn’t your money so what do you care?”, but my contention that is that it should matter to Arsenal fans. We don’t have a bottomless pit of cash, the PSR rules are such that we can’t just blow £500million on players anyway, so if you go hard and heavy on one player, it could mean you aren’t able to secure a player on a certain fee in another position. The difference between a Rogers at £100million and a Rogers at £130million could be a young prospect we miss out on.

So yeah, the fees does matter, in my opinion.

There’s also the whole “£72million Nicholas Pepe” curse that we are all very familiar with. That fee we paid for the Ivorian was a millstone around his neck. If Elliot Anderson isn’t essentially Rodri 2.0, he’ll be deemed a ‘waste of money’ at £116million, rival clubs to City will ‘banter’ City for the figure they paid, and it heaps more pressure on a player. We all thought with Declan Rice that he might suffer from the £105million price tag, but that quickly was kicked into touch, with us now even mocking the fact we got him ‘half price’. So if the rumoured fee of £130million is true, then personally I’d hope Arsenal start to look elsewhere. Transfermarkt has his value at €90million, which is about £76.5million. If Villa were to get £100million for him, that’s more than a fair deal, I’d think.

I like Rogers as a player, I really do. I remember in the last two seasons against us, he’s looked particularly dangerous on several fronts. He’s somebody who will have a shot from distance, he’s a guy who can take on a player or two, and, I think, two seasons ago in particular at Villa Park, every time he picked up the ball, he looked like he could hurt us. But I am still a bit bemused as to how he’s being deployed if he signs. Centrally? If so, where? Left eight? Left wing? Last season, to be fair, he started 14 times on the left wing, and got five goals, so as opposed to Eze, where we thought he was going to be the left-wing choice and then nothing of the sort happened, perhaps you could see this as something he is deployed as?

He also got five assists there, and played left wing in Villa’s home win against us, although I must confess I don’t 100% remember how he played last season. He bagged two goals against both West Ham and Man United over Christmas as a left winger, and when Villa were running crazily hot last season over their xG, I’m pretty sure it was he who was a big reason for that.

I like his athleticism too, something called out in this video, which I watched earlier. I can see why Mikel would want somebody with the physical profile that he has; the Premier League is a very physical league, full of battles and duels that have to be won all over the pitch, so if you have somebody like Rogers, you know you’re getting a dual monster and battler.

I still can’t help but think about how this works with the team at the moment, though. Does this mean Martinelli goes? If that’s the case, then we don’t really have any touchline wingers anymore. Tzolis is about to arrive, he’s right-footed, but players on the left are going to be somebody who wants to come into the field more, but I guess the counter to this point is that Martinelli was never really massively impressive as a touchline winger as it is. He found his best form coming in from the left, and I think Arteta has tried to push that out of him when he’s played, so if we get both Rogers and Tzolis, it will be interesting to see what job Arteta asks both of them to do on the left.

The other final bit of news is that apparently Barca have set a deadline of the end of this month for their offer for Alvarez to join them. Honestly, that club are a bunch of pr*cks, with their ultimatum. If you want the player so bad, pay the money, instead of constantly trying to low ball teams. They did it for years with us, now they’re doing it with Atleti. I hope the Spanish capital side stay firm. Or better, sell him to us foir cheaper than barca offered. That would really piss them off.

But for now it just feels like that one is probably one in which Arsenal need to just have a ‘watching brief’ on. There’s no point in moving for him whilst the circus is in town and ringmaster Laporta is playing his games in the press. Just leave it be and see if Barca do indeed walk away.

Right, that’s me done for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with more thoughts. There’s that pointless ‘Bronze place’ trophy this evening. I just hope no Arsenal players see a single minute. Play all those that haven’t played much, except The Arsenal boys, thanks.

Catch you all tomorrow. Have a good one.

