Santi still delivering & Sporting lay out Gyokeres demands

Good morning everyone! I hope it’s as sunny where you are this morning as it is where I am.

I was out catching up with a friend last night and mentioned that I’d be taking the Arseblog reins over the next few days and that, in the absence of any astonishing late night transfer updates, I was a little concerned there’d be nothing to talk about.

Enter: Santi Cazorla.

We may be well into June but there is, somehow, still domestic football going on in Spain and Santi, now 40, came off the bench for his beloved Real Oviedo last night to score the goal that takes them into a two-legged play-off final as they chase promotion to LaLiga.

It couldn’t happen for a nicer guy, could it?

When I think of Santi, there are a few things that immediately come to mind. That performance at Manchester City, of course, but the first two things I actually think of are his both-footedness and that FA Cup final free-kick against Hull.

The former just stands out for the fact that he perfected one of the rarest abilities in the game. Few players use both feet well, almost nobody can use them equally. There are a handful of players who switch which foot they use for corners but nobody as naturally and convincingly as Cazorla did at Arsenal. And that Wembley goal against Hull, that needs no explaining.

Well, last night he combined the two: scoring a free-kick in a huge moment with his left foot. You can watch it here. Being two-footed enough to swing in a corner with your left as well as your right is one thing, but actually scoring free-kicks with both over the course of your career?

A quick search tells me that Simone Verdi scored a free-kick with each foot within the space of seven minutes for Bologna a few years back (what?!) but I can’t find evidence of anyone else doing it over the span of their career.

Anyway, I’m thrilled for Santi and hopefully Real Oviedo finish the job. He returned to his boyhood club last year and they got this far before losing to Espanyol. Second time lucky, perhaps.

Santi first joined them when he was eight and was sold against his will when he was just 17 because the club was in financial crisis. It’s near enough a miracle the club stayed alive long enough for him to ever return and it seems he’s determined to take them back to the top flight rather than retire. He’s on the minimum wage allowed for a player in Spain’s second tier and just 180 minutes separates Oviedo from ending their 24-year absence from the top flight. Maybe we’ll see him scoring free-kicks against Barcelona and Real Madrid at the age of 41 next season before returning to London to join Mikel Arteta’s coaching staff.

With Arsenal still over a month away from playing the first game of pre-season and transfer targets all likely on holiday, I’m just happy Santi has popped up right when I needed him one more time. It saved me working myself up into a rant about a potential expansion of the Club World Cup, anyway.

Enjoy not having to pay any attention at all to the first and last edition of that competition before the big Premier League clubs all lobby hard enough to get Arsenal a permanent place in it from the next tournament (2029) onwards.

There are a few bits out there on the transfer front, with the president of Sporting CP making it sound like he’d be a lovely guy to do business with if anybody does decide to seriously pursue Viktor Gyokeres.

It seems the Swede’s agent believes there’s a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ type situation that would allow the striker to leave for a fee of €60m plus €10m in bonuses this summer. Sporting president Frederico Varandas insists he doesn’t remember agreeing to those terms.

Sporting will not demand the release clause, but they should know me better by now: threats, blackmail, insults, they don’t work with me. I can guarantee one thing: Viktor Gyokeres will not leave for €60M plus €10M. He will not leave because I never allowed it, and with this game that the agent is playing, the situation will only get worse.

He goes on to say there was an agreement, struck in a meeting that Gyokeres was not present at, that Sporting would not demand the full €100m release clause, but that no specific sum that they would accept was decided upon or even floated.

I’m sure plenty of it is bluster. Sporting have a striker who wants to leave, his stock is never going to be higher, and they’re hoping one of the interested parties comes in with a nice big offer so they can cash in. It doesn’t look like he’s necessarily first choice for Arsenal up front, with the Benjamin Sesko talk still humming along, so I’m sure all this noise will cause a few conversations between Andrea Berta, Mikel Arteta and co. as they continue to weigh up who to push for and how much they’re willing to spend on each of the targets to lead the line.

Elsewhere, it looks like Manchester City will be signing Sverre Halseth Nypan, who we were linked with in January, then loan him back out for a year, and Leroy Sane had been linked with us but is off to Istanbul for a medical with Galatasaray.

Ultimately, it’s probably a good thing that Arsenal aren’t going to sign a 29-year-old winger who used to work with Arteta at Manchester City. That’s a path I wouldn’t be looking to go down again anytime soon.

Maybe Sane’s move gets a few other dominos falling, though. Bayern had wanted to keep him and, according to Sky over here in Germany, they’re interested in signing one of Bradley Barcola and Nico Williams to replace him. The reports go on to say that PSG aren’t looking to sell Barcola and Williams is open to joining Bayern but has informed them that he’s looking for an eye-watering £325k-a-week contract.

You can see why Arsenal would be reluctant to do a deal if that is the case.

Before I leave it there, here’s a little more Santi to start your day right:

Magic.

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