The agent of Shkodran Mustafi has confirmed that everything is agreed between the player and Arsenal, and all that remains is for the two clubs to come to an arrangement over the transfer fee.
The 24 year is all set for a move to North London after agreeing wages and personal terms, and it’s now down to Arsenal to make it happen with a formal, acceptable, bid to the La Liga side.
Speaking to Sports portal Spox, Ali Bulut said, “Shkodran and Arsenal agree. All that’s left is that the teams agree a fee.”
The news was backed up by a Sky Sports Germany reporter on Twitter:
@SkySportNewsHD Info: Mustafi Deal to @Arsenal nearly done. Player and Club agreed on contract. Final talks w @valenciacf to come.
— Marc Behrenbeck (@Sky_Marc) August 11, 2016
So all that remains is for Arsenal to do give Valencia enough money for them to sell.
“£20m?”
“No.”
“£20,000,001?”
“No.”
“£20,000,002?”
“No.”
But in seriousness, with all the other stuff out of the way and the need to bring in someone quite pressing, this should hopefully go through without too much delay.
Wooooohooooooo
Suarez agreed to move, but liverpool didn’t thanks to the cheap bid of 4000001. Let’s hope this time all parties agreed.
I don’t know why people thumbed you down, mate. You just stated a fact.
Inconvenient truth. People don’t like it so much.
Tell me about it.
No, he didn´t!
and someone denying that fact gets so manh thumb ups… let try this, Arsenal havent won a league title since Highbury 2004
Because its not a fact? Suarez did agree and Liverpool rejected it even though they couldn’t since it activated his release clause. I don’t get why people think Arsenal should have bid 70 million a la Barca when at the time 40 million activated the clause and Suarez signed a new contract removing the clause hence the need for Barca to bid so much more. Also even though Suarez agreed his conversation with Gerard made him change his mind and not press the issue or seek legal help against Liverpool so yeah not really Arsenal’s fault
so a club like Barcelona paid 35£ millions more than his release clause? almost double that 40+1 that you say is supposed to be enough?
wow! you guys seem to know more than a giant like Barcelona doing a £75 millions deal huh
brokenredarmy, did you not read his comment. Suarez signed a new contract which removed the clause, even Liverpool’s owners came out and said there was a clause in the contract which they didn’t adhere to
Naturally he only read the comment with one eye… Lord forbid that logic, or worse still, facts (!) should get in the way of a good rant?
the liverpool suarez £1 bid was a complete mess from a contract law perspective.
the bid was enough to trigger his clause,
the clause however was either non descript as to the outcome of talks or was just plain ignored.
i think suarez could have taken them to court over it however it would have cost him and he got his move anyway.
arsenal were in no means in the wrong here…….. ffs
if a price label for a chocolate bar is £1 who pays £1.10?
Mate don’t mix buying a chocolate bar with buying a footballer, both completely different processes.
Chocolate bars are on sale but Suzarez wasn’t. You obviously don’t pay extra if there is a set price and the other party is ready to sell. If the other party is not ready to sell than you make a lucrative offer that exceeds their expectations and valuation and tempts them to sell.
what about a footballer made of chocolate?
You Bite into a Chocolate Bar
Suarez Bites in to you
Football. Crazy. Chocolate mad. Grab a power pod and football with the lads.
Ah memories.
Thought I’d thumb you down as wel, more for the than/then mix up than anything.
@goonerink – buyout clauses being non descript to the outcome of talks is the typical industry practice. It doesn’t make sense for the selling club to put a guaranteed price tag on an asset the moment they acquire a player, puts a cap on their investment. So yeah, you’re right, from a contractual perspective, Arsenal and Liverpool both didn’t do anything wrong. But I think Reality Check nails it. Arsenal has the legal and business nous to understand that at that time, Suarez had a greater market value than the buyout clause. Not to mention that adding a pound to… Read more »
But in the case of Vardy, all we needed do was bid the 20m to trigger his release. we didn’t need to add 1 pound to confirm if indeed there was a release clause. It was unnecessary, in the case of Suarez. I guess we learnt out lesson. If 40m was the sum penned in Suarez’s contract. bidding 40m and not a pound more. would have triggered his release. My conclusion is that there was a vagueness about the release clause that meant it was not binding enough. Suarez and his agents didn’t help matters by not pressing for him… Read more »
The difference is one clause said ‘£20m or over’ whilst the other said ‘Over £40m’.
It’s not rocket science.