Sure, he faltered in Norwich, but given that he was 19 when he moved to Norwich, you can hardly blame him for not quite hitting the mark. It happens. What I do have faith in, however, is that Arsenal and Arteta have done a fair bit of work to make sure that he’s going to be given the best chance to succeed. Sure, there have been a few that haven’t worked out, like Fabio Vieira, but even he had some moments. Hopefully, Christos can hit the ground running, and we start to see some positive sparks in pre-season.

I think for him, too, having that pre-season with the team by virtue of the fact that he’s in through the door ‘relatively’ early, is a big plus point. He can get himself settled in, have a full Arsenal pre-season, then try to hit the ground running from day one of the proper kick-off to the season. I read somewhere that he’d already started his pre-season with Genk, so the fact that he’s maybe already into some form of training now can only stand him in good stead.

And if you believe what Fabrizio Romano says about Morgan Rogers, then Arsenal are going to chivvy that move along now too, with noises that Villa are lining up replacements for the England international as well. I guess that’s what needs to happen if this particular domino needs to fall, but I hope that if Villa do get their replacements in, that we can see Arsenal suddenly have a bit more of a position of strength in the bidding process. £130million – which is what I saw quoted as what Villa want a month or so ago – is ludicrous. If they’ve already made their signings and replacements, then Arsenal don’t have to pay that amount. They got a relatively modest fee for Tielemens, which won’t massively help their attempts at whatever they call PSR these days, if this article is to be believed, as well as this article too. Villa have apparently had an offer accepted (or will be) for £38million for Joao Gomes. They’re about to sign Manzanbi for £50million+, so if they do that and then they want to try and hardball Arsenal, they could just walk away and leave Villa with a conundrum to solve.

That won’t happen, I don’t think, but if we’re talking about a deal around the £100million mark, then Arsenal will probably do it. The transfers have gone crazy this summer, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all, and when Mikel Arteta is hot on a player, we know he usually gets him.

The questions will still remain where the hell he’ll play. He’s not a left winger. He played against Argentina as a right winger, but I haven’t seen that too often from him to suggest that wide forward is where he can take it to the next level. There’s no doubt he’s a quality addition to the squad, but I’m still doing a little bit of mental gymnastics on how this is going to work.

It feels to me like his arrival all but secures an exit from a central player. That ain’t gonna be the captain, I doubt it’ll be Eze after just one season, and Mikel Merino has shown this World Cup how he can be valued as a rotation option. All eyes are on Ethan then, unfortunately, and I suspect that when Rogers arrives, we all might have to face some hard facts about a player with whom we all had so many hopes would break into the first team.

I don’t know about you guys, but it does feel to me as though the wheels are now turning with regard to transfers. It was always going to be that case with the World Cup getting in the way, but all of a sudden the transfer window is springing to life and, with pre-season and friendlies still a few weeks’ away, that’s positive to hear. There was plenty of hand-wringing going on a week ago over our lack of signings, but personally, I always felt that we’d see movement once we get to this part of the summer. That’s how it’s played out and as long as we start rolling along in the next week or two, I suspect most Gooners will calm down a bit.

Right, that’s me done for the day – I’ve got a bunch of household chores and a weekend of golf to think about with the family, so better get myself prepped – I’ll be swinging like a rusty door when I pick those clubs up later.

Catch you all tomorrow.

I’ve got no love for France, from an England perspective you probably want them out, but not to Paraguay. Football like that can’t be winning out.

In the other game we have ourselves our first hosts who are heading home and, with Morocco looking like they gave a proper schooling to Canada, you have to say they look like a good side. They’ll give France a proper match when the two teams meet next week.

The other final set of round of 16 games is tonight and, with a lot being made of the altitude stuff, I think we’re going to see Mexico progress against an England team who haven’t really impressed at all during this competition. There was one half against Croatia that looked alright, but that’s been about it. We talked about the World Cup and the altitude stuff yesterday morning on the Same Old Arsenal pod, amongst other things, and my assertion along with Amanda’s was that it will definitely have a material impact, coupled with England’s unimpressive form. Last night I had a dream that Stuart Pearce was sitting on a park bench round the corner from me, and I asked him if he thought the altitude would make a difference. He basically told me that England had ‘no chance’.

