Let’s keep our emotions aside for a bit.
ESR was injured half of his career with us, and we still managed to get Fulham to the line for £35m. That’s a very handsome fee if you are trying to offload a player who is not able to make into the playing XI and has been side-lined due to injuries. On top of that, Edu has managed to put a sell-on clause in that deal! Still sad to see our boy go though.
We made another £4m when we sold Mika Biereth to Sturm Graz earlier in the window. We have seen players whom we thought ‘very highly’ leave for free. 4m for a U23 player is a good business.
Nuno Tavares was a prospect when we got him for 8 odd million in 2021, he was used for some games but then we sent him on loan in last 2 seasons. His Marseille loan was an average one and the previous one at Forrest can be considered a disaster. Edu has shipped him to Lazio on loan for 6m with an obligation to buy if certain criteria are met, and have inserted a sell-on clause in case Lazio encashes him in future.
Lokonga couldn’t cut it at Arsenal. His loan spells were average at best. He is joining Sevilla on a season long loan with an ‘option’ to buy for £10m. If Sevilla decides to trigger that, we will reserve a whooping 25% on his future sell. I’m sure Edu managed that because Sevilla didn’t accept an ‘obligation’ but it’s still a decent deal for us.
Now, lets talk about Eddie Nketiah and what’s happening with our aim to sell him. Merseille agreed with Eddie on personal terms and the player prefer that move mainly because of De Zerbi and we have recently dumping our gross to OM. They came up with a £17m offer which the club and Edu deemed insufficient. They even had an improved offer if we go by the rumours but it still falls short of the £30m we are asking for Nketiah. Edu feels that’s the right price for a player having more than 100 appearances for one of the biggest clubs in the world and one who is side-lined because ‘we’ are just too good for him. We often talk about how the striker market is saturated and why it’s so difficult to get a prolific goal scorer. Nketiah will do well with any team if he plays consistently. I would not be wrong to say that he will make any of the bottom half Premier League teams better. We can’t ask the club and Edu to stick to our valuation of a player and then complain the buyers try to negotiate a much lesser deal than that.
We stick to our valuation, we put a sell-on clause if we think a player can do much better in coming years and we let the clubs know about that. It can go both ways, the buyer club gives up and agrees or they move on. We win sometimes (ESR, Lokonga, Tavares), we lose sometimes (Eddie, transfer window still has time). Sticking to our ask is what matters.
Btw, the reason why Edu is able to do it is, that, we are a much better team and the ‘players’ we are selling may not be good enough for us, but they certainly are more than capable of playing in a Fulham or OM side. We have seen him let go of Auba, who Barcelona sold for 12m to Chelsea a season letter, we have seen Guendouzi go for free when we could have made 30m off him, and we have seen some more bad transfers from our end. Edu is trying to put an end to it, and that’s a good thing for the club. If we sell well, we buy well.
Right, that’s me done. See you in the comments.
egomaniacal
another immediate concern, as it pertains to our potential pursuit of a readymade Striker, is the tenor of the headlines being propagated following our most recent victory…the nonsesnical propping-up of both Jesus’s and Havertz’s goals to be specific…the former’s strike was decent, especially for a player who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn last season, whereas the latter’s required no skill whatsoever, unless you believe being alive and having a fully functioning foot some sort of acutal achievement…it reminds me of all the forced nonsense being spewed last season when MA’s minions went all-out to justify his Havertz overreach
TRVL
We might just see Arteta hang himself this season – he’s got away with being poor because other teams have been worse but if we see Liverpool perform with a new manager Arteta’s Koresh like approach might suddenly come under some real pressure.
Marc – Glad to be of service mate.😊
Tony – This Sunday junior and I are driving up to Flint (in the far NE corner of Wales and about as far as its possible to get from our place while staying in-country) . County’s opening league game against Connah’s Quay, just across the wirral from Liverpool. They’ve got some decent players but County have upgraded their team this season so it should be a decent game. A mere 8 hour round trip over the spine of Wales.
