According to Portuguese paper A Bola, Sporting Lisbon have rejected a second bid from Arsenal for 17-year-old Joelson Fernandes.
The Gunners are said to have tabled a €20 million offer a couple of weeks ago and have followed up with deal worth closer to €32 million for the left-sided winger.
Joelson is under contract at the Estádio José Alvalade until 2022 and has a release clause of €45 million.
It is claimed that the Guinea-born attacker, another client of Kia Joorabchian, is also attracting interest from Chelsea and Manchester City.
What to make of this?
Given we’re strapped for cash, the idea that we might spend big cash on a teenager who has four senior appearances to his name seems somewhat fanciful.
Then again, if he’s on Kia’s roster nothing is out of the question. We’ve already welcomed David Luiz and Cedric Soares to the club, Willian is set to sign, we’ve been linked with Philippe Coutinho and we came close to signing Layvin Kurzawa.
Of course, there could be nothing in this at all. We’ve now got to the point where it’s very easy for any club or outlet to peddle speculation linking Arsenal with a Kia client.
We’re going high on the poo-o-meter.
the way we played hardball over a couple of millions with celtic last summer, the idea of us getting a 20m offer rejected and then coming back with 32m is ridiculous.
Exactly – most likely nonsense
Perhaps it was a typo
22m
This is just classic Wenger era diversion. Send Dick to Porto while complete Partey medical at the Colney!
Lisbon buddy! although one minute Costa Rica, the next an after-dinner in Madrid. There’s no doubt Dick got around.
Didn’t Arsene sign Sanchez whilst playing volleyball on a beach?
And yet the release clause is €45million. So offering either of those lower amounts could be seen as ridiculous.
When a club offers upwards of €20m for a 17 year old who has played only 4 games the release clause is almost inconsequential(potentially they may value him at €5m and see no future for him). He’s done nothing and may amount to absolutely nothing. The risk is on the buying club unless it’s clear he’s a worldy.
Essentially what I mean is, his value to them isn’t necessarily €45m. It’s just a security measure to stopped him from being pinched
I don’t know what to think about this link. Are we missing out on a Mbappe like player again before a meteoric season? Or are we just crazy on the word of Kia? Yes we are poor at the moment a miss step is more than costly (we do not have MU’s finances)
I would rather miss out than having to fire more people down the road because we took a wrong decision. 40M is ridiculous money. I would prefer we do loan deals, swaps or free signings. Paying buyout clauses is a strict no-go for me.
I think at that price given our finances, we’d need to be certain. With Mbappe it was so clear but look at our two best talents and currently they both predominantly play as that left forward (the same position as this guy). They could all turn out to be elite in that position yet we could only play one at a time. I understand spotting and investing in young talent but lets at least look to cover multiple areas of the pitch when we do it
It might be a unpopular opinion but I want us to go for him. I think the club see Martinelli as striker and want to provide competition for places for the likes of Pepe, Nelson and Saka. We’re likely to lose Laca and Ozil this window so if we’re really focused on squad building, let’s go for it. We’re Arsenal. We buy young attacking players who turn into superstars. If there’s even a chance that this is a Ronaldo/Mbappe opportunity, we shouldn’t be against it automatically… (I’m not ruling out that Kia might be selling us a dream) We can… Read more »
I could be wrong but he’s no Mbappe. He was scoring goals in the champions league at 17 and took Monaco to the semifinal. Plus Wenger did offer 40 million prior to that season but he wouldn’t come.
This Kia guy is really starting to piss me off to no end…..(giving myself 10 points for obscure Big Trouble in Little China reference)
Great film. Maybe we could recruit the three storms!
Are we sure that this guy is really a footballer and not just the plumber son of another Kia client? They are mostly 35, 36 so agewise it would be plausible.
Jokes aside, I can’t judge this player, hope Raul and Edu can.
Never heard of him before now to be honest, but I see the magic words (apparently where Arsenal are concerned) Kia Joorabchian are also mentioned so who knows? Despite the KJ link, I strongly doubt Arsenal would spend around £29 million of scarce dosh on a 17 year old who hasn’t got into double figures for appearances in the senior side. This kid may be a terrific “prospect”, so many are, but using that kind of money on an established, quality, player who knows his way around must be a much better bet.
I counted the no. of poos and it turned out to be a total of 8. And arseblog folks rarely get it wrong.
“Super agents” are super agents because they have the best players on their books so i for one i’m happy we’re dealing with them again. It was only ever pure sanctimony that meant we didn’t deal with them in the first place.
Not dealing with “super agents” only ever really meant we didn’t want to sign the top players, which is how we ended up signing the likes Chamakh and Gervinho and not Eden Hazard
Super agents are just agents, there’s absolutely nothing super about them.
Their called super agents because they have the best players on their books
Which also cost a lot of money. It is plain simple – we are not Real / Man U. We need to find bargain buys in the market and that comes from good scouting not from super agents.
I’m talking historically not now.
Not dealing with certain agents was cutting off our nose to spite our face.
John, they’re called ‘super’ agents because some idiot journalist decided it sounded cool to call them super.
No
Nice to see that Kia visits these boards 😉
Do note it is completely compatible to hold the views that we should be willing to deal with these super agents and that we are dealing a little too often with one particular super agent.
What’s too often? So far it’s 2 players
Anelka, Henry, freddy, viera, reyes, Pires, carzola, wiltord, Tommy, Lauren, toure, giroud, sanchez, (prime) ozil, laca, auba…..where were your super agents then?