So there you go. Cheese dream Stuart Pearce has spoken, and so I’m debating whether it’s even worth watching the game to be honest with you.

In the Arsenal world, the big talking point is Leo Trossard potentially heading off to Turkey for £17million. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, for a guy who turns 32 in December and with one year left on his contract, that’s not a terrible fee. His profiling at the World Cup will inevitably help, because he’s been the Belgians best player, but that in itself has me pausing for reflection. He finished the season really strongly for Arsenal, he got the all important goal against West Ham, and the next day we were crowned champions as City drew with Bournemouth. Crossers has his place in history as a Premier League winner and he’ll have that forever in the history books.

His profile is going to be a tough one to replace too. Very good in small spaces, a guy who can turn a man on a sixpence, plus he’s come up with big goals against big rivals. He will definitely be missed for sure.

It’s a real conundrum because you can make the case either way.

This exit does at least confirm that the club are going hard for a replacement. I suspect it also probably means that Martinelli is the one to stay and duke it out. Given his age, his contract length, that probably makes sense to be fair, but his contribution in the Premier League was pitiful last season, so we 100% need to see more.

I wonder if – when this deal is confirmed (probably after the World Cup) – we’ll see clubs doubling down on their asking price for their players when Arsenal come knocking. It does feel as though we’re being given inflated numbers in this market, but when clubs also know we have a need, there’s suddenly an opportunity to try to get an extra couple of mil out of us because they know we have to pull the trigger on a wide player. Who that player is, beats me, because the only big link we’ve had is Morgan Rogers. He’s a good player, he has played on the left for Villa before, but to my mind that’s always been as an auxiliary option, rather than his best position. Maybe Andrea Berta has a left-of:field (pun intended) option that nobody has heard the details of yet?

I’d take that Kroupi lad, and not just because it appears Spurs are courting him, and it would be funny. No, I’d take him because he’s rapid, he’s good on the ball and he showed twice against us across two games, that he knows where the goal is. He even made a joke about winning us the league after his goal against City, so I suspect that he might have a soft spot for The Arsenal.

If Arsenal want to move, however, you do wonder if they’ll have to do it relatively quickly. There’s a few reports out there suggesting The Scum have already held some preliminary talks with the player and his representatives. Whether that’s true or not is kind of irrelevant; if Arsenal want a player, they showed last season with Eze that they can move quickly to get him. But I wonder if they’re looking at that fee and thinking they can get somebody like Barcola for similar, and given that Barcola has played at the highest level already, and is part of the current French World Cup squad, Arsenal might be waiting for the dominoes to fall with other players coming in to PSG first.

All a lot of “ifs” and “buts” though, and having drunk a shedload yesterday at a bbq, I don’t think I want my brain having to work through those kind of permutations on a Sunday morning. So I’ll put a pin in thinking about Arsenal speculation for today, and I’ll come back tomorrow with some more thoughts.

Catch you all then.

Yesterday, we got Matt Law telling us that Villa view Rogers at £130million, whereas the French outlets are also signalling that they want similar monies to the Elliot Anderson fee, as the tax for being an English club starts to kick in following City’s move.

It’s a funny one, because part of me thinks in conspiracy theory, and thinks that the reason City have gone this early and this high on Anderson, is because they want to over-inflate the market and make it difficult for other clubs. It is not outside the realms of possibility; they approach legal situations like the CAS stuff a few years back, as well as the 115 charges situation, by throwing as much lawyer money to jam up the system as possible, so why not try to hike up the transfer market?

