WHEN THE ORDER PROBABLY MATTERS
Cristhian Mosquera, spelt like the name has a built in lisp, is on his way to Arsenal for a very fine fee from Valencia. This is a Berta signing, he apparently tried to pull the player away from Valencia last year when a valuation of £26m wasn’t enough to tempt his club into an exit.
This, hopefully, will be good luck for Arsenal. As Arsène Wenger would say when parading Junichi Inamoto, “you’re just mad he didn’t cost £50m,” and deep down, he was right. I wanted Dean Huijsen to come in and give competition to Gabriel and Saliba for £52m because that’s where I think the project is at right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m blinded by this deal. It could prove to be exceptional value. My main hope is that Arteta likes him right off the bat and he’s integrated in the first three months of the season, rather than waiting for the inevitable injury that’s due to one of our main men.
The only thing I don’t like about the deal is what I tend not to like about most of our foreign deals. When we play in the £15m to £40m range for foreign talent, it mostly does not work out for Arsenal.
I also had high hopes that the reduced spend on a centre-back would allow us to spend more frivolously on attacking talent. The way things stand at the moment, according to the excellent reporting of Hand Of Arsenal, is that Madueke and Gyökeres will be the only two attacking signings made unless we can sell some of the deadwood that doesn’t seem to be attracting much interest right now.
As Jacob stated on The AOP last night, the Eze deal seemed more like a hedge if Ethan Nwaneri failed to sign a deal. I’m going to be really straight with you, if we don’t end the window adding an Eze or a Rodrygo-like character, it’ll be a 6 out of 10 window for me.
You know that I’m a fan of signing a back-up to Bukayo Saka, but I’m still really struggling to fathom the order of items here. We’re now as official as you can get on the “we need to sell to buy” message when it comes to star power on the left, but I’m struggling to see how someone like Eze wasn’t seen as more of a priority than Madueke.
Go with my thinking here…
Ethan Nwaneri dropped 1,400 minutes last season as back-up to Saka. Nine goals, two assists. He offered power, pace, close control, a threat centrally, and he was pretty decent out wide. That is your emergency back-up. You know who was back-up to Ødegaard? No one. Leandro Trossard. Maybe Kai sometimes? Ethan wasn’t trusted. Who looked the most limp last season out of Saka and Ødegaard? It was Martin. Whose form scares you more, Saka’s or Ødegaard’s?
I don’t work in the sporting department, so I have no idea what’s going on, but the decision to prioritise a right winger who won’t play a role in pre-season at all, over Eze, who we could’ve had on the plane if we’d moved harder, does baffle me somewhat. Miguel Delaney, who is well sourced, is claiming fiscal conservatism is how the summer is playing out for Arsenal, so again, I have to ask how we managed to get ourselves caught in a snap decision, for a reported high fee, for a player who didn’t have many suitors, when we could’ve pushed for Eze, who has Bayern and Chelsea circling.
I totally understand there is a need to sell. The squad is clogged up. The owners keep investing in transfers, and our outgoings have been pretty uninspired. But Arsenal do seem to have an incredible number of excuses when exiting players that clubs like Manchester City, Chelsea, and Liverpool don’t. I mean, let’s be clear here, Chelsea don’t have a problem shifting deadwood because Arsenal are always happy to be there writing a monster cheque for whatever they have, no questions asked. But I do have absolute faith they’ll be booking absurd numbers for Nico Jackson, Nkunku, and at least three £40m random players I’ve never heard of before the end of the window.
But Arsenal? We’ll hear things like, “the player has kids who like Hampstead Heath,” or “the wages are too high,” or my favourite, “there will be more action at the end of the window.”
One thing about our window is extremely clear, we’re going harder at instalments and contract details than I can ever remember. The Gyökeres proposal, according to reports, is four instalments, and the grist is over how easy the add-ons are. Quite extraordinary that we didn’t have a striker on the plane over £3m. Arsenal clearly don’t want the add-on to be paid out in the next year or so, as they look to make sure that down payments on these deals are spread as thinly as possible. We overpaid for Zubimendi to get the deal spread over three instalments. Why this is important is it gives you guidance on the amount of money the owners gave Arteta, and we’re not living in the same world as Liverpool, City, and Chelsea this window. We’re opting for higher risk players at lower fees, vs dipping into that phase 5 Declan Rice like buying pool we were kind of hoping for after two very bland transfers windows… and a mountain of fiscal success over the past two seasons.
This is life under KSE. We are well funded, but not funded to the standards our rivals are, which means we don’t get first pick of the talent, we can’t smother opportunities like Isak or Rodrygo, and it means the coaching masterclass from Arteta next season needs to be incredible. I’d argue we probably need a lot of luck with the people we’re bringing in. There are no guarantees on our current signings for me outside Zubimendi. Even Eze would represent some sort of risk, not because of talent, but more to do with the fact he’s 27 years old, has never played three games a week from September, and had that terrible injury a few seasons ago.
So, we are where we are. KSE frontloaded investment when we were rubbish and now it would seem they want to see a return to normality when we are on the precipice of greatness. A risky game as we saw last year. We took our eye off the ball and missed an incredible chance to win a major trophy. Now Liverpool look like they’re working hard to excel while they are hot. It does start to make me feel like returning to the big time was the goal (top 4) versus using the funds from the return to the big time to start operating like the mega clubs around us.
There’s plenty of time to go, but my instincts, being an Arsenal fan, are that whenever we get into a sell-to-buy media narrative, the chances of Arsenal pushing the squad to the promised land really start to diminish.
Am I setting this narrative up to be pleasantly surprised? Maybe. But deep down, I think we all feel that pang of… probably not. Still, pre-season proper starts very soon. I’m on a plane right now about to land in Austin. Life is good. The sun is shining. The cowboy boots are out. And a whole slew of Americans from the South are about to be captivated by my accent and questionable attire. Let the good times roll.
See you in the comments. x
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