Krystian Bielik is leaning towards an Arsenal exit this summer with clubs from across Europe reportedly interested in taking him off Unai Emery’s hand.
After a season spent helping Charlton achieve promotion to the Championship, the 21-year-old recently impressed for his country at the UEFA under-21 European Championships in Italy, scoring twice in the opening two games.
A certain dirty red top paper (not linking) claims that sides in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Holland and England have all made enquiries.
Bought by Arsene Wenger from Legia Warsaw in 2015, Bielik was expected to challenge for a first team spot within a couple of years. Four years later and he only has two appearances for the Gunners to his name.
He’s been out on loan to Birmingham and Walsall, and had a couple of big injuries along the way, but with two years left on his current deal, it feels like it’s now or never for him in an Arsenal shirt.
Does Unai Emery look at the Pole as a disposable commodity whose sale could bolster our transfer budget or is there room for his versatility? Like Calum Chambers, who spent last season at Fulham, Bielik has proved in the last 12 months that he has the tactical nous and physicality to play both as a centre-back and deep-lying midfielder; two positions we’ve often tried and failed to strengthen.
It now remains to be seen whether he’s given a chance to impress in pre-season. The player himself must be wondering if he’ll fare better elsewhere. Serge Gnabry and the Jeff, to name two examples, have both proved that the grass can be greener when your Arsenal career stalls.
What is the point in loan spells if, when they go well, we don’t reward the player?
For a team with a whole load of shit players we seem really reluctant to play potentially good players.
They boost the sale price?
Playing a season for a league 1 side doesn’t do a great deal for a players cache.
Here’s an idea if you want to boost sale price. Play him in the first team. Give him Europa and League Cup games and the odd cameo in the league.
He was sent to Charlton to get proper game time. A few appearances in Europa and FA cup do nothing to really help a young player. Also he’s been injured quite a bit. He started the season in the U23s and then went on loan, presumably to give him game time and see if he could make the next step.
How do you think the sale price will be boosted when he plays in 2nd or 3rd division?
We bought Walcott very expensive (14 millions) 13 years ago without a single game in PL.
Find me a club that is willing to offer 25-30M for Bielik and we can talk. But his market value is nowhere near that.
Theo was English, an attacker and playing England U21 football. The hype was crazy. He was the equivalent of a Jordan Sancho or Callum Hudson-Odoi, not a Polish centre back.
Calm down Adolf
Walcott was hyped indeed, but he was not as technically gifted as the other examples, with Theo it is all about speed and space, which he rarely got a at a club that wants to retain possession and during his stay insisted on passing to the goal line.
They also take a year off their contract and thus reduce their value.
Hear, hear.
I just don’t get it.
Chambers was player of the season at Fulham – i know the got relegated, but surely that makes him worth a look? And Bielik has been great – what money would we get for him, and what would we do with it?
I’d rather keep Bielik and see him play ahead of Mustafi ANY DAY.
I would have thought he has demonstrated his potential at Charlton and for his country.
If we let him go now what is the point of the development programme?
We’ll just turn into a Southampton or Ajax where we develop talent at our expense for everyone else in Europe to plunder once we have discarded those that don’t make the grade!
@Peter. Not like Southampton or Ajax. We’ll be the stupid version. Those team’s first XI benefited from the youth and made a tidy profit. We will just flog em for a pittance.
If you ever wondered what happened to Jack (from the beanstalk story), well he came to Arsenal and started selling players instead of cows!
The point of the development program is to save & make money. wE’rE a SeLf-SuStAiNiNg ClUb, remember?
But I don’t think we should sell him at this point. A year of first team experience could massively increase the fees being offered, even with one year left on his deal. 12M or so won’t go very far this year.
Our players are like unionized office workers.
It’s not even pre-season yet fgs! Everyone so quick to take newspaper bollocks as the true picture. They may already have plans for promoting him next season for all you know.
Not sure why so many people thumbed this up….for a start no one has said he won’t get a chance…but hey let’s not wait and see how it all pans out…let’s just jump on a negative band wagon because it’s easier.
Because it’s happened so many times before that we expect it to likely happen again. I certainly hope I’m wrong, can’t for the life of me see why we can’t give the lad a go this season, if he’s not ready now then he’ll never be
Odd point, we want them to do well on loan, but it doesn’t mean they will walk into the team, there is a reason they went on loan in the 1st place right? Also, it wouldn’t be very flattering for us to consider league 1 success to suffice for a role in Arsenal 1st team. I would be surprised if we don’t see him as a squad player candidate, but possibly he and our club prefers to give him more game time in a league that is 1-2 steps up from last year.
I certainly hope he is given a fair go in pre-season. C’mon Emery, it’s a position we need filled, and IT DOESN’T COST ANYTHING. Of all the people we should be selling, Bielik isn’t one of them, in my opinion.
Who’s job is it to rub this young man’s ego and tell him he’s got a future at Arsenal? Raul or Unais? Again, the board failing to keep our young promising talent.
Clubs showing interest means he is doing well, and we don’t know whether the club is ready sell or not.
Got to give him a chance!