It feels a little like the summer of the Neymar transfer to PSG in 2017. That was around £200million then, and the knock-on effect was that everyone benchmarked transfers against that fee. Barca used that money – albeit a year later – to sign the overrated Philippe Coutinho for a staggering £108million – a price he was never worth in a million years. But that is what we are seeing unfold right now in the early stages of this transfer window. PSG are briefing that they want mega money for a guy who is not a regular in their side, won’t sign a new deal, plus has question marks over his ability and physicality for the Premier League. There’s no doubt he’s a talent, but is he a sure-fire hit? That’s what Declan Rice was, which is why we paid £105million for him. I don’t think you can say the same about Barcola.

Equally, Villa briefing to the press that they want £130million for Rogers is an example of another player who is very talented, but never worth that kind of cash. I do find it amusing, though; clubs say “he’s not for sale” one week, then the next week they’re briefing a price. Hang on a minute…wasn’t he ‘not for sale’ a second ago? So you’re now saying there IS a price?

It’s all just postering, as we all know, and it’s always just clubs trying to save face. The reality is that if Rogers wants Arsenal, if Arsenal wants Rogers, then a deal can be made to happen, and at a fee that suits both parties. Villa have the control on paper, but we all know that players can make life difficult if they need to, so we’ll just have to see how that shakes out. Personally, I’m still not convinced, because I just don’t think his style and where he plays is right for us. We need a better left-winger option than what we have right now (despite Gabi Martinelli being the hero and scoring last night for Brazil in injury time).

That goal that Martinelli got might help inflate his price a bit, but whether or not we have a buyer remains to be seen. I’ve always thought that one day he might head over to Spain and to Real madrid – just a hunch I had – but ith Vinicius Junior and Mbappe playing on that left-hand side of the attacking positions, that clear isn’t going to happen. But that doesn’t mean that there might not be a fair bit of interest from other clubs. Maybe Atleti fancy it? Or one of the German or Italian clubs? Martinelli could be a very good player in a team that has more space to counter attack in to, so maybe a Premier League side like Newcastle, or dare I say it, Aston Villa? I bet he’d be brilliant at Everton, for example. The question would then come down to fee and wages.

Elsewhere in the World Cup yesterday, both of my surrogate teams (due to family connections), The Netherlands and Germany, went out on penalties last night. I don’t get it, as somebody who was born in England, I’m used to penalties being the exit stage. But to happen to my second team Germany? They LITERALLY never go out on penalties! Honestly, with this, plus these ad breaks turning football into quarterly games, I’m about getting done with this bloody competition

The Germans were crap too. misplaced passes, overhit crosses, Muisiala losing his mind in extra time. The only good thing about it was Kai getting on the scoresheet, then getting to go home and prep himself for the new season. The German team will get back to Germany probably today/tomorrow, then it’ll probably be a ‘get your heads down for a bit, lads’ for a few days, then he probably gets two weeks off. If you think that by mid-July, he’s probably ready to get back into the swing of pre-season training with The Arsenal, that timing works quite well. And although Jurrien won’t be happy that his country went out, and that his brother missed a pen, maybe at the back of his mind he’ll be thinking “well, I wouldn’t have been in the tournament that long anyway!”

That’s about it for today I think. Ivory Coast against Norway could be an interesting one to watch later this evening, whilst the winner of Ecuador and Mexico will have some interest for England fans, because if we beat DR Congo (I keep calling them ‘Doctor Congo’ in my head every time I see it, like some kind of evil Bond villain), then that’s who the England team will be up against next.

Back tomorrow with some more World Cup / transfer window musings.

