The transfer stories are hotting up now that the Europa League final is over and we’re now fully aware of what our budget is for the summer ahead.
We need players in many positions, and according to Tuttosport in Italy, we’ve made a €42m bid for two Sampdoria players.
First is 23 year old centre-half Joachim Andersen who joined the Italian side from Twente in 2017. He made 34 appearances for I Blucerchiati last season as they finished 9th in Serie A.
The second player is Belgian central midfielder Dennis Praet who has been linked with us a number of times over the last few months as a possible Aaron Ramsey replacement.
There’s interest in Andersen from AC Milan and Sp*rs too, and according to the report the bid we’ve made has not been sufficient for Sampdoria’s president to accept. He’s waiting for more.
But what more can we give him with such a limited budget? Perhaps a swap deal? Take this Mustafi, for example? He’d like to go back to his old club, wouldn’t he?
Problem solved!
We’re still a bit dubious on this one though, so a 7 on the Poo-O-Meter.
Oh the market these days. What could get you Suarez 5 years ago won’t even get you two players no one has heard of from the 8th runners up of Serie A
Apparently it couldn’t get you Suarez 5 years ago, or he’d be playing for us…
Technically it could, Liverpool had just cheated us and got away with it
Well depends on whether on which Suarez you are talking about Denis Or the bitty one
To be honest both would be damn fine additions, in places we need. And allegedly Sampdoria aren’t holding out for much more than our initial offer. Though this story of a double deal has been around a little while now, whether that makes it more or less believable I don’t know. Praet is supposed to have a low release clause, and sits nicely next to Torreira, looks like the valuation of Anderson is the catch.
*damn fine for our current budget.
Can’t day I no these 2 players but can’t be worse than what we got Italian DEFENDERS are normally gd so go for it
I’m guessing anyone could meet his low release clause, then. Doesn’t help us at all.
As painful as it is, we now have to sell ourselves as a bit of a stepping stone to a top club vs. going out and attracting the top players. So the fact that these guys can come here and start and either help us move back up or move on to a Champions League club is probably better than being a squad player at a top 4 club.
The PL pays a lot higher wages than Italy / Germany etc. as well so we should be an attractive proposition for players with potential but who aren’t top tier yet.
@WengersNoseHair Of course it helps, this summer (for whatever reason) there’s a lot of central midfielders on the market or who have well known release clauses. Competition shouldn’t be that harsh given the amount of players clubs are looking into, and most clubs are avoiding bidding wars these days. Praet formed a great partnership at CM with Torreira and they noticeably missed each other at times last season, perhaps a reunion would be more tempting for Dennis? I know things have sucked lately, massively, but we can certainly improve our squad this preseason. Maybe I’m making the best of a… Read more »
Spot on, this is achievable too. Let’s hope this vision becomes a reality this summer!
COYG
As long as one of the acquisitions is a natural born leader of men, I totally agree with you. Are any of your suggestions a bit shouty?
THIS is a long post worth reading.
Of course it helps, this summer (for whatever reason) there’s a lot of central midfielders on the market or who have well known release clauses. Competition shouldn’t be that harsh given the amount of players clubs are looking into, and most clubs are avoiding bidding wars these days. Praet formed a great partnership at CM with Torreira and they noticeably missed each other at times last season, perhaps a reunion would be more tempting for Dennis? I know things have sucked lately, massively, but we can certainly improve our squad this preseason. Maybe I’m making the best of a bad… Read more »
*Unless of course supporting Arsenal starts to kill me… Then I’ll be ‘Arsenal till I am really, very unwell’
YEAH ??
I like the cut of your jib!
Cheers Jim!
Nice positive attitude, love it!
Hoping to see Claude-Maurice, Martinelli and especially Ziyech at the club. If reports about Ziyech having a £25m buy-out clause is true, we simply have to try and get him! Absolute gem of a player. Van de Beek as well, though it might be difficult.
I don’t fully believe in these rumours about a Sampdoria double-deal for some reason, so I’m hoping we’re targetting other players in those positions as well.
As ever, there’s no way to know for certain until either the official site or the Ornacle let’s us in on it.
Am I right in thinking Praet had a trial with us when he was ~16?
The poo oo meter season is upon us
42 million eh? So that leave us with 3 million of the budget left, unless we can bring some significant funds in from selling, great!
Don’t pretend you understand how transfers work. Signing on fees and wages are amortised over the length of a contract and there’s lots of other fees that need to be paid to push a transfer through. Just saying if we buy player x leaves x amount in the budget is so simplistic analysis as to be completely worthless.
But, but, thats how it works on fifa…
Football manager is so much more realistic
Sorry agent Bingham, it was only meant to be a light hearted sarcastic comment. Don’t take everything you read on the internet too seriously!