While I certainly agree it was illegal to say no to arsenal’s bid you don’t go and bid 1 fucking quid over the clause. A bid of 40.5m would have at least showed a little respect. Instead they got angered and defensive. I would hope we would do the same thing honestly. Probably should have offered 45m
I disagree, if the clause had have been legitimate it would have made no difference whether or not we “respectfully” threw away half a million pounds. I realise there is ridiculous money in football, but this still makes no sense.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/mar/02/liverpool-john-henry-luis-suarez-clause
there was no clause just some mislead, yet we didnt improve the idiotic bid and after a phenomenal season Barcelona got him for 60 one year later.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/mar/02/liverpool-john-henry-luis-suarez-clause
Suarez wouldn’t have needed to go to court, if he’d just threatened it they would have backed down. But he didn’t because he wanted the move to Spain to keep his Spanish wife happy.
It wasn’t a cheap bid. That was his release clause so that’s what we bid. Anything over 40m, ok yeah ill just chuck in an extra mil for fun. Why?
They admitted that bid should have actually been accepted.
Suarez wanted to go to Barca. That’s why he didn’t come.
Suarze had said goodbye to teammates didnt attend trainings had public interviews saying Liverpool should respect their promise and let him play CL football and all that during a preseason friendly which msn this is internet go look them up yourself before making up facts. after that one friendly which Suarez left Stadium Gerrard told reporters he believes its good for Suarez if he doesnt go to Arsenal a club not at top level and waits for Real Madrid or Barcelona. anyhow Arsenal ended their persue and didnt bid nomore and Suarez a year later when joining Barca said Gerrard… Read more »
Whatever was said at the time (which may or may not have been true) we know that was what he wanted and in the end it was what he got.
The purchase price wasn’t the problem. The fact that Liverpool’s owners made a measured decision not to honor their contract with the player was the issue. The Liverpool owner bragged about his tactic in a speech after the fact.
Yeah, it boggles my mind how anybody can characterize Arsenal having bid the release clause in someone’s contract as “insulting.” Why would you make a bid above the amount the amount the contract says will require the other party to accept?
Liverpool decided to simply ignore its contract, and managed to work it out with Suarez so he would allow them to do it.
Indeed – to my mind it was a £1 more than it needed to be
The difference is that Valencia need to sell and Liverpool didn’t.
40 plus 1 was a good bid because it triggered his release clause, how is that cheap. Fact is Liverpool were in breach of contract, was up to Suarez to take them on and he didn’t. That means we wouldn’t have gotten him whatever.
It’s a completely different situation, and not really relevant.
People calling Wenger cheap for bidding £40,000,001 are fools, quite simply. He had a release clause of £40m, add a pound and its activated, meaning by law they have no choice. Simple as that. Not to mention Wenger went back with a greater bid, Liverpool would rather get sued than sell Suarez to Arsenal, and that is what happened….
I’d still sign Jonny Evans aswell then add a striker and the transfer doesn’t look like too much of a disaster after all
I think signing Jonny evans would be a disaster in itself. No matter the circumstances.
Johny Evens as a worst worst case scenario of course. He has the potential, just as Welbs, Jones and Smalling, they’re development stalled after Fergie left.
I get the feeling this could be seen as a bargain in a couple of years. I am 100% certain that had Kosc not been unavailbe to start the season, and Gabriel & Per werent injured, we wouldnt even look at Evans. We need cover that is more experienced than the three extremely promising and exciting young CBs we have.
it will bring back days of being sylvestered and having to patch up with a bit of squillaci ..
Silvestre, Wes Brown, Jonny Evans and the entire cast of Looney toons all have the same DNA!!!!
Still pre-emptive IMO…
Never get excited until its on Arsenal.com
once vardy-ied, twice shy ..
or Suarezd.
That would be more apt, given the word we’re replacing here.
Great business if the rumoured £25m fee is true. Hopefully we can get him signed and registered for Liverpool at the weekend. Now time to get a forward player and give the season a real go! COYG!
Don’t think he’ll be settled in time for the weekend and presents a gamble as much as Chambers/Holding. Either way, pack the midfield with the defensive types and hope for the best.
I think a Chambers/Monreal pair is the best option now, with Gibbs as a left full back……and on the defense we should have both Coquelin and Xhaka
How about Debuchy at centre back?
Debuchy is best used as a bench-back.
I actually think Elneny is as good if not better at defending than Le Coq. He’s a very tidy player and a better passer than Coq.
