Another red hot installment of all the latest Arsenal transfer news and gossip from around the Interwebs.
Let’s begin.
Ismael Bennacer
The Algerian international used to be an Arsenal player, but having failed to make a breakthrough was sold to Empoli in August 2017.
He’s come into his own at the Italian club, and is currently impressing in the African Cup of Nations. AC Milan are reportedly very keen, and the club stand to make 30% of any transfer fee due to a sell-on clause.
However, it’s being reported that the 21 year old isn’t necessarily convinced by the lure of the San Siro, and both Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal are keen to swoop in and save him from the bald, useless clutches of Ivan Gazidis.
It sounds a bit speculative, to be honest, and it’s coming from one journalist on Twitter, so it’s hard to say, but we’re not convinced he’s a player we’re going back for – particularly when we’ve just promoted the likes of Joe Willock and Emile Smith Rowe to the first team squad.
Dani Ceballos
Arsenal are in ‘pole position’ to sign the Spanish U21 international on loan from Real Madrid, even though Sp*rs are also said to be after him.
They don’t say why we have the edge though. The other lot can offer Champions League football, and also have a Spanish speaking coach and staff if that was a concern for the player.
Maybe Ceballos is very aware of The History of the Tottenham, and simply doesn’t want to be associated with such a catalogue of failure, but there’s little to suggest that we’re anywhere close to getting a deal done despite repeated links this summer.
Wilfried Zaha
Sky Sports are reporting that the ‘Zaha camp’ are concerned that we just don’t have the money to make a deal happen.
There are also reports that we’ve offered Mohamed Elneny, Calum Chambers and Carl Jenkinson plus cash to secure the services of the Ivorian, which sounds like a massive amount of nonsense to us. When has there ever been a deal involving three players and a transfer fee?
It’s as if someone has looked at the squad and players who are potentially dispensable, and just thrown it into the mix. Either way, with Palace holding out for bucket load of cash, this looks more and more unlikely to happen.
Mario Lemina
The midfielder has made it clear he wants out of Southampton, and Arsenal are supposedly keeping tabs on him. As an international teammate of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, we could well be an attractive destination for the former Marseille and Juventus man – and there’s little doubt our midfield needs strengthening.
He has Premier League experience, wouldn’t be too expensive, and Southampton seem willing to let him go, so it does tick a lot of boxes, but of course it depends on whether our interest is concrete or not.
We are really scraping the barrel here…
Blogs, Is Ivan Gazidis Bald Eagle ?
If Palace take Mustafi, Elneny and Jenkinson off our hands .. genuinely we should be paying them.
I still don’t understand why Elneny is dispensable
I don’t mind three players on top of a transfer fee. Wage bill is bloated, they’d be doing us a favour. Probably why they’re not going to.
Those NBA-style trades never, ever happen in football. Primarily of player power but also because, unlike in the NBA, contracts are held privately between the club and player, not handled by a league that could easily swap them about.
Palace is still London, I could see Chambers and jenks being OK with playing there.
Elneny might have other aspirations or might want to stay in the pl.
The heading has the most mediocre players known to man. Unai Emery has Zero pull.
Unai Emery has zero backing in the transfer market, more like…
I don’t see many players dying to work with Unai, he doesn’t have that elite profile yet.
10 major trophies says differently
Erm, so the current status of the club has nothing to do with it then? Seems plenty wanted to play for PSG when he was there.
This is such a strange argument. We could have Jurgen Guardiaola-Zidane lll in charge, it wouldn’t make a difference if we only had £45m to spend and no one wanted our deadwood.
Emery has the capability to attract players like Denis Suarez. And that’s it.
True story. who spends time scouting all this mediocrity, or has arsenal scouting been reduced to ‘who is available on the cheap, him? lets start scouting’
Transfer team is suppose to be responsible. Convenient shift of goal post. Mslintat was poor buying players we did not need (even if for free) Mhkitaryan and neglecting areas we did. Nor has Torreira been the solution some prefer to wank off to. But Raul looks like he will short change us completely if not pushed. Hence Koscielny issue. In truth he should be moved on without question. That the club is even contemplating holding a 33yr old with wear and tear issues for another season is conclusive evidence where the thinking is (if any) Le Boss is trying to… Read more »
This feels like any of the Wenger post Emirates summers and it is very interesting because in after the move to the Emirates, my brother decided to travel to Mongolia to train in the art of Mongolian wrestling. He excelled in training and has been sending stuff from Korea for us to sell to fund a trip to the Emirates when the Emir will be getting married. I don’t know what to make of this situation, any suggestions?
Ask Rank Flampard for a favour?
