According to Spanish publication Estadio Deportivo, Arsenal are lining up an offer for Le Havre defensive midfielder Pape Gueye.
The 21-year-old Senegalese-born Frenchman has been a regular in Ligue 2 this season making 22 appearances.
Looking at Gueye’s international experience – he’s played for France at both under-18 and under-19 level – it’s possible that he’s crossed paths with Matteo Guendouzi, who also made his way to the Emirates from his country’s second tier.
Obviously, it’s very early in the year for summer transfer speculation but with question marks still hovering over the long-term future of Granit Xhaka (amongst others), it certainly makes sense that we’re making contact with potential replacements.
As you might expect, we’re not the only ones keeping tabs on Gueye. The report claims Sevilla, Udinese, Fiorentina and AC Milan have all sent scouts to watch him.
I don’t think there’s any way to make this sound more like a classic Arsenal signing. (Unless he’s currently injured.)
Gone are the days when we sent scouts along with clubs such as Bayern, United, City, Barcelona and Madrid.
These days, we seem to have a get together with scouts from Sevilla, Udinese, Fiorentina, etc.
We have fallen gracefully over the last few years but hey-ho, Milan have truly plummeted.
Looking at the transfers that Manu and Barcelona are making recently, I think thats a good thing.
TBF, that is where the value is. Rather than getting players who weren’t good enough for those big clubs, you are far more likely to unearth a gem in the lower leagues and less fashionable clubs
I wonder where Guendouzi / Kante / Mahrez came from and for how much? If you are the kind to want to spend 70M for Zaha, a “proven” player or even 80M for Maguire because he is “English with PL experience” you are following the wrong club. Arsenal thrives on unhearting Gems with a spash of experience.
Yaya Sanogo, Nicholas Bendtner, comes into mind
Bendtner was a youth player who was top scorer for the reserves with bags of potential. With enough hard work he would have been a world beater, but his ego got the better of him. I hate how Arsenal fans make him a joke, although it’s his fault for thinking he’s the next Messi and Ronaldo. He scored some important goals for us in the second half of 2009/10 when we had no other striking option. He fucking scored the winning goal against the scum in 2007/08 with his first touch after coming on from the bench. That alone should… Read more »
Even Sanogo Contributed heavily in our FA cup run where we first won silverware in a while. Not bad for a free signing who was very injury prone
whether it is Gueye that we are after or not, hopefully Arteta has given the board some key targets that he wants in and they will listen to him as opposed to Raul’s little black book – whatever we do though, I hope we back Arteta as much as possible.
They did. Soares – Fullback specialist Arteta wanted. Called everyone in the team “not fullback”, very clearly HIS signing. Marti, wanted left sided defender. Arteta was already backed but fangirls talking about agents will not get this. Maybe i have to tell people like this +20, that every footballer that kick a ball around green pitch has agent or agency. Every single one of them and most of the ones with a name will want to go under agenr or agency that has a name.. which then will be lazily quoted here and sheep will eat it up like Arteta… Read more »
Cmdn,besides the fact that your post is obnoxious, the fact that the club signed fullbacks when Arteta wanted fullbacks says nothing about whether those were the particular players that he wanted
To be fair, Cmdn is right.
In January the coach said: “We are playing with fullbacks who are not fullbacks… we don’t have any fullbacks”. And when we signed Soares, a guy who can fill on both sides, Arteta himself said he’d been following the playerfor a year or two.
It’s funny how people find it hard to believe documented facts, but easy to believe rumours and innuendo about “Raul’s little black book”.
What’s easy to believe is that most, if not all, of our signings seem to be from a select few agents. I am not disputing the role of an agent in any player, they all have one. I am just saying that I hope we get the best available player on the market, not the best available player of 2 agents.
Is Raul’s little black book have a poem in?
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Your agent’s a mate
So I’m going to buy you.
As a player and you have not being linked with Arsenal before then you need to reassess your career. Sometimes I wonder where all this rumours emanates from.