You’re exactly right, James. Also, 99% of transfer costs are not paid in installments. How does anyone, outside of the decision makers at Arsenal, know exactly what the transfer budget is? I never believe these reports of Club X having so much to spend.
Yeah it’s best to ignore the 40m figure. Remember last summer when all the “reports” said our budget was roughly 50m?
We spent about 75m in the end.
The budget before that was 100 plus mil on mbappe and then 90 mil on lemar last min.
Who are these players? Who are we?
A lot of soul searching this summer.
I’ve been soul searching for a year now. I’ve concluded we have absolutely morons running this club.
How on Earth you could get downvoted for this is beyond me.
MAGA would be one reason
At least with someone like orange man at the helm we would have the biggest club economy on the planet and our output energy (selling) would be number one with players climbing the stadium walls to want to play for us haha
Praet the guy who averages 1.7 goals per SEASON is our Ramsey replacement. Wow
Exactly, not only that he doesn’t have the goal scoring ability Rambo had, I’m not sure he have the physicality/Stamina that Ramsey had. What he does have is that will to drive forward, and he isn’t a terrible bad player (at least not in Serie A). Sad times to come…
Praet, an attacking midfielder with 4 goals in 98 games. Not sure relegation teams would want him. Is him one of the great players who want to join Arsenal, Raul was talking about ?
Even Özil does better!
Sad State of Affairs…first that leganes striker (I have nothing against us purchasing unknown talent, it has worked for us in the past, but I’m not sure why that link doesn’t fill me with hope or excitement as the time we went for Giroud, Lolo, Guendouzi). And now this? Don’t take me wrong, I don’t think Praet is a bad player, and he does have a couple similarities with Ramsey, and in the season Torreira and him played together at Sampdoria, they were quite a tenacious side, but is just sad we could blow up all our budget in players… Read more »
Don’t know why people are still holding on to this idea we’re gonna buy World Class players.
What world class player can we afford with our £40M budget, to come play for a Europa league squad? Not happening guys, time to accept reality.
As for these guys? I have no idea. I’d rather the 42M go to a bonafide best level CB we can buy, and give midfield time to the likes of ESR and Willock tbh.
because 42m, as you said, could, perhaps, at least buy us ONE quality player. Be it a good CB and play them kids on all the other positions we need (ESR, Nelson, Bielik, Nketiah, Willock…). I think our biggest problem is CB and while the money we have won’t buy us a Van Dijk, it could buy us one quality player
I love the “play the kids” argument. There’d be booing and outrage before September had even started. I accept we are gigantically in the shit, but playing some callow youths will only damage them as they inevitably get stuffed by more experienced sides.
I’m not sure we should be that pessimistic…
45+Chambes,Elneny,Mustafi cca.= 85M
If T. Party is 50M then we would also be able to by a Davinson Sanchez, Lindelof or Rudiger (none of them cost more than 40M)
Ya but Man U are in Europa league and apparently may be getting De Ligt. So why can’t we strive for the same?
Because they don’t have a £40M budget and 6 players to replace.
We seem to have the shits today
buying in bulk? Works for groceries. Football….not so much.
BOGOF??
It was said we will have to shop at ALDI
That sounds like A Lower Division Inclination to me
Not sure about this Dennis feller, rumour is he’s a bit of a pratt.
Heh, one letter off is all it takes to change your fortune.
No Technical Director in place.
Meanwhile we are now linked to second rates. State of affair at the club.
Most likely just agents fishing but it doesn’t look good that we have no one in place to bring in the deals.
Instead of someone we should get like a Luiz Campos, we get inexperience like Edu (if lucky)
Out of interest – and maybe i’m clutching at straws – but do we really know FOR SURE that all we have is £40m?
Nope.
And we also don’t know if that’s a number AFTER player sales, or Before them. I’m assuming before, because we don’t know what we’ll get for whom.
We don’t know whether or not it factors in the kit deal, whatever the difference in TV rights is for the new season, if that’s all sum total including wages headroom, if it’s just for transfer fees alone, blah blah blah blah.
In words no-one ever wanted to hear again: “There are known unknowns”.
Ah but the real question is “are there unknown known unknowns”?
All we know is there are no known knowns.
For transfer funds that is. John Terry is still a cunt.
It is absolutely clear to anyone that we’ve been left behind by our rivals. They have invested in their squads and brought top level players in while we’ve been trying to look for “bargains” like Mustafi. Yeap, 35M is a bargain, these days. That strategy hasn’t worked. We’re falling further and further behind. Instead of making significant investments in the squad, we’re doubling down on a strategy which isn’t working.