Although Arteta was tight-lipped on that arrival, the Ornbomb has already dropped and it appears we’re loan-optioning him for the season and clearly we’ll drop the actual cash on Leverkusen’s lap in the summer of 2026, which makes sense given that we probably don’t have the cash lying around to make this deal a permanent one now. What it means is that Jakub Kiwior heads to Porto for what Ornstein says is a pretty much guaranteed £23million from Porto. A Polish international who starred for our team towards the end of the season and proved he is a very good left-centre half, leaves the club for about £3million more than we paid for him. It’s been said on social media, but if he’s a Chelsea player, he goes for around £10million more from that, I assure you. They’ve just sold Renato Veiga, who made seven appearances for them last season before being loaned to Juve, for €24.5million. That player is nowhere near as established or good as Kiwior, yet they’re getting a couple of million Euro’s less. We can all be happy with the superb work of Berta this summer in terms of incomings, but the sales continue to be under valued and that is an issue we need to address.

Apparently Marseille are after Zinchenko but wages are a sticking point and with just over a day and a bit left in the transfer window, Arsenal have to ship him, Nelson, Fabio Vieira and Sambi Lokonga. It’s a lot to ask to get those turned in to permanent deals. If Palace cough up £15million for Reiss then I think that’s good work. If Arsenal can get £15million for Zinchenko then I think at this stage you have to take it. But I suspect Lokonga and Vieira will be last minute loans from one club. Which would be a shame for them and us not to sort their respective futures out.

These are the problems we need Berta to fix, because ours attention – and certainly Arteta;s – has to be on how we win at Anfield for the first time in 13 years. He was asked the usual questions about player availability and of course we know all of the absentees that are guaranteed at the moment (Saka and Havertz) but I was encouraged by what he said about the skipper Odegaard. His words when asked if it was serious were “there’s an injury there, but hopefully, if everything goes well, he can cope with it. But we don’t know yet”. The fact he’s saying that he can cope with it suggests to me that I think he might be alright. That is a boost because although Ethan performed well last weekend at home to Leeds I thought, I think away at Anfield you need somebody with Odegaard’s experience on the pitch. There’s also the fact that Liverpool barely have any injury worries, with Mac Allister having trained and Bradley back in training too, as confirmed by Slot yesterday.

Arteta talked about the ‘aura’ of Eze in his press conference and I think this time tomorrow there’s going to be quite the clamour for Arsenal fans to see him from the start. I’ll touch on team news tomorrow, but whilst Arteta wouldn’t be drawn on that yesterday, I do think he’s not going to be tempted in to using him straight from the off. We have Martinelli who always seems to play well at Anfield and there’s Trossard too, so there are options there and at least of that we can be pleased.

I liked that he asked whether he wanted to play Liverpool later in the season, because it’s a question I’ve been flip-flopping over in my mind. On the one hand it’s good to get it out of the way early, when the damage doesn’t feel as terminal as if we had to go there in April and win to keep any title hopes alive. But on the other hand it could be seen as an early blow and then when you think we have City to play within two games after tomorrow, it puts a little more added pressure on that game if we get beat tomorrow. Arteta didn’t really properly answer the question, but I do wonder if he’s happy that we are getting it out of the way now? I wonder if he’d also rather play City away than home in a couple of weeks too, in that same vein, because that would have ticked off Old Trafford, Etihad and Anfield within the opening weeks of the season. Meaning later in the year you get the benefit of home soil advantage for the crunch games. People who say “you have to play everyone twice it doesn’t matter” I think miss the point; look at how gee’d up Man United were on the opening day. Now look at them having just lost to Grimsby and their fans are turning. I think they’ll beat Burnley next weekend, but the next ‘big game’ they’ve got, I think they’ll have been softened up a bit by some of these results and so you can’t say it’s the same United side that we played versus one that looks like it is on its knees.