Please when is Arsenal playing again? I miss Arteta’s team.
Although I understand the requirement to use Rauls little black book to find agents of available players in emergencies for positional cover, these are the type of signings we should be making with the focus on our future. We were stupid to get rid of Mislintat and I’m still pissed off about it but hopefully this is a sign that our scouting team is still able to identify and recruit top young players with low transfer fees that almost seems like daylight robbery in today’s transfer market and adds quality to our squad.
Have we really invested that badly? I know we all like a good moan when things go wrong. But Torreira, Saliba, Guendouzi, Martinelli, Tierney. All very, very promising young players. Luiz appears to be coming good and is a great leader. Ceballos was definitely worth a punt even if it hasn’t quite happened yet. Pepe is a worry but a very ambitious signing. I struggle to see which player here we’ve thoughtlessly wasted resources on. I think we just had the wrong manager. Arguably Raul could have moved sooner on that but I’ve been happy enough with the business we’ve… Read more »
In recent years Suarez, Mkhitarian, Mavropanos have not been great. Jury is out on Guendouzi at this level. Older signings Mustafi and Elneny have not worked out either, but agree that some of the young players are quality.
Mavropanos was on the recommendation of Sven. Mkhitaryan was down to Gazidis and Wenger not sorting contracts and Suarez was a lot to do with Unai I believe.
I was referring to transfers that Raul and his “black book” played a part in. Mustafi and Elneny were way before.
Mavropanos didn’t play for about a year, he’s been motm for his last two appearance. I know it’s in the 2nd tier but he needs to get his confidence back. He could be a long term partner for Saliba if he keep improving, there’s a good footballer in there. I’d rather we focussed on these young gems than throw money away like yanited. Maybe they don’t all work out but the ones that do will make it very worthwhile and the ones that don’t won’t have cost a lot of money.
I’m all for cheap, unknown signings, as long as they’re good
I’ll be very happy if we put 2 6-footer monsters in front of torreira in a midfield 3.
Me too
Abdoulaye Doucouré from Watford would fit the bill.
We would take him in a heartbeat if he were available. My brilliant plan is to sell Ozil and Xhaka and replace them with Grealish and Decoure. What is not to like?
I would like to put 6-footer left-footed monster in front of our defense in a midfield 3 instead of Torreira and Xhaka. Don’t have a clue if this player is good enough for that, but in two minutes youtube video looks like a combination of those two :).
For me Xhaka and Torreira are doing a job that in the top premier league club should be done by one player. Both are good but need other to cover very ovious weaknesses.
I think of a stat is done up, you’ll see that None of those guys cut-off passing lines like Torreira can. This is crucial against technical teams, top level stuff
I think Mikel didn’t play him against Burnley because they don’t use passing lines and would kick him into the air.
That Midfield of two 6 foot monsters ahead of Lucas would be unplayable.
That midfield would be like an unplayable Kitchen-sink with Torreira as the plug ?
I think we should go Gueye
Think I will remain ‘straight’ instead.
Thank you.
Sorry off-topic, but does anyone else have this problem? The thumbs system sometimes indicates (with a coloured thumb) that I have voted on a post, even though I have just started reading the comments.
I would have to reset it by clicking on the opposite thumb, and vote again.
Yes, me too.
Pape, Papa n Pepe
Lanky French/Senegalese, defensive midfielder?!
Its the new Patrick Vieira!
I wish.
It’s like a new signing!
In that.. it’s actually a new signing.
or….just another player like Yann Mvilla ….
Plus African International may be a bad idea since AFCON will be shifting into January…
Which means no Aubameyang (assuming he is even around) but also no Pepe (not that he has been that effective)
frankly would be a daft signing.
Valid criticism however Liverpool aren’t suddenly going to sell Salah, Mane and Keita because they are African internationals.
At least we’ve got exceptional form when it comes to signing 6t3 French midfielders, of Senegalese descent.