Cardiff home to Scumderland, one of those desperate northern burgs full of idiotic racists setting light to their own communities in vain search of simple answers to complex problems. I might’ve gone to that too but junior is playing cricket. Cardiff have made some encouraging signings and also look to have a stronger squad this year than last. I’ll probably be eating those words by September. The team has a good number of ex-Arsenal players now making them even more watchable.
Spuds paying 65 million for Solanke? Fucking hell
At the end of last season my at a glance take would have been that our most pressing areas to address in the TW were a striker (for obvious reasons) and another CM to replace Partey who I assumed would be sold or if he stayed someone to provide good cover because of his injury issues. That is also assuming that Timber is going to be first choice left back (who spends £40 million on a right sided player to play them at LB is another conversation).
A week from the start of the season and we’ve bought a left sided defender who cost £40 odd million.
Now I’m aware that my utter hatred of Arteta could be said prevents me from being objective so can someone answer me a question – What would Pedro be saying if the current windows business had been overseen by Emery and Sanllehi?
KP
I assume you have hip flask refuelling stops built in the Sat Nav journey? Brilliant mate enjoy, and hope the results bring fortune to the journey’s length of merriment in the car.
Marc
I say probably Pedro would be on suicide watch. He must be out of excuses by now and let his bots do the shithousing.
Looks like Toney could be Manure bound.
Spud’s continues to build. Solanke at that cost seems excessive but it is Spuds we’re talking about 😂
TRVL
I think we are in for a very good football season with the expected clubs to be back on the front foot and challenging with club’s like Emery’s Villa mounting at CL birth charge.
What you are alluding to is I think the tip of the iceberg of misfiring and criminal misuse of tactics as we saw last season.
Only this season our run in from a title winning perspective is the hardest for Arteta’s previous 5 years, where he capitulated the last 4.
So, with a side more unbalanced than last season, and relying on our perma-crocs to play more games and being older. I can’t not see us be also rams again this season.
20 days to save our season I’d say.
Looking forward to next weekend and at least being able to support the club and lads for another 9 months of games in our LIR box🙈
we’re such lame-ass fucks this summer that even our rumour mill is boring as fuck…frankly I’m surprised we got Raya’s signing over the line, even though it was a foregone conclusion, due to the obligation to buy clause…to be honest, the whole window has been rather embarassing
Tony & Marc—I have no doubt that we’ll be in the mix regardless of how we close this window, so long as our key players remain healthy, but just competing for things doesn’t cut it for me…I don’t think there’s a single side worthy of fearing in the PL, just like last season, and I likewise think our CL window is open for one more year…Real’s total revamp will require another season, but after that they could easily go on a multi-year run…they ain’t fucking around…they’re the real-real and we should be taking fucking notes… not only have they continued to win at the highest of levels, during what can only be described as a transitionary period, they’re on the precipice of ushering in a new era of footballing dominance while simultaneously phasing out their two most seminal figures, Kroos and Modric
knowing all this, MA needed to be an absolute window beast, starting in the winter of 23, but that simply hasn’t materialized…he’s settling at times, which has had some long-term ramifications, he’s vastly overspent on a luxury tweener, when those monies should have been spent far more wisely. and he’s likewise become far too infatuated with the ludicrous notion of shoehorning seemingly every new recruit…the fact that this highly flawed plan failed to yield the required results should surprise no one…this is why I placed such a significance on this particular window
it was imperative that we adopted a scorched earth approach when it came to our periphery pieces, then targeted two world-class players, one midfielder and a Striker…in fact, the vast majority of the groundwork should have been laid prior to season’s end…so when the summertime arrived there should have been a clear organizational understanding that until these aforementioned objectives were suitably met all other incoming business was on hold…..no more nibbling around the edges or drawn out negotiations for coin-toss propositions, this needed to be the kind of window we would reminisce about for years to come…instead we appear to be on some sort of recency bias crusade being orchestrated by an overtly thirsty wannabe with a raging God-complex
TRVL
The question there is “what’s in the mix”? Challenging for top 4 is a very different thing to being almost 20 points clear of 4th.
