NOT ENOUGH CASH FOR THE DREAM SUMMER?
Damn, I’m out here, leant up against a wall, trying to catch my breath after ingesting far too much transfer elixir over the past few days…
It’s interesting to think about the Sesko deal. If we end up signing Gyökeres and he’s great, no one will care. But… you can’t change the data — Sesko looks like he will be great. The question is: What path will his career take now?
RB Leipzig wanted a huge fee that would be outrageous by any European club’s standards. So, does that mean they scuppered his move because they want to move him towards Saudi? That would suit his agent, for sure, and the rumors today are that those clubs are going to come back for him again.
Sometimes Arsenal miss out on a target and you have deep regrets… Raphinha.
Sometimes, we miss out on players like Vlahović and they go on to have totally unspectacular careers.
Shows you the power of the player. You can have all the raw attributes to be incredible, but if you don’t have the momentum to put it all together, you can melt into the meh category without a trace, or fail a drug test and lose a chunk of your career and reputation.
Houssem Aouar, remember him, what a time to be alive. I was told Steve Round scuppered that deal.
The Athletic is reporting that the deal for Nørgaard is done and dusted. £10m, moving to £15m if we win the Club World Cup in 2052. This sort of signing is like having a glass of water after necking a bottle of Château St. Gyökeres Cabernet Sauvignon. Required, no doubt, but if you’re running around the bar showing off your cup of water, no one is going to be impressed — bar the H20 freaks.
Nørgaard represents experience, leadership, and a great player for rotation in cup games. He can close out a game, we won’t see a massive decline in the side if he’s on the pitch, and he’ll act as a nice transition player as we look for a younger model over the next couple of seasons.
The Eze story has been given a little boost by The Sun. It’s interesting because we don’t yet know who has good intel with Berta. The big technical exits from the club have probably shifted the leak landscape, so it’s hard to know what is real and what is supposition. But The Sun say Eze is a priority for Berta, and DarrenArsenal1 from Twitter says the makeweight on offer is Josh Nichols. Not sure why Palace would be attracted to a player with almost zero experience, but who knows.
Eze feels like the name who can give us a real boost of Premier League-proven bang-BANG this summer, and he is literally at the final point of his career where his value and appeal will really start to drop. There’s a deal to be done with Palace now, because we know they thought there was a deal to be done last summer.
I’m starting to lose faith with the idea of Rodrygo if I’m honest. Hard to see how we’re making space for so many players in the attacking part of the squad — especially as it now seems more than likely that Ethan Nwaneri will sign a new deal with Arsenal.
Gyökeres – £60m
Eze – £50m
Mosquera – £15m
Madueke – £45m
Zubi – £65m
Kepa – £5m
Nørgaard – £11m
Rodrygo – £80m
The above totals £331m. My expectation is we might hit £200m this summer, because we basically ended last summer with a -€25m spend. We could be rolling over cash. But a £300m+ spend would indicate we will have to sell someone. Who are we selling that’s bringing in an extra £120m? I’m not sure…
Zinchenko – £12m
Kiwior – £40m
Martinelli – £70m
Trossard – £20m
Reiss – £20m
Sambi – £10m
Fabio – £15m
That’s £170m there, but damn, I’m being very, very generous with the amount of cash we’ve got baked into these players.
I think what I’m trying to say is: I’m unsure all these spinning plates will land, and I just really hope we’re not left with the unsexy roster of players that don’t have the X factor we really need.
But… we’ll see. 11 days until wheels up on preseason. Chop chop, there are players to buy!