Hey, I can cherry pick too.
Not really, we didn’t adopt our self righteous transfer policy until the second half of Wenger’s reign, circa 2006, so you can discount anyone signed before then. However my point still stands, wilfully not dealing with the agents of the top players hasn’t done us any favours.
Interestingly we didn’t have issues dealing with Darren Dein, our vice chairman’s son, when he was Thierry Henry’s agent
Firstly, Darren dein was not a so called “super agent”. Secondly, he was not the only agent we dealt with…. And C, we signed a whole load of successful players that were not on his books so we, obviously, can’t discount every player bought prior to 2006. Fourthly, was cesc on Dein’s books when we nicked him from Barca?
I’m not even suggesting we shouldn’t ever deal with super agents, the objection occurs when it seems to be a very cozy relationship with the same one.
Cesc was not with Dein when he came from Barcelona.
Cheers blogs, but I already knew the answer to that one without checking it because its obvious to anyone. ?
Was he Henry’s agent when we bought him, I suspect not also?
Which makes it worse, our majority shareholders son used his position to access and tout his services to the clubs players. There’s far more implied impropriety in that situation. At one point he represented Thierry Henry, Fabregas, Flamini, Clichy, Toure and Alex Song as far as i can tell and there may have been more. This revisionism that we only ever conducted our business in the most above board and classy manner is a load of bollocks. What about lowballing Ashley Cole, that was shitty behaviour by the club. What about George Graham and his bung? Very Classy The myth… Read more »
Yes, Kia is a super agent: lurring Barca into buying Coutinho £145 M was an agent’s master class with a great prime for himself. But nothing class for the club that now don’t know what to do with the player and is so desperate to find a way out that they “””offer””” (£20M for one year + a good “thank you, Sir” prime to the super agent above mentioned) him to Arsenal (no offence, but Arsenal shouldn’t be something glamourous for a player claiming to cost £145M two years ago).
But surely it depends on the nature of the relationship a club has with agents – super or just plain ordinary. If one particular agent has an overly close relationship with important decision makers at a club (no names, no pack drill) then that may become an “unhealthy” arrangement for the club in its transfer dealings by precluding some other options in the market.
Like Darren Dein, the son of the former majority shareholder and vice chairman, being Cesc Fabregas and Thierry Henry’s agent?
Unlike the son of our former vice chairman who handled, Henry, Fabregas, Flamini, Clichy, Toure and Alex Song?
Those 6 players were – if I remember corretcly – signed for next to nothing. Henry and Cesc were world class, Toure and Clichy excellent for Arsenal and Flamini and Song valuable squad players. So yeah, if any agent offered us that deal with 6 such players and brought a new Henry and a new Cesc for almost no transfer fee, then please deal with him exclusively.
Problem is just that the players we get offered by Kia seem to come straight out of the bargain bin.
my friends, should have been a 10/10 poo
Would we really spend this sort of money on a teenage left winger shortly after tting down Saka to a new deal? I call bullshit.
*tying
Agree that this seems like a diversion. Btw pretty disappointed with the recent news that Thomas Partey is asking for a 10M salary to move (> 200K per week). That is insane money for someone who is not PL proven. I would rather give Torreira more opportunities than pay such silly money
Did we “nearly sign” Layvin Kurzawa in the sense that he was offered to us and we said no? Just like we seem to be doing with Coutinho, and just like we didn’t offer Emery a new contract when his agent asked us to? (Maybe we politely said we would think about it.)
Because in that case, Arsenal nearly signed me this summer too.
Well exactly, how do you nearly sign someone? Player’s are either signed or not signed
I guess by negotiating about it and being prepared to sign the player for the right conditions? Which then did not materialize for some reason … I don’t wanna offend Mr. Mendez, but I doubt that the club thought or negotiated about signing him.
I seriously doubt this linking. But then we signed Cedric, Luis..Willian, Coutinho being linked we never know. Too much fixation with KJ will change AFC to KFC.
Curious on what is the general opinion on Cedric? Completely lost on why we offered him a 5 year deal?
He was willing to sign a 5 year deal while Hector is our #1, and is a dedicated specialist in the position, rather than a multi-purpose player who may be better suited elsewhere (but where we don’t really know for sure, ahem). So he either he is up to compete for the spot, or is willing to be a club man. That’s not worth nothing.
We haven’t had the best luck with backups at right back. This might bring some stability until we can get some youth development there.
KIA FC
Why are we talking about so many wingers. I think we are loaded with them. If this is for the future, now is not the time to pay 30-40 for a future prospect. For me, we need to focus on getting the best out of Saka and Pepe. These two are beasts and especially if Pepe brings consistency to his game. We will be right up there challenging for the top four
Oh, think twice…It’s just another day for you and me in the transfer window paradise
I find this potential move risky. We really don’t need to strengthen that side of our team at this moment. I think our resources should be directed towards CM and CB. Also, do we really need to find a home for another Kia client? Jesus, it’s as if he is our director of football.
Maybe I am being cynical here, but we are well stocked for young wide players. I wonder whether this transfer rumour is simply a way for Kia to ensure that his client get a better contract at Sporting. Personally, I think this would represent a waste of Arsenal’s resources.
Isn’t he the kid who is dubbed as the next Ronaldo?
BTW.. im soooo glad we didn’t go for Layvin kurzawa. Phew!