I think this season is going to be much tougher than the last 2 and our record against the top 6 or so is going to be nigh on impossible to repeat.
Rumours yesterday that we were ready to deal on Nketiah at £25 million – that’s a massive drop from the £45 we were reported to want. Our negotiating team really are fucking useless – Eddie was never worth £45 million and with the salary we put him on we were always going to have to take a hit on the fee but to demand £45 and then drop to £25 million makes you look weak, any other team approaching us for a player will take the view “make them sweat a little and they’ll bottle it”.
The only upside is if we do sell Eddie we’ve got to bring in a replacement.
Marc—I think we’ll once again battle for a top 2-3 spot, maybe even win it all, but only if others shit the bed…there’s several teams who should be better this year than last, like United, Chelsea and the Spurs, but I still don’t see them as title contenders…I’m not sure about Newcastle and Villa, as the former hasn’t done anything of real consequence this off-season, at least not yet, whereas the latter lost a few key contributors and I’m still not sold on their backline…in my estimation, it’s between City, Pool and ourselves again, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from that 2nd tier, maybe the Spurs, entered the top 3 mix
it’s difficult to tell what impact, if any, managerial changes will have on either Pool or Chelsea…I’m far more familiar with Slot, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, especially considering what Klopp left in the cupboards…it looks like they’re going to run it back, as they retained the services of all their veteran starters from last season…I would suspect that next summer will be the official ushering in of the Slot era…Chelsea, on the other hand, is still a bit of a messy bitch, even though I think they’re rife with talent, if only someone could ever figure out their best 11, especially on the backend…this is what seperates us from the pack, as I think we’re the only ones who can compete with City from a defensive standpoint…if only MA cared half as much about the top of the pitch as he does about our end of the pitch, we just might have something here…that said, it’s been a weird off-season, as only United and Spurs have made a concerted effort to redress their most glaring deficiencies, which certainly doesn’t excuse MA for his shameful inactivity
as for Eddie, it’s clear that we misread the room when it came to his evaluation…now it looks as if we’ll have to settle for a loan deal with an obligation to buy in order to get anything near the 30M mark…I guess the only potential silver lining in that equation could come if Eddie struggles to produce and we come out of this mismanaged situation 30M richer…I do wonder though how that delayed payment might impact our ability to replace him with someone of consequence, as I’m worried that MA might once again opt for a less than adequate option
valuation
TRVL/Marc
It will depend on incoming players over the next 18 days. So far, nothing on the horizon that’s gathered weight from the many click bait stories.
If we don’t buy quality for 8 & 9 I see us crapping for a CL place. We will be right side centric again. Then the usual croc suspects will spend time on the treatment table as past mistakes are repeated again this season.
I think Emery might be up there as they have bought well and Emery is a winner; just look at his CV.
We need an 8 & 9 to win the PL. That’s my humble opinion.
Beating Lyon to retain the Emirate’s cup may well be the crowning glory silverware for our season before it starts.
We’ll see next weekend how were are going to perform and the next 5 games after.
apparently we’re contemplating a loan agreement for Kingsley Coman, who’s coming off a horrible season which saw him miss 21 games, due to a multitude of injuries, and who only potted 3 goals in 17 appearances…now if this were a few years back, I might think differently, but to do so on the heels of such an underwhelming season reeks like another massive MA overreach…top sides typically don’t take on season-long loans in the summer, especially for players on massive wages, 240+ per week, who are out of form and injury-prone…if this were to happen it should be viewed as the actions of an utterly desperate manager who can’t seem to convince anyone of consequence to drink his particular brand of Kool-Aid…not to mention, how does this sort of move possibly fit into MA’s “all-in” philosophical approach, as the priorities of the two parties involved could be at odds, should the player in question struggle for minutes or if he’s gifted minutes ahead of other more worthy in-house options…just more potential amateur hour late window nonsense by a manager who can’t seem to attract high end readymade talent without paying through the nose and/or offering up short-sighted, ill-advised assurances…now if Munich wants to eat half his salary, I would have a bit of a rethink, but we all know that’s never going to happen
TRVL
The alternative to that scenario is that we’re short of money / have issues with FFP rules which if correct beggars the question “why the fuck have we just spent £40 odd million on another defender”?