Martinelli seems to be working out well for £6million, hopefully we can pull another rabbit out of the hat, price is what you pay, and value is what you get.
We definitely need different types of qualities in our midfield, our midfield is by far the least dynamic in the league.
I like Torreira and Xhaka they’re honest players, but a midfield three of Xhaka, Torreira, Ozil is extremely lethargic and one paced.
.
“What do you think of the Irish elections, Rich?”
“Well, Sinn Fein did well, but Ozil is lethargic and makes the midfield too slow.”
We definitely need variation in midfield and different capabilities. We certainly need someone who can hold on his own. This would allow us to push a player forward to support the attack and press higher in an inverted triangle. Neither Granit nor Torreira have proven able to hold on their own. BUT the player we should have got had we ambition to push higher frankly was Emre can. Zorg at Dortmund (the real deal rather than that fraud Mslintat), pulled off a coup loaning the German with option to buy at 21m. This is a PL player still in his… Read more »
Xhaka and torriera are good as a partnership but really if we could get one player with both of their skill sets we’d be able to become a much more atrack oriented team.
Anyone fancy Rambo back for 20m in the summer?
No. He’ll want massive wages & will miss 3/4 of the season due to injury.
Pretty much.
Poor Juve are just realising why Arsenal withdrew the contract offer last year – Ramsey is not consistent enough, not fit enough, and therefore too expensive.
He’s played decent this season at Juve and quite a good number of games.
I’m sure they are more than happy on account they got him for free.
but…certainly been good enough to keep Emre Can out of contention at Juve.
Glad to hear the back room is watching Tifo Sensible Transfers as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIc5Vcl-I2I
I must say it’s rather depressing that we suffered 10 years of making frugal signing in order to build a world class stadium… to end up make frugal signings.
I’m not laying any blame here. We understandably put all our eggs in the Financial Fair Play basket but naively believed the corrupt UEFA and FA would stick to their side of the bargain.
We are now being sold lemons as Ferraris.Some people will lap them up.
Back when Wenger first started, he got a lot of joy in market because there was
1) an allergy in the PL to foreign players
2) His appointment coincided with a golden generation of French football.
3) market on foreign players back then not exploited by PL
Its very different these days with a slew of clubs not just in top tier but also rans in PL (armed with better transfer kitty from TV deals) able and knowledgable of continental/overseas market.
Which means largely, you get what you pay for nowadays.
Will be taking a lot more risky purchases from here on end I’d expect with commitments on Saliba and Pepe amounting to 99m in subsequent windows compounded with lack of CL and potential key departures. As much as some believe we are in better hands without the once derided Dick Law, events have proved otherwise. Mslintat was very much hit and miss. Perhaps his single worse failure was refraining from making money in selling Alexis to City instead inexplicably swapping him for a has been Mhkitaryan in a position we already had plenty of cover. We could have got Mahrez… Read more »
You can see where we stand by the rival clubs keeping track of this player (if rumours are true) …we are now in the league of AC Milan (in tenth coincidentally in Seria A), but also mighty Fiorentina, Udinese and Sevilla… We have dropped down the pecking order very alarmingly. And we have been mismanaged somewhat with transfers. Sure Ligue 2 surprise maybe and Guendouzi has been decent but hardly the player to solve our issues in midfield. There’s no reason to believe this player will be an upgrade to a departing Xhaka except in the minds of certain people… Read more »
All of that is true. However, ‘pool and Chelsea have gone down the table far enough to miss EL places and bounced back. They built squads around a philosophy (even if in Chelsea’s case that philosophy was a moving target at times). Now that we have a coach in place the players believe in, let’s hope Don Raul can find some players that our coach can believe in. We don’t need to spend a fortune to build a squad that can execute Arteta’s vision we just have to commit to it for the long run and not get so focused… Read more »
It might be faster than you envision. Quality rises to the top quickly