Had to double-check to make sure this wasn’t the start of a Rambling Pete comment..
We really are not going to sign Zaha are we…
No. Neither should we for that price.
Ye, we should shop around for “bargains” and fall further behind, You must be a board member
Thanks Orse. Everybody here seems to forget he flopped badly at United of all places. Sure he’s done well at Palace, but for that money it’s absolutely risky business. Can be spent better elsewhere.
David moyes never played him . If you speak to United fans they’d have him back tomorrow.
Was he really only with them for the short time Moyes was there?
If not, what was the problem the other manager(s) had with him?
Flopping under Moyes doesn’t say much though, does it?
No they just don’t want to sell him, hence the unreasonable fee
Zaha is not the problem. There are plenty of options. If anything over paying for Zaha maybe an issue. I suspect it may also be with compromise should we try and sell Laca to fund Zaha. It would be one step forward two steps back as we sell our best asset plus break up an established partnership with Auba, send the wrong signal to the Gabonese and prob end up paying higher wages for Zaha. Plenty of options if we are experienced and cool headed enough to ‘panic buy’ end of window – Ziyech, Fekir, Carraco, Thauvin, Neres, Lozano, Bennacer,… Read more »
Why is Mustafi still on our payroll??
For the simple reason that no one wants to buy him! WTF.
Simple answer. No one wants to buy your rejects. Not good enough for you what makes you think other clubs will want to pay high wages. Which is why I mentioned there are no absolutes. No Ozil or Mustafi “have to move on”. Practicality would dictate we may have to sell alternatives in their positions like Mhkitaryan or Chambers (we should be offering them on market) and we may have to be prepared to use the best of Ozil and Mustafi likely not as starters but with still some useful function. Unlike of course say elneny or Jenkinson. Jenkinson complete… Read more »
We could offer them one of our wide players on top of the cash. But then again, neither Mkhi or Mesut set the league on fire last season…
But if we can’t shift Chambers after another reasonable season, I don’t understand how this club do business. Unless we want him to actually play for us.
Given the latest from Koscielny we might have to keep Chambers.
Why would you even think we wouldn’t keep him? He’s a solid centre half and has shown his versatility by playing in midfield at Fulham where he was their player of the season
May not keep Chambers. Again depends on the player’s own sentiment. he may not want to be competing from 4th pick. We may end up with Mustafi if there are no buyers. Or Bielik needs assessment IMO. There are no absolutes. If we get a very strong replacement we can risk on Bielik coming in as fourth choice and try and rid of Mustafi And Chambers. Otherwise, we may still need Mustafir or Chambers. You’d be foolish to think in absolute terms and believe Mustafi is all bad. He was far from the only player at fault all season and… Read more »
I’ve thought for a while that Lemina would make a great signing for us. He just seems like ‘our’ kind of player (in a good way I mean). Plus he’s definitely too good for Southampton, yet probably not good enough for the likes of City or Liverpool – and that’s more or less where we are!
That’s exactly the mentality that has got us in this mess. Stop settling for second-best.
I’d love to go for first-best, but why would any of the world’s top players come to a Europa League shitshow that can’t even afford their transfer fee, let alone their wages? I don’t like it any more than you but we are where we are, no point wishing for unicorns.
Fair enough, all this nothing has got me agitated.
Lacazette and Aubameyang signed
yes, but at the time we could make a convincing arguement that the Europa League thing was just a blip and that we’d back in the CL in no time…add to that the pull of playing for Wenger and it’s was not as hard of sell attracting these two strikers as it would be now trying to get talent of a similar calibre.
Why is southampton open to lemina leaving? Why dont we get that brilliant 22 year- old box to box midfielder who is 6 ft tall, has a 90% pass success rate, makes more tackles than torreira, and has 15 goals and 20 assists last season instead? You know, the one who is playing in brazil. I forgot his name. Think edu might know him.
Get Tierney, a one season deal for Cahill (while we wait for Saliba), Szoboszlai or Palacios, and forget Zaha we could get either Ziyech or Fraser for less than half and their numbers are better. These are all deals we could complete quickly and then have the players ready for the majority of pre-season. Include Nelson, ESR, Nketiah, Willock and the returning Chambers and Bielik more frequently and we’re pretty much covered positionally. The Ornacle repeatedly stated £40-45m AND the Adidas money, so I assume we’re keeping our cards close to our chest. Any player sales (if possible Ozil, Mkhi,… Read more »
I love your blind optimism. You sound just like Stan and his deluded “management” team.
Unless we move quickly we have absolutely zero chance of finishing top four. This coming season we look more likely to be battling in the middle of the table with the likes of Wolves and Leicester than fighting it out with Spuds and the Chavs. We’re like a rudderless, captained-less ship in the Arctic heading for a massive iceberg. We’re a joke.
