Bild reports this evening that Arsenal have sold 18-year-old striker Xavier Amaechi to Hamburg in a deal worth €2.5 million.
Part of the Arsenal side that reached the FA Youth Cup final in 2018, Amaechi made his first team debut in the mid-season friendly with Al-Nasr in Dubai in March.
He was also made the journey to Baku for the Europa League final but didn’t actually get a place on the substitutes bench.
Although the teenager, who scored four goals in 14 Premier League 2 games last campaign, has a contract at the Emirates for another year, it looked like the writing might be on the wall for him when he didn’t get the call for the recent tour of the US.
On the plus side, a move to a well-known club like Hamburg, even if they are in Bundesliga 2, is not to be sniffed at. He’s certainly on trend.
Best of luck hope he comes good it’s a brave move, too bad he wasn’t more patient. At least we are getting something for him and I suspect we have a fixed buyback clause or sell on fee.
He doesn’t like Unai,so I don’t think he is coming back.
Unai may not be here a year or two from now. Average stint for a pl manager is about two years.
Well, we certainly bucked that trend with Wenger’s grossly over-extended tenure – although that won’t happen again, thank goodness. Constant changes of manager/coach only continue to bring success on the pitch if there are huge resources available and the final decision on player transfers are taken by other people – such as at Chelsea here, and say, Real Madrid in Europe, for example. We certainly don’t have the resources and Emery (at least so far) does have an important input to transfers. So, overall, it wouldn’t work well for us to change so frequently.
Can we afford zaha now
2 millions .. aaand gunners are back in for Tierney .. !!
Disappointing, but this may actually be the move to make his career.
He didn’t go to a big named club like Chris Willock did to Benfica, but a lower league german club. It’s not far from what Bennnacer did in Italy and a year of consistent playing developed him significantly.
Heck, Guendouzi did the same when he left PSG.
Just hope we have a hearty buy-back clause.
I don’t want to be dismissive of Amaechi but he seems like the sort of youth winger that if he wants to make it big at a team like Arsenal, needs to re- position himself as a fullback and learn the art of defending like Ashley Cole did for Arsenal.
Agree with you 100% on this one
Why do you say that? Honest question not trolling. Or anything
Some players at youth level like Amaechi are quick and skilful enough to play as wingers, but they don’t have a knack for scoring goals.
So the natural goal-scorers take the wing and forward positions and the others have to reposition themselves, which is not too difficult at that age provided they’re well coached.
Ashley Cole is a famous Arsenal example of a winger-turned full-back, but Van Dijk started out as a forward too.
Alan Shearer played in goal as a schoolboy as well, just thought id throw that in there
Bellerin was a winger as well.
I think clubs like Arsenal need wingers who can regularly score 10-15 goals per year (and get something like 10 assists). He’s not getting those goals at youth level which suggests he’s not going to at senior level. Saka and Nelson were tearing it up at youth level.
He’s got good wing play though so if he developed his defensive game like Ashley Cole, Hector Bellerin he might make a good attacking fullback.
Take Wan-Bissaka as another example… average winger who developed the defensive skills to be a quality attacking fullback.
Hope we’ve put buy-back and/or sell-on clause on the deal… Anyway, good luck to the lad!
I think we should do this more. If we can’t make a profit straight away that’s fine but we should have a buyback clause, or at the least an option to match any bids from other clubs down the line.
Option to match any offers would seem strange in theory? In the future if he was about to be sold for 20m, why would arsenal want an option to match? Why wouldn’t they be in on the deal in the first place? If he being bought for 50m, why wouldn’t arsenal be in it in the first place? Is 2.5m too low for a young player like amaechi? Just as devils advocate, why would Hamburg agree to a sell on fee or buy back clause? They want a young player like Xavier and develop him to be good enough to… Read more »
I think Bennacer left for less than 2m.
There was quite a bit of interest in Xavier from Germany, but after the Gnabry debacle we probably wouldn’t have sold to any club Germany (knowing Bayern have spies everywhere) without a decent sell-on clause.
We probably asked for less on the transfer fee in return.
Loops….another star not well managed. How come Balogun is relaxed despite been overlooked too? Goodluck Amaechi
‘another star not well managed’…one way of looking at it….or alternatively another talented kid who is going to make a decent career as a footballer but just a little bit short of the quality to make it at Arsenal.
Do we have to go through this drama every time a kid leaves ? 90% (if not more) of kids at big clubs don’t make it.
Good luck to him. Nobody’s fault. Move on.