Back to the press conference, in which Arteta was asked about keeping everyone happy and what problem that might cause and he rightfully said he doesn’t worry about that, more that players are as happy as they can be. I think that’s where the communication comes in. Arteta might have Trossard knocking on his door wanting to play, but if he communicates in an effective way that they needed to bolster based on last season, that he is still a great player and one we value, that he will get minutes but he needs to accept that we needed a bigger squad based on last season, I think even the likes of Trossard will understand. I remember back to that Leicester City game last season and we played with Sterling, Trossard and Nwaneri as the front three, with Merino coming on in that second half to break the deadlock. We can’t have that situation again. Plus, I think with the injuries we have already, we can all see that players are going to play. When we get in to mid September it is sometimes three games a week, so Arteta is 100% going to have to rotate players in for those midweek games. That also links in with the question he was asked about Martinelli, who he was pretty emphatic that he wouldn’t leave this summer, which also makes me think about whether he’ll sdtart tomorrow, but as I have said above I think Martinelli might just start tomorrow. Just a hunch I’ve got.

Other than that there’s not a ton else that came out from it. Tomorrow I’ll take a look ahead at the game, who I think might play and also how Liverpool might approach this one but for now, you have yourselves a great Saturday.

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.

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.

His statement with all of the top players at the PFA Player of the Year awards last night was certainly explosive enough, with his silence broken and shots most certainly being fired in Newcastle’s direction, citing ‘broken promises’ by somebody at the club. Is that Eddie Howe? Is it the Chairman of Newcastle – Yasir Al-Rumayyan – who has supposedly broken his promise? Is it the former Sporting Director Paul Mitchell who left the club in May? My guess is that it might be the latter, because Newcastle’s comment that ‘no club official’ had ever made such a statement feels like it could be one of those cleverly worded pieces given that Paul Mitchell isn’t a club official any more.

Whoever it was, whatever was said, Isak has properly doubled down on his issue and despite the fact Newcastle’s statement said that they will welcome him back to his teammates, this feels like there’s possibly a point of no return that might have been crossed. Certainly from the player’s eyes I think. There’s talk of him possibly going as far as leveraging FIFA’s Article 17 which will mean that Newcastle would be forced to let him join any club for free from 1st July 2026 if he officially triggers this rule. I don’t know all of the detail, but he can invoke it within 15 days of the final match of the season (early June 2026 at the latest) and all Newcastle would get would be compensation, which would probably equate to about half of what they are asking, apparently.

I think this means Liverpool go back in. Holier than thou Liverpool who have clearly had some kind of wrangling’s in this and who have been briefing the press that they want to ‘respect’ teams, when in reality they have no intention of doing that and are clearly working the back channels. There’s no way a player like Isak goes this hard unless he’s been given assurances from his potential destination. It is grubby and for a club who were burning effigies and talking down Trent Alexander Arnold’s move to Real Madrid this summer just gone (in which they got £10million when they really should have got nothing), it is slightly ironic that those very same supporters are cheering and celebrating this move by Isak to force Newcastle’s hands.

From an Arsenal point of view, our closest would be RvP or Nasri, with RvP probably the closest, but we were more forced in to this with the fact that he only had one year left on his deal. Isak has three, so whether Newcastle play hardball or not remains to be seen. In a way I’m glad that it’s not involving us, this saga, but I’m also very wary about just how good Liverpool will be with the Swede in their team.

Arsenal’s challenges aren’t in attack or wantaway players, but seemingly the reverse of that, as it was reported by multiple sources last night that Leo Trossard has agreed a wage increase on his current contract. The bizarre thing about this story, however, is that it isn’t a contract extension. I don’t know about you, but I have never heard of something like this before, when a player gets more money without having at least an extra year added to his deal? It is strange to say the least. The reaction on social media last night was obviously quite extreme from some corners, but I don’t think that was because of a hatred of Trossard, per say, but I think more because it probably represents a decision by the club to stick with what they have on left wing, possibly because they aren’t able to make the required sales to bring in a replacement.