Blind optimism? Deluded? I think you need to get out of your mother’s basement once in a while and learn how to talk to people. Over-reacting to rational comments doesn’t make you better or look smarter than anyone it shows you to be one of the biggest problems in club football; lazy, angry and clearly ill-informed mouthbreathers who do little to no research and just jump on the doom and gloom bandwagon as that’s where you feel most comfortable. Honestly fats, do you really want every fan to be like yourself; booing the club but being too lazy to actually… Read more »
I’ve been an Arsenal fan for 45 years and want the club to return to where it belongs. That means Stan and his useless son fucking off and proper owners and managers coming in. If sad deluded people like you think we have any future under Stan then dream on. I live in the real world.
4-5 years more like
My word, you’d think in 45years you’d have gained the ability to read the words that are written rather than construct your own fantastical redefinitions. “If sad deluded people like you think we have any future under Stan then dream on.” At what point did I say we definitely have any future under Stan? If anything my comment was a criticism of how poorly the club are operating that even fans can point out how they can improve. I have been incredibly outspoken in regards to my lack of faith in the Kroenke regime on here. Honestly, what are you… Read more »
We were quite efficient last summer, nothing spectacular or particularly exciting, but just efficiently plugging holes in our squad. This summer…. there’s so much to do, that we don’t even know where to start…. So in typical Arsenal fashion, we’ve decided to buy a raw 18 Yr old Brazilian, and it looks like we’re close to concluding a €30million signing of another 18yr old, who won’t be joining us for another 12 months. I’m not against these types of signings, but we kind of need 2 full backs, 2 wide players, a centre half for this season, and ideally an… Read more »
Some worrying truths well pointed out, Rich. I do get the feeling the club are just using Emery purely as head coach in an almost expendable capacity, hoping he get’s us back into the top four then maybe looking to upgrade on him. I’m not 100% convinced by Unai but I do think that if you plan on letting a coach see out his contract you have to back them properly to give them a chance, which really doesn’t look the case so far. In Tierney’s defence however, he has managed a lot of games for a 22year old (15-16… Read more »
1) Tierney – NO. Monreal is good enough to hold another season as back up to Kolasinac who can still improve. We have limited budget and the last thing we want is to be distracted in areas that are not urgent in need. 2) 30m for a Cback who will not help us in immediate term is simply retarded. PLUS not to mention this player is still largely unproven having not played as many games last season as say de Ligt at Ajax. Should he prove to be another (likely) false hope, we will eventually have to pay up the… Read more »
? You actually don’t watch any football do you? It’s so obvious now. Kola can’t play LB as we haven’t got good enough CBs to cover his wandering, Emery clearly wants (and needs) a good LB as he would clearly prefer four at the back. Monreal, although I’m a fan, simply hasn’t got it in him to play 90mins against a solid winger any more, especially not two or three times a week. Roughly £20m for Tierney is a well worthwhile investment, he’s great and will give us many years. Also, in regards to Saliba (I’m assuming that’s who you… Read more »
Signing Bennacer would be the most Arsenal thing ever — having to pay ourselves our own sell-on fee.
He is been the best player of Afcon2019.
Just seen that Koscielny has refused to travel to the US for the pre-season tour. What is going on with this club seriously?
Pretty surprised by this, Koscielny always came across as a model professional.
I can understand us wanting to extract some value in terms of a fee, but I’d be happy for us to move him on if he doesn’t want to be here.
We’re managing him through games by the looks of it, and whilst I’m not Chambers’s biggest fan, he looks to have improved in the air, and he’s a decent enough player who can also cover in midfield.
When was the last time an Arsenal player went on strike?
He’s doing us a favour. If he removes himself from the equation, he is hoping the club will be forced to make a better solution at Cback instead of contemplating leaning on him again for one more season and buying some half baked solution in market that will be loaned back to selling club (and with massive exposure in price to resale should he prove fake) Le Boss and Sokratis hardly held together without Mustafi when we faced Wolves never mind Chelsea in finals. Inconvenient truth for some who prefer to wallow in delusion. Koscielny knows he is past his… Read more »
With due respect, can Arsenal just go ahead and do business and stop making a lot of noise like an empty vessel? You will keep making noise in the media until the market is close again, then you will end up finishing 6-7th position again….We the fans are tired and frustrated with your jeopardizing ways of handling club business now…Is a pity how one of the best clubs in England and Europe is gradually compared to middle table finish every season…Fan base is reducing every season…Arsenal owner is only interested in fat account than winning trophies.
