Solidarity with striking workers

Morning.

A very quick Sunday round-up. Let’s start with the Sporting president, Frederico Varandas, releasing a statement yesterday about Viktor Gyokeres, who has refused to return to training for the club he has a contract with, seemingly to force a move to Arsenal. He said:

“If they don’t want to pay fair market value for Viktor, we are very comfortable with that for the next three years

“If the geniuses who are devising this strategy think this puts pressure on me to facilitate the exit, they are not only completely wrong but are also making the player’s exit even more complicated. No one is above the club’s interests, no matter who they are.”

And on the player himself:

“We’re very calm, everything will be resolved with the market closing with a hefty fine and an apology to the group.”

As I said yesterday, if this was our player behaving like this if another club were interested in them, we’d be up in arms, so I don’t blame Varandas at all for his stance. Again, I think this is considerably more complicated than Arsenal just coming up with another €5m, but what’s clear is that if we hit that ‘fair market value’, the deal can get done. It’s all down to what that means, in financial terms, for Sporting. So, how much do we want him? How important is it we have him on board for the pre-season tour? Those are questions only Mikel Arteta and Andrea Berta can answer, so the ball is very much in their court now, and when you’re splashing some considerable cash on a lad from Chelsea who’s not all that, you’ve got to be prepared for other clubs to take that into account when you’re trying to do a deal with them.

Meanwhile, very helpfully, Gyokeres himself has done an interview with France Football in which he says “I’m at the table with the best attackers in the world”.

He talks about his goalscoring exploits in Portugal and completely downplays suggestions that his numbers are so good because of any perception that the league is weak:

“It’s often like that. When something unusual happens, people try to find an explanation. “It’s because he plays for the best team in the league,” “the level in Portugal isn’t good enough”… That’s just people’s opinion. And I don’t care. I know what I’ve achieved here; I’ve always done my best. The Portuguese league is a very good league, with a lot of technical players. It may not be as physical as in England, but the level is really good.”

Which, I’m sure, will be very helpful for Arsenal when they continue to negotiate with Sporting. Anyway, the reality of this situation is that we’re trying to buy their star striker, someone who scores a mountain of goals for them, and who was crucial in their title winning campaigns two seasons in a row. Why wouldn’t they hold out for as much as possible, and why wouldn’t they stand their ground when a player refuses to do the bare minimum until any agreement is reached?

Right, I think I need toast. It’s all I can think of now. Just butter, no jam. But if I were to have jam, I wouldn’t have butter too. Yes, this is an old Arsecast Extra argument, but it gives you something else to get crotchety about today instead of us not signing a striker yet.

Have a good one!

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