We’ve heard all summer that they were looking at a left winger as somebody to come in, but I don’t think most Arsenal fans wanted to believe that the guy was Madueke. I think most thought he was the squad depth rotation option on both flanks. Clearly, if the window shuts in 11 days time and there’s no additional incomings, that might not have been the case, or it is simply the case that we haven’t been able to make the sales needed. There’s rumours that Nelson doesn’t want to go which is, frankly, ludicrous given that he isn’t getting anywhere near the first team at this stage. There’s rumours that we can’t offload Zinchenko, at a time in which – as one lad put it in one of my WhatsApp groups – “Liverpool have just sold a player who’s never played in the Premier League for £15million” and when you think about how clubs like Liverpool, City and Chelsea are able to offload players nowhere near the first team, it does seem bizarre. I get that Zinchenko’s wages might be a stumbling block, maybe he too doesn’t want to move if his kids are settled and he fancies leaving on a free next year and being a bit-part player, but I would be surprised given it is a World Cup year and Ukraine will probably fancy their chances of getting to the finals (at least via the playoffs) and so he will want to be playing.

Then there’s Lokonga, Fabio Vieira and Karl Hein, whose futures have all not been sorted and you do start to wonder why that is. Are Arsenal asking for too much? It doesn’t sound like it to me. Apparently we’re asking for £20million for a guy we paid £35million for only a few short season’s ago. Vieira is wanted by Stuttgart for £17million and I wonder if Arsenal will just do that deal if they have to, perhaps with a decent and chunky sell on fee of 33 – 50% to recoup some money maybe? Whatever they do, they really should be acting now. Berta was given praise earlier in the window, but it appears now as if that praise is on the turn a little bit with the fans. It appears the same affliction that impacted Edu – the inability to move on players not from Hale End (and in Reiss’ case, he is!) – has been passed on to the current incumbent.

On the Trossard thing, I suspect (without knowing) that promises have been made by the club previously, maybe by people who are no longer at the club, of a pay rise. Arsenal now feel they have to honour that. I also suspect the fan response is that we are possibly going to miss out on the shiny new thing and with Eze on his way to the Scum whilst Rodrygo doesn’t even get on the pitch for Real Madrid last night, there is some projection happening in the fanbase. We all think that our left wing could do with some work and Martinelli’s average pre season hasn’t helped, coupled with the fact that it looks like Trossard will stick around another year and he was good but not great last season, and I think some people are thinking this doesn’t really move the needle with the players that already between them had 20 goals (ten for Martinelli, ten for Trossard) and 15 assists (five for Martinelli, ten for Trossard) in all competitions. But here’s the thing – I don’t particularly hate our left hand side. You look at those numbers and if Madueke chips in with 10 goals and five assists and both Trossard and Martinelli can match that figure albeit with less game time because the minutes will be shared, I think you’d have to say the left hand side is doing it’s job. If we’re expecting Saka to bang around 35 goals and assists on the right, Trossard and Martinelli to get 35 between them on the left, then Madueke to get 15 goals and assists from both flanks, with Gyokeres also adding to what we expect of Kay, we’re probaby talking about the extra 15 – 20 goals this season that is needed to get closer to a title challenge.

What we have to see is more from Martinelli and Trossard with less game time though. The new contract is there and out in the open, much like how many of us weren’t keen on the Madueke deal, we have to hope that the players get their heads down and just start delivering. And that has to start from this Saturday.

That’s enough from me for now I think. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more thoughts as we head into the weekend.

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.

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.

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.

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.

*********************

From an Arsenal perspective the expectation was that the club would announce Zubimendi yesterday, but after that news, I think it was the right thing to do to postpone anything relating to transfers on a day in which the footballing world was mourning. Whether they go ahead today and announce the signing remains to be seen – but how long is it appropriate to show a mark of respect before news starts filtering back out? I have no idea. Even today might still feel too soon, so we might not get any further confirmation until the weekend is truly upon us.