This club has 231M in cash as of its last reported financial statement. The last time I checked, Cash maybe king but it doesn’t play defense
Since Cash Reserves comes up so often, you can read about it here:
https://angryofislington.com/2019/02/08/arsenal-have-231m-in-cash-but-what-good-does-it-do/
It basically started as a cushion against the 25-year loan for the stadium, which we will need even more if we’re out of the CL. Then Silent Stan took over, and who knows what he has in mind. Didn’t he borrow against the club for a ranch or something like that? Makes you wonder, no?
I’m a CPA and I work for one of the biggest public accounting firms. I know how to analyze a financial statement. That financial statement you see on the club’s website is what I do for work every single day.
I’m pretty sure that info is miles out of date, Arsenal are reported to have lost £60m this year alone.
Honestly not fussed about any transfer rumors. What’s the point? Even if the players are decent, they’ll eventually start under performing in our lack of system. You can sign players that are not being hyped but they’ll work well if you have a great system they fit into. Look at liverpool example, many players in their team a lot of us would have said “not arsenal level” if we were linked to them years ago. We need a football vision and strategy first and foremost!
Spot on! And then go back to buying players who are neither not all that well know (Vieira) or out of favour (Pires, Henry, Bergkamp) who fit the system, who are fiercely hungry for success and who WE CAN TURN INTO WORLD STARS! Flavour this with a sprinkling of our current impressive crop of youngsters, and I truly believe we can be competitive again in 3-4 years.
Ever the optimist! COYG
Even if we were genuinely interested in these players. It will be the same old story. We play hardball over 4 or 5 million then 6 weeks later some other team will offer an extra million or two and get them both 🙂
Hasn’t Praet played with Torreira?
Yeah, they formed a pretty decent partnership in midfield the season before Torreira joined us.
As of this morning. We have since the end of the season been linked with 80 players. This story was doing the rounds two weeks ago.
Until it’s announced in a hilarious way by the club’s Twitter account or been leaked to our own transfer Nostradamus David Ornstein, I’m just not interested.
Kanti Why are we not signing Dunk,Duffy,Fraser and one Big name like Tomas from atletico madrid
There is currently at least five or six CBS before Andersen in the danish national team. Including Chelseas Christensen, Vestergaard from Southampton and Zanka from Huddersfield. Smells like a bit of a gamble…
Have you been following their careers extensively?
Yes I have. The three I mention are far more developed than Andersen. That is not to say their talent is bigger (Christensens I think is though). But just to say that it is quite the gamble. And if he is the only central defender we are going to buy I would be a bit afraid to but so much pressure on him. But hey… As A dane I have soooo long missed a danish Arsenal player. It actually makes quite the difference when they choose what games to show on the telly. Imagine how annoyed it has been with… Read more »
Yep, it would be nice with some positive Arsenal coverage on 6’eren (Danish TV) again for us Danish gooners! ?
Thats not going to happen. I know a couple of the ones covering it and their lack of in depth knowledge or detailed analysis is very disturbing. Just take the pre-match covering of the EL-final. “So what is it that has done Auba so succesful for Arsenal this season? “He’s very fast and a good finisher” Really…. Nothing about the Lack partnership, his ability in our transition play… Nothing…
Talk about shopping in the discount lines.
I would rather give youth a chance than sign these two…
Would be good, but it would also be nice if we were buying players like this for cheap(er) as Sampdoria did in the first place and not too long ago. I guess we have already with someone like Guendouzi.
Hmmm. We’re being linked with players at midtable clubs in other divisions. Hopefully these are their big fish. Otherwise if we’re going with mediocrity I would kind of rather see us take a punt with the youth players we have already. A centre back would be welcome though given Koscielny may be leaving sooner rather than later and Mustafi is shite. Mavropanos really needs a loan I think, so that leaves Holding and Sokratis, both whom I like but both can be improved on. Chambers’s situation is interesting. If he stays he really has to be in the squad next… Read more »
These “high pressure” and “play out from behind”-times entail that the ball is played via (as opposed to over) the midfield. Arsenal lacks top quality here. Where is our Pirlo, Fabregas, Cazorla, Modric, Rakitic or Ramsey?
We must have a new defender. We would also like a wide attacker, but a world class midfielder is central to Arsenal’s revival.
Agreed! And I just don’t think Praet fits the bill on that one.
Hoping for a Van de Beek, but those hopes might be too high.
Seriously, some so-called Gooner need to research a little bit before shouting “Van de Beek”.
Some need to know that we just can’t afford this type of signing.
Last year, Emery has been handed 50 mil and he couldn’t even buy a winger for his wide attacking philosophy.
This year, nothing is new.
Stop saying “Van de Beek” guys! It won’t happen.
We must have the poorest billionaire in the world. Kronke out