GYÖKERES DEAL STALLS - BIG MOVE PIVOT?
Let’s get this Sunday session going, shall we?
Gyökeres. Where are you?
No one knows.
The poor guy might be stuck in a Centurion Lounge pinging Andrea Berta, offering up chunks of his deal to get it over the line. Arsenal and Sporting seem to be negotiating these fees like livelihoods depend on them.
So much for simple deals to get done… our hero need for this season, a striker, was not delivered by wheels-up for the preseason tour.
Add to that, the Portuguese media is now trying to create pressure by insisting Manchester United are in the mixer now, with the £3m extra Sporting want, and that they are advancing talks. Call me crazy, I just can’t see a world where Gyökeres gives up his girlfriend, £2m in bonuses, image rights to his grandma… all to say, fuck it, I want in at the car crash that is Manchester United… at 27 years old.
Could Arsenal give up on Gyökeres over £3m and pursue grander plans?
Alex Isak was benched yesterday and it’s clear his people are putting the message out to all the big clubs that he wants out of Newcastle. We could dream, we really could, but it would take the biggest hard sell of all time for Stan Kroenke to reach into the coffers of the most expensive multi-club / multi-sports franchise in the world and do something truly MASSIVE. Just remember: £150m on fee, followed by £500k-a-week over five years, would total that deal out at about £270m. Our total wage bill in 2023 was £230m.
But, as I always say about money that is not mine… if you’ve got it, why not spend it? Come on Stan, say yes, and make our dreams come truuuuuue.
Still, what you do have to say is in this economy, £67m all-in for a striker ain’t that bad… especially when you’re watching Ekitike move for €95m. The French striker has 32 league goals to his name in his entire career, and now he’s joining the club of players that move for monster fees in the Premier League with a slight frown.
This is Liverpool operating here, so you have to be careful when pouring scorn over a deal, but it does seem like an outrageously excessive fee for one of the biggest xG underperformers… and you’re picking him from a club that has a pretty incredible track record of flogging duds.
I don’t think that’ll be Ekitike… he was great against Spurs last year (so what if that’s my only reference point). But I do think a lot of incredible has to happen for him to look like value for money. The deal feels very, very un-Liverpool-like. But, it’s being overseen by Michael Edwards, and he’s not usually wrong in his assessments.
In a week where I’ve no taken a single L for things that look like Ls, I do want to hold my hands up for pushing Evan Ferguson. A once hot young striker stunk out the dressing room at West Ham United and he’s just moved to Roma for £40m. I’ll own that L, fully.
Before we left for preseason, Arsenal took time out to deliver a 3-0 walloping of Watford. I don’t have the energy to dig into the game, mainly because some are saying it was 2-0 and some are saying it was 3-0. People are saying Norgaard scored a bicycle kick. Some are saying Lokonga scored two goals. Some are saying Kai scored. I think we won though.
and… it is clear from this result… we’re winning the damn league, right?
Madueke is in the building. He’s pals with all the Arsenal players. Berta and Arteta were all over the video. Someone pointed out that Mikel patted his stomach, clearly trying to work out if he’s overweight. I had an encounter with an athlete once and they did the same… a side pat with the handshake to check if I was lean. It was degrading, but I was lean… and we bonded from that point on.
Not to harp on about the Madueke deal, but as we flap around like salmon on an ice rink over these add-ons for Gyökeres (MEGA NEED), Madueke is about to go on holiday for three weeks and miss nearly the entirety of our preseason tour. At best, he’ll be available to sit on the bench for the Emirates Cup game. When we talk about priorities, getting this one done at light speed will never not be weird, unless… the deal was… sorry, I’ll stop.
In seasons past, I didn’t need to swot up on agents’ names, but here I am, looking at his agent and it’s Ali Barat. The man is looking after Nico Jackson—who was offered to Arsenal—and he looks after Xavi Simons, who has now been linked to Arsenal.
The 22-year-old Dutch creator has been linked with every big club in Europe. He’s YouTube comp bait of the highest order: he’s fast, one-touch, and explosive over short distances. He’d be competition to the Eze deal, if that’s at all realistic. He plays centrally and can move out into left-sided positions. His output numbers when he was in Holland were extraordinary: 22 goals and 11 assists. He’s been at Leipzig for two seasons now—he had 10 goals and 15 assists in his first season. Last year, things tailed off with the overall performance of Leipzig and he bagged 11 goals and 8 assists. Leipzig needs to sell, they’ve totally botched the Šeško exit, so this does have legs… I’m just not sure it has legs at a price point that would work for Arsenal if £60m is too rich for Eze. Simons fits more of our traditional age profile, even though he is a lot smaller than the signings we normally go for… there’s also the nagging feeling that this player has it all on paper, but he doesn’t seem to attract much big-dog interest outside the clubs addicted to buying?
One to watch… mostly because we might be turning into a club that puts more energy into who is calling, vs what the data is showing. That is the nature of agent-first contact Sporting Directors.
Final story of the day that has been largely under-reported is that Arsenal are making academy transfers at a much higher clip than usual. Victor Ozhianvun and Will Wright join from Shamrock Rovers and Salford. Per Mertesacker has been given a budget and the club is now trying to replicate what Manchester City and Chelsea have been doing for years… the basic strategic premise is very simple:
If you don’t have best-in-class at every level in your academy, go out and buy it within the rules of the game.
And let me tell you, the rules are loose, and there are some eye-watering sums passing hands to get the very best kids in academies. Why? Teams like Manchester City have been able to generate £200m+ in revenue from their academies over the last five years. No one really pays attention to what they are doing at the lower levels because it’s boring… but did you know they’ve already generated more money than Arsenal in sales this summer, and the two players that have left for about €32m combined are Yan Couto and Máximo Perrone? They generated €38m from Tommy Doyle, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, and Sergio Gómez last year. None of these are household names, but City put them in their system, trained them to Pep Guardiola levels, then sold them for good fees if they didn’t quite have the sauce to make it at the highest level in their first team.
Arsenal want some of that action and those moves are starting this summer. So we’ll see how it goes, but word of warning—just don’t fall in love with these players. You have to be Max Dowman levels to break into this squad and not many have that in the locker. You also might have to get used to losing the occasional Cole Palmer or Jeremie Frimpong… that’s the game. Kind of sad that small clubs are losing their ability to farm players and make money off the big clubs. Big clubs are creating recruitment strategies at every level now and they have the resources the small clubs couldn’t dream of… bit unfair, but that’s the game, I guess.
Ok, that’s your lot for today. See you in the comments. Pray for Gyökeres. x
P.S. Check out the early bird podcast I dropped for the Drake Ramberg podcast. I got to fan boy with one of the greatest football shirt designers of all time. He’s the godfather of kit culture, he’s a gooner, and he gave all the details about his process and ideas over the course of the show. Well worth your time. x