David Ornstein did have a late night scoop for us thought; it appears Carlos Cuesta is being replaced by the more experienced Gabriel Heinze. Clearly Arteta feels that you can never have enough Gabriel’s in your team, so he’s bringing one more in, just for safe keeping. It feels like a good move to me because Heinze has already been a manager at a number of clubs. He’s been mainly at Argentinian clubs like Velez Sarsfield and Newell’s Old Boys, but he also had a stint in the MLS with Atlanta United and with over 200 games in management under his belt, Arteta is bringing in a coach who can provide him the benefit of his wisdom and experience, which must be of value.

The pair know each other from Arteta’s PSG days and so they have a connection, whilst Heinze will be able to speak English, having spent three year’s at Man United before moving on to Real Madrid, Marseille and Roma. This is a season’s professional who knows all the leagues of Europe and I suspect this is something that Arteta has wanted for some time. I don’t think he’s happy Carlos Cuesta has gone, I’m sure he didn’t want it to happen, but with a spot opening up, this feels like an obvious move.

Heinze has the gravitas and CV of a winner on the pitch too. He won the league in 2007 with United, he won the league with Real Madrid and played 72 times for Argentina. The Arsenal players will be well aware of his credentials and whilst there might be an acclimatisation period for him joining the team and getting settled in this summer, the fact that he comes with that background gives him a bit of a leg up. Can he replicate the relationship with the player’s that Cuesta had? That’s difficult to say. He was a guy who was basically the same age as a lot of the footballers on the pitch, so perhaps they could relate to him more than a 47-year-old, but perhaps the dynamics need to change and we do need a little more experience with a coach like Heinze.

That’s obviously not where our focus lies, which is still on the pitch and I had a good chat with Johnny and Pete on the Arsenal Opinion Podcast last night about incomings, which centred around the Eze chat and, as I said to the gents last night I’m really warming up to this one. That’s because I think this allows Arteta to take his tactical fluidity to the next level. I called it “Arteta 2.0” because in my mind, if we go for (and get) a guy who operates in that left eight attacking space like Eze, it unlocks a number of different approaches Arteta could try. Looking to break down a low block at home? Play both Odegaard and Eze in the same game. Want to mix it up against a team like Newcastle who overload their right hand side and double up on Saka? Switch from ‘right pod’ bias to a ‘left pod’ bias by having Eze and Martinelli on that side. That could also potentially leave the likes of Saka with more space if teams them naturally shift over to dealing with us on the left hand side. Thinking about rotating Odegaard because of signs of fatigue? Ebreche – you’re in mate. want to even try and mix things up and get a number ten on the pitch? He can do that.

In Eze you have a dribbler who will take plenty of shots – he has some of the highest shot-taking percentages in the league – and with 16 goals and assists in 34 Premier League games last season, you do have a guy who has end product. I do have questions over a few niggly injuries he picks up, plus there is the fact that he himself admitted pre-FA Cup that he’s a guy who needs games to get rhythm, which I’m not sure he’ll get at The Arsenal. But there’s a lot to like about this deal, if the price is right of course. You can’t pay £68million for a guy who is 27 and will not be guaranteed game time every week. if you can do the deal for £50million I think we have a superb footballer to add in to the squad.

A final piece of news that came in late last night from that HandofArsenal chap yesterday, which was that Arsenal were in talks with Tomiyasu to mutually part ways with him pending an agreement. I don’t know if that means a free transfer or not – I suspect so – but there are Saudi Arabian clubs who are supposed to be interested and I think sadly, that’s best for all parties. He has always come across as a lovely guy, whenever he’s played he’s been brilliant, but that body of his has just let him down time and time again and it’s clear that the rigours of the Premier League are just not right for him. It’s a real shame if/when it happens, because I remember that first season for us and he was bloody brilliant at right back. But his lack of availability has meant Arsenal have now stocked both of the positions he can play and, as a result, his game time would probably end up being negligible next season anyway.

Right, I’m done this week. As I said at the top of today’s blog – hug your loved ones. Life is fleeting and we should appreciate the gift we have all been given whilst we have it.

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

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.

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.