How come and you know so good his future and his celling? I would say another mismanaged talent. Why not extend for 3 years where we will have a better idea and loan him to Hamburg? Even if he manages to became someone like Townsend or Ibe at least we could sell him for 20 not 2.5
I don’t know for sure. I’m just saying the law of averages suggests there is no issue here. We can’t extend every kid for 3 years. Then it is no longer a youth system.
I’m sure we were trying to extend his deal to protect a potentially valuable asset but he probably sees Ozil and Mkhitaryan ahead of him for two years until we release them for free, plus Iwobi, Nelson, Smith-Rowe and Saka all preferred to him, plus we’re trying to buy another wide player.
And basically after so many mistakes in managing players contracts I am just …sceptical
Jeorge Bird said he’s been agitating to leave. We have so many talented kids in his position, his path to first-team playing time was uncertain. That’s how competition works unfortunately.
And he’d be on a free next year, so the club had little choice but to sell now, because he wasn’t gonna renew.
I agree with you except move on. We should be finding a way to get more money for these young talents, either through loan exposure or buy back clauses or sell on fees. I hope one of the later two is the case here.
hopefully there is a sell on clause in case he does really kick on
Was thinking the same. So poor we are 🙂
Hope there is a “BUY-BACK” clause there…we just cant let such talent go…
Uff. Screw the HSV, nevertheless good luck finding another club in the future! Miyaichi gonna school u in the derby!
I wonder if we put a sell-on clause….of course we didn’t
I hope this is not Bennacer and Jeff Reine-Adelaide sort of mistake. #FreddieKnows
Just as likely to be another Chuks Aneke or Chuba Akpom, if not more so. Not that they’ve done poorly, but they haven’t shown themselves to be of the required quality here, which is fine and happens to most academy players at any club.
Slightly different, in that we let those players go as we deemed them not good enough (both players got preseason chances).
Amaechi is more like Bennacer, in that he’s leaving on his terms. The question is whether he’s like Bennacer, or like Chris Willock (even, then Chris made a mistake to go to a relatively big European club).
Yes. Freddie knows.
I really trust his eyes. The way he guided our U23 team to finish second last season really impressed me. Burton, Willock, Saka, Nketiah shows that they are ready for the first team.
I assume / hope a buy back and or sell on clause was included
Sell on clausssssss…..
Our 2nd favorite Claus
When last did arsenal sell an unknown talent for this money? Could this be the bump in cash needed to afford the kieran tierney purchase. David Ornstein mentioned on BBC and via arseblog, that Celtic wanted 25M, we bid 25M but in instalments, could this 2.5 upfront tip the boat? I Hope so
Most transfers (over a few £million anyway) are paid in instalments, although there are the odd exceptions where the whole sum is paid up front – Griezmann to Barcelona being one apparently. With Tierney (and other targets) we suggested stretching out those instalments out to reduce the money paid up front and every year afterwards. We also wanted to re-balance part of the fee from instalments (which have to be paid regardless) to add-ons (which may be paid depending on games played etc.). Good for us, not for the selling club. Whether the Tierney deal collapsed for want of £2.5… Read more »
Has anyone asked if there’s a sell on clause? Or expressed their hope that there’s a buy back clause? I couldn’t tell.
No evidence one way or another on either clause. Usually, information on clauses does come out (or gets out one way or another) so if there are any we’ll probably know in a day or two.
Not necessarily a bad thing, we are way overloaded in the area of the pitch he plays in. If we can redirect the fee to a place we really need to strengthen then so be it. He’s a talented lad but then so was JET and looked what happened to him. We’ve all been calling out for the club to be more ruthless and Saka and Nelson are better players at present. Hopefully there’s a healthy sell-on clause, which I suspect there will be. Good luck to him.
I think we need to trust Freddie on this on. If he said sell Ameachi and keep the kids who went on tour then so be it. The fee could have been higher I suppose, but when you’re in the last year of your contract then the buying club has the power. We have taken advantage of this ourselves in the past and even the Martinelli and Guendozi deals only cost us 6 and 7m respectively. So, kids of unknown quantities usually won’t go for 20m. Sancho was well known when he was sold by city, and so he is… Read more »
I hope we included a sell on fee
Reliable reports from Germany have confirmed:
1) Hamburg will pay a fee in excess of 2.5m euros (£2.25m) up front
2) There are also several £ million in performance-related add-ons
3) Arsenal have a sell-on clause, but no buy-back option.
Probably the best we could get in the circumstances.