Marc
There are a lot of splinters at AFC. Out of favour players get them in the arse sitting on the bench and El B in his fingers from scratching his head.
Norg
I work in the Timber industry and have done in various guises for 25 plus years and would say to the average person I’ve had more splinters than you’ve had hot dinners but I don’t get close to the number of one of Arteta’s rejects.
the only thing worse than reaching for Kingsley, especially on his present wages and with anything more than an option to buy, is if we were to pursue another underwhelming Chelsea flop like Sterling…I can just see it now, shitloads of club-manufactured nonsense about their familiarity and about how MA might be the only one who could unlock this now erratic and overpaid forward…no fucking thanks…for the love of God, can we take Chelsea’s contact info out of our fucking rolodex
this summer is reminding me of the one when Wenger failed to understand the gravity of the situation and only purchased Cech, then LC pipped us for the title…it appears that we might be falling into the same false bravado trap that has plagued us in the past…fuck it would be nice if just once we learned from our past mistakes…clearly self-awareness isn’t one of our organizational strong suits…what a fucking shame
And another youngster exits to pastures new. How does Chelsea (and City) sell their surplus youngsters for a handsome fee and we get peanuts – could it be our sales team are monkeys.
“Sources say Coman, 28, is keen on making the move to Arsenal this summer but would seek assurances over his playing time at the Emirates”
it’s certainly no surprise that Coman would require assurances, but who in their right mind would allow a functional outsider to hijack their selection process…I’ll tell you who, a desperate man who hands out assurances like he’s fucking Oprah, except to Emi of course
Hi Marc
Splinters are bastards aren’t they?
I had one that got right under my finger nail the other day after nonchalantly brushing my digit against some 2×4. It hurt like hell and I was struggling to get it out for a few days. It’s an even bigger problem when age diminishes your short sight.
Anyhoo, I eventually relented and asked a typically reluctant Ms Kroenkephobe to get it out with tweezers. I’m usually OK at withstanding pain but christ it hurt for a while.
Gardening is also a guaranteed way to accumulate splinters. I usually keep a safety pin tacked onto my shorts and dig them and stray thorns out straightaway.
Ambarish – any chance of an article on managing splinters?!? Might be a good alternative to transfer speculation?
Marc – what is your top 5 of woods by the way (hard and/or soft)? Here’s mine.
5 Mahogany
4 Willow (howzat)
3 Beech
2 whatever iced lolly sticks are made of
1…drum roll… Balsa!
I know, I’m a real lightweight! Glider for Kroenkephobe.
KP
Oak? Lives for ages.
Rumours are that Marseilles have pulled the plug on the deal for Eddie.
KP
You could construct Kon – Tiki II.
KP
(1) nothing beats the smell of wet or burning cedar
(2) big fan of Scandinavian furniture, so I have several teak pieces throughout my home
(3) from a pure aesthetic standpoint, either a Monterey Cypress or an Acacia tree
Cheers
there’s a lot of media pundits who seem to be under the impression that we need to sell some more pieces before making any big money buys…not sure if that’s a real thing or not, but it certainly wouldn’t be a shocking revelation considering our manager’s druken sailor spending habits…when Kroenke loosens the purse strings he expects fucking results, like with the Rams, Avalanche and Nuggets…unfortunately our little project manager is the only one to not deliver the goods…this is why I was so pissed by the fucking Havertz deal and all those other half-measure/ill-suited acquisitions in the years prior
New post!