According to transfermarkt, Mario Lemina can also play right back. This adds some Imodium to the poo rating.
Love that Lemina posted his Youtube higlights on Twitter at 1.25x speed.
Injury prone would be a concern. but if that’s what he promises to do on the pitch…
“save him from the bald, useless clutches of Ivan Gazidis”
A worthy humanitarian mission!
…is this American dude read all these comments???!
Does he have a clue on what we as Fun going through..
Let start watch matches at home till we have squared that is competitive
We have to buy Freyzer with chip price and utilize his goals and assists to close the gap since Rowe and Iwobi are their to surpot and we keep chambers for a season to fight for his position which will create competition in CB with Cebalos and our young lads we start the season .
Nah.
Fraser is a one trick pony. Won’t repeat it next season.
We need more creative players out wide and one who can work through traffic.
Fraser not good enough. He thrives with space on the counter but we face the opposite issue often away from home with teams sitting compact against us.
Thoroughly poor choice Fraser.
That’s like me going to the apple store and saying, I’d like your newest iPhone please, I’m prepared to barter the lint in my pocket, some dandruff off my shoulder, and some loose change in my pockets
Add in a few tangleberries and you’ve got yourself a deal.
There are rumours that we have a buy-back clause on Bennacer. Bloody hope so!!!!
We definitely need to think creative. I don’t like the rumoured ‘creative’ deal for Saliba. Firstly 27m is ridiculous should he prove false and we have to resell him because even in installments, we eventually have to pay the sum. Secondly we won’t even have recourse to his use bc he will go back to St Ettienne. Whats the point of that? Thirdly he is still largely hype and largely unproven without playing a full season. BUT we can certainly be creative with other solutions like Bennacer. for example Florinel Coman (at Steua) is rumoured to have a massive release… Read more »
1) Bennacer is a possibility. BUT I’m sure we have an extensive list for the wide/player/AM role. As mentioned last summer and now, there is PLENTY of options in market which plays to our favour. We will have to be patient, allow apex predators to spend their wad and then make decision when prices cool off from competition. Mariano was also mentioned from RM in addition to (the older more risky) Vasquez. But we know there is also Fekir, Ziyech, Zaha, Lozano, (probably more pricey) Neres, Everton and then Thauvin, Carrasco all potential. Which brings me to 2) Zaha –… Read more »
Also as posted by blogs today, gaffer clearly sending off a clear signal that we should not be dicking around and need to bring in true quality. Van Djik mention particularly poignant as we seem to appear (in rumour at least) to be prepared yet again to compromise with some foolish decision on Saliba (a player that if he does not work out will cost us and/or will be difficult to sell on) It ties in (if you can read between the lines) with the Koscielny issue. The old war horse is past his prime and knows it (see Wolves… Read more »
https://www.90min.com/posts/6404460-former-arsenal-negotiator-reveals-tactics-used-to-sign-mesut-ozil-from-under-tottenham-s-nose
Just in case some people miss this gem of our panic buy.
Whatever you think of Ozil now, he was a real capture for us then when we were struggling and recaptivated us at least in FA cups for a short period, recovered our brand.
Something for Raul to emulate or surpass.
Bc the club’s brand at present is in dire trouble and neither Mslintat nor Raul have thus far improved our buying (Consider last Jan we were in the era of Panic loan with impact to the season..again)
What about the latest news on Kos? Things seem to be going from bad to worse (Guardian reporting — citing direct Arsenal PR — that Kos has boycotted US tour to push through move to France). I can’t say I blame Koscielny at this point in his career.
I feel like Wenger and Stan combination has put this club in such a crap position. All the money saving Wenger constantly boasted about has done nothing to help us.
Kroenke is sure the root problem. But i agree with you that Wenger in late years is crappy.
He boasted about having a “strong squad” to be competitive in UCL but he never had. 8-2 against United, 4-0 against Milan, 10-2 against Bayern all proved that he was outdated tactically.
I know we are still struggling to find our glory back but Wenger ain’t good. If only, he was sacked earlier, we could have Klopp as our head coach.
I’m worried about the season already, we seem like a joke at the moment. Without spending some cash soon I doubt we will be a top 6 team. I hope I’m wrong….
We’re pretty much fucked next year aren’t we.
Emery was hired in May 2018, taking over a club that finished in 6th place with 63 points, 7 points off of 5th place, and 12 points off of 4th. In the two and a half transfer windows since he was hired, the only players over 20 years old the club has signed are Sokratis, Torreira, and Leno. We haven’t signed a single player over 18 in over a year now. A single quality addition in January probably would have put us in the Champions League, but we did nothing to replace the key injured players. It’s been over a… Read more »