Of course he’ll get a chance. Everyone got a chance last season to prove themselves in pre-season training and games etc
20M? but knowing Arsenal if we sell him it will be 1.5M… btw hope he’ll be given a chance in pre-season and with our “limited” budget he’ll stay and play at least in the EL group games… He deserve a chance.
He’s worth 1.8m according to Transfermarkt
Has done everything to deserve a chance at Arsenal, we need a presence like his in the squad. How can the powers-that-be know how he’ll fare until they test him in the team? There’s pre-season for that. Would be a loss having him gone
To sell him – we get maybe 5mill We then buy a promising young centre back for 25 million What is the point? that’s a net loss of 20 mill and we still have mustafi. bad Arsenal happens when good managers play mustafi – he needs to be never an option. The club did it with walcott and now mustafi – they persist with the players who week in week out under perform and don’t give youth a chance… i would have rather fail but try with joel Campbell or Kristain Bielik than give up and fail with the under… Read more »
Has he actually been quoted as saying this? Only a couple weeks ago he was looking forward to proving himself in the first team. Feels like the awful newspaper is deliberately using his comments from the end of the season (basically saying that if he isn’t soon involved for Arsenal first team he’d have to look elsewhere, which is understandable) now the window is open and he put in some good international performances just because they love putting a boot in on us. Same paper that’s saying Aubameyang has said ‘yes’ to a United move (and that United will be… Read more »
From reading the article this piece likely referrs to, we don’t actually learn anything about the players motivation that we didn’t already know. Only that he is attracting interest from elsewhere and that he would rather move than go back to playing the U21. We have no idea if Arsenal are prepared to give him a chance in the first team or if he would be happy to stay if he was given the chance.
Plus the paper in question that ran the story is the raggiest of rags
It would be foolhardy and bordering on high level irresponsibility if Arsenal did not set a charm offensive on this guy.
We all know we have stingy owner who’ll rather die than put his money where his mouth is.
The other option is our youth.
Bielik will be a star; it is clear for all to see.
We lost on Gnabry; that could be termed a mistake. If it happens again, that’s idiocy.
Give him the opportunity…even if it means sending Mavropanos on loan.
It just seems mad to not even let him a place on the bench for a year when we have carried the cross that’s Mustafi for over three years.
If it were me… Keep Biliek, loan out Mav, ideally to championship at worst, sell Xhaka to raise some funds for a attacking midfielder and use Chambers in his place. Ease Bielick in and see how he copes. Either he’ll be first name on the team sheet next season or we can flog him for a better fee, probably as a full international. However Emerys reluctance to use youth players will probably put paid to any of that.
There is no way Chambers is up to replacing Xhaka from the evidence on offer.
I honestly believe the lad has got what it takes to play for Arsenal, but then i am no expert…Never had any doubts about the Jeff though…for me, too much natural talent in him, so its always been a question of when, not if he will break through imo
I’ve been a huge fan of this kid ever since he came to Arsenal. It will be a huge mistake if we let him go. Huge huge mistake
Let’s see where we are in a months time, sounds like an agent sniffing around for a deal, be that with Arsenal or another club, if we can’t arrange an extension to his contract then selling him might be the only option this summer, it’s all about protecting his value, but hopefully he’ll do well in pre season and Emery likes him, gives him a chance, he stays and Mustafi leaves.
Let’s sell him for fuck all then, as is the norm. This club never ceases to amaze me with its policies and utter ineptitude.
We need to give this lad a chance, and not just because he is good enough.
We are about to go down an avenue of developing youth and, if a young player like Bielik who has had a cracking season on loan and then an amazing summer championship, if he can’t have a shot at our first team then why the hell would any other youngster want to come and develop with us?!
And if we can’t attract talented youth, then this new project youth is fucked from the beginning.
He’s 21 and already better than both Mustafi and Elneny so it would seem better for both the team and the finances that we keep him and offload those two. I’ve been watching him at Charlton and for Poland and I think he’s got the quality to make it with us. Let’s face it, he couldn’t possibly make as many mistakes as Mustafi surely?
Buy Kierney. Buy the Bournmouth winger. Sell Torreira or Xacha. Use that money to buy two central defenders. Put Bielik into the midfield vacancy. Bring on Smith Rowe.
Sorted !
Knowing us we’ll sell one of chambers and beilik and we will find out we sold the wrong one in 4 yrs time
DO NOT SELL HIM ARSENAL YOU MORONS!
If Bielik was in a smaller club and we were interested we would be quoted 10-20 million. He has learned the hard way playing in the championship and league 1 and a star for Charlton winning promotion and now some huge performances for Poland U21s if he is not given a chance in our first team squad it will be a complete joke, and if he is let to leave on the cheap we will be making a huge mistake
I think, given lots of clubs are interested it’s either an indication we should sell if Emery doesn’t believe in him or it’s now time to trust him and give him opportunities in the first team. He can’t be worse than you know who. It depends how much playing time he really wants. If he’s be happy with Europa League and cup games we should definitely be playing him in those and any other youngsters. Then we have a good platform to judge how ready they are for the Premier League. We’ve wasted too much time on the Europa League… Read more »
The problems seems to be not about the boy but the man that brought the boy whose shadow around seems to be still intimidating. It doesn’t matter if the boy is good or not, the fear is if he turns out good, the glory goes back to the man who brought him. Someone seems not to like that.