Ramsey in the 10 role or on the right?
also, I don’t get this “he’s not quite ready” argument. In North American sports (hockey, baseball, basketball, etc.) you can get traded in the morning and play that night for your new team. Last time I checked the size of the soccer ball and rules are still the same. I understand the argument about team chemistry, but it’s the beginning of the year and all teams struggle with chemistry.
Throw him in there!
In the 10 on the right. On the bench right behind a technically better Cazorla. Rambo to come on in the 2nd half for his unbelievable energy which will be needed against a Liverpool side under klopp
Why risk Monreal? If he gets injured, there would be a central back and left back crisis.
roflmao.. why risk anyone then? we’ll get injury crisis for the whole squad then.
That is a great shout Omar!
Really give ourselves some steel with that set up.
I actually like Holding much better than Monreal at CB. On video he looks like a young John “Racist Cunt” Terry — not going to win too many aerial challenges, but a powerful physical presence with very smooth footwork/positioning. And he was fifth in the Championship in blocks + interceptions per game. If our plan is to deny and disrupt at the back and then hit on the counter, he seems like a much more effective option than NM18.
That wouldnt happen since Gibbo is our only LB cover – just not liKe Wenger. I expect Holding alongside Chambers or Beilik (who i thought looked very confident and positive).
Coquelin has played at both full back positions before, so can stand in if necessary. Obviously not a 1st option but an emergency option.
indeed, even if he is signed by Sunday he’ll be nowhere near ready for Liverpool given all the things that are involved in moving club and country, that’s without the fact he’s not actually match fit according to Valencia’s coaches
But of course the coaches there could be saying that to explain why he’s not playing any matches for the first XI and thus protect the club’s investment in the face of an impending “big-money” transfer…?
Maybe?
Holding will start. Question is whether it will be with Chambers or Nacho.
I think he presents less of a gamble as he’s an established international with Champions League experience, whereas Chambers and Holding are neither. I’d be comfortable with Chambers next to him, though.
Also, how can anybody downvote my comment. Are people not happy that we’ve got a defensive signing? Lol
You’re only going to get more downvotes by saying this now!
How can anybody downvote your comment? Doesn’t everyone love myopic self-righteousness?
How can anyone downvote your first comment? 1. That comment was too upbeat about the season ahead, with you sounding genuinely excited. Do you not realize that it utterly failed to convey any disappointment whatsoever about the state of things at the club and/or the manager? This is clearly unacceptable. Minus one point. 2. You can put up a picture on your profile, and you dare to put a picture of yourself? Tsk tsk tsk. Most of us don’t even know how to put up a picture! Minus two. 3. You follow all this up by inquiring about the logic… Read more »
Point 2! Haha absolutely
I put that cow up in 2011 and have no idea how I did it.
Minus 1 for using the word ‘myopic’. Who the fuck knows what that means anyway?
Haha fair
Love it! ?
You must be new here….
Thank god for that! I thought it would never happen. Get him in the squad ASAP. liverpool might be short. Hopefully he’ll be ready for Leicester. COYG!
If the rumour of 25 million is true and Valencia have heard about it then it will certainly be 45 million.
If we can buy him and throw him right into the Liverpool game, what’s the point of pre-season? he would have trained with his teammates for no longer than 2 once! I dare say it is potentially more disastrous than pairing Holding and Chambers, dragging Kols into it, or drafting Nacho to the middle – all of which are options for Sunday.
Poo meter?
thats for mahrez :p
Wonderful, welcome to The Arsenal, Mustafi.
It looks great and all, but please (PLEASE!) don’t jinx it!
Like I said when Wenger wants a player he does it quickly. Sad it took a Mertesacker Gabriel injury to do it. I just wish he’d get it done on other fronts.
I think it’s reasonable to think that Wenger was actually happy with Kos, BFG, Gabriel, Holding and Chambers as his CB options. That’s 5 players. With Debuchy stuck in the Outbox, the defender he may have been looking to bring in may have been a versatile or utility player who can play backup to Bellerin, or perhaps at CB if needed. The injury may well have adjusted our targets and switched our attentions to CB.
Mustafi can play right back as well.
Yep, this move made sense before any injuries, which is why it’s frustrating it didn’t happen three weeks ago.
I would hope Wenger already realised that Koz is the only CB we have who is good enough in his all round game.
I love the BFG, but if we push up he is always in danger of being exposed by pace. Gabriel is raw and seems to struggle to work as part of the defensive unit. Chambers and Holding have good potential, but you cannot rely on that through a season.
Mustafi looks ideal.
Haha quickly!
Arsenal may have been negotiating with Mustafi’s agent for weeks if not months. Just because you heard about it all of a sudden doesn’t mean it happened all of a sudden.
Definitely very happy about this one. Medical tomorrow please. Give the money to poverty-stricken Valencia. By the way, does financial fair play still exist with everything Man U is doing?
‘still exist’…..never existed in the first place mate.
United bring in so much cash worldwide it makes little difference
their kit deal is huge, but i think i read they lose a big chunk of it if they miss out on champions league in two consecutive seasons. i think that’s one of the reasons they are spending recklessly this summer to ensure they finish in the top 4. for the love of bergkamp, i hope they finish 5th.
On goal difference… what a day that would be!
due to a heavy defeat to us!
In the very brief time that financial fair play was actually in force (before the changes that have made it worthless) it made a difference to clubs like Chelsea, Man City, and PSG, that used money from outside the club to finance purchases of players. Man United, like Arsenal on a somewhat smaller scale, have always depended on money generated from football, including television (certainly, the Glazers are no more like than silent Stan to use their own money for the club).
Which is why they may have been a bit too reckless with their spending this summer. If they overdo it and don’t make the Champions League next year there’s no guarantee they won’t suffer financial difficulties. It doesn’t matter how big you are, you can still do a “Leeds Utd”/”Portsmouth”.
the special one will sadly get them into top 4,
Are you referring to the cunt who poked a rival coach in the eye?
What a low life cunt he is.
The only thing special about Mourinho is the medicine administered to him rectal-ly twice a day by Ferguson
It does still exist but in a much more limited way now the big TV money is here. See financialfairplay.co.uk which explains it.
Wenger back in!
@DasGooner classic !!
Haven’t seen him play much, but I remember getting excited when we signed Gabriel.
Hoping he is the real deal as Mert is getting old, Chambers isn’t ready and Gabriel worries me always.
Might also reassure Koscielny.
16 million is a lot of money for a player who isn’t ready and who will be in his 3rd season of pro football.
He’s a man that plays football and Arsenal will buy that man.
Mustafi a great chance of cementing a place in the first team with all our injuries.
Let’s hope it goes through quickly and we turn our attention to attacking options. Not Bony tho please!
Cracking news if this is true.
Mustacielny?
Kostafi definitely works better.
You’re a genius. 🙂
Must pay a fee for Must-a-fee, Muster the fee !
Rap lyrics, grab coat?
Preach!
Kostafi will trend this season. But before that happens, all I wanna say is… To the above news… Amen!
I find Kosy-Scrotum has a certain comforting ring to it…
I will be content with just this signing, championships are won from great defence. I love BFG but he’s not the most agile or quickest thing out there. Most of the time I don’t know what Gabriel is doing, don’t think even he does. Kos and mustafi will easily be the best defence partnership in the Prem and only to rivaled by prolly by Bayern in champions league. Good times ahead
You’re aware that we struggled in attack last year? It’s the same threadbare attack ffs we need a striker
Yes, but we let in too many goals last season. I mean, we were letting in long range shots left right and centre because our defence was leaving big wide holes for strikers to shhot through. If Mustafi fixes that then our goals up front each become more valuable. I’ll happily take 1-nil to The Arsenal rather than 1-1.
anything better than 8-2
8-1?
One does not count chickens before they have been hatched.
Especially if one is breaking eggs to make an omelette.
Strange to think that this will (hopefully) be Arsenal’s first signing in the £20-30 million price bracket.
Xhaka?
he was 35? sanchez mid 30’s, ozil 42.
If i remember right, below that the most expensive was 16ish for the OX? Anyone else remember anyone more than that?
Arshavin? Reyes? Welbeck? Chambers? Gabriel? All these guys cost bet 15-20…
Cazorla, chambers, welbeck where all ~16 million
He was over £30m.
Wasn’t Arshavin also like 23mil?
No.
No mate. 23 was his shirt number.
will this be the first time we pay above market value of a player ?
Not with markets the way they are now. It’s probably not even above market value for Mustafi.
We paid over market value for Henry.
Apparently his medical will happen on Monday. Makes sense if we can’t play him for Liverpool. We don’t want anything to bother our CB pairing for that match, whoever we play.
Good signing although we need to wait still for it to be agreed between clubs. If only Wenger had brought a top striker I’d be super confident. Now we must be confident that Walcott will have a good injury-free season
I am not going to post what first came into my head about your post ?
Great news. Although i’m slightly concerned that he is too similar in style to Koscieny and Gabriel. Can’t please some people though 😉
He’s aerially dominant from what I’ve heard. That should be a good start to making a good compliment to Kos.
Yeah I was looking at the stats on Squawka and if I recall correctly, he wins around 76% of aerial duels, which is obviously pretty high. Statistically what stands out is that he averages over 4 interceptions a game. Wenger clearly likes defenders who nip in and intercept the ball before it reaches the striker. Both Koscielny and Gabriel fit this profile. Looks a good player anyway.
Comparing Kos to Gabriel is an insult to the former.
I have nothing against Gabriel, but he is a horrible defender, I hate saying that, but he seems like the next Djourou rather than the next Kos.
Stylistically similar. Kos is clearly a far superior player.
And that was exactly my point…
It is you who have missed my point. See my comment above if you can be arsed (and I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t be).
It is difficult to defend Gabriel after the end of last season, however I feel there’s a decent player lurking in there. Kos had a shaky start to his Arsenal career too. On a separate note, I really like the look of Holding.
He’ll be more than a sub waiting for Per and Gabriel to come back. We all like Per but he’s not getting younger and Shkodran can easily be his replacement! Great signing! And Mesut will make it easier!
Is there anyone who is getting younger?
Benjamin Button did.
and Dorian Gray.
Kanu
pires
I wish
Excellent! Now one more signing in the forwards positions please! *eyes still scrunched..hands together in prayer* Mahrez Mahrez Mahrez
lets get hold of mahrez’s agent
Thank fuck! Now if Mahrez signs too I will as happy as a pig in shit.
I’m a pig and I take umbrage at your comment “pig in shit”. Pigs have feelings too you know.
Now if you had said “pig in mud”…
ahh the joys of an internet troll
I bet you chug down Monster, watch anime 24\7 and wear a leather fedora
It’s Official.
46 – The percentage of Gooners who are so stressed this summer that they’ve lost their sense of humour.
1 – The minimum number that Arsenal goals must exceed Liverpool goals on Sunday to bring those smiles back.
Delighted. When I look at transfer fees and recall Wenger bidding 40m+1 and thinking maybe if they hadn’t pissed Liverpool off they wouldn’t have fought so hard. Maybe. Wish we’d put in a 50m bid with wages that would make him just sign da ting. Wenger messed up that transfer. The other day I read someone saying that we get would excel in today’s market if he had a sporting director. He just gives a list of players and the rest shouldn’t be his issue but that’s not how it is. I would love for the man to win the… Read more »
It’s probably not that easy, with the owner saying something along `there was a buyout clause, but we decided to ignore it’ – what the hell? Can anyone explain this?
The clause was very ambigously worded by all accounts, it wasn’t a release clause in the same way say it’s obligatory in spanish contracts. Suarez could have gone to court over this, but they convinced him to stay for another year and let him move to Barca who probably made their potential interest known already, afterwards.
So in short: his clause wasn’t a straight-forward release clause, it was something like that they had to listen to any offer above 40 mio. not that they had to outright sell him, it was an unusual case. But Suarez wanted to go to Spain above all anyways so his agent probably had maade contact with Barca already or vice versa.
I see, thanks. I’ve now found a different quote stating that pool were ‘obliged to hold talks in good faith’ and based on this, I would consider their relation to be a breach of the contract.
Yes, if Suarez had threatened court then they’d have folded but he didn’t because he’d decided that Spain was where he’d be next to keep his Spanish wife happy.
Suarez always meant to go to Barcelona. He was never seriously interested in us. His agent just wanted to scare Barcelona into coughing up the money.
I think it was more a case of he wanted to join us until he got the whisper that Barca would be in for him soon.
Not Sure Mustafi is part of any plan?
Seems opportunistic, surely if we wanted a Player from a club this broke We’d have wrapped it up weeks ago?
We desparaty need a centre half, but can’t say this excites me.
“We desparaty need a centre half, but can’t say this excites me.”
He said, before jumping in front of a speeding train.
SIGN ALL ZE GERMANS
Draxler next, please!
and a german goalie to carry forward legacy of mad-jens 🙂
Yes, let’s get Neuer.
Great news.
Just need the big name striker in now (Lewandowski) and it’s a successful summer, regardless of whatever twitter and the gutter press would have us believe.
Why a big name striker? Why not a bloody good striker? The latter will do me.
but bayern have no one else to replace him, so how will it happen?
They are tapping up my Gran ?
Is that a euphemism for something?
Well she would be a box to box player in more than one sense of the word! 🙂
Ew